vacation!

sooo vacation starts now and me and morgan have planned a crazy trip for the next 8 days... heres our itinerary:

Oct 27 (Morning) Fly from Roma to Milan, start loving Milan
Oct 28 Continue loving Milan all day
(Night) Fly from Milan to London
Oct 29 Love London all day
Oct 30 Continue loving London all day
(Night) Fly from London to Barcelona
Oct 31 Love Barcelona all day
Nov 1 Continue loving Barcelona all day
Nov 2 (Morning) Fly from Barcelona to Paris, start loving Paris
Nov 3 Continue loving Paris all day
(Night) Take train overnight from Paris to Roma
Nov 4 Resume loving Roma

jealous? yea i thought so... im out of contact most likely for the next week... sooo wish me luck on my adventure and i will surely post about EVERYTHING when i get back!

i now present: Aundrew Saunders, my professor, in action:

the halfway point

2 months in Roma, 2 months to go... we've begun our final project and now i guess we're just worky worky worky towards the end... heres a NEW list of things ive done in Roma, now that another month has gone by:

• stopped saying escuse me, please, thank you, hey... these words have now been replaced by i scusi, per favore, grazie, ciao
• sent out 2 full sets of postcards... if you haven't gotten one yet, not to worry, you'll get one soon
  
• been to the vatican during the day, and realized that it is actually Heaven on earth
• seen the Valentino exhibit (mmm gowns)
• stopped letting my hair air dry, its cold now, so i need to dry it before leaving the house or ill freeze!
• still no TV :-(
• begun to miss speaking in english, watching tv in english, reading anything besides architecture in english
• cooked family dinner! (sausage and peppers on ciabatta rolls, yummy)
• gone to the crazy flea market and bought new knives and forks for our severely lacking apartment
• learned to live with the fact that no, i do not have a closet of my own and no, i do not have all of my clothes
• enjoyed the hilltowns and all their wine and lovely landscapes
• been sad about missing the parties at RPI
• started running again, and hopefully i will continue to run until i get back because i've...
• become totally addicted to gelato, every flavor
• become addicted to espresso (so efficient)
• missed studio in the greene building with all my bests, but NOT missed the squirrels haha
• not gone back to all the places i wanted to go back to
• gotten very homesick
• taught my mom to use email! probably my greatest accomplishment! haha
• missed the little things i can do at home and in troy, but not here
• been really proud of all our new members, who are doing a FABULOUS job from what i've heard
  
• missed my family, my sisters, the boys, all my bests... ive missed pretty much everyone

for those of you that have been reading, thanks, you make me happy... the more i talk to all my sisters and friends at home, the more loved i feel and the more excited i am to really make the most out of this semester, just so i can come back and tell you all about it... so here's to 2 more months of pictures, hopefully more sketching, more postcards, more stories, more blogging, etc etc etc

ps. ive added a link to a map that shows where i've been running, instead of posting a new map to every page... so you should check it out from time time and help me stay motivated by being totally jealous of everything i run by!

new google toy!

ok so now that im running i need to keep myself motivated and all of you posted on all of my progress... so ill be posting the routes of my particularly exciting runs for all of you to see :)
this google map toy lets me post maps to my blog (i edited yesterdays post to put up the map from fridays run)... i could probably post maps of other stuff too if i wanted... but a run is a good thing to post a map of... today i ran past the ara pacis, to the piazza del popolo, and back along the river past castel sant angelo and the vatican... jealous? you should be!

View Larger Map

busy busy busy

sorry to those of you that actually read this blog... i had a VERY busy week, and things are really starting to pick up around here... on monday, we got our groups for the final project... and i dont have a partner... i am THE ISLAND... STATEN ISLAND... thanks saunders... ridiculous... on thr bright side i dont have a partner to fight with, on the not-so-bright side i dont have a buddy for the project... oh well... thursday was our history midterm... the test was on renaissance rome... so basically i had to know EVERYTHING about EVERY renaissance building in rome... which is a lot... there were like 10 palaces, 7 or 8 villas, a million churches, everything in the vatican... im sure you get the idea that it was a totally ridiculous test... but i think i did pretty well... so yay!
yesterday i went for a run... to the Colosseum... seriously, dont you wish you could run to the colosseum? this is part of my new plan for getting in shape and being a happier person in roma... if i run, i am happy... and i also get to explore Rome, which is amazing... so i'll be keeping you all posted of my progress...
map of my run:

View Larger Map

today is october 20, so i will be back in the USA in exactly 2 months... so im about halfway through my time in ROME! isnt that crazy?
my schedule for the rest of the semester:
until oct 26: Roma
oct 27-28: Milan
oct 29-30: London
oct 31-nov 1: Barcelona
nov 1-2: Paris
nov 3-12: Roma
nov 13-18: Southern Trip
nov 18-dec 20: Roma
dec 20: back in the USA!
mangan in roma: nov 24-dec 2
studio final: dec 12

in the meantime, i'll try to get more posts in... i'll prob be spending tons of time in studio... blah!
love you all, miss you all, can't wait to see you all

high fashion and not so much

soooo another blog post for today because i absolutely had to post about the valentino exhibit at the ara pacis... mostly just because it was beautiful and the dresses were amazing... i got to see the Julia Roberts dress from when she won the oscar, a dress worn by reese witherspoon, and one by halle berry... as well as about 100 other gorgeous dresses that i would have loved to wear... soooo pretty... although the mannequins were pretty awkward and had really long necks... some examples:

