LAST DAY

This will be my last post in Italy, although when I return to the states I will finish the blogs for our last ten day trip for the sake of remembering.... Today is my last day in this beautiful country, and I am NOT ready to leave yet. I started backing this morning but it was too depressing to finish quite yet.... Yesterday I had one of the best days I have had since I have been here--- we went to Cinque Terre and hiked all five "earths" on the harder trails... It took us all afternoon, the weather was perfect, we met some great people, and we saw the most gorgeous views. Today we have a retirement party for our chef, Angela, and it is going to be a Toga Party/Cook out,, so that should be very enjoyable! Tomorrow we leave around noon, so for the next 24 hours I am going to do nothing but enjoy what I have left of my Italian experience! Ciao!

~Heather

Spring Break-- London, England

Early Friday morning the 20th of March we arrived in the Euston Train Station in London before 7 o’clock in the morning. We had a nice breakfast at the station, and then walked to our hostel. The weather was perfect and crisp, so we had a very nice brisk morning hike with our backpacks. After we set our stuff down we went down to “West End” which is really not a cohesive area like Broadway, instead the musicals are spread out EVERYWHERE! So we were quickly redirected to the Wicked theatre where we stood in line for fantastic student tickets. Then we walked to Buckingham palace and had lunch on lawn chairs in St. James Park, which was very relaxing. We went back to the hostel to move in, and this is when we had our first truly terrible experience with hostels. We had an 8 person mixed dorm because the Edens and Derrick were joining us in London, and as soon as we walked in we were overcome with a terrible stench which was coming from the 3 guys that apparently lived in these army style bunks. Well, needless to say, we got out of this situation very rapidly and went to the hotel right beside us for a much better stay. In the afternoon we went to the houses of parliament and saw Big Ben! Well actually we didn’t see Big Ben, we only saw the tower that houses Big Ben, because it is the bell inside. As soon as we stepped out of the Metro station we were right on top of it, and at first we didn’t think it was Big Ben until we noticed the millions of tourists taking pictures in front of it! Then we walked over to Westminster Abbey, but we shall save the inside for a later date. We grabbed some dinner and then went to our 7:30 showing of WICKED!!!!!!!!!!! Our seats were front and center, just perfect for seeing the whole stage. I was very impressed by the show, considering I have had all the songs memorized for quite a while, it was awesome to be able to see how they combine all these songs into a full fledged musical! Although Galinda wasn’t my favorite (and never is, her voice is kind of obnoxious) Elphiba was phenomenal and she definitely did the part justice. This was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip, being obsessed with musicals like I am.

On Saturday we headed back to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards (since they only do it every other day during the “off-season”) and we waited around for hours in a huge crowd to see some guys march around. The best part was the end, when the band and guards came back out the central gate. Right before they started marching out, one of the horses guarding the gates decided that he couldn’t hold it in anymore and left a nice little present right in front of the gate. We thought for sure that the guards would just weave around it,, but no! Apparently they are not allowed to break formation for anything, so they had to walk right through it! Next we went to the evensong service at Westminster Abbey, because you can get into the church for free if you go during a service. This was very worth it because we got to sit right beside the choir, which was gorgeous. Next we went across the river to see the Tower Bridge from which you have a great view of London. The skyline is flooded with famous architectural works by Richard Rodgers and Norman Foster, which are interestingly mixed with more historic buildings, making the skyline very eclectic. We crossed the bridge and walked along side of the river where we saw a slightly overweight actor in a unitard juggle on a unicycle—it was interesting to say the least. Then we headed towards Millenium Bridge and the Tate Modern just in time to watch the sunset over the river. We had a little dinner at a nice restaurant on the river, and then went inside the Tate Modern until closing. My favorite parts were the Monet and Pollock, but it was all nice, except for the exhibit where the man used animal sacrifice in his art work- that was highly disturbing. On our way home we stopped at the London Eye to get some good pictures, and then took the metro back.

Sunday we took a day trip bus tour to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Oxford. Mainly I wanted to do this trip for Stonehenge, but the others were definitely an added bonus. For those of you who don’t know, Windsor Castle is the favored castle of the queen right outside of London. When she is there they fly a special flag over the castle, so when we went we knew she was in! We took a tour inside and outside of the castle. One of my favorite parts was the queens dollhouse,, which is basically a very intricate doll house for the queen. The silverware in the dining room was made out of real silver! It was ridiculous! Another cool thing we saw inside was the armor of King Henry the eighth, which looks normal from the front, but as you look at it sideways on you can tell how hefty he really was! Oh okay one more interesting fact--- there is a large hall that has the family crests of those that have been knighted on the ceiling, however some of them are painted over grey. This is because when a knight falls from favor his shield is left up there in memory of his dishonor but they paint over it to show he is no longer considered a knight. Kind of brutal, but I guess they didn’t get kicked out of knighthood for nothing. Then we hopped on the bus, and our next stop was Stonehenge in the Salisbury Plains. With the words of Eddie Izzard ringing in my head we walked around Stonehenge—which was a lot more condensed than I thought it was. It is surrounded by large plains filled with sheep, and besides that there is very little development around. The area is very mystical, especially since the stones seem so alien to their surroundings. Next we headed toward Oxford College, where we took a quick foot tour and got to see some scenes from Harry Potter! On the drive there we drove through the Forbidden Forest—which unfortunately is not quite as impressive in the sunshine and without the addition of computer animation. At Oxford we saw the lighting bolt in the pavement which inspired HP’s forehead scar, and then saw the infirmary/dorm spaces which will appear in the next HP movie, so I am just ahead of the game! We got to go into some of the “colleges” there at Oxford, and had enough time to purchase a souvenir t-shirt, and then we headed back to London for the night. That night we went to the IMAX and saw Watchmen on the big screen—it was nice to be able to see a movie in a theatre that was in English! Interesting movie and I liked it although those who were more familiar with the comics were not quite as impressed. We headed in late for the night and then woke up only after a few hours to catch a taxi to the airport and head back to Genova! This is when I concluded that I abhor Ryanair, because their system is very inefficient. I had to check my bag because it weighed over the limit of carry ons, but in order to pay for it you have to go to a separate line which also happens to be the line for ticket sales! SO I am standing in this huge long line for an hour when I only need to pay for my luggage, and then I have to go check it in somewhere else and then go drop it off at a different destination. I didn’t get to security until boarding on my flight was supposedly closed, but that got me to the top of the line and then I outright ran through the airport to make it to the gate, just to find that Ryanair and only just started boarding our flight. I was so sure that I was going to miss the flight I had sent the rest of the group a message saying I’ll see you in Genova, go ahead, but thankfully, I made it. Whew! We made it back safely, and a month later I finished the blog!

~Heather

Video of the Evensong service in Westminster Abbey

Brief Interjection...

So I know that I am behind with spring break and my other 10 day trip, but I must briefly mention this past weekend.... We went to Sardegna (Sardinia in english) for Katy's birthday! We left Genova friday afternoon and arrived in Cagliari right around sunset, and then started our trek towards Villasimius- the quaint little town were we stayed in a RESORT, right off of the BEACH!! So before we left the weather forecast was supposed to be 60 and raining for the entire 3 days we were there, which was kind of depressing. On Saturday morning it was looking like it would follow the rainy forecast, but in the afternoon the sun came out,, and it stayed out for the rest of the trip. The weather was absolutely phenominal, and we had a fantastic time just enjoying the sun and pretending that the water wasn't freezing. I apologize for the non-chronological order of the blogs, but I just wanted to inform about our last trip before we come back to the states!

