New Semester at the Accademia

We just finished our "semester break" at the Accademia di Belle Arte and I am so happy to be back in school :) It is probably the only year where I can say I love every class I have taken... I am feeling so blessed to be here.
It isn't like any school at home. It is hard to explain. In Italy, students study for free, so in turn the schooling is very.... relaxed. My first semester, my art teacher just had us staple our paper or canvas up on the wall and paint as much as we could. She would smoke and walk around the classroom with her arms crossed, stop by you and... va bene, va bene, continua... Not much feed back, but I loved the atmosphere and I learned I just work so much better when I have a schedule of when to be in class, even when it isn't really mandatory. Since I have been loving painting, I have no problem getting to school in the morning (as long as I have had my espresso).

But that class is over, and to "find classes" to take at the accademia, you really just walk around to find classes... It is confusing and intimidating, especially since everything is in Italian, but eventually I got enrolled in 2 classes that I am really looking forward to (at least im pretty sure I am enrolled). A few weeks ago, I talked to the foundry teacher. I am so excited for that class, the teacher seems awesome; we create a wax sculpture, make a silicone mold of it and then... create a bronze sculpture! I am anxious to start.

Today, I thought I was going to be able to go back to my painting classroom on Wednesdays like my old professor had told us, but apparently not and now that classroom is for drawing. So, I litterally accidentaly walked into the perfect class for me this semester. A painting class with a great professor, who wants the students to really work how I have been working. I am so fortunate that I have found classes that I enjoy, because not all of the students feel the same way about thier classes. There are 14 CSU students and we are divided into seperate classes, based on our themes and styles of painting. I love that it is organized like this because some students prefer to work on the nude figure and some are completely abstract. I wish this is how the classes were organized back in the states...

Anyways, where as I did not really get much feedback from my last professor, this one is different. He sat down and talked to us about our "project" for the year, and he was really patient with my Italian. My roomate and I will be in the same class also, which is exciting. I am so glad this semester can be as productive as the last.

Incredible Interlaken

I just had such an incredible weekend in Switzerland. I truly feel like the luckiest person in the world. On Thursday night, we left Florence by bus, an 8 hour bus ride. It was me and my roommate AB. We arrived in Interlaken, Switzerland at 7 in the morning after a long bus ride. We took short naps then decided to venture around Interlaken. We went to the grocery store, picked up Brie, bread and beers (as usual) then had an hour long beautiful walk to the east lake. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. We stopped at a park to relax and drink our beers. The lake was so serene, the whole walk there was unreal. I felt like I was in a screensaver, walking down small dirt roads in a luscious green valley between the snow covered mountains. We drank our German beers by the lake and took plenty of pictures. We were there over an hour, eating and drinking and just taking in the sun. We took a bus back to the town, then walked back to the hostel. We were starving again, I had an amazing veggie burger at the hostel. Our hostel was really nice, it had a great restraunt and surprisingly "the most popular club in Interlaken", however one of the only ones but still. We went to happy hour at the club and I had my first cider :) we went to bed early so we could wake up to snowboard.

We had breakfast at the hostel then headed to the mountain. It was the only time I will be able to snowboard this year... I just wanted to get there. After about an hour, we got to the top of the mountain... It was about 55 degrees, sunny, warm and gorgeous. Our first run was so amazing, it was incredible to be snowboarding again. I was able to board with no jacket, it was phenomenal weather. After a few hours, we decided to grab some beers and food. There was an awesome Tipi Bar with drinks, music and heaters, all in a Tipi. The sunshine felt so amazing, we went back on the mountain for the rest of the day. The scenery was unreal. After a long day, we headed back to the hostel for dinner. Afterwards, we went to happy hour again at the club; 2 for 1 cider. The DJ was playing great old songs... There were these hilarious local guys in super elaborate costumes. Sherlock, Castanova, a box... There were about 10 of them. It was a fun night, me and AB had a great time dancing together haha

Next morning, we checked out of the hostel and walked around the town. It was a quiet Sunday, but we bought some Swiss chocolate that was mouthwateringly delicious. We got back on our bus at 2, exhausted and ready to watch movies on the long bus ride home... Interlaken was mind-blowingly perfect.

My Art for the Year

I haven't written yet about what I have been painting this year... I commited this year to painting sharks. I struggled in the beginning of the year trying to decide what I wanted to spend my year in Italy painting. Probably my favorite piece I have ever worked on had to do with shark fin soup, but I wanted to do something that reflects that fact that I am in Italy and I started to obsess over many different ideas. When I started talking to the rest of the art students and my teacher, telling them that I was having a difficult time deciding what to paint, I said I wanted to paint some of my photographs from this year or sharks and animals in the ocean that deal with over-fishing. People were curious when I mentioned shark-fin soup and the fact that about 70 million sharks are killed each year, mainly for the production of this soup. Once I began talking, I realized how passionate I am about educating people about what goes on in our oceans, and especially with sharks.

