GOOSE

-oh kelly, please don't cry... you don't have to listen to marco if you don't want...


-haha! you're life is in my hands!


-ah holy smokes! its a plane! its a train! no! it is but an OWL!


-what was that? oh yes, the meteor is coming.


-Tired the Bear got mateo.


-awwww.....


-oh man, what were doing!?

well, like i said before -- i'm still a student. this means i have projects. our first major project is due monday feb. 20th. i guess to some degree this is the reason i haven't done too many exciting things this weekend. i've been working on the project some, playing ping-pong, reading, doing laundry, eating good food, sleeping, eating gelato, eating more good food and playing more ping-pong. i was going to go to Cortona yesterday (saturday) but i didn't cause i was going to work in studio -- yeah right. i should have gone to cortona. oh well....

now that its sunday i really got to work on my project. we'll see how it comes out. next week we'll be hitting rome. we leave on tuesday and i think we'll come back on sunday. we also plan to see pompei during this trip, i'm pretty excited for that. ok got to go! Ciao!

its finally thursday! this means that today i had my stonecarving again. it is our second time meeting with Maestro Bruni, but this time we actually got to carve something. i'm taking this class with charlie, colleen, sarah, so this class might actually be my favorite class of the semester. i just want to carve until i have no strength in my arms anymore! this is a tough skill; i thought it would be a walk in the park, but soon i found out that it takes lots of practice to be good at it. the class was 3 hours long and i only had enough time to finish this little aztec sun, it was pretty pathetic looking but i like it. colleen decided to do the super hard shape of a spiral, sarah did a flower, and charlie did a gufo (an owl). i had tons of fun. our instructor is the coolest old man i've met. he can carve anything that you could ever think of from stone! i'm not kidding, the man has got certificates from the president! he did a statue of the pope, a dresser (with working drawers), and even a wagon complete with a set of oxen, and fully working parts! he even has the guiness world record for carving the longest link chain from stone! and i'm not even going to talk about his crazy amazing paintings.... he is such a good soul; he would be like the perfect grandfather. other than that, today was a normal day in Castiglion Fiorentino. amazing day again.... Ciao!

yay! so today we went to ravenna, the city is about 3 hours northeast of us right on the coast. its about half ways to venice. its a cool little city. its very unique. the bus just dropped us of in the center of the city and we just kind of walked around until we hit all the spots. first we went to this one church that that had mosiacs of like 24 virgins and like 26 marters up on the ceiling. i guess i should tell you that ravenna is famous for its mosaics, they're everywhere! next a small group of us headed to the church of san vitale, if i am right this is the first centralized church i've seen here in italy, but that doesn't matter, what matters is that is was super beautiful - it had all kinds of mosaics and frescos but the coolest part of this church was the tiny little chapel outside that housed the most amazing thing that i saw today. beauty converted into mosaics, wow. the building was so small but the entire inside from about 6 feet up was covered in all mosaic. you could say i was speechless.


--the inside of the tiny chappel i mentioned.

after san vitale we had some very delcious lunch at "restaurante del mosaico." then we kind of walked all around for a long while (we even went off the map that we had! haha). on the way to the church of san francesco we hit a bookstore in which charlie and i almost bought a book on architect john pawson. man, that book rocked, too bad we didn't buy it in the end. damn. we didn't go into san francesco; as it turns out they only open in the morning hours. we did get to see Dante's tomb though (apparently he is burried in four different spots in italy, i don't know the story). it was a good day in ravenna. i'm sad i didn't take as many pictures as i wanted, my camera ran out of batteries. oh well, it was all fun. Ciao!

so today, just like every other tuesday, we had studio in the morning (10:00 - 12:30). i guess it went well, although i felt like my group was a little behind. whatev'. later in the day we had our drawing class with prof. mcnamara. this class also went well - we practiced drawing from slides that he would project on the screen. the excercises were sopossed to teach us how to "see" when drawing. it was pretty cool, some good sketches came out that. we also presented our chairs that he told us to draw as homework. not bad, (considering i drew them all this morning at about 7 in the a.m.) it think i could have done a little better.

