Frankfurt seems like a nice place...

Lufthansa overbooked their flight out of here so I decided to stay over one night and am rebooked tomorrow. Should pay for a replacement computer screen!

Reviews were interesting. My project turned out really well I thought... but it was a very modern building in a very traditional context and the visiting reviewers didn't like that at all. They did have some useful comments but a good deal of the vibe was `we just don't like that concept'. Where I was feeling like, 'it looks beautiful right there!' So I don't really know if it was a good review or a bad one. But I certainly sparked a lot of discussion and I was certainly the most experimental and unique of the designs. Which I was striving for as well. So I feel like I succeeded in many ways. I'm trying to bring home the model... we'll see if it makes it. It is a very solid little thing so I am hoping it will.

Looking forward to getting home!

- B -

Model finally done...

It took me several days to finish off my museum model instead of the 1 or 2 I'd hoped for. I ended up building a pretty spectacular model though, very nicely crafted and the form looks great when placed in the site model. It seemed like making a good model was a more effective way to explain the building structure rather than trying to do it through drawings and a crumby model.
So now I have a day and a half to generate a whole lot of drawings...

- B -

Why I have to come home...

This is the email I received from Emily today...

> Hi dad,

> cant wate intil you come back

> -Em-

Things are heating up...

The weather suddenly switched here from the cool rainy spring we'd been having to the hot summer we we're supposed to be having. Suddenly we are in the 90s and it doesn't cool down much at night either.

I like the warm outdoors, and inside the buildings it stays pretty cool. There have been a couple of negative incidents though. Because it is so hot I've been keeping the windows open at night in my room, they are casement style windows hinged on the sides and open inward right over my bed. So the night before last I sat up and rammed my forehead right into the corner of one of these stupid windows. Guess I won't open that one any more.

Then today I set off to take some sheets and towels to a laundry they asked us to do before we left. The Italian prof had read us the address as 46/50, meaning that it is a long shop between numbers 46 and 50. But I'd written down 650 and started hiking off to this remote address in the countryside. The addresses here don't increment every block like they do at home. I have no idea where 650 actually is... I gave up and turned around when I'd reached the city limits and was only at 400. Of course the walk back was all uphill and hot hot hot... phew!

- Brian -

So much for Italian Soccer...

Italy lost to Spain last night and so are out of the finals. But it was fun while it lasted. I've started on a final model of my project and it is looking very good. Was planning to do more drawings first but Prof Don wasn't ready to believe that everything would fit together nicely until I built a model to show him. Which is fine. I'm hoping to work late tonight so as to get the model finished. Unfortunately we have to spend quite a while this evening doing a review for the Town Form class as well. Which would be okay under normal circumstances but right now no one wants to spend time doing it. Also tomorrow morning I have a final in the Italian class that I need to review for tonight. About half the group changed their grading options to audit a couple weeks back and then promptly quit coming. I've stuck with it but am taking it pass fail so am not really worried about the test. Just has to be done.

- B -

Italian Soccer

The big deal here in Italy these days is soccer. The world cup is happening and Italy just squeaked into the finals. They played France last Tuesday night and won 2-0. Although the game wasn't very good. Winning was critical, however, as the loser of the game was to be eliminated from the tournament. The same evening Holland beat Romania which was also critical. Somehow the elimination process worked such that, because Holland had won against France and Italy previously, if they'd lost to Romania then both Italy and France would have been eliminated. In fact, the locals were worried that Holland would lose the game on purpose just to do in France and Italy.

We were on the way back from Venice on the bus that evening and pulled into a truck stop to eat dinner and watch the game. Along with every other trucker on the highway it looked like. The truck stop was jammed with parked rigs. Tonight Italy plays Spain and we've been told that working in studio late is simply not allowed...

- B -

Project progress...

Just a quick note to say that I've been working hard on my museum project. It changed quite a lot since the last review and I'm feeling very good about it. Here are a few photos of a quick sketch model I built to see how it would feel. For space reasons I had to straighten up the exterior walls and then I decided to make the light openings vertical instead of horizontal and carry them across the roof.
I've done a lot of work tweaking the organization of the spaces... there is a ramp down the outside curve of the museum which has to be handicap accessible. Which means a maximum slope of 1:12 and a flat landing space every 0.7 meter drop. I carefully lined up the landings such that the structural beams run right through them so that the ramp doesn't conflict with the building structure. Its pretty slick.

You will also notice the use of pizza boxes for materials. Modeling materials are hard to come by here in Macerata. As are a variety of other useful materials. Such as trace paper which is at a premium here these days.

- B -

And if cats were not enough...

Last week a colony of bees swarmed over our building and took up residence in one of the holes in the church facade across the street. When they built these churches the masons would stick wooden beams into the wall and lay planks across them to serve as scaffolding. When they got done at that height they'd move the scaffolding up to a higher level. Thing is, you can't get back and fill in the holes once you are done. So the facades have these holes all over them. Particularly the brick unfinished facades.

Lots of these churches were started and then they ran out of money before they could put the marble facing on the front of them. So the churches remain unfinished with indented brick fronts where the marble would have attached had they had the money to complete it. This happened a lot... even the fancy churches in Florence were unfinished for hundreds of years. They were only finished when the Italian capital was relocated to Florence in the late 1800s. They decided that the capital city couldn't have all these unfinished churches sitting around.

The funny thing is that this stands in sharp contrast to the palazzos in Venice. There the families were building houses to impress their friends and neighbors so the facades along the Grand Canal were the first things to go up... and *then* they ran out of money and couldn't finish the interiors. The Peggy Gugenheim museum in Venice is in a one-story stone building on the Grand Canal... the first floor of a palazzo that was never finished. This isn't just true in Venice either. Many of the Palladio palazzo for which he is justifiably famous were never finished on the interior.

