Amalfi and Copenhagen

The internet at the study center is running very slow right now, so I can't upload all of the pictures that I would like to for this entry. I'm sorry. Just read my descriptions and make the most of it. Perhaps sometime later I'll post more pictures.

On Tuesday morning I returned to Italy from a week-long journey that included the south of Italy and then Copenhagen, Denmark.

In the south of Italy, we saw Pompei and then traveled down to the town of Amalfi. It is a beautiful little town situated in a valley that opens up to the Mediterranean Sea. There are enormous cliffs and steep hillsides all around, but people live everywhere. It is a very cool area.

This is a garden in the town of Ravello, a 2o minute busride up the side of the cliffs from Amalfi. This gives you a good idea of the severity of the landscape of the area. It really is breath-taking.

On Friday, I took a plane from Rome to Copenhagen. The flight was 2 and a half hours long, because we had "the wind in our faces" usually it only takes 2 hours. When I got to Copenhagen, Sara was at the airport. After a few minutes of not seeing each other, she finally found me and it was amazing. It was so good to see her again.

Her host family was kind enough to let me stay with them at their house. It is really cool. It is super modern on the inside. nearly all the walls are white, which really lights up the interior of the house. This is especially important because it is cloudy in Denmark much of the time. The typical ambient light outside is a silvery-grey because of the cloudcover. The white walls and large windows really bring the light inside and create a lively and cozy interior. The Danes focus on the inside of their buildings because it is too cold outside much of the year. But I didn't get a picture of this, just read Sara's old post on her blog for that.

We went around the center of Copenhagen and saw some of the trademark sights.

This is Nyhavn. The trademark view of Copenhagen's harbor. Apparently formerly a shady area of town. Now its really cool, and close to lots of the other attractions downtown.

This building is called the Black Diamond. It is a library on the water of Copenhagen's harbor. I don't know the architect, but it is a really cool building.

Sara and I went to Bagsvaerd Church. This building was designed by Jan (pronounced Yon)
Utzon. This is the same architect as the Sydney Opera House. He is a native of Denmark. The interior of the church is beautiful This is a good example of wonderful Danish design to let light in. The silvery white natural light pours in through the large windows and bounces off the white painted concrete. The result is a beautifully completely naturally lit space.

This is me in front of the little mermaid statue. Apparently its really famous. So this is to prove that I was there. It is to commemorate Hans Christian Anderson because he wrote the Little Mermaid. He was from Copenhagen.

This is Sara and I's panorama of the harbor of Copenhagen, looking from the ramparts of Kastellet, an old fortress. We are on opposite ends to symbolize how we are apart. actually thats not it, we just thought it would be cool.

This is my favorite. The best thing about Copenhagen.

I did some more things.....

Welcome to Florence!

Went to Florence again this weekend. This time I stayed there Friday and Saturday night. I booked a hostel by myself, just so I could have the freedom to do what I want, when I wanted. It was really fun. Florence is a great city. I really enjoyed being there again. We had a tour of the Uffizzi Gallery with our Italian history professor. That was interesting, but it is just kind of hard to pay attention to someone talking about paintings for such a long time. My attention span is just not that incredible.

This is that token view of Florence from the Piazza Michelangelo. It really is a great place to hang out and watch the sun set.

Roommates! on the overlook of Florence.

This is a Russian church that was near my hostel. I coudn't get inside because the gates were closed, so I just looked at it from the outside. It reminded me of being in Russia....

Some friends that are studying in Castiglion Fiorentino met us there in Florence, that was a great suprise, so I hung out with them for the rest of the day.

Saturday was a pretty relaxing day. We just took our time going places and hung out in lots of piazzas for a really long time, just enjoying the sun and being there. I had McDonald's for lunch and it seemed like the best hamburger I've had in my life. It tasted so good. ohh yeah. I love overseas McDonalds.

We are leaving on Wednesday morning for our trip to southern Italy. We will visit Pompeii, Amalfi, and Naples. Then I'm off to Denmark! I am going to visit Sara! I fly to Copenhagen from Rome on Friday evening. I cannot wait to see my amazing girlfriend. I'll be there for 3 days (I'm skipping a couple days of class, but its totally worth it).

So...we just finished our first project and we have presentations today in about 30 minutes... I guess I'll go think about what I'm gonna say.

This is the beginning of my third week of school here in Italy. I feel like I’ve done so much, but when I try to sit down and think about it, my mind just wants to chill out and not think about anything. Weird, huh? Well I have done a lot of things, living in Orvieto has definitely been fun. I feel like I’m getting used to really being here and living in this town. I definitely noticed today when there were more tourists than usual. Its pretty cool to be a resident here, even if it is only for a few months.

