Siena

On the first day of my Early Renaissance excursion we went to Siena. It was a really cute, little town. It's probably most famous for the Palio, which is the crazy horse race that is held at Il Campo twice a year. Siena is broken up into Contradas, or neighborhoods, and each neighborhood provides a jockey and a horse for the race. The jockey doesn't even have to remain on the horse for the race, it's just which ever horse crosses the finish line first. The Contradas are really neat, each one has a different animal associated with it and a flag. I'd join the Giraffa contrada!



Probably the most notable thing that we saw in Siena was Duccio's Maesta. It was mammoth! And a lot of gold! But the details on it were amazing.



I also loved the Cathedral there. The symbol of Siena is a simple black and white shield, so they put black and white on everything. The entire inside of the church was decorated in black and white stripes, my FAVORITE! Defintely very different from most of the churches that I've been in.

If you have eight minutes and you don't mind a little violence, here's the opening scene from Quantum of Solace with Daniel Craig. You'll see the Palio and Daniel Craig tear up Siena for a little bit :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmistWyUtAU

Portrait Assignment

For my digital imaging class, we had to take portraits for our assignment. I took pictures of my friend, Sally. They're probably my favorite pictures that I've done for this class so far!

Dressing Classy Ladies

A week or two ago I went to the Michol Fontana Foundation with my Italian Design class. The foundation was created by three sisters who moved from Northern Italy to Rome (something never done then) and they created amazing garments for some amazing women. They had a lot of samples of hand-done embroidery, which were so beautiful. I can't imagine the patience and skill those women must have had! My favorite part of the visit was when they brought out all of the old sketches for some of the garments. In those days the seamstress would actually make the dress first, and then a professional illustrator would draw the garment and then the drawing was show to clients. Then the client could pick the fabric, color, and what kind of embroidery they would like. The process was so personal, I wish on some level we had that kind of personalization today. But the sketches were AMAZING! At one point during the visit, Michol Fontana's niece brought out some of Ava Gardner's lingerie, and I got to hold it! So surreal. She was teeny!

..and finally, Madrid.

We had the least amount of time in Madrid, but I would love to go back at some point! After Lisbon it was my second favorite. We got in in the evening, and Sally's friend from high school met us at the airport and took us to our hostel. It was so nice to just follow someone around those two days, I didn't even carry a map! (They all make fun of me because I HOARD maps) Plus I was sort of an unofficial trip coordinator/directioner so it was a lovely break. Her friend, Nate, is actually studying at St. Louis University, but in Madrid. As in his freshman year of college was in Madrid. I can't imagine doing what I'm doing now, but as a freshman! For his study abroad he could have come to the states, but he chose Brussels. Crazy!

Wednesday night he showed us around the city. The city has a very distinct feel, we compared it to a movie set. Not as homey as Lisbon and not as commercial as Barcelona, it was a nice medium. We had dinner at a tapas restaurant, which was really good. I really like the idea of tapas, they're small little dishes and you order a bunch of different things so everyone can try. After hiking around for awhile we got HOT CHOCOLATE & CHURROS! We have this special kind of hot chocolate in Rome as well, we affectionately call it pudding. It's very thick. But it was the perfect consistency for churro dipping!

(stolen from Sally again)

The next day we slept in (they had to fight me) and we did a little shopping. When we walked out of Zara it was snowing! Not very usual for Madrid apparently. Nate was our tour guide again and we finished up the day at the Museums. Not too much to sight-see in Madrid, but we did see the Imperial Palace!


Oh, and he took us to this really nice market (we liked it a lot better than Barcelona) that Anthony Bourdain actually visited in his Madrid episode. Of course Tony is great friends with the owner.

We finished up the day and our trip with an amazing dinner!

First

Second


Finish!

Barcelona let us down

Maybe it's not Barcelona's fault. We all had extremely high expectations and we kept hearing such great things! But coming off of such an amazing time in Lisbon, I think it was doomed to fail. It pretty much started when we touched ground. Sally and I were on a different flight from everyone else, so they had to wait around in the airport for a long time for us. The directions the hostel gave were super unclear and we ended up walking around for about an hour until we found the place. The good news: the hostel was literally right on the beach! The bad news: It's February. And it's cold. So we were so out of the city and it was inconvenient to get anywhere. But had it been warmer and the summertime, it would have been awesome!


