In which our hero visits the Uffizi

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I live a block away from the Uffizi.
And I have a free pass.
To get in whenever I want.

So I decided, since I'm not in Ravenna right now, that I would visit this cultural Mecca. I went on my own, of course, because it's unfathomably difficult to get in contact with potential friends when no one really has a working cellphone. That was okay, though, because it meant I could stand and stare at/draw anything for as long as I wanted. Plus it's a lot easier to maneuver among Japanese tourists if you are only one relatively small person. I bumbled around the entrance to the building for a while before I found out how to a. get in with my student pass and b. get a ticket with my student pass and c. present said ticket to the ticket people. That process took a lot longer than you would imagine because I get lost easily and there were a lot of people around.

Needless to say I had a wonderful time wandering and sketching. I was stared at by lots of different tourists of many different nationalities, and a few of them paused to observe what I was drawing in case it was an important monument that they should pay attention to. This was infrequent though because the things I chose to draw were interesting to me because they were objects that looked fun to draw, not because they were Very Important Art. Here are the sketches I did while I was there -- I apologize for the bad quality of the photos, but I forgot when I was packing that a scanner might be a good idea.

 

In the first room of the second floor, where the gallery actually is, there were these two statues of dogs looking upwards. I loved them. I think they were my favorite sculptures that I saw. Of course I had to draw one -- I spent a long time working on his muzzle. The other drawing is a bust of Seneca, who I chose to draw because he was one of the only actually aged-looking busts I saw*. He had an interesting face.

A boy and his goose. A lot of the statues didn't have any signage or plaques to point out what they were. I liked this one, though, because the youth appears to be leaning on thin air, or possibly his drapery, and the goose had an excellent expression on its face with the drapery clamped in his beak. I saw a few other versions of "Youth and Goose", and I'm still not sure what myth it refers to.

Two quick sketches of figures in interesting poses: one gladiator-type who was lunging with a spear, and a satyr perched on a ledge who was either trying to tempt the youth playing panpipes beside him, or take the panpipes away. In any case I liked his feet.

I've recently become enamored of drapery. I used to hate drawing it, but now I love it. This lady had a lot, so I took a seat and drew her. The notes are paintings which I wanted to look up for later reference.

I also took a look at the paintings -- a lot of paintings. I discovered an artist who I'd never heard of before, Filippo Lippi, whose Madonnas all looked to be, to my eye, what Madonnas should look like. They were young women with soft expressions and messy hair. I liked that. Also his hands were pretty.

I wandered into a room of Botticelli soon afterwards. I love Botticelli. The figures in his paintings all have such open, lively faces, and that makes me happy. Also he paints badass armor. Check out this lady!

*Maybe he was the only old-looking one because he's named Seneca? I don't know. I'll have to ask Blair.

It's JUST an EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER over here

Having stayed up until almost 3 am last night, I woke up at 1:30 pm, and was immediately and horribly homesick. It was brought on by nothing but a vague feeling of the loss of something important. Homesickness really, really sucks.

After crying into my teddy bear I had a semi-productive day. I went and signed up for the waiting list for the  field trip to Ravenna tomorrow (I did not get in, oh well...) and also registered to get our apartment checked out by the nice people at SACI. When I had another attack of weepiness*, the housing director Daniella sat down and talked to me. "Five people have already told me they want to go home," she told me. "The first week is hard. By the end you will be crying because you don't want to leave!"

That was nice to hear. Out of the hundred-odd students at SACI, five of us are still having trouble finding our feet**. Afterwards I went to the pharmacy to get some aspirin, which I had forgotten at home among many other vital objects. And I had my very first conversation, completely in Italian, and I feel pretty amazing about it.
After I'd told the nice older man behind the counter that I wanted "aspirin, the kind you take with water", he told me that my Italian was very good. My accent was perfect. He asked where I was from -- I said I was American. He asked what I was studying, I said art.
"Oh, you have the air of an artist." He said, and then told me his name was Carlo. When I told him my name was Alice, he said "Oh, Alice, like Alice in Wonderland!***" He then said it was very nice to meet me and to come back again soon, after shaking my hand very warmly. I felt a lot better when I left -- I'd had my first conversation in Italian, and I only had to ask him to repeat himself twice! Maybe this won't be so hard after all.

Even the things that aren't supposed to be beautiful are beautiful here.

