..so I’m procrastinating right now.. when you only get internet at studio, you usually end up dinkin’ around on the internet for an hour or two before you get stuff done.. anyways I’m posting a few pictures of the few out the window of our studio.. basically Palazzo dei Cenci.. like always you have to click on them to see a larger image.. or if its huge to click it to see it a better size.

Some other random pictures..

a few of the roomates last night

this is the piazza in front of the pantheon.. we basically live at the pantheon so it’s madness trying to walk through this to get anywhere.. at 830am when we’re going to class it’s empty though, it’s really cool. you can also see the egyptian obelisk, they have a lot of these around rome

here’s a bad picture of the pantheon, i’ll have to get one from farther away.. it’s actually my favorite thing in rome- it was built in 125AD and it’s in incredible condition. the painter raphael is actually buried inside.. we all have plans to take pictures inside when it rains (it has an oculus so it’s open to the elements)

the little rectangle is my painting piece.. our prof cut up a painting into 12 of these small pieces and we had to draw a 50×70cm charcoal drawing and then now we’re starting our 50×70cm oil painting.. it’s pretty ridiculous working from that small of a photocopy.. plus we have to have all of our edges match with the pieces next to ours as well as have the exact same color palette.. eek.

here’s my drawing.. i finished it a week or so ago but i haven’t taken a picture yet..

so last night we ended up going to the same pub i saw spike lee.. abbey theatre. as soon as we arrived the rockies game was on!! ahhh i was so excited. so i finally got to watch some baseball.. no one in my crew even cared, actually i was probably the only person in the whole bar even watching the tv reserved for baseball so i got to watch them win and shortly after that the indians game came on.. very cool.. too bad they got kiiilled. it was around 3am when they kicked us out and i think the indians game was only in the 6th inning so a lot of bad things must have happened after that i even met some boys that are studying in rome.. a few from chicago, one actually plays baseball at his school- so we talked forever about baseball.. it was so nice to have someone to talk to. these two italian boys kept asking us what america’s #1 sport was and i didn’t really know what to say.. probably football, but anyways they didn’t understand why i liked baseball so i said something like ‘ho cinque anni i watched’ which doesn’t make any sense, but they nodded haha. regardless it made for a good night. tonight we heard there are stages set up all around the colosseum for concerts so we might check that out.. but for now ill be spending most of my day at studio working on projects.. joyous!

PS! This post was supposed to be on October 8th.. I forgot to publish it.. so it goes before the Oct 12th one

….so it’s 12:32 pm and I’m still at studio.. and I got to studio at 9am this morning.. (and I was at studio for ten hours yesterday.. Sunday.. as well) and I probably won’t be leaving for another hour. Talk about being tired.. for the past week we’ve been in groups designing a package for this famous graphic designer Primo Angeli- he’s designed the Guiness logo, an All-Star Game logo, graphics for the Atlanta Olympics in 2006, Sunkist and all sorts of crazy public art in the sixties in San Francisco… our group is redesigning a Voiello spaghetti package.. so after a day or two of sketching logos/packages etc.. we’ve each come up with our own final design which we have to present in class tomorrow along with images of the package on it’s original shelf.. it’s actually a really cool project but after doing my internship this summer I know we’d have a lot more time to go through this process instead of basically designing something from scratch in 3 days. Oh well! We’ll see how it goes.. and see if I get any sleep
..click to see some of my logo doodles below:

…so I finally survived the week. We finished up our package designs for Primo Angeli.. we cranked out our work- sketches to final product in the course of 2.5 days so I’m pretty impressed with our class.. at least we can put it on our resume that we’ve done design with/for Primo. I also had my first art history quiz/test yesterday.. we had to memorize around 40 pieces of art (including title, artist, date, and museum it is in) and then 20 or so vocab terms.. then he picked 5 of each to ask us- and that little quiz was 20% of our grade.. we have another test like this in two weeks.. then our final is comprehensive and includes two essays which sound like they are going to be pretty difficult.. oh well, at least I only have one more semester left of tests like this! I’m starting painting this evening.. our professor Brenda is teaching us how to mix our palettes for our 12 piece painting.. I had no idea how to use oil paint and everyone in our class has to use the same colors and all 12 of our pieces have to match (it’s one big painting cut into 12 pieces that we are recreating.. 50cmx70cm) so we’ll see how that goes.. we actually only have like ten more painting classes left in the semester (we only have it Mondays from 2-7) and in that time I have to complete this painting, do another full scale value drawing and a triptych painting (it’s three tall skinny canvases together that create one painting). Should be interesting…

