closure.

so i'm back in america now. adjusting to life. everything is pretty natural and yet strange at the same time. it's good to be around family and friends again. we ran into some trouble coming home and ended up getting stuck in chicago. i had to stay the night there and my parents came and picked up andrea, linds and i. otherwise i wouldn't have gotten a flight home until christmas day, things were crazy there. here are some pics from our final week in rome/paris. merry Christmas!!

this was a man's home we walked by all the time. he sold his paintings on the steps of a church a few feet away.

this is where we found our favourite gelato. biscotti della nonna. mmmmm mmmm mmmm

ivana! she's our friend who was studying in rome, but lived in vienna and was from macedonia. she was great.


PARIS:
rodin museum

linds and andrea at the paris train station


hot wine!

scott was pretty tired at the restaurant

we rode the carousel at the eiffel tower!

we take lots of pictures.

figuring out the metro tickets and making lots and lots of people wait.

versailles palace

versailles

versailles

going home to rome from paris.

end of school schtuff

our list of things to do hanging on our wall.

the mess-up wall.

our exhibition schtuff

my schutff

our books we made. it's like kindergarten pics or something.

goodbye studio...goodbye roma...

paris

paris was amazing. i will recap on everything in a few days. i have wonderful pictures and updates, just not the time to get to it all. see ya on friday!

wrap it up.

we did it. had our rome show last night. we were so exhausted. after the show we all headed over to the guys place. we were so tired we figured it was about 1am but really it was only 9. we made sure that no one set their alarms in our flat so we could catch up on all our lost sleep. so far we've slept in today and will head to the matisse exhibit shortly. we leave for paris at 4am tomororw! yikes. and then will be back tuesday evening to pack up and get out of here.

a few pics from our night...



hookah time



zak was a little sleepy so we decided to do a little more design work.



i like my friends

it's overrrrrrrrrrr!!!

i am officially done with my projects. they are printed and i am done thinking about them. i am so excited to put my life back in order, everything has been spiraling out of control. i am wearing a pair of socks for the fourth day in a row now, i think my jeans are on day three and i haven't washed my hair since monday. hahaha. our apartment has been a disaster with paper covering the floor, glue and tape everywhere, our mess-up projects taped to the wall next to our checklist of projects to get done.

i am very impressed with my roommates/best friends. andrea is in the process of making an illuminated manuscript. for those who are unfamiliar with this; think very very old books that were hand written in scripty caligraphy, tiny animals and doodles adorning the pages, with large colourful dropcaps. ya, she's pretty much amazing. the teachers gave her an extension because they knew it was too much to do in 3 days, but andrea is our little scribe who won't stop working and she'll have it done for tomorrow.

lindsey on the other hand made a children's book. wrote the story, hand drew all the illustrations and then watercoloured it all. she finished today and it is amazing as well.

tomorrow (friday) is our final exhibition. we'll set up our projects from the semester, along with interior design and fine arts and have food and wine. we've invited people to walk through and see our stuff.

after friday i'll finally have a life again and free time to see the last sites of rome. i should have lots of fun things to post, as well as our mini trip to paris. i fly out 22 december and i can hardly wait. i think i will be torn as i leave so many things i've grown accustomed to.

one thing i will not miss in rome....the men. my roommate elisa actually punched a man, in the face, on the bus the other night after some drunk italians were harassing her. when she got home her hand was bleeding. my roommates are amazing.

functional fixedness

you know you are desperate when you eat bran and yogurt with a bone folder.

packaging

little update. went to the doctor because my itching was out of control. first of all, try to avoid foreign hospitals as much as possible. the doctor was a little sketchy and at the end he tells me i owe him 50 euro in cash. so i hand him the bill and he takes out his money clip and sticks it in with his wad of cash back into his pocket. hmmmmm seems a little fishy, but what are you gonna do i suppose.

so here are some pics of us working hard in our mess of a studio. and here are my final packages, which caused my allergic itching reaction. please pray that we make it through this last week.

inSANEEEEEE

there are pictures from this weekend.

www.andreasgiornale.blogspot.com

that'd be us, locked in our apartment, over the weekend, trying to stay sane.

