BERLIN

thanks to the bahn, we got to Berlin in about 6 hours safe and sound. it was probably the most difficult thing ever trying to find my seat and I asked countless people "scusa, wo ist" and then i'd point to my seat assignment on the ticket. Everyone was really helpful, but didn't seem to know either, so I just picked a seat and sat down. No sweat. I mostly pretended to be Italian on the train and in the public places cause it was more fun. The countryside from Amsterdam to Berlin is amazing. There are windmills and green for miles. Joanna Newsom accompanied me and James Joyce until I really just couldn't read anymore Dubliners. on arrival to berlin we had to figure out the u-bahn, s-bahn train system. it really isn't that difficult once you see how it works, but we had been traveling all day and our heads weren't quite screwed on all the way. thankfully there are maps everywhere and if you ask an older person where to go they are more likely to tell you in a slow, aww, you're lost, kind of way. we ended up staying in an amazing appartment in Mitte, the old east part of Berlin. the tub was really cool, cause to use the shower you just sat in the tub and held the sprayer thing at your face. it was so fun.
anyway. we unpacked, and headed out in search of food. we found a corner store that resembled a 7-11, but that sold alcohol and pre-mixed cocktails. so we got some wine, spaghetti, and spaghetti sauce that was in a packet. seriously, it was "just add water!" spaghetti sauce. we found this hilarious and bought it. it was dece.
the next morning we headed out early to do the real Berlin thing. megan and her mom went to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen near Berlin, but katie and I wanted to see the city, so we parted ways. First! The East Side Gallery. an absolute must if you are going anywhere near berlin, it is a piece of the inner wall (not the real border because of the river). it is totally tricked out in new art, which i was confused about, but learned that it had been restored in 2009. dozens of international artists came to paint their impression of the November 9, 1989 event.

we kept walking past the gallery and crossed the Glienicke Bridge - the 'Bridge of Spies' - sweetest name ever, and happened upon 3 public pieces by the artist Blu (this is Blu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuGaqLT-gO4) which blew my mind. they are huge!
if you are interested in public art, street art, or graffiti, Berlin is the city for you. It is everywhere. and some of it is really impressive and thoughtful.
the center district was next because i just had to see the Reichstag. it had been built up in my head for so long. i wrote a paper about cristo and jean-claude wrapping it, and we learned about it in german visual culture, so i was beyond ready to see the thing. it still blew my mind when we came up the u-bahn. it is MASSIVE. and the square outside it sprawling and empty and i can only imagine what kind of events have taken place in that momentarily deserted area. i can't imagine wrapping something that huge. from there on we wandered the city, no destination in mind, so we saw a large number of impressive buildings that i have no idea what they were.

we stopped in every thrift store we could find, and in a couple kaffee shops and a soup place where guessed what we were ordering. i've never experienced not being able to read anything on the entire menu before. except coffee. that was it. thankfully everyone speaks english, although we tried our hardest not to. my 5 or 6 words in german are thoroughly ingrained in my head and even now i think to say Dankeschön to italian people.
later that night we went on a pub crawl and met up with our 4 other crawlers. i guess tuesday nights aren't big night-on-the-town nights. it was pretty freakin' cold, too. there was a guy named Yal from Norway, a German girl named Simone, and an Israeli guy named Daniel, plus katie, megan, and I. since it was such a small group we got to do whatever we wanted really, and they just showed us the cool spots to go. My favorite was Club Zapata where they had a fire shooter and sweeeeeeet music. finally some good ol' europop. the upstairs of this club was an abandoned artists gallery type-thing, that also had a couple very cool bars. During the day it is a squatters haven, and it still houses squatters more or less legally, or tolerated at least. Simone, as we are climbing the stairs, says "ok, if anyone asks you if you want to buy drugs, let me deal with them" we all nodded our agreements. it was very chill though, and we sat down and talked for a long time in the cozy dimly-lit red bar.
after a long night of dancing and meeting people and getting plum tuckered out, we discovered that the s-bahn was closed. it was time to figure out the metro at 4:30 in the morning, which was quite the experience, but we did it! home safe, we ate leftover spaghetti and watched music videos on German MTV. there are the craziest videos on there. some new, some really really not new. they definitely love Kesha's Tic-Tok though. wow, like every 5th song.
we woke up the next morning and I WANTED TO MUSEUM. so we went to the Berlin Gugg and saw the coolest exhibition called Utopia Matters (http://www.deutsche-guggenheim-berlin.de/e/ausstellungen-utopiamatters01.php) which was such a great thing to see because it summed up the german visual culture class I took in the fall. it put all of the Nazarines work up to the De Stijl and further into perspective. paintings are sooo different in person. it was so cool to see what i had studied. i kept regaling katie with little facts, im sure i was pretty annoying but i just couldn't contain my mouth. after the gugg, we headed off to the Neue Museum only to find that the permanent collection was closed until the 12th of march, NOO! but it was cool to see the museum and the area surrounding. we decided to walk back to Potsdamer Platz because it wasn't that far and we wanted to see more of the city, but we walked in the opposite direction and ended up who knows where, surrounded by little falafel\kabab places. so naturally we stopped, got some AMAZING falafel, baklava, and asked where the nearest u-bahn to Alexanderplatz was.

