Soy

I was grinning ear to ear while landing into London.

English. Pale people. Not just espresso when you order cafe. Thai restaraunts. My feet are back to their normal size. Suitcase instead of pack. Fall weather. Iced drinks. Air conditioning. Paved sidewalks. Trains. And the ability to order anything I want with soy milk. soooooo happy!!!!!!!

seriously, i couldn't stop smiling yesterday. i knew where i was going. i knew the people i was staying with. i was finally familiar!!! ahhh!!! and i met two girls at two separate times who live in chicago. im close im close! i am so close to being home! but now that i am back to familiarity i am okay. i could most certainly live in london (as long as i worked here because it is so expensive). i looooooooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeee it here.

i went and had the most amazing soy chai latte ever with my dear dear friend lauren from high school who i hadn't seen in forever. we played catch-up and it was awesome. she is here to study with her school at kings college. she is taking a harry potter class. i love her.

the rest of the evening was spent visiting with my hosts who i stayed with before and the other couchsurfers that they are hosting. paul and lesley are so wonderful and it is so great to be around them again and have familiar warm faces.

today i went to the tower bridge which for a while i though was london bridge. after i had spent nearly a roll on this i realized that this is much smaller than it should have been and saw on my map that it was indeed not the london bridge. BIUT it did put me right by the Tower of London which is the one tourist attraction I was excited about and was going to lay down the cash to do a tour of. it was 13£ and worth every cent. There was a free tour by one of the wardens and then they had other scheduled events throught the day you could see or not. And it wasn't just for the tower, but everything within the tower walls. So I pretty much spent the whole day there and it was awesome. Got to see and hear about some pretty gory and bloody events, which is always cool. I really really really wish jason could have been there with me. I kept on wanting to say "whishaaww!!" and put my hands together to make a giant hang ten sign. oh jason i miss you.

Then i decided just to take the first tube line and randomly picked a stop. I ended up at Oxford Circus which is like the magnificent mile or times square of london. But this also meant that there was an apple store nearby. Hence, the blogs. But I am getting pretty darn tired of standing right now so i think i am going to say cheers. But i really do love london oh so much. Lets all move here,

The Jewish Nazi

So Sunday in Milan was actually one of the best days on the trip. Piero and a girl from Pisa that came in the night before, went to church while Giovanna stayed home to prepare the most amazing meal of my life. I figured out my next few days out and wrote postcards.

When Piero came home he brought me a treat: his name was Giovanni and he is no doubt the most attractive man i have ever been within a close proximity to, let alone shaking hands and having conversations.
SMITTEN AS A KITTEN. Seriously, i have never had to try so hard not to stare and continuously drop my jaw. I was smiling the entire lunch because he spoke the best english and was interpreting for me...so i had a great excuse to look at him. oh god he was beautiful. so beautiful that there was no hesitation to run for my camera and shoot about 5 different pictures of him so that i could remember this beautiful encounter for the rest of my life. and he was intelligent and he was a 28 year old architecture grad student AND most importantly he was flirting back.

When the girl from Pisa left, Giovanna and Pierro went up to the bedroom and left me and Giovanni in the kitchen. He tought me how to play chess on his computer, there were laughs, there were smiles, there was insane flirting i thought at one time i would just grab his face and kiss him. until....oh i still say oh why? why? why?

He said the word muble describing something on the chess game.
I said oh that sounds like a Harry Potter word.
His face changed a little and asked me if I had seen the new film.
I was really excited that he might also be a HP fan and said yes! i got to see it in florence!
His face dropped.
le sigh. Turns out he is one of those extremists who believe that Harry Potter AND Lord of the Rings and basically any fantasy will lead you straight to the devil. i wanted to cry. WHY? Why of all people to be an extremist in the completley COMPLETELY ridiculous ways must it be this beautiful person. I am so upset that some other harry potter hater will get to have this beautiful man. ugh.

So we of course had a very very long debate about this in which we basically had to come to terms to agree to disagree, me left with the impression that he is insane for thinking the things he does, and he probably thinks i am a follower of satan.

Before this terrible discovery I had also come to find out he is Jewish and attended both senagouge (i really dont know how to spell that) and the Christian church. And right before the Harry discussion I had asked him why he attended both and there was much procrastination, im sure because he gets judged quite heavily by both parties. His reason actually makes a ton of sense and is the most logical thing i have heard in religion for a while. But anyways leading from this into Harry Potter in the time where he was throwing in his past life for persuasion emphasis he just happened to throw out that he had been in prison and also used to be a part of the Nazi party. jewish...nazi....interesting indeed! He never really gave me a reason why other than that he got sucked into it by his friends and infuences, which is a total cop out by the way and i hate it when conservatives both preach and give out this excuse.

