Word of the day - porca mazeria - oh darn (or something)

My teacher says porca mazeria is a really polite way of saying, "oh darn!"  However, when I use google translator it says something different...  Although Yahoo babelfish has something different.  When I ask my teachers, they always say it just means oh darn.  (And one of them uses it often, and he doesnt seem the type to actually swear)

Hey everybody!  So we have presentations today for studio and then we're done with school.  Although, I'll have to write a paper for my "independent study" on Management by Design sometime soon.  So that's quite a bother.  Anyway, the week leading up to studio presentations is always a bit exciting, there's always a lot to do and too much to think about.  However, my 5.5 year old IBM laptop has a way of making things even more exciting.  While surfing the internet one day, it just froze up and I couldn't even restart it in "safe mode" without getting the Blue Screen of Death.  That was on Tuesday, so two days before final jury and it died.  Luckily, IBM's come equipped with a "rapid restore" feature so I could extract my project files from the broken computer.  Then, I had to completely reinstall windows and all other programs that I need to do my architecture work.  This took about 10 hours to do completely.  More or less.  So this was no good.  The next day my IBM decides to just turn off sometimes.  No warning, nothing.  Black screen, hard drives off, need to completely start over as if the computer was always off.  This can be a bit unsettling while working on projects.  Thankfully it only happened twice (once while installing a program, which i was about 3/4 of the way through and had to completely restart which took another hour or two) and once in the middle of me photoshopping a drawing, so that set me back another half hour or so.  So needless to say, my project isn't as coherent and graphically strong as I had previously planned.  Thankfully, it is holding out, I did print out my boards, and I did finish up my studio work.  Just today, while checking my internet, the battery stopped charging even though it was plugged in.  So I have approximately 2 hours of laptop time before I'm done for good.  Unless, the power cord magically works again.  We shall see.  Needless to say, this is probably my last blog until I'm back in America.  School is done today (officially) I still have to write the paper, I go to Siena with our teacher on Friday, go to some museums, pack, finish business in Firenze on Saturday, then off to Milan on Sunday, and then I fly home on Monday.  I'm looking forward to going home.  Our laundry machine has been broken since Sunday, I'm running out of clothes, the landlord hasn't fixed it, I'm getting sick, and my trusty thinkpad has been letting me down as of late.  I am tired of schoolwork, am ready to just be done with everything, and I'm especially ready to be paying for things in dollars.  I suppose you could say I'm a bit homesick.  I'm really looking forward for it being my birthday, christmas, and seeing my family.  Hopefully I'll have my paper finished (on the plane rides (I have 4 flights on Monday)) I can put it into my desktop computer back at home, and then email it to the professors back at Kent.  Then, I can find random presents for people, find a place to live for the spring semester, and then just be a vegetable over the holiday break.  That would be great.  So I haven't decided yet if I'm going to continue to blog once I return to America.  I suppose I could.  I have plenty of languages and words that I could continue to translate for your enrichment.  Meh, we'll see.  Until next time, when I'll be back in Cleveland...  Ciao ciao and thanks for following my blog

Fruit of the day - Pomodoro - Tomato

Sorry for the long delays between posts.  Things are really getting busy around here.  I have about one week left in Italy, I've got a project due Thursday, I have to write a paper for my MBA thing by Sunday, and then I leave Monday for America and then I get to go Christmas shopping after.  With the advent of the internet, I have been able to do some shopping by merely conversing with my siblings via the interwebs.  I probably could pick up a few things in Italy while I'm still here...

I still have list of things I'd like to do in Florence:  see the Bargello, go in the Uffizi (again), go in Palazzo Medici Riccardi, go in Palazzo Strozzi, and go in the Lauretian library (designed by Michelangelo).  Today I saw the Bargello.  It's the old townhall/prison and now museum.  Donatello's David is here.  It was erotic.  That's what he was going for though.  It's considered the first "nude" of the renaissance.  The building itself was actually really cool.  Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to take pictures within the museum for some reason.  With this big to-do list and all my compiti (italian for homework - you guys get two italian words today!) I'm not going to be able to see Miss New Giudi, which is a bummer.  I was hoping to make a trip between my final project presentation (Thursday) and Leaving from Milan (Monday morning).  However, it doesn't seem like it's going to work.  Friday, the class is going on a trip to visit Siena with one of our professors, Marcello Fantoni.  It has nothing to do with school.  He's from Siena and wants to show us around.  Siena is divided into 17 neighborhoods called Contrada (pl. contrade).  Each contrada has their own logo, church, museum, etc.  During the Palio (the horserace that takes place twice a year) there are 10 contrade that compete against each other.  He's going to give us a little personal tour of the contrada he belongs to, the church, the museum etc.  We'll see the campo and the city hall (where the Palio takes place) and then we're going to go to a nice restaurant.  It's in one of the bordering contrada (a rival!) but the food there is undeniably good (as he says).  So I'm really excited for that.  MAYBE, if I can get all my work done by Thursday, I could go to Siena Friday, go to Genova Saturday, Milan on Sunday, and then leave for the airport early Monday morning.  Although, this seems like a lot of traveling with a lot of bags, and this is all under the assumption MNG has nothing better to do on weekends before Christmas than to entertain me.  So... I'm leaning towards just staying in Florence Saturday, leave for Milan on Sunday, and leaving for America on Monday.  Next time I'm in Europe, I'll have to make another pit-stop in Genova to see her.

Anyway, back to the real reason for my post.  If tomatoes originated in the "new world" (which they did), what did Italians eat before then?  Italian food as we know it, has only been evolving since the 1500's AFTER Columbus and other explorers brought tomatoes to Europe.  What then, did they eat before?  I know that bistecca di fiorentina is a local Florence specialty.  It's a big hunk of steak.  That could have predated Columbus.  There are of course the seafoods, the pestos, the cream sauces that could have been hold outs from previous times, but definitely not the ubiquitous tomato sauce everybody thinks of.   I want to eat authentic, Italian food, like the Medici's ate, and see what that's all about.

French word of the day: dejeuner - lunch

So Friday we woke up, had some breakfast, and made our way to the Orangerie museum.  It's a small museum built around 8 large works that Monet donated to the French government.

Monet specifically asked for the paintings to be displayed in an oval shaped room as well.  So there are two rooms, each with 4 large paintings by Monet.  On the other level, there are a bunch more paintings, but all the ones that I liked were on loan (they had photos of what was supposed to be there).  Afterwards, we met up with Pelham (Sara's highschool friend) and Laure (Pelham's friend).  We ended up going to an italian restaurant in Paris.  It was supposed to be great.  It was decent.  I think I'm a little spoiled since I've been living in Italy for the last 3 months.

We did a little bit of shopping and looking around on the Rue de Rivoli.  It's one of the main streets for large affordable shops (unlike the champs elysees).  But, it was a little rainy, and all the stores were absolutely packed.  When we got back to the apartment, I took a nap.  Then when I woke up it was time for dinner.  So that was nice.

