Where the Wild Things Are

Look at this photo album to understand the happenings of last night.

Let The Wild Rumpus START!!

Oh, and I would HIGHLY recommend that you watch the movie Where the Wild Things Are if you haven't yet. It is a precious, nostalgic movie about being a kid with a wild imagination. So enjoyable.

Hail Yes

I just spent about an hour working on my final project for my sculpting class. I'm working in plaster on a scene of Jacob wrestling God. Our studio is outdoors with a roof overhead, which I like very much. While I was working, the sky gradually went from bright blue with sharp light everywhere to an ominous gray. I watched the clouds roll in over the hills in the distance. Every now and then, there was a faint hum of thunder. It took its time coming in, and by the time I was ready to call it a day with my sculpture, I thought that the storm was fading away. I walked into the monastery and glanced out the window on the staircase. It was down-pouring. Not only that, but it was hail. I immediately turned around and scurried back down the stairs, then flattened out on my side at the bottom because my flip flops were covered in plaster dust. After regathering myself, I ran straight toward the door to the courtyard and stood out in the hail. Seconds later, some of my friends ran out and joined me. It was beautiful. I'm still drying off from it now. The hail stopped, but the lightening and thunder are still going strong. Let me tell you. The thunder here is deep and hefty. It lingers and shakes the ground. I loooooove it. Another highlight for this Italy trip.

Maldovian, Man

So, yesterday, my friend Whitney got this crazy idea that it would be cool to tell people that I would be holding a concert last night at the cafe we always hang out at. Throughout the day, people would peek their head in my room and say, "Concert tonight???" and I'd stare blankly at them. Eventually, I caught on that lies were being spread, so I'd say, "Nooo, noo, no, don't listen to Whitney." When dinner came around, I went to a pizzeria called Charlie's with Whitney, Julia, and my other friend Katie. I had my favorite pizza, Ghiotta, and then we split a Nutella pizza for dessert. I would have been thoroughly pleased to call that a night. But, we decided to stop by La Locanda Del Lupo, where we normally eat, to see our other friends. Mauro, our cook, happened to be hosting a karaoke night. Many people sang (including Julia, of course), had flowers thrown at them by Italian customers who were dining nearby, and we had plenty of good laughs. At this point, I would definitely have been thoroughly pleased to call it a night. But, after the karaoke, after 10:00, we decided to stop at the infamous Cafe del Corso for a little internet time. Almost everyone from our program followed us there. Sitting in the cafe, my friends waited with expectance on their faces. They had all come to hear me play my guitar. Julia bought me some Amaretto, and Whitney ran back to get my guitar from the monastery. There was no avoiding it. I was going to play my guitar whether I liked it or not.

When Whitney arrived with my guitar, my friends waited like dogs do at a dinner table for me to get off my laptop and start playing. I tried to stall a bit, but I knew I couldn't let them wait much longer. We took my guitar outside and, thankfully, the Amaretto started to take affect and slowly dissolve my shyness. Yadda yadda, I played music, people sang along to songs they new, it was a great time. Some of my friends looked up songs online for me to play and one after another, would place their laptop in front of me for me to read the music. It was unforgettable. Meanwhile, a group of Maldovian guys were sitting behind me listening. There was one guy in particular who seemed interested and he clapped and said "Brava!" after each song. We found out that his name is Giovanni. Someone nudged me and said that he plays guitar too, so I offered him my guitar, and he accepted. He played three or four songs and I was completely taken in to the moment. I will never forget it. He had a raspy voice, like Deer Tick, or Glen Hansard, and he spoke no English. It was a beautiful sight to see my guitar in his hands while he sang his songs. Praise God, Julia took video of it. If I can show you somehow, I would be so happy to share it with you. Rumor has it that he has a YouTube page, but I have yet to find out what that is. I just want you to hear this guy! It was incredible. Music has a way with me. So last night was one I will certainly remember for a long time.