But I guess to tie this story up, other than his extremist views this guy was amazing and we had a great time together. and i really really wanted to kiss him. another good thing about him being around was his ability to translate, which allowed pierro to talk about nore things than religion. Pierro ended up being a very endearing and silly man who i came to appreciate once he wasn't preaching his head off.

Giovanna his wife was a beautiful person and so kind to me. Her food was incredible and she was so generous.

The next morning Pierro took me to the airport rather early, so i killed time by standing outside looking at Switzerland. It was beautiful and as I was listening to Kings of Convenience, Ide Rather Dance With You, i had such a peace and excitement about the rest of my trip. I guess because of the feeling i was getting back to people who looked like me and spoke my language that it felt more like closer. But I also had more personal peace within me and I feel that something really great is going to be happening this next semester. I am really really excited.

ciao milano. ciao giovanni.

Everything I Hate In Life Is Found In Milan

The night before we left for Milan we again said goodbye to Christian, the waiter, and told him we were going to Milan. He scowled and told us, besides the Duomo, there is nothing in Milan.

He could not have been more right.

I was to stay with my mother's friend's friends. I knew only that he was somehow involved in the arts community, had once studied photography, and like mac computers. Great! There should be lots to talk about. He, Piero, was to meet us at the train station and I was just going to drop my bags off at his apartment and the four of us would be off to musuems of Milan.

My roomates did not realize that we had to go to his apartment first, so I felt kind of bad, but he said that he lived close by and I was assuming we would leave as soon as I dropped the bags by.

ONe of the first things he asked me when we got in the car: "Do you know the singer Michael W. Smith?"

oh god.

And that is exactly what continued. Him talking about Enya's sister who is a Christian singer, Michael W Smith, some Christian pub he wanted to take us to. Church, Jesus, I was not prepared. I was trying the entire car ride not to bust out in laughter because we were all caught off guard. We were then told upon arrival that his wife, Giovanna, had prepared us lunch and that they were going to take us around...hmm...sticky situation. Still not sure how we got out of that one, but we did, it was akward, and we still got to see everything.

The contemp. art museum here i guess just closed and dissapeared. But we went to another one which blew my mind away. Blew everyone's mind away. NOne of us had been to a (huge) museum and liked about 95% of their collection. It was amazing! And it was all contemporary Italian artists. I bought the cataloge and everyone who likes art is going to look at it.

AFter dropping my roomates off at the train station and saying our goodbyes, I took my time getting back to the apartment. Seeing that they only had a one bedroom apartment I was terribly afraid that I was going to have to sleep in the same room as this couple, which would have been unbelievably uncomfortable. They sleep on an air mattress in the kitchen though, but i feel terrible about this too.

Pierro is the kind of guy who wears Hawaiian flowered t-shirts that say Messiah on it. I think that can give you a pretty good idea of how this guy communicates. He is also quite a bit of a know-it-all. 90% of his conversations are about the church or cheesey metaphors about God and Jesus. Although this was insanely irritating, because I did not agree with anything he was saying and could not say anything because they were my gracious hosts and feeding me, I thought I could make it through with just politely listening and maybe it would eventually wear off. As long as they didn't ask me the question.

They did.

"So how long have you been a Christian?" "What church do you go to?"

My initial response was to pound my head against the table and plead insanity. Instead, I had to explain that I was raised in the church, but that I had a huge problem with organized religion, and that I had my beliefs but did not want to exactly associate myself with the collective religious group called "Christianity."

Then the looks of judgement. I could see the plan formulating in their heads. oh she is not a Christian now we must make it our goal to witness to her while she stays here. Then Giovanna says, "oh so you have dillusions about the church and its people."

"Well, i don't really think I would call it dillusions..."

I have had many MANY even more clarifying realizations by talking with them on matters I didn't even think I would come to, and going back to the church is most certainly not one of them. But I am not going to get into that. Just realize that being preached at 24/7 is one of the most exhausting, frustrating, and makes me only want to pray that someone will come blow my brains out. I can't stand it and I don't know how anyone could "receive Christ" by talking to an Evangelist.

So I escaped the next day after being driven around to the Schaumburg of Milan and found a nice park. It was really beautiful and so many interesting people. And then I seem to find the most terrible person in it.

After sitting on a bench in the shade, drinking a bottle of water and watching guys practice juggling and other tricks, this guy comes sits by me and tries to communicate. He speaks only Italian I speak only English. good, that was that. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when the older gentleman sitting next to him decides to interpret for him, which ends up being that this guy, i think his name was Andrei, wants to walk around the park with me. OH yeah, walking around a park with a complete stranger who looks incredibly sleazy and speaks no English sounds like an awesome idea to me. I obviously say no. I do take both of their portraits though, and move on. OOH yeah, the old man gave me these braided key chain things. He was cool i liked him.

