TGIF

Hello all!!

So I know my last few blogs haven't been very informative, but we got off of workshop pretty early today since we skipped siesta, so I have a little more time to get down to business. (for those of you looking at my facebook pictures...you might wonder what exactly I've been up to, other than enjoying lots of various new types of alcohol. Well, every morning we start class at nine, and take a break around 10:30, then continue class up til around 12:30 or one. Then we get time for lunch, and San Gemini is such a cute little town everything shuts down for about 3-4 hours in the afternoon, for siesta. At 3:30 we go to workshop where we're in two groups working on fresco/scrafito(sgraffito) and oil and tempera on panel/canvas. (I guess I'm giving everyone a little refresher course) We end workshop at around 7:30 ish...then have time for dinner and whatever else everyone needs to do (go on the internet, shop a little, etc...) and we all usually hang out together at one of the apartments.

Everyone has started eating together, one or two dinners a week...we'll collectively make a long trek to the closest thing they have to a supermarket here (otherwise it's one shop for cheese, one for bread, one for meat, etc... it takes a while). Then we all make dinner together and usually imbibe in some fun new drinks. One night we had burgers and sangria, one night we had spaghetti and delicious homemade meatballs, and more wine, and several types of beer/liquor.

Yesterday was the first day of a little festival here called San Gemini Sweet Village where there are shops set up in the main Piazza, and there's live music. We went down there after workshop, and it was so cool!! I've never seen so many people in the city center before (only about 500 live there, everyone else is outside the walls)--it was packed!The band on stage had cameras on them, and that image was projected onto the sides of the buildings...pretty neat. Also, the 'conductor' had long silver hair and a black mustache, and never really sang, but played some mean air guitar, it was hilarious. After that, we danced a little bit and met an English family who's been staying here this past week.

Then this morning, we had a guest lecturer talk to us about various reconstructions he's done..it was presented in a very interesting way, but nothing new, so...I was pretty bored. In workshop I'm totally done with my sgraffito and fresco, and am finishing my panel painting. This is really labor intensive. We had to cut the frame to fit the panel size, nail everything in, coat it with six coats of gypsum paint stuff, then sand it. Then we applied two different things to the frame, to experiment with two types of gilding. One you used shellac to adhere the gold leaf, and the other one you used clay bole and rabbit glue over that, and you can burnish the gold leaf once dry on the side that had the clay bole on it. Gilding is really frustrating and difficult. There were profanities galore in our sequestered little gilding room.

Umm..this weekend we're really looking forward to relaxing in San Gemini. Tonight we're going to the second night of this little town festival, and tomorrow we've bought a ton of groceries for breakfast tomorrow, we're going to make a huge breakfast with omelettes and fruit salad and such...and then spend the day at the pool. YAY!!! Sunday we might go to Terni, and maybe go shopping? We'll see. I'm so excited to sleep in-it hasn't happened since I got here.!

Also, I've just gotten a downloading program, so I've been downloading movies and things like a fiend, because they can't catch me because I'm in Italy!! MUAHAHAHAHahhahahaahha... yeah, I'm excited. I just downloaded Quantum of Solace to watch the scenes of Il Campo in Siena, they're brief, but they're definitely there. I'm not sure how much Daniel Craig was there, though. It looks like they just got footage of the race, and spliced in little segments. Also, the chase scene that ends Bond killing someone takes place in the Duomo in Siena-very iconic, black and white striped...it also looks very CGI, though..and we couldn't figure out which part of the Duomo it was...(sacristy?) so we decided they kinda faked it...oh well. still cool.

I'll be in Spring Green on the night of the 9th, and will be leaving on the morning of the 11th. Kate's birthday celebrations on the 12th (21-FINALLY, yeesh) and home again on the 15th-16th (maybe 17th if I can manage it) for Zoe's graduation (and going back to school)party. Can't wait to get home and see everyone, but I never want to leave little San Gemini and Italy. It's going to be a rough time.

Love to all!!

Siri

My new italian obsessions are: Siestas, any flavor but melone gelato, and these icey coffee slushies called granitas. I love themmmmmmm...

Nothing Better (Postal Service)

AGH. There is...so. much.