We decided to go to a french restaurant for dinner.  I didn't really know what things were.  I knew that foie gras was goose liver.  But I saw saw foie veaux or something like that which I knew was veal.  And, I've never heard of veal liver.  I decided to take a chance and I ordered it.  It was good.  It wasn't squishy like a liver, but it wasn't really meaty either.  I think I did eat a veal liver.  I guess even baby cows have large livers.  It was good but the more I thought about the liver I was eating, the more and more soft and less "meaty" the dinner became.  Anyway, I had desert and a cafe to end the dinner which was great.  There's nothing like a great espresso at the end of a filling meal.  Anyway, the only seats for this place were outside (at least for people without reservations or people who are obviously american, I'm not sure)  and it was a little chilly.  They had the heaters on, and the plastic tent thingy on the sidewalk but it was still a little chilly.

So then we had to clean up the apartment so we could check out the next day.  I had to leave at 6:30 am to catch my 9am flight.  Sara left a little later, at 7 am (she had to meet with the apt owners to get the deposit back).  I was worried about catching the metro and RER's to the airport, but everything worked out OK.  On the way to the apartment the first time, it took me 1.5 - 2 hours to get from the airport to the apartment.  This time I knew where things were, I didn't have to buy tickets for the metros and RER, I didn't have to wait for checked luggage (Sara is taking one of my bags home for me), and it wasn't quite rush hour yet.  So I made it there in good time and sketched for my field trip class.

Things are getting absolutely crazy here.  I'm excited for studio but have been unable to devote a lot of time to it because of all of the other things I've got going on.  We've got a final on Monday, a final on Wednesday.  We finished up a class last Wednesday.  I've got 2 weeks until Studio is done.  Woof.  Plus I have the MBA paper I should write sometime.  grrr.  18 credit hours while in Italy, plus a random MBA thing is too much.

City of the week: Parigi - Paris

Interaction of the day:
Me:  Pourquois le troisieme etage non est ouvert?
Security:  C'est ouvert, vouz prendez le ascenseur.

Me:  Why is the third floor [of the Eiffel Tower] not open?
Security:  It is open, take the elvator.

When we stand in line for the elevator we see a sign:  3rd floor is closed. 

So anyway, the security guard at the Eiffel tower had no idea what he was talking about.  We ended up getting a nice french lady to take a picture of us.  Unfortunately, the picture is on Sara's camera and I don't have it yet.  So you'll have to wait.  Hopefully I'll get it from her soon.

Anyway, let me start again from the beginning.  So the original calender that the director of Kent's study abroad program gave us said that we had Tuesday through Friday off due to the Thanksgiving holiday.  However, in reality, we were only supposed to have Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off.  We were taking a one credit hour class called the post-modern city taught by Giandomenico Amendola, who is a sociologist and world famous urban planner.  It was supposed to be a three week long class.  But, because of M. Sabini (the director who makes mistakes a lot) we only had 2 weeks of the class.  This is torture.  Giandomenico built up a case for his class, week by week, class by class.  He was two thirds of the way into his story, and now I'll never get the ending!  How can you start a story like that and then stop???  It was a great class.  I really like to hear the different disciplines/point of views on cities that I've been getting this semester.  We've had a class taught by a historian and by a sociologist.  Unfortunately, we never got to complete the sociologist's class.  Kent's ineptitude strikes again.

So anyway, class was cancelled because all of us had plane tickets or planes for Thanksgiving.  I caught the Tuesday flight from Pisa to Paris Orly on Tuesday afternoon.  For the most part, everything went smoothly.  I bought a metro ticket and found the apartment that Sara and I were going to stay at.  She had actually arrived on Sunday morning and was staying with her friend from highschool, Pelham.  I found the apartment easily enough, and Sara was inside waiting for me!  She had picked up a bottle of wine and ingredients to make dinner.  We made dinner and drank the wine and since Sara was still jet-lagged we stayed in for the night.  I watched a bad, dubbed, film called "american special forces" or something like that.  It was dubbed into french, and it was american special forces unit involved in bad action sequences.  It was pretty bad and yet somehow entertaining.  Sara was asleep already, so I didn't even feel guilty about watching it.  Ha!

So the next day we went to the Louvre and the Musee du Quai Branly.  The french prime ministers have a history of creating public works before they leave office.   For example, le Defense, the Grand Arch, the Glass Pyramid to the Louvre, etc.  Jacques Chirac got Jean Nouvel to design a museum for non-western art and artifacts along the bank of the Seine near the Eiffel Tower.

 

It was really interesting to see how similar the beliefs, art, and artifacts of african, american, asian, and oceanic tribes were.  We saw tons of masks, totem poles, pots, etc.  The building was pretty nice.  It was really dark, but I liked it because of it.

I forgot to mention that we went inside Sainte-Chappelle as well.  It's a small chapel within the French Judicial complex (which houses their supreme court amongst other things).  It was originally built to house the crown of thorns.

Sainte-Chappelle is renowned for its stained glass windows.  The pictures and stories displayed are not that impressive by themselves.  However, the collection and the sum of all the stained glass is quite impressive.  There was scaffolding over the main altar unfortunately.

After the Musee du Quai, we were so close to the Eiffel Tower we decided to visit and take a few pictures.  My camera is pretty nice.

So from there we walked down Rue Cler.  It's a nice little street with markets and open air stalls with people selling shit to you lining the street.  We got there around, hmm, I'm not sure.  But it was dark and the markets were closing.  However, thanks to Rick Steve's guidebook we went to Cafe du Marche.  Sara had a pasta with cream and truffle sauce, and I ate a chicken.  It was all good and very cheap (for Parisian standards at least).  Dinner was good and then we walked slowly and made our way back to the apartment.

On Thursday, we tried to go to the Georges Pompidou but they were on strike (and they stayed on strike for the rest of the week) so we couldn't go inside.  That was a bummer.  We ended up going ot the Musee du Orsay.  On the way there a van ran into the temporary barriers that surrounded the wet concrete that was being poured for the sidewalk.  The barriers ended all over the street, I ran in the street and through the barriers on the wet concrete and stepped in it by mistake.  Hopefully my Sperry's will be immortal.  Anyway, the Orsay was nice.  We then walked down the Champs Elysees where they were having a christmas fair.  I got some hot wine and Sara got hot chocolate.  It was fun.  We went form the Louvre towards the Arc de Triomphe.  We climbed up the Arc and took pictures and it was all quite nice.  Yada yada yada.

The next day we went to Versailles.  In Versailles town we found a market that was giving us whole chickens.  We got a chicken, a shish kebab, and a load of potatoes for 10 euros.  We ate most of it.  After we saw the chateaux.  It was really cold and windy in the gardens.  But, the chateaux was outrageously large and obnoxiously baroque. 

I feel like I'm forgetting to tell you guys things... I'll have to re-read this in a day or two and edit it and add stuff.  I still have a few more days of Paris with Sara to tell you guys about.

Phrase of the day - ay flang dang ich ma un fluffuge? - hey pretty lady can i get a hug?

So Saturday night when we met Karol in Dublin, we ran into some Belgians who spoke Dutch (because that's what they do around there).  And, Karol of course knew a cheesy pick up line in dutch and then promptly taught it to me.  I have no idea how to properly spell it, but it my head it looks something like the above.