Civita

Yesterday, I went to Civita di Bagnoregio. It’s a very old town on a plateau like Orvieto, but much smaller. There are no cars allowed in Civita because it’s slowly falling apart. Buildings have crumbled off the sides of the cliffs over the years and it’s nearly abandoned. I was surprised to see restaurants in business there, but it’s understandable cause tourists do have to eat. Very few people actually live there, and we arrived around 9:30am, so it was vacant. We practically had the place to ourselves.


View of Civita.

I travelled there by bus with four other girls from my group, and we walked from the neighboring town over a bridge into the old city. As I saw Civita from a distance, a mewithoutYou quote popped into my head and I became overly giddy. I even said it out loud to my friends: “I saw a mountain, I saw a city, steadily sinking but suspiciously calm. It wasn’t an end, it wasn’t a beginning, but a ceaseless stumbling on.”

In Civita, we weaved around buildings that looked like they were made from red clay, and we peaked inside old sheds full of rusty equipment from who knows how long ago. We rounded the city at least once and by the time we were ready for lunch, the sun was beating through the clouds, forcing us to take our coats off. Every Italian city has a main piazza, which are usually huge and laid out in the stone that characterizes its city. Civita’s piazza was very small and only made of dirt. The five of us found a wall to sit on or lean against, and we took about an hour long nap right in the piazza. It was beautiful. Afterward, we had lunch in a restaurant that served gnocchi (which I ordered, of course) and tiramisu. We ate under a canopy of grapevines and drank the local wine. It was beautiful.

Throughout our stay, it had been sunny and then raining very lightly on and off. On our way back to the bridge from Civita to the next town, we heard thunder. I ran and hugged Julia cause we had both been waiting for a thunderstorm... we love them. Over the bridge, half of the sky was dark with rain clouds, and the other half of the sky was bright blue and white. Within the next half hour, we saw a rainbow. Could our day trip get any better?


View from Civita.

We got back to Orvieto in time for dinner, where we ate with our new professors for the next month of class. There is a poetry teacher and a sculpting teacher with their spouses living in the monastery with us now. I’ll be taking the sculpting class starting tomorrow. Anyway, the professors are all in their late 50s and 60s and they were jet lagged, so they asked if they were allowed to have wine at the dinner table. Gordon’s policy is that we can’t have wine at La Locando del Lupo where we always eat, because some of the participating schools don’t allow drinking at all. We can drink elsewhere. But we told the professors that it would be okay for them to have wine if they bought it. They gladly agreed to that. By the end of the dinner (which went overtime) all four of our new floor mates were tipsy and having the time of their lives. It was hilarious. At one point, I asked the professor next to me to pass a pitcher of water, and I startled him. He said, “Wow, we’re so rude, we’re blocking the students out of our conversation! Sure, here’s the water.” And then they forgot about us again. So funny. All of them were so nice and personable. They seem like great people. I’m looking forward to getting to know them, especially my sculpting teacher. I can’t wait to work in 3D!

P.S.- More pictures from my stay in Italy can be found progressively here.

Conte Crayon

I just finished my drawing class, which owned my soul the past four days. I've been drawing like a crazy person, along with the rest of my classmates, and there is dust from our conte crayons everywhere. My laptop currently has about 11 full black fingerprints, and today when I took a shower, I found conte crayon in my ear. I'll be posting pictures of my final project soon. Speaking of pictures, I've noticed that the pictures I post on my blogs come and go randomly. I'm not quite sure how to fix that problem. I wish they'd be visible all the time, but maybe I'll figure something out. I hope you're all able to see some of these photos I've been sharing.