Uh, woah. I've forgotten how to blog.

So, we took a tiny little bus to the tiny walled mountain-top city of Montepulciano, where they filmed part of the movie New Moon. This entire trip we were led around by one of our professors, Max Cardillo. So he pointed out several things about their duomo (main church, basically) and the main square there. We ALSO went on a wine tasting, and the wine there was fantastic. But incredibly expensive to ship back, so...

From Montepulciano, we drove to the even smaller town of Pienza, Italy. There, we also walked around their main sqaure (designed by Michelangelo) and toured a Palazzo owned by a wealthy family from the Renaissance, the Piccolominis.

Then, we took the bus to Siena. I loved Siena. It was amazing, and so much fun. In Italy, you can have open intoxicants, just walking around, and they have an amazing square. (mom, pictures will go on facebook soon. I took around 500 the last 9 days. woof.) We walked around the city one day, led by Max, but we also get a lot of time to just wander and explore the citi(es) for ourselves. Umm...

from there we took a train to Florence, where we also get a walking tour one day, and most of the time we get free. Another girl and I, Michelle, get along really well, so we kinda do our own thing a lot of the time.

This is so SO freaking abbreviated. Maybe when I have more time later, I will flesh it out a little bit more.

Rome, we get a day and a half for our own, and then embark on what we call the "Death March". It's a walking tour of Rome. It spans from one end of the city to the other. We walked for 12 hours that day. it wasn't as bad as it sounds, and very interesting. Michelle and I followed that up by a quick trip to Piazza del Popolo (I couldn't miss it, as a scene in my favorite book , The Count of Monte Cristo, takes place there.) Then, today, our last day in Rome, we (there was a group of 6 of us) went to a supermarket and had a picnic in the Borghese Gardens, and then rented side-by-side covered bicycles and rode them around the gardens. so cheesy, but SO MUCH freakin fun.. hahahaha....it was hilarious. A perfect ending day to our trip.

We got back to San Gemini around 6, so I charged my computer and ate dinner and now I'm here. I miss you all a lot, but I only have two weeks left...I'm already missing it. I love Italy!

email me/comment/facebook me (especially you mom and dad, i'm so proud you have facebook!!haha)

love seer

* oh, and nothing bad happened in rome...for realz.

Quantum of Solace

So-

We're leaving for Siena tomorrow morning, and the beginning scene of the last James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, apparently takes place there. I did not know this, and was pretty amazed/psyched to find out.

YES. so. Today we had a guest lecturer from the Vatican Library, who talked to us about the preservation/restoration of paper. She specializes in book bindings. To work in the Vatican Library is probably one of the best jobs in the business....I can't imagine what kinds of things she gets to deal with. AMAZING. It was very interesting, to say the least.

In workshop, I finished my fresco...and began constructing a frame for my panel painting.

The bugs here suck. You never see them, you just all of a sudden have 80 bites all over you, it's so annoying. AND they itch like the dickens. So, needless to say, I'm pretty pumped to get out of here and away from bugs. YES!! Plus, we are staying in nice hotels, and I don't have to deal with any travel details..so it will be like a little vacay. yay!!

Um, hopefully I'll be able to check email and things while I'm gone, but if not, don't expect to hear from me til next Sunday.

Love to all!!

Siri

national treasure...2?

hahah, so i just stole some movies from a girl's flash drive, so now I have National Treasure 2 on my computer!! Hurrah!

So last night there was a large concert in a stadium near our apartments, and it was mostly classical music. It was fun to hear, we were all using the wireless on the steps of our classroom.

Later, we found a little club-type thing (remember, this is San Gemini) and they were playing fun music, so we danced for a little while there.

Yesterday we had a quiz-there was a trick question, and not counting that one, I got them all right! Yay! I studied a little bit, but it wasn't too hard.

Yesterday we finished our sgraffito, and began putting together our canvas frames, and put on our canvas. After we stretched the canvas and everything, we put one layer of 'rabbit glue' on it, which is made from the skin of rabbits. It was gross, but still interesting. After that, we made another version of the rabbit glue but with flour and a little honey to give it plasticity. This we put on and scraped through to fill the holes (the fabric we put on was more like burlap, than canvas...) We also began our fresco, which the first layer is just a cement, a combination of Calcium Hydroxide putty and sand, which we apply to the styrofoam board that we have punched holes in, to make the surface irregular, so everything sticks. That was most likely the longest run on sentence, but I don't really care.

