the rest of the northern trip

Sooo im back in rome after my weeklong northern tour… it was pretty awesome but im glad to be back so I can settle into a normal routine rather than just running through beautiful cities all day and night…

To continue our tour, we left Genova for Torino on Monday… Torino was absolutely wonderful after scary genova… it was really beautiful, much safer, and had amazing shopping… I found a new awesome store (muji… google it to see some of their fabulous products)… and some new leggings!! Besides that, Torino had a lot of gorgeous churches.... we went to see the school of architecture (which is in an old palace… man I wish greene was a palace lol)… and we went to see the old fiat factory… which has a test track on top!! We ran around it like a bunch of little kids and there will probably be pictures all over facebook of us running around like crazy people lol

After Torino came a brief stop in Verona… as in Romeo and Juliet Verona… it was really nice… another one of those cities where I probably could have spent some more time… we saw a castle that was pretty cool, spent some time sketching… and ran around a bit… I bought a crazy glass ring… its pretty huge… and white… Amy also bought a ridiculous bling bling ring… you should be jealous of our jewelry… haha

By nightfall on Wednesday, we were in Vicenza… we stayed in a convent where we had a midnight curfew, which didn’t matter much since we were up at like 7 and spent all day running around the city and I was totally exhausted by like 11pm every night… we didn’t really spend much time in Vicenza itself, but we did make a visit to the Nardini Grappa Distillery… which a few years ago celebrated its 225^th anniversary by building a crazy new building… it was beautiful… floating bubbles and a cave… loved it! We also got to taste their grappa… not something you want to be doing
at like 11am… haha… then we went to Bassano where the distillery originally was at the end of a Palladio bridge… bassano was really beautiful… we had lunch there… chilled on the bridge for a while… and of course moved on to the next crazy thing way too fast… the day ended with a visit to la rotunda… fabulous… im pretty sure Palladian villas are some of the most beautiful architecture ever… and I wish I could spend my summers living on the top of a hill in a gorgeous summer home designed by Palladio… another night in Vicenza, and then we caught the train in the morning on our way to

VENICE!!! So I was totally not prepared for Venice to be as beautiful as it was… but Venice is pretty much the most gorgeous place ive ever seen… it was so beautiful to take the ferry along the canals… to walk along the canals… to be surrounded by canals… the only problem was that I was perpetually thirsty and really aching to go swimming haha… we spend all weekend in Venice, but I really think I could have stayed for days… when we arrived on Friday morning, we got ourselves oriented and then a few of us went to St Marks Square to chase some pigeons… the pigeons there are totally ridiculous… they’ll just walk right over your feet if you stand too close… I don’t really like pigeons… theyre just flying rats as far as im concerned… so I spent most of the time in Venice just kicking at the pigeons to keep them from doing something really awful like landing on my arm or my head… gross… we also spent much of that afternoon going into various souvenir stores… pretty much every other store in Venice is a store selling a) glass products or b)beautifully decorated masks or c) a combination of the two… so there were some pretty good opportunities for collecting all sorts of junk… I restrained myself a bit, but some of you most definitely will be receiving some gifts from Venice… Saturday morning landed us at the Biennale… a yearly exhibit that switches between art and architecture… this year was art, and let me tell you some of it was really strange, disturbing even… each country gets a pavilion to showcase their installation art… Italy had some good stuff… Russia was actually one of my favorites… but overall it was just strange… after being sufficiently freaked out by some of the worlds best installation art, we continued our day with a stop in Murano, the glass blowing island… its really amazing the things that they make out of glass… apparently it takes 25 years to become a glass master, but when you get to that point, its because you can do amazing things like make life sized flies of out glass… or a spider web out of the thinnest strands of glass ever… I was pretty much perpetually amazed by the glass crafts made on Murano… then we met all together for a Bellini break… Bellinis are Venetian cocktails that involve Italian frizzy wine and white peach pulp… theyre amazing!!

I spent my last day in Venice just walking around enjoying the scenery… we saw Palladio’s last work, a church out on an island across the water from St Marks… it was positively cavernous inside, with huge columns, curved transept altars, and a beautiful altar… then we had lunch in the jewish ghetto, where I bought a crazy red-orange silk scarf… it makes me look really eurochic haha

By the time we boarded the train at 330 on Sunday, I was ready for a break… traveling was a lot of fun, but it’s really tiring! If I had to pick my favorite cities, id put Torino and Venice at the top of the list… and obviously my least favorite was Genova… Id really like to go back to Venice someday… I couldn’t help but smile the whole time I was there… let me know if you’ve been to Venice and you feel this way too

Now I’m back in Rome for 3 weeks before our Hilltowns tour at the beginning of October… and ive got a crazy week of studio and history classes ahead of me… hopefully I’ll be able to make time for doing like 5 loads of laundry in our crazy small washing machine…

to all my amazing alphagam sisters, I miss you and love you and I know we are going to have the most awesome new members ever!!

To everyone, you should probably visit me if you can, Italy is the best!!

genova is full of shit

so we left yesterday to begin our first field trip at 7am... after a few hours of napping on the bus, we arrived in Lucca, a small city in the region of Tuscany... it was really beautiful (pictures will be posted when i have my computer)... there was a church there that was absolutely amaxing, the stained glass lit it up in a way that words could not describe, and unfortunately pictures were prohibited... so if you ever get a chance togo to Lucca, im sure you will see this church and know exactly what i mean
after some more napping on the bus, we arrived in Genova, our real destination for the day... we began with a short orientation given to us by Giudetta, who works here as a professor and architect... then we went to the aquarium, which was awesome... we were like a bunch of little kids looking at all the fish, taking pictures of the pengiuns, really just relaxing and having fun... then we had a nice dinner which involved ridiculous amounts of beer (shared between 11 people of course) and then we wandered around to see what the night life here was all about... which apparently isnt much, even on a saturday night
today we continued our tour of genova, which is characterized mostly by churches with striated black and white facades and also with frescoed trompe l'oil (sp?) facades that look 3d but are definitely not (you will see this in pictures as well) as far as walking around geneva, its kindve a problem... you see, many people here have dogs, italy seems to be a very dog friendly place... however, dog owners are apparently not responsible for cleaning up after their pets, which means you have to constantly watch the ground toavoid stepping in poop, which would be very uncool
overall, genova is not so bad... theres a new plan in the works to really build up the harbor area, which is already far and away the nicest part of the city... it seems that this is not a very touristy place right now, because it is currently underdeveloped and in a state of rebuilding, and it almost seemed a bit dangerous (luckily we go everywhere in groups of 10 or more)... tonight we spend the night in genova again, and we leave tomorrow morning for Torino!