For graphic I’m working on designing an identity for Palatine Hill (I love it there) and it finally clicked this morning in studio so at least I have something to work on. Next Wednesday our first typography project is due.. an abstract map from one point in Rome to another.. I chose to do from my apartment to studio- it’s an accordian style book with the left side of each “mountain” in halftone lines black and white and the right side is duotone a burnt orange color.. hard to explain so I’ll have to include pictures later. I’m actually surprised my teachers liked it because a lot of my pieces have the same style..

This weekend I think we’re going to a Pub.. it will be nice to hear english for once I was hanging out under the Pantheon the other night for like a half hour and I saw this group of kids speaking english so I went and talked to them.. they were a high school group from Canada and were in Rome for two days and had been all over Italy.. they actually said Venice was their favorite place so I have something to look forward to in 2 weeks at our next field trip (Milan and Venice!) I couldn’t believe how many bums sleep under the pantheon.. I counted 9 or 10 around 11pm at night.. it’s sad how things can be in cities.

So I’ve also been trying to figure out what we’re doing after our field trip.. we end up in Venice on Friday the 19th and we’re free from there.. so most of us wanted to go to Switzerland but it ends up we probably need to get plane tickets so I think some of us may opt out and go to Florence and the Tuscany area.. I found a hostel in Florence that’s by the Academia that does a daytrip to Siena/Chianti/Pisa so it sounds awesome.. I googled pictures and it’s like the stereotypical “Tuscany, Italy” thing that comes to mind.. I can’t wait to see the countryside! Besides that I don’t know if I’ll be traveling as much as I thought.. the Euro really eats up your budget when it’s 1.5x the US dollar

Oh yeah and yesterday for art history we went into a couple neat churches, one called Minerva right by the Pantheon and I could have sworn I saw John Lennon’s son Sean with his girlfriend..I freaked out until I walked up to them and they weren’t speaking English.. haha.. so I guess the only famous person I’ve seen is Spike Lee- I didn’t write about this but a week or two ago a couple of us were at this pub called Abbey Theatre to watch some American Football and Spike Lee walks in and sits at the table next to us to watch the Jets game.. he ended up betting on the Yankees game on his cell phone most of the time (Yeah Indians!!) but it was pretty surreal.. I think almost everyone there didn’t even know who he was so I bet he loved it..

Anyways that’s all for now.. I’ll post some pictures later
Miss everyone!!

…so this weekend was our “Southern Fieldtrip” to Naples.. we left Thursday at 7am from Roma Termini station and went to Napoli- about a 2 hour train ride. Then we took this charter bus to two different museums that houses a lot of the art and mosaics from Pompei.. very cool (by the way it’s Pompei in Italy and Pompeii in USA.. how odd) anyways, after those two museums we took the bus up this crazy road over these hills which overlooks the bay and Vesuvius- it was incredible. We ended up staying the night at this convent that was on the cliffs edge, I think it just may be the most beautiful place I’ve been so far in my life.. incredible. So after we got to the convent we went into downtown Sorrento to eat at this Lemon Tree restaurant (it was 28 euro or $42!!) it was the best food I’ve ever had.. and I don’t even really know what it was…we started with this plate of “antipasta” which was like ten different types of appetizers.. it had cheese puffs, something with olives, fried bread, this cooked zucchini.. all this stuff, I can’t even try to do it justice by describing it, but it was so so good. After that course we were all kind of full anyway but they had a second “antipasti” which was two different types of pasta.. then after that was our main dish- potatoes and meat.. I didn’t really eat the meat though- mostly because everyone was freaking out about it being veal, I guess I’m not much of a meat person anyways. Then our final dish was this lemon cake dessert. Yum yum. And to top it all off it was this huge restaurant with a courtyard in the middle and we basically sat outside under lemon trees.. very cool.

So after dinner we headed back to the convent we were staying at and some of us hung out on this little patio and looked across the bay at Vesuvius and you could see fireworks going off and lightning.. can you imagine seeing lightning lighting up the silhouette of Mount Vesuvius? Incredible. I stayed out there til it started pouring.. I won’t ever forget the sight though.

