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