Two Of My Favorite Trips Yet

24Feb2005 – Thursday

I got up around 7:45 when Daniel woke me up. Id taken a shower the night before so I wasn’t worried about that, all I had to do was get dressed. Being brave I walked to the window and opened the shutters to find that it was a fairly nice day out. That meant field trip was on. So I got dressed quickly and then we all walked to the buses and Daniel and I ended up sitting in the very front seat because we were so late getting there. So we settled in, both put on our mp3 players and drifted off.

Well I woke up not too long after because my stomach started hurting. At first I just thought it was my stomach grumbling grumpily because I hadn’t fed it that morning, but I soon realized that the sun was directly on the both of us through the enormous front window of the bus and I was getting baked. Very un-cool. I tend to have really weird problems with heat sickness in automobiles if I get overheated. Something to do with motion and too much heat makes me sick like crazy and I was having trouble. So for the next hour and a half I struggled not to vomit and tried to remain as comfortable as possible until we arrived in Assisi. When we got to the parking lot I was the first one leaping off the bus and gasping for the very cool refreshing air outside. I found a bench and sat there for a while just soaking up the cold weather and thanking my lucky starts that it was.

Soon the group straggled together and started its hike up the hill, around to the right, then a u-turn to the left then straight on to the large square directly in front of us and through two large gates. As we were walking I don’t know if it was my sickness or what, and how I get very irritable when my stomach doesn’t feel good, but I noticed quite vividly how loud our group was. I was ashamed to be anywhere near them, I wanted to blend into the walls and disappear and not have the locals who stared at us with looks of confusion, annoyance, bewilder, and disappointment, associate myself with them. I couldn’t believe it really, I mean the center had lectured us a thousand times about being quiet and respectful in all of the small local towns we were going to be visiting, but here we were sounding like Barnum and Bailey’s parading through their streets. Anyway, we arrived at our destination, which was a very large church and the group crowded around Marco (Assisi is his home town) for the historic lecture, and I wandered off to keep away from them and take some pictures.

Soon I was irritated yet again by the lack of respect people in our group had for each other as well. There were at least 10 times I was lining up a shot and just about to take my picture when someone from our group would waltz 20 feet in front of me with no regard whatsoever to what I was trying to do and snap a few pictures. I’m sorry, but I at least have the courtesy to look around and make sure no one else is lining up a shot before I start to try and get mine, and if they are I wait for them to finish before I jump in the middle of it. So I ended up taking all the pictures I wanted finally and finding a place against the wall about 10 feet away from the group to crouch down and listen while not being directly mixed with these barbarians. I was hoping my stomach would feel better soon, and surely that would alleviate some of my irritability.

Well soon after I crouched down, this enormous white dog with spots came bounding through our entire group tongue wagging to the ground and heading straight for me and my face. He knocked me over and I couldn’t help but laughing and watching him dodging in and out of the group racing around us like buster and every other dog I’ve ever seen does when they get finished taking a bath. I tried to snap a few pictures of him, but he wouldn’t stand still for 5 seconds for me to do so, and ended up prancing through the gates and off somewhere down the street. Well I have to admit, I was cheered up at this point and wasn’t even thinking about my stomach anymore. I guess there’s something about being tackled by a large friendly dog that just makes me feel better, lol. Anyway soon after this I heard the rest of Marco's speech about how this was the Church of St. Francis who started the Franciscan Monk order, how famous it was, and how people everywhere, including the Pope make pilgrimages to pray at the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi.

Anyhow, we started our way in and were informed of the progression we should take through the tomb first, then the lower church, then the upper church, and that there were no photographs of any kind allowed inside… bummer… upon entering this church I soon realized it was one of my favorites. The ceiling in the lower church was arched and vaulted the same way that all the other ones wed seen had been, but the ceiling was so much lower it made you feel like you were actually in a real place, and was very comfortable and somehow warm and familiar. It was richly painted, but not frescoed like crazy and I could still see a lot of the main structural elements very clearly as well as the building materials, etc. this was a medieval church and it very much reflected the medieval town of Assisi and I loved being there. So I headed for the stairs down into the tomb and was dieing from not being able to take pictures. However even if I'd tried everything was so dark I knew that none of them would come out anyway. But the tomb was beautiful. Everything was so archaic feeling, the stones were so old, but so well kept, and the altar with the tomb was surrounded in an ancient iron cage to protect it from thieves and grave robbers and the like. The lights were amazing, hanging from the low ceiling so low even I could smack my face on them, and there was recessed lighting under the ceiling that appeared quite original which amazed me and cast a beautiful glow on the ceiling. It was an amazing experience. As I made my way through the aisle and around to the right of the altar which you could fully circle, I found a small alcove on the right, as well as the other two sides, and went into the alcove and sat down to admire things. Even though I’m not catholic I soon found myself taking advantage of the situation and praying at this extremely famous and holy site. Afterwards, I reemerged from the tomb and finished seeing the lower church and then made my way up to the outer courtyard and gift shop to look around then up to the upper church which was far less impressive to me. It was high ceiling vaulted and very similar to most of the churches we’d seen and there were far less people in it paying their respects and praying, etc. So I made my way through it and found myself in another courtyard amongst some large statues of elephants (I don’t know why but the last couple of years I have become quite enamored with elephants, and I don’t think it has anything to do with my school.) so I took some pictures as well as found a few photo-ops with my roommates etc.

Soon we were all there and we started hiking to the next site which was another famous church up the hill from this one and was the church that Marco had actually grown up in. It had some very interesting and beautiful statues as well as some fond memories and stories from Marco and was a very beautiful church although had obviously been completely overhauled recently which Marco ended up telling us later on.

Next we went to lunch and it was delicious, then a lot of us wandered around afterwards in our free time just looking in shops and getting coffees, gelato, pastries, and the like. I ended up getting a scarf (my first ever) and a patch. A few hours later after much laughter and wandering we met up with the group and headed to the buses to head down the mountain to one last church and then home. On the way out of the city Marcus, ever the fun loving guy, found a park right outside of town and we took some photos of him playing on the kiddy-toys.

We got on the bus and again I was in the front seat, but the sun was lowering on the opposite side of the mountain so it was no big deal. We went down the mountain and got off across the street from the church of Santa Chiara of Los Angelos or something like that. I loved the outside, minus the huge gaudy gold statue of Santa Chiara atop the peak. But the inside left much to my desires. It had also been renovated heavily quite recently and was painted completely white inside and to me looked more like the inside of a southern plantation house then a church. The only saving grace for me here was the 8 “chapels,” which is what we call the little niches off of the side aisles - although they aren’t chapels in the sense we use it today, that were very lavishly decorated with baroque art and sculpture that was quite beautiful. Again I wasn’t allowed to take pictures in the church for the 3rd time that day, so my documentation of Assisi through photography was somewhat dwindled to say the least.

After leaving that church quite soon (we were running a bit late) we got back on the buses and made the trek home which I didn’t sit in the front for and did sleep quite soundly for while listening to my headphones. When we got back to Castiglion Fiorentino we hurried to the center and had a nice dinner followed by me getting online for a few hours and talking about apartment stuff with Josh and JereBeth and then going to sleep quite late.

