Two birds with one stone.

Sorry for not writing a blog yesterday, or really having any contact with civilization. We had a site and vertical analysis of Genova due in studio today, so basically my whole day was sketching, scanning, and putting boards together. I got the blue screen of death, so that was fun, but other than that we woke up, we worked, we ate when the bell rang, and some of us slept. Me being one of those.


So as for today, we didn't have class in the morning, so most of us used that time to finish our boards, buy ink for the computer, and a variety of other pre-studio activities. We had the most delicious lunch- gnocchi al pesto, lemon chicken, and potato chips (?) which was exciting. Also, Lura and I were prepped for our job as travel agents for this coming 10 day trip, which is insanely exciting. So I don't have all the details on the trip quite yet, but here is a general idea of where we will be when....


January 30th- February 2nd--- Florence where we will be seeing a variety of museums and perhaps some architecture!


February 2nd- February 3rd--- Siena, which is supposed to be even more beautiful than Florence according to our train friend man.


February 3rd- February 8th--- ROMA! I don't know exactly what we will be doing what day quite yet, but I know that we will be hitting the Vatican on February 5th.

I won't be able to take my laptop on this trip, so if you get a blog it will be few and far between,, but I sure will have a lot to say when I get back!

So the rest of today was basically studio presentations, dinner, and now some catching up on The Office and Lost episodes for all of us, before we pack and head out around 6:30 tomorrow... So ---- A Presto!

~Heather

Pavia e Vigevano

So this is going to be short and sweet because it is late and I have had a long day.

Today we had our Tuesday day trip with Guiditta to Pavia and Vigevano.. We started out in the Certosa di Pavia which is a church and monastery in Pavia. It was absolutely gorgeous inside and out, and we had one of the 8 monks that are currently there give us a tour--- he was awesome and reminded me a lot of Morgan Freeman. We walked all around the church, saw a couple of dead people, then walked into the cloisters and dwellings for the monks, and did some sketching towards the end. Then we headed further into Pavia and went to a College and hung around in the columns for a bit. Then we had lunch in the main square onlooking the famous Dome of Pavia (which is currently under renovation so we couldn't go in). Next we went to the University of Pavia which looks exactly like the college except for on a smaller scale. Then we hoped back on the bus and headed for Vigevano.

We didn't spend much time here, but we went into the main square, Piazza Ducale which is basically surrounded by a castle (now it only has two towers instead of four), so we explored around there for a bit and headed back.

We left around 7:15 this morning and got back around 8:15, and after sketching and working on studio stuff for this week and catching up on picture posting, I am ready to head in. Over and out.

~Heather

Studio Architettura

In the following blog I am going to attempt to do justice to our weekend trip to Torino. It is going to be very challenging to recreate how truly amazing it was, but alas I shall try.

We woke up early Saturday morning to catch our 8:08 AM train from Genova Principe to Torino Porta Nuova. Everything was on time- which was surprising, so we had a fairly relaxing trip there, and we all decided that we love travelling by train. Once we got there, we hiked twenty minutes across the river to our hostel, Ostello Torino where we set our bags down in our three rooms, one for all the 6 girls, and the other two for the 7 guys. Then we headed back out into the city for a full day of exploration. I am attaching a map that shows exactly what we did in Torino, but I shall continue to explain it.

The first thing that I really enjoyed about this day was that I was travelling around with a bunch of architecture geeks with the same interests as me. We had a blast just randomly walking up to interesting buildings and studying them. First we walked down by the water and took in some of the beauty of the city, even though it wasn't the most beautiful day. We ran into an old medieval mansion where we of course had to use our studies of Art and Architecture History to attempt to imitate Greco-Roman statues,,, we used contrapposto in a sentence! Then we headed to some pretty fountains and found the underground parking lot that Jonathan and Graham were studying. We started by taking pictures of it through the window with a very large hungry looking black dog attempting to attack us through the window... then some guy drove up in a car so Derrick walked right up to him and said Ciao, studio Architettura! (Hello, I study architecture!) We have found that this phrase is the golden ticket which allows us into any restricted building we wish to enter, so he opened the doors and let Jon and Graham run inside and take pictures.

Our next destination was lunch, so a few of us split off, but dieci of us went to a delicious pizzaria. I got a ham calzone with an egg in it, kind of reminding me of some German dishes, but it was fantabulous. Also the hot chocolate was so thick that it didn't even drip off the spoon when you held it up!