Anyhow, back to the bees. They decided that they were not happy with the church I guess, and formed a huge swarm under the eaves of the palazzo we have school in. There was this huge ball of buzzing bees over there... about a foot and a half across. The fire department brought a ladder over the other day and they smoked the bees and scooped them up (using a kitchen ladle no less) and put them into a hive box. It is unclear at the moment whether or not they got the queen bee. They left the box for as many of the workers to collect in as they could but yesterday it looked like they might have moved back into the church. But I guess the bee-guy came back today, collected the hive box and said that he thought it had worked. I'm sure he knows. He estimated 60,000 bees. Just so long as they don't end up in our wall along with the cat...

- B -

The cat returns...

Well, after all of that, another kitten showed up stuck in the wall yesterday. There is a pipe in an outside garden that seems to lead into there, but once you are in the kittens are too small to jump back up out of the slot they get down into.

We don't know if it is the same one or not, Ian thinks it is not but I think it probably is. Either way, the landlady locked the door of the room where it was so there is no way to get at it and go through the whole rescue fiasco again.

So now we hear the faint meowing of the kitten all night long...

- Brian -

Cat fights continued...

Well, the saga of the cat continued through the night. I left at 11:15 and found Chris and Jeff drinking beers at the bar around the corner. So I sat and joined them for one as well. They were busy working up their outrage over the cat, the loss of the headlamp, and the landlord's involvement. After joining in for a beer and some bitching, I headed on home while they went back to studio to collect a few things.

So I got home the kitten was totally cute of course. They'd gotten it cleaned up, fed it some food and it was happily camped out on Ian's chest. So I got some dinner and headed for bed. Was surprised that Jeff and Chris had not shown up yet... and sure enough, they'd stopped at another bar on the way home to work themselves up further and finally showed up around 1:00, loaded for bear. They were griped a lot about the cat, and losing the headlamp, and getting the landlady upset. Turns out that she wasn't really all that bent out of shape, she'd just wanted them to stop before they damaged themselves. It was a pretty dangerous little place they were inside.

Long and short of it all is that Ian let the cat go the next morning. I'm sure it did fine. I'm glad that I stayed out of the whole fray and it has left some touchy feelings between the rest of my roommates. But everybody is tired and has been working long hours. The good news is that we'll be going home in a couple weeks! We had reviews today, leave on a bus for Verona at 5:30am tomorrow morning, will be there for a day, in Vicenzia for a day, and in Venice for two. Then back here on Tuesday (getting in about 1:00am Wed morning). Have a couple of final exams (Italian and History) end of next week. The next Monday we have a final in Town Form, and a paper due as well. Then that Friday we have the final review for our studio project. Saturday we have a potluck, Sunday I go to Milan, and Monday the 1st fly home!

Whew!

- B -

Cat stories

A few weeks back I came home very late... like 2am, after having worked most of the night in the studio prior to midterm presentations. When I got to the apartment building, and opened the door, there were several people inside attempting to get a cat out of the stairwell. The cat was having nothing to do with leaving, she was camped. The three Italians (our neighbor and a married couple who I think were visiting her) were shouting at each other (I can never figure out when they are actually having a *real* argument versus a polite conversation). They were afraid the cat was rabid... it certainly had sharp claws. I didn't think it was rabid but it had been acting pretty weird I guess, leaping up at our apartment door and of course being completely unwilling to leave. I tried to help but we finally all gave up, left the outside door open and went to bed.

Well, over the weekend I started hearing this mewing sound. I thought it was outside but came to realize that it was a cat trapped somewhere in the building. I opened the door next our apartment entrance in the stairwell and found an old furnace room with no lights, lots of dirt and clearly could hear the cat mewing in there somewhere. I used my bicycle headlamp to try to peer around but could not see anything. And the floor of the room dropped down into a pit from the door about 4 feet. It was a mess.

I looked in later and found the cat, same one as before in the hallway. She was up on a ledge to the side of the room, in an opening in the wall right next to the ceiling. There were holes back into the wall from there. And I soon suspected that it was a she and that there were kittens in there somewhere. That explained her behavior and refusal to leave before.

There was no way to get her to come down and out, I tried to put a board in that she could climb down on but that was about the extent of it.

Enter my roommates. Or one roommate in particular, Ian. He got in there with a ladder and up to the opening in the wall. Discovered that behind the wall was an opening that dropped down about 5 or 6 feet. The mom cat was long gone now, but there was one kitten stuck at the bottom of this well. And of course there was no way to reach it. Ian tried to get it out but finally gave up and came on in to studio.

At the end of studio, at 7:00, Ian and Mark headed off to attempt to rescue the cat again. They were planning to drop something down in that the cat could climb up. Apparently the cat is in pretty bad shape at this point. I decided to delay going home for dinner because this clearly isn't something I want to be more involved in. My other roommates Jeff and Chris are still here, although Chris takes off pretty quickly to get food. Jeff disappears a little later.

Chris returns at 9ish, completely ticked off. He'd been roped into helping as I feared. The landlady, who lives upstairs, had come down for a bit. The neighbor had come out. The landlady starts yelling at Chris for them to stop messing around in there (Basta! "Enough!") Of course all in Italian so Chris can't understand her but it appears to have to do with the piping in the room getting messed up. Ian and Mark wouldn't give up ("We've almost got it!"). Chris bales and comes back to studio.

