St. Patties Day, Milan, and swiss jail

So the weekend of St. Patrick's Day we had big plans.  We had rigged up a big system of planes, trains and automobiles to get us to Dublin for the big day and green rivers and beer and whatnot.  This all seemed great until we tried to fit others into our plans and waited too long until the plane tickets became outrageously expensive.  This needless to say was a fate too tragic to bear.  

So with our tails between our legs, Ryan and I decided to take the weekend and cruise to Milan and explore the city that we had just kinda walked through before.  We would see the Last Supper and some art and go shopping in the fashion capitol, and all sorts of other things, all the while drinking for Patty.  Sounded pretty good, so we truck off to Milan in renewed spirits and sporting our green apparel.  

We arrive at the church where the last supper is and prepare for one of the world's most well known pieces of art.  Then as we walk in to get our tickets, the woman at the counter pleasantly informs us that it is sold out for the weekend and that we would need to come back some other time having made a reservation.  BALLS.  We are crestfallen yet again.  We had missed the LAST supper.  So to pick our spirits up, we head to a bar and have a guinness or two or three.  So slightly happier, we head off to the big art museum in the area to enjoy some of what they've got.  Luckily they were open and welcomed us in with open arms.  We enjoyed meandering through the rooms of paintings and such.  Sadly, there was not as much modern art as we had thought, but it was good none the less.  

Then we had another round or two at a cafe just outside the museum and had a good time watching all the people go by in their fascinating get-ups.  Then we started off in search of the "fashion quadrilateral" where all the good shopping was hoping to laugh at some, and admire some of the designs.  It took us an inordinate amount of time to get there getting lost and sidetracked with another beer, but two triumphal arches later, we found ourselves surrounded by designer stores and throngs of glamazons.  We poked through stores and laughed and envied and all that.  In the end, I had bought a pair of shoes, and we called it a day.  

Then we needed some food, but unfortunately, we found out that nobody eats in Milan.  The once packed streets were completely vacant.  Not a soul was in sight.  The few restaraunts we found were reservation only and were booked several days in advance.  The people in them scared us as well with their insanely overpriced clothes and demeaning attitudes.  After 2 hours of unsucessful food finding, we called it quits and decided to cut our losses.  We took 3 trams on our way to the train station, and arrived to find that the next train left in an hour and a half.  The day was simply against us.  We sat in the corner as the floor waxer wheeled around the terminal.  

We boarded our train and in line with everything else, it was steaming hot in there.  Every car of the train was blistering for some unknown reason.  So the moment we sat down, we both passed out.   

We woke up in Chiasso Switzerland.

Without our passports.

This was not a good realization to awake to.  We headed down to the station thinking we could sneak through and just walk back to Italy unnoticed, but luckily, there were multiple guards there waiting for our non-existant passports.  So we got to be escorted by the Swiss police back to their office/holding cell.  We had a friend too.  On the same train had been an Iranian with no form of identification save a torn piece of paper with a photo of himself taped onto it.  He was also really drunk or on some form of drugs being unable to utter more than a few syllables in a row.  So our new Iranian friend, Ryan, and I took up residence in the Swiss holding facilities.  I explained that we were students and lived in Como, and had simply missed our stop having slept through it in what was fairly good Italian I thought.  The police seemed to think about it and talk amongst themselves, when to our surprise, we heard some yelling coming from outside.  The door flew open and a more beligerent Middle Easterner came in being pushed by the cops and joined our now blossoming party.  The police took out handcuffs and put on latex gloves, and took our two new friends out into some other rooms never to be seen by us again.  The Swiss apparently agreed with our story and walked us back over to the italian border and deposited us there.

It was now raining cats and dogs.

So Ryan and I start our, what we calculated at 8 mile hike, back to Como at 2am in the pouring rain.  We walked along highways, under overpasses, through parking lots, and thought we were lost a few times until Como came up on some of the street signs.  We followed our new guiding force back to Como arriving at our apartment at about 4 am.  What a day that had been.  And all we had wanted was some green beer.

The next day, we read in the news that a Middle Easterner that was arrested that night had been detained and was being held for causing a ruckus in the Swiss Police Station.  Apparently after we had left, he went beserk and flipped over tables and broke computers and eventually had to be physically restrained and held there for prosecution.  All in all a good St. Patty's Day.

Germania

So On the 8th and 9th of March, I set off for Germany to see what the country had to offer.  Ryan, Loren, Sarah, and I went to Dusseldorf and Cologne to see some architecture, drink some big beers, eat some bratwursts, and see a Mars Volta concert.  