~Heather

Spring Break-- Edinburgh, Scotland

On Tuesday morning we took a train ride to Edinburgh, which was potentially the most beautiful part of the entire trip. The weather was perfect, the sky was bright blue, and the whole time we were riding through beautiful countryside full of heather, sheep, and the occasional golf course! I took about 40 million pictures out of the window, and I do believe that this was the only train ride that I have ever not slept on this entire semester. When we arrived in Edinburgh we loaded into our cute little room on the top floor of a hostel and then headed to the main attraction, the Edinburgh Castle. Inside we got to see a few exhibits and read about the history of Scotland, but by far the coolest thing was to see the Scottish Crown jewels and the Stone of Destiny. Okay the Stone of Destiny was cool just because of the title—for some reason every king of Scotland had to stand on that stone when they were crowned. Oh by the way,, it was St. Patrick’s day, so we went to a Scottish pub which was decked out in green and Guinness for lunch. After lunch we continued walking down the Royal Mile—which leads from the Edinburgh Castle down to the new Parliament building. Along this road there is a lot of shopping, so we took our time walking down the mile, and we stopped and had some tea and biscuits. When we finally arrived at the Scottish Parliament building we were quite shocked, it is a very modern building by Miralles which is quite unique. The whole building is inspired by the land, so it grows out of the land and crags from one side and becomes the conglomeration of leaf like spaces with concrete and sticks, but it is very neat. One of my favorite parts is the “meditation” spaces which Miralles created for the members of parliament to go and ponder their decisions. They jut outside of the façade and give great views onto the city while providing a small, comfortable, functional space for the parliament members. It makes for an interesting façade outside, but once you know the story they are pretty cool. That was about all we saw that day!

The next day we devoted almost the entire day to climbing the crags in Holyrood Park. This place is very interesting because it is a very large mountainous park in the center of the city, undeveloped! We found that many people come up here on nice days with their dogs and go hiking around, and it was definitely the perfect day for it (I know I am beginning to sound like a broken record with my perfect weather comments, but I really can’t overemphasize how awesome it was). So all day we climbed around the park and took almost all of the trails as well as climbed through some fields of heather and other very spiky shrubberies. After climbing to the uppermost point, Arthur’s Seat, we headed back around and found a good picnic space with a fantastic view of the city. After lunch we walked along the upper edge of the crag (basically a rocky cliff) first and then walked underneath it and witnessed some serious rock climbers. We stopped for coffee/hot chocolate on the way back, did some more shopping and then went to a Chinese buffet for dinner! I know, how Scottish of us. What was neat was while we were eating the guy beside us started talking to us because he could tell we were American. Turns out he is from the states but is currently in grad school studying at Oxford, so we ended up talking for quite a bit.

Our last day in Edinburgh we went to the National Museum of Scotland which was supposed to have very neat interior architecture, but what Lura and I found most amusing was the kid’s discovery center where we got to do cool things like control a robot and save the world from the energy crisis. Next we stopped by the Elephant House, which is the café where J.K. Rowling conceived the ideas for Harry Potter! I really don’t know how she came up with witches, wizards and dragons from this coffee shop which was just covered in elephants, she must be very imaginative. Next we had another picnic in Princes garden which overlooks the train tracks,,, well they are usually well covered but they were redoing the gardens so it wasn’t the best view. Most people who work in the area come down here for lunch on nice days and sit on the millions of benches, as we found out. Next we worked our way towards the Royal Botanic Gardens where we went inside the greenhouses, which was very cool. They had a greenhouse for every climate basically, so we spent a while just wandering through all the different tropical plants--- we even saw some carnivorous ones, but they were in glass boxes so they wouldn’t eat us… After this we went to Calton hill for sunset, and then had dinner at an “Italian” restaurant but we made sure not to order pasta or pizza. The people that ran it were Italian so they were impressed by our ability to order in Italian, it made us feel good about ourselves! That night we took an overnight train to London, which was very comfortable except the fact that it was 1 billion degrees inside and they didn’t serve you free water. But, nevertheless, we got sleep and said goodbye to Edinburgh, my favorite city of Scotland.

Spring Break -- Inverness, Scotland

Very early Monday morning we arrived in Inverness, home of Loch Ness! We put our stuff down in the hostel and got on a bus/boat tour in search of that infamous monster. We had a really neat tour guide with the perfect Scottish accent which unfortunately I can’t imitate no matter how hard I try. Although one thing I did catch on to quite quickly--- the Scots say loCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHH and overemphasize the ending,, it actually kind of sounds like they are coughing,, our tour guide did erupt into a coughing fit right after saying that word…. Anyway, this was the only day where we really had rain, but it was more like a drizzle, so Loch Ness was very foggy and eerie, which I found very suiting. So some things you may not know—Loch Ness contains more water than can be found in all of Scotland, England, and Wales combined! It can get down to around 480 meters deep, which we actually got to see on the little radar readers on our boat tour. Also, they place radar readers on all the boat tours as part of their research for good ole’ Nessie, in hopes that they may find another unexplainable irregularity. We ended our tour in Urquhart Castle, which sounds nothing like the way it looks. That afternoon we walked around the town of Inverness (inver and aber mean at the mouth of,,, so Inverness literally means at the mouth of the river Ness) and saw St. Andrews Cathedral without spires, Inverness castle with a very entertaining population of bunnies surrounding it, and the Victorian market where we met a very nice Scottish/Thai/American lady who said heather was a rather ugly plant. However, she did redeem herself by saying one of the best smells was the waft of heather coming of the hills in the summer. This night we took it kind of easy and rested up from our previous night of travel and to prepare for our awesome trip ahead.

Unfortunately we did not see any signs of Nessie, but that doesn’t mean we won’t add to the collection of photoshopped monsters into the loch! Anyway, that was the end of our stay in Inverness.

I apologize for the terribly butchered Scottish accent in the following video clip, but it had to be done. Thank you Lura for your ability to correctly pronounce the castle.