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25Feb005 – Friday

I was in no hurry at all to get up as I had nothing to do Friday and had all the time in the world to do it in. I ended up emerging from my sheets around 11:30 and then from the shower soon after. I went downstairs and got online for a bit but found no one on and very little to do and then went to lunch soon after. After lunch I arranged to go to the Co-Op with Jon and took a short nap while I waited for him to get showered and ready and we embarked on our journey down the hill. Along the way I wanted to stop at the military outlet and get a very small backpack or something of the like to take with us on the day trips because the only backpack I have is rather enormous, and also to start sewing all of my patches onto. I plan to keep the backpack or bag or whatever it ends up being as a memento of this entire adventure and was anxious to get one. Well it was during the siesta hours here so the military outlet wasn’t open (2nd time I hadn’t been able to go there) and we went on to the Co-Op. We did some shopping, I got body wash and orange juice, and food because between meals here which is 7 hours and after them when we stay up late pretty much everyone tends to get hungry and a bit cranky, so I needed some snacks. In the end I only spent 20 euro and 5 of it ended up being on gum that I couldn’t find a price for but I got 2 packages of it with 2 boxes each so I suppose it wasn’t too bad. I got a bag of 10 biscuits for a euro nickel! I was proud of that, lol! Anyway we went back up the hill and then I chatted a little on the computer and we bummed around before dinner. We went and ate dinner and I ended up sitting at a table that I had the most fun at since I’ve been here. We were laughing so hard the entire meal everyone probably thought they’d spiked our food with something, lol! It was a lot of fun. Afterwards we watched Big with a bunch of people in the student lounge and then tried to figure out for about an hour how to hook my laptop up to the TV so we could all watch a movie off of it, but to no avail. Soon after I got online to talk to Josh and JereBeth more about apartments and whatnot and ended up going to bed a little late considering I was going on a daytrip Saturday with a small group.

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26Feb2005 – Saturday

I woke up to my alarm at 7:30 and found Daniel getting out of the shower, I asked if he was finished and he said yeah but that he was supposed to get Wes up to get him in, I was confused and we asked each other what was going on and soon realized that we were all going on the same day trip and hadn’t known it, lol! So Wes let me jump in real quick for about 10 minutes before he did and then we all got dressed and being the primpers that the 3 of us are ended up having to run half of the way down the mountain to the train station so that we didn’t miss the train. We literally got on it right before it left. And I had to talk to the conductor about not having been able to validate my ticket, etc. Everything was fine though and I wandered through about 10 cars before I finally found our group and then settled in for the ride. About an hour and a half later we ended up in Florence where we found the next train and got on it for about another hour and half before we finally arrived in the one and only, Pisa! We were all famished at this point some the top of our list of things to do was to eat. We wandered down the main corso till we found a restaurant that was pretty cheap and settled in for our meal, all 9 of us. After lunch we felt much better and started our excursion across the city to the famous church. We finally got there soon after and it was amazing. No matter how many times you see the leaning tower in books or whatever, nothing compares to actually being there. So we did the tourist thing and took a dozen pictures of us “lifting” or “pushing” over the tower. And then met the most Americans we had in Italy yet and had them take out picture with it, and we took theirs, etc, etc. We were there fro a few hours and met two fairly large groups of American students, one from Dallas and the other from the Northeast area and also viewed the church, bell tower, and baptistery… all from the exterior. We discovered that it cost 15 euro to go up the tower with was outrageous considering it was 6 at the Vatican and 8 at the Duomo, the church was closed on weekends, and the baptistery cost some amount that I never found out, but that no one wanted to pay. So we then investigated the numerous shops down the street adjacent to the church and I ended up getting a few patches that I needed as well as one for Pisa and then a few other souvenirs, oh and one free dirty postcard which I gave to one of the other guys, lol! After all was said and done I ended up with 6 souvenirs for 20 euro and I think that beat the 15 euro to walk up the tower. Not to mention the 50 pictures I took of the tower, lol. After that we went to this famous Gellateria and then back to the train station to get on the train. 3 hours later we ended up back in Castiglion and me and Daniel decided to try the Military outlet once more since we were already down in the area. This time, to my extreme pleasure it was open, and we went in to look around. This place was high class, and very different from good ‘ol Colonel Bubbie’s, but was still very cool. We ended up looking around for about an hour before I finally ended up with a pair of vintage leather military gloves for 2 euro (Whoop!) and a vintage military messenger bag for 16. So we were hurriedly leaving because dinner was in 15 minutes and discovered it was raining out. Well Daniel apologized and said he was starved and couldn’t miss a moment of dinner and literally started running up the mountain. I laughed and walked quickly whilest getting soaked by the rain which soon turned to very light snow. By the time I got to the center I was 5 minutes later for dinner (big deal) and was nice and wet (well my jacket anyway). So I found a seat across from Daniel actually and settled in for dinner. It was fried chicken and French fries, and I wasn’t thrilled. At least the spaghetti was good as the first course. I didn’t end up eating very much, because I don’t even like fried chicken in the stated, but here all chicken is a pain in the butt because they have extremely weird cuts of meat and they end up being mostly bone. Anyway, after dinner I got online shortly and then found a girl with some sewing supplies and then Jon and I settled down in the student lounge and sewed on some of our patched while we watched Super Troopers. I ended up getting two on during the movie, lol, and he did too. Then afterwards I transferred some movies to his mp3 player for him and then went to the computer lab where I transferred about 1000 of his songs on to my computer from his mp3 player and talked to Josh and JereBeth yet again about apartments, which I now have and JereBeth still doesn’t. My parents signed a lease with Josh yesterday at a place they all liked, so I was informed on all those details and now I have a place to live next year which is good. I ended up going to bed around 2ish.

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27Feb2005 – Sunday

I woke up quite aggravated at 9 to the freaking bells. I slept in 15 minutes increments until 10 because of the bells. At 10 my roommates and I decided to wander down and grab breakfast which was supposed to end at 10:30 on Sundays, but found that it had ended at 10 instead so I got some leftover pieces of ham and cheese, folded them over and grumpily climbed back upstairs to my room. When I got there I decided to eat some of the stuff id gotten at the Co-Op, because, that’s what it was for after all, then at that point it was about 10:30 so I found my earplugs from the plane, put them in and then climbed back into bed. I woke up at about 1:30 and found my roommates asleep and was amazed at how well the earplugs had worked, I literally heard nothing and they’d stayed in the entire time I was sleeping - a first for me and earplugs. I proceeded to take a very nice very long very hot shower, yum, and then got dressed and came down here to get online in the lab. After checking my mail and finding the pictures that my dad had sent me of the apartments from yesterday I decided to update my blog and it is now 4:30, and I am starving. I’m probably going to go snack some now and then do some odds and ends I need to take care of before and after dinner and then talk to JereBeth some before going to sleep. Ciao!

Cold...

20Feb2005 - Sunday

After I finished journaling, I ended up organizing pictures. Well I was really getting fed up with webshots and having to change out my pictures so I decided to do a little research on website that do pictures and one of the only other ones I really knew of was Yahoo! Photo so I decided to see what they offered. Well I couldn't really find it anywhere and decided to just sign up for it and find out and if I didn't like it I didn't necessarily have to use it. Well I ended up finding out that with yahoo I had unlimited free picture storage so decided to work with that instead and deleted my webshots stuff. For the next three to four hours I uploaded and played with all of my pictures on Yahoo!, which is actually very user friendly. I also talked to JereBeth for a while and ended up going to bed around 1ish.