The next day we went to Pompei.. it was definately not what I expected.. a lot of it is still intact whereas I was expecting ruins of floorplans. We saw a couple “bodies” and lots of wall paintings and some mosaics.. their civilization was so advanced.. they stressed a lot of public family space and interior courtyards. We even got to see some “ancient graffiti”. I’m glad we went but we were probably there for 4 or 5 hours which was enough to see everything that wasn’t under excavation.

After Pompei we split off from the professors and the 10 roomates, Michael and I went to our hostel in Pompei.. which was right down in this square and it was actually really nice.. (only 15 euro too) we went out to this restaurant with this other apartment of 10 girls and hung out for the night. The next day the plan was to climb Mount Vesuvius.. 7 miles and about 2-3 hour roundtrip excursion.. well apparently all the trails are closed for the season, so after we had taken this 40 min train ride there we sadly turned around and took an hour train to Sorrento where our next hostel was.

Like I said, Sorrento is where the Lemon Tree restaurant was.. well when we got there we had to take a bus to our hostel in Nettuno which was 50 minutes away.. well the road the bus took is this skinny little mountain road that winds all over the place- talk about motion sickness. We got there and our hostel was sweet! It reminded me of like a surf shack, and we stayed in this two little cabins with a kitchen and everything (15 euro too) and the hostel had this path down to it’s own beach.. it was so pretty.. and the beach was made of these pretty little stones instead of sand so at least we didn’t have to worry about getting sand everywhere We spent the afternoon down there, then at night we went up to the hostel restaurant and ordered some food and tried their “local wine” for 4 euro for 1 liter.. I’m serious when I say this.. not even halfway through I think our entire group was drunk.. this stuff was STRONG. We then walked down to the square and met some locals.. yadda yadda.. overall a pretty good night. The next day we check out at 9am and moved all of our backpacks down to the beach and hung out- for the last day of September it was at least 80 degree weather.. no clouds.. perfect! We hung out there til 230pm when the last bus back to the train station came.. so 50 min ride to the station, then 1.5 hour train right to Naples then took a train from Naples to Roma which was 2 hours.. overall we were in transit for 7 hours. It’s kinda weird too because as soon as we reached Rome we were all so excited to be “home”.. what a weird feeling to feel home in a foreign city.

Anyways I’m tired of writing.. here are a few photos from the weekend sorry they are so HUGE ill have to adjust them later- just click on them to see the actual size photo

ps. Mom and Dad I’m calling you soon I promise!! xoxo

ciao! i decided to head of to studio this morning with hopes of actually getting something done.. but no luck yet. it’s 1:30pm here, probably 80-something degrees outside and i bet some of my roomates are still asleep.. we had a sweet family dinner last night- we paired off and each made a dish, it was fabulous.. there was pizza, bruschetta, a layer dip, a veggie dip in a bread bowl, tortilla rollups.. then we checked out this bar that an architect friend of mine said they went to a lot last semester called ‘rock castle’ which is in the same piazza as studio. it was so cool.. it’s almost like a big cave.. dancefloor, bar, tables.. and the played mika, the killers.. even born in the usa! haha.. anyways we ended up going out with some of the interior design kids and didn’t come home until three.. long night.

(I don’t know how to fix this picture.. just click on it to see the whole thing)

this week is our first field trip.. we’re headed to pompeii and naples on thursday and friday, then our roomates and michael are staying friday night in pompeii and climbing mount vesuvius on saturday and then staying in sorrento on saturday night and enjoying the beach on sunday.. our hostel is pretty close to capri but it’s this secluded area with it’s own private beach- here are some pictures of the area http://www.villaggionettuno.it/english/village.htm we also have this ’special dinner’ under lime trees in sorrento? i think.. i dunno i wasn’t planning on attending (its 28 euro.. $42) and when the sign up sheet was passed to me i saw that all the graphic designers signed up.. so i guess i’m along for the ride- i guess they are serving veal.. eek. oh well it’s an experience.

my art history teacher (we call him johnny depp.. i’ll include a picture) pretty much sucks… but anyways he took us to ostia antica last thursday for class… it’s basically a bunch of ruins, a lot of stuff that was built during augustus’ reign. it reminded me a lot of palatine. it was probabaly 80 degrees that day too and we had to walk on these huge rock-cobbled roads for like 2-3 hours.. what a nightmare, it almost makes you not appreciate the history when you’re tired of walking.. i just hope i don’t take all these ruins for granted- i have only been here three weeks now and im already getting really annoyed with the tourists surrounding the pantheon every morning when i’m trying to walk to class… at least i’m starting to get comfortable here.