so lets not forget that today was a very special day. valentine's day. the plan was to wake up early in the morning and sneak into colleen's room so that i could set a rose and a box of chocolates (i know, so stereotypical... but i searched for hours and hours and that's the best i could find) right by her side so that would be the first thing she saw whenever she woke up. the plan worked to perfection until the very last second when all the four girls woke up and i had to bust out running like a damn theif. it was pretty funny. later at night, colleen and i went to this little restaurant on the opposite side of the hill town. we both had pizza, only that hers was hot and it had tons of melted cheese and mine was like a tostada with all kinds of fresh vegetables, lettuce and cheese on top. we shared a some wine and munched on some little delicious chocolate desert candies that they served us. the night was fun. like i said another day of happiness! Ciao!

ok, so i know that i'm still a student but sometimes i just forget. its not that bad actually, i enjoy our classes. its just that it makes me sad to know that i could be spending my time outside the study center learning "insitu."

whatev', its good to learn. today in studio we just kept working on our analysis project -- i think its going well; we just have to get some plans and elevations going for tomorrow. in our culture class, marco talked about early christianity and the rise and fall of rome. pretty interesting stuff. everytime i'm more impressed at how knowledgeable marco is, but damn... he sure does repeat the same thing over and over. i think its kind of funny how he always says 'needless to say...' and then proceeds to explain that which was needless for about 15 mins minimum. larry's class was cool. groups b & c presented their 'moments' today in class, i think it went well, some of those projects were pretty good. larry also gave us this presentation that he thought would help us before we went to rome next week. it was damn good; he talked about greek mythology and how the romans pretty much took it and made it their own. it was pretty damn amazing we talked about most of the gods and how they came to be and what they did and where they lived... i was taking notes like crazy. larry is another guy who is super smart, he always amazes me at how much he knows. too bad almost everyone else was super tired, i think larry stoped the lecture early because nobody was paying attention. later on, we had italian class -- again not too much new material. oh well. i'm super excited for next week when we go to rome. heck yes! good day again, Ciao!

today was pretty cool. we went to Carnavale in this little town 30 mins from us. it was kind of crazy, the locals build huge floats and run them through the narrow city streets. lots of fun. lots of confeti. lots of good food. good day again. Ciao!

so here it is, the view from the window in our hostel room. now that's something to wake up to.
i'll keep it breif since the last post was so long. we got up, had breakfast, walked around for a bit and then went to the train station. from there we took a train to Monterarchi, a small town outside florence. there, charlie, corey, colleen and i explored "space" a prada outlet store. it was actually pretty cool, but even though the clothes were 50% off, it was still 100 euro for a shirt. i didn't buy anything. from there, we headed straight to Castiglion. once in castiglion we visited the COOP -- the big super market in town. bought some breakfast stuff and a bottle of hot sauce. dinner at the study center. yum. and finally, late at night we went out to the Velvet Underground where i had a few drinks and finished it off with a basket of doritos and delicious salsa. the end. good times again.

so today was an amazing day. it all started early in the morning in florence when we were headed for the Academia. what a wonderful place this Academia... today it gave me the privilege to see one of the most famous works of art from the renaissance period -- Michelangelo's David. But it doesn't stop there, in the very same room were located all of Michelangelo's Slaves and the Pietà. man, if only words could descrive what i felt while looking at all of this. how can someone achieve such beauty?

after a few hours of contemplation in the Academia, colleen, michelle, christy, and i walked to this little cafe where we had lunch. the food once again was delish. after that we continued on our journey, around the streets of florence. every time i go to florence i end up in the street market and this is not the exception. i have yet to buy something from those guys, maybe next time. we made our way to the inside of the Mercato Centrale where i bought half a kilo of dried fruit for 5 euro. thats pretty cheap. the bag of fruit contained delicious peices of mango, apricott, cherries, papaya, and coconut.