julia roberts dress

later today we had family dinner... during which mike decided to show us some high fashion of his own... witness the mom jeans, camp dudley polo, and boat shoes:wow mike... lookin good! ;-)

hilltowns trip

sooo, after 5 days of traveling and almost a day of recouperating, im ready to post about the hilltowns...
early monday morning, we began at 7am on the bus on our way to montepulciano... which turned out to a be a VERY SMALL town that had like 10 churches and not much else, as most of these towns do. what it did have is some spectacular views... a few of us all ended up in the same spot for lunch, sitting on a wall at the top of a hill, looking out over the countryside, which became a pretty regular event for us on this trip... we were also able to go to the top of one of the buildings and take a few pictures... which was pretty cool... after about 4 hours there, we loaded back onto the bus
about a half hour on the bus landed us in pienza, the renaissance utopia town... even smaller than montepulciano... theres literally one piazza thats about the size of my apartment in rome... and in the 4 hours we spent there, most of us were able to do several laps of the town... upon suggestion by our professors, a few of us bought some wine and cheese and sat on a wall with a view consuming these goods until it was time to leave... very good idea... i recommend doing this whenever you have some free time in italy
that night we got to siena... pretty town, nasty hotel... we were tired that night, so we found some dinner and headed back to the hotel pretty quickly... early the next morning, we climbed our way to the top of the Torre al Mangia... which is a ridiculously high tower with ridiculously steep narrow stairs going all the way to the top... besides being totally out of breath by the time i got to the top, it was worth it... the view was beautiful! the rest of the day was spent shopping, i found a pair of beautiful leather scrunchy boots with a low heel... a little more expensive than i planned, but pretty awesome anyway, look for them in pictures to come... that night we went to the Taverna del Cecco, which was right across the way from our nasty hotel but ended up being a really nice place with good food... and we also went out for coffee with amy's sister alicia and her fiance alfredo... theyre getting married in about a month and we saw pictures of her dress... its really beautiful
wayyyy too early the next morning we visited San Galgano, an abandoned abbey somewhere out in the middle of nowhere... it was soooooo cold... once i put on a few layers it was much better, and i was able to sit still long enough to do a pretty decent sketch... after a few hours there, it was time to move along once again
Arezzo was the next stop on our whirlwind tour, and we spent a few hours there looking at the churches (really thats all arezzo has)... but i have no pictures... because my camera battery died... oh well
later that evening we checked into the most beautiful hotel we've stayed in so far, in urbino... we went to a restaurant called Morgana for dinner (because the name was obviously irresistable) and it was delicious! We spent the whole next day in urbino... we visited the ducal palace... i actually stood in the middle window between the towers! it was really pretty, and there were some amazing works of art, one was "The Mute" by Raphael!! It was pretty awesome... later on, after lunch, we walked around the edge of the city and landed in a park with a nice spot to sit and enjoy the view, which we did... all afternoon... after another fabulous dinner in urbino it was time to get some rest and gear up for the last day of our trip!
finally, we got to assisi... as in st francis of assisi! the church is in 2 parts... the tomb, the upper church and the lower church and it is covered in the most amazing frescos depicting scenes from the bible and from the life of saint francis... besides the church, the rest of the town was pretty hilly... but if you climbed all the way up the hill, not only did you get another great view, there was a castle!! yes, a castle at the top of the hill... it was a very nice way to spend the last afternoon of our trip
we arrived around 7 last night back in rome, where i unpacked, showered, and went to bed... the hilltowns were fabulous, but its good to be back

the end of another week in roma

So, this week went from bad, to a bit better, to wayyyy worse, but now has ended very nicely. To recap, Sunday i was feeling the cabin fever of studio, missing home and friends and everyone. Luckily, Monday and Tuesday mornings landed our history class at the Vatican (i've posted pictures) and its pretty much the most amazing, most beautiful place i have ever seen... St Peter's is absolutely HUMONGOUS! Along the floor it compares the sizes of other famous basilicas, and St Patricks in NYC could fit inside it twice, with room to spare... and its just amazingly decorated and i could never describe just how beautiful it is if you've never been there yourself... so put it on your "life to do" list, go to the vatican, see St Peters, it might change your life. The next 2 nights resulted in little or no sleep but lots of scripting and diagramming for our review on thursday, which went ok but not great... we were one of the last groups to go and we got barely any time to present. But whatever... its over now... me and Brian dont have to work together anymore... which is fab. Yesterday was a day of relaxing and sleeping and loafing around and taking long showers... thats literally what everyone did... and last night instead of going out, we projected Gladiator on the wall of our apartment, which was an awesome movie to watch while in Rome, because hey, thats where the movie takes place! it was pretty good, i've never seen Gladiator before (gasp!) and i think between Cinderella Man and Gladiator, i am now totally in love with russel crowe... hes pretty awesome. Today was another day of relaxing and enjoying Rome... me and mike walked around in the drizzle for a few hours (it never really rains here) and then we had a big family dinner (andrew made lamb and joanne made apple pie... mmmmmmm) and then we had cake for rachele's bday! So all in all, it ended up being a great week... thank you everyone who's been reading and posting comments and posting on my facebook wall... i miss you all and it means so much to me that you miss me too!!!
Next week i'll be away on the hilltowns trip, so im not sure how much internet access i will have, but ill try to update during the week while im gone and of course i will update when i return.