Spring Break-- Glasgow, Scotland

On Saturday the 14th Lura and I flew from Dublin, Ireland to Glasgow, Scotland, with a bunch of Irish Rugby fans going to the Ireland, Scotland game that next day. We got there safely and went to our hostel which overlooked Kelvingrove park, and then went around for some more exploring that afternoon. We hit the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and saw famous paintings by Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne, and Renoir,,, and of course I absolutely adore impressionism so this whole place was fantastic for me. After this we went walked down to the main shopping area and then went to dinner at the Islau Inn, which is this Scottish pub we found randomly. Turns out this was the best place we could have gone, because they had live music playing with a fiddle, some drums, and a bagpipe! We stayed there for a while just soaking it all in, and then called it a day. The next day we had a traditional Scottish breakfast with “tattie” scones,, which is how they call potatoes. Next we did some more shopping and went to Princes Square for a delicious Chicken Caesar Salad for lunch! I miss those so much so I had a lot on this trip. Then we went to the Glasgow cathedral and to the Necropolis behind it,, which is basically an entire graveyard city on a hill which overlooks all of Glasgow. Next we went down to the Clyde river and walked up and down this,,, and we saw some cool foot bridges, Clyde’s Arc, the Armadillo building part of the SECC, and the tall ship among other things. Then we circled back to the train station area and roughly calculated that we had just walked about 8 miles! Needless to say I believe we covered everything significant in Glasgow! That night we went to the Bier hall for pizza, and this was neat because we found a Heather Ale which is made in Scotland using heather, so of course we had to try it! After this we took a night train which we thought would put us in Inverness the next morning no problems, but it turns out we had a 6 hour layover in Aberdeen,,, so when we got there we had to get a hotel nearby—nicest place we stayed in the whole time! However on the train ride to Aberdeen we had a rather interesting trip. First of all we had some Scottish friends sitting across from us who were returning from the crazy rugby match that day. They immediately recognized that we weren’t from Scotland, but they guessed that we were from Italy! I looked around to make sure we weren’t wearing anything that said Italy on it,,, and we weren’t, so I asked how he knew that we came from Italy, and he said it was because of my glasses. As they described Scotland they said it was miserable because of the HORIZONTAL rain that never ends, but for some reason we were blessed with fantastic sunny weather this whole trip, so apparently we got the wrong impression of Scotland! By the way--- Scots don’t know how to play beach volleyball,, it doesn’t exist unless you play in a glass dome in parkas. Just food for thought.

And so here ends our stay in Glasgow, however, there is much more to come of Scotland…

So I know I haven't done this in a while...

First of all, I would like to apologize for my lack of blogging for the last couple of weeks, I have gotten wrapped up in school and Italy life and have thus been a slacker on my blog. However, I will now attempt to update you on my last last trip, Spring Break, I will try to keep it generally short and sweet, since I have an entire other 10 day trip to update y’all on!

This past spring break March 12th through 23rd, I travelled with Lura to Ireland, Scotland, and England. We were the first ones to leave a day early immediately after reviews for Bergamo. Our flight the next morning was out of Milan Orio al Serio (where Ryanair flies out of) so we went the night before and stayed in Bergamo to make everything easier the next morning. Our first experience with Ryanair gave us the correct impression of the hassles you have to deal with when flying with them,,, because the whole morning we were standing in ridiculous lines and wondering if we were going to make our flight or not. Turns out we did, so we got on a plane full of Italians flying to Dublin for St. Patrick’s day,, and I’ll tell you what- Italians are the loudest people to travel on a plane with! Once we arrived in Dublin we took a bus to our hostel in the center of Dublin and met up with another architecture friend who is currently studying abroad in Barcelona,,, Erika. We went to our first Irish pub for lunch, and I was so fascinated by the fact that they put stuffing on their sandwiches! What a fantastic idea! And—we had real ketchup (we are used to Mato Mato here in Italy which tastes more like a combination of ketchup and cocktail sauce) which tasted so sweet, and had water for free! After lunch we basically wandered around Dublin and just stumbled upon things that we wanted to see,,, first we walked along the Liffy River to see a few cool bridges and new buildings before we headed to Trinity College and Dublin Castle for a quick tour. After this we went to Temple bar area for dinner and dessert, and even though it was 5 nights before St. Patrick’s day, the place was already packed with young people from all over the world ready to party.

And that my friends, is Ireland for you,,, we were only there a day, but at least I can say I have been to Ireland!

Survival of the Fittest

I have survived potentially the hardest week here at Genova! Since I was in San Diego for a week, our review of our vertical tower design got postponed until this past Thursday, which also coincided with our research presentation, so needless to say I have been quite busy! However, I am now done and have slept, so I am at least coherent enough to write this blog.... So now I will tell you a little bit about our vertical tower design...

The city of Genova is built from the port upwards onto the mountains (or just really big hills) up behind it. Most old villas are around 6 stories high so it is a fairly vertical city, which then stacks on top of itself as you move upwards. The result has actually a very horizontal effect, with all the stacking the city reads as a series of terraces layering on top of each other. So our approach for the tower design was to continue this terracing idea into our outlook tower. We also incorporated the corkscrewing views around our site into our spiral design, and wanted the experience of climbing up the tower to be integral to the tower itself. You can see our result in the pictures, which is a tower made up of stairs which rotate off a central core to form a tower. Thus using horizontal features we were able to create a vertical tower that is more about horizontality, and thus meshes well with the Genovese tradition. Well so we think, you are allowed your own opinions!

The other project that we did was research, the topic of which we picked at the beginning of the semester. Tara and I researched the sculptural qualities of concrete utilizing two main buildings in our research, Le Corbusier's Notre Dame du Haut chapel at Ronchamp and Pier Luigi Nervi's Palazzetto Dello Sport in Rome. These buildings could not be more different, in fact basically the only thing that connects them is the fact that they use concrete and they were built around the same time. However, our job was to compare and contrast how these buildings were sculptural although in highly different ways. It was rather interesting to study and compare these buildings, because both were approached differently in design--- Nervi took an engineering approach because he believed that a good structural solution would result in a natural aesthetic and Le Corbusier took an artistic approach and designed a chapel which is more of a sculpture on the scale of a building than an actual building. Anyway, this is all interesting for those of you who don't believe me.

After that on Friday I had an initial project study due for Golda, in which we were given three spaces throughout Genova in close proximity to study. Throughout the semester we will visit these spaces and determine what it is that makes them tick and basically whatever we want to discover,, and then we will have fun putting these observations into maps, which will hopefully visually describe the feeling and atmosphere of the spaces. It should be fun, however right now my spaces look rather like a James Bond film so it should be very entertaining....

My blog from my 10 day trip is coming, I promise! I will split it up by day like I did before, but hopefully I will have those up by today or tomorrow. I finally get to catch up on all that stuff now that studio has died down!

~Heather

Home again!

I have returned safely to the villa after our amazing spring break trip touring Dublin, Glasgow, Inverness, Edinburgh, and London. Currently I have our vertical tower design project and research due at the end of this week, so I have quickly refocused myself to do nothing but work on architecture. However, this weekend I will be able to update you all with blogs and pictures about what all I did over spring break! Ciao!

~Heather

So it's Tuesday/Wednesday.

Today was very unlively here in the villa, considering all day we were all consumed with studio work in preparation for reviews tomorrow. My partner and I don't have a deadline tomorrow, but we worked to finish our boards anyway, since our extention is over spring break. So basically I have been sitting in the same position all day sketching and doing various things with el computor,, and am getting rather tired of it. We are almost done, so a little bit further and I should be home free and ready to leave for Ireland, Scotland, and England! I am getting more and more excited as it approaches,,, no obligations besides getting there and having a great time!