So we pull into the Weeze airport which was supposedly en route to Dusseldorf, and it looked like we had landed in the middle of nowhere.  There were old army barracks and trees for as far as the eye could see.  This was only exasperated by the fact that we realized we knew approximately three words in german: Danka shen and bira.  This helped us a lot in asking where the bus to a city was .  We figured it out though and eventually a bus through the countryside brought us to a train station with no buildings in sight still.  We hop on the train and it does finally bring us back into society and we finally get to Dusseldorf and our beds.  

By the way, German hotels are amazing and we had gummi bears on our pillows instead of chocolates and the most fluffy comfortable blankets ever.  An even better surprise was the feast that we found ourselves with for breakfast.  After only bread and random buns for breakfast in Italy, we were presented with eggs, bacon, sausages, yogurt, kir, fruit, granola, a variety of cereals and juices, milk, champaigne, and just overall greatness.  This must be why we find ourselves in the country of giants.  I have never felt short before, but while walking around Germany, I felt like a dwarf in a city of Shaqs.  

So we set off with completely satisfied stomachs to see what we could see.  We headed to Cologne for a museum with a phenomenal collection of Mondrian's works.  It showed a large chunk of his life's works, which was incredible to see all together showing his progression from trees and landscapes to his signature blocks and geometrical pieces.  This museum was huge.  It just went on and on and on and on.  More art that we could handle.  One fun piece was a short story written on a strip window which made you walk through the room looking out the window to read it and it described a scene going on in the building across the way.  There was all sorts of other great works there.   So much fun to see lots of modern art after existing in such an ancient country.

After the museum, we wandered around the city to see the duomo, and other buildings.  In the piazza by the duomo, we happened upon a city wide pillow fight.  Hundreds of school children had gathered to protest something and just enjoy a good old fashion pillow fight.  Ryan even got hit in the face by a little 13 year old girl.  He then threw it back at her, but hit an old woman instead making a hilarious scene that I was glad to watch play out.  Then we walked through the large street with all the shops in the city.  We found a great Renzo Piano building that looks loosely like a big glass egg that was extended.  It was fun to see and go through.  Cool spaces, and so different being contrasted with old churches and such.

Eventually we headed by another series of trains and busses to our concert venue.  Getting there turned out to be a bit harier than I had expected.  We ended up in the industrial district with no clue if we were where we needed to be.  After wandering for a bit, we eventually found in the midst of nothing the brash chords and wild singing of The Mars Volta in an old warehouse.  The concert was incredible and reminded me what I would have thought bands in the 60s and 70s like Led Zeppelin would have been like.  The lead singer would bounce around and dance and scream just out of control.  He jumped off the speakers and even threw the drummer's symbols off the stage.  It was amazing and great and just fun to be hearing music in english and spanish in a german country while on a trip to Italy.  

Much to our dismay, the whole trip we were in constant search of bratwursts and beer steins.  We were served beer in glasses smaller than normal cokes come in and were extremely confused.  Then we thought we were saved in a small bratwurst stand and ordered up some great brats and low and behold, they were served to us on hamburger buns with a good 3-4 inches hanging out on each side.  Something is wrong with this picture.  The one redeeming thing in german food was these cones of french fries that were smothered in ketchup, mayo, fried onions, and all sorts of other stuff.  They made it worth wild.

Venice

Then we went to Venice to the place where water reigns supreme.  Stepping out from the train terminal you are confronted with the grand canal right out in front of you, and you realize that the city actually is just on water.  You knew it before, and studied it and read all about it, but somehow it just isn’t the same as standing there and seeing that the water flows between all the buildings just as streets cut through our normal cities.  So we hopped on our water taxi and set off on our watery world.  The lack of cars alone is enough to make you rethink everything about cities.  The tiny streets get so skinny that two people have to turn and squeeze by each other.  Being able to touch the two sides of the street at the same time is a normal occurrence. 

Touring around the city was exciting and fun to see the differences between Venice and the other cities that we have seen.  The facades of the buildings all face the water and the smell of the water never leaves your nose.  The highlight of the buildings there was in fact nothing old and historic, but the works of Carlo Scarpa.  Having focused so much on the historic parts of all the cities, Scarpa seemed so ruthlessly clear in his knowledge of materials and how they are put together.