stay kool in school

so i wish i had recent pictures to post. but my life has been consisting of projects and more projects and lots more projects. studio hours have now been extended until 3am. great. i shall be using them. i won't go into detail how much we have to do, otherwise i may start crying, but for the most part we are trying to stay sane and have fun in the process. i am almost done with one project (packaging). i don't like to think about folding paper in 3D, so to skirt around this issue i decided to build my packages out of a thick matboard that i would layer on top of each other. so i've cut over 50 pieces of board that i've been sanding and gluing together. i've contracted some type of allergic reaction and i'm starting to break out in small bumps all over my body that won't stop itching. the pain we go through for school! i would write about what i did this weekend but i think it's pretty obvious that i spent almost every waking minute cutting board. Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. on a positive note, we bought tickets to paris! school ends december 15 so we are going to enjoy freedom from homework with a smll trip to paris. yay.

smooshy

sometimes you just have to keep yourself entertained when in rome. go to www.lindseybennett.blospot.com to see us working hard in class.

greece

greece was wonderful. a lot of things were closed friday evening so we walked around and saw some the olympian zeus temple from the outside, then played in a park. they had the best park ever with lots of wonderful play things that would never go over in america.

here we are playing




ate a delicious greek, meal of lamb and rested up for another day. saturday we walked to acropolis hill and saw the famous parthenon. it was really intersting comparing the greek temples to the roman ones i am surrounded with daily. the greeks built their structures in the round and used marble throughout, whereas romans were only concerned with the front of buildings and the surface looking nice. so in rome, i'm used to seeing the inner forms of structures of brick and gray rock. in greece we actually saw white marble so you had more of an idea what these temples really looked like.

[from acropolis]








probably walked a good 10 hours after crossing town to the archeological museum where we saw some sculptures and artifacts from the year 5000BC. unbelievable. i am amazed at how advanced the greeks were and how our minds were created by God to work. amazing.

we finished off our trip on sunday at the market. walked for hours going back over the same streets i swear! everything looked the same. tried some coconut sticks and a greek pita. we did pretty good for being surounded by greek letters and not really knowing what was going on. i like greece. it's pretty neat.

more pics from the weekend.

walk off that thanksgiving.

wow i've been super busy with the parentals. i met up with them on thursday morning, after finishing up some projects. we walked up avantine hill snuck into the knights of malta (different country) and then proceeded to be kicked out of the knights of malta. walked along the tiber crossed the river to tiber island and just walked some more until we met for class to go to the EUR. my parents came with and we got to see some great facism architecture from mussolini. we probably walked over eight hours that day. that night we celebrated thanksgiving with a little homemade pumpking pie that steph made for us, complimentary of our mom's. our meal consisted of pizza, pumpkin pie, wine and cheese.



friday morning we left for the airport and flew to greece.

check out next blog.

parental units

me and the dad in the forum.


rome is crazy. i live here.


my parents arrived in rome friday afternoon. i took them around to the spanish steps and trevi fountain. we happened upon tom cruise and katie holmes' hotel where they were getting married the next day. that was a cluster. people were crowded everywhere hoping they would come out of their hotel, holding signs saying "we love you" "you're the best couple in the world" ridiculous.

Saturday we saw trajan's market, walked through the roman forum, up through palatine hill. grabbed a little lunch and continued through the colosseum. i showed my fam our studio (stopping at grocery stores on the way to look for cans), and then we decided to check out the pantheon. it was my first time inside! i walk by it everyday but have never fought through the tourists to check it out. it's really beautiful inside. almost seems fake. We went to my apartment that night and rested, then linds came with us and we went and ate an italian dinner in the borghese area. linds and i realized we haven't ever eaten out here besides a chinese restaraunt a few times! yikes.

my apartment building! piazza ottavilla!


pantheon dome. wow.


since they weren't here to take my first day of school pics, here i am by our studio front door.


sunday we shopped the busy market and finally found the bus to take us near the vatican so we could see the pope. we made it just in time to see him come out of his window and make a spiel in italian. sooooo many people! we ate some kebabs and walked to the saint angelica castle (named after the archangel michael). walked through piazza navona and campo di fiore. we packed a lot in this weekend but it was fun. showing my family this city it makes me realize how much i take for granted and how i no long notice as much as i once did. i want to appreciate this place before i leave.

can you see the pope?


just a few people in the crowd