(just click it to see a larger image.. I’m still trying to figure out how to resize them)

(click to see full image)

(click to see full image)

by the way.. i’ve never felt compromised here- everyone seems to think roma is a city of crime and you’re going to be robbed, but no one has had any issues yet.. knock on wood. the only thing that’s getting old is when they yell at us because we are americans.. when i was walking through the jewish ghetto this morning a man stood up and got in my face to yell at me- at least i had my ipod on.. people need to get over themselves, we all live on the same earth.

it’s been great not having tv here… our roomates actually sit down and talk to each other for hours.. i even read a book yesterday for like two hours.. sweet. and state radio’s cd is coming out in a few days (year of the crow.. hence the title of this post) so that will keep me busy for a little while

miss ya’ll and hope everyone is doing well.

-tegan

I have never seen such incredible weather.. everyday we wake up to go to class or the market.. and it’s a bright blue cloudless sky.. incredible. I think it’s only rained here once and it was for like an hour when I was inside a museum.. amazing.. it’s great, especially when you know the midwest is cold right now?

So I finally have a little bit of internet so I can update.. things are still going well here, I’m getting more used to not having everything I had in the states.. like my cell-phone or even certain foods.. I guess you just learn to deal! I still haven’t gotten used to the motorinis riding behind you on what you consider to be a sidewalk.. the day I get back to Fort Collins I’m just going to stand in the middle of the street.. and just enjoy it.

Classes are okay.. our teachers seems pretty lax, last Wednesday both of our studios cancelled class so we could wander the city. I was assigned Palatino Hill to create an identity for.. and it’s sooo beautiful. I think I fell in love the Rome I stood on top of this hill. It’s right above the forum so immediately when you get up there you have a great view of the Colosseum as well as the Forum. When you start to wander in there you first hit these amazing gardens.. fountains, flowers, statues. If you go left you run into the palaces of the first emperors of Rome.. myth is that Rome was founded on this very hill, and they have traces of homes from 9th century BC. On the other side of the hill you have a view of the homes/shops/circus maximus. I probably wandered around on this hilltop for two hours and I still don’t think I saw everything.. lucky for me my teachers are paying for me to go here and I get to go two more times (it’s 11 euro!). Also included on our ticket is the Colosseum.. which believe it or not isn’t that exciting.. I’m glad I saw it, but if you google an image of it, that’s exactly what it looks like, along with hundreds of tourists.. no luck with having artistic pictures in there.

Painting hasn’t really started yet but I’m already a little panicky.. at least I have to guy friends who are amazing painters that will hopefully give me some guidance. And then there’s Italian… wow. Worst class ever? Yes. I thought after 6 years of Spanish, Italian wouldn’t be that terrible.. I was so wrong. And our teacher knows there’s no way we can learn Italian in 6 lessons (we only have to take 6 -2 hour classes for 1 credit) but he continues to teach us how to conjugate verbs in the present and past.. even though we still don’t know how to ask for a cup of coffee. I feel so ignorant.. we went to this huge market this morning (a thousand tents.. no joke, it’s at least a mile long) and my friend Meg was trying to buy something and when we asked how much it cost we didn’t even know what she responded because we don’t know numbers.. pathetic. Oh well, it is only our second week here..

Oh yeah, we did actually make it to the beach.. it’s called Cristoforo Colombo and since we were kinda winging it we took two trains and started walking.. and stopped at the first free beach. It was okay.. there was actually a professional jet-ski race going on so it was crazy.. they were doing tricks too.. I think we were a little too busy trying to get tan to cheer them on That day we probably walked 6 or 7 miles because of ‘winging it’ so next times things will be waaay better.