Jeff returns at 9:30, totally pissed. They had been using his headlamp light (without having asked him) to look into the hole and had dropped it down there. So that's gone. But they had gotten the kitten out, it is on it's last legs and stinks. Angelica, the wife of the Italian prof who hosts us here and arranges the housing was there, so the landlady must have called to complain. They are attempting to feed the cat. Chris and Jeff head off after a bit, I don't know whether they went back to the apartment to attempt to deal with all of this or what.

Now at 10:30, Mark comes back in. Totally filthy. Says we have a new roommate kitten. I'm still working here in studio. But I can't hide here much longer because they'll shut the power off in another half hour. Plus I'm getting hungry.

Just I hope they didn't find my bike lamp and drop it down the hole as well!

I'm sure there will be a follow up post on this...

- B -

A visit to Shangri-La

Okay, here is the posting that I've been waiting to get to. This is where I biked through after Rome and one of the unknown places in Italy that I most highly recommend visiting: The Sibillini Mountains. Part of the mountain chain that divides Italy East and West, The Sibillini's are named after a Roman goddess and contained in a national park on the west edge of the Marche region. Northeast of Rome and Southeast of Assisi.

The mountains are great for hiking, mountain biking, parasailing, skiing in the winter, lots of Italians doing lots of outdoors things. The high peaks form a circle surrounding two flat plains at about 1200m, the Piano Grande and the Piano Poco. On the edge of the Piano Grande sits the town of Castelluccio on a hilltop at about 1400m.

I started my trip from Rome, taking the train to Spoletto. My goal was to reach the town of Norcia which is at the base of the mountains on the West side. I had not wanted to pack my bike between Siena and Norcia... just because I was lazy. So I made up for that laziness with the extra work involved in finding second class trains on which I could take the bike. Which was fine.
After arriving in Spoletto, I anxiously waited around for a couple of hours for the bus... I left Rome at 4:00, arrived in Spoletto around 5:30, and the bus to Norcia left at 8:00. While sitting next to the station, I glanced over and finally noticed this huge metal sculpture standing in the center of the roundabout in front of the station. Had to be a Calder! Sure enough, I found his signature. Which was pretty cool, he's one of my favorite artists and I'd run across him in Finland as well. He and Alvar Aalto used to hang out together.

I was anxious because I was not sure the bus driver would let me put my bike underneath and, if he didn't, I was going to be stuck in Spoletto for the night. Which was *really* going to pay me back for not packing the bike. But he did, and I did, all of which was good because there were long tunnels through the mountains leading to Norcia and I could not have ridden through them.


Okay, so now we are on our way up to Norcia with just a few people on the bus. There are some college students with backpacks and I ask them if they know how to find the hostel, which I'd looked up the web and which had looked very nice. They say, "yes, we know where it is, but we are a group of geography students having a meeting there this weekend and we've booked the entire place!" Durn! This is going to cost me a hotel in Norcia!

So I arrive in Norcia about 9:00pm, just gotten dark. Norcia is a pretty town, a ski town. It reminded me of a small Aspen or something. It is a hill town... there are walls and all. But it clearly has a much better economy going than most of the Marche towns. I don't know where I am going but hear some voices down one street and so wander down that way. Turns out it is the hostel, and indeed filled with about 30 geography students from all over Europe. I stop in and ask if they know of an inexpensive hotel to recommend, but none of them are local. But they are really nice and end up inviting me to stay over anyhow, they have about three empty beds left over. So I stay, have dinner, buy a tee-shirt from their group. Have a great time visiting.

In the morning I head up. Norcia is at about 600m elevation, the pass I have to cross is at 1500 and about 20km away. It was a long slog climbing all the way up there. Campers and motorcycles. But a beautiful day and the road was not so steep as to be awful. Just a long long climb.

You finally reach the pass, with mountains on both sides of you. No trees up here. Just grass and rocks and sky. There was a restaurant near the pass which I stopped at to have a coffee and buy some more water as I was out. Three mountain bikers there with some sort of electric assist on their mountain bikes! (I kind of thought that was cheating). They took pictures of my bike and trailer. It was nice to be the object of the photos for once.

Once you cross the pass you look down about 300m to the flat Piano Grande, and about 5km away to the town of Castelluccio on the other end. It is completely spectacular. Sort of coming down into Death Valley but green. And the mountains all around are beautiful. From the pass you blast down the hill and out across the valley floor. And after an easy ride across, climb back up to the town at the end.
Castelluccio is a very small town. I got in pretty early in the day as the ride was not long in km. Just long in hills. I got cleaned up and took a break, wandered around town for a while, and then sat and started trying to do a watercolor painting of the town. Something I don't do enough of and I'm really jealous of the other folks here who do a lot more of that. I'm still finishing the painting... will post it when I'm done.

There are three rooming houses and lots of folk hanging out. I was pretty lucky to get a room as we'd had so little time to make arrangements that I had not gotten a reservation ahead of time. Think I got one of the last available rooms. The three rooming houses also have restaurants. The worst thing about traveling alone in Europe is that when you go out to eat they always give you the lousiest table as far away from the windows as possible.

The first restaurant was crammed (Sunday night with locals just out of the church I think). They offered to let me sit by myself outside but it was too cold. (Food looked great and otherwise I would have taken them up on it).

The second restaurant was about half full with a nice dining area. They took me into a side room with about a half dozen tables and nobody in it, set up a new tiny table against the back wall (had to kick one of the owner's kids out who was sitting there coloring) and offered that. I said no thanks.