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21Feb2005 - Monday

I slept in as late as I could, because to be honest I don't have class till 3 and had nothing else to do. I ended up getting up at about 11:30 and took a nice long shower before lunch. We ate lunch and then I took a really short nap before class at 3. After class it was time for dinner and all we really talked about was our project coming up. We were supposed to take a short field trip out to the site, but it was raining pretty hard and pretty cold out so we postponed it till Thursday when we had studio again. We also had a little hour long lecture about the history of architecture in Italy from 300bc to about 1200ad. Well after class it was time for dinner so I went and ate dinner. After dinner was a lecture that our professor, Peter, as giving over some of his recent projects so I attended that. Well it was interesting but I don't really no how to describe it or what to think of it. it was more on societal issues than architecture and well... I'm a little bemused about the whole thing. After the lecture was our Monday night movie which was going to be La Dolce Vida which is a pretty famous Italian movie. I heard it won a few oscars and what not. Well about 45 minutes into it I was pretty bored and couldn't handle much more, so I decided to go and talk to JereBeth for the night and then head to bed. I don't remember what time exactly I went to bed, but I think it was pretty late, around 2ish.

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22Feb2005 - Tuesday

Well I had to get up for class at 11:15, but I also had a paper due that I hadn't written yet, so I got up at 9:30 to go write it. Well before I could I found an envelope on my desk with my name on it , and had talked to Melanie the TA at dinner the night before, so I knew exactly what they were. The envelope contained the grades for the first two projects we had in studio, so I pulled out my pocket knife and cut it open. After I opened the envelope, the paper writing was out the window. It's hard enough for me to write a paper when I am in a good mood, but after I found out my grades I was less than happy by far. I don't know what's going on, but I am not happy about it. Anyway, I talked to some people in studio for a while before going to meet my group before class and discuss our questions for the day. Then we had class, and after class I went to lunch. After lunch Diego was watching a movie in the student lounge and he asked if I wanted to watch with him, so I watched the second half of The Big Labowsy with him and a few other people that staggered in out of curiosity. after the movie it was pretty much time to leave for my stone carving class so I went upstairs and dressed as necessary to go outside, grabbed my mp3 player and headed downstairs to find anyone else in the class and find out how we were getting there. Well I ran into Jon, who hadn't seen anyone and we thought we might have been left behind so we decided to start walking that way. About 15 minutes later we got there and discovered that no one else was to be found but the prof and we ended up being first. So I sat down and jammed away while chipping at the stone and just kind of trying to get the feel of this stone carving thing. After I while I started to really get into it and worked on a few different things. Well I was starting to get a little more confident that I might be able to do this after all and decided to start on a small project to see where my limitations were. Well I don't know exactly how I did it, but about 15 minutes into my new little project my chisel wasn't working anymore. So I blew away the dust and inspected my tool to find that the tip of it had exploded of sorts and was extremely blunt and contorted. Laughing I showed the guys next to me who were equally as dumbfounded and then I went to show the prof. He got a really weird look on his face and chuckled in a weird way and a few minutes later got me a new one. So I continued working a little longer until it was time to leave so then we started our hike back up the mountain. Well the sun had started sinking below the clouds and the horizon and it was freaking cold. I mean the coldest I've been here yet. By the time we got back to the center my nose, fingers, and toes were all numb, stiff and hurting and I had a killer headache like I've never felt before. So I hung out around the radiator and ran my hands under some warm water until I finally warmed up a little. I went downstairs to check my mail just for grins and heard that our studio was meeting at 6:30. So a little later I went to studio and we did some rearranging of the room in preparation for our new project and then we went to dinner. After dinner I participated in a study that some girl from a local college was doing about the cartoon Futurama which I love anyway. So we watched an episode of that and then filled out a survey. After that I didn't have much to do so I bummed around a bit, talked to a few different people, then decided to get online for the night. I ended up talking to JereBeth about her apartment options and what she had found out, etc, etc. And throughout the course of talking to her and Jon who was on his laptop sitting next to me I started feeling really bad about how screwed I was getting in the way of our lease for me and the 3 guys I was going to live with. So I ended up talking to them a little and in the end they told me they understood if I needed to back out because of the money and I said I didn't know for sure, but I needed to talk to my parents and stuff. Then I talked to my parents for a while and then to JereBeth a little before going to bed for the night... And pretty late at that all the while having to get up for a field trip the next day. Joy.

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23Feb2005 - Wednesday

So I wake up as my roommate gets out of the shower and ask him what time it is. He tells me 7:30. I ask what time we have to be at the bus. 8:30. I laugh and say they left me enough time for a shower and roll out of bed. He says yeah, but good luck because its warmish verging on cold so I say forget it and start to get dressed with him. I'm really tired of taking ice cold showers before field trips and it ruining my day. I don't know what the deal is here but they don't have hot water until after 8 or 9. Anyway were talking and I wonder out loud how cold it is and he says he doesn't know. He goes to the bathroom to do his hair and I go to the window. 2 seconds later he hears me screaming and runs to see what the commotion is... It's a freaking blizzard outside! You wouldn't believe the snow coming down. I never seen anything like it being that I'm from Texas and haven't really been around snow ever. So we start grumbling and joking and getting dressed much warmer for our field trip in the blizzard and decide to head downstairs for breakfast. On the way some guy from k-state I think, I don't know everyone by any means, tells us the field trip is cancelled and so now were really grumbling because we could still be sleeping... So we go downstairs and I talk to Marcell and find out what all is going on. They had decided to cancel it based on the weather and do Thursday classes instead. So I talked to some people and got online for a bit, and then played spades with some people because no one had class till 9:30. So then I talked to a few more people and ran into my professor for my 11:15 class and checked with him to make sure it was on. He said yes, so I decided to go take a nap. I found my roommates already sleeping so joined them eagerly. Got up for class and after class went to lunch. After lunch went and took another nap before studio. Got up for studio and went to it and did that until dinner time. Went to dinner and then came in here to check my mail and update my journal. So tomorrow we are supposed to have the field trip to Assisi I guess we'll see what the weather is like and what happens for sure. Now its getting close to 10 so I just might take a shower tonight and then turn in early and get some good sleep hopefully. Miss and love you all, ciao!

I'm So Behind!

Okay, i know it's been two weeks, but here they are finally, i hope you have a few hours, because it took me about 5 to write it all!

06Feb2005 - Sunday

I did nothing really the rest of the day. After my shower I found a Natalie going to Hermes so I went with her to eat. Everyone left for Carnavale and I stayed at the center with Natalie, and a few other people. We edited pictures and uploaded them to the internet on my laptop for the main part of the day. Then I went to dinner and after dinner I talked online for a little while. Then I went upstairs and took a short nap before going to the Super bowl party at Regiro's. It was fun, but kind of boring for me because everyone was getting really drunk and I wasn’t drinking at all. I had an amazing pizza and then I left at half time and came back to talk to JereBeth for a while. Then I went to bed.

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07Feb2005 – Monday

I slept in because I didn’t have class till 3and got up around 10. Showered. Dressed. Hung out till lunch. Ate lunch. Took a nap till time for class. Went to class, and got two projects, then we split up into groups and I was the odd man out and was added to group be default as usual. Our project was to do an analysis of a fragment of the city measuring 6 meters cubed. So my group went and found place to do our fragment, and did a ton of measurements for everything for the next half an hour. We then came back and redrew some things and decided who was going to do what in our group and we decided that Kim and I would do the model and Andrew would do the drawings before going to dinner. After dinner the center showed It’s A Beautiful Life and we watched that. Then I got online to talk to JereBeth for a while before going to bed.