There are over 400 species of sharks, and while only a small percentage have attacked humans, people tend to be scared of all of them. But just because we are scared of an animal doesn't mean we get to hunt them into extinction, which is what we are doing very rapidly. The process of shark-finning, starts with long-lineing. There is an extremly long line of baited hooks sent out into the water to attract sharks, or whatever animals wants to feel on that bait. When a shark is found on the line, he is pulled off, sometimes alive, and his fins are chopped off and he is thrown back into the ocean. The finless shark is unable to swim, but still very much alive. They suffer a slow death sinking to the sea floor, ironically suffocating without being able to circulate water through thier gills.

It is so gruesome and cruel and it is finally being stopped in many places. Only time will tell if we are taking action too late in this situation; sharks are slow reproducers. I aim to show people what is being done and what ignorance and selfishness is doing to our oceans.

I recently watched this youtube video, tough to watch but important. There is also a documentary called Sharkwater I would really recommend watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r65FgUYdBOc

Carnivale in Venice

I am so glad we made it to Venice Carnivale. We took the train in Friday morning, it was me and my two roommates, AB's aunt and cousin, SR's brother and ER. We all stayed in a rented apartment in Lido, an island just a couple minutes from St. Mark's Square, and it worked out perfect and inexpensive for Carnivale in Venice. After arriving in Lido, we stopped at the grocery store, of course to get Brie and wine :) we settled down at the apartment, had a glass of wine and relaxed, then went out to dinner. I had great soup and I was just getting over a cold so it was perfect, but all the wine probably didn't help. We got some rest then headed out to celebrate Carnivale in the morning. We bought a few beers and took the vapporetto (water taxi) over to St. Mark's square. There were soooo many people with great costumes and the weather was sublime. We all spent the day together and had an amazing time, a great lunch, lots of beer and ended by going to a violin concert of Vivaldi's four seasons. It was an unforgettable day. 

Finals.... Off to Barcelona!

Max Leaves... Back to "Work"/Field Trip

My Favorite Italian Restaurants

New Year's in Vienna

After Munich, we arrived by bus in Vienna, on the Dec 29th. We checked into our hotel, Hotel Bristol and it was one of the most incredible hotels I have ever been too. Our room had a balcony with a view of the Vienna Opera House and it was in an amazing location. It was decorated elegantly and Venetian. I loved it... And right near by the main streets in the city. We arrived during the day and checked in and we were starving. Finding vegetarian food in Vienna proved to be quite difficult, but we found an AMAZING Asian restaurant. I had spicy Pad Thai, it was delicious. We went back the next day... :) We walked around and explored the city... So classy and so romantic. Before we knew it, it was New Year's Eve. We decided to buy a bottle of champagne and spend the night walking around the main streets. There were booths selling all types of warm drinks and food. The area is called Stephenplatz, named after the church that was lit up in a beautiful array of colors. We took pictures, looked at all the lights and made it back to our hotel balcony in time to watch the fireworks at midnight. It was a perfect New Year's Eve and I had my first ever fully romantic, successful New Year's kiss. It was everything I could have asked for. We spent our last few days in Vienna wandering the streets, we also visited the Belvedere museum and saw "The Kiss" by Klimt. It was so incredible and it is a masterpiece I have always wanted to see in person. We also had a great dinner one night at a wine bar. They only had 2 vegetarian dishes, but they were both mouth-wateringly delicious. We started with an amazing ginger squash soup and then I had potatoes, spinach and an egg. It was amazing. Max and I had such a great time in Vienna, we were so sad to leave, especially since we had a 13 hour bus ride back to Florence. We made it back finally (so tired) and Max had two weeks left here in Florence with me :)

When we got back to Florence, we spent some time walking around the city and I had to get back to my classes... I had really missed painting over these past few weeks. On our last full weekend with Max here in Florence, we went to visit Assisi, Umbria for a day. It was an amazing city on a hill, about a 2 hour train ride away. We went to the Basilica di San Francesco, which was our favorite place we went to while we were there. There were so many amazing frescos, many painted by Giotto and Cimabue. There was an incredible cycle of St. Francis's life painted in the upper church... I will never forget it. We had some great pasta for lunch and visited a few other churches. It was a great day in a beautiful city.