The only rather exciting event of the day was hearing from my family as they arrived in Parma today. They had a great time in Cinque Terra and really enjoyed their amazing view from their apartment in Manarola. Yesterday they travelled to Pisa and hit all of the major attractions- climbed the leaning tower without it falling, went in the cathedral, and heard chanting in the baptistry. Today they travelled to Parma and had some official Parmasean cheese, which was supposedly delicious. They are surviving on very little Italian, and through the use of a dictionary, a PDA, and very helpful waiters they manage to feed themselves fairly well. Tomorrow/Today they head off for Venice while I head off to Ireland. So they are safe, surviving, and having a blast--- right now they are in the sensory overload phase of Italy where everything they see is more beautiful then they can imagine--- they may not get over that part in 10 days, but they will get a good look in Italy, that's for sure! Anyway, I'm over and out, I may or may not be able to update during my spring break,,,, we shall see what happens. Ciao ragazzi!

~Heather

Terragni Day!

Ciao Ragazzi! Today we had a day trip to Lake Como, with an emphasis on great works by Giuseppe Terragni, an important Italian rationalist. We left bright and early via a Genovarent bus, which is always nice because we get great sleep on the way to and from our destinations. After a slight mix up with direction,, we made it to Villa Bianca, an apartment design for Terragni's cousin,, which thus allowed him to do whatever he wanted. The building was rather interesting not because of the architecture necessarily,, which was rather modern and well,,, plain, but what was interesting was the creepy sculptures scattered around the surrounding gardens. Luckily we didn't run into any rabid dogs like the sign on the gate warned against, but we did run into a slightly crazy man who gave us postcards and told us about being married for 55 years. Great guy. Next we headed actually into Como and hit Terragni's War Memorial. Although Terragni won the competition for this memorial, he was forced to change his design to replicate a sketch drawn by Antonio Sant'Elia--- the leader of futurism--- before he died in the war. So this monument is interesting because it is both futurist and rationalist, and thus greatly shows the very close correlation between these two movements. This monument is right on Lake Como, so from there we got some good views of the surrounding countryside. Next we went to what is considered the first modern building in Italy (disregarding Ca' Brutta which no one really cares about) The Nococomum Apartment Building. It was nice to see in person and see it's great contrast to the baroque decorative architecture directly beside it, but it wasn't as impressive as the pictures made it look. However, it has been modified over the years so it less jarring texturally and colorly (?I had to make up a word there, apologies?). Next we had lunch, and directly following lunch, we saw my favorite building of the whole visit...

The Casa Del Fascio is a building in the center of Como which was meant to be a house for fascism,,, exactly as the title implies. Thus the architecture is full of propoganda to reflect the "clarity and honesty" of the fascist party. Thus the architecture is simple and utilizes a lot of glazing and natural lighting so that you can literally see right through the bottom level of the structure,, and you "know" what is going on at all times. However, this is a very skewed perception, because if you count the column grid, there are a lot of rooms hidden from this, not to mention the other levels and the supposed basement where they housed all the people who disagreed with the fascist party. Thus this building is an insane paradox, and actually works perfectly with it's function, because the fascist party was the exact same thing--- a presented facade with an entirely different thing happening under the surface. The Casa Del Fascio thus perfectly reflects the contradictions of Fascism as well as serving as a model for how easily people could fall into Fascism's trap--- they were really rather good at propoganda. So maybe the architecture is not the best for architecture's sake, but it is one of the best correlations of form follows function that I have ever seen,,, even on levels that were not intended. Okay,, so yay fascists.

We also saw a Nursery School in the Sant'Elia Quarter in which Terragni designed everything on the scale of an elementary school kid,,, so needless to say, this was my place! Everything was so cute and tiny including the handrails, bathrooms, and tables and chairs. It was also interesting how he took a city setting and added as much green space and natural lighting as possible to give the kids a great rural experience while in school. All in all, it was a cool place.

We headed back and are now back to our usual studio routine, but Terragni day was definitely a positive addition to this trip. As for those of you who may be concerned with the rest of my family--- I didn't hear from them today, but I should tomorrow once they arrive in Parma, so I will keep you posted! Thank you and goodnight!

~Heather

A lot of catching up to do...

Sorry I haven’t written a post in a while, Design Build took over my life as usual, but I love it regardless!

So last week I was in San Diego for the National Design Build Competition. I got there a few days early to adjust to the 9 hour time change as well as just have some time to chill with the team in preparation for DAYS of competing. The weather couldn’t have been better, upper seventies and sunny, which helped set a positive mood for the whole competition. I won’t go too much in detail, but here is an overview of the competition… We started out Wednesday morning at 6 AM and found out that our project was a 180,000 sq. ft. $80 million History Museum in Denver, Colorado. We were given a 13 page detailed program listing with adjacencies given, and that thing was a jigsaw puzzle to figure out, so Chris and I were loaded down. We turned in our proposal with some very creative solutions at midnight on Wednesday, after 18 hours of rapid fire designing. Then we stayed up to work on the Oral presentation the next day, for which I did many more sketches and models. We presented at 3:45 on Thursday, and I believe I had one hour of sleep around 10 am before that. Our presentation went perfectly and we got many many compliments by judges and audience alike. After that we had the debriefing and the awards ceremony, at which we placed 2nd in the nation. Go Clemson! Anyway, we and many other people believe that we deserved first, but that just means we will work twice as hard (I don’t think that is possible!) next year to win Nationals.

Friday after the competition I travelled back halfway across the world back to Genoa, which I was VERY excited to see. As soon as I arrived Mom, Dad, and Hilz arrived at their hotel in downtown Genova, so I dropped my stuff down quickly and headed to them--- no rest for the weary! Saturday I took them up to the villa and showed them around places that I frequent, and then we walked down to the train station and I decided to show them a little bit about the Genova bus system. For dinner we went out with a few of my friends here to a restaurant close to the villa called Maniman’s, and my family got to try some true Italian pasta, wine and dolci for the first time, which I believe they enjoyed. Sunday was their only full day in Genova--- so I had to pack a LOT into the schedule to show them all the significant destinations. We went by Christopher Columbus’s birth house, through the old city wall tower, into San Lorenzo Cathedral (The Duomo of Genova--- this was neat because we got in there right as the mass was ending, so we got to here a little bit of prayer and singing before we explored the cathedral), and to the port to see Il Bigo all before lunch. Then we went to a restaurant right on the port and had some Trofie al Pesto—a popular Genovese dish. After lunch we went to the Aquarium which was new for me. This aquarium is one of the largest in Europe, and we enjoyed wandering through it,, my favorite part were the jellyfish,, although the seahorses were a close second, oh and the penguins too. After the aquarium we had some gelato, and then headed up via the funicolare to the top of the mountain. We walked up close to the fort so they could get some good views of the city, and then headed back down to the hotel to take a break before dinner. For dinner I took them to the “best pizza place in Genova” according to Luca, and we had a great meal and ordered random desserts not knowing what to expect. Hopefully they picked up enough Italian so they can get by in the rest of the cities, but luckily their other destinations are more tourist attractions so English is spoken more prevalently. I packed enough in that one day I think they saw most of the city!

Today I met Mom, Dad, and Hilz at their hotel on Via XX Settembre for an amazing continental breakfast, and then sent them off on their journey to Cinque Terra. I know that they arrived safely and had a great day walking around and exploring that area, and will stay there tomorrow as well. I’ll try to keep you informed about their progression through Italy as they inform me!

