Friday, September 26, 2008

my eye is all better



































our art history lesson was in the vatican yesterday, four hours long with no lunch but i suppose some people in this world may have had it worse on that particular day. Raphael painted apartments for the pope, Bramante tried to ruin Michaelangelo by recommending him for the sistine chapel and the catholic clegry were assholes who got rich off god instead of trade.


















there were no pictures in the sistine chapel. But shh, here are two. dont tell anyone, especially not the guards who were shushing and triple-clapping the masses into silence. Shouts of -NO CAMERA- punctuated and enhanced the viewing of the chapel that proved how holy and divine pope Sistus was for paying a lot of hard-won church money to erect a big monument to himself.



Tomorrow we are going to Assisi to visit the monasteries and hang out in the complete silence. The weekend after that is our southern fieldtrip to Naples where the Mafia reigns and Pompeii to study remains. I would kill for a hamburger.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Dumb Lovers Put Padlocks on Bridges


the most beautiful city on a rock i have ever seen, Manarola, Cinque Terre, Italy.

The instant i saw it i thought of a book i read in seventh grade but no one I spoke to knew which one i was talking about. Google images backed me up on this one so once again i can connect a point in the past to the present.


























i videochatted with my kitten the other day (and han, too, i suppose) and it was good to see her little meowin face again. There were cats running around every town in cinque terre but they were all spoiled and could care less that i was pettin their little fluffheads.

This week i am going to work on regaining my motivation and getting up for class and keeping an open mind about the usefulness of these last two semesters of design education.


However, it is extremely disheartening when i miss a studio and ask what we did and get the reply that nothing happened at all. What is the point of paying money to be taught if you arent being taught and one of your only two professors is a graduate student. Just seems like a big practical joke to me. but Positive Positive Positive, coffee coffee and nice girls and bedsheet forts. Indian food and back alleys and restaurants with no signage. Cornetti e Gnocchi e vino rosso e pizza salame. I am warming up to rome.

Miss everyone,
V

Monday, September 15, 2008

Dear Max























I have decided against putting the detailed story from saturday on the internet, but i will share a photo or two and some facts.

this is my face shortly after an american man named nick decided i shouldnt have been looking at him the way i was. i didnt like being talked to that way (and he had just called an interior girl an impolite name) so a scuffle arose in which one fist connected with my right eye jamming the lense of my glasses into my brow. that little cut fountained half my face in blood as i resituated myself to continue when i saw him being escorted out of the pub. My glasses are destroyed and i have a bit of a shiner forming but other than that im no worse for the wear. Traveled halfway across the world just to meet the same jerks we have back in iowa. Dandy.




Yours,
Ian

Thursday, September 4, 2008

telling willy about cats

we still havent started school

we had an art history class today in the forum
it was pretty sweet.
saw the place where marc antony said his whole friends, romans, countrymen lend me your ears schpiel

thats awesome
me and ryan are trying to find a cat
and theres one in the parking lot behind our place
tthat keeps crying at night
but we cant find it

i saw one on top of a car today
it was adorable
it wouldnt come near me today, just like all adorable things

in paris, and in amsterdam
we saw kittys on mopeds
and it was sooooooo cute

you should see the cat sanctuary
kittens everwhereeeee
im doing my projects on it
theres a three legged cat and hes the king

im so jealous

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

my hand delights to trace unusual things







i know, i know, ive neglected you poor blog, but when youre fending off six bloodthirsty girls in europe it gets hard to keep you at the top of my to do list. the verdict is still out on whether the past tennish days have been a nightmare or pleasant dream. our traveling party was a complete mess and it was an amazing day when i didnt feel overwhelmingly angry or frustrated with someone(s) in our group.

amsterdam was well-invested time for the most part, but we were there for way way way way way way way way way too long. we spent five days there when all you really need is two or three. a couple days i sat in bed in the morning trying to figure out if there was anything i actually wanted to do. here are some fotes.

the best day far and away was Bike Day. We rented bicycles for twentyfour hours and rode out into the country and found a teeny town called Holy Sloot about 10km away from Amsterdam where we met a dutch man, swiss woman, and italian man who invited us to ride on the smallest ferry ever created. it was a vessel the size of a luxurious elevator, painted blue, and it cost 1 euro to ride. we agreed to it and spoke a little bit to our new ferry friends. after that we had to cross irrigation canals on small pieces of metal that formed a bridge a tiny bit large than a bicycle tire. After a while we were back on the path and riding past fat sheep and mountains of cow and the most humoungonus Rabbit id ever seen in all my years. its was about the size of a dog.

at night we biked around the canals and through the lively streets of the city taking in all the people and junk and that sort of thing i guess. we sat down and i had some coffee and my bike seat was too high so my pants-area hurt. but that was probably the best day in amsterdam.

Besides biking, we visited the rijks museum which had a lot of dreary paintings of rich dutch merchants and uninteresting things like that. there was a case or ornamental pistols, rifles, pikes, and halberds that the dutch militas used in Rembrandts time that was neat neat. We ate at this quote, end-quote dutch restaurant which was pricey (like they knew tourists would want to eat dutch food) and it was mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, and sausage which, i must say, i have eaten at least two hundred times in my life before and it has never cost me twenty two dollars. but i suppose that is the point of trips abroad, spend money on things youve never spent money on before. and thats why i went to the red light district. kidding. seriously, there are frightening and minimally-clad women tapping on windows as you walk by, its not a good situation.

oh yeah, i went to this comic book shop right next to our hostel on Kerkstraat and found two issues of Optic Nerve, a comic ive been trying to find since i stumbled on one issue almost three years ago in chicago. The comic book store owner complimented me on the choice and said that the author was really good which was really true.

Long story short, i almost lost my mind in amsterdam waiting for the train to come. we arrived two hours early and i was spacey and i got on the train and seven hours later we arrived in Berlin, my beautiful, gorgeous, tatooed, free-train-ed, insomniac, cigarettes on the rivered, screaming drunk inhabited, New York with personality, favorite city ever. But we arent going to talk about that right now.