Wednesday 3-7-2013

On Wednesday we meet up by the Colosseum metro station again and walked to another museum.    Apparently it’s pretty special, because Michelangelo drew there once as well.

The outside of the museum.  It kind of looks like a panorama when they're all lined up like this.

Before we went inside we were asked to draw some of the features around us.  Drawing detailed images of large buildings can be overwhelming, so I focused on the bottom of this lamp post.

Graphite and markers 

Then we went inside in the museum.  There was an exhibition on the Greek philosopher Archimedes but we weren't allowed to take pictures or draw in there.  We were allowed draw and take photos in the normal areas, but by that time, I'd forgotten that I had my camera with me, so I've got no pictures sorry, hopefully my drawings are good enough to give you an idea.

Statue of a lion eating a horse

On the left is a drawing of a statue (I think it was Venus.)  Then on the right are some notes written by my teacher Barbara who was teaching us about using construction lines.  I'm really happy that we got Barbara as a teacher, because she is incredibly nice and she’s also very passionate about drawing and teaching, which really makes a difference.  Because of the teachers' enthusiasm, all of us feel really motivated to work hard.

After that we went upstairs and saw the jewelry and coin collection.  Then we were told to try and draw them quickly with quick fluid movements as opposed to super detailed images (like the one on the far left).

From the museum we went off to the Jewish ghetto, which is where the Jews hid during WWII and finished our lessons there.  At first I was going to go to the Trevi Fountain, but the metro station was too far away, and the heat didn't help either, so I decided to leave it for another day and to just explore the area a little bit before heading back.

One of the other teachers; Francisco said that they tried to make new metro stations in Rome, but every time they dig up the ground they keep finding new ruins, which makes it impossible.  That's why we have to walk so much.

On the way back I meet up some people from my class; Kate, Mel and Tom who are all doing Fine Arts at my uni, though I've never really hung out with them before.  Then we hung out for a little while and went shopping together, after that we went home.

Later that night, there was supposed to be some kind of design meeting that the teachers recommended that we should go to.  So me, Lex (whose doing design at my uni),  Lucy, Tahni, and Erin (architect students from Canberra) went together, but when we got there we discovered that it was too crowded.  Not only that but it looked like we missed out on a lot of things and couldn't what was going on so we left and went to the the Pantheon, which was close by.

According to my guide book, which I'm reading now as I write, the Pantheon is the best preserved monument of ancient Rome and was built in by Emperor Hadrian in around 120 AD.  (I should really research these things before I go to them, instead of the other way around...)  It was first a built as place dedicated to all the ancient gods, but over time they changed it to a catholic church, which I didn't realize.  It didn't feel like a church inside.  I mean, besides it's unusual shape, it was very touristy like a museum.

Erin, Tahni and me in front of the Pantheon

By that time we (I) were getting pretty hungry (starving actually!) so we went off to find dinner.  Because we were outside the Pantheon, all the shop keepers were extremely annoying trying to offer us the best deal.  I'm seriously sick of these types of people, they drive me absolutely nuts!  However we were getting pretty tired and decided to eat at one of the restaurants.

The interior decoration was pretty nice though

Delicious steak!!! 

Because I was so ravenous, I threw away all senses of 'money judgment' and decided to splurge and get a stake, which I have to say was an amazing idea, though I was hoping for more stuff...

The bad side however was that the service wasn't that good.  Because we were in a tourist area, the restaurants were money grabbers and focused more on getting customers than proper service.  They hit Erin in the head with a plate, got some of our orders wrongs and charged us 20 euros extra for nothing.  (Which we protested and got them to take it off.)

After all of that the others went over to a local pizzeria and bought a few beers and drank them by the river.  Honestly I would have preferred going to a cheap pizzeria than that restaurant, that way we could have enjoyed our meal without having to worry about additional random charges.  (Some of these places are really sneaky, because they charge for water, bread and service.)

It was so nice at night, because by that time most of the people had cleared away and there weren't any hustlers.

Apparently the Italian economy isn't doing very well, so there are a lot of beggars and  hustlers in the street most of the time.  (The bad side of going to the city center.)  A lot of the time I fell pretty bad for ignoring them when they're talking to me, but if you acknowledge them then they'll start to nag you and force you to buy things you don't want, so it's better to keep walking without looking at them.  Sometimes people try to give you flowers (like if it's a gift) and then demand money for it, so be careful.