As for what I am doing,,, I am currently working on a lot of vertical tower design, but luckily Tara and I got an extension for our project until after spring break, but we are still going to work as hard as we can to get the project far advanced before we go our separate directions. Tomorrow we have a day trip to Como, which I am really excited about especially because we get to go see the Casa del Fascio by Terragni, which is my research project for Saverio, and one of the most interesting buildings to study in its correlation with Fascism. Should be a blast, I just hope it doesn’t rain! That is all for now, Ciao!

~Heather

5 countries, 4 days, 3 cars, 2 hostels, 1 unforgettable weekend

So this past weekend our whole group rented 3 cars and took to driving through 5 different countries to see as many architecturally significant buildings and structures as humanly possible in 4 days. Needless to say, we covered a LOT of ground, which I will try to sum up as much as possible in the following blog.

On Friday we left around 1 after Saverio's class and headed toward our first destination, Switzerland. We had 2 vans and 1 car, and all were stick shift, so we only had a couple of people who could effectively control these cars at top speed. I am SOOO thankful for our drivers this weekend and all the stressfull driving they had to do,,, through snow, high speeds, and crazy European traffic. Our first stop was Isler's Garden Center which is a reinforced concrete shell that made some breakthroughs with the use of concrete in roofs. Next we started our ascent into the alps, and had some absolutely gorgeous scenery to keep us occupied. Some of the roads that we were driving around,,, we were litteraly driving right under a frozen waterfall in a couple of parts!!!!!! Also, we have decided that the Swiss know how to make public restrooms,, according to my friend Amy. Just a side note. Next we went to a few bridges in Switzerland, but had to stop our treks due to some snow problems we ran into along the way.... Anyway, we got to our hostel outside of Bregenz and stayed the night there.

In the morning we woke up to a beautiful serene lake right outside our hostel, and then had to go play in the snow and drained swimming pools before we left in the morning. Our first stop on Saturday was Kunsthaus Bregenz by Peter Zumthor, which is basically a glass box museum with some very well thought through details. Next we drove to Munich and saw the Olympic Stadium of 1972, which is basically a tent roofing structure made of glass. However, my favorite building of the whole trip was the BMW World museum by Coop Himmelblau in Munich. It had great lighting so every picture I took in there was perfection, and the whole project works so well to emphasize the main function,,, the selling of the BMW vehicles. Next we went to Stuttgart and saw the airport there which is basically supported by tree-like column structures, and then we headed to our hostel which had a great view of the city and settled down for the night.

Sunday we started out at the Werkbund Village and in particular the two family house built by Le Corbusier--- This was neat because we could really see his 5 points on architecture expressed throughout the building. Next we saw some footbridges in the surrounding area as well as a pretty cool park for the landscape people. We saw the Outlook tower at Stuttgart, and then had lunch, which was very German. I had a Doner which I have been craving since last Germany trip, a danish for desert, and some Milka chocolate--- very German. Then we went to the Mercedes-Benz Arena and Museum and then got to see the New Porsche Museum which just opened the week before we saw it. After this we all went out to a mexican restaurant, which was a lot of fun, especially once the live American music started playing! THen we headed back to try to make it an early night....

On Monday we left by 6:45 to drive to Ronchamp, France. This was my research project by Le Corbusier ,,, it is Notre Dame du Haut Chapel. This building breaks all of his previous design styles, and it is one of the most sculpturally gorgeous buildings he has designed. The roof is a large concrete shell meant to immitate a boat sailing off to heaven, and the inside is filled with color and light which very didacticly focuses peoples attention to where they should be placed. Next we went to Vitra, which houses many significant architectural buildings... The Geodescic dome by Fuller, a building by Siza, a firestation by Zaha Hadid (who I have now confirmed that I dislike because she distorts perspective way to much for her buildings to actually be lived in comfortably), a museum by Frank Gehry, and a pavilion by my new favorite architect--- Tadao Ando. He is known for his perfection of concrete, and his entire project has uses the smoothest, most beautiful concrete I have ever seen in a very reflective, interactive way. After this we stopped for another outlook tower and another Hadid building (yay.), and then headed back to Italy through a variety of very long tunnels.

All in all the weekend was exhausting, but it was a blast,,, you don't get this kind of opportunity very often. Well that is all for now!

~Heather

A Grand Day in Milan

This week we restarted our Tuesday day trips with Giuditta, and we travelled to Milan. Our morning started rather early because we had to leave by 6:15 to give us time to walk/get lost/finally make our way to the train station for our 7:19 train, don't ask me why I remember that. Anyway- we hopped on the train and then immediately passed out for the next hour and 45 minutes until we arrived at Milan Centrale, where we hopped on the Tram and then arrived at our first location- Santa Maria Delle Grazie. So in case you didn't know--- we have to sketch on these day trips, or really we should on any of our travels, but especially the day trips and 10 day trips. Anyway- I started out my sketching very solid and optimistically at this first church, and then continued to slide downhill throughout the day. My goal was to do a quick sketch at every destination we reached, but that ended up failing. Continuing on our journey we saw Sant'Ambrogio which had two very uneven towers, and then to Torre Velasca which is a tower with a hideous bulbus form sticking off the top like the Hunchback of Notre Dame for Milan. Our next destination was Ospedale Maggiore which is now a public university that has the appearance of a jail due to all the highly intricate gates and the impossiblity to enter the courtyards or anything good in life. Next we made our way to the most famous part of Milan, the Duomo. Outside it kind of looks like a cake with a bunch of needles sticking of the top, and is really rather unappealing to me from the outside because of its exaggerated grandeur and the millions of hidden sculptures who are just constantly staring at you.... Anyway, we went inside which is also rather intense--- The columns are huge and seem to be exaggerated for their load, even though the church is rather tall. But,,, what was absolutely fantastic was the light streaming in through the stained glass that hit onto these over emphasized columns and made one or two columns out of the whole forest light up like a disco ball with millions of glorious colors. So the church was great, but there was one column in particular where I spent all my time and about 40 of my pictures,, and that is what I will remember about the Duomo in years to come. So after our inside excursions, we ventured onto the roof to get some quick views, and then we headed down into the piazza for lunch.

After lunch we hit Santa Maria Presso S. Satiro which had this crazy false perspective behind the alter to give the impression that the church was in the shape of a latin cross when it really wasn't. And this is when I decided that I absolutely despise false perspectives because I couldn't even look at it it annoyed me so much. It might be talented, but its not magical and it presents a falsehood that you can't interact with, so I now I am most assuredly against false perspectives. Next we hit the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, which is basically a large open market space that connects the Teatro to the Duomo which is covered by this glorious glass roof and dome. Supposedly, the engineer/architect jumped off the top of the dome into the center soon after completion,,, but regardless, it is a gorgeous place with some very high end shops and a rather snazzy McDonalds. Next we headed through to the Teatro, which I remember because there were people hanging from the roof on bungee cords and doing interpretive dancing on the side of the building--- it was absolutely amazing and I want to do that someday-- put it on the list. THe afternoon included Palazzo Marino, Uffici Montecatini, Hotel Duca Di Milano, Uffici Pirelli (by Nervi that was actually ran into by a tourist plane a few years back but has since been restored), and our personal favorite, the Ca' Brutta (the Ugly building). I mean it was ugly, but part of that was because it was in such a state of disrepair because no one cared enough to restore it that it was all black and dirty all over, but we had a good laugh about its hideousness, even though it was one of Italy's first modern buildings. Then we headed back and got back to Genova around 9.