Anyway, we were in Rotterdam! Yay!  We stayed at the Bazar hotel which actually sold a bunch of lamps and tea sets like a real bazar.  It was very eclectic and I actually liked the hotel a lot.  Breakfast was included in the stay and they gave us breads, feta with spices, a hard boiled egg, some lunch meats, turkish wurstel, yogurt, fruit, butter, and a creamy cheese.  And, they gave it to us each morning.  It was good.  I enjoyed the breakfast there.  I did end up eating dinner there occasionally and it was good too.  So the first day there we went to the NAI - the Netherlands Architecture Institute (translated to english of course) and saw the exhibits there.  Pretty much, we did everything I did last time when I was in the Netherlands with the Clemson kids.  I actually saw much more last time.  When I was with Clemson we rented bikes and zipped around all over the netherlands.  This time, we had a guide who didn't prepare for the trip.  He kind of knew where things were most of the time, but not really.  He didn't know who did what buildings etc.  It was annoying.  Also while we were in the Netherlands Clemson hired a local architect who would know where things were and what was important about them.  My teacher didn't really know either of these things.  So from now on I'll try to only write about the new things I did while in the Nederlands.

But anyway, in Rotterdam we took a boat tour.  Rotterdam is one of the largest industrial ports in Europe and we saw it by boat.  It was a good experience.  (We didn't do that with Clemson).  That's about the only thing new to me.

In Utrecht we went inside the Rietveld-Schroder house which was really neat to see.  It's maybe 2000 sq ft at the most, and the tour took 2 hours.  This lady talked FOREVER.  But, I really liked seeing inside.  The building is all about being flexible.  The bedrooms double as the living rooms, all the wall partitions move out of the way, to create one big living room etc etc.  It was nice; I would never want to live there.  We went to Utrecht on Saturday and the most important buildings are on the University campus, which of course is closed on the weekend.  So none of the school buildings were open so we couldn't get inside.  Dumb.

We went to the Haag and saw the Richard Meier building and the OMA theater.  Those were pretty cool buildings.  Also, they have a main shopping street with a parking lot running the main length of the street.  This way the pedestrians are on top in the rain, and the cars are underground.  It was kind of interesting.

My teacher does know a lot of people though.  And, it helped out in the Netherlands because we visited 3 very prominent firms.  We visited architecture CIE, MVRDV, and UN Studio.  All are very famous firms who are well publicized and well known.  It was really good to get an inside look at how they operate, how they function, and just ask questions, and meet somebody from a successful studio.

Erasmus Bridge, Rotterdam by UN Studio

 

Housing by MVRDV - the competition called for a max footprint, and max height, but wanted too many apartments.  The only way to get the proper number of apartments while maintaining the max height and max floor space was to cantilever a few apartments.  All the other competition entrants ignored the proposed number of apartments.

The first day in Rotterdam and the first day in Amsterdam were awfully rainy and cold.  It was awful.  I ended up layering socks, plastic bags, and then shoes to try and stay dry.  I did end up staying mostly dry after that, although thats just because it barely rained on those days.  One day, the sun even came out.  So that was nice.

And no, I did not actually use the can i get a hug expression on a ho in Amsterdam, or to any girl in the Netherlands.  As tempting as it was, I can be kind of shy when it comes to strangers so I didn't really meet anybody new in the Netherlands.  But, I did learn that the windmills that are everywhere are used to pump water out.  Most of Holland is under sea level so they use the windmills to stay mostly dry.

Word of the day - Whiskey - water of life

So on Sunday the other Nick woke me up at 9 so we could go see things by 10.  Turns out that his phone didn't change timezones and he woke me up an hour earlier than he was supposed to.  So we were out of the hostel by 9, it was raining (of course its Ireland) and nothing is open because its Sunday morning at 9am.  So once we figured that out, we went  back to the hostel and checked online the actual times things open and changed our socks.  And then made our way to the Jamison Factory.  The Jamison tour was not quite as cool as the Guinness Storehouse, but because we volunteered to be a whiskey taster, at the end of the tour I got to try 3 different whiskeys.  The Jamison tour is essentially a guided tour throughout a large diorama.  All the things they showed us were made for the display, none of it was original.  So the main things about Jamison is that it uses a smokeless heat to roast the barley (natural gas (previously they used something else)) and also they use old barrels for aging.  They get their barrels from kentucky and some other place.  But either way, the barrels were used for different alcohols originally, and so that gives it a distinctive flavor.  Oh, and it's triple distilled.  So anyway we did the tour, then they sat us down and gave us 3 shots, one was a single distilled bourbon (JD), the other was a double distilled scotch (Johnny Walker), and the third was of course triple distilled Jamison.  It was actually very easy to tell the difference between all of them when you get to sip one and then immediately drink the others.  It's much harder when coke is involved (like I usually drink whiskey, but then again I rarely spend a lot of money on whiskey so I don't usually buy Jamison).  I was most proud that I could tell the difference and I figured out which thing was which.  The Jack Daniels is super sweet.  Johnny Walker uses peat to roast their barely so it has a much smokier flavor.  The Jamison is by far the smoothest and most complex of the whiskeys.  Then after our tasting, they gave us another glass of Jamison just for fun.  So I had 4 drinks before 12:30 on a Sunday.  Welcome to Ireland!

So walking back from the Jamison Distillery we stumbled upon a bunch of horses sitting around a plaza.  We asked some police officers what was going on and he said it was a horse fair, buying and selling of Dublin's finest horses. Hahaha.  He's a jokester.  But they really were selling/trading horses and ponies.  After that, we ate some lunch and then walked to Christ Church - one of the famous protestant churches in Dublin, and after that saw Dublin Castle.  Dublin Castle can only be seen with a tour group (but I got student discount, score!) and it was really good.  The tour guide had a fantastic accent.  Also, I learned that the name Seamus is gaelic for James.  Who knew?!

 

original viking foundations to the Dublin Castle

After that we found some dinner and looked for a pub to drink in.  We tried to walk in a few places but it was Sunday, most were pretty empty, one was way too loud with drunk americans trying to do a jig, so really just embarassing themselves and making a mockery of anyone in the bar who was actually irish.  Eventually we found a bar with a guy playing the guitar.  The music was loud enough everybody could hear it, but not so loud that you had to yell all the time.  It was perfect.  The guy started out by playing some traditional Irish drinking songs, my personal favorite went a little something like this:

Oooooohhhhh you're drunk you're drunk you're silly you're drunk, you're drunk as drunk could beeeeee!!!! etc etc.

It was a good time.  And strangely enough, the song that got the most people singing along was Country Roads by John Denver.  So that was bizarre, but It didn't stop us from singing along.  Later on in the night, there was a 50 year old lady who came up to the other Nick and remarked how much she liked his red hair and beard.  She said it was exactly like her husbands, and red hair puts a fire in her tights!  That's what she said!  It was hilarious.  But, boy was she drunk.  So we met a few people, some girls from West Virginia oddly enough (they went to WVU) and it was fun.  (It's strange because Country Roads is is about WV.)  But since most pubs close around 12 in Dublin we closed bar and then left for our hostel.  We were planning on getting up early to go to St. Patrick's cathedral before we had to catch our flight on Monday.