The third restaurant finally gave me a table in the main dining area, with other people. Still at the back wall and the couple who showed up a few minutes later got to take a 4 seat table next to the windows. But at least I could *see* the windows from where I was! Food was great, I was tired, went to bed.

The next day I was planning to make it about half way back to Macerata. But I was unsure about how far I could actually cover in a day. Not only was I a bit inexperienced about distance with my trailer, but also not knowing the route, conditions, hills, etc. But it was great fun blasting down out of the mountains. The road was smooth and well paved. Then I started heading north along the edge of the mountains. Since the river valleys in the Marche run west to east, going north involves crossing the river valleys and the ridges in between them so there were a lot of ups and downs. When I got to the town I had intended to stay at, it was still only around noon. I had lunch and set my sights on another town a ways further. Which I made it to around 5:00. Sarnana. A nice town. But again I don't know where to stay and I'm getting tired of traveling (not to mention my grubby clothing), and I realize that if I make it over just one more ridge I'm in the Fiastra river valley which I can follow down to just below Macerata. So I did. Flew down the last 40km or so and doing about 100km for the day. Made it home at about 8:00 and was happy to be there. A truly great 2 days of biking. You can see more pictures here...

- B -

Siena

After two days in Florence, I biked with the trailer about 45 miles to Siena. It was a pretty ride through the Chianti wine region with cute small towns and lots of scenery. The day was hazy and grey, however, humid, so the picture taking wasn't really worth stopping much for. Especially as I could not leave Florence until about 2:30 and needed to get to Siena before dark. Which I did... barely!

This first photo is my first view of Siena. It is much easier to find your way into a town than out of one...because they stick these big towers up in the middle to show you where to go!

The main piazza in Siena is called the "Campo", it is huge and a really fun space. It is sloped towards the center so it is easy to sit and picnic on it. There are pictures here of the iconic Siena tower on the Campo, people wandering about, Archtecture students hard at work, and what it looks like when you lay on your back in the Campo and look up. Those are swifts, not stars. Tons of swifts darting about all over the place here.

Cheers!

- B -

Florence

The first stop on our travels after midterm was Florence. I had been here once before in the early 90s and have to say that I enjoyed it a lot more this time. They seem to have gotten some of the traffic under control in the core area. And it helped to have acclimatized to Italy a bit before joining into the tourist frenzy. The people in Florence are not terribly friendly... they're just sick of dealing with tourists. Everybody speaks English even when you attempt your marginal Italian. And when you go out to a restaurant you are more likely to find it full of American university students than Italians. There are tons of study abroad programs from the US based in Florence. I'm not sure this is a good thing.

But the architecture is amazing. I found drawing frustrating because I was having trouble getting perspectives to work for me. My notebook is full of attempts to figure out how to construct a hexagonal dome base in flat perspective. But along with a lot of lovely pictures I've thrown in a few drawings here...

Ciao!

- B -

ps- I should add that there was a lot of architecture by Brunelleschi in Florence (like the humongo dome for example) and he also developed one-point perspective during the Renaissance... so I felt good about practicing perspective drawing on his architecture! :^)

Midterm

I'm finally getting a few items posted that I've been promising to do over the last couple weeks. The first is my midterm presentation. We are attempting to design an art museum to house a modern art collection from here in Macerata. The site is an existing piazza near our studios, historic, but with a pretty awful looking bank building from the 80s. We are replacing the bank.

My approach is much more aggressively modern than anyone else's here. Which I am rather pleased with. I am basing my design on the Kiasma Art Museum in Helsinki which I liked a lot from last summer. So what I have is a rectilinear "L-shaped" building combined with a curved building that connects back to form a circular space surrounding a small courtyard.

At the midterm my idea was that the curved wall would have horizontal bands of skylights along it to bring light into the galleries. But based on the feedback I got I am currently thinking I will instead use vertical bands of walls cascading down the side of the building with gaps for light in between. Also, the way I cut the curve off and formed an arch on the piazza end looked way too "church like". So I need to change the way the wall curves around the front. Unfortunately I don't know quite how to draw it yet!! In any case, here are some additional images that I presented. My drawing of a modern art statue out front looks a bit pregnant I'm afraid... I'm calling it the "Macerata Venus".

More photos here...

Back in Macerata...

The bike ride turned out great! I actually made it home Sunday night so that I had Monday free. (Was tired and badly in need of a laundry! (Both for me and my clothes!!)). I'll post photos and such as soon as I can. Would have done so yesterday but the internet here was down and it was yet another Italian holiday so there was no one around the school who could reset it. (In addition to having the power shut off at 11:20 each night, our internet rarely makes it through the entire weekend without crashing... needless to say, this is somewhat frustrating when we are all supposed to be in touch with the department in order to preference terminal studios for next year...)

- B -

Quick note from Rome...

Well, Rome is a frenzy as per usual. I'll be glad to get out of here. Which I do in about an hour. Have a train ticket to Spoletto which is as close as I can get to Norcia... my planned jumping off point for riding in the Sibillinis. Have to figure out a bus to Norcia when I get to Spoletto.

Wish me luck! (And good weather!)

- B -

Hello from Siena...

Hello all!

Well, we spent two nights in Florence, racing around to see all the good architecture and art. Whichwas fun. Florence is way way too busy though. Too many American college students there... feltlike I was attending a sorority party! And the locals are so tired of tourists. They are not particularly friendly and don't even bother with your attempts to speak Italian.