We have since been working on our site model, or updating the pitiful remains of a site model left for us by previous years and trying to make it look decent so we actually don't feel bad putting our own designs in it. It actually was a lot of fun although it has consumed our past couple of days here in Genova. However, now we are done and moving upward and onward. This weekend we are heading out to Switzerland and Germany for a weekend full of building seeing, but I am also pretty excited about this-- if only to see my building,,, Le Corbusier's Ronchamp-- which if you don't know you should. I have been researching it a lot for my project, and am ready to see it in person,, and I guess the other buildings we are seeing will also be exciting, but it will be a lot of travel so our days will be booked. We leave Friday afternoon, and we won't return until Monday night, so I might be out of touch for a while. Ciao!

~Heather

J'ADORE NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So we just got back from our too short weekend trip to Nice, France. I have been there before, but I didn't remember much at all except going down onto the rocky beaches and swimming in the salty Mediterranean... But this trip, made Nice potentially my favorite destination ever, and definitly my favorite trip of this study abroad experience so far. So Saturday morning we left by train and arrived around noon at the train station. After eventually finding our way to the tram without the help of that lady yelling at us telling us to go to the train staiton,,, we hopped on the tram and got to our British led hostel, which was pretty awesome. Even though the hostel was kind of far away from the city center,,, the tram system (which I am a HUGE fan of) took us a ways up and then the hostel drove a shuttle (a very dung up silver VW van) up to it. SO we had absolutely no problems....

We started off our Nice excursions by eating lunch in the Vieulle Ville (old town) and then split off into various groups,,, the girls did some shopping, the boys wandered around aimlessly, and we had a few attempted museum goers as well. Anyway,,, we met back up in time for the Carnavale that night,,, which was so absolutely amazing. You get down town and there are these really creepy floats circling around the city with masses of people crowded around it absolutely lost in a mesh of silly string and confetti... We quickly worked our way into the crowd and were likewise covered with these highly colorful pieces of paper and whatever silly string is made out of. They played a lot of American music, which made it that much more fun for us, and we just danced around and had a good time until pretty late at night, when we headed back to the hostel and went to the hangout space on the lower level and had all in all a great valentines day.

The next day, Sunday, today, we woke up and had a very great breakfast--- many cereals (which I miss desperately)! Then we checked out, went and stored our bags at the train station, and then went back into town. Some people went to the Museum of modern art, but I and some others headed up to a park situated on a large hill that overlooks the town of Nice. We couldn't have asked for better weather, it was warm and the sky was blue, and we were just so used to rain that that immediately put us in great moods. We got to play on this playground contraption that was made of rope entwined around a pole in kind of an eiffel tower like fashion with a bunch of french kids, which was very exciting. THen we headed back down and met up for lunch, and some more Carnavale action,,, I even got a butterfly mask for the "Masquerade Parade"! After this we went down to the coast and had our Nutella crepes on the rocky beaches as suggested by my good friend Jon Fritz,,, and then some of us rented roller skates and skated around the boardwalk. Funny thing is-- most of us haven't touched skates since elementary school, so we were all rather rusty and had a few crashes into various trees, trash cans, poles, and in some cases small children. However, it was so much fun,,, the parade ended up coming right beside us, so we got to skate along side of the floats and the american music. After this, we unfortunatly had to head back to catch our train back to Genova, but we all wanted to say so much longer,,, Nice definitely left us with a great impression. This trip was Leslee's (a girl here at the villa) birthday present, and I think it was a great way to spend a birthday, and we certainly all enjoyed ourselves.

Unfortunatly we must go back to work tomorrow, but tonight there shall be no more thoughts of architecture and we'll try to continue to let the awesome adventures of this weekend sink in. Au revoir!

~Heather

When in Rome...

This week we have basically been catching up on updating pictures from the trips, blogs (as you can tell), and then doing some studio work as well. It is odd to actually have classes after so long of not even thinking about school, just sketching beautiful buildings which doesn't even feel like work at all. We are working on our tower designs, which has been really interesting and frustrating at the same time, which always happens at the beginning of a project while you are sifting through millions of ideas. Soon we will be building a new site model so we can start physically representing our ideas, but not really thinking about that right now....

This weekend we are going to Nice, France, which I have been to before. We are going for absolutely no architectural purpose, which will be relaxing for once--- we will be shopping, celebrating a birthday, and enjoying the Carnavale which is starting there this weekend. Tonight we actually have a wine tasting, which should be interesting since most of us know little to nothing about the wine here. SO we will leave for Nice Nice tomorrow morning and stay the night and come back on Sunday night. I'm excited to actually try using my french! We shall see how incompetent I sound... I'll fill you in upon our return!

~Heather

Roma- 08 February 2009 THE END

On our last day in Roma, we went to the part of town where the architecture was highly influenced by fascism. We saw the Palazzo Dei Congressi, the Palazzo Della Civilta Italiana (where we saw a model of the entire city of Rome from the 15th century that was made by the aliens in just one year), a few others, and of course the Square Colosseum, a perfect model of fascist architecture. Then we enjoyed a nice lunch and gelato one last time before we headed back to Genova via a highspeed train. This trip was a blast, and we saw so much probably more than I could even begin to describe here, but we were all ready to come back home to the villa and have a little down time--- it’s called school.

~Heather

Roma- 07 February 2009

Today we took a day trip from our 10 day trip to go to Tivoli, the place where the Romans used to do most of their digging for tufa and travertine. In Tivoli we went to the Villa Adriana which is now in ruins, and despite the pouring rain which Giuditta brought with us, it was very interesting to walk around the ruins and see what this palace of a Roman emperor used to be like. Then we quickly rushed to the Villa d’Este to see the vertical gardens behind it, which were definitely worth it. This garden is very well organized and filled with amazing waterworks that we couldn’t even begin to see all of it in the 30 minutes we had. But we had to leave so that we could get back to Roma in time for some people to visit the Colosseum, but what we did instead was a little shopping and rest before our last night in Rome. For our last dinner, we went to a restaurant suggested by our favorite Terry Kirk, Da Francesca. This was definitely a local’s restaurant, and had great food and we enjoyed great company there as well, followed by our gelato visit to the gelateria by our hotel with millions of flavors

~Heather

Roma- 06 February 2009

Today we were back with our fearless, restless tour guide Giuditta so you know our day was filled to the brim. The first and most exciting building of the day in my opinion was Renzo Piano’s Auditorium Parco Della Musica, which consists of three auditorium spaces which look like bugs from the outside, but become very beautiful, acoustically and functionally perfect spaces on the inside. The largest hall was my favorite, and it is set up like a big musical instrument,, it has thick heavy wooden panels that provide great resonation as well as velvet curtains that can be placed for the proper amount of absorption. This building has made me seriously interested in theatre design, especially because it provides a happy median between my two greatest interests.

