vatican city

thursday's art class took us to vatican city, which is a small nation of 800 citizens.

history: originally uninhabited, the circus of nero began in 40 ad. the obelisk located in the center was taken from egypt to decorate the circus. after the great fire of rome in 64 ad, it became a martyrdom site of christians. ancient tradition says this is where st. peter was crucified upside-down. the first church was built in 326, called the constantine basilica (old st. peters), and took over 1000 years of building. in the mid 1400s, pop nicholas the fifth commissioned the "current" st. peters. bramante, the architect known as "the ruiner" tore down the old st. peters. many people worked on the architecture, including rafael, peruzzi,  michelangelo (who was responsible for the dome), and maderno. bernini completed the square in 1650. it wasn't until the 1930s that mussolini determined the boundaries.

st. peter's basilica

work by michelangelo showing an image of the virgin mary carrying an adult jesus

paintings like this were everywhere

sistine chapel - michelangelo worked on this for 4 years straight and began with no painting experience

this past weekend was fun-filled with homework for 3 days straight since we have parts of 5 projects due this week. on friday im headed to venice with my grandma!!! im so excited to have family visit. 

prague video!

nice video (sorry it took so long)

i didnt realize until i was done editing that the song has some bad language :( sorry guys. also, my video taking skills are horrible and a lot of it is shaky, so excuse that!! the prague one should be up soon also.

andrew bird

i had the awesome opportunity to see one of my favorite musicians in rome last night. my friend, mike, has his connections and we were pleasantly surprised to be placed in the first row, and for free! andrew bird is a multi-instrumental artist. so he would play one instrument for a couple measures while recording, then pick up another one and loop the tracks. eventually, 3-4 instruments and voice tracks would be playing while he harmonized his voice and instruments with the multiple looped tracks. he even whistles. he is a genius. check out the video i recorded below. he didnt loop many tracks in this performance, but all of what i heard was "live" -  meaning nothing was prerecorded, and no background band is doing the work - just him. i was mesmerized to say the least.

prague

immediately after class on friday me and 7 others headed to prague for the weekend. we arrived to our hostel around 7 pm. it was the nicest hostel ive ever stayed at. this is a photo of the eating area / bar. i forgot to take one of our rooms but we had fluffy comforters and larger beds than at my own apartment.

since we hadnt really eaten since before lunch, we were starving and went to a nearby czech restaurant. they had items on their menu like wild boar, rabbit, venison, but also chicken!! the food was amazing and i finally found a beer i like, its my favorite so far - called hoegaarden - which is also back in the states. since everyone wanted to go to bed after that, ryan and i headed out to a local bar by our hostel for an hour.

on saturday we woke up a little early to make sure we got to the prague castle before the huge crowds.

the st. vitus cathedral (in prague castle) had the most beautiful stained glass windows ive ever seen and is the largest castle ive been to. the kings of bohemia, holy roman emperors, and presidents of czechoslovakia have all had their offices here. according to the guinness book of world records, this castle is the largest coherent castle complex in the world and dates back to the 9th century. as we exited the castle and headed towards petrin hill, we came across some performers. this is the view of the castle on the way.

after a hike up the hill, we were pleasantly surprised with some sort of medieval festival going on. there were sword-fighting demonstrations, lots of good food, and mulled wine (which is amazing). we climbed up the petrin lookout tower which is the "sister" to the eiffel tower. even though this tower is shorter, the eiffel tower stands at a lower altitude because of the hill that petrin tower is located on. the second picture has a building that looks like its from candyland or imaginarium of dr. parnassus.

after that wonderfullllll experience, we wandered a little bit with the intent to find the lennon wall. since the 1980s, it has been filled with jon lennon-sinspired graffiti and pieces of lyrics from beatles songs. the wall is continuously changing and the original portrait of lennon is long gone after being covered with layers of paint and graffiti. we spent time reading others' graffiti and of course added our own names and such to the wall.

since this was a day packed full of touristy things, of course we wanted to see the mucha museum. we stumbled upon old town square on the way, which houses the astronomical clock and was having some sort of food festival. we stopped to see the giant clock, eat crepes and do some people watching. we eventually found the mucha museum, dedicated to works of alphonse mucha. he is one of my favorite graphic designers / artists, and even designed some of the stained glass for the prague castle (the drawing of one in the photo below). he is known for is art nouveau paintings, illustrations, advertisements, and designs. hes simply amazing. to see some of his work, you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucha

after heading back to the hostel and relaxing for...2 minutes, we went out to dinner as a group at the other czech restaurant located nearby. i had chicken again of course :) 4 of us were interested in doing a pub crawl and getting to know other people our age, so we joined a bunch of other english-speaking friends (people from all over the world), and went to a couple bars.