When I was walking away I saw this black guy with a cast on sitting on another bench looking at me. He looked American or English and he kind of interested me, but i kept walking and shooting. When I turned around from shootng this weird concrete thing, he had changed places and was sitting on a nearby rock. He called out "scuzzi" and I found him kind of strange so I went to see what he wanted. He wanted his picture taken, which I found even more interesting, so I took it, and we started having a conversation. He was from France, so we had a broken english/broken french conversation about hip hop and italy. He had a stuttering problem and this guy was quite endearing and interesting. He didn't seem to be hitting on me, just wanted to be payed attention to. okay, i can do that. Then he asked to walk around the park with me. I said no, and he kept asking why why why? Because I have friends to go back to. Okay, lets have our picture taken then. uh...do you see this camera? its a manual camera, we can't really do that, but he got down on the grass next to me and really wanted this picture, so i just wanted to get it done and over with and leave. As I was adjusting the settings and getting ready to hold it up to take the picture he starts sucking my ear. I obviously move away saying what do you think your doing? and then he apologizes and decides oh, maybe she wants her breast groped. I screamed fuck off and got up and left.

I was and still am so so SOOO freakin pissed off. It is so violating! So terrible and disgusting and inexcusable! God I am so angry about and want to vomit everytime I have a flashback and can feel his tongue on my ear and his hand on my breast. UGHHHH!!! And what pisses me off even more is that this kind of crap happens every day to women and that it has happened so many times to me. Men let something that has no brain control them. ugh!

So for therapy i took some highly emotionaly charged self portraits then sat down in a cafe with coffee and cigarettes. Then back to the apartment for more Jesus talk.

Get me to London.

ciao elisabetta

The last week in Florence was insane because we had to piece together a final project with basically nothing, while still continuing to shoot for the final, and see everything we hadn't seen but wanted to.

The last day of shooting by the river was very peaceful for me and the project all started to come together in my head. I shot the last riverbank, which is the first one i ever saw and was initially attracted to. LIke every photo project I do, I feel as it becomes a self-portrait, so I kind of realized some things in what I was shooting and why i was shooting these, what most people call as disgusting places, in such a beautiful city. I never saw them as disgusting, at least not in the same way. Finishing shooting brought closure to my entire European trip. I felt confident about what I had shot and that i had finally gotten a style about my work. Those feelings might have changed now as soon as i had to piece together a final. There is nothing more frustrating than having all the images that you shot in your head, but not having the ability to make a contact sheet, so you must aimlessly scan as many images as possible to make some vague attempt at a final project.


Because I have so many images and it is such a segregated project, meaning it is to show the differences of the riverbanks and so the images become categorized and separated into the different riverbanks, it was extremely difficult to critique. What it came down to is that I needed more images for them to see, all of the images I showed were beautiful, and that editing was going to be the most challenging task. Yes, i knew this. Probably the most ungratifying critique of my photographic education. Besides that it was probably the best critique I have ever been to. Everyone talked, everyone was so interested in everyone else's work, and even though we had such a variety of skill level, most everyone's work came together so well. Diana is an amazing woman and teacher and I advise anyone to take a class with her. My experience was hightened by the fact that her partner, Jackie, and newborn daughter, Francesca, was with us the entire time. Jackie, being a socialogist, had some extremely interesting inputs into our critiques and discussions, and Francesca is nothing but pure joy. I don't think I have ever loved a baby as much as I love her.

Other things that happened that week:

Someone turned my wallet into the police, the police, i assume, took my actual wallet and the 120€ that were in it, but mailed everything else that was in my wallet back to the school. So fortunate and saved me the hassle of filing a police report in italy for insurance purposes and having to get new id's.

Went to the science museum in florence and saw all of galileo's tools, including his middle finger preserved in a reliquary.

Went to, we thought was going to be the ballet, was a modern dance show instead, in an outdoor ampitheater. that was awesome. I haven't seen much modern dance, so i thought it was pretty cool. My roomates have seen a lot of dance and said it wasn't that great. The environment was awesome thought because it was in the Boboli Gardens.

Had a lovely dinner at Terra Terra, which was the restaurant below our apartment that we had befriended the waiter, Christian. They were very fun and playful with us and gave us some free wine. It was a hefty dinner though, with three courses, all delicious. It was a very delightful evening.

Had a farewell dinner that Columbia paid for at a traditional restaurant that was very nice, especially since there was a big bottle of chianti for every four people. A little too much food though.

