Oh i'm doing stuff presently too?

So, night train back to wonderful home! so fun to think of Paris as home, and be giddy at the familiarity even in the bleak and rain upon return.... relaxing in my (still crappy) apartment very appreciated, went on a walk yesterday morning in the snow in the tuilleries, aw - i have even less concern for distance after this walking-intensive week or two.... making my own food is nice, having a stove that trips the breaker now is not, landlady's still a little flaky, missing meetings for rent drop-off etc, silly studio assignments that won't help the project that's starting to feel a little pressing.... but it's still home and it's good....

I got to read a book straight through this morning, "Dark Age Ahead" by Jane Jacobs.... solid social commentary, a little off-topic at times, but it all seemed to be worth reading.... it's not too long, i recommend it, wee.... i like being a student here too.... enough time to have time to do things. I don't think i'll travel much this weekend - maybe out to Chartre to use up my rail pass hehe (my night train didn't get punched so it was free minus the booking fee), and Friday night I'll join 15 000 other skaters taking over the Paris streets for 3 hours, and possibly sunday too.... guess i'll post on switzerland, it was quite a lot more boring then Rome though..... not the baths though! wee..... i'll get a picture in here too, how boring is this. i forgot a sketch i did in venice....

Venice wrap-up

My train left at 8 and I was still across the city from the station at sunset, so I decided to give myself the rest of the time to wander back - I hadn't used the map all day and I didn't want to start. I ended up needing the whole time.... still letting myself be distracted, but I was in quite a hurry at the end - made it in plenty of time though, and the train station was pretty frustratingly inefficient, probably the worst part of the day... shrug.

It was very interesting being in a city by myself, and wierd to realize that it hadn't happened much yet. A little undecided on if I prefer it - there are some things that are nice, but good company is definately more fun, mediocre company probably not... I definately have a faster pace then most people walking around, not unappreciatively hurrying, just getting someplace at the same time (means i run into things with my head in the clouds, acceptable compromise) and i have a pretty high tolerance for ignoring things like hunger and fatigue in the interest of seeing or experiencing the things i'd like too.... shrug whatever.... it's a whole week until i travel again HA :). 

Aerial Views Are Very Awesome

I climbed the belltower for sunset - fantastic views of this island and new construction outside of the tourist city in the golden light and pink sky....

There was a bitterly cold breeze that high up, but I stuck around appreciating the ocean views and antswarm crown in the plazza below until they shoed us out with the sun's setting.

Sunset at San Marco

What a fun scene - parading masked peacock-ladies and gents, families and tourists in the very large plaza in front of San Marco, turning the corner en masse to the seafront.

I'd visited this cathedral earlier, fantastically covered completely in murals inside, intricately geometric on the ground, gilded scenes on the 5 domes inside, more colors of marble then i've seen anywhere on the pillars in front - what a cake... fun, older then those in Rome....

Venice Self-documentary

hmm.... feeling a little more self-documentary need traveling by myself apparently, was also just a cool opportunity for a shot.... these are the tourist-boats, and some of the mossy steps at the base of the big church across the water.....

it was incredibly windy in Venice.... the water everpresent seemed to stay as a reminder of the air as another liquid - a powerful one as you approached the sea. the movement enacted by the water and the swaying boats throughout the city was completely unlike that of normal transport (of which there was none in the city that i saw, a very calming effect in itself).

Carnevale

This was high Carnevale season, so there were lots of people dressed up, some in just the masks being hawked at competitive prices in seemingly every other store and street booth, others in full-out renaissance garb, or phantom of the opera, or harry potter. the traditional costumes and masks were suprisingly beautiful in the upper price ranges... i'd always kind of dismissed them as wierd. It would have been cool to see Mardi Gras in New Orleans for comparison, this seemed fairly tourist-oriented too, I didn't see too many younger children celebrating like in Tivoli, and there were far to many men with two or three obscenely long cameras dangling around their bellies.... festive it was though, and not a bad atmosphere...

Mermaid Dwellings

There was a huge amount of strangeness in seeing these buildings emerge from essentially open seas, with doorsteps opening up directly onto their bit of water, buisness deliveries being made by barge, and steps covered in moss. The gondolas were omnipresent, and unfortunately rather plastic and fake... still looked fun, not as fun to go by yourself though, so I didn't. Too much to see walking. 

Venice! Mon 27 Feb 2006

Wow - it'll be pretty hard to capture Venice in words, was quite a distinctive experience.... had a fun train ride there from Rome in the morning, got trapped in a car with a pack of roudy soccer fan teenagers, even the conductor wouldn't come through, the boy next to me was not a part of the group though, we ended up talking for a few hours.... stereotyped Roman physically, broken nose curly hair, quiet and nice and european... should try to talk to more people from here instead of stereotyping. Fun to meet a nice Roman though, the males in the city had seemed to be slightly intentional in their stares.

Walk out of the train station right onto the large canal, a long time of flaneurie through the 5-foot wide streets inturupted by canals with civil little bridges, most not as big as this one... beautiful sunshine, slightly decaying plaster buildings in a hopefully authentic not resin-coated way. the 'tourist way' was packed and i tried in large part to avoid it... 