This Saturday we are leaving for our week of traveling, first to Florence with a few stops along the way, then to Siena, and Rome. I'm pretty excited. No one is really happy with the week of hopping from place to place, and traveling is always a sticky business, but at least this time WE'RE not the ones handling it, our amazing fixer-of-all-situations Polly is. (She's our administrator, of sorts.)

Love to all-

Seer

PS. Tomorrow night we've arranged a huge dinner for all of us, like, making hamburgers and some people are bringing potato salad, and someone's making dessert, etc...

YAY

rest my chemistry (thanks kirsten)

wow, where to begin.

SO-


this past weekend was an...adventure. We left on Friday, there was a lot of traveling involved. We took a bus from san gemini to Terni, and a train from Terni to Rome. In Rome we transferred trains, and went to Naples. Naples is kind of a not too great city, like, pretty sketchy mob involved stuff, so we wanted to get there to find our hostel before dark. But the train we caught from Rome which we though would only take an hour took about 3 hours, so by the time we were in Naples, it was around nine. It was very shocking when we got out of the train station, because we live in the historic city center of san gemini, where only 500 people live, and there are about 7 cars and a scooter. When we walked out of the station in Naples, we entered a huge square area, and it was a solid mass of cars...really really different. Our hostel was close to the station though, so we could just walk. We got there and checked in, and two people wanted to go out on the town, as it were. I was not for it, because of all the not so safe things we were hearing about Napoli (naples, sorry, i go back and forth) and the guy at the front desk literally said "if you go out after 12 o'clock, you will be eaten alive." so that kinda put the kibosh on their plans, and I was really relieved to know that no one would be going out that night. (We traveled with a group of seven, including me.) Then we went to go find some pizza (and beer) because Napoli is famous for having the best pizza and brought it back to our hostel. (OH, when we were checking in, there was a HUGE FIRE in the street like, 50 feet away. a FIRE. of GARBAGE. WHAT!?!?!? they put it out eventually, but apparently it happens a lot...hunh. freakin' naples man...what an adventure...* so we were all a little on edge from that...) so we got some pizzas and beer and had a good night at the hostel.

The next morning the garbage was gone and there was a market outside our hostel, and we were running a little late, but the other girls wanted to shop...I wanted to get the HELL out of Naples. It was a stressful morning. We took the train called the Circumvesuviana to the Ruins of Herculaneum, (Ercolano Scavi) which for everyone who doesn't know, it's just a smaller and better preserved version of pompeii. it was discovered later, and wasn't looted ...as much....

www.wikipedia.org/herculaneum

and then took the train to Pompeii. Pompeii is huge. Ginormous. I didn't realize it would be that GIANT. yeah...it's big. and absolutely gorgeous. I can't wait to show pics!!

From Pompeii, we took the train to Sorrento, where our hostel was. (I'm leaving out all the gory travel details, like missed trains, busses, etc...not all fun, all the time...but most of the time, for sure.)

I'm not sure how many of you know about Sorrento, it's a smaller city, but breathtakingly beautiful.

www.wikipedia.org/sorrento

So, we got a taxi to our hostel (which was out of town a ways) and we stayed in teensy little bungalows. so cute. We decided that night we would go out, because it's a fairly touristy town, and most of all, safer than Napoli. The club was called Blumare, which means Blue Sea.

After we checked out, we had lunch in Sorrento, and traveled 8 hours back to San Gemini. Sundays are a little spotty with trains and such, so none of us thought we would be back, but we rolled in around 11. Thank God. So, still recovering, and I now know why people are hospitalized for exhaustion.

This next weekend we are leaving for Florence, Siena and Rome for a week. Not sure how I feel about that. I'm still exhausted from the last 72 hours. sheesh.

so much. SO much.

love, Siri

Grandpa- I wish you could have come, I know you would have loved to be there, and I was thinking about you at Pompeii and Herculaneum!

awkward titles

I never know what to post for titles, awkward.