After warming up our stomach's and ourselves (and having some rather interesting experiences with the hole in the floor toilets...) we continued our walk towards the location of the 2006 Olympics in Torino. On the way Katy spotted this really neat modern concrete and glass building that we headed towards-- it was the new University of Torino Molecular Biotechnology Center. After Brandon walked in like he knew what he was doing, the guard came up to us, so we used the magic "Studio Architettura" to which the guard instantly let us into the building to explore.

After some picture snapping, we continued on our trek towards the Olympics, and it started to schnee outside, which would have depressed most people but I we thoroughly enjoyed it. We came to the green park space that housed the olympics, which is now rather depressing because it has turned into a very large parking lot, but due to the condition of the roads (iced over) we decided to host our own version of the Olympics in Torino 2009. These Olympics consisted of a rather new sport, ice dancing, which is highly contemporary and very amusing to watch. We also participated in the precision sport of Snowball Throwing. After much fun, we continued on our way, and made a quick stop at the playground, where we decided that we indeed were not too old or big to play on it,,, regardless of the verity of that last statement. Needless to say I was laughing so hard during these ridiculities that I was crying. Continuing our adventure, we wound up at the Stadium of the Olympics. We saw the Olympic torch where the flame was lit a few years ago, and then we walked towards the indoor stadium which appeared to be hosting some sort of extravaganza. So Heather, Lura and I followed the lead of the all-knowing Brandon, and headed indoors, pretending to know what we were doing. Turns out it was a bridal show, and when we tried to get in the lady started talking to us and said that it was a "meeting of the marriage" so unless we were getting married we couldn't get in. So then we cleverly said "studio architettura" and were instantly let in to wander around. The dresses were interesting-- but we found a few that we thought were absolutely gorgeous. However, we soon headed up the elevator away from the crowds and wandered into the indoor stadium part and took pictures.

After this Olympic excursion, we headed down to a Cafe down the street called Cafe Roma III, where we warmed up with some hot drinks, and then we continued on our way home. We stopped at a ski shop for some last minute purchases and a grocery store for breakfast food the next morning, and then we continued on our way back to the hostel and stopped for dinner at a Chinese restaurant on the way.

When we finally got back to the hostel we all set up our beds (we had 4 bunk beds) and got ready for bed and then had time for a little girl talk before we all fell asleep! The next morning came all too quickly as we headed down to the train station around 6:30 AM only to find that our train was 25 minutes late. However, it did show up, and we headed to Bardoneccia... On the drive there, the snow kept on getting deeper and deeper, and soon enough there was 5 or 6 feet of snow in drifts covering houses, cars, and anything in its path. What I don't understand is how the people that live there can leave some of that gorgeous snow untouched! I guess you get jaded after a while, but all I could think of was jumping head first into it... We arrived in Bardoneccia and got our ski lift tickets and then headed up the mountain to rent our skis and drop off our bags for the day. We probably hit the slopes around 11, and split up into multiple groups for that. There were about 40 slopes, not all of them were open, but it was huge. I was skiing with Lura, Drew, and Derrick for the most part, and we started out on the blue (supposedly easy) slopes, which definitly challenged the black diamonds that I have been on in NC. It was such a different experience though! For one, they had just recieved about 16 inches of fresh powder which covered the whole mountain,,, so the slopes weren't icy and didn't end into dirt. There were millions of little kids skiing all over the place which made us feel bad because they would shoot past us in a row, but it was interesting because at points they would jump off the slopes and start skiing in the woods in the fresh uncompacted snow! Eventually we took some harder level courses, a black at one point and a few reds, which were the most challenging things I have ever had to do, but it was a blast! Drew was my comic relief during all this--- at one point he fell at the beginning of a hill and every time he tried to get up he would slip and slide even further down the hill-- he did this about 3 times before he finally got up and going again, and I at this point was laughing hysterically. Everyone who went skiing at least tried the blues even if they were first time skiers, which was impressive because the blues were very difficult. We made a full day of it and skied until closing at 5, and then we turned in our skiis and headed back down the mountain for a quick dinner before we headed back to Genova. However, our train was once again 25 minutes late, so we missed our switch at Torino. Instead we hopped on a train heading for Naples which stopped in Genova, and it was cabin style so we split up and found cabins of 6 people to sit in. 5 of us wound up sitting with this older man, who eventually started talking to us in English. So we introduced ourselves and told him that we were Clemson students studying architecture in Genova, and he asked if we lived in Via Piaggio! Apparently at the founding of this CAF school he was friends with Cesare Fera and became the original Luca, Friend of the Villa. He lived a couple of houses down in the pink building number 18 on Via Marco Polo (right beside the stairs of death) but now he lives on the other side of Genova by Brignole. He was extraordinarly nice, and made me a map of Genova with all the places that we should go--- the best pizza place in his mind, the best place for that Genovese chickpea bread, the best ice cream place, and the old fisherman's village with a pebble beach that we should visit. His name was Roberto Chiarici, and he made our train ride highly entertaining. With about 30 minutes to go, this couple came in who had reserved two of our seats in the cabin, so Lindsay and Jonathan had to move, but they were absolutely hilarious. They were travelling somewhere far for a long period of time, and the girl had packed 14 million bags,,, so the guy kept on piling them in and asking her if she was done, and she would pull out another one bigger than the previous one. At one point he locked her out because she had so much stuff, and we had no idea what they were saying, but it was abolutely hilarious. When he thought he was done then she walks in and pulls a dog out of nowhere which she then sets on her lap for the remainder of the voyage,,, to which the guy talked... They were funny. Well, we finally arrived at Principe, and said goodbye to our friend who had luckily informed us that we should take bus 606 back because it ran past midnight. When we finally arrived back we all basically crashed for the night, and that was the end of our wonderful Torino excursion.