I absolutely love public transportation. the bahn's were just too cool. the people watching on trains is just about as amazing as the ride itself as well. german little kids are adorable, and i loved just listening to conversations. no idea at all what was being said, but it was beautiful none the less. german is definitely my next language. i could keep talking about this trip forever. there are so many little things about Berlin that make it more than just any other big city. some of my favorite things were the little smiles you get when you say gutentag instead of hallo, the guys selling currywurst on the street in their laps, CHOCOLATE, the pace and flow of the people getting on and off the trains, ordering a different pastry every morning from the bakery around the corner (the lady was so nice, i was trying so hard to pronounce the words and she was very patient with me, and even helped when i was wayyyyy of base), and the sky. stormy skies are beautiful and i have never seen them quite like they were in Berlin. im going back at some point. 3 days was not enough. i will be back.

Amsterdam and Berlin

SO. This is so hard to write about. You know when you have an experience and it was just so jam packed and full of EVERYTHING. Like a massive burrito. Well my spring break was like that, and it's hard to translate all the flavors into words. I will, however, do my best to dole the highlights.

Or maybe pictures would best describe? Ill do both. First, coming out of Florence was crazy because we were delayed TWO AND A HALF hours, but, as is Italy. We just wanted to GO! Anyway, we got there and (the Amsterdam airport is seriously clean) hopped on the train over to Centraal. Our hostel was called Vita Nova, and if you ever go to Amsterdam you MUST stay on this hostelboat because it is amazing and you are on a boat in the harbor right next to the NEMO museum. Whoa. And a pirate ship. No joke. The manager is named Roy and he is by far the coolest hostel manager I've met. Not that I've met LOADS OF HOSTEL MANAGERS but I bet by far he is the coolest. He took us to one of his favorite bars in town and we met all his friends and played music on the jukebox and danced with this couple from around amsterdam. Plus there was a tree of hats that you could just pick your favorite one and dance in it. We also did some educational things believe it or not (Im gonna keep saying 'we' because my housemate was with me during everything, so I must give her credit too). We went to The Rejksmuseum and saw countless Holland masterpieces, including The Night Watch by the one and only Rembrant (check this out: http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/attachments/QTVR/rijksmuseum_rembrandt_leerlingen.mov). What impressed me even more were the doll houses though. There are two humongous doll houses that are complete with furniture, dishes, wallpaper, drapes, inhabitants, and candlesticks. They were fascinating and reminded me of that movie Babe. The same day we headed on over to The Van Gogh Museum, which was having an exhibition of Gauguin at the same time, so there ya go! Did you know they were housemates? And totally didn't get along. There is a theory that it was Gauguin that cut off Gogh's ear after a scuffle...hmm.
I loved Amsterdam. It was such a friendly city. And I didn't ever feel in danger or nervous about anything. Totally safe. Plus, they love bikers there, they have lanes and traffic lights just for people on their bikes. There are bikes EVERYWHERE! Piled everywhere. Some of them are really old and funky and a lot of them have been painted and have fun additions. For example, there was a mom pushing a wagon filled with her three, 5-ish year old sons in it, in front of her bike! It was so cool. I want to have one of those that I can push around my dog in. Or my millions of books that I just have to have with me at all times. I'm sure I'll have those eventually.

Jeez, I can't write about Berlin right now, it is time to leave the computer and jam. I'll add berlin on tomorrow. BUT! Here are some pics from 'dam:

im studying but...

i thought i'd put up a picture of my one and only silk screen print!