in the afternoon we made it the Uffizi gallery -- i'm not sure but its got to be one of the biggest museums in city, if not the biggest (my prof said it was 200,000 sf of gallery space). here, we found tons and tons of sculptures and paintings. amongst the paintings were The Birth of Venus by Boticelli, and The Medussa Shield. the sculptures included the Loaconte ("Loacoon" i think in english) anyways, the place was pretty danm good.



after the Uffizi, colleen and i continued on a quest to the top of the Duomo. a hard task this was, as they didn't use elevators back in the 1500's. we had to go up about 23 stories by foot! (i'm thinking it was about 55 billion steps) the cool thing is that we got to see how Brunellesci's dome was built and once we got to the top the view was unbelieveable. i din't know they could build such tall buildings 500 years ago. it was perfect timing on our part, we got to see the city under the sun, and then a beautiful sunset from the highest point in the city.

later that night, after we checked into our hostel (mental note, always remember to carry your passport) we had dinner at this place where for 10 euro you got enough food to eat a few meals. man, that was good. as night turned into late night- we had our first experince at a european discotheque. it was a place called Mecano in the red light district of florence. this place was pretty cool-- amazing music, amazing service, everyone was crazy good looking but it was also amazingly expensive. i think it was a little too exclusive for my taste, just to tell you that the guy at the front door would not let people in if they didn't meet his dress expectations (more especifically the kind of shoes you were wearing). whatev' it was tons of fun.

so today is pretty much a relax day, we had class in the morning but that was it. its getting a bit warmer out so i walked out in the streets of Castiglion for a while. colleen and i have been planning our trip to greece, hopefully it will all be good to go before today ends. tomorrow night we'll be staying in downtown florence, maybe we can find a discotheque and dance our brains away. we'll see how it goes. Ciao!

inside the duomo in Siena



the ceiling of the duomo

so today we went to siena. wow. this was a pretty damn cool city. we started out at the walls of the fortress -- it was crazy, i can't imagine anyone even trying to invade the city back in the middle ages. those walls were huge. we then made it to the cathedral of San Dominico where the head of Saint Catherine is kept. from there it was a slow hike down the hill to the original city fountain and then another slow hike up to the top of the hill again. we stoped by the oldest bank of italy, the Sieness and then made it to the duomo or otherwise called the church of Santa Maria Della Scalla. this was crazy. the church is huge and all the frescos were out of control. the whole floor of the thing is one giant peice of art. we also saw the Campo, the biggest square in Siena and one of the most famous in italy. we had lunch at this cool place near Il Campo - it was delish. 15 euro well spent. we also went into the main Palazo and into a museum that held tons of paintings from the rennaisance. other than that, we had some good coffee at a random place and we saw tons of cool stores.



look at kelly, michelle and colleen being super happy in Siena.

so today classes again, but the cool thing was that our classmates in Orvieto visited us. it came as a surprise. i guess that they don't have anything to do on tuesday so a bunch of them just decited to come over and spend the evening here. we all went on a hike to Il Santuario Della Madonna Del Bagno. its a church that was built out in the tuscan country right next to this spring. it was really cool. the hike up there is about 1 hr so its actually pretty far out there. it was such a beautiful hike though... the pics above are some that were taken during the hike. another day of happiness in italia.





this is a pic of the cross on top of the church out in the tuscan valley.

mondays are class days. today i had five total.

09:00-11:30 -- studio. it was ok, we got our project for the semester. in short, we are to document a piazza space and then later on we are to modify it with an addition of our own.

11:30-12:30 -- italian culture. Marco talked about Sienna; i think we will be visiting this great city on wed.

13:30-14:45 -- larry's seminar. today i had my first pinnup of the semester. it went well, but there was some things i could've improved.

14:45-16:30 -- Stone Carving with Maestro Brunni. yes! today we had our intro to this class, it will be my favorite this semester. Maesrto Brunni is a true master, his work is known world wide -- everything from stone sculpture to his paintings. theay are all so beautiful.