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08Feb2005 – Tuesday

I got up around 9 and got showered and dressed. I then went to studio to start working on our model of the fragment. At 11:15 I went to class to have an introduction to my history class for half an hour. After that I went back to studio and worked on our model until time for lunch. After lunch I came back and worked on the model until dinner time. After dinner I came back and worked on the model until it was finished. I finished it about 11:30 that night. Heh! Kim didn’t really do a lot on the model because it’s really hard to work on a model with two people but she did make a wire sculpture type thing of the fences that were in out fragment and they turned out really great. Then I talked to JereBeth for a little bit before going to bed because I had to get up early for the field trip on Wednesday.

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09Feb2005 – Wednesday

I had to be on the train at 8:30 so I got up early and showered and dressed then went to the train station. We arrived at the train station in Florence about an hour and a half later and I followed professor LaPastina to the Duomo where we waited between the Duomo and the baptistery for the whole group to get there. We then broke into smaller groups and all of the architecture students went with Paolo. We went into Duomo first thing and it was really beautiful. It was definitely one of my favorite buildings of the trip so far. Then we went to museum across street from the Duomo that had a lot of sculptures and other stuff in it. I liked the museum more than the things on display and didn’t really pay too much attention to anything going on but took a lot of pictures. After we left I went with a group of my classmates who were going to a leather store and then to lunch. I tried on a few jackets after pressure from the shop owner, who was very outspoken and insistent, but nothing looked good on me and they were extremely expensive anyway. We then went to a little restaurant away from all the touristy stuff that Alexis had heard about. We had to wait 15 minutes to be sat, so Chalyce and I went to market nearby and looked around. I saw a sweater that I knew I had to get, and planned to do so after lunch. We went to lunch, and it was really good. While we were there we talked to some cool Italian guys at our table and had a pretty good time. After lunch I went in search of an ATM and didn’t find one anywhere. So I met up with the group back at the market, and we found a lady running one of the shops who told us where one was. Then a few of us went to the ATM before returning to the market. I ended up getting the sweater and a “Ciao Ciao” shirt. Then we went to Santa Maria Novella which is a really famous old church we knew of. It was beautiful, and the stained glass windows were projecting gorgeous colors all over inside of the columns and walls and floor. They were extremely vivid greens, blues, and magentas and it was like nothing id seen in any of the other churches. After we left there we went to a gelatteria and then decided to go ahead and come home. So we got on the train and came back, and made it back in time for dinner. After dinner I talked to JereBeth a little bit and answered some e-mails then went to bed.

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10Feb2005 – Thursday

Got up and showered and dressed and had to meet with my group for our history class at 10:45. We got together and decided on our three questions we had to have prepared for class discussion. Went to class and had discussion. Then we went to lunch. After lunch I decided I wasn’t going to go to studio since I had already finished my part and had nothing to do. So I went and watched a movie on my laptop, Predator 2, and then took a nap. After a few hours I got up and went downstairs to see what was going on. I checked with my studio group to make sure everything was going well, and found that we were finishing up drawings. Then Kim and I put the finishing touches on our model. After studio I went to the Co-Op with Jason, Jon, and Brett (it’s like a grocery store basically) and we were going to get our hairs cut on the way back but instead made reservations for next day. We came back and ate dinner and then I rented Snatch from the bar and a big group of us watched it in the student lounge. After the movie I talked to JereBeth for a bit and went to bed.

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11Feb2005 – Friday

I got up and first thing ordered some flowers to be delivered to JereBeth on Valentine’s Day. Then I answered some e-mails, took a shower, and went to meet the guys for our haircut appointments. They’d already left so I hiked down there and met them. I ended up waiting around for an hour and reading magazines while they took their turns and then finally got my hair cut. Then we all went to pay and to our surprise we all found out it cost 19 euro. We were all shocked and very upset about it. Well, we missed lunch because the haircuts took so long, so went to a pizzeria and got pizza. Then we came back to the center and ate it then watched a movie on my laptop, Goodfellas, took a nap, then got up for dinner. After I ate dinner I got online and talked to parents for a long time and JereBeth for a little bit then went to bed.

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12Feb2005 – Saturday

I got up and showered then went to the train station with my roommates and got food on the way before getting our tickets to Cortona. Actually, we took the train to Cumarce-Cortona or something to that effect, which we thought was a stop inside Cortona. Well we quickly found out when we got there that all the signs in the city were pointing away from the city saying Cortona. We realized that we were in a neighboring city and ended up hiking up the mountain for next 2 hours and 4 miles to Cortona. At one point we actually went through this old mans crops by accident and at first he came to yell at us but then ended up being really nice and showing us how to get to the road to get up there. When we got there we looked around the main square, and took a lot of pictures. We went in a few shops, and went up and down the main corso before deciding to get some pizza. Wes accidentally ordered two pizzas instead of two slices and it was really funny. We went and sat on the steps of the town hall and ate our pizza while all the kids in the town hung out in the main square. While we were eating it was getting dark fast and when we finished we decided to figure out how we were going to get back down the mountain. We went outside the main city walls and saw a tour bus. A tour bus! We ran over to them and asked if we could get on and the lady we were talking to told us it was private and to go to the bus station and pointed. We started in that direction and it was already dark and we couldn’t see anything really. Well a few minutes later we saw a guy walking across a parking lot and Wes shouted at him asking if spoke English. He did and we asked the best way to get to the train station. He said he might be able to give us a lift and told us to hang on for a minute. He went and asked his buddy if it was okay and then they gave us a ride down the mountain. We made it to the train station just barely in time to catch a train home. When we got back to Castiglion Fiorentino we hiked back up to the center where I talked on internet for a while and then went to bed. In the end it was a really memorable and fun experience.

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13Feb2005 – Sunday

Ah… I slept in and then got showered and dressed. Then I went downstairs with my roommates and we checked the train times online and got some food. We went to the train station and got tickets and got on the only train headed to our destination at our time that we had checked online. Well we watched the whole way and never saw our stop and ended up in Florence. We then went to information to figure out how to get to the outlet center. They told us, but we didn’t want to buy another ticket so we just got on the train. It had taken us an hour and a half to get to Florence and no one had checked our tickets, and this was only a half an hour so we figured we’d be okay. Well, we got caught and had to pay a 5 euro fee and buy the ticket. Finally, we got to right city and there was a van taxi waiting at the train station for tourists going shopping. We got in and went to outlet. Once we got there, we discovered it was nothing like what I’d heard. I had heard somewhere that this outlet had shops with all of these big name designer labels, Gucci, Prada, etc. , and they were selling last years and the years before's styles at insanely discounted prices. We’re talking something like 5 euro for a shirt. Well it was nothing like that, there were clothes there for like 600 euro and I think the cheapest thing we saw was a tie for 40 euro at the Armani store. Well we went ahead and looked around in all of the big name shops since we were already there and afterwards my roommates wanted to go find another outlet with the Prada and Dolce stores, but I was disappointed and frustrated with the whole trip already and knew nothing there was going to be any cheaper, so I was going to try to catch an earlier train. I waited around for another van taxi and then went back to the train station only to find out that there wasn’t an earlier train and I was stranded at train station for 2 hours. During that time I decided to walk around the city close to the train station a little, but everything was closed on Sunday except one pizzeria. Well I was starving so went in and ordered a pizza from these people who spoke absolutely no English at all, and thought was going to get it soon. But after half an hour I asked the girl when it would be ready and she said 7o-clock which was really disappointing. I had ordered it at 6 and my train was leaving at 6:58. So I was bummed and didn’t know how to tell them to cancel it so I just left and walked back to station. I waited around some more and my roommates showed up about 5 minutes before the train was going to leave and they’d both gone back to the Armani store and bought hundred euro jackets... We got on and went home, but the train stopped at every city on the way and it took forever. Finally we got back about 8:30 and I went straight to Rigero’s. I ordered the same pizza I’d had at the Super bowl party and Daniel ordered two pizzas. We ate then went back to the center where I talked to my parents and JereBeth online for a while and then went to bed.