enjoy

the best friday ever. plus saturday morning

Last night Melinda came home and asked if we would like to go to an exhibition opening at the Palazzo Strossi her contemporary art history teacher told her about. A resounding YESSSSSS sent us on our way, after getting museum-artsy-opening-classy ready of course. We sauntered into the palazzo feeling ever so cool and realized we were probably the only americans there, let alone the youngest people there, most were in their early 30's and up. It was awesome. They had a table set up for wine and other refreshments and a long line was forming at the opening to the exhibition. As we reached the front the ladies letting people through the line asked if we had tickets. Tickets? I said questioningly in Italian. A man came over to talk to us and I pulled the we are american students studying here in florence at SACI. LUCKILY!! He knew the president of SACI, they are apparently neighbors, and he let us in as long as I promised to tell Signora Maidoff that Leonardo from Palazzo Strossi says hello. Will do. I felt pretty cool because all of this happened in Italian. shabang! Anyway, the exhibition was called "Gerhard Richter and the Disappearance of the Image in Contemporary Art". It included several other artists as well, who had some seriously cool works (even some Americans! yay) (http://www.strozzina.org/e_index.htm) was absolutely fabulous and I had such an amazing time. I had a short but amusing conversation with an Italian man who asked if I knew Richter's work. I said a little bit and explained why I liked the piece in front of us Canaletto. He asked if I was German after that (everyone thinks Im German) and i said yes for some reason and he started speaking to me in German. Oh boy, so i had to say oh no, haha! im not german, my mistake.
My favorite works were Richter's abstract pieces (his portraits are also very well done). Im not a huge fan of his landscape/still life paintings although I think his technique is pretty cool.
This one is called Uole I like the bright color, but it feels too exposed. In Canaletto his bright colors are obscured by great washes of black and white. The color gets to creep out every once in a while. Like a secret. Ok, or it's like when you have really cute underwear on, and no one knows it but you, but you still walk a little taller all day.

It turned out to be a fun night and we all felt super classy and artsy and cultured while walking home.

Then this morning we decided to go see the crystal exhibition at La Specola because crystals rock. I could not stop thinking about liz p. I just knew the whole time she would be loving it, so I fed off that energy and absolutely loved it. Liz, dude. CRYSTALS. There were a bunch of little kids in the exhibit, and one little girl in particular took a fondness for Winnie and kept speaking to her in Italian. She was pointing out all of the rocks she liked and would say things like "I like this rock because it is pink and it glitters". She was really cute.

I'll leave you guys with some pictures of crystals. Just because they are so cool and everyone should look at crystals.

ash wednesday and the specola

This week has been a week of WHOA! moments. After celebrating Fat Tuesday earlier this week, a good friend invited me to mass the follwing day. I'm pretty sure she thought that I was Catholic/Christian/Episcopalian/religious, because she was very surprised when I asked her what ash wednesday meant.
At 6 we walked over to St. Thomas episcopalian church a couple blocks away from Santa Maria Novella. it is an English speaking church and there were about 15 people in the pews when Reverend Mark walked up the nave to his spont in the front. It was so cool to hear him speak in the stained glass filled echoing room and watch his hands make the motions of the cross and the blessing gesture. I had to sneak peaks over at Katherine every once in a while to see what I was supposed to do, especially when we went to kneel and receive the sacrament (which included a big glug of wine and a styrofoam disc that i had no idea what to do with, so i ate it (right? im pretty sure I was supposed to eat it)). One awesome thing was that each of the bibles held on the little shelf type things in front of us had english on one side of the page and another language on the other side. Mine had english-german, and Katherine's had english-italian. The song books were in Elglish-Swahili. So cool. The whole point of ash wednesday is to remind you that you were born from dust and the whole universe and everything was created from dust. At the end of his sermon, we all lined up again in the front and had big crossed marked in the ash of palm leaves on our foreheads. It was pretty cool, and a wonderful experience that i've never had before. It also forged a deeper relationship with my friend, I can tell our friendship got stronger because of this experience in church that i shared with her. Mostly i think it helped her to trust me and really see me as a friend instead of an acquaintance. It's interesting how religion can tear people apart and just as easily bring them together.

TODAY! oh my gosh, THIS MORNING! I went to the coolest museum ever. It is called La Specola and is generally a museum of natural history. BUT! it is set up like an old cabinet of curiosities. They have every single animal you could ever think of catergorized into separate rooms, anatomical studies casted in wax, crystals, an entire basement filled with animal skeletons (which I am going back to tomorrow morning to sketch because we could only glance at it today), and sooo much more. It is the kind of museum my teacher calls a "dream space" because everything you see, or certain things i guess, remind you of events, pictures, moments in your past that are dreged up from the depths of your memory. It was incredible the change in energy I noticed from my classmates. Everyone was talking and animated and recalling stories of back home and when they were kids. I was having a field day. Seriously I could not have had a cooler time. Everything reminded me of a bio class I took at whitman (Kate Jackson, RAD) and of trips with friends to the NY museum of natural history, and the Bodies exhibit with my family and Heather, and uncountable other things. I cant wait to go back tomorrow. I am still hyped up and cannot stop thinking about it. The next step for me? im going to try and figure out how to create an art museum that sparks this type of dream space excitement for the general public who haven't studied art. Museums of natural history have an unfair advantage because everyone has had experinece with animals and rocks from daily life and in required science classes throughout school. I want to see kids jumping up and down for their parents to COME LOOK AT THE ANNUNCIATION MOMMY!