So today, we had class, where we learned about the rest of the pigments, and then started learning about binding materials, like gypsum and concrete. I think workshop today will be sa-weet! Then...theory class was much more interesting today, but I still managed to get in some awesome lookin doodles, and picked off the majority of my fingernail polish. oops. So, on that note, I think during siesta today I'm going to sketch a little bit and then maybe take a nap. No pool today, as it is pretty expensive, so I will just sit outside. For lunch we kinda improvised, and I ended up having a fried egg, mayo, and fresh mozzarella sandwich on a lovely bun. A little wierd, but still yummy. I think tonight we're going to try to have something a little more balanced than say, pizza, nutella sandwich (which i had totally forgotten about, how much i love nutella!) and a gelato. eeks!

This is just a quick post, thanks for everyone's comments, it's good to hear from you!!

Siri

BOOP!

hi!

So it's Wednesday here, and we've really started getting into the interesting stuff in classes. Monday was pretty much orientation-y things, we got a long lecture about the history of San Gemini, which is very interesting. After that we took a trip to the nearby Roman Ruins of Carsulae, which were amazing and very beautiful. I should have pictures up on facebook soon. Then, yesterday we had intro's to classes in the morning, and then in the afternoon we have a short break, called 'siesta' and then we resume with a workshop at about 3:30. Yesterday we just moved stuff to the place, and got everything organized. Today in class we started really getting into chemistry and minerals, ores, and everything that makes up pigments. After that is a Theory class, which, however interesting-far too close to lunch to really pay much attention. Haha...whenever I hear the word theory I just instantly zone out, it's kinda unfortunate. We're mostly on our own for food, so for lunch we went to this pizza-by-the-slice place called Happy Pizza, it's really cheap, and really good, and big pieces. From there we walked to the pool and laid out in the sun. It's always so beautiful here, I'm getting very spoiled...and tan. After that we went back to our apartment and napped. At our workshop today, we split into two groups (there are only 13 students, so it's easily dividable (is that a word- divide-able? meh.)One group started putting together canvases and panels for oil painting and fresco, and my group started to build panels for something called sgraffito, which is where there is a layer of black plaster underneath the white plaster and you scrape the white off in a design so the black shows through.


We started on a bare styrofoam board, and really scratched it up to our base layer would stick. We mixed sand and some Calcium Hydroxide putty together to make a base layer, and put it on our boards. The rest of the time we just worked on designs and things. For dinner we bought some tortellini.

Now, we're all in our classroom planning a big trip to Pompeii this weekend. We'll be stopping in Naples the first night, and then heading to Pompeii/Herculaneum on Saturday morning, and when we're done there, we'll be going to the Amalfi coast for a little sunbathing. Sunday morning will be more of the same and then heading back to San Gemini in the afternoon.

Postcards might not be coming for a while, Italian post takes a long time apparently. I will try to send some from Pompeii, but stamps are also pretty expensive. eek!

Last night everyone drank quite a bit of wine- it was a pretty fun night...oh boy.

Love to all!

Seeer

OMG. awesome

Hi all!!

So here it is, from the beginning.

I met Mandi while waiting for my flight in Chicago, and we flew to Detroit. With maybe ten minutes to spare, we met Jessica and all flew to Rome. I watched the movies Sunshine Cleaning, New in Town, and a little bit of 17 Again. I had a teensy bottle of white wine with my gourmet (ack, it was awful) meal. I tried to sleep, wasn't very successful, but I got coffee in the morning, so, hurray. We got off the plane, got our visas stamped, and actually quite quickly found our bags. We finally trudged our way to the ticket booth and got an express train into Rome's main station and then caught a train to Terni. Apparently we had gotten on the wrong type of train, because when the lady came by to validate our tickets, we had to pay extra.

So when we got to Terni, we met another girl who was actually on the same train as we were, her name is Crystal. We all called one of the professors and he came to pick all of us up. Terni is in a valley, and San Gemini is on a hill, so we got to wind through all the hairpin turns in a tiny little truck. Whatever, it was a blast.