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14Feb2005 - Monday

I got up and talked on the internet in the morning. Answered some emails. Took a shower and went to lunch. Then I took a nap before class. I went downstairs as our group was about to present so we did the presentation of our project. When it was over with I couldn’t decide if the profs and guests had said good things or bad. Well we sat there for the next 2 and a half hours as everyone presented and the panel of critiquers argued amongst themselves. Finally we finished and I took another short nap. After that I went to dinner, and after dinner we watched the Monday night movie the center was showing in the theater which was A Holiday In Rome with Audrey Hepburn. I really enjoyed it and afterwards I talked to JereBeth. I checked the Fed-Ex tracking on her flowers and found out JereBeth hadn’t gotten them. At this point I got pretty upset about it and got Josh to help me track them down since I couldn’t call The States. We found them, but josh had to go to a meeting, so then I had to get my roommate from last semester, Greg, to go get them for me. It was really late at this point so I had to go to bed before I found out if she got them or not.

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15Feb2005 – Tuesday

I got up and took a shower and got dressed and found JereBeth online for a few minutes. Found out she got the flowers and felt a lot better about it. I wasn’t feeling too good and generally was having a pretty bad day though. Next I wrote my paper that was due at 11:15 that morning and then went to class where I listened to an overview of details regarding our Rome trip. Then I listened to a lecture about things we would see in Rome and tuned in my paper. Then we went to lunch, and after lunch I got in van to go to our first meeting of our stone carving class. We met our professor who was really nice but spoke no English. Then I had my first ever experience with stone carving and as of right now, I’m not very good at it from what I can tell. Some of the guys were having fun though and decided to stay later and walk back but I got on bus with the 2 girls that were there and went back at regular time because it was freezing outside and was starting to snow lightly. We got back to center in time for a short nap before dinner. I was still feeling pretty cruddy at this point. Went to dinner and ate and left early because I was still feeling cruddy. I got online and wanted to talk to JereBeth but she was studying for a test and then went to a test. So I talked to Jen her roommate for a while until she got back and then finally got to talk to her. We talked for a few hours and then said goodbye for the next couple of days as I was about to go on an extended trip to Rome for 3 days and then was staying after in Pompeii for a day or two possibly and was going to have no way to talk to her after that.

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16Feb2005 – Wednesday

I got up and got packed and ran to the train that was leaving at 7:58. I got on and headed to Rome. When we got there we got on a bus that took us to our first stop pretty close to the coliseum. I got off the bus and could see it and was amazed! We then took our first tour of Rome that included the coliseum, the ancient forum, the dungeon where Peter and Paul were held prisoner, Egyptian obelisks, the pantheon, and then the square where we were to meet after lunch. It was finally 1:30 and time for lunch so I ate some pizza and bought a new beanie and some leather gloves at the market in the square for really cheap. Then I met up with some people at the gellateria and had my first ever pistachio ice cream (well gelato) and it was delicious! Then we went to a fountain and I hunted for some patches. I found one, but not of Rome, and was a little bummed about that. Then we went to a really heavily ornamented and frescoed church before heading back to the square to meet. My feet were absolutely killing me at this point because the ground wasn’t even close to even, it was like were walking on big rocks everywhere we went. So we met the group and walked back to meet the bus and then rode the bus back to our hotel. We proceeded to get off and check in. I was exhausted and so were my roommates (we’d only had about 4 hours of sleep before doing all of this walking) and so we all took a nice loooong nap. When I woke up I was hungry and found most everyone was about to go find dinner so I got with a group to go eat dinner including my roommates and a bunch of people from Colorado state. We started walking in a direction and then there was some question as to where we were, and not being able to find it on the map, so we walked back to the first street we were on, then there was a lot of fighting between all of the CSU people, and one guy, Nick, and I heard the girls say lets just go eat back there, so he left pretty annoyed, and I followed him, and then we got there and discovered that no one had followed us, so we went back, and they were gone. (lol! what a run-on!) So we walked in the direction we thought they had gone and didn’t find them anywhere. So he got some pizza at a place near us, but it didn’t look very good to me so we went back to a bar we saw some people I recognized in, but it was late and they didn’t have any food and everyone was talking so I left on my own in search of food because I was starving. Finally I found a pizzeria and got some food that looked good and went back to the hotel. When I got there I ran into a bunch of people all hanging out in their rooms and chilled with them, then went upstairs to take off my jacket because I was hot and came back down only to discover they were about to go out. So I went back to my room and got my jacket and then went with them and we took a nice long night time walk to this fountain that was supposed to be really cool. I saw the coliseum lit up at night and then we ran into my roommates who I chastised for abandoning me, then we finally made it to the fountain. It was gorgeous and well worth the 45 minute walk it took to get there. We hung out there for a while and then made the 45 minute walk back to the hotel with everyone a little bit tipsy and having a lot of entertainment from Marcus who had probably had the most to drink. (Everyone but me of course, I’d had nothing to drink because I have no money to spend on alcohol.) Then we got back to the hotel and we hung out for a little longer before I went to bed around 2.

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17Feb2005 – Thursday

I got up and took a shower and got dressed and barely made it to breakfast at 8. Then we had a meeting on how to use the subway in Rome, etc, etc, and left to go to Vatican City for the day. The subway was really crowded like you wouldn’t believe. I mean people were crushed against the doors and spilling out at every stop, but it was a lot of fun and my first ever experience on a subway. We got to the stop for Vatican City and waited for the whole group to get there (the subway was so crowded we had to take a lot of different trains at different times, but they were only about 5 minutes apart) and then we walked to Vatican City. We walked in the gate and straight into one of the loggias of the Vatican and I was in awe and wonder. It was amazing, just the loggias! So I took a ton of pictures and then the group met for a historical lecture out in the middle for the next 45 minutes… We weren’t happy about this, because we were all really excited to go in to St. Peters! But it was interesting and we made the best of it. Finally, after a lot more pictures we made our way into the line to get in, and then we had another historical lecture for a little shorter time (maybe 25 minutes this time) just outside the entrance. Then we finally got to go in, and my jaw fell to the floor. This was easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. The entire place was so richly ornamented it could only be the Vatican. Everything was either gold or marble. That’s it, pure gold and pure marble. The entire St. Peters Cathedral! It was gorgeous and I took a ton more pictures. I didn’t stay with the group for the lecture (yet again) but instead just took pictures and saw everything. Finally, I ended up meeting with a group and decided to stick with them for lunch. We started out and stopped at some gift shops and I found a bunch of patches. (Yay!) Then we went in search of food and everything was so expensive it was ridiculous. Finally, we ended up at this food expo in one of the squares and we wondered through the different booths and found places that were selling sandwiches for pretty cheap. We ate and talked and just generally hung out before those of us in architecture had to meet at 3:30 for our next tour of the day through contemporary architecture in Rome. We got on the subway and made our way to the stop and got there a little early and waited for everyone to arrive. Then around 3:30 we started our tour with our studio prof Peter leading the way. We saw some pretty cool buildings and a water fountain that the guys joked around with and then a lot more really cool stuff. One thing that I thought was cool was the Square Coliseum that JereBeth and I had actually seen in the movie Titus last semester. Well finally around 6 we were supposed to go to a museum, but they were closed early because their budget was tight so the profs let us go and we started walking back to the subway. On the way we saw the most phenomenal thing I saw on the entire trip. We looked up to see what must have been millions of birds all flocking to the same area of the sky and I think what they were doing was riding the air currents. That’s my theory anyway. But it was amazing. They were all swirling around and flying in no specific pattern and it was just absolutely amazing, I really can’t explain it, but there were millions of them and they just kept coming. Some lady that lived there was talking to Peter and told him they do it almost everyday until 7 and then they just disappear. I’d never heard of it at all but it was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Kim had her video camera and we got it on film for at least 5 minutes and I’m putting it on my laptop soon. It was really indescribable, you’ll have to just see it for yourselves, but it was probably one of my top 3 favorite things of the trip. Well anyway we went back to the hotel and I met up with “the guys” and we hung out all night while they drank and we watched a soccer game. It was a lot of fun and some girls kept coming over and wanting us to go next door to their room to watch the game and we just generally had a good time, ate some dinner, the usual. The game ended with a 0/0 tie and then they all wanted to go out to a pub. But it was 11 and I was beat so I went to bed. At about 4:30 my roommates came in and woke me up and then we all finally went back to sleep at about 5:30.