Studiamo l'architettura, e siamo fantastico!

~Heather

Fermata del'Autobus

Today we started with Saverio's class on Giuseppe Terragni and his influence on modern Italian architecture. It was a very intersting class, especially with our coffee break half way through! I love Italy. Today was Bernard's (our professor) birthday, so we had an extra special meal for lunch. We had rissoto with various seafoods in it and some broccoli and potatoes for the side, along with Vermentino, my favorite wine in Genoa so far. Then Angela had made this really delicious fruit torte for a birthday cake and some cookies, so we had that with champagne for dessert. It was delicious! Then this afternoon we adventured onto the busing system here and went to Decathalon, a very large sports shop on completely the opposite side of Genova. After asking various people where to go in Italian, we finally got there and got us some snow gear for this weekend! Then we ventured back in the pouring rain, and ran into some very nice Italian people who enjoyed talking to us--- we would talk in Italian (or attempt to) and they would talk in English! We got back just in time for dinner that we heated up, and now we are all watching Snatch, which apparently I am terrible for not having seen. We have an early start tomorrow- we have to catch our train for Torino at 8:08! I probably won't be able to write any blogs this weekend, but it will surely be an eventful one so I will have a lot to say when I get back! Arrivederci!

~Heather

POPCORN

So I will start with the first this morning.

This morning started when I woke up at 4 AM to go down and watch the second half of the Clemson UNC game. So I got down, and we were only down by 5 and had an amazing first half supposedly, so I decided it was a good investment to remain awake for the rest of the game because we had the potential to beat UNC at home for the first time in about 50 years. However, I appear to be a bad luck charm, b/c as soon as I started watching, Clemson's streak ran cold and it ended up being a rather depressing game. So then I went to sleep again.

My second morning also started early, because we had to be down at a post office at 8:30 to do something with Sylvia dealing with legalizing us being in this country for an extended period of time. That didn't take too long, so afterwards Sylvia took us to a travel agency that gave us a discounted rate on our train tickets for this weekend. The cool part was, Sylvia let us do the talking --- so we ordered our complex train tickets for 12 people in ITALIAN! It was very bumpy I am not going to lie, but we got through it. Then we walked to a sports store where Sylvia's cousin works (apparently she knows everyone in Genova) and she gave us a discount on all the ski gloves we got. Then we headed back for lunch time and then studio.

In studio we presented our research proposal boards, and I am pretty excited about all we will be learning and finding out for ourselves this semester. After we were done with that, we were done for the day, b/c we did work rather hard the day before on those boards. So we did some wandering around this city and then dinner this afternoon with exciting conversations as usual.

Now we are engaging in LOST from last night, since many of us are highly addicted. We have just finished one, and we are hanging on for dear life until the next one! And once again, attaching a random picture.

~Heather

Studio Bananza

Today we woke up for class this morning at 9:30. The class that we were supposed to have dealing with Art and Architecture History apparently didn't work with the other professor this semester, so instead we are substituting it with a field studies class for the same credits. This just means at the end of the semester we have to turn in a portfolio with 50 of our sketches from the semester, which we would have to do anyway. So we had this class in the morning and then could either go out into the city and sketch before lunch or stay here and work on our poster due tomorrow. So Tara and I decided to stay and get the poster out of the way. Our poster is basically putting our research for this semester down on paper for the professor and other's to see,,, including questions we have, pictures, and sketches of the projects that we drew.