We arrived in San Gemini and brought all our stuff up a steep set of stairs, and got into our rooms. there are three different apartments for the students, and I haven't seen the other two. Ours has four rooms, two singles and two doubles. I'm rooming with Jessica. We have an awesome little bathroom, it has a bidet...which is interesting. Our kitchen is tiny!! Especially for four girls, but, so far we've made eggs with basil, which were actually pretty good.

So yesterday, we got a tiny tour of the town, and one of our professors (the same one who picked us up from the train station) bought us all gelato. I had pineapple, and it blew my mind, so good. Then we had a little time to relax, and unpack, then we went out to dinner with the people who were already there. There are two research assistants from UW-Milwaukee here, too. They love Wisconsin, which makes me instantly love them. HA! At dinner, those of us who had arrived that day were pretty wiped, and so we left a little early while the others went out to the only other bar in town for more drinks. Today, we had planned on visiting the local pool, but nobody was really awake until about noon. So we made scrambled eggs for breakfast/lunch, and then at 3:30 we had orientation and met all the others who had arrived since last night. There are 13 of us in all. Just after we got to our 'classroom' (it's this old old building with...well, i will just show pics eventually) it started thunderstorming like nobody's business, and the ceiling leaked, and the lightning took out the power, so that kinda put the kibosh on the internet. After orientation, we went for another tour of the town (which most of us have already seen at this point, after grocery shopping--which is definitely an experience when none of us speak ANY Italian--) and then we went to see another of the apartments (way nicer than ours, but still....) then we opened a bottle of wine (It was sparkling white wine, from Umbria , a riesling, and pretty dry. I wish I could remember the name, but I can't, and the only place we get wireless outside of the classroom is literally on the steps outside the classroom. so that's where I am ) Then we went to the closest bar to all of us, Bar Centrale, for another beer. After that the 'program' took us out to eat, at a villa outside of San Gemini. We had several courses, started with antipasti, where we got kind of a sampler of appetizers, and then got spaghetti with meatballs, then chicken with a salad, and then a sort of chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and lemony sauce on top. All of it was so amazing. At the end to top everything off we all took a shot of grappa! Hahah, it was...interesting, and very very alcoholic. We all rode back, and now there are several other people on the stairs outside our classroom on the internet.

Class tomorrow starts at 9, and we're getting an overview of the history of San Gemini, and in the afternoon traveling to the archaeological site of Carsulae, which are Roman ruins. I'm SO pumped.

Love to you all-

and I miss you like crazy, my fellow rangers.

Love Siri

Uh

So another post to update y'all-
I bought a new laptop. It's a Toshiba laptop, and absolutely full of buttons and shiny bits. Everything one could want in a laptop bought quickly and (for the most part) inexpensively. The amount I paid is a LOT LOT LOT to me, but the deed is done. Now, Graham, Kjerstin's roommate is looking at my old laptop, trying to do ...well, anything with it. He think's he making progress, which in turn is making my head spin. Because if he fixes it, I will be out several weeks pay at Stella Blues, and have two laptops. AGH. Who knows. I don't. Leaving Madison tomorrow at around ten AM. My flight to Detroit leaves at 4:05, and the flight from there to Rome leaves at 7:45. Tired. Goodnight. A big day ahead, that hopefully will go smoothly.

Love Siri.

Uff da

SO-
Update. I'm parked in 15 minute parking, which is unfortunate, because I've been here FAR longer than that already. My laptop is basically dead in the water, it stopped being able to do ANYTHING. This isn't the best news. Otherwise, I'm all packed, in the library making a last post before I leave, most likely. Also, I'm STILL waffling between the rolling suitcase and the backpacking bag. AGH. Also, freaking out about car making to Madison, then to Chicago. Freaking out about making connecting flight. There isn't really anything I'm not freaking out about. Also, the most expensive textbook I ordered hasn't come, so I can't even use that for classes. cool. AND... I will just stop myself there. But hey, I'm going to Italy!

love seeer

p.s. kirsten- any food in the fridge that's mine, either eat it or throw it out. Also, wash molly's bowl every couple times you feed her, otherwise she won't drink the water out of it. i miss you.