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.

Florence

For those of you who have asked, here is a link about the architecture thing in Florence Im helping with.  Risd is one of the schools participating and I head down to Florence Wednesday July 1st.

http://www.archdaily.com/25143/beyond-media-2009-visions/

Lugano Day 3

I am getting to know Lugano slowly but surly. I was surprised at how little touristy stuff and even stores (I had trouble finding food when I first got here) there are. I'm realizing that I think I am in a quieter neighborhood and as you can see from the photos the architecture is... what it is. It is kind of growing on me. Last night I went for a run and ended up down by the lake where there were many hotels, a fountain and a Louis Vuitton. I think that is the main part of town and I'm going to take a walk there later to see what else there is. I think Lugano is, however, still smaller than I thought which isn't bad. If I am able to keep tagging onto to whoever else's internet this is, it just means I'll have more time to update this blog.

PS. Mom, I found a charger that works in my suitcase. I don't remember putting it in but it fits the wall and only made a spark the first time I plugged it in (In Rome it made a spark everytime).

Lugano

Arrived safety to lugano on saturday and am now on my lunch break at my first day at the internship in lugano.  The guy Im renting from, Sandro was nice enough to pick me up at the station and drive me to the apartment.  Lugano is very different from Rome.  Very little old stuff and no ruins.  The coffee Ive had so far seems still possibly better than the states but not better than rome.  Ira one of the people in charge of the firm Im interning at, joked that the farther north you go from italy the worse the coffee is.  The lake is beautiful although there arent really any good places to go swimming in it really close by.

At the internship they gave me a project to help with that is a competition in the german speaking part of Switzerland.  As if the Italian wasnt enough for me, the whole project description is in German!  As I mentioned to mia madre, by now being in a place where i dont fully understand the language is far from being scary like it was in January, now it is just frustrating because I cant learn fast enough!

have to get back to work. 

if anyone has noticed I havent found out where the apostraphe is on the keyboard yet.

Cinque Terre

A few weeks ago I went to Bologna for a day and a night and then Cinque Terre for 2 nights. Bologna was a fun city with many young people and many colonnades covering the sidewalks similar to in Napoli. Cinque Terre was a nice break from the larger cities and is an area on the coast composed of 5 little towns with a long hike connecting them. My friend Erin and I hiked to the last town for the first half of the day and then sat on the beach and explored before taking the train back to the first town, Riomaggiore, where we were staying. At night there was hardly anyone out and you could walk to the beach.



ok well, the macs in the computer lab never work for uploading photos so I'll have to add them later...

Getting a little too real

This week we have been beginning to hang up and prepare our final show and started today to do an initial studio clean-up. I never do well leaving places but I just have to think about how they are never as far as they seem. I've gotten so comfortable this semester traveling that I could easy come back (money permitting, of course).

A huge part of me really, really wants to just return to the states next weekend when we were initially scheduled to but I'm sure when I get to Lugano it will be amazing. There is also the risd architecture exhibition in Florence in July that I will be helping with that I'm am looking forward to. I rescheduled my flight for August 2nd yesterday, so whatever happens I'll be coming home then!
Just under 2 more months...

here are some pictures of my studio before cleaning.

Sperlonga

Mom, Dad, Linda and Leon left yesterday. It was great to have them here. I was able to use all the knowledge I've learned about the city to be their tour guide. They stayed at a hotel about 5 minutes from me so we met in the mornings for breakfast and decided what we wanted to do.
One of my favorite places we saw (one of the only places I took them that I hadn't seen already) was the Church of Sant' Ivo. A small church by Borromini with a concave facade and triangular based floor plan. At a glance it looks like another "Italian Baroque Church" but Borromini's work I'm discovering was pretty revolutionary.
We also went to the small seaside town of Sperlonga for a day. It is only about an 1:15 minute train ride from Rome and another 15 minute bus ride. There are the remains of a seaside villa and pools where the Romans had their own fish cultivation.

Here are some explanations of the photos! Unfortunately they are not in the order of my trip--they got all mixed up. But in descending order,

