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Thursday, October 8th, 2009
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While I have internet connection, a quick update about Rome!
-Rome was WONDERFUL!! Such an amazing city- so much history, everywhere! You can just walk randomly, and you'll find something astounding... things that would be major sights in other cities warrant maybe a paragraph in your guidebook. When you think of the scale and scope of the civilization that was there 2,000 years ago you just have to be amazed...
-soo much walking, omg. we ran ourselves ragged trying to do as much as we could in three (almost four) days, and we still only saw a fraction. Would def love to return if we have the chance later in our trip
-Forum/ Colosseum = wonderful. Photos just don't do any justice to the sense of scale and history you feel when you're there.... but just downright wonderful..
-Pantheon = same thing. None of my photos capture the sense of scale and overwhelming-ness of actually standing there inside..
-I am apparently a fan of Baroque sculpture. It's all full of wind, drama, and "BAM!" It's like,
"you like the Renaissance? You'll like it IN THE WIND!"
"you like a little bronze? how about we cover the ENTIRE THING IN BRONZE?"
"you like dramatic poses? You'll like them SPEWING WATER!"
It just cracks me up- it's just so full of life and grandness and "Bam in your face!"-ness after the calm classicism of the Renaissance.
Trevi fountain- baroque awesomeness. I saw somebody propose to his girlfriend! so romantic! we also did a ANTM style photoshoot at 2am at Trevi fountain. Aw yeah. Too bad I have drunk eyes in the photos. Bleh.
I love all the water fountains (both drinking and decorative), the layers and layers of history down every street, the dirtiness and grittiness and rolling hills of the city and just the sense of "wow! i'm literally in the heart of western civilization as we know it."
I just loved it! slowly going through my photos- will upload as soon as I have proper internet/ a proper edited amount of them to show!
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(1 sun beam | shine a little light)
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Friday, October 2nd, 2009
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(hey! found this old draft I forgot to post last week about the Uffizi...)
Went and saw the Uffizi gallery last week, which was fun, but overwhelming and sooo crowded. But we had a good time strolling through stuff, making little art student in-jokes, (oh, to be married to a fellow art student... ) and being "oh, i saw that in art history class! I totally forget why that's important : P "
Random thoughts from Uffizi...
*The roman busts are AWESOME. they're like crazy cariactures of such weird and bizarre faces. Just great.
*I think I enjoy late byzantinan/ early gothic icons of the virgin mary for their graphic flatness now that I work in animation: for some reason, I totally dig the black outlines, flattened fabrics and bold colors... much more than I did before, anyway
*Such detail in these paintings! detail and scale.. and makes me want to learn how to use gold leaf effectively
Ok, quick recap of this past weekend before we take off (again) for this weekend's adventures!
This past weekend Damon and I went to Cinque Terre, which is like the mini-Italian riveria. Much more cute and low-key than Pontofino apparently, and super worth it. Beautiful weather, charming towns, fun and "just strenuous enough" hikes and CRYSTAL clear blue waters.
-we stayed in vernazza, which is (imo) definately the best. Perfect size, beautiful views, great little harbor, and gorgeous colors. First evening there, we hiked to the top of the town and watched the sunset from the castle overlook. We then hiked the whole trail from Monterosso to Riomaggiore (the five towns are connected via hikes, of varying difficulty- our trail was about 7 miles long) over two days, went swimming, and ate like kings. Kings, I tell you! The region is known for pesto, limoncello (a different northern variety, different from the normal Amalfi coast type), foccaccia bread, and regional wine. Oh, and awesome seafood/ anchovies. I thought I didn't like anchovies- I was wrong. They are quite delectable when had fresh and not drowned in salt and oil, apparently.
-Riomaggiore was our second favorite town. much bigger, more beaches, (waay more crowded in parts) but fun.. we went swimming, bought some goggles so I could see all the fish (I saw an octopus!! in the wild! eeee!!!) and then we stumbled across a random wine tasting festival. whoo! I loved the random ruins of an old statue of Neptune from the 1910 overlooking a beach...
-monday we rented a little beach umbrella and chairs, alternately swam/ sunned alllll day long, and got a great massage from a lady who came by selling them for $15 each. Very luxurious! ha ha!
-it was such a romantic weekend! highly recommend for anybody passing through the area.. however, it did feel like the majority of American tourists were there on recommendation of Rick Steves, which is annoying in that "is everybody reading from the same book here?" type of way. Yes, I have his book, but so does every other middle aged mid-western american PBS watching person, apparently. Damon and I revel in making fun of the book whenever we can, but I do have to give it to him that he has solid recommendations. Damn you Rick Steves!! (shakes fist)
-What I had to eat (because it was very yummy!)
