weekend in Roma/ Carnevale in Viareggio

i think i am just going to accept the fact now that my blogging is inevitably going to be inconsistently spread out even though i like to continually tell myself otherwise haha. my apologies now for not being on top of it...

well midterms are already coming up! this week and next week are our midterms (early i know) and then spring break starts march 4!! so so crazy... for the break i am going to London with a group of friends and mighttt go to Edinburgh, Scotland for half of it! i am excited to have a week free, not that there is anything to complain about in terms of our normal school schedule, but it will still be nice to not have class for a bit and explore some other parts of europe with midterms behind. 

last  last weekend we went to Rome and i had my official first hostel experience! wasn't too sure what to expect, but it ended up being along the lines of staying in a really old, crappy dorm room so it wasn't so bad. we had an art history lesson all day friday, walking around the city and going into a lot of churches, and we got to see Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Theresa! it is still so strange to me every time we see images that are in every single western art history book... and seeing the Pantheon was so much different than i expected... we just turned a corner and our teacher casually pointed it out, when otherwise i probably would have walked right by it without ever knowing the Pantheon was right there. i guess i always imagined approaching it from a distance, being able to see the entire building at once and take it in. the next day i went to all of the major attractions so it was really busy but extremely successful–conquered the Vatican (including the Sistine Chapel ahhhh), Colosseum, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Spanish Steps. and i apologize to all of the seemingly "less significant" aspects of Rome–don't worry, you were all awesome, i am just incapable of addressing you all... 

St. Peter's Basilica in the background

Colosseum at night

last Sunday i went to Viareggio, a really cute city along the coast, for Carnevale which was awesomeeee. a bunch of ridiculous costumes and so many cute children in costumes... i took my fair share of creeper children photos, here is a personal favorite haha

there were massive floats along the streets with paper mache sculptures that were ridiculous... i'm not too sure what was going on in some of them, but they were awesome/quite amusing... and they would play music/have dancers in costumes so we just danced around for the entire day, essentially. steph, collette, and i wandered together and even though it was raining the entire time, it was definitely a great success :)

in terms of class, this week and next week are really busy due to midterm projects/ tests and such, but everything is coming together and i am excited to see how the studio projects all turn out. i will be sure to document some of my work along with some of my classmates so you can see some of the things we are up to! it has been really different working in the environment here because the class structure is extremely different than at Wash U but it has been nice to expand my thinking process/creative process in ways that i definitely would not have thought of otherwise. 

also, I went to the Boboli Gardens a few weeks ago just for part of the day and it has made it to my top 5 favorite places in Florence so far...

also on the favorite list is this ramp that extends across the Arno where you can walk along... i read here for a while and then proceeded to take a nap just like this guy.

and i learned how to do another bookbinding technique in a workshop this past friday! i am definitely going to do more bookbinding when i get home, so if anyone wants to make some with me, i am up for it

I fail at blogging in a timely manner...

due to my failure at consistently blogging, recapping the past week and a half is going to be extremely difficult but I am going to attempt to do my very best. i know i am definitely leaving out way too many things but here are the major points!

we had our first art history class on site last week which was so amazing compared to the typical lecture setting.. we went to a few churches, one of them overlooked the whole city– can't really have any complaints about class when this view is involved...

 

 

last weekend we took a trip to Chianti, and one of my professors knows a man that owns a farm in the region so we had a tour of the vineyards/ olive trees/ beehives and learned a lot about the process, and then his wife cooked all of us (about 30 students) a five course meal which was SO delicious... and each course was accompanied with a different kind of wine, along with grappa and coffee at the end. the grappa was a tad too strong for my liking but the rest was great! also, we saw the wine factory which was one of the most interesting things i have ever seen. so many awesome machines, i never knew how much went into the mass production process for something like wine. it was really mesmerizing to watch the progression, i wish i could have taken a video or something because the pictures i took don't give justice to how impressive it was!

in drawing class we have been concentrating on perspective and dealing with space, so i have been doing a lot of sketches of the architecture of places around the city– churches, towers, random streets, bridges, etc... i can put up a few of my sketches soon to give a visual of some of the work that we are doing

OH and Lapo is much more social now, he visits us during dinner almost every night now and the other day he wore a onesie and i must say, even though adult onesies are awesome and fashionable, i think that he pulled it off way better... he also has scooby doo crocs which are awesome.

also, i went to the Mercado Central (massive fresh food market) for the first time last week and it was a little too much for me to handle because i wanted to buy everything... going to kroger's is bad enough... annabella and i ate lunch there and tried out a few random side dishes with lasagna, successful of course. i ended up buying some natural dried fruit which was so addicting that i finished it off within a day.