So on Monday we found St. Patrick's Cathedral.  It was nice.  Perhaps I'm spoiled because I've lived in Italy for almost 8 months, but the churches were not as large as I thought they would be.  Sure they were big and impressive, but I've seen a lot bigger and lavish churches.  So then we caught our flight from Dublin to Eindhoven and our class field trip in the netherlands began.  I'll try to blog more about it soon.  Classes here are getting pazze (pazze means crazy, that's two new words for the price of one in this blog post).  And, I've been losing weight!  Unintentionally!  Ever since I stopped lifting/generally being a hoss, I've been losing weight.  So hopefully once I get back to the USA I can go to the gym more often and get big again.  Hopefully.

Word of the day: Sláinte (in Ireland) - health (but really cheers!)

So Saturday Nick and I went to Dublin for the weekend.  We planned to arrive in Dublin Saturday at 12:00 pm and then leave for Rotterdam Monday morning for a school field trip.  For some reason, we thought it would be a good idea to find the two rainiest places in Europe and visit them consecutively for 8 days.  Anyway, we landed, found the hostel and went straight to the Guinness storehouse.  It's the old barely store house that has been converted into a museum.  The building itself was just a really cool building.  And the museum took advantage of it.

So at the top of the Guinness Storehouse is a bar where you get a pint that is included with price of admission.  It's called the "gravity bar" and it's got a 360 degree view of Dublin.  Of course it was rainy and cloudy and I couldn't see much, but it was a cool idea.  I like the original Guinness commercials where they tried to say that Guinness is good for you.  There were actual doctors who would prescribe guinness to people who weren't feeling good.  Also, Arthur Guinness signed the original lease for the Guinness factory at St. James Gate for 9000 years.  It's only been 250 years so far, but he's done a great job.

After that, we found somewhere to eat, I don't really remember where.  More importantly we went to Temple bar on Temple bar.  And there was a great drunk Irish guy named Karol who we met and ended up talking to for most of the night.  When he was born, John Paul II was visiting Ireland.  All the mothers were naming their childeren John, Paul or John Paul.  But, his mom was creative and named him Karol, JPII's original name before he became pope.  He had a theory on getting drunk called "monopiss".  If a person were to drink liquor they would get really drunk and then kind of crash literally and figuratively.  But, if you were to drink beer, at a steady pace you get drunk and plateau and that's called monopiss, at least according to Karol.  His accent was really funny and it was halloween.  There were a few costumes here and there.  What was impressive was how international Dublin was.  Just sitting next to Karol we met tons of people.  We met a bunch of people from all over the place and he spoke to them in English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.  It was pretty impressive.  Although most everybody speaks English.  And, they actually use it because that's what everybody speaks.

Word of the day: un incubo - a nightmare

Che un incubo!
What a nightmare!

So I’m going to retell the my whole trip backwards because that’s what is freshest in my mind.  So Sunday was a travel day from Amsterdam back to Firenze and it was an incubo!  I was flying Ryan Air (the cheap air line i.e. 15 euro ticket) from Eindhoven to Pisa.  In an effort to cut costs, Ryan air and often Easy Jet, usually don’t fly into real airports.  They fly into obscure airports an hour away from where you really want to go.  But since its only 15 euros, and with added travel expenses maybe 45 euros to go from Amsterdam to Florence it’s usually worth the money.  So anyway, we (myself, the other Nick, and Phil) leave the hotel at 7:30 to catch the tram to Amsterdam’s main station.  From there, we catch the 1.5 hour train from Amsterdam to Eindhoven.  And after that we catch the bus from Eindhoven Centraal to Eindhoven’s airport.  As a bonus, the ticket machine in the bus was broken and the bus driver told us not to worry about buying tickets, so that was nice.  Anyway so we arrive at the airport around 10:30 and our flight is at 12:30.  So we arrive with plenty of time to spare and there’s even a foosball table and gamecube with Mario Kart double dash to occupy our time. 

So believe it or not Ryan Air’s flight was late to board by around 20 minutes.  Although they say over 90% of their flights are on time, in my experience they are only 4/6 for being on time.  And they kept on having last calls for a flight provided by Wiz air.  So that’s just a silly name for a plane company.  But that’s neither here nor there.  We take off late out of Eindhoven and then it was too windy in Pisa for us to land.  The wind speed at the airport was around 90 km/h and our plane is only allowed to land in wind speeds of up to 60km/h.  And there was a large group of rowdy obnoxious Italians who were yelling during all the announcements and generally being annoying during the entire flight.  So we had to get diverted to Genova.  Which usually wouldn’t be a big deal, but we don’t get to go to Genova, we get to sit on the tarmac for an hour waiting for the winds in Pisa to die down.  So this was a bummer.  And of course, the wind makes the turbulence extra exciting while landing.  I over heard the person behind me say she loves turbulence because it’s like an invisible roller coaster.  I think she was trying to stay optimistic, but I’m not really sure.  So we eventually get to take off again and we get to land in Pisa around 5pm instead of 2pm.  But we made it!  But, of course, things are more exciting in Pisa.  We catch the train from the airport to the train station and that’s when it gets even more annoying.  Yesterday there was a huge train strike and about ¾ of all the trains going through Pisa were cancelled.  So instead of waiting for 10 minutes for a train we had to wait an hour.  I was so nervous because all the trains that were still “running” because a bunch were being delayed by 5 minutes, and then 10 minutes, and then 40 minutes.  Anyway, they decided not to act all funny on the 6:30 train to Florence SMN so we jumped on that one and we only arrived in Florence at 7:30pm.  So that’s a solid 12 hours of sitting/travelling.  Che un incubo!

Word of the day - gia - already

L'ho conosco gia.
I already knew that.

So yesterday I had my midterm review.  And I didn't really learn too much that I didn't already know.  The jurors gave me some good advice, but it was advice that I already knew.  They were highly critical of the parts of my project that I had not focused much on (because I was in a time crunch).  So everything they said was absolutely true, and something that I had expected, no real surprises.

Today is Friday and there was Kent's "Forum on the City".  Each year Kent picks a city to talk about.  They invite people from the city, experts on the city, and famous people from the city to speak about the city.  This year Kent chose Genova and invited many architects, faculty from the University of Genova, and other prominent people.  One of the speakers was Riccardo Garrone, the owner of Sampdoria, one of Genova's soccer teams.  He was an old italian guy who used a translator, but really had a presence about him.  Somehow, he commanded everybody's attention.  It was pretty cool.  A lot of the speakers today did not speak english.  There was some australian bimbo who couldn't really translate.  The person would say something that would take 5 minutes and she would translate it into 2 sentences.  I felt cheated sometimes.  Recently there have been many prominent architects coming out of Genova.  The forum wanted to explain what the city of Genova is really like, and then they discussed if there is a "genova school" of architecture.  Why does Genova produce good architects?  Is there something in the water?  Eventually the general consensus was that Genova is so complex and has so many layers that it creates an environment of exploration and creativity.  I would generally agree with that.  Genova has the mountains, the sea, the medieval section, palazzo's, the ridiculously wealthy bankers, the port workers and sailors, old industries, new design, a little bit of everything.  I feel like each time I go to Genova I find out something else.  There isn't one single thing that could define Genova.  And to me, that's whats so exciting about it.  It's got so many layers, and yet somehow they're all great.