I said my goodbyes here, since me and my roomates departed the next day for Milan and I would be staying there for the next three nights, then flying to London. I was kinda glad to leave Florence. I would have to say Florence was not my favorite city in Italy, but there were good times. I will miss the royal blue bust of a woman in my bedroom we affectionately named Elisabetta, due to the fact that we lived on Via Santa Elisabetta. The oddly colored Matador painting in the living room will be missed as well. I wanted to steal it and take it home, but it would have been rather large to fit.

ciao florence. ciao milan.

Roman Holiday

Brief update since it has been a while since i wrote a full length blog. For those of you who don't know the story, got my wallet lost and/or stolen in the train station on my way to Cinque Terre. (This city, by the way, is the most beautiful and satisfying lifestyle i have ever seen. ) Kind of had an emotional break down, gave up, and said europe had gotten the best of me. i wanted to come home as soon as the program was over. My mother was wonderful and took care of everything and of me as best as she knew how from thousands of miles away. No luck with coming home early, but plans changed. The wallet deal was the last straw for me and i couldn't take Europe's ill-fated plan to break and make me, let alone the trains with a far too full pack. Milan and a new suitcase became the plan, taking the trip the day after classes with my roommates, staying in Milan, then flying to London to stay the remainding days until my flight. Sounded much better and things settled down.

Cinque Terre is a city carved out of rock on the Mediterranean Sea and i may not witness a more beautiful place ever again. Despite the meltdown, the trip was quite relaxing, and Columbia and the staff and everyone on the trip were more than supportive and helpful during this situation.

Came back on wednesday night, class thursday, shoot shoot shoot, saturday at 3:30 am departure for Rome.

LOVED LOVED LOVED LOVED Rome and i could have spent at least a week there. Unfortunately, Stefano and Franco, our tour guides and comedic duo, would not have it and instead we went through a painfully long and slightly miserable tour through the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Pauls Cathederal on little to no sleep. Then eat for 30 min and back on the bus to stop once again at another church. It's beautiful and it's awesome architecture, get it, now get back on the bus. Check in to four star hotel where we all experienced the luxury of air conditioning and a real pillow (europe believes in pillows similar to pancakes). Meanwhile, our fourth roomate, Alanna, who had gotten to Rome the day before with her mother that just decided to fly in with her friend for 5 days, experienced confusion on where to meet up with the group and was lost in Rome with a dead phone and no way to contact us. We were frantic trying to figure out how to rectify the situation which involved Alanna's father contacting us from the states, Alanna taking four train rides back and forth to Rome, and a very large beer when she finally arrived. Sleep Eat Sleep.

Next morning: And we're off! 8:30 am departure to Spanish steps (dont ask me what these are, i will give you no other answer than that they are important, pictures were taken, and it was too early). Walking tour to Italy's most famous fountain built on the facade of someone's private palace. Pretty righteous, threw a penny over my shoulder, made a wish, keep walking. PANTHEON! amazing, and we actually got there justs in time to be able to go inside before mass. Then some hideous Roman building that even Romans hate and call it the birthday cake. Next to it? Ancient Roman ruins. ahh so cool! But no time to actually step foot on them and walked were people of one of the greatest empires ever in existence walked. Get on the bus, time for lunch. Here's a great idea: Take 48 exhausted Americans that are dehydrated and burning from Rome's brutal sun and take them to a lunch where there are five courses, two of them being pasta, give them multiple glasses of wine, in a room with no air conditioning and one window cracked, make it take two and a half hours, then make them go back out in the sun to do a marathon tour of the colluseum and the forum while slightly tipsy. Good job Franco and Stefano! I love you for your comedic quirk, but your planning must seriously improve. We had an hour to see the colluseum and forum. Coloseum (which i apparently can not figure out how to spell) blew my mind. ahhh it was soooo cool and i just wanted to be there with Jason acting out all the gory events that took place. I could have spent at least 2 hours just there. The forum right across the street? Literally ran threw it to see as much as i could haphazardly shutter happy and just barely making it back just in time to get my Kodak instamatic shot of the colluseum and meet up with the rest of my group. sleep on the bus back home.

I heart Roma.


More updates soon to come on my last whirlwind week in Florence. But I am in Milan now and very very sleepy. g'night kids.

Have Patience

in other news... my wallet was stolen in cinque terre. awesome.

Sketch

i know i know i have posted so much today but i did some scanning and thought i would show you some sketch stuff for my final project which is on the different riverbank communities in florence. i do't have portraits or even my toe dipped into what im going to do but at least this will give you some maybe idea?









and here are some pictures at pisa all taken by elena except for one taken by jenny and that one is in fiasole
alanna
i was sleepy
we were all sleepy. me, jenny, and alanna
food is refreshing?
elena. this is near where we went to the spike lee film fest that was in italian but we stayed and had a bottle of wine. this was kind of what was behind the screen.