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18Feb2005 – Friday

I got up at 6:45 and was first in the shower and then got dressed and packed and headed down for breakfast. Man, those breakfasts were good. the first eggs and orange juice id had in like a month and it was fantastic. They also had rolls and cheese and ham and I decided to make a bunch of little sandwiches with them to try and have some meals taken care of. Anyway, so we checkout out at 9 and we had found a brand new pillow n the bottom of our closet that we didn’t think was supposed to be there and was probably unaccounted for so I now have a new pillow. (Yay!) Anyway we checked out on got on the subway and headed back to the Vatican because today was the Vatican Museum with the Sistine Chapel. We got there early and had to stand in this ridiculously long line that wrapped all along the outside wall of Vatican City for over an hour. We finally go in and got our tickets and I don’t know what it is, but I really like museums. The architecture in this one was fantastic as well. Anyway, I took a ton of pictures and we went through hours of rooms and thought were never going to get to the Sistine chapel. And then finally the very last place was it. Don’t get me wrong, everything else there was beautiful as well, but that was the only thing I was really interested in. And it was gorgeous. Absolutely breath-taking. And you weren’t allowed to take video or photography of any kind in there, but I did it anyway secretively and they turned out fantastic! Whoop! Anyway, it was amazing and we were probably in that room alone for a half an hour, then we left and I met up with my group for the weekend: Brett, Jon, and Jason. We decided to get some pizza in the café there and rest our feet before embarking on our solo journey. Then we jumped on the subway back to the hotel, grabbed our stuff that they were storing for us for the day, and then back on the subway to the train station. Then we got our tickets and got on our train to Napoli (or Naples) where our hostel was for the night. After some searching from bad directions for about 45 minutes we found the place and stayed in for the night. We played spades and watched Under Siege in Italian and talked to the really friendly people who ran the hostel before going to bed early in preparation for a really really long day.

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19Feb2005 – Saturday

We got up and had a complimentary breakfast then headed back to the train station to go to Pompeii. A half an hour train ride later we got there and found our way to the city and ended up spending 3 glorious hours there. It was incredible. And I took a ton of pictures -anyone noticing a pattern - (one with me in it for mom) then we ate in the café at Pompeii which was really pricey and then it was starting to rain. We went back to the train station and waited for our train back to Napoli. We went back to the hostel and got our bags and picked up a guy from Colorado who happened to be staying there and was also heading to the train station and he walked with us to it. Well we just missed a train and were a little hacked about it, but instead found a Euro-Star that was leaving in about 45 minutes so decided to take it. It was a really really nice train, but was definitely not cheap. Anyway we got back to Rome really quick and then had missed the next train by literally two minutes. The next one didn’t leave for 2 hours so went to McDonalds and grabbed some food and waited and talked until we could board the train. We got on it and then a few hours later finally got back to home sweet home - Castiglion Fiorentino. We hiked back up to the center, which really took it out of me carrying a 50lb backpack, where I took a shower and then decided to take it easy the rest of the night. I got online and talked to JereBeth till about 4:30 then went to bed.

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20Feb2005 – Sunday

I got up at about 11:45 because of the freaking bells… the bell tower at the church next door rings its bells every fifteen minutes on Sundays and its ridiculous… anyway I got up and had showered last night, so I went downstairs and wrote a really long e-mail to JereBeth, then watched a movie on my laptop, Solaris, while waiting for Daniel to go eat lunch. We finally did around 4 and then got back at about 5. After that I came down here to work on my journal and that’s what I did for about 2 and a half hours before dinner. Then I went to dinner but left really early because the pasta filled me up - I was still full from lunch. So after my pasta and a gallon of water (I am so dehydrated) I came back up here to finish working on this journal entry. Now it’s an hour and a half later and I'm getting pretty close to finishing all of my editing and whatnot. So after I publish this I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do, but I have a date to talk to JereBeth around 11:15ish but more or less I think I’m just going to relax. This last week was the most hectic yet and my feet are still recovering to say the very least, lol! Well I love you all and I will talk to you later! Ciao!

A Whole Week's Worth Of Entries

Sorry I haven’t written in so long, it has been an extraordinarily busy week for me. But now I have an enormous amount of time in which I have nothing else to do, so here we go.

01Feb2005 – Tuesday

Tuesday I again awoke early. This time I believe it was after about 5 hours of sleep. Again I got online and talked to JB for a while. I do miss her a lot… anyway. So around 7:30ish I went and got in the shower and then I made my way down to breakfast. Which was again rock hard bread and jam, as I soon found out it always is. After breakfast I found a comfy chair in the student lounge and curled up and sketched down all of my ideas for my upcoming project. Then I got online and answered some e-mail.
At about 11 we had our first class for the week which was out architectural history/philosophy class. We had a guest speaker and I believe I came in just a tad late. At any rate she spoke for a little over an hour and in that time went over 2000 years of history and architecture in Roma (Rome). It was fast paced to say the least. After class it was time for lunch so we did that. Then we all pretty much went straight to studio because it started in a little while anyway. Well I did some more sketches and go pretty much all of what I had figured out on paper and then brainstormed about the things I hadn’t. I took a break at some point to go check my e-mail, use the restroom, etc. this time the professors were making their way around class and having little “desk crits” as we call them with everyone. That’s just a nickname for desk critiques for those who were wondering. Well I after the entire class was over ant it was about 5 me and 4 other people still hadn’t been spoken to. Well the profs said that they’d come back around 18:30 and get the rest of us in before lunch. Well I was tired, so I decided to take a nap. Well the alarm went off at 18:30 and I simply turned it off and rolled back over. Heh. Well at 19:15 my roommates woke me up for dinner and I got up and figured I might as well go see if they were still down there perhaps I could still get in a slight critique before dinner. Well I got down there and lo and behold they were talking to Jon. They finished a few minutes after I got there and Marcel came over to me. He glanced at my paper and began talking. Then Peter came over and the two began taking to each other and then to me as well. After they finished explaining a lot of abstract thoughts about what they wanted I asked if I could explain my design. Marcel said, “Oh, yes of course,” As they had obviously forgotten that part of the crit. So I quickly explained the major details of my design and they asked if we could walk and talk as it was time for dinner. So we did and they in a nutshell told me that it was no go. They said a lot of things about it being too simplified and I needed to be more creative to (Peter) “go crazy!” Then Marcel gave me a speech about how any building that is every built is only 10% of it original design and how I’ve already knocked off 90% of mine and if they were to build it as I have it designed it would be next to nothing, they wanted to see the 100% of the idea before I simplified it, they wanted the “big picture.”
So with that we were at dinner and that was that. So I went and had dinner and then I didn’t feel like thinking about the project anymore so we played spades and chatted and then a few people decided to go out but I decided to talk to JB briefly before going to bed and trying to get some sleep before our trip the following day to Freinze (Florence).