Tomorrow I'm going to Dublin!  I have never been there and I'm super excited.  We have class in Rotterdam on Monday.  So I'll go to the Jamison distillery, the Guinness factory, maybe the Gaol, Christ Church, St. Patrick's church, a few pubs in between and then off to the low countries.  Our class will be in Rotterdam for 2 days and then Amsterdam for 4 more days and then that's it.  So I'm pretty excited about that.

Neighborhood of the day - squatter city - casa okupa

So every trip Giovanni, (our travel professor) tries to get a "local hero" to give us a tour of the city.  Usually it is a friend of his who actually lives in the city.  This way the guide can give us better insight and an untouristy view of the city.  In Madrid he got into contact with a group of architects to give us a quick night time tour of the city.  We started out in casa okupa - which is also known as squatter city.  It's essentially a part of the city that has so many squatters that they have created a self-governing neighborhood.  We started on top of the roof of a building in the neighborhood, and they spliced together a bunch of video clips so we could get a feeling for the city.  They took clips from old movies that showed insight into the life of locals, i.e. in the 50's they showed how this middle class family with kids was looking for a new house, they showed how in the 80's kids moved away for jobs and how families struggled etc.

view from roof

the building we were in

from there we moved on and walked around the city.  We went to Gran Via which is the main street of Madrid.  We went into a hotel and tried to find a bar on one of the top floors.  Unfortunately, the bar was no longer in business, but we happened to run into some locals who allowed us onto their terrace.

Gran Via

So we would run around the city, they would show us a new movie clip, and then we would move on to a new place.  It was really interesting.  The group of guys who were showing us around were SO excited to tell us about Madrid.  There was a guy from Paris who moved to Madrid, a guy from Belgium who moved to Madrid, and a guy who grew up and lived in Madrid his entire life.  It was really cool to get the different points of view on Madrid through each person's unique experiences.  The tour started around 7, we walked around until around 9 and then we had tapas and dinner with the entire group after that.  Spain is on a completely different schedule than europe.  For example, McDonald's don't open until 12:00 pm.  Which is just weird to me.  Everything is just done later in the day.

On a side point, it occurred to me last week that the Big Mac is sold by MCdonald's.  Why did they add the "a"?  I want a big MC not a big MaC.  Isn't this inconsistent with everything else?  They dont sell chicken macnuggets.  They are chicken mcnuggets.  How strange.

Word of the day - starnuto - sneeze

So I'm kind of coming down with a cold because its 50 degrees in my apartment.  This morning I was sitting eating breakfast.  I kind of got burpy after eating my omelette.  And then, out of nowhere I sneezed.  And, this wasn't any kind of sneeze.  If you can imagine daffy duck sneezing, tongue hanging out of his bill, the noise pbbbbbbbbbt.  That's what it was like.  I was in shock.  I've never sneezed like that, and I thought I was only burping!  It was quite a surprise.

Swear word of the day - Merda - Shit

Merda, l'appartamento fa freddo!
Shit, the apartment is cold!

So apparently there is a law in Italy that you can't turn on the heat until November 1st.  Also, once you do turn on the heat, you are not supposed to have it on more than 8 hours per day, and you are not supposed to leave it on at night.  It usually does get up to 65 during the day, but it does get down into the 40's at night.  And without heating, it makes it too cold to sleep comfortably.  I think we have more blankets in one of the closets that I'll need to find and put on my bed.  Last night I had on sweatpants, a long sleeve shirt, and a pair of socks, and I was still not as comfortable as I would have liked.  Boo!

So Madrid was really nice.  The weather was in the 70's during the day and down into the 40's at night.  However, I had ample blankets on the hotel bed.  The important thing about Madrid is to remember that it was a planned capital.  Before the royal family moved in there were many capitals throughout Spain.  In the 1500's the monarch decided that he wanted a capital in the middle of his country and thus made Madrid the capital.  He completely redid the city and made it worthy of his presence.  It gives off a very different vibe than Berlin (which was the whole idea of the trips.)  Berlin is a city made up of different parts.  Madrid is a stereotypical capital city from the age of absolutism.  It gives off a european and united vibe.  I have uploaded my photos to my photo page:  www.learningitalianisfun.shutterfly.com.

So the first day we walked around and saw Plaza Mayor, the royal residence (I forgot what it's called) and a bunch of other stuff.  The highlight was seeing the Caixa Forum.  It's a building that was redone by Herzog and de Meuron.  It's kind of a weird building.  But, inside were exhibits on Palladio and Richard Rogers which were both fantastic.  It was really cool to see actual drawings done by Palladio.  It was even cooler to see the thought process behind some of the buildings he designed.  And, it was even cooler because I've been to a bunch of his buildings in Venice and in the Veneto region.  Of course he did the Villa Rotunda, but he's got San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, Villa Malcontenta in Vicenza etc (which I've been to as well).

Caixa Forum

 

Royal Park

The Richard Rogers exhibit had some of his proposals that won him the competitions.  Essentially he created small books to explain why he should be the architect and why his design makes the most sense.  It was really neat to see how he broke down the design problem and how he supposedly addressed each point of emphasis that the owner wanted.  Unfortunately, photos were not allowed in any of the exhibits.  That's all for now.  School is getting super busy and I have aspirations of going back to Genoa this weekend so I really have to buckle down.  Perhaps I can blog more about Madrid tomorrow.

greeting of the day: hola - hello

Hey everybody, im safe in Madrid!  Our group was actually all on the same flight so we raced to the hotel with groups of twos takign different metro combinations.  I took the gray line to the red line.  But, I lost.  Anyway, the winner gets a free round of drinks, so 2 drinks split between 8 people should be pretty reasonable.  We're planning on going out tonight for some tapas and seeing the city at night before our big walking tours in the morning.  H'okay thats all for now.  I'll try to keep you guys updated.  Ciao ciao ciao ciao

Verb of the day - comprare - to buy

 Hey everybody!

So things are getting a little crazy here in Italy!  We had a drawing class in San Miniato on Tuesday.  It's a small hill town about 40 minutes away from Florence by train.  I did a few drawings, took a bunch of pictures etc.  It's going to be the basis of our water coloring class that we're taking.

 So the weather was a little cloudy, but on the whole it was still pretty.  We're planning on painting from the pictures we took instead of working in the field.  I think it would be quite bothersome to bring out the paint and water and all that.  Our teacher did a few quick ones to show us what its all about, but we stuck to drawing.  He also said, "don't draw what you know, draw what you see."  This is something I've tried to remind myself every time I draw but it's difficult.  Often times, I dry to draw too quickly and I say to myself, oh this is a rectangle, that windows a circle, etc and I try to draw how they are usually represented in three dimensions, instead of taking the time to actually LOOK.  When you look and really pay attention to what angle the lines are at and the actual proportions or things, drawing becomes very easy.  It's just copying something that's already been done.