I've also heard that they are a lot of thefts in Italy as well, but they try to target naive looking tourists.  If you hold your bag too tight, they might think it's very valuable and will target you, but if you act casual as though its not worth stealing you'll be ok (still pay attention to your stuff though, just don't look like a stupid tourist!)

Anyway, back to the story...  We were walking by the river after dinner enjoying the sunset.

The dirty green river looked amazing with all the lights.  

It was awesome!

A lot of my pictures came out blurry,
but they still look pretty cool.

By then it was much cooler as well, so we decided to walk about for a while.  Then we realized that we were right next to the Vatican, so we figured that we may as well go and see it.  Nothing was open at that hour (about 9pm), but it was a much better atmosphere without tourists all over the place.

Vatican from across the bridge

Police car driving in front of the Obelisk

Erin, Me and Tahni in front of the Vatican

After that experience we then decided that we should go out at night more often to see the city, since its cooler, prettier and less busy, though I guess it all depends on how tired we are after the day.

Tuesday 2-7-2013

The worst thing about intensive days, is that I never have enough time at the end of the day to write up these blogs, but lucky enough i've worked out a system, where I write out notes and expand on them in my free time.  So here is the fist of a few to come.

Tuesday was our fist outdoor class.  First we took the metro and meet up outside of the Colosseum at 9am.  Then we walked over to the  Arch of Constantine and drew a few pictures of.  In the mean while lots of tourists kept coming up to take pictures of us, so some of us joked that maybe we should put a hat down and collect money.

After that we walked around the area and saw the forum, and old ruins, which were pretty cool, but like I said before, I don't really know much about history to comment on what they were and dates.  All I know is that they're really old.

ruins

The ruins are owned by stray cats here... kind of like in Japan

After that we went to a museum, which had different kinds of columns and broken stones on display, (probably because it was burning hot outside).
There the teachers had us draw a few quick drawings of the landscape in order to capture the sensation of it.

buildings over the trees

the balcony

Then we split up and went off into the gallery to draw some of the old sculptures.  Since we were given about 2 hours to draw, I was able to concentrate on drawing detailed images without worrying about running out of time.  Actually I’m pretty impressed by what I did, since I haven’t drawn super detailed things in a long time.

headless statue 

lion carved block

Column cap

After we had finish we were dismissed from class and allowed to explore the city.  First we walked through a market place called Campo di Fiori where I got gelato.  I swear gelato is SO GOOD in Italy! The rock melon and strawberry flavors are really good and even have bits of fruit in them.

Later on me and Sharron (my room mate) went shopping for groceries to make dinner.  As some of my friends know, I have a terrible reputation for cooking and tease me about it often, (probably doesn't help that I keep posting these pictures and videos up though), so I decided to redeem myself by making an awesome dinner.  First I made a stir fry with onion, capsicum, tomatoes and eggs, which actually turned out good, but the rice...

We have a rice cooker at home, so using a pot to cook rice is weird for me.  In the end I burnt the rice and kind of destroyed the pot as well.

Mum would be so proud of me

In the end Sharron, whose not a very good cook either, made pasta and saved the day.  (She probably felt much better as well finding a person whose worse than her at cooking).

finished result

So much for redeeming my reputation...

Rome day 2 1/07/2013

Was super tired last night to write my blog, (I still am), but I better do it before I forget what happened.

 As you know from my last entry, I had some accommodation issues, so I made sure to go and check into my apartment first thing in the morning.  It's actually a really nice place.  The place is made for 6 people, but only 3 people are using it, so it's super comfy.  I'm sharing with Sharon who was in my photography class last year and Lucy, whose an architectural student from Cambera.

Then we took the bus to go to class, however we accidentally went to the wrong campus.  Apparently they sent an email with an address change, but we were unaware of it.  Luckily enough one of the ladies there was nice enough to show us the way.  

Then we were introduced to our Teachers who are Italian, but teach the course in English.  For the first day, we went through orientation, which was pretty much about our schedule for the next few weeks, how to use the materials and getting to know each other.

For this course I expected it to be like last time where people from all around the world came to participate, however 12/14 of us are Australians!  Anyway, the good news is that everyone's nice and gets along well with each other.

Everyone in my class

Also, the course is also amazing!  I am really happy that I chose it.  After our debriefing, we were told to go into the garden and draw the buildings, probably to try out the new materials they gave us.

I think that all the times that I went out into the city to draw with my friend Yvette really payed off, because I understood what they wanted me to do straight away without being stressed, which was good.