and i went to a church service in the Duomo, even though it was in italian, it was still really interesting just to observe... and if you looked up, this is what you would see

here is the progression of courses from the meal in Chianti! be prepared for some drooling to occur

grappa looks more appetizing than it tastes

i could write way more but i have to cut this a little short! i'll be better from 

now on (for real this time)

 

there are a few ledges that extend over the river and i finally climbed onto one :)

first week of class conquered

Just finished the first week of official class! There actually isn't a single class that I'm not excited about which is a great feeling. Today we went to the Academia and saw Michelangelo's David which was absolutely amazing. Looking at slides or images in books definitely does not do it justice at all. I wish I could describe what it was like to be in front of it. Awe is the most fitting word I can come up with. We made gesture drawings of sculptures for a while there and then went to check out the British Institute Library and the two librarians that talked to us may be the two cutest people I have ever seen. We have unlimited access to the library and the aura of the place makes you feel smarter instantaneously. And they have awesome sliding ladders to use for the bookshelves. What more do you need, really? 


Last week we finished our personal sketchbooks that we learned how to bind/make ourselves, so all of our sketches/art history notes will be in there! 

my sketchbook

Earlier this week a few of us went to the massive park by the home-stay to play soccer/frisbee for a while because it was a beautiful day out, and there were about 8 or so men playing pick-up soccer and they asked us to join, so Steph and I played with the locals! It was really fun and surprisingly not embarrassing. Although we couldn't really understand anything they were saying, except for the reoccurring mispronounced english profanity which was pretty amusing. They said that they play there every day, but since we have class I think we are going to try to go at least once a week during the weekends! 

Last weekend all of the students went on a hike in Fiesole which is nearby– it was beautifullllll. I think these pictures will speak for themselves. 

Also I officially experienced my first discoteca haha it was.... interesting to say the least. Didn't stay too long but it was entertaining I suppose, but next time I think we are going to go to one that isn't free to enter... Perhaps sketchy is what you get when it does not have a cover charge. But more successful was swing dancing last night! Although I cannot swing dance... Collette completely dominated though, I was slightly envious of her dancing abilities (And by slightly, I mean very much so).But it was really fun and I learned a few steps, although I'm sure I was doing them pretty terribly. They have swing dancing every Wednesday night at this cute small cafe that is also a library/bookstore and it is quite trendy. Hip is the best way to describe it haha. So I think we are going to make it a weekly thing, so who knows, perhaps I will come back being a swing dancing pro? 

Another shot of the river coming back from class. Too beautiful to resist.

Getting Settled

After getting in to Florence this past Thursday, time has already been going by quickly! It still feels so surreal that I will be in this beautiful city for the next four months. I am currently in my bed in the home-stay which is really cozy after stuffing myself with a home-made Italian meal from my home-stay grandmother. We get home-cooked dinners Monday through Friday which is definitely an amazing thing to look forward to after getting out of school. The food in general has been delicious as expected–especially the gelato of course :D I ate gelato every day for the first 3 days, and am a little embarrassed to say that I have been slacking the past few days. Although pastries are always a great substitute. So far, everything is going really well! I finally met Lapo (the 3 year old grandson of the house) yesterday and he is ridiculously cute but pretty shy. Him and his mother live attached to our home but usually don't really come out of their section of the house so I haven't talked to them much/ haven't even met the mother yet. But the grandmother is the one who cooks for us and eats dinner with us every night and she is really nice, and we have broken conversations in Italian, occasionally resorting to the handy dandy Oxford Italian-English dictionary. Orientation started this week which consists of random lectures/typical orientation stuff and intensive Italian every day for about 3.5 hours... which sounds pretty terrible in terms of the Italian part but it isn't so bad yet at least. And we are currently making our own sketchbooks to use over the semester which I am really excited about! Bookbinding has always seemed awesome but I have never done it so it is really neat to learn the process. Plus, it is just cool in general to be able to create your own sketchbook with your own hands. Well, it is really hard to summarize everything I have done in the past four days because the first weekend in particular we walked ALL over the place, but here is a list of some highlights with pictures !

first gelato- coffee flavored, of course

overlooking the heart of the city

shot of the river on the way back from school

Ponte Vecchio (super old and awesome bridge)

the Duomo!

There are way more pictures on facebook but here are some of my favorites so far! And hopefully I will be able to write more consistently now so I don't have to attempt to recap multiple days in a row! 

And I know that some of you in particular have been asking me about my address here for mailing, so here it is...

Raina Koller

c/o Washington University/SRISA

Via San Gallo, 53R

50129 Firenze, Italy