-trofie pasta with pesto
-"neptune's surprise" appetizer platter, which had a type of ceviche with octopus, etc in it, lemony anchovies, and some type of fish
-rock lobster and grilled fish (perch)
-stuffed mussels
-a local speciality with anchovies baked on potatoes and tomatoes. Not as heavy as you'd think- very light!
-gnocchi with a gorgonzola/ pesto based cream sauce
And of course, lots of wine, and a special dessert wine called Sciacchetrà (made from raisins) that was really good, and I tried limoncello as well. Damon and I have gotten into drinking apertifs after dinner... we're such boozehounds...
*Back in Florence, busy teaching (going well, except that one of my students came down with Swine Flu, and was hospitalized. poor thing... so he's been missing a lot of class...). They're all making films about some aspect of Florence- it's neat to see what they come up with and their different perspectives...
*heading out to rome tomorrow AM for the weekend... excited, if not still a bit tired from last weekend...
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(2 sun beams | shine a little light)
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Monday, September 21st, 2009
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A quick update whilst we have our (ever spotty) internet connection in our apt...
*Class is going great! The kids are super bright and friendly, and I got an extra student in my class for a total of 7 students. I enjoy sharing my knowledge of flash with them, although it's hard trying to share both the real world industry experience while teaching them tools for making an ind short. (like, there -
DEAR LORD, OUR WASHING MACHINE JUST WENT INSANE... ok, back. Our washing machine tried to escape it's marble confines of the kitchen counter. Slightly horrifying. Not sure what went on there, but crisis diverted. For now.
Ok, anyway, class is fun, but it's a little hard trying to teach both actual real-world flash info (i.e. you're always given finished audio to work with) vs. techniques as an independent filmmaker (creating your own audio track), but in short, I feel like I'm a consultant to seven independent shorts, which is fun.
*Damon and I went to Siena, Pisa and Lucca this weekend and had many adventures. Siena is AWESOME! We had heard that it was a bit touristy, but we went later in the day, so most of the day trippers had left by then. I found european G3 My Little Ponies (yay!), got some actual ground pigment of Burnt Sienna (which comes from here!), and the whole town is pony themed, since there's a huge horse race that happens twice a year in the main square. It's insane!! They ride bareback around hairbend corners in a medieval town center. AMAZING. A horse can win even without a rider! ha ha!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palio_di_Siena
they also have 17 different neighborhoods that compete in the horse races that all have their own animal theme. I got a banner from the Unicorn neighborhood and the dolphin one...
There's also a beautiful cathedral and gorgeously tiny alleys and stairs and buildings- it's all a very medieval hill town... it was quite a blast!
Damon and I had a wonderful time exploring the town, and grabbed the most delicious dinner we've had so far... I had homemade pasta, lamb, potatoes and some local cookies for desert which were super tasty. Seriously, in the top ten of best meals I've ever had (and I cheated on the wheat thing, obviously). We then went to grab another .5 L of wine on the del Campo, and then started the 20 minute walk down the hill to the train station where.. we had missed the last train back! Oops! Take note kids; when traveling, know your time tables. We had actually joked about missing the last train and spending the night in Siena, because it was such a great town and we felt like we wanted more time, so.. it kinda of worked out!
We then walked back -up- the hill, and pulled out my handy rick steves guidebook, and after walking around being turned away from hotel by hotel (they were all full), we got smart and started calling places with my cell phone. We FINALLY found a place at 11pm that had a last minute cancellation, and bunked down for the night.
The next day, we checked out the Franciscan church where they had the head (the head!) of St Catherine, along with her thumb, out on display, and wandered around the backstreets until we finally felt like we were finished with the town. We meandered down to the train station, and decided to go to Pisa (as was our original Saturday plan, but we had figured on leaving from Florence, or course).
Saw the tower, made the "holding up the tower!" pre-requisite pose, and meandered leisurely back through the town to the train station. Pisa is quite a lovely town if you make it past the Field of Miracles, actually. Very much a college town with lots of young kids and fun stores juxtaposed with some very lovely architecture.
Made it back to Florence for the night, had some Chinese food (damon was craving a change of pace), and headed out to Lucca on Sunday. Lucca was pleasant enough- there was a very large antique market going on (once every month, one of the largest in europe apparently), and it was very fun browsing through the wares. Definately a different experience from flea-marketing here in the states.. lots more statuary, persian rugs, and very old oil paintings. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything that was either 1. affordable, 2. small enough to bring back, or 3. that I wanted... we did come across a comic book store, where I discovered this guy, who is a pretty amazingly funny artist
Wandered around the city walls, got a little lost, got stuck in some rain, found a lovely little restaurant tucked away off the main drag and had a wonderful meal while we waited for the evening train...
All in all, much adventuring was had! Although, I got a blister on the bottom of my heel.. that's def a new one for me.. very painful, to be sure..
anyway, spent today doing lesson plan for this week and shopping around for some clothes and shoes with damon- very laid back and casual like.. will try to update my blog as much as I can before damon chases me offline...
ciao!