After lunch we had real studio, where we basically did the same thing,,, so luckily Tara and I finished before dinner before most people even got a chance to start. Yay for having a productive partner! Anyway- now I am redoing some sketches from our Tuesday excursion for the sake of extra practice, and then maybe going to bed early, in order to wake up at 3 AM and watch the Clemson UNC game. We haven't fully decided if we are going to do it or not, considering we have to wake up exceptionally early tomorrow morning, but if we won this game and I wasn't watching it I would be highly dissapointed. So we shall see. Okay well that is all for now! I am attaching a picture of the girls on a shopping trip last weekend, just for the heck of it!

~Heather Nelson

Porto Antico

Today we had our day trip of the Porto Antico of Genova. It started out in the pouring rain, so we were all decked out in our rain gear, a very interesting and American sight. We took in a lot of information, and tried to do a lot of sketching as well but we had too much to see and not enough time to see it. One of the first things we did was take a boat tour which drove us out to the dam and we got a view looking back. It was neat because we got to see all the shipping containers placed against the whole city, it just helped me connect in my mind the fact that Genova is a thriving port and has been since it's foundation.

Then we went to Pallazzatta della Ripa for some sketching, to which we headed to the Galata Museo Del Mare,,, the maritime museum. It was very "vertical" like most of the buildings in Genoa so each exhibit was spread over about 6 floors where you went through different things about sailing, immigration, and other things relating to boats. It was pretty cool and interactive, and we surely enjoyed ourselves. Then we ate our lunches we packed this morning (including juice boxes!) outside overlooking the water-- at this point it had stopped raining.

Next we went to La Commenda di Pre, which is an old church with the Genoa black and white stipes and did some sketching there. From there we headed to the Palazzo Del Principe and walked through the Palace and the gardens quickly before it's closing...

Finally we headed to La Lanterna- the lighthouse of Genoa. It used to actually be significant, but it has since been surrounded with industrial ship yard and coal so even though the light still runs it is quite far from the water. So we climbed up it a little ways in time for the sun to go down and get some good night pictures back at the city. From there, since we were 5 million miles away from the villa we took a variety of means of public transportation to get back in time for a delicious dinner and just good company in general. Well- this day has worn me out, so I'm out!

~Heather

Piovere

Today we didn't have studio until 3, which gave us all morning to wake up slowly at our own pace. A few hours before breakfast I went to the library and started doing research with Tara,, we came up with so many good topics it was really rather hard to narrow them down today. At lunch time we had two main interests- the dynamic uses of concrete and glass roofing systems. Of course one is structural and the other is a skin question, so we had to decide which path to take.

So in studio we all went around and tried to form our ideas, which had become a little more specialized since last night, but not much. So the four hours of studio was devoted to narrowing our topics down and zooming in on one thing that we wanted to study. What we have decided on (currently) is to study the sculptural qualities of concrete which result from a design driven by architectural design or engineering. We believe that both are equally beautiful, just in different ways, so we mean to see what these differences are using two buildings in our research--- Pier Nervi's Palazzetto dello Sporto and Le Corbusier's Notre Dome du Haut Chapel in Ronchamp. This means we will have to travel to both of them.. The Nervi building is in Rome and is already one of our destinations on our first group trip, but we will have to travel to Ronchamp, France seperately during one of the weekends here. I am pretty excited about our choices because I really want to see Ronchamp, and this way I have to! Also, the sculptural qualities of concrete will make for very entertaining projects this semester.

After about 8 hours of research today with meals in between, I am about ready to collapse. Tomorrow we have our first Day Trip--- which is down to the Porto Antico here in Genova. It should be very entertaining and if the weather holds up,,, we have a boat trip out a little ways into the sea planned so that we can get a great view of the city. Well I have a big day ahead, so I am heading out!

~Heather

Domenica

So it is really rather late (for reasons which will be explained later) so I am going to try to keep this rather short.

Today we had our last Italian class, and then made our own breakfast and lunch here. This afternoon a few of us set out exploring for a ski shop, but we got slightly distracted along the way. So the first thing we did was climb the original city gate "Porta Soprana" and got a pretty good view of the city from there. Then we climbed back down and stumbled into two churches in the area. San Lorenza was the first of the two, and my favorite. My first impression of these Cathedrals is that they are extraordinarily lavish as compared to what I saw in Eastern Germany. If I were to rank their amount of lavish decoration on a scale, it would be closer to the Dom in Erfurt than St. Andreas in Eisleben. This one was my favorite however because of the black and white stripping, which is a theme for a couple of the buildings throughout Genova. This stripping made for a very interesting double arcade in the nave, which I found more enthralling than any of the sculptures or displays. The second church we went into was right off of Piazza del Ferrari, and this one was highly more ornate (probably b/c it had the original roof paintings and decorations which San Lorenza did not because it was destroyed in the war). This church reminded me more of Melk Abbey because it was highly guilded. Unfortunately my camera without a flash could not quite capture this church, but it was definitely interesting to go look.

