It's been AGES!

HEY! SORRY its been so long! I've been keeping fairly busy, but not doing anything really extraordinary. I've started my embroidery project, which is time consuming but so fun. Also I've been working in the library, which has given me a lot of nice time to read and reflect.

There hasn't been a whole lot of sightseeing, unfortunately. It's been pretty rainy and cold for a while. That's Roman winter I guess. I did see, however, Sopra Minerva, which may be my favorite church yet. It's huge and colorful and fancy and kind of over the top. There's something about it, though, maybe it's hugeness, that gives it a really nice atmosphere. No matter how many people there are and how many tourists are taking pictures, It's always very calm and peaceful. I've been going there in the mornings to draw and sew and it's been really nice.









Last Friday we took our Art History field trip to Ostia Antica, which was pretty interesting. It was really rushed, though, because there was so much to see in so little time and the weather was so bad! I'd like to go back for a full day trip.

Yesterday morning I took a walk to a church nearby, only a few blocks from Sopra Minerva and the Pantheon, to see some more caravaggios. He is so incredible! I don't even understand why.



Also, yesterday was Halloween. It was really sad, though, because there were no little kids in ghostie costumes coming for candy. There were just a lot of American students out in witch hats.

I have my individual crit today (like right now, actually) and hopefully I'll know soon where I'm going with this embroidery. but hey! Rob's late!!!!!!!!!!!

Pulling Teeth

SO! yesterday I got my wisdom tooth out. It was really fairly painless and easy. No intense medication, no pain afterwards, and I was on my feet and not drooling all day. My dentist was German and nice and spoke English, so that was easy too. He even let me keep the tooth.



Afterwards we had our first group crits. They were really short and rushed, but I think it put me in a good direction.

Last night I went on a nice walk with Anne and saw the colosseum. I hadn't seen it yet, even though it's only a five minute walk.

ALSO!! today I beat my rubiks cube record. 1 minute 14 seconds!

Quello che voi siete noi eravamo, Quello che noi siamo voi sarete.

"what you are now we used to be, what we are now you will be"



I went to the bones crypt today, while everyone was in class. It was bizarre and beautiful. There was a woman explaining this quote to her two very young sons, and pointing out two tiny little skeletons "that used to be two little boys, just like you!"
A+ parenting. They wouldnt let me take pictures in there, so I just found this one. I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of odor - but I didn't have a smelly tour guide.

After that I stayed in studio for some of the day, then went on a nice long walk with Anne. We got a lot of errands done.

Class tonight was really great. The teacher has us doing a lot of really good talking and listening exercises. Then I walked home with a priest. He was very nice and interesting but I don't know his name.

This whole wisdom teeth business is getting very stressful.

Moving slowly

So things are definitely slowing down, now that we're settled in and classes have started. I'm in a new Italian class (thank goodness) and it's really good. It's me and only two other people, and it's primarily talking.

On friday morning I had a dentist appointment - on wednesday the right side of my face swelled (swole?) up because of my wisdom tooth so I went to get it checked out. It's gonna be taken out on Wednesday morning. I'm thrilled. The dentist was nice, though, and he speaks english, but he doesn't have a gold chain and sing the Miss America song.
Right after that I went to meet up with the rest of the class at an Etruscan museum. I missed most of the tour, but I stayed for a little afterwards and Diego filled me in on everything. Thanks Diego!

For the rest of Friday and most of Saturday I stayed in the studio. Saturday evening Marian and Diego and I went to Santa Maria del Popolo, to see the Caravaggios and Berninis, but when we got there a wedding was going on. It was really beautiful, but strange because there were a lot of tourists walking around the church during the ceremony.








This morning Marian and I woke up and went to a service at Santa Cecilia. It was really nice. I'd like to go back sometime when there isn't mass to see this:

.

And tonight a whole group of us went to hear some Gregorian Chanting. That was also really incredible; a nice end to a slow weekend.

Northern Tour

We just got back from our Northern tour Saturday night. It was good, but I'm so happy to be back for good now.
We started in Ravenna, which was amazing. The town itself wasn't much, but that's not what we were there to see. Our first stop was Basilica di Sant' Apollinare in Classe - one of my favorites from art history class. The apse mosaic was so incredible, and the colors have clearly not faded a bit since it was made.


We stopped at a little baptism place -


The manager of our hotel in Ravenna.

From there we went to the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, which was tiny and dark and beautiful, but I couldn't get any clear photos from inside. I wrote and article about the good shepherd mosaic freshman year. Throwback! I didn't realize that the Basilica of San Vitale was so close, but they're about 20 feet away from each other. San Vitale was unbelievable - infinitely more colorful and detailed and extravagant than Sant' Apollinare in Classe. There were rainbows and peacocks and dolphins and Emperor Justinian, all in the apse mosaic, and the rest of the building was made of a beautiful marble with alabaster windows.









We had a quick stop in Bologna to see the Morandi museum, but I wasn't crazy about it. I liked Bologna a lot though and I got a lot of grapes. There was a funny church that looked like half of it had been cut off, or else they just forgot to finish building it at a certain point.



After Bologna we went to Verona and saw the bronze doors at the Basilica of San Zeno. Also absolutely beautiful. San Zeno has a whole was pretty great - it had the messy look of a building that had taken centuries to build, so that the style in architecture and decoration had changed pretty drastically from the time it was started to when it was finished. This was another that I strongly remember studying in art history freshman year, because I was always very struck by the fact that it was in a parking lot.
Also in Verona we went to a botanical garden where I got eaten alive by bugs, and then to Castelvecchio. The museum at Castelvecchio was great. There was a bizzare collection of religious artifacts from pretty much any time period. I love medeival painting so much. The building inside Castelvecchio was designed by Carlo Scarpa. He's great.
















AAaaannd then we went to Venice. There were parts of Venice that I liked but mostly I felt suffocated. There were a lot of people and I really don't like the feeling of being physically trapped on a place. Our hostel closed at midnight and if anything were to happen and I couldn't make the last boat across the canal, I would have been literally stranded without a place to sleep. This was especially frustrating because all the places to eat were just across the grande canal, which was a half hour boat ride but would have taken ten minutes to walk. SO INEFFICIENT VENICE! come on!
Oh well.
We went to the Venice Biennale, which was in some ways really good and some ways really frustrating, as I feel much contemporary art is. I only got to see about half of it and by the end of the day was totally fried.
The next day, though, we went to the Accademia which was i think my favorite museum so far. It was a total stimulation overload and we only got to be there for about an hour and a half. I found my favorite painting in the world.



This is our teacher! ^




We found our childhood




HyungKoo Lee, Korean pavilion at the Biennale. Among my favorites, but also Sophie Calle in the France Pavilion. Look it up!




This is my new favorite painting ever. Venetians have great color. This is a really crummy image. sorry.

But now we're back - thank goodness. It's so nice to finally be able to eat whatever I want, whenever I want. The first thing we all did on Saturday night was run to the market before it closed and buy nothing but vegetables for dinner. I don't think anybody ate anything but bread for the entire six days. So gross.
Italian classes started today. My class is really bad. I've got my first meeting with Rob about makin' art the day after tomorrow. I'm pretty excited.