I had made reservations at a hotel in Siena... wanted to ride my bike there but they wanted me to arrive by 7:00. And we were getting let loose from the Uffizi Art museum at 1:00 so I knew I couldn't make it. 60+ km and hills. So I was going to take the train down instead but on walking back from the art museum to the motel I decided to go anyway. I had a cell phone that I share with a roommate, so when it got close to 7:00 and I was still quite a ways out I called, told them I was late and they were fine. So I blew through the Chianti wine country as fast as I could on bike with my little suitcase trailer behind! It was fun, though hard. I wish that I'd found someplace to stay in the middle of the Chianti area and then come on into Siena today, live and learn. But Siena is a great place. The main square, 'piazza del campo' is a big brick square where you can hang out and eat pizza and enjoy the sunshine. The people are friendly, there are lots of tourists but they are not all going to college in the US, and the locals are perfectly willing to talk to me in Italian that understand about every 10th word of.

Tomorrow we head for Rome (many of my classmates are here as well) and spend three nights there. Afterward I am planning to get to a town called Norca somehow (I was planning on the train but hear it does not go there) then will bike through the Sibillini Mts back to Macerata. There is a brutal climb on the first day (1000 meters up!) but after that I should be okay. We will see. Will post photos and drawings when I get back to Macerata.

Cheers!

- B -

Typical Schedule...

Somebody was asking me how often I had Italian class, so I thought I'd describe a little bit of our schedule.

We start at 9:00am, Mondays with the Town Form class. This class, taught by Jenny Young from Eugene, focuses on the development of the hill towns, why they were such great structures for living and what difficulties they face today. (Cars is the big one... little streets with no parking and people driving through them as fast as they can go... pedestrians get out of the way!). After a couple of hours discussion and looking at drawings we've done (we're supposed to do 5 sketches per week and then there are a bunch of sketches assigned on the field trips), we generally walk to somewhere in town and visit.

Tuesdays and Thursdays we have Italian from 9-11 and Architecture History from 11-1. Italian is a lot of fun, Architecture History is good but a little dry and by 1:00 I'm falling asleep badly.

We break from 1-3 for lunch (most of the shops are closed and the Italians at home during this time as well... so you can't buy groceries for instance). Then from 3-7 we have studio.

Fridays we take field trips. Wednesday mornings we sometimes have free. Weekends are generally free, I try to work in studio one day and get a bike ride in the other... although last weekend I just worked because of midterms... which I have to go off and take notes for a review now!

- B -

- B -

The Big Prune...

Historically, Macerata is known as "The Big Prune". I am unsure why. But then, I'm not sure why NYC is "The Big Apple" either. There is even a song about it... comparing Macerata favorably to London and Paris (I think... the song is in Italian).

Anyhow, if you ever wanted to travel to The Big Prune, now you can.

- B -

Busy busy busy...

This week is midterm week. Tomorrow (Thur) we are supposed to present our projects, so have been working hard. Then on Friday we leave for Florence for three nights. Following which we have a couple of nights free, then are in Rome for 3(?) nights and finally have three more nights free before starting classes in Macerata again a week from Tuesday.

Anyhow, updates will be spotty until then...

I'm thinking I'll do some biking during the free days while away, will try to post my plans and some midterm images tomorrow...

- B -

Language Lessons IV: English Slang

Turns out that you learn some new English terms when hanging out with a bunch of college students as well. In particular, the words "dope" and "tight" mean "very cool". As in, "Man, that is a dope chair!". Or "Wow, Urbino is SO tight".

- B -

Field Trip III: Urbino

Urbino is one of the northernmost cities in the Marche, and one of the birthplaces of the Renaissance. The main man there was Duke Frederico. He made lots of money as a mercenary general, fighting for whomever paid the most that particular day. On his coat of arms there was a jellyfish, because his tactics were to sting and run away.

Frederico built a huge palazzo, mostly for advertizing his abilities as a general. Every room had a statue of him or coats of arms or little relief figures of the various awards given to him. Notice the hooked nose? Apparently he lost an eye during a joust with some of his folks at home, and had the nose altered so that his vision would not be so obstructed on the bad eye's side. As macho as they come.

In addition to visiting the palazzo we visited two modern buildings by an Italian architect Giancarlo de Carlo. These were interesting because they used historical buildings but put modern university buildings inside of them

What was extra fun about visiting yesterday was that the Mille Migglia, or 1000 Miles car rally was going through town as well. All day long these beautiful racing cars from the 20s through... I don't know, the 70s? Newer? Anyhow the most amazing to me were the cars from the 20s. Beautiful old cars with amazing engines... these did not sound like Model Ts.

Language lessons III: Carta vs Cartina

Somebody (one of the other students) told me that "cartina" was "map", and that you could find good maps in the bookstores. So I went from bookstore to bookstore up the street from here asking for cartinas and being directed further down the street. Turns out that "cartina" is "postcard" and "carta" is map. So I went back to the first store and found exactly what I wanted, which were some good maps to help with the bicycling.

- B -

In case you wondered...

...I really *am* working here. Today I finally sat down an scanned in a bunch of the work from my sketchbook so far... Take a look at the drawings here!

- B -

More language lessons: Cane versus Carne...

The other day I was attempting to converse with an elderly Italian lady in our study town, Civitanova Alta. There was a little dog running about and I was attempting to ask her what the dog's name was... unfortunately I mixed up "Carne", which is "meat", with "Cane", which is dog. So I guess what I was asking is "what is this meat's name?" Which did seem to cause her confusion...

- B -

Yet another bike ride...