Tonight we went to a restaurant near the villa for our Italian professors last day in Genova. The restaurant is Maniman, and they actually gave us a really good deal. I got spinach and beef ravioli which was amazing, and for dessert I had a torte di pere e gianduja-- which is basically a pear and chocolate pie with chocolate sauce dribbled on top. It was phenominal and needless to say I believe we will be going back.

Dinner was a long affair, so we got back fairly late and then held a group tribunal (sounds much better than a group meeting!) to help us decide how we were going to pair off. So we started by stating what we were interested in, and then we had all the grad students leave and we went after them like vultures! It was a rather long process to decide who we were paired with, especially for me because I was interested in everything that the grads said, but luckily we had some more specialized opinions in the group and were able to narrow it down fairly quickly. Now we have partners! I am working with Tara, which we seem to have very similar interests--- we want to design something inspiring, and we are also very interested in theatre design and how acoustics, music, and architecture are interelated. Actually we have no idea what we are going to end up studying, but at least now we can start our research with a heading! A presto!

~Heather

Va bene cosi?

Today we had the luxury of sleeping in, because after all it is the weekend. However, we had our second to last Italian class this morning, so we did have to do some work. After class we made our own lunch with leftovers from this week, and then we just sat around chatting about what we were going to do for the rest of the semester--- like our plans for weekend trips and such.

This afternoon I did some homework! Shocking I know,,, I did some Italian for our class tomorrow, and then scanned the chapter that we have to read for our history class.

We also worked on our weekend trip for next week. As of right now we are thinking about heading to Torino Friday afternoon so that we can have a night in the city before we go skiing on Saturday. I don't know if we have decided if we are staying Saturday night or not, but since the latest train is 7:30 Saturday night, we might stay until Sunday and that way we will get another day to explore the apparently beautiful and delicious city of Torino! We are all extremely excited!

Currently we are watching the basketball game--- we ended up finding the perfect solution--- ESPN.com and an IP from Clemson gives us the perfect feed of the game,, I can't believe we didn't think of this earlier! We'll see what happens in the game!

Our big plans for tomorrow are: our final Italian class, maybe going down to an exhibit for a famous guitarist and poet from around here, and then going out to Maniman with Barbara, to take her out for her last night here in Genova and thank her for teaching us all this Italian! Okay, over and out, and back to the game!

~Heather

Ricordame.

Sta mattina began as usual with our fresh bread, hot tea, and a little Italian. First of all to preface the story I am about to tell you, I must inform you on one "condition" in the villa. The directors chairs that we sit in during lectures, are terrible. They were originally donated by Renzo Piano, and I am sure they used to be very comfortable, but through years of wear and tear they are actually painful to sit in. STORY TIME- So in the middle of class, all of the sudden Heather's (the other one) chair collapsed and she went straight into the door, lucky it wasn't open. So needless to say we will soon be getting new chairs since we have broken two since we have been here. Anyway- Next we had our class with Saverio Fera, an architectural history teacher from Bologna. We were just introduced to the class today, but it sounds like it will be a very interesting class in the facist period of Italian architecture. Throughout the semester our main project will be to research in depth and visit a building of our choice from this period.

Then we had lunch and some more Italian class, and then were let free for the afternoon. After a little soccer in the garden (which wasn't really soccer due to the flattness of the ball and the narrowness of the garden), we headed downtown for some shopping, or rather looking. The girls went one way and the boys another, and we had a lot of fun getting to know the stores of Via XX Settembre.

We headed back to the villa for the meal Angela pre-prepared for us, and now we are getting ready to go out into town again, and meet up with some of our Italian buddies. I think our first stop will be our beloved Red Chair Bar, and then who knows what or where. So glad it is Friday! (although we do have italian tomorrow,,, only 2 more days! It's sad really!)

~Heather

P.S. This is the picture from when we went our last night, which I had trouble posting before..

SO I had a much longer blog but it was deleted when I tried to add a picture, so today is going to be short and sweet.

Italian class--- Friends of Barbara Jean-Pierre (a priest) and Giovanni (a movie director) came and talked to us completely in italian so we would see what we could understand. Actually we are picking up a lot, and I found it very invigorating!

Lunch- Angela made the genovese dish trophie con pesto and then a really good meat concoction, delicious.

Studio--- what we are going to do at the beginning of this semester is researching something relating to engineering and how it correlates with architecture. We are working in pairs, so we are planning a "speed dating" session with the grad students to determined who is interested in what and should be paired together. We should be doing that in the next couple of days since our first research paper is due Thursday.