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(4 sun beams | shine a little light)
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Sunday, September 13th, 2009
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A quick update before we head out for the day!
-hung out with fellow CMU and aphio alum Karolina and her husband Tom last night... walked around, enjoyed gelato, and compared notes on Rome and Florence! whoo!
-Italian television is SO WEIRD. I know I mentioned this before, but seriously, it keeps out-doing itself. I cannot stress how surreal an experience it can be at times. Obscure old movies, bizarre game shows, and lots (and lots) of sexy barely clothed ladies.
-Damon and I have been trying to cook Italian/ Tuscan cuisine from home.. I've borrowed a few cookbooks from SACI's library, and so far we've cooked:
*sausage and sauce over fried polenta
*chicken cacciatore
*mushroom risotto with a side of pork
*fagiole beans with garlic and olive oil
*gnocchi with pesto
Note, we're trying to avoid wheat in order to placate my stupid migraines. I did cheat the other day, and had some Napoli style pizza (which to my unfortunate surprise, means anchovies and HUGE capers.. bleh) and some bread, and had a migraine yesterday. Other than the gelato cone, I can't say it was worth it to eat the wheat stuff. Sigh.
*Oh my god, the gelato. We've found our favorite shop, which has a really good and exotic selection of flavors (persian! (cardamom and pistachio), Ambrosia! (cinnamon, yogurt and honey), etc) in addition to being affordable and REALLY REALLY good... not a day goes by where we don't sample some different flavor of gelato...
*classes are doing well... I had a bit of a meltdown on Wednesday (I call them "crisis of confidence" moments), where I spent the whole day freaking out about teaching and my art and self-doubting, but I'm doing better now. I think. Tuesday's class was a bit rocky, just being the first day, and having technical difficulties with the wacom drivers and computers, but Thursday was a lot better, starting to go over the program and demo-ing things in Flash. I like the group of students I have- they seem really smart and on the ball...
*I love the art stores here. They're all old-world and full of hardwood drawers full of art supplies, glass cabinets with mysterious art supplies, and shelves and shelves of pure powdered pigment in jars. One art store had more drawing supplies, the other had more painting supplies, but just exploring them is a joy. I got some gouache at one, and some conte crayons and colored paper at the other... having trouble learning the watercolors/ gouache, though... it's been soo frustrating so far, just trying to figure out a new medium
*the people watching here in Florence is so hilarious. It's a big college town, in addition to all the tourists, so there are tons of (mostly American) college kids wandering around, drinking and hooching it up. We saw these two american dudes walking around at midnight, one with a cowboy hat and sunglasses and both carrying boxed wine that they were swigging out of. CLASSY. The steps of the Duomo is totally the young people's hangout, where you see guys and girls flirting and talking the night away- so much fun to watch!
*ok, enough chattering for now... going to get started with my day!
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(1 sun beam | shine a little light)
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Monday, September 7th, 2009
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Greetings from Florence!
Been settling in pretty well... had faculty orientation last week, been cooking at home more. My stomach has been a little fussy (nausea, mostly)- think it's just adjusting to the food/ water/ etc, and the weather's shifted from being super hot/muggy to very very windy.
It's been odd having the change of pace. I'm use to always having something to do- house to clean, horse to see, work, projects, friends to see, etc, and now it's so... slow. It's very leisurely, but I'm fighting that odd depression I get when I don't have a million things to do. Yeah, I'm a workaholic like that. I think once classes start up tomorrow, that'll change and I'll have more things to work on. And I know there are a bajillion museums and things to see, but I don't want to do everything in the first week- it's like having an annual pass to disneyland (where you want to just enjoy it over many visits) vs going one day and rushing around trying to do everything at once.
I've also been kicking myself to just do art all the time, and I'm learning gouache and watercolor. We went to an art store that had jars and jars of dried powder pigment for tempra- it was amazing! It was like a wall of color in old fashioned labelled jars. Just gorgeous... I hope they let me take a photo of it when I go back...
I was sick in bed all day Friday, which sucked. Migraine and mildly nausea and jet lag all day. Did get the chance to catch up on Italian TV, which is, like all foreign television, STRANGE. There's this late night program that I can only describe as amateur hour variety show with strippers. But amateur strippers. Everything about it is hilarious, from the range of acts (cross dressing men in bad comedy skits to stripper to magic act), to the camera work (wait... where'd she go? There she is!). Damon and I were crying with laughter.. seriously.. sooo funny..
Walked around a lot yesterday, just exploring. Haven't really taken a lot of photos yet, which is very strange for me. Did some drawing, did some people watching. Going to try and check out the Festa della Rificolona tonight, which is a parade with lit paper lanterns... should be cool! Classes start up tomorrow, so I'm going to swing by the design center and check out the lab/ facilities.
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(3 sun beams | shine a little light)
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