We got into the hostel, and were greeted by Paolo, who was blasting reggae music and had super long dreads. He handed us our keys and our sheet. One sheet. Oh, and a pillowcase. We had the option of renting out another sheet, but it wasn't even a blanket or anything! Just another flat sheet. I slept rolled up like a burrito those two nights. Luckily, it didn't get too cold! The others slept with tights on and used scarves as blankets.

When we saw our room we knew we were in for it. We realized that we shared a ceiling with four other rooms; because the other rooms didn't have windows there was space at the top. So basically we could hear everything, and they could hear everything! The hostel's rule of silence after 10:00 was beginning to make sense. Getting ready that night, Corin's hairdryer blew a fuse and not only were our lights out in the bathroom but everyone else's!

That night we met up with my friend Chase, who's studying in Barcelona. It was so nice to see someone from home!


The next day we basically did a tour of Gaudi. We started at Parc Guell and then headed to La Sagrada Familia. I was disappointed with Parc Guell, It was a lot of a park and not a lot of Gaudi. What Gaudi that was there was beautiful though. And pretty much everywhere we went there was always at least one musician playing, which I loved.


But where Parc Guell fell shot, La Sagrada Familia definitely made up. It was amazing. We were mad at first because there was a huge crane doing construction, but that's because it's not finished! It's going to take 30 more years (Gaudi started on the project in 1898, I think) to complete it. It's not even at it's full height yet, and when it's done it will have a huge cross on the top that will light up! We ran into a group of kids from our program there, and they said they didn't go inside because it was too expensive. Did they MISS OUT! The inside was the coolest thing I've seriously ever seen. It was beautiful. You kind of just had a moment of "Whoaaa.." when you walk in. I just walked around for awhile before starting to take pictures. It was a lot to take in.



And the back looks like a drippy castle!

That day we also saw the apartment buildings by Gaudi, and we went to the Boqueria Market. It was a long day, with a lot of walking. We also hit that point in the family vacation when everyone hates everyone and are super cranky. Fun!

Museums! Famous stuff!

In Madrid we went to the Prado and the Reina Sofia and we got in for free! The only downside- we probably had a little under an hour in the Prado and there were seriously SO MANY amazing works there. Corin (she's an art history major) and I literally ran ahead (sprinted up steps) and tore through the museum trying to see the key works. Bittersweet: I can say I saw these fantastic and super famous paintings, but I was unable to give them the time they really deserved.

Some of the paintings we saw: (the pictures are from online so sorry the quality is so bad!)

One of my favorite paintings ever!


Hieronymous Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights
The left side is the fall, the center panel depicts the "earthly pleasures" and the right panel Hell. It was supposed to serve as a reminder to church go-ers of their sin and scare them into not indulging. Some of the details are hysterical. It's very fantastical, maybe a little Alice in Wonderland? But it's from Holland, around the same time as the Renaissance in Italy.


A Rubens painting I used as a model for a lot of my drawings my senior year of high school


Goya's Portrait of Charles IV and Family (I could geek out with some more art history, but I'll refrain)


Goya's Saturn Devouring his Son


Goya's The Third of May 1808
This painting is so powerful. It was displayed alongside The Second of May. I was impressed with how large it was


Velasquez's Las Meninas
I love this painting. She's such a little cupcake! In Barcelona I actually got to go to the Picasso Museum. It highlighted his early work, and some of his later work. Although, there was a HUGE chunk missing from when he hit Cubism. But in the 50s he did a whole series/study on Las Meninas in a cubist style. It was really awesome to see both in a few days! Here's my favorite one by Picasso, I think it's hysterical.


There were a lot of school groups at the Picasso Museum. It makes sense because of all the geometric shapes and simple colors- they would really appeal to little kids!


Picasso painted this when he was 15. Kill me.

But getting back to Madrid, after the Prado we ran to the Reina Sofia to see La Guernica! Probably Picasso's most famous work.


That guy proceeded to stand smack dab in the middle of the painting for a solid ten minutes.

Super cool Street Art

Another reason Lisbon was so cool; they were super art friendly. Here in Rome, the graffiti simply defaces buildings. But in Lisbon it was more tastefully done and I think enhanced the surface. On our way into the city on the airport shuttle, we drove past this set of three or four buildings in a row completely COVERED in ground to top paintings! Unfortunately since it was night we didn't get a good look. But on our last day there Keith and I hopped on the subway and got off at a random stop (the end of where my map covered) and by some stroke of luck they happened to be just there!