Yoga--- After we rearranged our studio we had a yoga session in the room with all the windows! Most of us have never done it before so it was very entertaining and very painful. We could only take about 30 minutes of it at a time, but maybe we will continue it throughout the semester.

Dinner---- Quiche, soup, and artichoke hearts. Afterwards we were all craving a little dessert, so we headed down town for gelato, but unfortunately all the gelatteria's were closed, so we sat down in a cafe and had some torte di cacao.

Future plans--- In two weekends we will probably be going skiing in the alps,, a huge group of us,, partially because we want to ski and partially because it is a once in a lifetime experience! I can't wait!

~Heather

Due to these technical difficulties there will be no picture today,,, I'll try to get it working again for tomorrow, I think my computer is just tired like me!

Mercoledi

Our morning began as usual with an assortment of fresh bread coated in some really good peach jam which is my personal favorite, and a cup of hot tea. Italian class was good, but this time we did 3 hours straight without our meal in between like normal, so it got a bit testy towards the end. Lunch was raviolli with some meat and something else in it, and roast beef.

After lunch I did some laundry on Italian machines, so I had to take a dictionary down there to translate. Then we had our first studio class,, it looks like first we are going to be doing some research, and then we have two projects this semester. One in a vertical building style and one in a horizontal. We can choose two different paths as well, a more structural course or one emphasizing art and history. We will be working in pairs this semester, but no two undergrads or landscape students can be paired together, so I'll be working with either a landscape or a grad, which I am pretty excited about, it should be a great learning experience for me, being the less experienced of the two. We visited our first site today, which I already got some ideas about, and the views from it are amazing. I mean we discuss good view in America vs. bad ones, but seriously there is not one bad view from our site! Anyway, we will see how things unfold.

For dinner we had fish, some kind of bread thingy, and green beans for those of you who are curious as to our diet here in Genova. We have been getting into this movie night thing, so we might be up for another one right now,,, after we have all had our fill of peanut butter (a stash from the US) and smiley faced chocolate cookies. Bennissimo! Caio!

~Heather

Sorrisso alla Marmalate

Despite our slight delays this morning due to a malfunctioning alarm clock, most of us successfully made it to Italian class this morning for another fun filled day of learning. It actually is starting to sink in! This style of learning is totally different from what we normally have at Clemson, but I already feel fairly comfortable with Italian, and it had definitely sparked my curiousity to learn more. Our hope is that by the end of the semester we can also speak Italian fairly well, at least enough to communicate and understand, we are by no means expecting fluency.

Lunch today was bowtie pasta with tomato sauce and artichoke hearts-- molto squisito -- hot dogs and potatos.

After lunch we had some more Italian class, and then the half of students that didn't get their phones the day before went to the vodafone store. Turns out they were out of the phones that we had the day before, so they gave them phones that have a camera and mp3 player in them for the same cost as ours. Va bene though b/c seriously I don't need any of that and my phone makes a really cool sound when I open and close it. Totally worth it.

While they were away, Heather and I (yes the two heathers) took the funiculare to the top of the mountain. After a little hiking and some potential trespassing,,, we managed to get some really good views of Genova, the port, and the surrounding mountains. It was extremely windy and we were walking around rich houses on one side and abandoned castles on the other. We stayed up there until dark, so we got great sunset pictures, or the best we could do with the crazy wind which kind of messed up our steady hands. Then we headed back down, and as a reward for climbing 14 million stairs on the way back to the villa from the station we stopped at la Pannifico for some treats. I got a cookie called a Smile (Sorrisso in italiano) which had a smily face carved out and marmalade in between the two cookies. It was delicious and totally made me climb the stairs.

We had our normal dinner made by ourselves, and are currently just hanging around again, potentially another movie night, despite the approaching lateness of the hour. Actually we are going to watch Stranger than Fiction. Tomorrow we start actual studio class, so we will see what we are in for this semester. A presto!

~Heather

"First Day of Class"

Today we had to wake up early, 9:30 for Italian class. We had 2 hours of class again, and learned a lot. One of the things that she told us was exactly what kind of food we had last night. So to be more specific from the last blog, the fish was Orata con oliva nere (with black olives). The pasta was trofie al pesto which is only found in Genova. For dolce (dessert), we had gelato mixed with cake, thus the lighter quality to it. Just thought you should know that.