They wanted us to focus on 2 different styles: Creating the sensation of the place, which means that it doesn't have to be too accurate, but the fluid movements and shapes give you a sense of the atmosphere, such as this picture.

red and grey pencil and markers

The second style was to pay attention to a specific detail, such as the decorations of a column and draw it more accurately.  

It was hard for me to get the hang of this style at first, because of a few reasons.  First is that I haven't focused on detailed drawings for a few years (I used to draw like that in high school though), and secondly I have a really short attention span and I get bored really quickly.  So this was hard for me to do, but I got it in the end.

a really boring window

pillar and some bricks

After class I went off into the city with a group of people from my Uni to look at the monuments, such as the Spanish Steps, an Egyptian Oblisk, the Colosseum and a bunch of other random ruins.  I'm sorry, but I generally don't care too much about historical things to pay enough attention to where I am, (which is how me and Tatiana managed to go though half of the country so fast), only enough to say "that's pretty cool".  

Does that mean Rome is wasted on me, since it's one of the most historically rich countries in the world?  Who knows, probably...  Or at least the historical bits.  As for the drawing part, i'm going to embrace every opportunity I have to become a better draughtsman!

grey markers and pencil

We stopped in a park and drew this statue.  (I swear this is the 3rd time I've seen something like this.  The first in Milan and the second in Venice.)

Anyway, the walk was exhausting!  Especially since it was about 29 degrees, which is a killer after a whole week of fake Summer.

Apparently the Romans stole a whole bunch of
Obelisks from Egypt and put them in front of Churches   

Spanish Steps 

a random street

Slutty skeleton advertisement for... something?

Cool column with spirally, 3D Roman hieroglyphics  

Colussim 

Unfinished Colussim drawing

It's also hard walking in a big group, because you don't get to see what you want to see or go where you want to go, do maybe next time we should split up into smaller groups.  Either that or I'll go places by myself, since I don't get scared of walking around by myself.  

In fact, I have a better idea!  I'll go into an AIR-CONDITIONED McDonald's and draw from there, that way i'll stay cool and eat cheap food... oh yeah, wasting Rome again... Yeah, well Europe is expensive, so it's either one or the other.  (I should stop fighting with myself on the internet (-_-; )  ).

Enough rambling!  After all of that we to an Italian restaurant... (actually that's kind of obvious now that I live in Italy) and had dinner together.

As some of you know, once I like something, I tend to eat it all the time, such as anything with strawberries (Fragola in Italian) and normal spaghetti.  (It's also the cheapest item on the menu, which is a bonus too.

First day of Rome 30-6-2013

This morning Tatiana and I left the hostel early and made it to the (right) station on time, making sure to check the ticket about 50 times just in case.  Then we had cappuccinos and croissants before boarding the (right) train to Rome… unfortunately the train decided to run late.

When we finally arrived in Rome we realized that Tatiana only had about 4 hours left until she had to leave to go back home to Geneva, meaning that the ride was a complete waste.  (ごめね～ (Japanese for sorry) Ta-chan).  So we spent our last hour together eating spaghetti, because food is delicious.

Then we parted ways, which was a terrible idea!  Because Tatiana was always the navigator and if anyone knows me well, they would know that I have the worst sense of direction and always walk in the exact opposite direction of where I am supposed to go.

So I headed towards my accommodation, which was in a place called Prenestina, but after getting off the tram and walking for a few hours with an even more broken suitcase (the rubber have completely burned off the wheels) I realized that Prenestina was the name of the tram line and not the actual station, which I still didn’t know.  Basically it’s like saying you’re accommodation is in Oxford street (for non - Aussies, it’s a ridiculously long street in Sydney, which goes on forever).

After a while I started to use Google maps on my Australian phone out of desperation, (I hope I didn’t kill my phone bill), but that didn’t help since it said that the place was in the middle of the side walk.

By that time I was ready to die, or fall asleep on the side walk, but then some guys started talking to me.  One of them was a nice guy called Arsen who helped me find the place, only to realize that it was closed.  Damn it!

I tried calling AIM Overseas (the company in charge of my exchange), but they didn’t answer because it was 12am in Australian, then I called International SOS to see if they knew anything, but they weren’t able to do too much.  So Arsen took me to a café and helped me check into a hotel.

He was seriously a nice guy and he even told me his life story.  Apparently he had a hard life where he had to work very hard, so he was happy to help me, since I was in trouble.  While I was very gracious for his help, I was kind of scared as well. 

