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!

Tiles, tiles, more tiles..

One of the really cool things about Lisbon were all the tiles. They covered entire buildings! And the tiles themselves were probably about 5" x 5". I absolutely loved them! There were so many different types and it just made the city so unique. They're a moorish tradition, and there are still artisans who work in factories who continue to make them.



Some of the pictures aren't so good, I was just trying to capture some of my favorites!

Lisboa

Last Friday I embarked on my Spring Break adventure! Our first stop: Lisbon. None of us really knew anything about Lisbon or Portugal in general; it was kind of a wild card destination. I also do not know a lick of Portuguese, but amongst us we had a few years of Spanish, French, Latin and our knowledge of Italian so we hoped that maybe we could get by.

Friday was super hectic because (of course) I left a lot of things to the last minute! But you’d be impressed to know that I fit everything necessary to survive for a week in ONE BAG under the measurements of 20x40x55 CENTIMETERS (some of the airlines we flew had super fussy guidelines, and I didn’t want to pay to check a bag). But we successfully made it to the airport, through security, onto the plane and into Lisbon all in one piece. A bus from the airport took us right to the street that our hostel was on, smack dab in the center of the city. The hostel itself was extremely nice, free breakfast, free laundry service, and for 6 euros they’d make you a huge meal for dinner!

(stole these pics from Sally)

After getting settled everyone staying in the hostel went out to Bairro Alto. It’s basically a hill (like Rome, Lisbon has 7 hills too) with a ton of bars, clubs, and restaurants. The streets are steep, narrow, cobble-stoned, and PACKED with people. It was really nice because we could walk there without worrying about public transportation. Lisbon in general was a very walkable city, which added to its charm and is one of the reasons why I loved it so much. Saturday morning we had to wake up early to meet our tour group. My friend told me about this tour company called We Hate Tourism Tours. The tour was AMAZING and I’m so glad we did it because it was more of the area around Lisbon, places that we would never have seen had we tried to do it on our own. Plus it was just 8 of us in the group, so it was nice and small and personal. Way better than being carted around on a bus in a gigantic group with lots of other people.

The tour:


Our first stop was Sintra, a small little town outside the city. We stopped to get pastries and hot chocolate in a cute little café. One of the pastries is called a “travesseiro” which literally means “pillow” in Portuguese. Next we went to Quinta da Regaleira, which our tour guide described as a mix between Lord of the Rings and Disneyland. It was beautiful.


A really rich guy built this palace and the grounds for himself in the early 20th century. There was a waterfall, ponds, castle-y structures, a greenhouse, and an awesome inverted tower. It was basically a little kid’s dream! It reminded me of when I used to play in Melina’s “rock garden” in elementary school: just a lot cooler and HUGE!


After that we went to a small roadside market where we ate lunch. We ate at a foodtruck, (right up our alley, since we all go to Temple!) and we had this type of sandwich: bread baked fresh on site, with churizo inside. It was delicious!


After lunch we went to Cabo da Roca, the most westerly point in Europe. I sent some kisses to the states! It was basically a gigantic cliff, right on the ocean. It was absolutely stunning. Looking back on the pictures now, it seems so unreal that I was there! It was also super duper windy there. From there we went to Guincho Beach. I took my shoes off immediately! It was so good to feel the sand and the water. I love the beach!!!! After hanging out on the beach for awhile we were on the hunt for more food. We went to Cascais, (pronounced “cash-kye”) a coastal town with a nice beach, and got ice cream at a little parlour called Santini. I got mango and raspberry, it literally tasted like I was just eating a mango and raspberries (they use fresh fresh fresh fruit!)

It was a long day.

To wrap up the day we went to an area of Lisbon called Belém and sat on the river for a little bit. They have a bridge that looks just like the San Francisco bridge! The same engineers actually designed/built it. But down there they had a huge monument for all the explorers from Portugal because it used to be the port where they all set off from. Then we saw a monastery (I’m kind of over churches at this point) and we had these delicious pastries, called “Pastéis de Belém” (which means pastries of Belem) but they tasted like rice pudding, in a warm pastry! They have them all over Lisbon, but we ate the originals. If you want to drool some more: http://www.pasteisdebelem.pt/en.html


Our last stop was the Thieves Market. Unfortunately it was the end of the day so most of the vendors were closing down. Also, in Rome we have the largest flea market in Europe (seriously, its HUGE!! I’ve been twice already) so I wasn’t too impressed.