The pain of saying goodbye to Rome....

moving on to other parts of the forum, a half-hearted sketch of these capitols, an appreciation for the ancient triumphal arcs, then appreciation for Italian fashion... seemed a bit more exciting the the Paris scene, actually shopping didn't compel us to buy much though, or possibly the memory of all the pasta purchased. kind of cool to promonade with the locals, although after two weeks of travel I didn't feel quite worthy of the gesture... fun just to walk and try on beautiful clothes though. One last cup of gelato, then we hit the Spanish steps again after tiring of the scene, much more lively with people crowding, sat and listened to some lovely boys with guitars, although hearing acdc mauled in a bad accent wasn't too necessary.... home again for a solid sleep and venice for me in the morning.... Rome was wonderful.....

Sketching, sunbathing, and cursed pizza.....

well not exactly, the sun passed over where i was sitting pretty quickly.... sketch is of the enormous basilica ruins in the Forum... in it's original form there would have been a vault as large as the the remaining ones arching cross-wise over the top... originally used as a court, would have been intimidating as hell.... and this is the same basilica type that survived for use as christian buildings, on the grounds that temples were too pagan... anyway, very fun to sketch in the sun and a little removed from the tourists swarming the Fora. Getting more happy with how my sketches are turning out too... wee

on the way to the Forum before this we had forgotten to look for food until past the cheaper food possibilities, so it was a bit of a wander until we found a lovely artisanal pizza maker, hole-in-the wall take-out, with the BEST pizza i've had. my first piece featured tomatoes that redined my conception of good tomatoes.... my second (mandatory after the goodness of the first) was zucchini flower, tomatoes, and unexpectedly acceptable sardines (i had thought it was tuna) i don't know if globs of cheese are going to be able to define good pizza for me anymore after these craftily balenced affairs....

Out of order Mardi Gras....

this is Saturday in Tivoli after Hadrian's Villa - we ran right into the middle of their Mardi Gras Parade - the family one.... legions of female gladiator-dancers, a tribe of american indians, rather scary loud floats like this one, LOTS of confetti - i had three huge handfuls poured on me (Tony's count? zero....) ha and i was pulling confetti out of all my clothes and hair for a few days, don't quite understand how... just fun though, and cool to see a holiday in a non-touristy town.

we went to the stodgy Piazza Nuevo for a wonderful Italian supper once back in Rome...
heavenly 'salad' of a dollop of REAL mozzerella cheese and surrounding tomatoes.... pasta, wine, fantastic discrete service, all outdoors on beautifully appointed tables under welcoming heat lamps... mm could handle life like that a little more often.... 

Sant'Ivo

here shown reflected in Tony's way-too-cool ray bans.... decent portrait of him too, if he beats me up for posting it, i'll take it down... going into the church was an experience, we had been teased with the exterior twice already, an elaborate disguised dome with an unusual spiral leading up to the summit. the interior drew eyes upward more effectively then any other church i'd been in, an unusually geometry and proportion helped, and the brilliance of the white plaster, personally overseen by Borromini, and shown unfortunately flat in the last picture. hmm just deliciously engaging, personable, grandiose in the best possible way... and for some reason open for only 3 hours a week, i'm glad we took the effort to get there.
Randy got to impart some appreciated philosophy to the two of us, and a few more sites he had found important as a student and teacher in Rome - he really did feel a lot more certain there. 

Sun 26 Feb 2006

traumatized in the early morning by a snoring monstrosity (hostels are not always fun), i woke up early and got some decent writing time in before taking off into the healingly beautiful day.... mmm... destination was to be Sant'Ivo, got a tad distracted... beautiful days in Rome are to be treasured, indeed... to the spanish steps, one particularly long street on the way dipped way down and up a hill, imagined we were walking towards the ocean, and it was convincing for a bit... wierd... cool anyway.... spanish steps weren't too special, my comment was on the unfortunate reality that someone has to design steps like these and at some level everyone hates them.... the father-o-Bernini fountain everyone loves at the bottom was closed - shrug. too early for people on a sunday morning anyway.

Walked along the Corso and shopping district surrounding, decided maybe it was worth a look later, wandered into the Pantheon again, although we had gotten to see rain falling into the building before (the oculus is still open, they just roped off the raining section), it really came to life with the sun shining in. Hesitant retracing of steps got us to Sant'Ivo just in time for mass. We had agreed to meet up with Randy there, so he took us out to coffee in the blissfully sunny Piazza Farnese.... 

a just-ink sketch finally again...

lots going on that day, hmmm more musings later i think, just wanted to post this sketch too, part of a dome - there were very fun tunnels running right underneath it, and a view down that wall into gardens, behind where i'm sketching would have been a gymnasium-sized field of fountains with a borromini-complex structure on the other side.... the ink washed sketch earlier is of the baths from a hill overlooking. 

haven't been this crazy about bricks since second year....

hadrian's villa was the imperial estate for hadrian... would bring his court out here to dine them at the foot of artificial waterfalls, invite them to lounge in the enormous baths, look at the stars in his observatory with an amazing overlook of the area, have court, be impressed. apparently he also designed a good deal of the complex and it got built with enough speed that he also got to enjoy the usage of it... cool guy, seemingly. baths and fountains and more fountains and hospitals and libraries and fire brigades.... everything was out there... 

