Castles, Castles, Castles.

Yes, there were three of them.  

Yesterday evening I made the twenty minute train right to Bellinzona (capital of the Ticino region), where there are three castles that were built by the dukes of Milan back around the 1200-1400s.  One was a steep hike, but had a small restaurant in the inner court, another was perched on the side of a mountain and the third on a hill in the center of the town.  Bellinzona is less touristy, especially when the sites are a good amount of excersize to get to.  So, I was pretty much alone there and for a few brief moments felt like I might have been in Ireland or Scotland with the green grass and the brown stone.  One thing that reminded me I was definitely in Italian Switzerland was the fact that the castles were surrounded by domestic grapevines.  It seemed like every little house had it's own mini-vineyard.  

Here is the tourist website because I didn't have my camera (I had to rush out after work and forgot it, but I might go back):

http://www.bellinzonaturismo.ch/framework/DesktopDefault.aspx?lr=1    

Oh cool, $4.50!

The nice thing about having coins worth more than 25 cents is that when you find one on the ground, it's really rewarding.  Yesterday I found a 5 franc piece which is worth about 4 dollars and 50 cents.  

storms storms storms

The weather here changes quickly and the last few days there have been some crazy thunder and lightning storms.  Probably the most intense I've ever been in.  Almost every flash of lightning you notice has a bolt that looks like it made it to the ground.  I'm assuming its the cold air from the nothern mountains meeting the warm air coming from Italy and it all settles around the Lake.  It is also cool to watch the little mountain stream outside my house turn into a raging brown river like in news footage of flash floods.

I just had to take a break from writing this because my coworker and I had to run to the window and take out the fan because .45 or so inch hail was coming in.  

Firenze

I spent a week in Florence helping set up for the architecture exhibition.  Risd's space looked great.  The entire area was covered including the furniture, walls, floor and books with a black and white pattern that when photographed is a link to a website with student work.  There is also a large wall covered in postcards each with a picture and description of a student project where we hope people will comment/critique student work. Tonight I'm heading back to Florence for the weekend to see how everything turned out (I had to leave right before we finished) and to see some of the lectures (there are guest speakers throughout the week).  When I go, I'll take some photos to post later.

For now, here is a link with one photo from a write-up on dexinger.com  We're hoping for a few more write-ups and some blurbs in a magazine or two or three.

http://www.dexigner.com/architecture/news-g18281.html  

Currency Converter: 1 USD = really bad

I just have to vent about this; the dollar is pretty bad. The swiss franc is doing very well and the general cost of living is higher in Switzerland so that in combination with the dollar is not so fun. In the past it looks like the swiss franc has been worth about 80-85 cents and now it is about 91 cents. There was even a period in 2008 when it was worth more than the dollar! Buying things with the Euro seems better at least because you get a bunch of Euros at a bad rate and then when you buy stuff the prices look like dollar prices. With the franc in switzerland, however, stuff has a higher price when you buy it. So you assume that the franc is a lot less than the dollar, but not really. SO, it basically appears as if everything is just expensive.

That's all, still having a wonderful time and eating lots of rice and pasta and splurging on a cappuccino once in a while that ends up being something around 5$ when you figure out the conversion!

Solothurn for a night, Luzern for an hour

Last night I spent the night in the little historic town of Solothurn in the German speaking part of Switzerland. I was there because the project/competition I'm working on for my internship is located on a site in Solothurn near the river. It was interesting to see how it compared to little historic Italian towns. There is more and darker wood used in buildings, the roofs have larger overhangs and different and darker shingles, some of the baroque forms on the churches are slightly stylized in different ways, the piazzas seemed smaller and of course it was a lot colder. Some similarities were that there were fountains in each piazza, the church was located prominantly and was the tallest, and there was an outdoor market being set up in the morning.
On the way home, Ira, the woman in charge of the firm, reccommended that I stop in Luzern for an hour because I had to switch trains somewhere to get back to Lugano. Luzern had a similar historic feel but was much larger and had what seemed to be more modern areas outside the old town center. There was also a historic covered bridge which had burned down in 1993 and been rebuilt and a starbucks. Yes, a starbucks. There isn't one in Lugano but Luzern was far north enough. I did not stop, however. If I had more than an hour perhaps, but every minute I was walking really fast to see as much as I could. I also stumbled across a quartet, I think it was two violins, a viola and a cello, and they were playing some nice classical tunes in a piazza. That was my longest stop in one place.
Then I boarded the train for Lugano.