Calle, Biennale, Gratzi!

This weekend the whole school group went to Venice which was sooo beautiful and hotter than Hades. I have never appreciated Florentine shade so much as i do now. The main reason we went was to see the Biennale, a huge huge, enormously huge art exhibition taking place all over the city of Venice. It would take one a little over a week to see everything at the Biennale, that's how big it is. You think ArtChicago is big? It's precisely 1/10 of the Biennale. (pronounced bee ah nah lay) We only had two days to see it. One day for the main biennale event in which it is all of these buildings broken down into different countries that choose to represent a singular or plural artist, from their country. However, the Italian one (which of course is the main exhibit) hosts artists from every country, usually repeating the ones already exhibited in their own countries' houses. This is probably the most amazing art i have ever seen and especially at one time. It's like art olympics.

The countries i visited: Italy (thumbs up), USA(one thumb up) (Felix Gonzoles-Torres was the artist chosen), Spain(thumbs up), Germany(thumb and a pinkie up), Canada(thumbs way up), Great Britain(thumbs enthusiastically up), Switzerland(thumbs down), and France (which changed my life)(thumbs way way way way up). I heard Russia was pretty cool, as well as Venezuala. Latvia apparently sucked. I will have pictures of some of my favorite art/artists when i get my notebook with all the notes in it.

Sophie Calle Changed My Life And Photography.

A French artist, her exhibition room in the main gallery (which was over 50 rooms by the way)gave me chills and stuck out as one of my favorites even before i knew who she was or that she was the main French artist as well. Her first installation was an explanation of the piece saying that one day in Feb she got two phone calls. The first was an invitation to the Biannale, the second was that her mother had one month to live. She began describing how her mother wanted to live and die in the lat month. She wanted to die with a Mozart concerto in her ears and she kept saying this one sentence over and over again. I can't remember what it was, but it was the last thing she ever said and the last word was something (in french) like couche i think. Then she tells of how her last breaths were somewhere in between 2 and 15 minutes later. They could never be able to tell exactly when. So after reading this (which you can hear clips of the concerto in the background) you turn around to face this fabric sculpture piece framed with the word couche. Across from this is a painted portrait of her mother probably taken from a photograph in the 70's. In a room (with a feel of it being a visitation room since it was seperate) there was a portrait of her mother right after she died and another picture frame with the word couche. Across from this was an empty picture frame. Breathtaking. Chills covered my entire body. This was just an appetizer.

Her French gallery (which was enormous) was a photography installation performance art. She had recieved a letter from a former lover that one can only guess as to exactly what the context of their relationship was: they were not exclusive and i think it was more about being lovers but in a really intense way. they didn't love each other, not in that way, but in a different way. So anyways she had recieved this letter from a lover about why he was ending this relationship. She gave it to 107 women and had them interpret the letter however they wished, if they wanted to re-write it, literally interpret it, dance it, sing it, act it, paint it, whatever they wanted to do, and she documented all of this and took each of their portraits. Normally when photographers do installation pieces heavily based on presentation, the photographs are kinda lacking. NOt calle, each one of these portraits was absolutely stunning. The video of people performing in whatever way they wanted was great, and how she presented it was so so perfect. It was a truly perfect exhibit that i may not ever have a chance to see ever again. How many times can you walk away from an exhibit and have absolutely nothing critical to say about it?
(AT WORK PHOTOGRAPHING GIRLS)

I walked away from the space so unified with women in a way I have never experienced before. Every conversation I have had with Chiara about men, relationships, analytical women, how we react, everything came together. Even though these 107 women were all reacting to one ambigous letter differently with different interpretations we (meaning women)all got it. WE got every single one of them; we agreed with every one of them; we became a powerful team guarding our traits as women. We're critcized for being over-analytical, over-emotional, over-talking, but these things should absolutely be celebrated. This is what makes us women. Even if we don't like women, we still understand each other, and we have this undeniable bond, and in this exhibit Sophie Calle made us realize this and made us work together to figure this out, this one ambiguous letter, from a man. My roomate Alanna and I were discussing this exhibit in full detail together and how we felt so empowered after. We are both girls who claim not to like girls and find it much more appealing and rewarding to befriend more males than females, and we were more than curious to know men's reactions to this exhibits. We both agreed that every man who has ever questioned why women over-think or why women respond to them the why they do, need to see this exhibit. It really is life-changing and much more than art; it is socialogical anthropology. Which i have no doubt that if i was not a photography major, this is what i would be, so this is what i will always make my subject in my photography.