I couldn’t help it.  I mean, practically every girl in the history of anywhere are told by their parents not to talk to strangers, especially guys.  What’s that?  I’m 20 years old?  I’m a grown adult… Hahahahaha!!! Yeah, sure whatever you say.  Just because my passport says I’m an adult, doesn’t mean I mature.  (Peter Pan syndrome).

Also since I’m pretty polite (probably picked it up in Japan) I didn’t have the courage to tell him to go away, so I let him help me, which was cool I guess…  Either I’m extremely lucky or stupid… maybe both.

I think I was freaked out because I’m a control freak.  I prefer to be lost and know it’s my fault as well as know that I can fix it.  When someone helps me I lose that control.  (Yeah… I like to analyse myself, so I know how to improve my faults and stuff.)

After a few hours I went back to the accommodation office to figure out the best possible route to carry my broken bag tomorrow only to realize that I was open again.  Apparently Arsen went back to check and told them that I would come back tomorrow.  (No please, stop being so nice.  I’m not used to strangers being nice to me for no reason.  It’s weird.)

I guess the good thing about renting a 50 Euro room (out of desperation), is that its looks ridiculously fancy, especially after I just spent last night sharing a room with 16 other people (not that I actually minded).  A double bed, for me?  Kitchen (that I won’t use), for me?  Ensuite…  Ahhhhh!  Too posh!

The funny thing is that despite all this weird shit happening, I fell pretty ok.  Who know, maybe I’m used to all these shenanigans now.  Also it’s crazy how much stuff we did this week.  4 countries, 7 cities and 4 languages, awesome! 

The bad news is that I’m having some weird kind of culture/ language shock.  I swear English is my 1^st language!  (Even though I have to get the French girl to check my spelling and grammar).  Oh man, now it’s going to be weird talking to all the Australians, because I doubt that they’ll be able to understand me when I randomly switch to Japanese, while inserting random French words into the sentence.  Shoot, Ta-chan I miss you already.

Anyway enough of my stupid rambling, I need to go to bed so that I have enough energy to carry this ridiculously heavy bag.  Here’s a video of my (posh) room.

P.S.  Random Italian guys kept hitting on me and Tatiana (even though we we’re really gross and smelly from travelling everywhere), one guy thought we were German and tried to talk to us, but because I’m as dense as a brick, I only found out that they were hitting on us after Tatiana told me.

29/06/2013 Pisa, not Florence

Today we woke up super early just to catch the bus to the station and was there about an hour early only to realize that we were at the wrong station… apparently Venice has two of them, who knew.  So we ran about like crazy, caught a random train to the other place, ran up 3 staircases with my 30kg suitcase and then missed the train by about 10 seconds… merde!

We went to the ticket counter to beg for mercy, but they couldn’t change it because it was bought overseas, so we have to fork out more of our very little cash to buy a new ticket for 2pm.  In the end we decided to go directly to Pisa, since our hostel was there meaning that we wouldn’t be able to see Florence L , so now we’re sitting in McDonalds as usual writing this blog to burn up the 5 hours of waiting (with no food, since we’re too poor now).

The good news is that some Italian lady thought my drawing was good.  Maybe I can see it for train money.

---

After a few hours of drawing stupid pictures and waiting indefinitely, we got on the train for Florence, but were stuck with some annoying Australian girls who were talking about sex and poop very loudly. (Please stop embarrassing my country.)  

Then we stayed in Florence for about 20 minutes before getting on another train for Pisa.  We were intending to spend the day in Florence and the night in Pisa, but because of the previous problem we had to skip Florence all together.

In Pisa we checked into our accommodation, which is a youth hostel.  We share a room with about 16 other people, but since all of them are tourists like us it doesn't fell that weird.

After that we decided to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa (the only famous thing here), but for some reason we couldn't find it.  In fact we made about 3 circles, crossed 2 bridges twice, got hit on by random Italian guys and even passed by an Italian festival (not sure what it was) before we found it.

This is not mini golf,
it's actually a small tower

Tatiana taking a picture of me, taking a selfie

Me taking a picture of Tatiana, taking a selfie

Then after that we went to get dinner.  I wanted to get Spaghetti, but I thought it might be funnier to get a Pizza.  Eating pizza next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Pisa pizza.

Tatiana and me in Pisa

Awesome night photo

Then we went back to the hostel, to get ready for tomorrow (can't afford to buy a new ticket again...)

Next is our last stop, ROME!!!