Oh, and BY THE WAY. I managed to get my stove working tonight and made myself a nice little dinner. Yes, the pasta was a bit too al dente, and the sausage may or may not have been completely cooked, but I made it and it was mostly yummy. And I have cookies for later.

Not super sure why this photo is sideways. Deal with it.

*The worst part about breaking down and crying is that it will 100 times easier to start crying again at the slightest provocation, even when you thought you were finished.

**MUCH LIKE THIS TINY BABY DEER

***What, is that the title of this blog? WHY YES IT IS.

Oh by the way...

Ain't a bad likeness.
(the top picture is from the video game Assassin's Creed II, in which your character can scale the walls of the Duomo and actually scramble his way up to the lantern on the top. Oh, you can also go inside. Just sayin'. Video games can be classy.)

Dee you oh emm oh

As I was returning from class and grocery shopping today, I overheard this conversation between two clearly American -- and possibly Southern -- gentlemen:
"I needja to help me out with street names."
"This is...Plaza del Domo. Dee you...oh emm oh."*
That made me giggle.

I was feeling giggly in general because I'd just had really great morning. The only thing which was not so great was realizing the "milk" I had purchased yesterday was actually "lait fermente" (why in French??) or WEIRD CHEESE MILK. So I had my Rice Krispies (tm) dry. Despite that little hiccup, I thoroughly enjoyed my first class of the semester ever. Illustration -- I immediately fell in love with it.

My professor is a very relaxed, casual lady named Camilla, who speaks just vaguely enough to be artistic and just precisely enough to be incredibly comprehensible. Our first little exercise was to draw ourselves: a literal self-portrait and a metaphorical self-portrait. I wasn't really sure how to go about this. When I draw for fun I use a much different technique than I do for class. So I aimed at a kind of hybrid, drawing my face (rather accurately, I might say) from memory and then doing a little doodle of a lost me standing on a map and clutching one in my hands, being looked down on curiously by the Duomo and Bargella. I am just so clever.

After that, Camilla said "because of my addiction, we must have a cappuccino break at 10:30 every class." So, at 10:30, she took us to the nearby Biblioteca Oblate (a fantastic art library with a fantastic coffee bar on the top floor which has an incredible view of the Duomo shoganoglsjlsglansl) and we had coffee together, all ten of us. That was awesome.

I would write out the entirety of the lecture we had afterwards, but that would make my long post even longer, so I'll summarize with this point she made:

<--- Artists --->

---> Illustrators <---

Artists use questions, expression, and experimenting. They create in an external kinda way. Illustrators use answers, communication, and problem solving. Their creation is...reflective, I suppose. This isn't to say that illustrators aren't artists (don't get me started), but just that you use a different set of thought processes for fine art versus illustration.

Did I mention I love her? Here are some artists she brought to our attention in the lecture.

Roberto Innocenti (THIS MAN IS GOING TO GIVE US A LECTURE. Widely considered one of the top ten water colorists in the world.)

Mario Mariotti (these creations he called Animani. The Italian words for animals, animali, and hands, mani. ISN'T THAT CLEVER)

Lizbeth Zwerger. This is from Alice in Wonderland, I think.

Those were my favorites. I'm so happy with this class.

ps. We get to make a children's book for a project.

pps. It's so awesome when you make friends by slipping a video game reference into a conversation and having it picked up on immediately.

*I kid you not it sounded like he was actually saying it like that

Pushing the Boundaries of the Possible

I woke up this morning to two very loud people coming into my apartment and speaking to each other in cheerful, loud, Italian voices. This was surprising because I hadn't been expecting any Italians, cheerful or not. I stumbled out of bed, forgot to put on my glasses, and peeked into the kitchen to see what the heck was going on. I was greeted in cheerful if not entirely correct English by a woman with glasses and set of keys.

"The water heater!" She told me enthusiastically. Apparently she and her maitenance-guy-like assistant had come to fix our water heater (which I had noticed last night was acting very oddly, in a "no you can't have any hot water" kind of way). Totally bemused I slunk back to my bedroom and sat on my bed for about 20 minutes.

My room mate was very asleep still -- she and the other three who share this apartment with me were still not back when I fell asleep at 2 am. I was pretty much alone. I listened to the loud Italian conversation coming from our kitchen and tried desperately to think whether I had to go talk to them again. I really didn't want to. Tears arrived. It's amazing how alone one can feel when one can't really speak the language and one's three companions are all dead to the world.

Eventually I got up and dressed (after spending another ten minutes making sure I knew exactly how to say "do you need me or my friends" and "may I use the water" in Italian) and went to greet the woman and her companion again.