Saturday I was a slug. But Sunday I got out and rode off into the hills again. Except this time I went West instead of East and so found bigger hills. I was going to head for a town near the mountains called San Ginesio but it was so hazy in that direction I figured it wasn't the right day to make that effort. So I turned North and started following some random bike route signs out in the country. Ended up at an old Abbey, had some lunch, went up to the very nice (small) town of Tréia, and from there decided that I could make it over to the town of Cingoli. Only problem was that Cingoli was on top of a really big hill. I mean, most of the towns I've been visiting are a couple hundred meters up. Cingoli was 600m up!

I could see a smaller road on the map leading up there, so I turned up on to where I thought it should be. Things were looking good when I made a wrong turn (or maybe a right one) into a little cul-de-sac. There was a guy working on his car there and I asked if I was going the right way. He tries to point me back down the hill and around, and I'm trying to point up the hill, and finally he points that way and goes "Si, si, Cingoli..." but "bruté, bruté"! I decided that "bruté" was not what I needed and went back down and around. Just as well, the regular road was bruté enough for me.

Not too many photos from this day... you've seen one hill town you've seen them all right? I did get into the middle of one square right after church was letting out and the town was celebrating first communion for all the young people. Really neat. Had several Italians engage me in conversation about my crazy bike (at least I think that was what they were talking about), and one man (82?) tell me all about the war and working in Germany and France and... fixing doors was it? A mix of English, Italian and French seems to be working pretty well for me. And it is fun to get out away from the crowd so that people want to visit.

Just a few more pictures here...

- B -

Ascoli Piceno ps...

I forgot to mention that Ascoli Piceno is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I have only had the opportunity to visit two of these so far, Ascoli and Suomenlinna Island near Helsiniki. They were both amazing places and I like that there is this program calling for their preservation. Apparently 70% of the World Heritage Sites are here in Italy. Click for UNESCO...

- B -

Field Trip II: Ascoli Piceno

Today we spent at a city in the southern Marche region, a rival to Macerata, called Ascoli Piceno. It was a truly beautiful city. Tons to churches, I think there were 26 total listed on the map. And it was a lot closer to the Sibillini Mountains with nice views. It was not a hill town, instead was built in the junction of two deep river ravines and used those for defense instead. Which of course was an economic boon for the city in the old days as well, since they didn't have to devote money and time to building and rebuilding walls.

The other cool thing about Ascoli Piceno were the towers... it used to be that the rich type folks built tall, square stone towers on their houses to keep their valuables hidden away in. The original towers had wooden staircases wrapping around the exterior, which have been removed now. There are only a few left. Since the staircases have been removed it seems they probably can't even get up into them now. They're very tall... something like 6 or 8 stories tall? Neat stuff.

So, put Ascoli Piceno on your list of good places to visit in Italy... More photos here!

- B -

Language Lessons...

Italian has to be the only language where one of the first things the teach you is how to ask if somebody has a cigarette. "Hai una sigarette?" It is important not to ask "Hai una fuma?" because apparently that is slang for marijuana. If French is the language of love, apparently Italian is that of cigarettes.

- B -

Traffic...

Hey there Bloggetts!

only one here with a bike. Anyhow, it was good, we did well. At the end of the day we were sitting in a little park at the edge ofToday was spent wandering about and mapping details of our project town, Civitanova Alta. This is the one I rode the bike to last weekend. Today we went back by bus, however, seeing as I'm the town waiting for the bus to come by and I wanted to share the traffic at the intersection there...

Now, there were 6 ways into this intersection, 4 main paths and 2 lesser ones. One came from Macerata straight at the town and across the intersection turned into a local main street. To the right there was a major road leading down around the city to the larger city below on the coast. To the left there was a tight U-turn back to a local street, and then an oblique left onto another main road leading down and around the city in the other direction. Finally, past the main right turn there was access to the city parking lot... with a little wedge shaped gas station crammed in between.

The only traffic control at this intersection was that there was a yield on the local street coming in from that first left. Everything else was wide open. So cars, trucks, buses, tractors, pedestrians, everybody, just came flying in from their respective streets and sort of pushed their way through to the street they were after. I started photographing some of this but then the bus came... and it was a good thing I was taking photos because the other two guys were drawing and wouldn't have noticed the bus if they'd been standing in the middle of all this!

Ciao!

- Brian -

Bike Trip #1

Well the bike got unpacked and taken for a ride on Saturday! I rode from Macerata out to the coast, to a town named Civitanova Marche. The "Marche" part, by the way, is related to the time of Charlemagne and the second Roman Empire. This region "Marked" the northern extent of the Empire at one point or another.

Anyhow, the bike ride was great. I crossed over to a ridge to the North of Macerata, then rode east along the ridgetop through three hill towns on the way. Morrovalle was particularly lovely. The last of the three, Civitanova Alta stands above Civitanova Marche near the ocean. A study group I am in will be studying this town for our town form class starting this week. So it was nice to have the chance to visit there ahead of time.

After Civitanova Alta I had to drop down to Civitanova Marche and dip my wheel into the ocean. Its actually a little difficult to get to the ocean! First, the beaches are public but the access to them is not. You have to cut through one of the little private restaurants or hotels that line the road. The beach itself is rocky, not sandy. And the traffic in Civitanova Marche was hellish. I finally decided that I had to act like a motorcycle. Just make sure they see you and go for it. As long as you move they put up with it.

So I dipped my wheel in the Adriatic and headed back for home. I came home along a road in the valley, nice because no hills but much busier than the ride out. And when I got back I still had to climb the hill up to Macerata anyhow. Which was tough at the end of the day!

One final stop along the way was at one of the churches we visited the day before... I'd lost a drawing pencil that I was hoping to find there but didn't. I did get a really lovely view of one of the alabaster windows lit up from the western sun however...