Next weekend is spring break! I cannot wait to go out and explore Europe.

too good to be true

We have a long break from field trips for Helen's class (thank god, a break) so we've been able to roam Firenze a bit more and see what the city has to offer. Turns out there is a lot. Last weekend was the Vintage Market. If you ever have the desire to see EVERY single Italian hipster all together in one location, this is the event for you. It was awesome to see everyone all decked out in their old duds and taking pictures with their super old cameras. whoa, dude, super vintage.
I was a bit disapointed because everything was obscenely expensive, but I guess that's normal for vintage stuff right? It was worth it to just look and feel totally unwelcome (i unfortunately am nowhere near trendy enough to be perusing this market) and be overwhelmed by all the stuff and all the characters. As my Italian gets better and I feel more at home here i find myself trying to be less and less AMERICAN. I speak in Italian as often as I can until I exhaust my vocabulary..which is limited...but growing everyday. I can follow conversations and know mostly what is going on around me at any given time.


Thursday commenced the LONG awaited Chocolate Festival. This is the most amazing place in the world. It fills the Piazza Santa Croce with white tented vendors and the smells of hot chocolate. All of the chocolatiers go balls to the wall for this festival. There is chocolate molded into any and every shape you could imagine. Winnie got a chocolate pipe and 2 white chocolate sheep yesterday. Katie got 2 mint truffles and I got un'etto di tartuffo chiocolatta scuro. Unfortunately we ate all of our chocolates last night. Fortunately we are going back tomorrow to stock up on the last day.
The hot chocolate is unlike any hot chocolate i've ever had. It is thick and pretty much straight up melted dark chocolate. Con panna or senza, it is AMAZING. Kind of like pudding, but better. Swiss miss will always have a place in my heart, but jeez. This is bringing some heavy competition.


Tonight Katie, Winnie and I are having a little house party so we bought dark chocolate at the festival. The guy had it shaped into giant legos. What a fabulous place. So we bought the chocolate, and this morning we finished our ingredient purchases with mascarpone cheese, sugar, ladyfingers, eggs, espresso (i'll post later on how using our Moka went...), and Prosecco! Tiramisu here we come.

<3 until later

Medici Villas and Vinci

This weekend we went to Vinci with my class. It was the last fieldtrip before spring break. So I have two weekends now to do whatever I want! I’m definitely going to stay in Florence for next weekend (this coming weekend?) and explore outside the center, perhaps try out the bus system. ACTUALLY! This Sunday Florence plays Rome (homegame! Yes!) so that will be an amazing game. I have to remember to wear PURPLE. Sunday, as it turns out will actually rock. I’m going to a carnival about an hour away on train with my friend from Malta, Justin, and a bunch of his friends that are coming up. I really can’t wait! And Thursday is the chocolate festival in Piazza Santa Croce. CHOCOLATE! Yes yes yes. It’s going to be a great week.

Anyway. VINCI! WAS! AWESOME! It was the loveliest feeling to get out among the green stuff and feel the sun. It smelled like rosemary and rain. On the bus we passed hills covered in vines and lushness. The houses all had smoke coming from the chimneys and it couldn’t have been more stereotypical “Italian countryside” which all of us soaked up and snuggled in. We saw some of the Medici Villa’s on our way over, which are insane. They would use these villas every once in a while. It’s like those people in PC who buy multi-million dollar mansions to use for two weeks a year. I decided if I were to have been a servant in one of those houses back when, it really would have been the life. You only have to take care of the Medici for two weeks then you get the house to yourself for the rest of the year. They did have some spectacular gardens and grottos that were filled with animal sculptures (more unicorns! Jeeeeez!). I most enjoyed the sculpture of a girl wringing out her hair by…shoot…we actually didn’t learn who sculpted it. OK, well from the tip of her hair, water falls into a bowl and then falls again into a bigger water fountain. It is really beautiful. Hercules Strangling Antaeus was also one of my favorites by Ammannati. It is a terrible subject, but the figures are so graceful, they look like they are dancing.
Vinci was the really fun part because it had stopped raining and the sun came out. We saw Leonardo da Vinci’s supposed birth house (I signed my name in the log book…yay! It says my name then SACI 2009 with the 09 crossed out and 10 written next to it. Great.). Helen, our prof, walked us around the Museum of da Vinci that has a bunch of his contraptions in large scale so you can see what he had come up with, he was brilliant, to say the least. My favorite was the bicycle. There is no way wood wheels would work over cobblestone, and turning would give you a bit of a problem, but he totally had the right idea. bus driver parked us right next to a rosemary bush so before we all loaded up to go home we stuffed our pockets. The driver laughed at us, but I’m sure he appreciated the aroma wafting around more than the bus smell. Buses all smell the same. They’re pretty narsty. Anna, the TA in the class is so cool. I sat next to her to and from Vinci and we chatted about the ups and downs of living in Italy, semantics, Helen, grammer, and Italian Pop. She knows so much! It was fun picking her brain, plus she's gonna make me a CD of her favorite italian pop songs...AWESOME.