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.