But the bike did really well. I had it tuned up in February and it is operating nicely. I'm already planning my next venture! There are more pictures here...

- B -

Jazz & Dinner & Fieldtrip...

Well, there have been few postings being made of late... mainly because I've been busy! We have class 8 hours each day except for on Fridays when we go on an all day field trip. And then of course there is all the outside class work that needs to get done as well. But there has been time for some pure fun too.

Last Tuesday we went to a jazz concert here in Macerata at the Lorro Rossi Theater. This place was great! It is one of those old style theaters before they knew how to build balconies. So there was seating on the floor surrounded by four tiers of box seat rooms. We were on the second tier. Supposedly these were not such great seats (I guess compared to being on the floor) but they were a lot of fun and gave a great view.

The music was a pianist and trumpet player. They did a mellow jazz thing that was really very nice. I was impressed by the way the trumpet player could hold a perfect note out as long as he wanted to. His playing form was funny... he sat on a regular chair and would scrunch his body all tight when doing difficult notes. Seemed like exactly the opposite of what you should do for your diaphragm but he clearly knew more about it than I do.

Wednesday night we went out for dinner at a local trattoria that was excellent. There is not a lot of variety in food here... your choices are basically Italian or pizza. The variety comes in with what kind of restaurant you select... you can buy pizza at a place with a counter and walk away with it, or you can buy pizza at a restaurant where you sit down and enjoy the meal there. Still, the food is great. This restaurant we went to had hand made tagolini with asparagus sauce, then roasted potatoes, chicken and pork chops for the main. Apparently this region is know for pork and tough chicken. They like chicken that tastes like it came from a bird that worked hard pecking up all those seeds. No growth hormones for these folks.

Friday was a field trip. We went to a lovely Romanesque church. These date from around the 1400s, after the first roman empire and a little before the second. Very heavy structures of brick, tall and dark inside. The did not dare to put in very large windows. And they had little or no glass so used thin slabs of alabaster instead. These glow golden when the sun is behind them. Beautiful. From there we visited the ruins of a large roman town, the hill town which exists today above it, and another abbey and church there. I'll see if I can get some photos posted here...

- B -

A scary ascent...

Today we (the class) climbed to the top of the local bell tower. Recently restored and not yet open to the public (read, still dusty). I took some pictures with my little Cannon camera, all I had on me at the time. I don't know how they'll come out, will try to get them onto my computer tonight or tomorrow.

In any case, this bell tower was amazing. Its some 50 meters tall (read 150 feet). Solid brick. The walls at the base are very thick and the stairs crawl up through a tunnel in the brick. Then about half way up things open up. The walls get thinner and the stairs change into new ones installed during the restoration. They are a single I-beam running up the middle with wooden treads mounted to them. Glass side walls and open space between the treads.

So you are in a large, high-ceilinged room inside the tower and the stairs run around the edges a couple of times. Then they leap straight across the open space and up into an opening in the ceiling to the next higher room. The stair structure is pretty flexy. As you walk you feel it bounce a little bit. Totally freaky.

You do this process all over again at the next level up, then arrive at a narrow ledge running around the bells. These are pretty decent sized bells, two of them hooked up to the local clock. We happened to be up there when it struck 12:30... scared the bejeusus out of us. We all grabbed the railing at the first strike... hadn't known it was coming. The walkway is fence and railed securely, but narrow and sloped towards the edge. And very high. A great view. It is a long way down to the pavement below. Little tiny police cars in front of the local carbinari office.

I totally recommend this if you ever come to Macerata. :^)

- Brian -

There! Fixed

Now you can click on the picture in the right hand side bar and go straight to the slide show. Complete with captions. I've got to get some weird stuff about Italy posted... there are plenty of things to choose from!

Cheers-

- B -

Quick update...

Hello all-

Sorry that there haven't been too many posts of late. Internet access here is spotty and my computer screen has gotten much worse. Plus we actually have to work a lot of the time! I mean, what do they think I came to Italy for??? On Tuesdays and Thursdays for example, I have a beginning Italian class for two hours starting at 9:00, then an architecture history class from 11:00 to 1:00. Break until 3:00, then studio work until 7:00. By then I'm starved and head home to eat. But to get to the internet I have to come back to the studio space. So, needless to say, I've not been writing a whole lot.

But am settling in. Today is Saturday, I assembled the bike this morning and then rode around town doing some drawing assignments that we need done for Monday. I'm not too happy with most of them but there are one or two I'm willing to share and will scan on Monday when we get access to the regular computer room again. Evenings and weekends here we only have access to our own machines and a wireless. And thats only until 11:00pm when then shut off the electricity. Apparently that was a real compromise on their part... Italian students go home at 7:00 and stay there. American architecture students like to work until 2:00am. So I guess 11:00pm was a compromise.

And those pictures I posted were supposed to have captions... where the heck did they go?

- Brian -

And on to Macerata...

Did you know that you have to register with the Italian police now to access the internet??  Apparently ever since the bombing in Milan last year they require any internet provider, such as a cafe or hotel, to register who is given access on any given day.  

Which cuts down on the number of wireless hotspots around let me tell you.

I made it on down to Macerata yesterday.  Got off to a rocky start.  Locked myself out of my hotel room.  Got back in, had breakfast, packed up and went on over to the train station.  Wandered around looking for where the machines were where I could get my tickets.  Note that wandering around the trainstation (up and down stairs) is non trivial when you are pulling a suitcase with the bike in it, have something like 50lbs on your back and one more bag in hand which is heavy too.  Too much stuff.  But then I'm going to be here for 2&1/2 months and I had to bring some drafting supplies and all the gear for the bike.  