Sat 25 Feb 2006 - Hadrian's Villa!

another long bus ride out to another suburb - this time Tivoli to see Hadrian's Villa - AMAZING day.... HUGE complex of ruins, quite reasonably intact for being absolutely ancient.... took us about 3 hours to walk around the whole place, then another 2-3 hours to satisfy our sketchbooks, great weather, amazing things to look at.... they really knew how to make things beautiful and long-lasting back then - i do wonder how their facades looked, there's all these marble-holding holes, wonder if they were as gaudy then as they are stoic and ruined now.... 

Coliseum....

after walk we wandered to the Fountains of Trevi, just big, tourist attraction, wow am i jaded or what? the fountains at the end of the aquaducts we had seen on wednesday and friday had been a little cooler though, mainly because of the context - these were more elaborately and less formally sculpted, kind of fun.... then to the real tourist attractions, the Coliseum and Palatine. The coliseum was quite anti-climactic, had a pretty good idea from the outside, and hazaardous tourists were flocking... goo.... amazingly preserved though. would have been nice to know what exactly was old and what was reconstruction... when the Fascists were in charge, they were very much about preserving the ruins and selectively rebuilding parts to give a better idea of the original, not a bad thing but a little distracting to not know. Huge crosses in the Coliseum were rather jarring... a site of martyrdom is not necessarily a good thing....

I thought the Palatine was quite a bit cooler in evoking old-stuff feeling (ha)... the original palace, Palatine was the name of the hill the imperial complex was built into, and the root word for all palaces, palazzos, etc since. pretty cool. a lot of preserved walls, chambers, indecipherable patterns of walls and tunnels and gardens and stadiums - huge complex.

The arches and building blocks still remaining were astounding - the evoked so much cgood architecture of the present day.... and all still standing, 2000 years later... significant amounts of thought on the subject, might get it down someday....

B, B, and B..... Fri 24 Feb 2006

Friday morning was our last walk as a class in Rome with Jeffery again, very good this time on the chapels of Borromini and Bernini, the two rival architects of the Baroque period. Some general walking around first though, to the former Baths of Diocletian - now converted to a very unconvincing church... the scale was just wrong, and the plan was non-traditional in a very unplanned way. it felt a lot like the church shoved into the old roller rink in alex, or any of the pole barn megachurches. ick... although this one was a little more traditionally decorated... and had 6 foot diameter monolithic columns... still not a convincing place of worship, too much memory of secular romans or something.

Next saw Santa Maria della Vittorio, the church housing the extasy of St. Teresa, famous Bernini sculpture... quite effective, lots of tourists..... Next San Carlo della Quatto Fontane - a Boromini chapel for spanish nuns I remembered quite well from history... it was genuinely amazing. decorations thought out and thoughtfully and discretely applied, a complex spacial arrangement that kept your eyes spinning up and down and around constantly - beutiful. the basement and side chapel were also nice....

Bernini's San Andrea church down the street also had a lot of Baroque complexity... in a little more obvious form, lots of colored marble, a stage-like presense of sculptures at all levels and paintings, oval in the wierd direction... it was impressive, a little gaudy.

I was happy I liked Boromini better then Bernini... Borromini had been the tortured melancholy reclusive artist who came out of hiding to do these few outrageously beautiful and simple chapels, Bernini was well connected (although fanatical, 3 years drawing 12 hours straight every day....) sculptor's sun, best friend of a few popes.... shrug rooting for the identifyable underdog - Borromini's stuff was spatially much more exciting though.

a sigh of relief for a modern church.....

hmm i've posted this twice and had it deleted twice en route from picasso to blogger... so this is abbreviated, and a little irritated i guess....

after churchy stuff we took a long stressful (for me the navigator) bus ride out to the richard meier chapel, Dives en Misericordia. it was beautiful white concrete, stunning even in the bleak rain, very reverent and equally as effective as a cathedral as others i've seen. really seemed to emphasize purity and contemplation rather then self-flattening awe, healthy i think, much more modern...

walk back was cool, we decided to hike back to a church on the bus route - on foot a great deal longer then appeared on the bus, but a fun walk all the same. on one side a crazy busy italian highway, on the other an fallow rural field with the ruins of a roman aquaduct poking out, all experience on the dark half of dusk - fantastic.

other church ended up being a bust, but we sprinted and caught the next bus and got out of the pounding rain. supper with tom and guillermo, nice to talk with others in our group, at another below-grade trattoria, Excellent food this time. WILL learn how to make spaghetti alla carbonara, although the cheese won't be as good and i don't think our ham is as deliciously spicy.