  

Ferrarra

After the two weeks in Como went by, our group set out for our second journey around Italy together.  We set out to go to Ferrarra, Venice, Vicenza, and Verona. Starting out in Ferrarra, we had a great time in a small town.  While in this town, we all had bikes to get around, and so we had a blast everywhere we went.  We rode in circles following each other, and all over the city to see the various architectural things we were to see.  Some of the best parts here are when I took off by myself for a whole day riding from place to place stopping wherever I feel.  I rode around the whole city, circling the city wall, which is one of the few still standing.  That night, we went to an incredibly jazz club.  A crisp ride through the fog surrounding the city took us away from the ordinary day and the luminous orange light on the walls made it seem we were soaring through the clouds.  One of the towers on the city wall had been converted into a jazz club so magnificently.  An Israeli Jazz musician with an accompanying band were there that night and they were great.  The tower had the big timber beams exposed and the underground room with the bar had a huge brick dome as the whole ceiling of the room incredibly retained.  The mix of Israeli and contemporary Jazz lasted for 2 hours and kept us all in rapture the entire time.  It was an amazing night, capped by another brisk ride through the night back to our hotel which was a convent that was transformed into a hotel. 

Settling in to Como and my project

With two weeks back in Como, I start to settle in.  Aren, Ryan, and I move into our apartment and we make it our own.  Among the other things that we were looking forward to in our settling in was having our own kitchen.  We could finally stop eating out for every meal, and cook for ourselves.  This both saves money, and lets us have fun cooking and eating all together.  Along with this, comes the fact that we can put our things in order and stop living out of a bag full of dirty clothes.  We could do laundry and finally relax to a degree that only comes with having somewhere to return to for a while.  While traveling, you learn to enjoy both the states of moving always and taking all your stuff with you all the time as well as settling into a place to call home for a while.  You must have both to appreciate the other or else you just see the negatives, not the positives.

 

Along with returning to Como comes the start of our studio project.  We examine our site which is a small strip of land outside of the old Roman square city that is now taken up by numerous railways.  They are going to take out the rails and put a station further up the line to give more space for public gathering.  Our program is a museum, hotel, stores, playground, a light rail for public transportation, and whatever we may think it needs.  The site is between the Casa del Fascio and the Duomo.  It is a tremendously important site for the growth of the city, and is great to think about.

 

This week all of us had to finish up our drawings along with starting our project.  We both finished up all the drawings we just set up on site, as well as started new ones from pictures, the latter of which I dislike.  Having drawn on site and truly taken in the buildings, drawing from pictures seems so backwards.  When standing there taking in a 3d shape and making it 2d on your page, you are truly piecing it together in your head and creating something new on the page.  When taking a 2d picture from a computer screen to draw, you only transfer lines from one thing to another.  It loses all the effect.  When doing all these drawings, I realized these things and have since then refused to draw from a picture, I now simply spend all my time on site drawing and taking in the space.

Cinque Terra

After Florence, a group of us set out to Cinque Terra for the weekend before heading back to Como for two weeks.  It would be the first of hopefully many weekend trips to come.  On the train ride there, the train went through a series of tunnels and in between the spurts of blackness came the breathtaking sunset on the ocean and the cliffs rising out of it.  It was quite a way to first view the incredible series of five towns.  That first night we wandered through the biggest of the five towns and tried the white wine made from the grapes growing on the very hills we were walking on.  It was the best white wine I have had yet, and I have not found it in any of the stores since.  Also, we got our first taste of the great seafood of the area and I had an amazing meal of calamari and shrimp.  We enjoyed a fire on the beach that someone had left seemingly just for us.

The next day, we set out on the trail that started on the Southernmost of the towns, and led along the coast through all of them going north.  It started on the “Via del Amor” and then just went from town to town.  It was amazing.  The sun was out in perfect form, and the ocean was pure blue.  Each town was incredibly different from eachother and yet the same.  They were all buildings clinging onto the cliffs like mollusks or clams.  The cliffs are all different, and this is what gives the towns their own individual feel.  Walking along this trail is a series of breathtaking panoramas one after the other.  We took breaks on the beach playing in the water and sand, and then found our way to the second to last town and into an amazing restaurant with a view out over the town and the ocean.  We had some of the most amazingly fresh seafood I would bet were pulled out of the ocean that very day.  Between all of us, we had octopus, shrimp, scampi, pesto lasagna, bass, and other amazing things.  We had the same great white wine of the area and it was just as good as the night before. 

Then after lunch, we realized that our train was leaving in an hour and that at the rate that we were going, it was going to take us two.  So we put on our serious faces and started to put it to that trail.  We walked fast, jogged a bit, and jumped down the sloping parts as quick as we could.  Through the whole thing, we realized that we were not tired, and could keep going forever.  We were on a high of exercise and activity so great, that we didn’t want to stop even when we reached our destination in only 40 minutes.  Then we had some time to kill, and stripped down to our underwear and hopped in the ocean, much to the disbelief to the Italians sprinkled around the beach gaping at us.  We frolicked and laughed enjoying the cold water engulfing us.  It was refreshing, and was just the thing that we needed after our trail running.  Upon getting out, we had to dry off to our best ability without towels and then put our sandy clothes back on and go hop on the train dripping and full of ocean. 

