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!

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