Here's the real lesson of the day though.  Comprare - to buy

Compro - i buy
compri - you buy
compra - he/she buys
 compriamo - we buy
comprate - you pl. buy
comprano - they buy

Today, I bought a leather carry on bag for flights.  I was getting charged 20 euros for every flight I took because the carry-on bag I have was too large.  I went to San Lorenzo market here where there are tons of stalls with paper, leather, belts, florence stuff, soccer etc.  And I walked around and I knew I wanted to get a leather bag but I didn't really want to rush into anything.  I've actually been doing a lot of research, poking around the stalls before, checking prices, consulting Mom for bargaining tips etc.  And after all that, I still think I paid too much.  So I started looking at a bag and the person came up and talked to me.  We eventually went into their little store which was quite close to where their cart was.  She showed me the leather, how nice it is etc. you can rub out scratches yada yada yada and it was really nice.  What impressed me the most was how the entire store smelled.  The entire store smelled like leather, kind of like a new baseball mitt.  I just wanted to take that entire smell home with me.  So anyway, we talked a little bit about the bigger bag, we talked about the smaller bag, we talked about the cheaper bag yada yada yada.  We talked a lot.  I ended up leaving.  The big bag started at 150 and the smaller bag started at 130 (although the listed price was 188).  And I got the big one down to 130 but didn't really talk about the smaller one.  I came back later and got the small one for 105. I really think that after this bargaining experience, next time I'm going to make the man cry.   I purposefully chose a place that had a girl working, I thought it would be easier to bargain and such.  But when I came back they stuck the man on me.  So I'm happy with my purchase, but I bargaining and buying are both addicting!  I really think if I did it again, I would come out with a cheaper bag.  I just wish Mom was here, she would have really taken it to him.  So the bag smells really nice, is real leather, should be relatively easy to clean.  And, I'm happy with the purchase, but I really think I could have gotten him down for lower in retrospect.  Anyway, it was a good experience.  I'll probably bargain more, but at a much smaller scale.  I'm still looking to buy a scarf and a belt, so we'll see how that goes.  I'll keep you posted.

So I said earlier things are getting crazy here, and it's true!  On Thursday our studio professor was not happy with the work that we had done.  He was generally displeased with everybody, but I think we are now on the same page.  Tuesday we got an email from him saying he wanted CAD drawings.   So on Thursday everybody had Cad drawings.  But, that's not what they wanted from us (confusing right?).  So anyway, after Thursday, I think we all have a better understanding of what he expects, and it's a lot.  I'm going to be working a lot this weekend on studio stuff, I have a midterm on Monday, and we're going to Madrid on Tuesday!  So things are getting exciting.  I've already planned a trip to Genoa on the weekend after Madrid, then it's midterms.  After that, I'm going to Dublin for the weekend, and then straight to Rotterdam for school.  I'll spend a week in the Netherlands and then it's already the second week in November and only 1 more month left in Europe.  So whew, this semester is flying by.  That's all for now.  Ciao ciao ciao ciao

Day of the Day: Giovedi - Thursday

Giovedi – Thursday

So the class is supposed to be ready to leave at 9 am after breakfast.  However, there’s always one straggler and our professor is too nice to leave them behind.  So we always end up leaving at 9:15 or 9:30 and everyone else just sits around the lobby waiting for people.  It’s quite aggravating.  So Thursday the highlights were seeing Mies Van der Rohe’s National Gallery and the Berlin Philharmonic Hall by Hans Scharoun.  We actually went inside each of those and the spaces were pretty impressive.  Mies was one of the original “less is more” types.  So his National Gallery does not have any columns on the interior and all his details look very simple.  Hans Scharoun is a bit more extravagant.  The interior spaces of the Berlin philharmonic hall were really dynamic.  There seemed to be a lot of movement and such inside. 

 

Mies Van der Rohe - There are 8 exterior columns that hold up the entire building.  There are two on each side and none of them in the corners.

 

Scharoun

Later on, one of Giovanni’s friends Thilo, who lives in Berlin, showed us around the city.  We ended up walking way more than what was necessary.  We actually walked off of our maps.  At one point we saw a sign that said Dresden with an arrow.  That's how you know we've walked too far.  And since we walked really far on one side of the Spree river, of course we had to walk until the next bridge, cross over, and walk all the way back on the other side.  What a waste.  Thursday was the day we saw the Bauhaus archives and all the embassies.  There is famous Dutch architect named Rem Koolhaas whom the guy who approves buildings in Berlin disliked.  I don’t really know what position this man was in, but he said Rem is not allowed to build a building in Berlin.  However, for the Dutch embassy, since it’s actually Holland, the Dutch commissioned Rem to build the embassy.  So that was kind of funny.  And, the Dutch don’t like it if you stand on their grass.  We got yelled at for walking on the grass.  One of the other strange things we saw, was a pool built into the river.  The river is too polluted to swim in, so instead of cleaning the river, the Germans have a pool in the river.  It’s kind of funny.

The light blue thing is the pool

 

This park was full of grass.  And that park bench in the right is about 8 feet tall.

Friday was the “touristy” part of Berlin.  We saw the Reichstag, which is the German parliament building.  Recently, Lord Norman Foster built a huge dome on top of the building that offers panoramic views to visitors.  We also saw the Brandenburg gate, which was hosting a concert.  There was a lot of people there for SPD (social democratic party) giving away balloons, bags, pins, and bottle openers.  The election was on Sunday and they were doing some last minute campaigning.  So I got a little bottle opener, a dumb pin, and a balloon that we sucked the helium out of.  That was fun.  The Brandenburg Gate actually is at the end of Pariser Platz and which starts the famous Unter den Linden boulevard.  The French and American embassies are in Pariser Platz as is Gehry’s silly bank he built.  The hotel Alden is also on Unter den Linden where Michael Jackson dangled a baby out of the window.  So that’s all kind of exciting.  We also saw the Hauptbahnhoff, which is the main train station, and the Jewish Memorial by Peter Eisenman.  We ended the day at Museum Island which has 4 or 5 prominent museums by Schinkel.  For lunch I ran away from the group and had a cheesy pretzel and an original Berliner bratwurst.  Both were pretty decent.  I sat on Unter den Linden (translates to under the lime trees) and watched people.  It was nice.  The Russian Embassy on Unter den Linden (was on the East side) was enormous.  I wasn’t crazy about it’s architectural features.  Although, I wasn’t really high on the American embassy either.  I thought Mexico’s and the Scandinavian countries were interesting.  In a strange move Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and maybe Denmark created all their embassies on the same plot of land.  It’s actually quite strange.