Anyhow, I find the machines.  I thought that all you needed to do was stick in the credit card you bought the tickets well.  But not so.  You need to punch in the code sequence that was emailed to you.  Which I didn't print out.  But I have a little time left, so I head back to the hotel to pull up the email.  When I get there I discover that I'd actually left my computer behind in the room.  So it was a good thing I came back anyhow.  And then, when I fire up the computer, I discover that the screen has been damaged.  It seems that the new battery that I bought before I left, which was larger and different shaped than the ones I had before, added more stress to the computer frame in the pack while traveling and flexed the lcd display just a little too much.  So now I have a bunch of colored stripey things running down  the middle of my display.  A real bummer. 

But I got the computer, got the code, got the tickets, and still made it to the train with a couple of minutes to spare.  The Italians in my compartment were nice.  Had a nice trip down the coast to Macerata.  Macerata is a lovely little hill town, some 35-40k people.  All out of a sandy colored brick.  Not as fancy as Assisi.  But very nice and comfortable.   Took some nice pictures this morning.  Will post when I can get settled.   We move into our apartments tomorrow, stayed last night and tonight in the local hostel. 

There are some great looking hill towns in biking reach around here.  And I have decided that I liked Cafe Macchiatos very much!

More tomorrow-

     - Brian -

Made it to Milan...

With my bags believe it or not. I was so tired today, kept falling asleep on the airplane from the minute I got on. And of course I had to get a middle seat for the 10 hours from Portland to Frankfurt. I was lucky they put me so far back in the plane that the row was only 7 across instead of the 9s they use farther up front.

But I have to say, those Airbus planes are sure nice, quiet and comfortable. And they even had a decent movie... Juno. I had been wanting to see it but a friend kept saying that they wanted to go too and it never happened. So here I was forced to watch it and it wasn't my fault. The other movie was "National Treasure". I think it is the second. Supposedly we watched the first one on the way home from France in 2005... but fortunately I've forgotten it. Hopefully I'll forget this one too.

Enough of the movie review though. The flights were fine. Everything was on time. Luggage came through in Milan, no problem, bus to the train station in town, no problem. Found hotel and other than I am carrying too much stuff again (because of the bike) all was smooth as clockwork. Got into the hotel around 2:30 and fell asleep. Didn't get out to see Milan this afternoon at all I'm sorry to say. But I was exhausted.

Tomorrow I get onto the train at the station across the street. About 5 hours to Macerata. The central train station here is beautiful. One of the ornate old train sheds. They are restoring it and I bet it will be incredible when they're done.

- B -

Italy or Bust!

You know, I always put off trip planning to the very last minute. I have to be forced into doing the web surfing and making reservations and all that. I think it is because I obsess about getting all the details right... and since I am late in the process reservations are moving quickly. So I find something one place but want to keep looking to see if anything else is just a *little* bit better... and then when I go back, the one I had is gone and everything else is worse. But I have to wait until the last minute, otherwise I'm never forced into making a decision!

Witness my attempting to find a reasonably priced yet decent hotel in Milan for Sunday night when I arrive. Starting the Wednesday before no less. Nothing from a guide book is available. I search and search. Everything is wildly expensive. But I found two good sources of information. There are lots and lots of postings by travelers on Rick Steve's web site. Lots of good yea's and nay's regarding hotels. And they you can find the sites from there. But I'm still in the 130 euro range. Is it just that Milan is too expensive?? Yeah, I think it partly is. It might be partly because Rick Steve's represents a slightly more upscale traveler. IE, the traveler I used to be rather than am currently!

Then I came happened across the Lonely Planet web site. Which of course is a great reference too. And they have a hotel search engine. The reasonable stuff had no availability... but there were a bunch of hotels mentioned that they referred you to a "third party booking agent recommended by Lonely Planet". Which got me to Hotels Made Simple. And that, amazingly enough found lots of hotels, like over a hundred, with availability, and some that were reasonably priced. I think it is one of those meta search engines. It looks at a bunch of search engines and compiles them.

Anyhow, I found a three star near the train station and then googled to see what people said. Reports were good. Price is great. Went to the hotel directly and figured I'd check the pricing there. Price was much higher!?? What the heck is that? I figured that the search engine was just out of date or something and when I attempted to complete the booking it would tell me that it was no longer available or something. (Or maybe I'd actually made a booking for 1908 and not 2008??) But no, it seems to have gone through just fine. I think it will be okay. I think the problem is that the hotel's "home page" is actually a booking agency that adds on. Despite their claim of "cheapest rates guaranteed". I saw the same site format at several Milan hotels. But here is where I'll be staying Sunday night then, at the "Monopole".

So, for those following my travels, Carol is taking me to the airport on Saturday at 9:30. That's early for my actual flight which is at 1 something but I want Erin and Emily to come see me off and this way Erin gets back in time to make it to ballet practice that morning. (Which is good... I wouldn't want seeing me to the airport to interfere with ballet!) Then I go through Frankfurt and arrive around 10:30am at Malapresa airport. There is supposed to be a fast train service from the airport into the central train station, dump the bags at the hotel and wander around Milan for the rest of the day. Then I have a train reservation heading for Macerata on Monday. A long trip, 5 hours, hence my hanging in Milan for a day. And the class group is supposed to be assembly in Macerata at 3:30 that afternoon. Cool! :^)

I'll get some links and maps posted here over the next couple of days. Right now I'm going to go and do some of the other million items that I've left to the last minute...! :^)

- B -