Birthdays, Trips, and Art

It’s been a while; the result of my being too busy to blog, which is exactly how it should be abroad! I am currently exiled from my room by some construction people who are knocking a hole in our while to extract the mold/mildew caused by our leaky pipes. Quite a few exhilarating things have happened in the last few weeks. To spice things up, I will start unorthodoxly by blogging about the most recent noteworthy event and pop-corning around my last two weeks. Also, there may be more pictures than usual. I find that pictures speak louder than words for a lot of these experiences.

Saturday night I got back from Venice! Friday morning, roommate Meghan, Trumanite Brittni, and I hoped on a 4:30am train destined to take me to a very unique city. The train took 5 hours, but was worth every euro saved. Our conductor must have been a classical music fan because we listened to Wagner’s Ride of the Valkryies about 50 times in a row; what kind of train plays music!?

Basically all we did in Venice was wander around aimlessly - getting lost in Venice is the number one recommended activity online! During our wanderings we visited the Rialto, the inside of Saint Mark’s Basilica (a golden WOW), the square while empty and packed, the outside of about every church, saw a thousand masks, and crossed over what felt like every bridge in Venice. Venice is a maze! I am not in Kansas anymore! Fortunately Venice treats us adrift tourists well by putting up signs everywhere pointing the way to all the main tourist attractions.

For our first meal in Venice, Brittni, Meghan, and I went to the market, each purchased a baguette and jar of jam (cherry, strawberry, and peach respectively), and ate on St. Mark’s square. We later learned picnicking on the square is not completely legal, which may have explained why everyone was looking at us as they passed and the birds were especially excited and annoying.

Venice at night is unbelievably beautiful and slightly creepy. There is very little lighting, very thin alleyways, and lots of inky black water that you know is there but cannot see. All the same, it was a sight to see.

We spent the night at a little hotel on mainland Venice, and then continued our adventure the next day. Saturday was the start of Carnivale in Venice, which means masks, costumes, and Lots Of People Everywhere! I am glad we had Friday to acquaint ourselves with Venice, because Saturday would have been way too overwhelming by itself. St. Mark’s square and the boardwalk were packed! I was constantly distracted by all the beautiful masks and took way too many pictures of all the different intricacies!!

On the way home we took the cheap trains again, but unfortunately ended up with a three-hour layover in Bologna. It’s cold outside, there are no benches/chairs in the train station. Solution: we bought some fries and sat in McDonalds for two hours! I cannot decide if it is hilarious or pathetic that I went to McDonalds in Italy.

Apparently spring’s reputation for being the time of birth in the animal (and plant) kingdom really does include humans as well. Last week we celebrated roommate Katie’s birthday all weekend and this weekend it seems to be everyone’s birthday! The spree started off with my dear wise ole sis Karis on the 24th turning 26, continued with dear boyfriend Brent turning 21 (danger!) on the 25th, dear girlfriend of dear brother Josiah aged to 19 on the 26th, and the marathon ended with dear friend and fellow ex-horn player Kyle also aging to 21 (real danger!) on the 27th. HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVERYONE!

Katie’s weekend of fun included going to Siena, eating out at a Mexican restaurant (a rarity in Italy), eating home made birthday cake (cooked by the birthday girl herself - an aspiring pastry shop owner), and going to a disco! The most significant of these events was Siena, a quant yet vivacious city.

Siena was a little too hilly for my taste. Everywhere you look is another hill! Sometimes there were even steps to get up sidewalks! But it turns out hills are pretty beautiful when looking out from atop of a clock tower after a 300 step climb. Best 8 euros spent. We also went inside Siena’s Duomo, which unfortunately makes Florence’s look like squat (Siena and Florence used to be rivals back in the day… Siena 1, Florence 0).

I climbed that bell tower!

On the top.

Duomo

One of my most brain consuming activities have been thinking about what I want to do for my second semester projects in my drawing and painting classes. The real reason I came to Florence was not really for the views because I wanted to leave a better artist. In my Lost Codes and Secret Symbolisms class we have talked a lot about animal symbolism and how gothic art combined human and animal forms often. As a result, I have been playing with the idea of painting self portraits combined with animals. I have played around a little with sketches, and am really excited!!! All I need to figure out is what animals, what theme should they follow, how much body should I show, what setting should it be in, and just about everything! Themes considered are the 7 deadly sins, 7 virtues, 5 birds of alchemy, animals that represent my personality, etc. It still is in the beginning stages of creativity. Another painting project idea is zooming in on vegetables and painting them on a large canvas (string beans, peas, broccoli). I am super excited to get started! Tomorrow is a painting day, 10 hours of fun!!

And just for fun, here are two other random drawings.

Oh!!! Another inspiration for all these animals is the museum La Specola: a 1700's animal taxidermy and wax innards museum. Sounds weird, but I loved it!!!! I have never seen anything quite like a room full of hundreds of bird species. I took around 200 pictures there (I love it when museums let me take pictures).

There was also a section that had wax people opened up to show their internal anatomy.

Really weird and creepyish. But absolutely fascinating and inspiring!

Songs of the Post: “Dear Vienna” by Owl City (I keep singing Dear Siena in my head!), “Venice Queen” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and “Happy Birthday” by Sufjan Stevens