since we had seen most of the "touristy" prague things, we were able to relax and wander around prague the next day. our hostel was located near a large park (which happened to be on the way to the other castle we wanted to see), so we journeyed through the beautiful fall forest and i creeped on photographed people. the other castle, vysehrad castle, was much smaller, and dates back to the 10th century. it contains the basilica of st. peter and st. paul, and also the vysehrad cemetary, which houses the remains of many famous czech people. theres a legend saying that this is the location of the first settlement which lead to the developement of the city of prague. the basilica had gorgeous art nouveau frescoes (unlike any other basilica ive been in). i was kind of obsessed. 

on the way back to the hostel, we stopped in wenceslas square and did some souvenir shopping. last minute, we decided to go back to the river to watch the sun set over prague castle. 

that night, ryan and i ate dinner at our hostel since the other girls had wanted to go to an opera. we wanted to watch the cowboys/vikings football game instead so we found an american bar and watched the vikings winnnnnn! unfortunately, we had to leave the next day. prague is probably my favorite city so far. its variety of architecture (in my favorite style) and the large amount of art nouveau art won me over :)

holy holy homework

i cant believe we have a logo due friday, and then after being in prague for the weekend + monday...

an art history test on tuesday, and my advanced type project due thursday...yikes

sooo that shall be interesting

in the meantime, this cute guy from across the courtyard requested to take a photo with us. he came up to us one morning with a sign that said "painter" and kept pointing to himself and saying "io, io, io," which means he was trying to tell us that "i paint." On numerous occasions, he has wanted to take a photo with us but we haven't usually had our cameras with us when we head out to class. today, he caught us with our cameras and ran up to his room to grab his painting so he could show us. he basically copied a famous caravaggio painting (and showed us the original so we could compare), it was very very good, molto bene!!!!!! so we got a picture with him and he was satisfied.

oh and were now regulars at the gelato cafe right by our apartment. the waiter knows our order and everything. bad news haha.

we are off to beautiful prague on friday!!!!!

porta portese market

i completely forgot to mention that we woke up super early on sunday to go to the porta portese market. its located a couple blocks from my apartment and sells everything. seriously. the market is named after the gate that was built in 1644 as part of some walls commissioned by pope urban viii.

it was stressful because it was so crowded, hence the 2nd photo (from google images respectively). i was recommended not to bring my camera the first time i went since its so busy and some of the sellers get mad when you take photos of their stuff.

i came across this wonderful thick leather bound book filled with real prints of rome from the early 1900s or something ridiculous. i really really wanted to buy it. so bad. it had images of the colosseum and the roman forum and saint peters basilica and pretty much everywhere i have been and will be. but i asked how much it would be and a hefty 300 euros (over 400 dollars) was not in my budget. although i strongly considered it haha. very very sad day. but i got a sweater and some old letters/envelopes from the early 1900s to use for one of my mixed media projects.

more art history yeahhhh

because we didnt do much this week....

ive had a cold and didnt travel anywhere this weekend so unfortunately you get to learn more about churches since thats what we did for class this week. :) i knowww its not as interesting as going to another country for the weekend but i more or less do this to help me remember the 347653 churches we see so i dont fail my art history midterm next week.

the first church we went to for art history is called the basilica di santa maria maggiore, which is the largest church in rome dedicated to the blessed virgin mary. its also one of the four major or four papal basilicas (st. john, st. peter, and st. paul are the others). maggiore is also the only roman basilica that retained the core of its original structure. pope liberious (around 360) commissioned this church after he had a dream that a predicted snowfall would take place on the site. the relic of jesus' crib is also located here. our professor didnt really say anything about that, and since i didnt know what a relic exactly was, heres a definition:

relic: object or personal item of religious significant, carefully preserved with an air of veneration as a tangible memorial. the word relic comes from the latin "reliquiae," meaning "remains."

so im not sure if that means that item is "real" or "suspected" to be real. if anyone wants to enlighten me, feel free to do so. however, according to wikipedia, "the authenticity of these relics...is disputed by historians and christians alike, due to lack of forensic evidence and the massive proliferation of fake relics during the middle ages."

santa maria maggiore

i love stained glass!

gorgeous ceiling

inlaid marble floors

altar with mosaics behind

leaving the basilica
i thought it was pretty :)

nextttt we went to the basilica of saint praxedes (santa prassede), which is an ancient titular church commissioned by pope hadrian I around 780. it was designed to house the bones of saint praxedes and her sister saint pudentiana. the two female saints were murdered for providing christian burial for early martyrs in defiance of roman law. apparently pope paschal recovered martyrs' bones from the catacombs of rome and transplanted numerous skeletons to this church. he also hired a bunch of mosaicists to complete work all around the church, which is what its known for. scenes of the four gospel writers surrounding a lamb, jesus surrounded by peter and paul (and paschal) presenting the church as an offering, and also the 12 disciples (i think?) are located in the apsidal arch, apse, and triumphal arch.

a funerary chapel built for paschals mother contain the prettiest mosaics.

santa prassede also houses a segment of the "alleged pillar upon which jesus was flogged and tortured before his crucifixion in jerusalem." the lady who also allegedly retrieved the relic of the wood of the crib (and also pieces of the true cross - located in santa croce) is responsible for the pillar relic.