1. View of Prague from a steep park I climbed that overlooks the city. On the very top they have a mini-Eiffel tower that you can pay to climb up.
2. Also overlooking the city of Prague is a castle complex with this huge cathedral.
3. More Prague. This view is from the park mentioned in photo 1. The cathedral in Photo 2 is on the far right.
4. Prague heading into night. It drizzled a little but no heavy rainfall adding to the romanticism of the city.
5. Munich-monument. Adriana a friend from risd who graduated last year lives in Munich with her husband and showed me around. They let me stay with them for a few days.
6. Prague from the main old bridge, again right before nightfall.
7. Surfers in munich. This canal was right in the city on the edge of a park. It was damned which created a perfect, constant wave that a group of people are always surfing on.
8. Como Lago-Lake Como We stayed here when we were in Milan because the city was completely booked due to the international furniture fair which we went to. On the last day we decided to walk around the lake. It was pretty foggy and picturesque with mountains rising right from the shore.
9. Chair from the furniture fair. There was lots of amazing stuff. This was pretty neat and comfortable. I forget who made this chair but it was in a line of furniture that seemed to be hospital inspired. One leg of the matching dining table was a crutch.
10. Train station in Munich (?) All the European train stations were impressive. I think my favorite was the station in Milan (see below). Even though I spent about a total of 30 hours on trains by the end of the trip I was very glad. All the stations I ended up in were right in the city center and riding through Europe, especially the swiss alps, never got boring.
11. Duomo in Milan. I was supposed to meet friends in front of the duomo and when I got there this entire piazza was shoulder to shoulder because it was some kind of national italian holiday. We evetually found each other right in front of the main doors of the duomo. It made it more exciting not to have a cell phone.
12. View of Cathedral and baptistry from the leaning tower (pisa).
13. The top of the leaning tower. Somehow--both knowingly and unknowingly--I managed to remain at the top of the tower in between tours by hiding a little. They usully just let up small groups for half hour periods. Thus I was able to stay up there for a whole hour and had about 10 minutes while the groups switched where I was up there all by myself.
14. More of the top of the tower.
15. View over part of pisa from the top of the tower.
16. Doorway in Pisa. Like Venezia, Pisa has some little eastern and other mixed influences here and there. I love the moorish arches which you really don't see in Rome. The colors when I walked by this late in the day were also simply beautiful.
17. Leaning tower at night. I sat down in front of it and put my camera next to me to stabilize it. The piazza that the baptistry, cathedral and tower are in, the Piazza of the Miracle (s?) is open until 23:00.
18. More of the same Piazza looking toward the center of Pisa. The tower is actually on the edge of the city walls not in the heart of it.
19. Pisa in the afternoon. The cramped, dark little streets in Pisa open up to the huge expanse of the river that runs through the city. It is a nice contrast.
20. Pisa, near the tower.
21. Pisa, near the tower.
22. The cathedral. (see tower in the background)
23. The new synagoge in Berlin.
24. I visited my friend Adam, Becky's friend from school, in Kassel which is about 4 hours outside Berlin. It was a quiet small town which was a nice contrast from the hectic cities I had been traveling through.
25. Outside a subway station in Berlin. Berlin felt very fresh and in a lot of ways like NYC. Lots of languages, touristy but not overwhelmingly so and people looked good but really had their own styles. Lots of posters for shows and exhibits, nice graphic design everywhere and the history of the city was displayed very well all over. In the middle where a lot had been bombed, there was much new construction and lots of potential for new construction.
26. What is left of checkpoint charlie.
27. Out of the train window from Munich to Prague.
28. Brandenburg gate in Berlin.
29. Glytotek Museum in Berlin--lots of ancient sculpture including the original barberini faun. The museum space was really interesting. It was bombed in the war and rebuilt but without all the original decoration and frescoes so the spaces were monumental and interesting but simple and just exposed brick. It reminded me of the ancient ruins in Rome.
30. Another view of prague, this time from a tower I climbed right inside the city not from the park.

It was interesting to see the colors of the cities I went to based on the stone and materials from the surrounding areas. Rome is white from the Travertine and marble and tan from the stucco where Prague was dark brown from the local stone and dark orange from the clay of the roofing tiles. Munich was very slate and reddish colored from the slate and clay of the roofing tiles.
Milan was somewhat inbetween Rome and Munich in terms of color and Berlin, at least most of what I saw of it, had a huge mix from the dark brown older stone, to tan where it had been recently cleaned and then to the metals and galss and white of the newer buildings.

Pisa, Milan, Munich, Prage, Kassel, Berlin. Spent the last 10 days traveling. Can't even begin to explain everything. For now, some photos.

Barcelona Barcelona

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This past Thursday-Sunday I went to Barcelona. I saw lots of Gaudi stuff and a few museums. I saw the Picasso museum which had a fascinating collection of Picasso's early work and also the National Museum of Catalan art which spanned Gothic/Romanesque up to around the present. The works from the 19th century and Gaudi's time were extremely great to see. Gaudi sort of dominates his era as a historical figure so it was helpful to see what else was being created and thought about. Also on the Gaudi note, it seems everything constructed in the city after him has some sort of reference to him. It was great to see his stuff but it seemed all more of a novelty. The methods of trying to construct his structures were not nearly as innovative or provocative as the structures themselves.
Anyway, I tried to see as much as possile and so today my feet ache and my legs are sore. Lots of walking. Barcelona is a grid city and also has a simple metro so it was pretty easy to get around.
One of the most interesting things I saw were these large irregular geometric blocks in the Sagrada Familia (pictured below). Basically Gaudi's building blocks and the breakdown of the shapes that make up Sagrada Familia.
I also saw the Barcelona Pavilion which I had to draft for Manuel Representation last year. It was origianlly constructed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as the German Pavilion for the International Expositition in Barcelona in 1929 and was torn down after the Exposition. It is now an icon of modern architecture and was reconstructed in the 1980s.