I’m going to try to give a few little snapshots of parts of my life here.

My apartment is on a really small street. When we first got here I didn’t think that cars were allowed to drive on it, but a few seconds later that thought was thrown out the window. All sorts of traffic constantly comes flying down our little street. Our front door is fairly thin, so it doesn’t really insulate from the sound on the street. This also means that when Italians walk past our door, it sounds like they’re hanging out in our living room. (the apartment is all tile, so sound carries really well).

In the mornings, I usually step outside into our courtyard to see what the temperature feels like for the day. A few days ago, a lady who lives in one of the windows up above our courtyard stuck her head out and said hi to me. She doesn’t speak any English, so I spoke some Italian to her, but she still didn’t understand me! I thought that was weird, so I just left. But she seems nice.

Our landlord bakes us something new every week. She comes and cleans on Wendesday afternoons and always leaves us a fresh new dessert. It is amazing. She doesn’t speak English either, so I am the one she talks to. I can usually understand what she’s saying. She is so incredibly nice. She is the Italian version of Aunt Ramona. For sure.

At an internet café last night, two women sat down at my table. After a few minutes I noticed them speaking Russian. As those of you who know me can imagine, I got pretty excited. I thought,“Russian! Dude that’s so sweet!” So I preceded to ask them in Russian if they spoke Russian (which seems kinda dumb when you think about it). They got excited and said yes, yes, they speak Russian. I have lost some of my Russian language skills I guess, because I couldn’t really understand them. They spoke Italian very well, so we continued our conversation in Italian, with some Russian mixed in there. As you can imagine, that was really fun for me.

So, we went to Florence last weekend. That was ok, here are some pictures.

The interior of the dome of the Duomo (cathedral) of Florence

The campanile (bell tower) of the Duomo. This should look familiar to my old Europe travel buddies.

This small church is associated with Dante, the famous Florentine writer, who wrote the Divine Comedy. This is where he met that girl who inspired him to write the story, Beatrice

For all you literary buffs, this is Dante's house, just a block or so away from that church.

Shannon, I thought you would like this; this is the tomb of Galileo Galilei, in the church of Santa Croce.

On Saturday, I had all-day cooking fest with a world-famous chef here in Orvieto. It was amazing. I ate so much food all day long. I also got to work in the kitchen. I made some delicious dessert pastry ball things. It was a good day.

This is the best cup of cappucino that I have EVER had in my life, EVER. period.

Tommy's excited about cooking. (he's my room mate. literally)

Some of us cooking, with the master Chef in the center.

This is what we looked like after a 6 course lunch. I was so incredibly full. But I feel like my family has prepared me well for times such as this. I was able to eat pretty much all day and didn't feel too bad. Thanks family!



Here are those delicious dessert pastry sugar ball things. OHH MAN.

In other news, I have a guitar now! The pastor of the church asked me if I would like to borrow it. As you can imagine, I said yes! I’m going to play a worship song there soon, now I just have to choose which one I want to play. It is so amazing to be going that church. God is amazing. He is so present here. And he speaks Italian.

Pictures of Orvieto

This past weekend, we went to Rome again for a study tour. But I came back to Orvieto on Friday night, so I could have a whole weekend here. It was really nice. I had two days to just hang around the city without having to go to class. So, I finally got out and took pictures of Orvieto! It was actually fairly sunny, which hasn't happened very often since I've been here. So, look at these pictures and hopefully you can have a better idea of where I am living.

These are the stairs leading from our apartment to the Piazza del Duomo, where the Study Center is located, and, of course, the Duomo (cathedral). I walk up these every day on my way to class.

This is the Duomo di Orvieto.Notice the gold in the mosaics reflecting in the sunlight. A detail of one of the twisted columns on the facade of the duomo. This facade is amazing, covered in mosaics and intricate patterns.

This is the Torre del Moro I believe, it is at the intersection of the 2 main streets in Oriveto, Corso Cavour and Via del Duomo.
The Piazza dei Ranieri. This is the space that Christie and I are studying for our project. We just finished the analysis portion today, and then we will begin designing a demountable intervention in the space.
The entire town of Orvieto is located on a plateau, there are cliffs all around it. Here are some of them.

Some cars and a street.

This is a park located on the western tip of the city.

The park is located at the base of the oldest church in Orvieto, St. Giovanni.

The view from the park. There was a soccer game going on in that town down there. I could hear it real good. There weren't that many fans, but they were loud.

The Piazza de Repubblica. This is where city hall is located.

I hope this is fun to look at an helps in giving you an idea of what this town is like.

So, I watched the first half of the superbowl last night, but after the Boss played the halftime show, I got tired and went to bed (because it was 2:30am) Too bad Kurt Warner lost.