Jewish Memorial by Peter Eisenman

Saturday we went to the Olympic Stadium built in 1933.  What’s interesting about Berlin is that it is constantly dealing with the dilemma of how to deal with their history.  There is of course the Nazi’s and the East/West problem.  I feel really bad for the Germans.  I suppose its only been 60 years since the holocaust, but seemingly every German feels super guilty about everything that happened.  They are unable to be patriotic for fear of what it may lead to.  So the Olympic Stadium was built for Hitler and there was much debate as to what to do with it.  Some people wanted to rip it down and build a new one, others wanted to keep it, and others just wanted to modify it.  Eventually, they decided to add a cover to it for the Fifa World Cup that Berlin recently hosted.  I think it turned out pretty nice.  Although there are still some people who don’t like the Stadium’s history.  The rest of the day we went to Inter Bau projects.  Inter Bau was a design exposition from the 1950’s.  There were housing projects in the middle of Berlin by some of the most famous architects of the time:  Aalto, Gropius, Niemeyer, Corbusier etc.  These places feel like you are out in the suburbs even though you’re really in the middle of the city.  These apartment buildings were built in an old park so there are a bunch of trees that muffle the noise of traffic, its quite nice.  Berlin itself, seems like a bunch of different neighborhoods that were brought together later.  It’s still trying to negotiate an unifying identity between east and west. 

Sunday was pretty much without incident.  Easy Jet told me my carry on was too big so I had to check it.  That was kind of expensive.  So I’m thinking of buying a new carry on that’s the proper size.  Because if I have to check it each time (22 euros each time) I might as well just buy a proper carry on.  The people in Italy let me through, but the people in Germany were unforgiving.  They did not care if it was close or not, if it couldn’t fit all the way in that little crate thing, it was not going onto the plane. 

Word of the day: mi dispiace - I'm sorry

Mi dispiace questo e ritardo.
I'm sorry this is late.

So it's now Friday!  It's been about five days since I've been back from Berlin.  So Berlin was great.  The first day was the "wall" day.  Essentially, we walked for 6 hours in a zig-zag pattern on either side of the wall.  My teacher, Giovanni Damiani (yes it rhymes!) wanted to demonstrate a few things.  First, how irregular the wall actually was.  The wall is actually a series of walls.  It was most often two walls with an open space between.  In some places the open space was as wide as 1.5 km and in other spaces just a few meters.  Secondly, he wanted to show that even though the wall divided the city into East and West Berlin, the wall did not always run North and South.  The divider was a very jagged and irregular line.  So it was very difficult to know if you were in what was once East Berlin or West Berlin.  An easy way to tell, is that in the west the walk/don’t walk signs have a normal person walking or standing.  In the East, the man who walks/doesn’t walk has a nice hat.  Thirdly, Giovanni wanted us to know how bad he was at planning a walking trip.  That was a joke.  But seriously, we walked by everything at least twice because of the path that he chose to lead us on.  Now the things we saw were very interesting, but I don’t like walking for no reason.  I decided I am very anti-hiking in anyway.  I don’t like doing it in nature and I definitely don’t like doing it in a city.  He was also flustered because the S-bahn stop (the ground surface light rail system) near our hotel was closed.  So he had to figure out the proper way to go with the U-bahn (underground rail system).  He didn’t like that, but oh well.  You have to be flexible when traveling.  So we walked by a bunch of buildings by people that you’ve never heard of.  Some were good, others not so good.  My friends and I stopped in a Bavarian restaurant.  I got the special of the day for 6.50 and my friends got various forms of sausage and meatballs and stuff.  The sausage they got were so pale!  It looked unhealthy.  And they served it just floating in bowl of water.  It was hilarious.  So they got a pretzel and two sausages.  And I got something.  I didn’t really know what it was when I ordered it, but I thought specials of the day are the best way to go.  Usually its something that I would not have ordered, the cook seems to want to cook it (or get rid of old food, who knows?), and its usually on sale!  So the waiter (who didn’t speak great English, and was upset we didn’t know what we wanted to drink within the first 2 minutes of sitting down) called it goulash.  However, it was more like beef stroganoff.  It was a bed of noodles with chunks of beef and brown gravy on top.  It was pretty good.  We all drank beer.  It was delicious.  A brief aside:  right now I don’t think I’ll be going to Oktoberfest.  We originally wanted to go early in the semester, but hotels are scarce and pricey, and I’ve been to Munich before.  While I did really enjoy it, I’m just not sure it’s going to happen this year.  So anyway, after that they gave me cherry cheesecake stuff.  Hooray for specials of the day!  I had no idea I was getting desert; it was a pleasant surprise.  So after lunch we went to the Jewish Museum by Daniel Liebeskind.  I’ve never seen an exhibit about Jewish people mention the building and the architect’s name so much.  I’ve been to the Jewish Museum last time I was in Berlin.  I wasn’t really impressed this time either.  It seems that Leibeskind is an arrogant jerk and just like to toot his own horn.  Also, the things he does are all bullshit anyway.  He likes to make up silly little metaphors and such about his buildings.  Really he’s just being dumb.  After the Jewish Museum we were free to go (Giovanni didn’t really want to go into the museum either so he left us there once he bought our tickets).  I don’t remember what I did after.  I think we walked around the city hoping to find the Puma or Adidas flagship store because both are based in Berlin.  We made plans to meet up at the hotel for dinner around 8.  We spoke to the nice concierge man and we all (teacher included) headed down to a place called 100 bottles. (well the translation).  I think its 100 flaschen in German.  The concierge said it was a place for decent German food.  I went there and got the mixed plate (after the wild success of the mixed plates in the greek restaurant.)  Unfortunately, the mixed plate there wasn’t nearly as good as the Greeks.  They had some sausage, bacon, some sort of schnitzel.  Essentially I got a lot of fried meat and French fries.  Pretty much the most unhealthy meal you could think of and then beer to wash it down.  Although I got a hefeweizen.  So that’s fruity.  So that has potential to be not so bad for you if theres a lot of fruit in it.  I didn’t really like it though.  Too fruity and sweet. 

That was all on Wednesday 

This is the "voided void" in the Jewish Museum.  Yeah, that's dumb.

This is Aldo Rossi's block.  He actually designed every building and wanted it to look like it was a bunch of disjointed individual buildings when it's really not.

 

Reflection of Potsdamerplatz.

 

Apparently Lego's have a large presence in Berlin.  Yes, that's a 15 feet tall Lego Giraffe.

City of the day: Berlin = Berlino

Hey guys,

So Im writing this from Berlin where the keyboards are all messed up.  All of the punctuation is in the wrong place and the y and z buttons are transposed.  However, I dont really feel like fixing my tzpos so youll have to deal with it.  Tonight is Thursdaz night, my third day in Berlin.  Before I start, let me just say italians are all very confused when you talk about Berlin.  They very rarely make the connection that Berlin is the american way to say Berlino.