well thats all i got! i pretty much slept all weekend and had some movie nights with the roommates. a couple of them were in dublin or paris so weve had a quiet apartment lately. with some of us being sick it was really nice. my poor roommate stephanie though...she has bells palsy and half of her face is paralyzed. i guess its a swelling of the facial nerve that can be triggered by a cold. shes not pregnant or diabetic, but those are the other 2 things that can trigger bells palsy. unfortunately this is causing difficulties in her ability to close the eye on the affected side, drink out of a glass, sleeping, smiling, tasting, etc.

on another note, we have a terrorist threat that we have to pay attention to now. while italy isnt a target, germany, france, and the uk are. its kind of scary since plans similar to the mumbai attack are being developed and there was a tipoff from a german terror suspect who told interrogators that "teams of attackers with european passports have been dispatched" (since transportation and tourist infrastructure are targets). anyways, if you want to read more about it, this article does a pretty good job of explaining everything.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-04/americans-warned-on-europe-travel-after-terror-threat.html

naples/sorrento + munich

sooo since ive last updated you all, we went on our south field trip to naples and sorrento with our class. i would have been able to go to pompeii also but our flight to germany conflicted with that whole thing.

it was completely different to see "skyscrapers" in naples, since were not used to tall buildings like that in rome. in fact, i guess i havent seen anything like that since paris, but even so, we werent near the city at all, we could just see it from the top of the arc de triomphe. anyways, the first thing we did was go to the national archaeological museum which was probably the most uninteresting museum ive ever been to. it was full of statues we had never seen and artists i didnt know. im the type of person who likes to go to places where ive learned about the art im going to see. if i dont know the artist or work, its hard to be interested, unless its a modern or contemporary museum. these were a couple statues i found pretty though :) plus the gorgeous ceiling in a room we passed through.

after the museum we caught some 2 euro pizza (and i mean a whole pizza, not just a slice) since napoli pizza is THE original pizza. and it was very very yummy. then we caught a train to sorrento where we split up to check in at our hotels. we had a couple hours to kill and checked out some side streets were there were small shops and vendors. 

walking around before getting ready for dinner

since we had a full course meal planned for later that night, we got ready and head out to the restaurant that translated into "lemon tree." i cant tell you for the life of me what it was in italian. some long word. 

my appetizer, i didnt show a picture of the veal because i hated it. yuck. never eating that again. our ravioli was good though! and dessert was amazing.

the next morning we got to fly to MUNICHHHH. i slept the entire way there. as soon as we got there we noticed they had pizza hut and kfc and typical american chains...until now ive only seen mcdonalds and some spare burger kings. thats it. then we checked in our hotel and headed straight to oktoberfest. oh yeah, and ryan got hit by a car that night. by a BMW hes proud to say. i was a little in shock for awhile since i saw him get hit (by the car going about 25 mph), but i didnt see him land (on his feet apparently). i was in the median still because i dont run out into streets when the walking sign is RED, but the most disturbing thing was that the lady who hit him stopped her car and got out to yell at him. she was grabbing him and wouldnt let him leave. she was so mad. then another lady came out of nowhere and slapped the lady who hit ryan. then we left because we were terrified. are the pedestrian laws in europe different than in europe? because the way she reacted was ridiculous. i mean, ryan ran out in front of her, but she hit him with a car. i was shaking for a good 20 minutes.

we saw some gorgeous castles on houses on our walk

my first impression = (valley fair + state fair) x 938742936587

first thing we did = buy some german brats (WITH KETCHUP YESSS) so good

since we werent able to spend much time at oktoberfest the night before, and ryan getting hit by a car kind of ended our night early, we made sure to get to oktoberfest early the next morning. you have to get there at like 6 in the morning in order to get a spot in the "beer tents" where pretty much everyone my age hangs out and they serve beer. thats about all there is to it. they have food too. the crowds we had to get through to get in were terrifying. imagine being at a heavy metal concert with a couple thousand people trying to get to the front, except the front is one door and everyone is trying to get in before everyone else. we held on to each other and tip-toed while we were being "lifted" toward the front. it was insane. the stampede would have killed someone if they didnt stay on their feet, but we finally got in and got a table around 8ish. 

7am. enough said. oh and it was 40 degrees. we could see our breath.

first beer!

some sweet germans we met and hung out with for the day

since we had an early flight to catch the next morning, we went to bed early (after gettins subway for dinner of course) and woke up at 5 am to get the 6:15 bus to our airport that was 70 miles away. ummm that was almost an epic fail. half our group caught the bus without us, but ended up not being able to get any more people on since it was so full. we got stuck trying to figure out a train. long story short, because its a painful one to remember, isssss we had to take 2 trains and a taxi to our airport, and after everyone let us cut the line for security (since our flight was doing last calls), we made it onto our plane with 5 minutes before take off. i cant say ive ever had a more stressful but fun weekend. 

at least the views from the train were pleasant. taking pictures was the only thing distracting me from the fact that we though we were going to miss our flight. thank god we made it!