17:30 - 18:30 -- Italiano. so our profesoressa Rosella taught us a few new frases, nothing cool.

well it's sunday, and i have a project due tomorrow. damn.

i woke up late, and i woke up cold. believe it or not the weather has until yesterday been great. haha, not any more -- its freezing. i guess that's ok, italia is still beautiful. so today i had to do this analysis of a space here in Castiglion; the mission was just to find an interesting moment and to document it. so i found this crazy space that i thought was good. it was a public space with terraces and trees and steps that turned into benches and then turned into retaining wall and back to steps again (you can see a picture of the space above). i was out in the bitter cold for almost 3 hours measuring and measuring. after all of that, i went to the study center and drew it and rendered it. i think it came out kind of cool, but it wasn't perfect. we'll have to see how it goes. Ciao!

finally, i got a good picture of a damn pigeon. sweet.

today we were in arrezo, a city of about 100,000 inhabitants just 12 minutes north of us. the city was holding its monthly antique fair so it meant that there was tons of street vendors all around. it was at the amongst thse vendors that we saw that lady playing the accordion and making the puppets dance -- she was cool. at the top of the hill was were found the famous duomo - this was also cool. later on, a group of us made to the fortress that was also located on the top of the hill. in it, we found a small opening that led to the "catacombs" under the fortress structure. it was pretty crazy, the walls of the fortress were actually hollow with all kinds of passageways and huge vaulted rooms. a highlight of the the day was the food. we ate some really good lunch there, except it was pretty expensive (well, for my me at least) -- about 15 euro per person. damn. oh well, it was molto delicioso! today was a magnificent day.



this is the entry to the "catacombs"

sweetness. today florence was beautiful. colleen and i hit the 10 am train to florence (well, it was actually the 10:55 as we missed the 9:45 -- long story) but let me tell you, this city is incredible! there is just so much to see... in the earlier part of the day, one of the things we came across was the Mercato Centrale, this was a huge 1950's building/warehouse kind of structure in which all kinds of food was sold. it was freaking huge, anything that you wanted could be found especially all kinds of cheeses and meats. we had lunch at this place in Piazza di Mercato Centrale - colleen had a slice of pizza for $3.oo and a had a delicious calzone for $4.50. after lunch we headed west to the Arno River. after hours of looking at all the street vendors at the various street markets we finally made it to the Ponte Vechio. from there we went south and looped back around through one of the other city bridges. after that we hit the the church of San Lorenzo. in this church one can find works from the best architects and artist of their times -- Brunelleschi and the famous Michelangelo. too bad i actually didn't see the the work of Michelangelo but there will be more opportunities later on. it was also shitty that they wouldn't let us take pis of the damn church. oh well, maybe i'll take an illegal photo another day. just as the day was ending colleen and i tried our first gelato in italy -- it was amazing. another day of happiness

ok, everyone should check out my flickr site. its full of photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gutch

florence, yay!

¨the sweet doing nothing¨

italia has been such a blast. i´ve only been here for a few days and i have done so much. the other day colleen, corey and i decided to go on a walk to the hills outside of Castiglion Fiorentino. the walk was beautiful, one could enjoy views such as the picture shows above. the tower that you see in the picture is right in the middle of town, it is the biggest and most important church in Castiglion. Santa Chiara, the study center in which we live, is right beside it. yeah, don't be jealous...

well, i got to go-- i think we are supposed to play some soccer now, "Calcio" as the locals would say.

yes kids. this is the view from my room. tuscany is beautiful.

. the i can hardly believe that i´m finally here. it seems like my dream has come to life, all i have to do is take advantage and enjoy every single moment here.

we arrived on saturday in Roma, to bad we left right from the airport, now i´m here in Castiglion Fiorentino and i love it. everything here is just like i expected-- the people, the town, the food...

i am in heaven.