Anyway i arrived in Berlin Tuesdaz afternoon on EasyJet.  Technically my carryon was too large, it didnt fit in the little size measurer thingy at the check in, but I was actually dressed up nicely with a sportcoat and the nice lady behind the desk didnt make me check the luggage (and charge me monez) and instead let me take it on anyway.  So we landed safely enough, found the Ubahn and found the right straße and checked into the hotel.  By know its about 9pm and were all really hungry.  (I flew in with 4 other students from mz program). So the concierge recommended a greek place down the street.  He said that we were all strong looking young lads, and that they have hearty portions and serve good German beer.  So anyways, we made our way to Samos.  I had the roast lamb (served with potatoes, onions, and tomatoes, all mixed intogether kind of like a stew, Dad would have hated it).  It was great.  My classmates have various assortments of gyro combination platters.  And their dishes were literally stack so meat upon stacks of meat with potatoes on the side.  Ive never seen so much food for 10 euros. Especiallz meat!  Especially lamb!  So the food was terrific.  The tzatiki sauce was out of this world.  And the beer was good.  They gave us ouzo as a digestif after dinner.  It was fabulous. 

After we walked down the street and found a weird bar.  It was called Klo, which means toilet.  They had all these weird dolls, and coffins and stuff everywhere.  The really big beers were served in the hospital jar things that people pee in.  It was all very bizarre. The buttons on the table raised and lowered the table which was on hydraulics, some o fthe buttons tilted chairs and stuff.  It was creepy.  I didnt stay for a drink.  Two of my friends did though and thats how i know about all the weird stuff.  We actually met two germans in the street.  They had beer (no open container laws in europe) and we started to talk about stuff.  They gave us recommendations on bars and waht not.  It was nice to meet germans.  They were very friendly.

The architecture tours that weve been on have been really great.  It would be much easier to explain everything once I upload my pictures to shutterfly.  So ill just wait until i do that.  Thats all for now.  Ciao.

Butchering of a global brand name of the day: hoha-hola = coca cola

So in Florence, the residents have a bit of an accent.  They have trouble, or maybe they just don't care to, say their c's.  So in Florence, Coca-Cola becomes Hoha-Hola.  So even though Italy is a small country (by size) compared to the US, they still have tons of regional accents.  And, each region has their own accent and their own slang as well.  I dont' know if Giuditta was just trying to make me feel better, but she was saying that she doesn't always understand what others are saying as well.  While in Genoa, we met this guy from southern Italy.  He spoke with a southern (Italian) accent, and had his own slang as well, which MNG couldn't always understand (or at least that's what she told me).  MNG said that Genovesians have a certain cadence to the way they talk.  When they speak Italian they slow down and speed up in a certain way.  I of course did not pick up on it until she told me, but it reminded me of T. Shreve, which is always a fun bit of memories.

Day of the Day: Sabato - Saturday

So Saturday Giudi had to run into work for a bit.  She went in around 9:30 and finished up by 1ish.  I met up with her at the duomo and then we met to lunch.  We were actually meeting a bunch of her friends at the cafe.  Since Giudi knows seemingly everybody in Genoa, a bunch of people walking by eventually sat with us.  So by the end of lunch I met Fabio, Carlotta, Simona, Mariana, Deborah, and Robbie.  They were all very nice, but it was hard to understand their italian unless they were talking to me directly.  When they were talking amongst themselves they were using slang and talking so quickly that I couldn't always follow what they were saying.  Anyway, I ended up having a faghinata which is a tortilla thingy filled with pesto and cheese and baked.  When I cut into the rolled up faghinata it slowly began to ooze cheese and pesto.  It was sooooooo good.  And of course we all had espressos after the meal.  Actually, while Giudi and I were waiting for her friends to arrive we had espressos.  So I had coffee before and after lunch, but it was all delicious.  So after that Giudi and I retreated to her apartment.  Giudi took a nap and I read part of Hadrian's Dreams for studio.  Maybe about 4ish we went to see the lanterna (lighthouse), the symbol of Genoa.  While we were there we came across an alpine concert.  The alpine are mountain folk who sing and are generally nice human beings.  Recently Genova has been enlisting the Alpine to walk around the city with policemen to help clean up the streets.

The lanterna is quite nice.  They have a long promenade leading up to it where you can see the city and the water.  They've got a bunch of signs and stuff talking about the history of Genoa and the things that are visible from each point.

After the lanterna we met up with Giudi's friends.  Deborah drove and went to Nervi which is about 15 minutes away by car.  Nervi is directly on the coast.   They've got a promenade and park all along the coast; it was really pretty.  So we walked from our parking spot around 6 km to a place to eat.  I had something weird with anchovies.  It was a little too salty for my liking, but pretty good. We met up with Frank and Sandro at the restaurant.  After dinner we walked back up the promenade to a bar where Giudi's friend was DJing.  Although I dont remember the DJ's name.  So we were there and of course saw other people that Giuditta knew.  I only remember Francesco, who is from southern italy.  He was very proud of the mafia in Bari.  Francesco was hosting an erasmus student (european exchange student program) and brought her out.  She was from estonia but I cant remember her name.  So he told me about soccer and how much  better Sampdoria is than Genova (rivals) and started singing the Sampdoria fight song.  It was pretty funny.

Sunday I woke up around 9ish.  Had a coffee in the apartment with Giudi.  Then we decided to get breakfast.  So we went to a focacceria and had another coffee with the focaccia.  Then, after the focaccia, Giudi had another coffee.  So to those of you counting thats 3 espressos in 2 hours.  So then we walked around a bit.  Giudi took me to her friend's place who runs a pasticceria.  So instead of waiting for the nice lady behind the counter to wait on us, she ran into the back and got one of her friends to come out and help us.  She of course got me a discount on the pasta.  It was troffie, which is the traditionaly wormy like noodle of Genova.  I had already bought a jar of pesto earlier that weekend.  So after we walked for a bit, we took the finiculare up to San Nicolas (near the villa).  From there we walked downhill a little bit to i tre Merli (the three crows).  They are a traditional little restaurant that has started to gain some success.  We went to the original one.  But they also have one near Via Garibaldi in Genoa, and also at Porto Antico in Genoa, and then one in New York City somewhere.  So I had carpaccio which was raw swordfish with lemon juice as an appetizer.  I had pasta with mushrooms, and then roast rabbit.  The rabbit was good, but kind of hard to eat.  There were so many little bones all the time.  So then after lunch, we had another espresso.  I had so much coffee, but it was so good!  So after lunch we walked downhill back to the apartment.  My train left at 5 so we had a little bit of free time to talk and lounge about in the apartment.

Oh, I almost forgot.  So while Giudi was at work Saturday morning I walked around the medieval part of Genova and found a local enoteca.  I talked to the man working (strictly in italian) that i wanted to get a bottle of wine for a friend as a gift.  He helped me choose a good one and even wrapped it for me.  And, he gave me a one euro discount for some reason.  So anyway, when I eventually gave the bottle to Giuditta as a small token of thanks she started beating me up.  She started hitting me and said I'm not supposed to give her anything blah blah blah.  It was funny.  I got her a Francello something or other nero d'avola from sicily.  So that was my weekend.  It was really fun.  I'm glad I went.  I got all my work done that was due on monday on the 3.5 hour train ride (each way) and I've got Tuesday and Wednesday to work on my studio stuff.  So no worries.