 

Florence

Our trip in Rome ended and with those two weeks gone, I head off to Florence for a week.  I feel like I am leaving home, to leave the streets I have come to love, and romp off to another city to explore.  It feels good to have no roots and simply drift from one place to another.  To have all that you need packed up into a bag on your back traveling along with you.  So now I find myself in Florence, and as much as I did in Rome, I don’t think I did enough.  I never quite feel like I did enough in any of the places I have been, but at the same time, I look back on what I did, I see that I couldn’t have done any more.  So now I set my sights on Florence and all that she may hold. 

One of the best things about Florence is the hotel I am staying at.  It has a sense of humor and elegance at the same time with each room themed with a famous painter with their paintings on the wall, and the room decorated with them in mine.  I was staying in the Boticelli room, with little angels looking down on me from the ceiling.  The best part of the hotel is the owner of it.  Our abroad program has stayed in this hotel for many years, and the owner of the place is great friends with our main teacher Graham so we get along great.  The owner Bruno is a hilarious man and so full of joy and fun.  We would go out drinking and he buys all of us drinks and tells us that we are “beautiful,” somehow beautiful means so many things, just fun and good spirited and interesting and such.  We were all “beautiful” and there was just a great time to be had.

Florence is quite a beautiful city.  The town of the Renaissance so they say, and it is quite full of art and all the things which the Renaissance brought to the world.  The Duomo here is one of the more daunting that we have seen, especially when considered how large it is in comparison to the size of the city when it was created.  The history of the duomo is interesting and aspiring.  It was started when the town was small and wanted to declare its strength in the countryside, and they built everything but the dome, and the proposed size of the dome would be the largest in the world.  Brunelleschi managed to solve the problem and created the dome that now towers over the city visible from miles away over all the whole city. 

The art here was also quite amazing.  The Uffizzi Gallery had numerous wonders that like most art comes alive like nothing before when seen In person.  The best thing for me though was the statue of David found in another gallery.  It is touted to be incredible around the world, and going in I had a lot built up around it for being so famous.  I found myself wondering what was so amazing about it that it should stand apart from all the other statues that I have seen.  In the moment that I saw the statue, I understood why.  It is as if the rock hurler had been taken from life and simply frozen in time waiting for any moment to wake up and simply hop off the stand and walk away.  I sat down and started to sketch him as I had found myself drawing most everything these days.  As has happened a few times before, in the beginning I sat in solitude unnoticed by the people around me, but by the time an hour or so go by and the drawing had taken shape and started to look quite good, I had gathered a crowd of people stealing glances at my sketchbook.  The best moment was when a group of school students were walking through and they paused to listen to their teacher.  One of the boys saw my drawing, and stopped to watch for a bit, and then as some of his friends stood in front of me, he cleared them away to let me see the statue better and continue my drawing.  (Another time at the Campidoglio, a group of Asians treated me like a rockstar and took pictures of me and my sketchbook).  I find that drawing is the best way to make friends.

The food here, has been the best since I arrived in Italy.  Within minutes of arriving, I came upon the most amazing dessert I have come across in my life.  It was as layered as was Rome.  Starting on the bottom, was a freshly cooked waffle then on the top of that comes two flavors of gelato to your choosing, I got peach and vanilla bean, then comes another waffle topped with some whipped cream, and then for the final touch, warm melty Nutella lathered over the whole thing.  This column of goodness was out of this world.  The five of us that got it, stood there without a word for five minutes completely engrossed.  Among the other foods that stood out in Florence was Ribollita soup which is a specialty of the area made up of things I cannot remember, and it was so thick and rich that you could eat it with a fork.  Then there was the strangely typical of Italy good Chinese food, and even an amazing buffet with all the Italian greats for the small sum of 7 euros. 

The Ponte Vecchio is one of the more interesting buildings there, being a normal bridge across the River Arno that had buildings latch onto the sides of it creating a street along the bridge.  The buildings stick off the side of it and have little wooden stilts sticking onto the side of the bridge like spider legs.  We had a great dinner on the last day there just on the side of the Arno with a perfect view of the bridge where we could watch the sun set and the shadows change on the bridge which took on a variety of different identities as the sun changed.  Another night, a group of us happened on a strange little intervention on the side of the river just a few hundred feet down from the bridge.  There was a small turf soccer field placed on the bank of the river with netting on the sides to keep the ball from falling in.  We had a great game there that even involved a bunch of fans cheering suddenly to our surprise when I scored a goal.  My team lost in a nerve-racking 11 to 10 game.