Next we visited my research building for this semester- the Palazzetto Dello Sport by Pier Luigi Nervi, where me and my partner sketched and photographed like crazy. It was interesting to experience the space that we have been researching about for so long, and some of what we found was very surprising. Then we saw the Maxxi Museum by Zaha Hadid which is under construction, and then the Ara Pacis museum by Richard Meier.

Then we went back in time to do some other buildings,, the Sant’ivo Alla Sapienza by Borromini which plays with convexity and concavity in the façade design, the Piazza Navona, the Chiesa di Santa Maria Della Pace, and the Palazzo Spada which has Borromini’s false perspective gallery. After all that was over, we looped around the city to go to a sushi restaurant named Fish. This was an interesting experience because I have never had sushi, but I was in good company and we definitely picked a great place to try it. So after they order rolls for me, I have decided that I am definitely a sushi fan! And that was our exciting night

~Heather

Roma- 05 February 2009

Today we woke up, you know just a normal day, and headed down to the Vatican City, no big deal. It was a gorgeous day, so we got to spend most of it inside of course going through the Vatican museum and St. Peters. The first thing we did was go through the museum, of which the most significant things were the School of Athens painting by Raphael and of course, the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. The Sistine Chapel was unreal, it seems so impossible to us for one man to paint that entire ceiling so elaborately and so perfectly scaled and proportioned. It was recently restored, so everything was as clear as the day he painted it, and we spent a lot of time just looking up with our jaws dropped. Technically you are not allowed to take pictures, and there are guards that walk around and yell “Silencio!” every 5 minutes, but it was the Sistine chapel so we all managed to capture a shot here and there, to prove that we were actually there. Next we were walking around the Vatican wall to go up in the dome, and on the way we experienced one of the most terrifying events of my life. We were just walking on the sidewalk when literally right beside us on the road a motorcyclist lost his balance and slid going at a high speed down the road. I heard the crash and then saw him sliding and immediately turned away,,, but luckily he wasn’t hurt in anyway, and he just picked up his motorcycle, got back on it, and kept going while the traffic drove around him (including an ambulance!) NO one even stopped to see if he was okay! Anyway- then we climbed up into the dome of St. Peters which was a very similar experience to that of Brunelleschi’s dome in Firenze, except for this time from the view you could see ROME. Next we headed back down and spent many hours inside St. Peters. Here is my account of St. Peters, you can probably skip over this part if you wish, but this is what I wrote down while inside the church.

“St. Peters is so big it is overwhelming to the point of being oppressive. There is absolutely no reason why I should feel heavy and bogged down, it is huge, light, and the marble is perfectly chilled… but the mere scale with consistent intricacies is overwhelming all of my senses to the point of shortness of breath. I wish I could have stood under Brunelleschi’s dome, so I could compare the size to this cupola, but I can already tell this church is bigger. My peripheral vision can’t even see the top of the church but makes you physically look up to see the most intricate, mesmerizing designs of the entire church. No wonder I missed the Pieta the first time! Trying to imagine myself n this building is nearly impossible. There are too many people around whose scale I can relate to for me to feel miniscule, but if you look up, you can almost get there. Also the fact that you can’t take it all in one view skews a true scale. But if all the people were gone I would be like an ant against giants, a speck against titans- which brings up another interesting point… even though this is an incredibly heavy grounded building it seems so animate and dynamic as if it could pick up and move at any point. That feeling, I believe, has a variety of different sources—one is the dynamic, intricate architecture, the second is the presence of the Holy Spirit well symbolized by the dove glory over the altar, and the third is the oppression that is making my knees wobble and me quiver just looking at it. I shall also briefly mention Michelangelo’s Pieta which I never thought could be paled by anything, but the church has done just that. The thing that really stands out to me about this masterpiece is Mary’s face… with what seems to be very little facial expressions Michelangelo perfectly captured the absolute grief of Mary—it is not an angered torturing grief, but instead the purest saddest grief of which only Mary could achieve. There is no accusation, no denial, no vengeance. The only kind of music that can fill this space is the slow, tension-building, sweet melodies that resonate throughout the entire church, low and high, far and wide.

Towards the end of our walking around this church, the mass started, of which the most beautiful part was the sound of the organ which I previously mentioned in my notes. After this we walked on back to the hotel, and ate in and had a movie night after our long filled day.

~Heather

Roma- 04 February 2009

For our first real day in Roma, we started off with the morning free. Since the Colosseum (potentially one of the most architecturally significant buildings in Rome) was not on our list of things to see while here, we decided to go and visit it on our own. We progressed towards the Colosseum how people would have in ancient Rome, through the forum. Now the Forum, however, is in such a state of disarray that it seems more like a junk yard for compiling old columns and various other remnants. However, it was very interesting to try to imagine what the Forum would have looked like in that day and age, especially because the signs were in Italian so we had no clue what each ruin was supposed to be. Once we got through this we headed into the Colosseum, surpassing a huge line to buy tickets. Inside the Colosseum wasn’t anything I didn’t expect, I guess because I have studied it soo much, but what was very interesting is being able to see the hallways and caverns that normally would have been covered up on the main floor and housed all the animals and such that the gladiators would fight off. We stayed inside photographing and sketching for about 2 hours, but I still didn’t even come close to finishing a sketch because there was just too much information to capture.

Next we met up with a professor from the area named Terry Kirk for our afternoon tour of Roma. I am going to preface this by saying that Terry Kirk is potentially the coolest guy ever and I thoroughly enjoyed his highly dynamic speeches and acts. Put that guy in a musical- that is all I have to say. So we started in the Piazza Del Campidoglio which is a hill upon which the Senate building (mostly designed by Michelangelo) sat. This hill became a big deal for papal processions as well as the welcoming of any persons of significance into the city,,, and it can be accessed using the long, thin, angled stairs which “float” you up to the top of the hill in Terry Kirk terminology.

On our way to our next visit, we went by Il Vittoriano, a large national monument of Roma which is often referred to as the wedding cake, and it turns out Mr. Terry is writing a book about this building, so even though it didn’t fit into our baroque topic, we took a detour into it. This building is interesting, because by the time you climb the fourty million monumental stairs flanked by personifications of action, thought, strength, concord, sacrifice, and justice, you are already higher than all the roofs in Rome, so most of the building is just an exterior progression to get you up and above the city.

Next we saw the Forum of Trajan with of course the famous tower which depicts Trajan’s two major military exploits in no sort of chronological order. Then we hit the Chiesa di Sant’Andrea del Quirinale which is a chapel attached to a college dormitory which is used for morning prayer before the kids head off to school. Bernini is famous for his theatricality, which he definitely taps into in this church which through the use of paintings, sculpture, and architecture, helps depict the crucifixion of St. Andreas, the release of his spirit, and then his ecstasy as he ascends to heaven (the dome at the top of the church). This was probably my favorite church because it did present you with an upfront theatrical story on a stage. Next we went to the Palazzo Barberini (their coat of arms is three bumble bees,, I think we all should have coats of arms) which has two sets of stairs, one by Bernini which is straight and filled with sculptures, and the other by Borromini, his counterpart that created an ovular stair case which varying tread widths and heights to make you flow up the stairs but little other decoration (these two stairs are the perfect example of how these two architects differ, after you see a church by each of them). After this we went to the Chiesa di San Carlino Alle Quattro Fontane by Borromini who contrasted Bernini by emphasizing dramatics of architecture alone. This church has his famous billowing façade which has its own theatricality, and the interior has deep overemphasized niches which provide a simple building with a heavy rich sense. The Chiesa Di Santa Maria Della Vittoria was next, which is significant for the “Ecstasy of Saint Teresa d’Avila” which depicts the moment after St. Teresa is stabbed in the heart by the fiery arrow of an angel, which she said actually happened to her in her diary and wishes that everyone could experience the same horror and ecstacy that she experienced at that moment, thus Bernini creates that exact moment on a theatrical stage for everyone to experience.