My final project is probably as tall as the floor up to my collar bone. It took a lot of muscle and a lot of fighting with the conte crayon. It was beautiful being able to draw on site, outside in Orvieto. Lots of Italian passersby would stop and watch, and leave me with a "Bellisimo!" or "Complimente!" Sometimes American families would walk by, thinking I was Italian, and say "Ciao," as their little kids looked on my drawing with beaming smiles. I think my favorite were the middle-aged men that would drive by and slow their car down to look and say "Bello" with a cigarette in their teeth. One guy that was walking by said something, and I thought to myself "that sounded a lot like English" so I turned around and said, "Che?" and he walked over and pointed at one of the windows and said "That is my home." I loved it. There were ups and downs of course. There was one SUV speeding down the road I was on and neither of us had enough time to react to their reckless driving, so the car swerved and hit some trashcans. The woman in the passenger seat hopped out and angrily pointed at my drawing while clucking some angry sounding words. I wasn't too upset, though, it was obviously their fault. Another downer: I sat near a spot where pigeons liked to poop. Every now and then, the wind would gently tumble dried, poop crumbs onto my paper. Oh, and a pigeon left me a fresh one as a surprise. It missed my shoulder by a hair... and added color to my black and white drawing. I think I covered it up pretty well, though. While I might not be completely satisfied with the outcome of my final drawing, I am confident that I tried new things that my professor taught me and it was a good learning experience. There is going to be a party later today celebrating our finished drawings, where I'm sure pictures will be taken. I want to show you some of my classmates' pictures as well as mine, so keep an eye out for them!

Gimme some of that Top Cheese!

At La Locando del Lupo (the place where we eat lunch and dinner everyday), lunches are the big meals with two courses and dinners are usually just one course. The first course at lunch is usually pasta and the second is some sort of meat and veggie combo. The pasta is always christened with a layer of grated cheese. Julia and I happen to be the cheese lovers of the group so whenever the waiters bring sliced cheese, grated cheese, pasta with cheese sauce, or anything else involving cheese, everyone turns their head to either me or Julia and raises their eyebrows. When the pasta with grated cheese is being dished out for everyone, Julia and I say, "Can I have some of that top cheese?" By now, everyone knows to save some 'top cheese' for us.

While we're on the topic of food, I guess I have told a lot of people here about gnocchi. Over the past month or so, I've ranted about how delicious it is and that if people go out to restaurants and see gnocchi on the menu, they should get it. I've had people come to me with their testimonies of their first experiences with gnocchi, all very good stories. Unfortunately, I had only had one dish of gnocchi myself a long time ago at a restaurant... until last night. La Locando del Lupo served us gnocchi with THICK, steaming cheese sauce (something I'd never had before with gnocchi). When it was brought out, I happened to be at the head of the table, and everyone turned their head to me. They knew. I took a few deep breaths, stood up, walked around a little, shook my hands, and sat back down. I ate that bowl of gnocchi slow. Real slow. The cheese was so strong and so thick... I wanted it forever. Afterward, I laughed, "I almost cried over that gnocchi!" The girl sitting next to me said, "You did cry. Your eyes were red and watering."

So there it is. I cried over a bowl of gnocchi.

Okay, so to sum up what we did for Easter. It was somewhat of a weekend-long celebration, starting with Good Friday. Almost all of Orvieto was involved in a walk through the town where there were stations that represented the stations of the cross. Everyone had candles and it was pretty beautiful. The next day was a perfect day for a party, with crafts (like dying eggs) for the little kids of the friends of the Orvieto of program. We students planted eggs and candy out in the court yard of the monastery for the kids to find. It was precious watching the little kids joyfully run to their chocolates.

On Easter day, it was dark, cold, and rainy. Julia and I went to a service at the Duomo, which was packed with Orvieto people and tourists. That was pretty much the only Eastery thing we did on Easter, but later in the day we went to a small indoor chocolate festival where we could see how a giant chocolate egg is made. There was art there made of chocolate. Meaning, there were canvases painted with colored chocolates. They were real paintings. Real chocolate. And there was a man making sculptures out of chocolate. It was close to being Willy Wonka's chocolate factory in there. I wish it was my house.

Anyways, I guess that's all I can update you with. I've been really busy with drawing the past two weeks. Drawing homework has become my life, but I'm not complaining. For the first time in a long, long time, I feel like I'm doing something with my life. What's there to complain about?

My Drawings are Drawing Me

Sorry for the long gap between blog posts, guys! Drawing class is kicking my butt, and I love it. I have lots to write about, so be expecting a nice post soon. I'll have plenty of time over the weekend to fill you all in with the Easterly events over the past weekend, plus some fun stories, possibly.