Our 1st Christmas Together

On December 16th, Max arrived!!!! I am so happy that I get to see him. It is hard to not see him everyday like I do at home, and the holidays make it ever more difficult. I had mid-terms the week right before Christmas, but it was hard to study with all the excitement of having Max with me. He is staying for a whole month, so I am probably the happiest and luckiest girl in the world :) He traveled 6000 miles to spend Christmas and his 21st birthday with me :) When finals were over, we left for Springen, Germany for Christmas. We took a train to Rome, a bus to the airport, plane to Frankfurt, bus to the city and a taxi to the Ashram. Our final destination was this small town because we spent Christmas at an Ashram. It was an incredible experience that words literally cannot describe. It was so wonderful to be there with Max for Christmas, I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas. We were there for 5 nights and during that time we had incredible conversation, love, dinners and darshan (a very special blessing). It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. We were there for both Christmas and Max's birthday.

After that, we left for Munich, Germany. We rented a car to drive from Springen to Munich. It was so much fun and we rented it on the day Max turned 21, how old you have to be to rent a car in Germany. It was a 3 hour drive (supposed to be longer, however there is NO SPEED LIMIT  on the autobaun!) and it was so much fun. It was kind of a cloudy day but it was great to drive through the Germany countryside. We arrived in the heart of Munich, returned our car and took a short taxi to our hotel. We were only at our hotel for 2 nights, but it was so wonderful. Right in the middle of everything, very modern and big too! We went to explore and get some dinner, the train station had any type of food you could ever dream of. We were exhausted from our day of travel and called it a night.

The next day we explored the streets of Munich for a while and went to the Hofbrauhaus :) I had a delicious potato dish and we had giant pints of beer of course. We watched ice skaters, bought more beer and went back to our hotel to meet my roommates who were leaving Munich that night. We had a "beer tasting" and went to dinner at a Mexican Restaurant, out of all places. It was actually really delicious, called "Nacho Libre"... haha I would eat that burrito any day. The next morning, we headed off early to take a bus from Munich to Vienna... Ciao to Germania!

Hello Kitty Advent calendar!

Dexter and Painting

After Madrid, it was nice to spend some time being back in Florence with my roomates. I caught up on painting, and my roomates and I watched ridiculous amounts of Dexter (great show).

It was the first week of December, and Florence was much more Christmas-y than when I had left it for Spain. My favorite part of Christmas time here is the Christmas Market that they have in Santa Croce. It has candy and mulled wine, two things I couldn't live without. I don't understand why we don't have Christmas markets like this at home in the States... Anyways, they have so much to eat and drink and plenty of things that I would have spent money on if I had some :) Lots of German food, delicious pretzels of all kinds - cheese, apple strudel, doughnut shaped like a pretzel, chocolate... they went on and on. It is a great atmoshpere in the evening; it is where to go if I want it to feel more like the holidays.

My friend from Madrid, AS also came to visit. He was my first visitor to stay on the awesome orange couch in my living room. I had school most of the time he was here, and we had midterms, but it was still a great time. We went to our favorite bar, Kikuya of course. They have a beer called a Dragoon, and they are so delicious and... 10% alc. Good stuff. Have two of them and you are definitely good to go. We also made a meal for AS and his friends that were visiting and played a little "Cheers to the Governer".

I was so excited, because Tiger finally won!!! I watched it on my computer :)

Madrid, With People Who Celebrate Thanksgiving in Europe

I had such an amazing time in Madrid. It was my first time traveling to somewhere by myself, even though I was staying with friends. I took a good ol' RyanAir flight to an area just outside of Madrid. I took the metro to where I thought I needed to be, but I ended up walking around the city for two hours and buying candy for lunch... It was so different to see Spanish everywhere and it was really messing with my attempt at learning Italian. I finally arrived at AS apartment who is also studying abroad. It is so great to see a city with someone who has been living there, although nobody wanted to go to the museums as long as I did. So we went out that night for some "tapas", aka snacks and drinks. It was so delicious and cheap. Later on, LIZARD arrived!!! I hadn't seen her in so long, but she is studying in Bilbao, Spain for the year. We went out for a few drinks with friends and came home pretty late. It is incredible how late the Spaniards stay out at night... and sleep in.

But I woke up early enough to go to one of the museums that I really wanted to go to, the Thyssen-Bornemisza, an impressive private collection in Madrid. It was one of my favorite museums that I have been to, it was curated really well, from Pre-Renaissance Art to Contemporary Artists. It was organized in a way that really made sense and it was so balanced. I got an audio-guide tour and spend around 4 hours there. It was a great day. It also, was Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving, surprise surprise, is not celebrated in Europe... but we went to an AMAZING dinner at the oldest restaurant in the world (supposedly Goya worked here and Hemingway would come eat from time to time...). It was so nice to be with such fun people and have such a great dinner. We went out for drinks again, extremely fun from the dinner of roasted pig and vino... we definitely indulged.