Not only was it life-changing in a generalized way that every woman, if they are at all intuitive to themselves as women should feel, but it incorporated the 4 main subjects of my mind throughout this trip. It really baffles me how things come together like this. Much of this trip has been about being a woman. A woman travelling by herself in Europe will have a completely different trip from a man travelling alone. I have met more women than men and this school group is heavily dominated by women. In my photo class there is only one guy. Also my photo teacher brought her life partner, who is a sociologist, along on the trip which has been so wonderful for me to see even how women relate, and in a completely different way that to what i am used to. It's actually quite beautiful to see this wonderful and loving relationship between these two women and their new baby.

Before I left and this entire school year Chiara and I would have countless conversations about men, figuring them out, interpreting them, how to react to them, and how we hate them but can't live without them. Instead of talking about us and how we feel, or how we are interpreting them, about how they react to us, about how we are hated and loved by them, the focus became about them. Now i realize that is just stupid. Thank you Sophie Calle for shaking my shoulders and waking me up.

I could go on about how this transpired into photography and where this takes me now. Basically everything I realized on the bus back from Venice, but there needs to be digestion time and too much for one blog.

Tomorrow I will leave for the beach of Cinque Terre for an overnight trip that should be amazing. So it might be a few more days before i get a chance to write more because as soon as i get back i will shoot shoot shoot for my final which i am super super excited about.

Ciao mi amores.

A Pisa My Heart

I loved Pisa in all it's kitzchy gloriousness. Pictures on jenny and Elena's cameras will soon follow, hopefully, as well as some super stealthy pictures jenny got of David.

We didn't go up to the top of the tower, but we went to the church, baptistry, and the graveyard. It was nice just to walk around, but nothing super special. It twas a nice day trip with the roomies. But I was super sleepy and difficult personal realizations were setting in. So it has become difficult to balance the exciting exterior to the slightly collapsing interior. My own leaning tower perhaps?

That night we had a moreti beer and went to see the new Harry Potter film. I was so so so excited and quite impressed. This one has been by far the best. I loved it and there are only 5 days till the book release.

I've Seen Jesus

Last Wednesday we went to the Academia Musuem, which houses Michelangelo's famous David statue. I didn't think much of it since i had seen it on thousands of post cards, but when i got there i was totally blown away. Amazing! It's freakin huge!Other highlights include Lorenzo Bartolini sculputure plasters. i normally don't get into sculpture, but for whatever reason i was drawn to these.
But by far, besides David, the most impressive exhibits at the Academia were the two musical instrument museums. so freakin cool. There are so many instruments not being played anymore, which is a cryin shame. And the ones that are played are not made with nearly as much skill, detail, and artistic quality. There was a whole room on an instrument maker named Michele Antonio Grandi who made instruments from marble. So beautiful and i thought they were just to look at, but no, they played them. I would show you a picture but google decided to be a failure. Another totally rad instrument maker is Giovanni Maria Anciuti who made woodwind instruments that look like serpents and dragons. Terrifyingly awesome looking. Other instruments not played anymore that should be you ask? Spinet, Hurdy-Gurdy (actually i hear that the girl from arcade fire plays this. thank you arcade fire for playing an instrument that not only looks cool, but has the name hurdy gurdy), archlute, and colascione. Find them and play them!

Everything else in all these museums is starting to get a little old. I've seen Jesus in all shapes forms, sizes, ages, and colors close to 200,000 times just in the european trip now. Double that for the Madonna. I'm sick of religion. That's why i was super stoked ( by the way i have no idea when i started saying this word. Somewhere in between the time i became friends with tucker and riding the train with 5 california boys) to go to the Photography Musuem here in Florence.

Larry Fink had his jazz musician exhibit up which was ehh. There other exhibits were mostly about carte-de-visites and such like that. They did have a hallway dedicated to all sorts of old cameras which i wanted to steal all of them. They had a slideshow of polaroid art, including one from Columbia's beloved Dawood Bey. So nothing impressed me much until i reached their permanent collection.

Italian currators blow my mind. They put these amazingly important pieces in the shadows. I turn the corner in the permenant room, and oh, it's only Henri Cartier-Bresson's most famous, most critiqued, most referenced, might-have-changed-modern-photography photograph of the man jumping over the water, just hanging out in a shadow. you know whatever, original print, big deal. WHAT? Following, with slightly better light was dorothoy lange, ansel adams, minor white, diane arbus, and many others. Thanks Florence for advertising this. These are just as important as David or the Duomo (which was another surprising mind-blowing event), but they get lost, literally, in their shadows.

le sigh...

More of What I Couldn't Finish Yesterday

London rave kid and her grandpa
all of these are in lucca as well. This is the image i used for my first assignment.



totally excited about harry potter today. and we're going to a spike lee film festival. awesome.