"Your Italian is so good!" She exclaimed when I offered my careful phrases. "Not like my English!" They did not need me and I could use the water if I didn't mind it cold. I just wanted to brush my teeth, so I didn't care. It was amazing, though, how relieved I felt after I had worked up the courage to have that 2 minute conversation.

My trials were not over.

Having absolutely no food in the house is really, really bad. I always complain, at home, about how "there's nothing to eat here!" but having stale bagels and cereal and ricotta cheese is so much better than having a literally empty fridge...that I will never complain at home again. I had to go out and get groceries today or I was pretty sure I would die -- and I'm not really comfortable enough with my flatmates yet to rely on them to do it...especially since they were all still asleep. So I went to the market.

I got very, very lost, and while some people are happy to get lost in a foreign city ("More opportunity to explore!") I was getting anxious in a belly-tightening, headache-inducing, jaw-clenching kind of way. When I finally made it to the huge market I expected to feel relieved, but I wasn't. I waltzed in through the doors to the giant terminal-like building and realized that I hadn't made a list. More important, though, I hadn't made a list with the names of the things I needed in Italian. So I wandered...for about 15 minutes, feeling even more alone than I had earlier that morning. Finally I approached a grocer and asked for bananas, peaches, and grapes, but when he offered me a grape and said "Prova!" (try it!) I just sort of wiggled my hand in an awkward way until he handed it to me.

After the grape incident I was confident enough to buy sausages, although I had to stand dumbly in front of the counter for about four minutes while I tried desperately to remember the Italian word for "quarter", as I certainly didn't want a whole kilo and suspected half would still be too much. I had a brief moment of terror when I thought maybe I'd asked for FOUR kilos, but thankfully I hadn't. It certainly felt as if I were carrying four kilos when I left the market and made the 15 minute walk home. I managed to stagger up the 4.5 flights of stairs to my apartment and deposit my prizes on the kitchen table.

So it don't look like much, but that little pile of groceries there is a SYMBOL OF MY TRIUMPH. Sort of. I'm still tired.

Look, I'm not saying I didn't cry into my teddy bear this morning, because I did, but I did manage to procure sustenance. I bought grapes. I am now the owner of my very own grapes. If that's not something to be proud of then I don't know what is.

A few photos...

...taken with my iPhone camera, so they aren't brilliant, but bear with me!

The facade of Il Duomo...yes, that is jealousy you're experiencing.

The courtyard at the SACI building, full of students enjoying a garden party.

View from my apartment window of the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio.

That's all for now. Ciao!

I've made it to Italy!

And I wish that there were more Italians here. I get the feeling that 90% of the people I see are neither Florentines nor Italians, but it's actually okay because I'M IN ITALY.

After a very very long plane ride I arrived in Zurich yesterday afternoon at about noon, Swiss time, and the wee small hours, Philadelphia time. After taking a rather amusing tram ride to my gate (the train inexplicably played a "Swiss mountain" themed soundtrack, complete with birdsong and yodeling, and showed a weird flip-book like movie of a Heidi girl on the windows) I hopped on my plane to Florence and managed to arrive at Peretola Firenze in one piece. My luggage was actually there waiting for me, strangely enough, and after wandering around wondering if I had to go through customs I realized that I could just leave.

I took a zippy little taxi to Via Sant'Antonino, where SACI's main building and classrooms are located. I got my key and nice orientation packet -- complete with a list of all the things you really should have done before you got here and haven't done yet -- and a tiny, illegible map that was supposed to direct me to my apartment.

Because I had a backpack, a little suitcase, and a huge suitcase, I decided to leave my largest bag at SACI and find my apartment dragging only my lighter burdens. I felt like a tourist idiot glued to my map as I tried to  navigate the 15 minute walk to my new home. It was very frustrating. At one point, I looked up to get my bearings, and saw Il Duomo at the far end of the street.

Wasn't really expecting that.

So it turns out that I'm quite a short walk from Il Duomo, il Ponte Vecchio, the David statue, the Uffizi...basically Florence in all its glory.

I've been here for a day now, and so far I am the only one of my flatmates who can reliably walk from our apartment to the school (it's really quite simple and I'm confused by their inability to navigate -- you know it's bad when I'm criticizing someone for getting lost). That's okay though, because in order to get to school I will have to walk through the plaza of the Duomo, every morning of every day.
Oh yeah, I can definitely get used to this.