On Friday some of the interior design girls hosted a toga party.. they live in the old Iowa State studio so it’s huge.. it ended up being a blast.. some of the boys walked from past the Colosseum to it (probably a mile or so walk). It’s fun getting to know people from other majors.. and since I’m at the end of the alphabet I have the opposite schedule of all of my roomates and I have most of my classes with Studio Arts and Interior Designers. It’s been interesting… oh yeah, and before this party I was bored and decided I was going to go find some ivy to make a headband out of.. and of course it’s Rome, there’s ivy everwhere.. well I couldn’t find any.. I ended up walking over the Tiber River, going around over there and then crossing the river again.. well I thought I was back on my side but because the river was so twisty I was actually on the same side.. and I ended up in the Vatican.. if you look on the map the Vatican is way the hell away from the Pantheon… it didn’t take me too long to get there (Rome isn’t that big at all) but it was so weird to come up on St. Peters when I thought I was closer to Piazza Navona. It was cool though.. it’s huuuuuge. I can’t wait to go inside.

So I’m beginning to miss my family.. I only go home like twice a year and it’s been like three weeks and I can’t wait til Christmas (not like an excited where I want to go now..but I’m looking forward to it) I missed my brother’s first football game.. I knew it was going to happen but I’m really happy for him.. that’s quite a feat- and Alex (Erica’s fiance) just told me that he started on Saturday.. amazing. I wish I could be there… but it seems like everyone is doing well. Yesterday we went to this Irish Pub that saaaid that were going to play the Iowa-Iowa State football game, and of course we show up and they weren’t… but apparently we won 15-14.. hooray. I hope none of my friends at school say “oh my gosh, it was my favorite memory of college” haha.. oh well, Rome is better

Well… all for now, sorry my posts are so random, it’s hard to update after 5 days of happenings. If anyone has any questions or wants to know anything feel free to shoot me an e-mail or comment! twolfe5@iastate.edu

*I also just set up a flickr account to post some pictures.. it only let me post 9 so I’m going to set up a couple more.. or try a different website. So if you would like to see a few forum/palatine pictures you can check it out here..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13622376@N02/

So it’s taken forever to write, but I’m finally here. It’s basically impossible to get internet.. especially in the studio! (So unfortunately updates may only be once a week…) We arrived in Rome on Monday September 3rd and it’s the opposite of what I expected. You may imagine a picturesque Italian city with sidewalk coffee shops and monuments like the colosseum off in the distance.. no. During our drive from the airport you can see a big jumble of things… one of the busiest roads in Roma “La Labicana” runs between The Forum and the Colosseum and Trajan’s forum and markets. And as everyone had warned us.. everything IS cobblestone. I walk on two streets on my way to class.. and the entire way except for maybe a block is cobblestone.. and you are in constant fear of being run over by a motorini or some other transportation device trying to squeeze down the small alleyways.

Our apartment is on Via Montecatini.. it actually is two blocks from the Pantheon (I walk by it like four times a day… but yet I still haven’t gone in it yet!) And it’s a 5 bedroom, 11-roomate apartment. We have a decent sized kitchen with three fridges, we have two bathrooms/showers, a large dining room/lounge area and a big hallway. Besides being dirty and having white walls with ripped tape marks all over it (like a dormitory) it’s been great. We even have a balcony overlooking the street (this can get REALLY loud though..) I share a room with two other girls and it’s worked out great.. since we’re all graphic designers we usually have class at the same time in the mornings.

I’m taking painting from 2-7pm on Mondays, Italian and Typography class on Tuesdays, Graphic Design studio and Typography on Wednesday, an Art History class from 2-6pm on Thursday (one hour lecture, three hours walking around the city) and Fridays I have Graphic Design studio and Italian. I actually just finished my first Italian lesson.. I think it may take a little while to pick up, but that’s the one thing we all want to learn.. EVERYONE speaks in Italian here and I feel so ignorant when I don’t know how to respond.

Some different things here.. hmm.. they don’t have peanut butter, which seems to be a big deal for some of the girls. The only things I’ve pretty much eaten here so far is fruit (apples, grapefuit, kiwis.. theres tons) nuts, salad, dried fruit, bread, Special-K granola bars (weak.. I know), and we had pasta one night.. I guess I haven’t figured things out yet! It also took me a few grocery stores to find salad dressing… we’ve been to both grocery stores and we also went to the largest market – Campo di Fiori.. but it’s pretty expensive so hopefully we’ll find another market soon.