I'll Take What I Can Get

So sorry ive been terrible about updating. Things have been insane and insanely frustrating. Facility wise, this school basically lied to us, and the facilities are completely unexecptable. The "digital lab" has photoshop 7.0, three flat bed scanners, well actually only one works, with terrible terrible software hardly capable of scanning. Then they have three printers which are basically phaser printers. Canon i9950 printers to be exact. So we've accepted that we just have to turn in awful prints, that are less than sketch prints, for critique and obviously just print when we get back. So here are some terrible scans of some of my trip thusfar. I will put up better ones later, when i return to my dearly beloved, oh so cherished and missed, Columbia facilites.

ciao.

Basel, Switzerland
Lucca, Italy
Lucca, Italy

The Three P's

Last night I had revelations out the wazoo. Im coming off of the most challenging trip of my life and finally being able to reflect on it. This usually comes at the end of the trip, so i feel like i should be coming home soon. But now I just have another trip beginning. I feel strangely overprepared and several steps in front of my classmates from what i've learned in the past three weeks.

Philosophically:

This is the hardest to break down and explain, because its more of a feeling, i suppose.

We're all the same. Yes, there are few cultural differences, the people look a little different from Americans, and the food is better, but there is nothing drastic about European culture. I guess I already knew that, but it's strange to hear teachers warn you about cultural shock when we still are living in a Western culture with nearly everything we are used to, even McDonalds, within our access. The way people relate is the exact same.

Yeah, i can't do this right now, i'm in the middle of class on a weird break thing and not in the right mode. I will add to this later.

Sweat It Out and A Day of Luck

Wow, sorry guys. I am in Florence and i haven't had email access until today because of not having a student password, yada yada yada. So im just on a five minute break from my first class today. So ill give you the run down of whats been going on in Nice and here thusfar, and then later today write more of a philosophical/photographical essay/personal account of the past 6 days.

Nice: Beautiful beautiful beautiful. the rock beaches didnt even bother me, other than that it was insainly hard to get in and out of and the water was gorgeous, but freakin cold. It was extremely touristy so I was completely fine just being by myself here, lying on the beach, and listening to music. I figured i had a lot of sweating out toxins and bad energy to do that had been accumilating for the past week and a half. The only person i had to talk to was a flirty Algerian who came and sat down on my mat. You know there is nothing more irritating than a guy who comes over to flirt with nothing to say. I can't stand it when guys think it works to sit next to you and be charming, but expect you to do all the work. ugh. So when i figured out that his English wasn't that great I just started asking questions that he couldnt answer without basically mocking himself. When i laughed he thought he was being funny. No, i was just laughing at him. It was entertaining for a while and then when i didnt want to do work anymore, i completely just stopped talking to him and stared straight into the ocean. Since he obviously had nothing to say he finally got the idea and finally left sheepishly. I felt just a little bad because as he turned to say goodbye and sorry for disturbing me (which he had) he tripped on a rock and nearly fell. It was really awkward so i just turned my head and put my earphones in.

The British girl i wasnt too fond of in the beginning I ended up becoming little friends with, along with her Irish friend. I took their portraits before leaving and exchanged emails. It was nice to be in the company of just girls and to be girly for a change. Though it was quite a different girly because the girls in the hostel, these two and then several Swedish girls, were all very reserved and quite shocked at how open i was or the things that came out of my mouth. i am not used to being in reserved company so that was weird. But I have been tired of hanging out with guys all the time and have missed the company of females and "girl time."

I ended up having to leave a little early due to train scheduling. Nice has daily overnight trains to Florence from 9pm - 7am. It was okay that my trip was cut short because i wasn't really interested in going to the museums in Nice and there is only so much beaching one can do. I had gotten my thighs splotched with sunburn just the first day. *note: i did try topless tanning. no big deal for europeans, but it took me a while. i think its a good thing to try at least once in your life, but not everybody...please!* So my last day I just basically hung out at the hostel because once i get in that packing mode and getting ready to go, i just want to go and get there; nothing else is on my mind. But waiting until 9pm made me incredibly anxious (though i did get to meet probably the most gorgeous man i have ever laid eyes on, from south africa who was taking my bed. next trip? south africa baby!) Upon leaving there was discrepency about getting my money back for the night i was not staying, the pink lady ended up not being so nice, but i got at least 10€ and my deposit back.

My train ride couldn't have been more uncomfortable.

At first i was excited to share a cabin (which i thought was going to be a sleeper cabin, but no, it was three chairs closely staring at another three chairs) with 5 American guys, who all kinda young looking, but decent. Then they started talking. "yeah, so this is our first night in two weeks being sober, what about you?" oh dear god. i looked at them and was like um, so are you guys in school? yeah we just graduated. highschool, right? YEAH! oh boy. quintessential californian highschool boys with stinky feet that took over the entire cabin so that all i had left was one tiny little corner to somewhat nuzzle in. That didnt really work, but atleast those boys didn't drink the rum they brought on the train, and they were all right guys.