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02Feb2005 – Wednesday – Field trip to Frienze

Well again I woke up early and went ahead and got in the shower and before I knew it we were boarding the buses to go to Florence. Well by the time I got up to the buses (as we have to walk up hill to get to the drop-off point) myself alone with about 6 other people were the only ones left, and there were no more seats by the bus drivers’ counts. Well one of the buses took another count as the professors tried to figure out how to get the rest of us there and found one seat so I took It and let the rest of the group stay together. I ended up sitting in the front of the bus with one of the professors from K-State. All of the professors were all talking to each other and whatnot so I put on my headphones to my mp3 player and drifted in and out of sleep for the entirety of the bus ride.
We finally arrived at a little palazzo near the top of one of the hills above Frienze. (Florence – but this is the last time) From there we all started trekking up the hill to the top where our first stop was, a church. Once we got there we split up into 3 groups each with a different Professor as a tour guide. I was lucky to be in a group with a good number of people I knew; 2 guys and 3 girls. Well we started the tour and saw the church. It was pretty cool, but we were there for over an hour and we were all a bit anxious to see the real Freinze so when we started hiking down the hill we all got a little more excited about the day. We came to the gates of Frienze and my excitement soared, we were here! We went in and across the river and then down some more till we came to the Palazzo De Santa Croca (Crosha) where the Basilica de Santa Croca was and it was our next stop.
They again organized our groups to make a head count and buy tickets for our entrance to the church. While outside I saw a huge statue of the one and only Dante ad then when we got inside I found the entire outside aisles filled with statues and paintings. Almost all of the pews in the main nave had been removed. We immediately started a historical tour with our guide (Paolo was the guide for my group) and after a while I slowly drifted away from the group and started taking pictures. Before it was all said and done a lot of us were just going around taking pictures. I soon discovered that the some of the statues I had been taking pictures of were infact the tombs of THE Michelangelo and Galileo! And the empty tomb of Dante! I thought that was pretty cool. I also found a sculpture of an angel that I could get right on (I could’ve climbed on it if id wanted because there were no ropes around this one. And I decided to get some extremely detailed shots of the masterful carving of the wings. These things were insanely well crafted! The detail was amazing! We continued the tour outside into the garden I’m guessing is what it was and a smaller chapel within the complex. After we left the church we went on a very twisting curving path to the restaurant where the entire group was going to eat. I believe it was owned and operated by Paolo’s brother from the rumor I heard. Well this was by far the best meal I’ve had in Italy. It was absolutely amazing. Our first course was a pasta plate that had two different kinds of pasta on it, followed by the main course of chicken with a creamy cheese sauce and fried zucchini (which I actually tried and very much enjoyed), followed by desert of the one and only Italian Gelato! It was amazing. It’s very much like ice cream but is a little sweeter and has a slightly different consistency, and was drizzled with the best fudge I’ve ever had. Mmmmm… Delicious!
After lunch everyone got free time until we had to leave. Everyone except my studio, that is. Peter and Marcel had decided we were going to have another historical tour and right after lunch we were to report to another palazzo right in the middle of town. Well I got there a little early and decided to take pictures of all of the statues around and actually saw the real “Hermes slaying Medusa.” It was amazing. There were about a dozen beautiful statues under this one loggia ad I believe that about 8 of them were originals. I took pictures of nearly all of them.
Well we finally stared our tour and walks and ended up sitting on the sidewalk for a half an hour in a side street as Peter talked about the architecture in the area and its significance… they were apartments that were new. But apparently the area had been destroyed after WWII, etc, etc, etc… yeah. So needless to say we were all a little miffed at not being able to go shopping and exploring like everyone else. So we were all having a little bit of a hard time paying attention. Finally we moved on and went to another main palazzo and heard more history, then we went around the corner and what radiant site entered my eyes? THE Duomo! I couldn’t believe it! I was standing in front of the Duomo and its Baptistry and its Bell Tower. These were easily the most ornamented buildings I have ever seen and they were gorgeous! But we were only there for a short time as he only briefly stopped here and then we continued our trek to our last stop which was some book store he wanted to show us. So we finally get there and he says “Okay, here’s the bookstore, it’s a little small so you guys can come in if you want or go and do your own thing.” FINALLY! (and yes we now have an hour left before we have to leave… he has taken 2 and a half from us… so I went with a small group and we went back to the Duomo for a little while to take more pictures, then we went to the PonteVecchio which is a famous bridge that has little shops on both sides. I saw the church of Dante, and before I knew it we were heading back to Santa Croca to be picked up. Well they’d gotten a call or something that the buses were going to be late so I went in a few of the shops in around the palazzo and then we all started hiking back to get picked up. We finally got back on the bus and I sat next to Blake who is a guy from Colorado. We sat together at dinner the very first night, and Blake and I talked for close to an hour about Brazil before we both ended up putting on the mp3 players and doing the drifting in and out of sleep thing.
We finally got back and I went straight to the computer lab to try and talk to JB a little before going to sleep. After I’d done that I went to sleep for the night.

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03Feb2005 – Thursday

Well again I woke up early in the morning but I had gone to bed at 10 the night before so I’d actually gotten 7 and a half hours. Well following routine, I went and talked to JB before showering and then breakfast. Then I went straight to the studio and began formulating some idea at all. I really had nothing. I had tried to think about it all day Wednesday and I hadn’t really come up with anything. So while all around me people were beginning models, etc, etc, I started brainstorming and sketching. Then we went to lunch and then studio started and Peter decided to pass around a sign up sheet to make sure that everyone got talked to. Somehow I managed to get the dadgum thing last even though it started right behind me. Grrr… Well I continued brainstorming and sketching and took a break at least once to go and vent to JereBeth in an e-mail and then returning to work some more. Well believe it or not, they didn’t get to me again. They said they’d get to those of that hadn’t been able to after dinner. So after dinner I went back to studio and finally talked to them last again and upon viewing my sketches etc, they sort of mocked me for being so confused about the project which ticked me off a little. But the reason they didn’t understand is because they thought one of the ideas that I had had was excellent. It was one that I had come and gone with for about 30 seconds and had done like 4 little sketches for it and then scrapped it and put no more thought into it. Well of course this would be the one they liked and wanted me to do. The one idea id put no thought into and really had no idea how it worked.
Well I took the challenge thankful really that I finally had anything to work with and dived into it. Well I should have checked the depth of the pool because I definitely got a headache from doing so.