Let’s see what else.. no problems with crime yet eventhough we have been warned multiple times. You can definately tell when someone is American, because we generate a lot more noise than the others around us… which is starting to become annoying :-\ The Coloseum is right on the street.. some of our guy friends had us over for dinner the other night and we ate pasta and drank wine on their rooftop terrace.. anyways they live on La Labicana, so we got to pass the Colosseum.. it is pretty big, eventhough pictures don’t do it justice.

I took some scenic pictures during art history yesterday but I’ll have to post them at a later time.. like I said I want to set up a flickr account so you can view all of them- it’s just hard to find free time, let alone free time with internet! I hope you are all doing well.. I do miss a lot of people and things from home, but this has been a very great and very surreal experience already.

This weekend we plan on going to the beach at Ostia.. about 20 miles from Rome. (1 euro train ride!) And also tomorrow night there is something called “White Night” where all the museums have free admission and everyone is drinking wine.. yadda yadda.. should be fun

Welllll.. that’s all for now, talk to you all soon! And please be patient with me if you send an email.. it’s so frustrating to not be able to check it (or check it and have 90 emails!!)

-Tegan

So the time has come… we’re moving to Roma tomorrow morning and starting school on Wednesday. I’ve loved it here.. besides the amount of pollution here (it burns..) it’s definately a liveable place.

Last night after posting we went to meet up with some of our other graphic design friends in front of the National Gallery to have a few drinks.. some of us took off to find a bathroom and Steph happened to find out that Orlando Bloom was outside.. so to our surprise we caught him as he was coming out of a theatre for a play he is in.. Meg and I were five feet from him.. very crazy.

Today we went to the British Museum.. it holds the Elgin Marbles- sculptures, friezes, etc from the Acropolis.. it was awesome.. I’m pretty much obsessed with Greek art already and it was really neat to see the actual artwork. The British Museum is a lot like the Met in New York.. we also saw the Rome exhibit and the Assyrian.. and the Rosetta Stone! But too much walking to see the whole thing… we then went to this Rugby ‘fanfest’ in Regent’s Park- the England ruby team was there, as well as hunnnndreds of fans. Then we hit up the National Gallery, I was too tired to make an effort to see everything so I looked through the impressionist section and then sat down and people watched for an hour.. (thank goodness all these museums are free). It will be a little sad to leave but I’m way excited to get moved in to our new apartments.. cross your fingers our bags with get there! I’m going to be calling some of you this week so can’t wait to hear from you

  

Yesterday ended up being a pretty busy day.. we started out walking through Hyde Park to Kensington Palace.. with Princess Diana’s ten year anniversary there were quite a few TV reporters and photographers on site to document the crowd and the photos/flowers placed outside the gates. After that we went to Saint Paul’s Cathedral which was incredible.. it’s humongous, unfortunately we opted out of the tour (pounds are so expensive!) then we went to see Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre which was really cool- they still continue to have plays there. Then we went to the Tower of London.. http://www.toweroflondontour.com/ we were able to see graffiti from old prisoners, the chapel, and everything from swords to Henry the VIII’s suits of armor. (The website will probably do it more justice) After that Brendan, Andy and I hung out by the water and crossed Tower Bridge (the prominent looking bridge.. which I thought was London Bridge) and attempted to go to the Design Museum.. it was closed… maybe better luck tomorrow. At night we hung out at the hostel bar.. I met two boys from Spain, four people from Mexico, several Aussies, Kiwis and some people from Iceland.. it’s crazy to see the differences between our slang and culture, apparently we’re known to Aussies as Yanks.. hmmm..

Today was excellent. The three girls, Michael and I went to Windsor pretty early (about an hour train ride north) to see Windsor Castle.. It probably was one of the neatest towns I’ve ever seen in my life! It was a picturesque little town, green grass, cobblestone streets and this giant castle right in the middle. It’s one of Queen Mary’s homes and includes her Dollhouse collection, and many many rooms with original artwork, furniture, armor.. etc etc. Very cool. The view was the best.. it sat on the top of the hill overlooking the countryside and what used to be the moat was covered in flowers and a waterfall/fountain trickling down from the keep. (I’ll have to post pictures soon!) Anyways.. this trip made me even more excited to go to Italy, I was hoping I wouldn’t fall in love with London but it’s impressed me more than I thought it would.