Wednesday, June 27th: A Day of Luck

Once i arrived in Florence I must have gotten my brain pick-pocketed because I have never made a more stupid decision. I had a choice to walk left or right or take a taxi. I didn't have a map, only an address for the school, and most people were walking right. So the choice was clear to me to walk, carrying about 50lbs, to the left without a clue of where i was, but thinking that i would just happen upon it. what? seriously? when did i become this dumb? i had thought that there were directions in the packet they gave us from the train station. no. but after walking around for 25 minutes and then trying to hail a cab for another 15, i read that you cannot hail a cab, but can only go to cab stations. there are only 3 cab stations in the city of florence, the closest one being by the train station that i had just come from. awesome. I was so irritated with myself at being so stupid. ah but luck! I happened on a cab letting out some man to his apartment and jumped in. I actually wasn't that far away, but there would have been no way at all to find where i was going.

The school was closed when i got there since it was before nine. I have never been so sick of travelling as i was at this point. I waited and had a cappaccino at a nearby cafe, then got sent to another building further away, and just had to wait until 12 for the housing. I went up to the cafe and to the smokers pavilion outside since it was in a nook and fell asleep. I was woken up in an hour by someone coming out for a smoke. And another stroke of luck, it was Claudia! Never have i wanted to fall to my knees hugging her legs, so amazingly happy to see another Midwesterner who knows what the 600 S. Michigan Ave building even looks like, and knows what a Chicago hot dog tastes like, and knows that the Cubs suck, and knows that taking the brown line at night is one of the most beautiful ways to see Chicago. Never have I ever been more excited to see someone I didn't even know. Claudia is the coordinator of the trip. She took me back to the apartment she was staying at with the other female faculty and i had the most blissful nap of my entire life. I had made it. It was like running a marathon and breaking through the ribbon. Man I have never felt more relieved! Ah!!!!

That night I had a wonderful dinner put on by the chair of the Art and Design Department, Sabina, who loves to cook for people and host and do things like that. She is a woman in her forties that just got married last year and is the most hospitable welcoming woman with intelligent, wise, and the most encouraging words I have heard all year. I am so blessed to not only have met her, but to have been able to spend quite a bit of time with, since she was only staying till the weekend to make sure everything was flowing for our group. The rest of the faculty from our school that had arrived all came over for dinner. What a refreshing evening to go from simple conversations with people that speak English as their 3rd language and have no experience in the arts, to people that have been ACCOMPLISHED in the arts for over 30 years. Wow. I was not regretting one single bit that my host in Florence fell through that night or that i had come in a night earlier than everyone else. Not one single bit. And just to do a little bragging, I charmed the socks off of them too, and the non-photo faculty all wished I was in their department. ha! what a compliment. I really was blessed.

Florence is amazing! Italy is amazing! And of all the places Iàve been, Italy is my favorite. The lifestyle, the food, the everything. Most surprising is how freaking nice our apartment is. HOly cow! it's huge. we have a dishwasher and a huge refrigerator. I don't even have a dishwasher in Chicago! oh and a washer in the apartment. This place is nicer than my chicago home.

This weekend was spent walking around with my three roomates, Jenny Montgomery, Elana Greeklastname (both photo majors), and Allena Criscie (an illustration major).They are all great and we get along well. I totally have a friend crush on Elana; she cracks me up. It was nice to get to know a European city without the 10lb backpack on my shoulders. And though i love my roomates and it was wonderful to actually get out the word limit, but good lord i have never done so much shopping and talking in all my life. The season of "girl time" has passed. I dont like to talk THAT much and i have a shopping expiration life of about 2 hours, maybe less. So sometimes i have to separate myself from them, which i hope they don't think im being bratty. Europe is new to all of them, so they should go out and explore, but i have been seeing all these things everyday for the past two and a half weeks. I needed rest.

Today was the first day of class, which was basically just finding out password for computers and yada yada yada. The lecture was a bit remedial, because Diana has to teach to a range of student levels. One girl has only had photo 1, and four of us are seniors. After class we decided to look at the facilites, but I'm going to wait and save that one for a new blog. haha. oh man. yeah, that will take a blog to itself. And people in Chicago, you kiss that dirty Columbia College darkroom floor, cause you are a spoiled photo facility brat!

Tomorrow is a day trip to Lucca we all decided to take with the art history class, and this weekend we're paying a little extra to take a day trip through tuscany which includes wine tasting. huzzah!

Ciao.