But all in all it was such a great day! If my commentary and pictures aren’t enough, check out their website! http://wehatetourismtours.com/ It’s really neat.

FOOD

Cibo! So much good food here. The tomatoes are to die for, I could seriously eat one like an apple. And everything is fresh and preservative free! "Organic" doesn't really exist.

Highlight reel:


1. Trip to Todi/Titignano: the entire program went to the little hill town of Todi for the day, finished with an 15 course delicious meal at a medieval castle in Titignano.


2. 24 Hour Bakery! The concept of open 24 hours doesn't really exist here. They have the wackiest store hours- they close for lunch from 1/1:30 to 4 which is super inconvenient. But they do pastries right.


3. Home cookin'. Me and my two roommates Corin and Alexis take turns making dinner. Corin has made some really great sauces for pasta and Alexis made some delicious stuffed peppers. I've contributed some homemade pancakes (from scratch) and salads. We really love making home bruschetta too. Just chop up some tomatoes, add a little basil, put a little olive oil on the bread and toast it! Divine. One night Corin made pesto-rubbed chicken wrapped in prosciutto! It was basically all the left-overs we had in the fridge, and it was great. Last week she even made gnocchi from SCRATCH! It was quite the process and took her about 2 hours. But it was worth the wait.




4. Geeeelato. The consistency is somewhere between ice cream and rita's, leaning more towards the ice cream. But the aforementioned Old Bridge is our place! For 1,50 euro you get to pick 3 flavors and they load you up. Cones too! And the whipped cream is free, and it's the good kind.




5. Carbs carbs carbs! I'm waiting to have my to "die" for pizza in Naples, but they do a pretty good job here. There's a restaurant literally right outside the residence that serves pizzas to "take away" and you get a huge personal pizza for only 5 euros! It's great. And they have a chain here called Pizza Rustica where they have huge rectangular trays of pizza and you tell them what kind you want, they weigh it, cut it in half, and then wrap it up and you eat it like a sandwich. It's cheap and delicious! And the pasta! My best meal here by far was when we got cacio e pepe. We absolutely love love love Anthony Bourdain's show No Reservations and he recently did a Rome episode before I left. The first place he goes to he calls "Restaurant X" because he didn't want to turn it into a tourist trap. He gets the cacio e pepe which is some fresh pasta, tossed in cheese and pepper and then served in an edible bowl made of cheese. Again it's all about the fresh ingredients! Our waiter knew we were there for the cacio, but he was super nice and we want to go back in the spring and eat outside like Tony did!


6. Nutella. Since peanut butter here is rare, a lot of people basically eat nutella in place of peanut butter. We love the grocery store here, Carrefour. Like Weis & Giant they have store brand stuff and we discovered that the Carrefour nutella is actually better than the fancy kind! We've moved on to our own personal jars because we eat way too much of it.



7. Prosciutto. My new deli meat of choice.

Finally!

This is extremely long overdue, but I wanted to get my blog rolling before spring break! So much has happened in the past month I don't even know where to begin!

I guess I'll start with last Thursday. Art history classes here function a little bit differently because a lot of the artwork that we're learning about is actually located in Rome. On Tuesdays I have a lecture, and on Thursdays we have "excursions" where we go to museums and churches to view artwork on site. This particular day was special because we went to the Vatican museum & I got to see three of the most amazing works of art EVER.

1. Laocoon: my absolute favorite sculpture.



A little history: it was discovered in a man's back yard during the Renaissance and after they excavated it the Pope bought it. Michelangelo was actually there during the excavation.


2. The rooms of Raphael: amazing frescoes that cover the walls of the Popes quarters. The School of Athens is the most famous one. In the center is Plato and Aristotle and they're surrounded by poets, mathematicians, philosophers, and artists. The man in the center left is actually a portrait of Michelangelo. But it was so impressive! For some reason I had the idea that it just covered a small 5'x5' area, but the figures were almost life-sized.

3. The Sistine Chapel. AMAZING. It was so much information to take in at once, and I think I had a little bit of an advantage because I've studied it a lot so I knew what I was going to be looking at. I actually expected the space to be bigger and the ceiling higher, but it was still incredible nonetheless. My teacher told us that during the restoration he got to go up on the scaffolding and see the ceiling up close. That gave me goose bumps! Unfortunately you can't take pictures in the chapel, but they wouldn't really have done it any justice anyway.

The morning was a little bit of a sensory overload, I felt like I needed to decompress after. So we went to Old Bridge (the BEST gelato place and really close to the residence) and got gelato. :)