Lunch was..... intersting. Our main course was squid, with all the tenticals on it and everything! I tried it, but I couldn't get the courage up to eat the actual tenticals,,, just a bit too much for me. After lunch we had more Italian class and then half of the group went out with Barbara to get cell phones, me included. We went to Via XX Settembre to Vodafone and all got the cheapest phone there with a pre-payed plan,,, so there will be millions of LG's running around this villa. After this we had some time before dinner so we all went to the famous (or infamous) red chair bar for a couple of drinks and aperitivo! (Thanks to Tara for stepping up) Then we tried to walk back and take the ascendoro (an elevator that tunnels down and out avoiding a lot of stairs) but we got way lost but eventually found our way back to the villa for a chicken dinner and some lively conversation.

Now I believe we may be watching a movie, but currently we are sitting around doing absolutely nothing, besides me getting my new phone ready! Tomorrow we still only have Italian class and then I will have the afternoon free for shopping maybe since I already got a telephono. We start studio Wednesday afternoon, so I guess we will see what we are in for this semester starting then.

Oh and today we also split up our responsibilities for this semester, so I have been named the Travel Assistant, which is probably the most stressful job, but Lura and I are going to take it on together. Ciao e bounanotte!

~Heather

Sunday

Today we woke up to the same routine of breakfast (where we had ran out of break so we mainly just had fruit) and then Italian class. Some of the Italian started to sink into today, so I am confident that by the end of this week long crash course we will all be able to survive here in Genova pretty decently. Then we had a late lunch after some people ran out for more bread, and then Lura and I headed out to go to the top of Genova. However, the tabacci where you buy tickets for the funiculare (a tram that takes you to the top) was closed, so we just continued walking westward to get a different view of the city. On the way back we stopped at the diPerdi to satisfy some chocolate cravings, and then headed back to the villa.

Tonight we went out to il tre mialo (?), a restaurante right on the port. Everyone went, including our italian professor, Barbara, and our recently settled studio professor, Bernard. For dinner they served us an appetiser with cheese bread and a bread made by chickpeas. For our first course we had Pesto with special pasta only found in Genova which reminded us of short twirly worms, as well as spinach ravioli. For the next course we had a fish common in Genova covered in a buttery sauce with pine nuts and black olives with potatoes on the side. Apparently this dish is native to Genova because it provided a hearty meal for all the sailors and boatmen who came to Genova. For dessert we had a very light vanilla gelato covered in chocolate and powdered sugar. Throughout we had a very good white wine and followed that up with a quick shot of espresso. All in all it was a fantastic meal and it was great to eat some food that was specifically from Genova.

Tomorrow we start classes at 9:30 in the morning, so everyone is trying to head to bed a little earlier (and terribly failing). A presto!

~Heather

School Saturday

Today we didn't do too much. We woke up in time for breakfast and our first Italian class at 11 where Barbara attempted to teach us a little Italian. We learned some basic phrases, and she gave us all Italian names to remember us by, so mine is Anna. After about two hours of class, we went down and made ourselves lunch, which was a combination of leftovers from previous dinners and sandwiches. This afternoon we just chilled a little, a lot of people took naps from our previous night of fun in the town, so I headed to the nearest store to attempt to find some of the things that I left behind. It took me the longest time to find shampoo, conditioner, body soap, and face wash because obviously I can't read Italian and they bore no resemblence to their English or French names. However, somehow I managed. Until I got to the checkout counter and the lady spoke to me in Italian so I said I speak English and she responded that this store only speaks Italian. At least I understood that part in Italian! So I said sorry and I think all was well but you never know. Anyway, I will have to keep searching for a couple of the "rarer" things on my list like contact solution....

Then we had class again before dinner and just reviewed what we went over earlier to let it sink in a little more. It was fun, I love all of our Italian names! Then we watched the remainder of the Clemson basketball game which we found online, but the connection was a bit rough so we listened to the radio broadcast while looking at a broken up video feed that was about 10 seconds behind at points. However, I am not going to rub anything in, but I am just saying that I have now won the first two bets of the season.

So after the game we made our own dinner here again, and then played some masterful Ping pong and some rather dramatic games of kill ping pong, which almost nearly resulted in multiple injuries. Now we are all just hanging around the villa and making some plans for another full day tomorrow,,, in between classes of course. Our professor also arrives tomorrow, and we are all very excited to meet him and determine what we are in for this semester. That's all for tonight!

~Heather

Our last day of freedom.

Today we still didn't have classes due to the fact that none of our professors are here yet. So we had the luxury of sleeping in late, eating a casual breakfast together, and hanging out all morning and realizing that our computers aren't much fun if everyone in America is still asleep and you can't talk to them. We stayed in until lunch, which was delicious. We had what we called quiche as well as pasta made with salmon, and it was fantastically amazing. After lunch a couple of us headed down to hit the port which we had missed the day before of travel. It was much much colder down there with the wind, but we got to see the pirate ship (which was from a movie called Pirates) and is constantly docked in Genova. It was like something from pirates and it took everything in me NOT to climb aboard.