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04Feb2005 – Friday

I ended up working on it all night, minus a 5 minute chat with JereBeth and a 4 and a half hour nap, then all morning, through breakfast, through lunch and all the way up until it was due. By the time everyone was coming back from lunch I finally figured out some stuff on my model which had been giving me the headache for I don’t know how many hours… 10? 12? What I was doing was so hard that the grad student T.A. couldn’t even figure out what I was doing. Shed tried helping me the night before for about an hour. Well she came in after lunch and grimaced when she saw my lack of progress and asked how my drawings were coming. I told her I hadn’t started yet and she laughed and smiled at me. She knew I was cutting it close, but she also knew what I had been through and how hard I had been working. She suggested I leave the model alone and just do the drawing so that I could finish something because at this point I had absolutely nothing to show for all of my hours of work except a half built crappy model.
I took her advice as it was about an hour before the thing was due and started working on drawings. Now I have to say that I am proud of myself at this point. A managed to do all of my preliminary sketches and trace everything in the next two hours (yeah, I came into the review about a half an hour late and sat in the back). Well I thought they looked great and was really happy with the drawings although the model was still lacking quite a bit. In the end I didn’t have time for on drawing and I didn’t even care really.
Well I presented and based on their comments I really don’t know how I did, although I know I was starving, tired, and in desperate need of a shower at this point. Hours later we finally finished all of the 27 presentations for the class and I immediately went up stairs and got in the shower. Then we went downstairs to dinner which was very relaxing for me at this point because all of my stress was finally gone. After dinner I had planned on going to talk to dinner and then straight to bed early because we had another trip on Saturday that the bus was leaving for at 6am.
During dinner I made the mistake of getting a cappuccino and the espresso here is extremely strong so I was rather awake. After dinner some people were going to watch Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels which is a movie I really, really love and just thinking about watching it cheered me up so I made a quick call to JB in the states to tell her about my change of plans and then settled in for the movie. After the movie I went ahead and got online and ended up talking for a few hours. In the end I believe I went to sleep at about 1.

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05Feb2005 – Saturday

“Chris.” Nudge. Poke. “Chris, get up, it’s your turn.” What? Oh! I jumped out of bed and into the shower. It was 5 and the bus was leaving in an hour. I quickly got dressed and headed up the hill and actually found a seat this time. I settled in and right away put on the headphones rearing up for the loooong bus trip to Genova. We were going to Genova because there was an art and architecture expo going on that was an ensemble of some of the greatest works in the last decade and was arranged very well and since nothing like this would happen again for probably the next 15 years our profs had decided to take advantage of it.
About an hour and a half into the trip I woke up and gently tapped on Andrea’s shoulder next to me to wake her up as we were pulling into a rest stop for breakfast. We got out and ventured into this “Autogrill” and figured out breakfast. I ended up getting a chocolate chip croissant that was delicious and some pineapple juice that was phenomenal and a bottle of water. Then we got back on the road and I did the headphones in and out of sleep thing for the next few hours as we traveled north. We finally got there and this time she woke me up, lol. Then we drove another 20 minutes through this enormous port city and would the center of town where the drop off was right across the street of the expo. At least this time we didn’t have to hike from the bus. We went in, got our tickets, and went out to get in line to enter the expo. While we were out there some important politician (we think) was on camera right behind me and 5 people I was talking to, so if you see us on CNN or something don’t be surprised, lol!
We finally started the tour that was in two parts and I ended up doing most of the first half right along side of our professors which was very interesting. We would talk about the different pieces and they would explain things to me here and there. It was very informative and pretty fun actually. Somewhere near the end of the first half I lost them and ended up with the T.A. instead. From there I did the entire second half with her and near the end of it we picked up two more from our group. Hours, upon hours, later we finally finished this thing and no one else from our group was anywhere in sight. We went to claim our bags and actually retrieved the last 5 from the Santa Chiara Center. We quite literally were the last 4 people from our group to leave, lol. Well we were all starving so we went in search of some food. In Italy everything closes down from noon to 4 so that people can go eat lunch and spend time with their families, and at this point it was about 3 o-clock. (And yes, we were leaving at 5. another misadventure as far as exploration and shopping goes.)
Well we were finally forced to go to a McDonalds that was near the bus pickup. We ended up running into a few people from the group right after and they were telling us that Christopher Columbus’ house was right near there so we all decided to go see that. A short walk and about 5 minutes later we were there but as 4 euro to go in. So we stepped back and realized that his house was the size of medium size trailer and decided not to do it. Instead we just took pictures of it, and a little well right behind it, and some really old towers that were behind it.
After a while the T.A. Melanie really wanted to go see some of the installations that went with the expo and were around town, so we pulled out the expo map and made our way to the closest one. When we got there we couldn’t figure out where it was and finally realized it was underground in the metro station somewhere. So we went all the way down to the train and couldn’t figure out what it was although we did see some very interesting lighting on the way down and after we emerged disappointedly we realized that the metro station was the installation! And it was a very nice metro station at that, lol. Then we decided to check out one more before we left that was by one of my favorite architects, Frank Gherry, and was relatively close to us. We made our way over to it and had no problem figuring out what this one was, lol! Gherry has a very noticeable and unique style to say the least. We ran into some more people from our group here and one of the girls wanted to take my picture for me with the installation, but she made me get in this really goofy pose, so I hope you guys enjoy that one, and then we made Melanie do the same thing, lol. It was pretty funny watching her roll her eyes and do as we instructed.
Well the installation was right next to this beautiful and weird church so we took a few pictures of it and its sad lion statue and made a quick stop inside then we quickly made our way back to the bus.
They were late again, lol, and I stopped in a small shop just to look around while I waited. Then we got on and I almost immediately fell asleep. An hour and a half later Robert, my seatmate, nudged me because we were making an unplanned stop at another “Autogrill.” This time I got a grilled sandwich that was really good and had to get the pineapple juice again. (I actually still have half the bottle left over, lol, they are a huge 1 litre!) Well then we got back on the bus and Robert and I had a short religious discussion before I did the good ol’ headphones-on-on-off-sleep thing. We finally arrived here and I decided to check my e-mail really quick. I had an e-mail from JereBeth from about an hour before and she was worried because we actually got back late after the stop and late pick up and I had planned on talking to her about an hour and a half before that, so I decided to get online and talk to her for a few hours before venturing to bed. I went upstairs to find my roommates already asleep (this was a first) and I quietly climbed into bed.

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06Feb2005 – Sunday

I got up this morning at about 9ish and came down to write my journal entry and to my shock found JereBeth still online. But she was about to go to sleep so I said I quick goodnight and then began this journal entry. Well it’s a few hours later, I believe, and I’m pretty much finished. There’s another field trip today that isn’t mandatory to a neighboring city for a festival called Carnivale (long e at the end) but I don’t think I’m going to go. What I need right now is a nice day of relaxation from this extremely busy week, so I think ill go take a shower and then see what I feel like from there. I plan on talking to JereBeth after dinner so I’ve got a lot of time to kill with doing whatever I want, so I hope to enjoy myself thoroughly.
Well I don’t know when ill update again, but we get out next project assignment tomorrow and my other class starts this week so I’m rearing up for my “routine” to begin. So we will just see how things go. All in all I’d say its been a pretty good two weeks, although if things keep going at this pace I may very well burn out pretty soon, lol!

I love you all and I miss you! I’d love to get some e-mails, so feel free to write and ill get back to you whenever I get a chance! Oh by the way! My number here is as follows:
011-39-347-480-9187
All of my incoming calls are free, but I’m not sure what it’ll cost to call over here, but feel free to do so if you like!