After this we stopped for a gelato break at the supposed “best” place in all of Rome which is known for its unique flavor combinations. I got the meringa e stracciatella (Meringue and chocolate chips) which was absolutely phenomenal. Next we hit the Fontana di Trevi, designed by Nicola Salvi which explores the natural sciences of water, rock, plants and seasonal statues in a thrust theatre formation that spills into the audience and forces them to interact with it. This design is very interesting because he juxtaposes natural rocks with a refined building so that they interact and either reminds the audience that the building comes from nature or that Nature trumps all and will eventually wear down every building in turn. For the sake of superstition, I threw one coin over my left so that I will some day return to the Eternal City of Rome. (Just so you know, supposedly if you throw two over your shoulder you will soon be married, and if you throw three your marriage will quickly end in divorce).

Our final destination with Terry Kirk was the Scalinata di Trinita’ dei Monti, aka the Spanish Steps. Now this is an interesting story, because the steps are actually French, but due to some drama dealing with a statue of Louis the 14th that was supposed to be placed on the steps and which the Pope couldn’t handle because that was like a smack in the face,,, the Romans refused to call the steps or the square below them “French” and have ever since them been calling them Spanish due to the Spanish embassy right down the street. Poor French. Anyway, these stairs are very interesting because they had to conquer the design challenge of a lack of symmetry and awkward angles,,, so this was accomplished by using many many curves. And as Terry said,, you caress these stairs on your way up, and they are graceful that it makes you just want to dance up them (then he proceeds to trip while mid-dance). So here we said our fairwells to Terry and watched him fade out into the distance and then we headed back to our hotel for another night of dinner and gelato.

~Heather

Siena- 03 February 2009

This morning in Siena we went to the Duomo there, which was supposed to be one of the biggest churches in Italy, but it was never completed. We went through the church, a museum which housed the old sculptures and paintings found in the church, and then climbed on top of it to get a good view of the city of Siena, which made us appreciate this dreary city a little more. That afternoon we caught a train to Roma through Chiusi, and arrived at our luxurious 3 star hotel right behind the Pantheon in time to wander through the city for dinner and yes, gelato. We were right down the street from this hotel called Minerva, and while we were walking past it about 6 cars came through with flashing lights and then stopped in front of the hotel and all the body guards got out and delivered someone to the door,,,, we have no idea who it was, but they had to be famous! SO I am going with Johnny Depp. I stayed in a hotel in Rome beside of JOHNNY DEPP.

~Heather

Firenze- 02 February 2009

Today was our last day in Firenze (which was definitely my favorite city that we saw in this whole trip). The first thing we did was climb Brunelleschi’s cupola of the Cathedral Santa Maria Del Fiore (the Duomo of Firenze) but in order to recount this experience I must first explain a little bit about how this dome was constructed. So for a brief period in time, Firenze was the capital of Italy, and they decided that they need the biggest church in Italy to celebrate this. Makes sense. So they go about building this gigantic church which was the largest church in the world until Milan and St. Peters, and then realize that it needs the largest dome in the world of which they have no idea how to construct. Obviously they can’t do it like the usually do, and build wooden supports to hold up the masonry until it is finished,,, one because that would take more wood than the entire region could supply,, and two because the masonry would be too heavy to stand up on its own in the end anyway. So they had a competition to see who should build it. Brunelleschi and Ghiberti ended up being the final contestants, and eventually Brunelleschi was given the job for a variety of reasons which we are not sure of their validity. Anyway, many people think he is crazy and he won’t really tell anyone how he is going to build the dome, he just convinces them that he can do it if they trust him. What he ends up doing is creating a double shell so that he uses less masonry and the outer shell is supported by the inner shell which is in turn supported by a drum wall the size of the pantheon below it. This drum was placed to resolve the loads before they hit the 4 major piers which finally distribute the force to the ground. SOOOOOOOOO… When you are climbing up the dome you climb up the space between the two shells,,, which gets progressively narrower and more slanted as you begin to reach the top. Overall it was a very exciting experience that would make a great action scene for a National Treasure film. Anyway, we made it to the top, had some decent views of Firenze despite the cloudy rainy weather. After this we headed to the train station and travelled to our next destination, Siena.

I feel bad for Siena because we were only there for one day, and it was pouring basically the entire time we were there, so we didn’t have the greatest experience with it. That plus the hotel roof was leaking onto peoples beds…. Anyway, once we got to Siena we went to what is said to be the most beautiful square in all of Italy, and I really liked its drainage system. Then we did some shopping in the rain and had a large group dinner at this quaint little restaurant right off the piazza which was absolutely delicious. One of our plates that he served us was pasta in a sauce which was like half tomato sauce half olive oil, and it was absolutely fantastic. And now I am craving it again.

~Heather

Firenze- 01 February 2009

Today Giuditta joined us for a full day of Firenze intake. First we went to the Museo Dell’Accademia where, of course, the David is the main attraction. However, I also enjoyed Michelangelo’s Prisoners, which lead up to the David. Even though there were paintings in this room, the prisoners dominated them all. I know that these were meant to be finished (Michelangelo only finished about 1/3 of his full volume of work in his lifetime) but for some reason these statues seem more alive and complete than most of the sculptures I saw during this entire trip. Anyway--- moving on down the hall or nave if I may say so, to the David.

David is placed in an apse like setting of a church, and I feel like this is the most suitable setting for him. I think that under a dome is the perfect setting for him because his stance evokes you to move around him… His views are also terraced- you start with the contrapposto feet and then move up to his highly intricate back, and then eventually make it to his curly head and furrowed brow at the top and opposite side from which you started, thus he spirals you around him and up into the dome. Anyway, enough art and architecture speak,,, moving on.

Today we saw Ponte Vecchio (which also reminded me of Erfurt, Germany because of all the shops along the edges of the bridge), Palazzo Pitti (which was only memorable because of the gardens behind), Chiesa di Santo Spirito, Palazzo Rucellai (another significant family in Firenze whose coat of arms is a sail as opposed to the dots of the Medici), Chiesa di Santa Maria Novella, the train station of Santa Maria Novella which we came in on, and the Stadio Comunale Berta by Pier Luigi Nervi (who is famous for his use of concrete in a completely structural manner that results in highly sculptural buildings). On the way to the Nervi building we were all crowded in this bus, and unfortunately Giuditta (basically the only Italian on the whole bus) was pick-pocketed so she lost her wallet and passport, slightly putting a damper on the day. After this we went back to the hotel and went out for guess what? Dinner and Gelato!

~Heather