We walked a little further down and saw the Renzo Piano concoction which looks like a lot of white poles sticking out of the ocean, but it holds various tents up,,, and under one of them there is currently a skating rink which we admired for a while.

Then we continued on down and wound up at this huge pipe covered in graffiti that you can walk through. So of course we went into it, and were in the process of taking pictures and admiring the work when a man came up to us and gave us bracelets and asked for money. So he couldn't speak good english and we could speak Italian, but he spoke French, so that was cool for Lura and I to get to talk to him in French. He explained that all he needed was food and he worked really hard,, to which we said sorry we don't have any. Then he asked if I was married, and I said no too young, and then he told me he has the perfect guy for me if I ever wanted to meet him. That was fun!

We came back to the villa, did some shopping in the grocery store down the street, and then headed out to meet Lucca (our italian friend of the villa). Turns out we had 16 people go, only two didn't so Lucca was slightly overwhelmed, but he took us to THE BEST pizza place in Genova for dinner. It was pretty awesome actually! Then he took us to two bars, one that was like the Library in Piazza delle Erbe, and then we went some other place right beside this church. We went downstairs into this old brick room,, and almost the whole floor was just glass looking down onto water below, and you sat down on pillows ontop of it. Here a lot of Lucca's friends came to meet us so we had about 30 people in that little space--- it was soo much fun.

Tomorrow we start class, and hopefully get cell phones after some of today's incidents where we loose random members of our group,, but it should be fun, despite the fact that it is technically a Saturday-- it is Italian class which is kind of vital to our existence, so it shouldn't be too bad.

~Heather

Our first day of exploration.

Today we woke up, and the sun was out and rapidly melting all the snow from the previous day. We slept in fairly late this morning due to our "jetlag" which we figured out doesn't really happen for architecture students because we are used to not sleeping anyway. So before lunch (which is really dinner here) we explored Genova, just walked down for about 20 mintues into town and turned around. The problem is we wanted to take a different way back, which was our first mistake. So we took a different path and ended up way above our villa and COMPLETELY lost. We were winding up paths that were covered in snow b/c the sun couldn't even reach them and wound up having to scale back down the big hill and finally spotted our villa. We were riding on seeing the castle to orient us, but we very quickly found out that you can't see the castle from everywhere. We had so much fun getting lost though, it was worth it!

So then we had lunch prepared by the chef and then headed out again furthur into town. We started by going down to the Opera House and then heading down Via XX Settembre. This is the road which had a lot of shopping which we will definitely be taking advantage of. Then we started heading toward the port and we wound up in the hopping part of Genova. Really tiny streets that are like 6 stories high and filled with local shops--- a couple of markets, some fun shoppes, and some really delicious chocolate and pastry places. At this point the sun was setting, so we headed up to the villa to heat up our own dinner. It was a great day, and we are planning on doing the same thing tomorrow-- maybe heading to a grocery store for a few things we forgot. We won't be having classes until next week- except we start Italian on Saturday since the teacher gets in tomorrow night.

Here is my room in the villa, and to the right is my very small bed!

That's all for tonight!

~Heather

First Day in Genova

So after travelling for entirely too long, we finally arrived in Genova. We had many delayed planes along the way, and for a while we thought we weren't even going to be able to make it to Genova due to the snow, but it appears we were the last flight in before it got terribly bad. When we arrived we jumped in a cab and drove through the city up to Via Privata Piaggio 14, "Castelleto" section where our villa was. At this point the snow started coming down hard, which was rare for Genoa since they only get snow every couple of years. How lucky of us to arrive in Genova to be welcomed by snow!

Once we got inside we met Sylvia, basically the person in charge here at the villa. She showed us around the place, gave us keys, and then left us to choose our rooms and unpack. Since Lura, Po, and I were the first ones here, we got first dibs on rooms. Our room has 3 girls, it's own bathroom, and overlooks the entire town of Genova. So after we settled in a bit, we put on some snow gear and headed out into the private garden to enjoy the ever piling snow. It was simply beautiful.

More people are starting to arrive now, but we don't know if everyone is going to be able to get here by tomorrow due to these snow storms all across Europe. As of right now we haven't even heard from our professor, so we will see what happens about starting classes on Friday.

Hopefully tomorrow we will get to explore a little more of the town now that we are settled in and will be less sleep deprived. That's all for now!

~Heather