The next day we spent sleeping in and seeing the area, did a little bit of shopping with Lizard and had my first Irish Coffee. That was also the night they turned on the Christmas light in Madrid, the first Christmas lights of the year! It was so beautiful and made me miss home a little. In the evening, we went to.... Taco Bell!!!! Me and Lizard have a sad, but very real, addiction to Taco Bell and there is one in Madrid! We bought Liters of beer and brought them to Taco Bell and we both got Grilled Stuffed Burritos, or GSB's as they called them. It was incredible... No Baja Blast though, but all in all very successful. We went back to the apartment to have a few drinks, then left for Tapas at El Tigre... So delicious. Afterwards, we went to some club. It was a great night and we didn't get back to the apartment until 8am. The room was SOOO small and we fit 4 of us in it somehow... not the best sleep of my life.

The next day, we went to Dunkin Doughnuts for breakfast and I got to go to the other 2 museums that I needed to go to. The Prado and the Renia Sofia. Both very big and well known. I can't even begin to describe the masterpieces that I saw, but the two most well-known pieces were Las Maninas at the Prado and Picasso's Guernica at the Renia-Sofia. It was an amazing day, and then it was our last evening in Madrid :( I had a flight in the morning at 7am, so we went out for drinks with some of Lizards friends, then I met back up with AS to get my stuff and go to the airport. It was so nice to see some familiar faces and I was defintiely sad to leave. After a long morning of travel, it was nice to get home in Florence and sleep the day away.

NBD. Just a small wing of the Prado...

My first Irish Coffee ever.

Just hanging out with some Dali.

Oldest restaurant in world for Thanksgiving... With great people :)

Our first Christmas lights!!!!

Best. Taco Bell. Ever.

The City ON the Water

My second time in Venezia... one of my favorite cities in Italy. Somehow, I forgot to write about the last time I was in Venice. Me and my 3 roommates went to Venice in September, it was so crowded and hot, but so so so beautiful. I went during the time of the Biannale, a huge art show that the world does every 2 years. Each country has a pavilion and artists to represent their country. It was an incredible experience so I returned again with my mom before the Biannale ends. We had a great time; gondola rides, a strange British play, amazing dinners, art and walking the canals of Venice. Our hotel was perfect, so Venetian and it was in the perfect location right near St.Mark's square. Since we were in Venice at a less busy time of year, we got a great deal for such an awesome place :) It was cold here in November, just like everywhere else in Italy though. There was more fog in the evenings, but it was beautiful to see Venice by night... It is a great city, unlike any other.

Arriving outside our hotel.

Our gondola ride

Possibly my favorite thing I have eaten. Ever.

St. Mark's Cathedral.

Pompeii and Positano

I had an amazing weekend with my mom and aunts in Southern Italy. We left Friday morning on the train to Naples. We went to Pompeii for a 3 hour tour. It was so amazing to see all the ruins. We had a great tour guide and I wouldn't have known where to start of we hadn't. We drove another hour after to have dinner in Sorrento. It was an amazing dinner where we all shared soooo much food. I had an amazing prusciutto pizza and caprese salad. We continued south to our hotel in Positano. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is "the vertical city" similar to Cinqueterre. The weather was PERFECT, about 72 degrees, warm for November in Italy. No jackets! We ate some incredible seafood, did some damage shopping and I had a chance to use my Italian. There is so much English spoken in Florence, but not as much in other places in Italy. On Sunday, we reluctantly returned to Florence so I could get back to school.

View from our hotel room

My super cute expresso

Limoncello :) :) :)

Starting Classes

After PLP (language prep classes), we started our actual school schedules. At the CaliforniaState School, I am taking Renaissance Art History and 2 Italian language classes. At the Accademia di Belle Arte, I am taking a 6 unit painting course. It is all going really well. It's so interesting going to both schools and trying to balance your schedules. Basically, I have painting Monday-Wednesday 9-5, but it's really flexible and we leave for lunch and to go to our language classes. My Accademia class is wonderful, my teacher is really laid back and she just tells us to paint as much as we can. She only speaks Italian, so it is interesting trying to communicate with her, but she doent say too much anyways. I have decided to paint ocean animals this year, specifically sharks and showing the cruelty of shark fin soup.

Here is an awful clip that really shows alot about the cruelty of shark finning... It is out of hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r65FgUYdBOc

Painting in class... whale shark :)

First painting I did in class when I was trying to decide what I should paint this year.

Admitted into the Accademia di Belle Arte!