Como Lago

Hey everybody, I know that you're all probably thinking "Why hasn't Sam updated his blog recently? Is everything okay? What am I going to do with my spare time now that I can't read his unimaginatively titled blog?" Okay, I realize that none of you are thinking that, and in fact, the large majority of you bums are on spring break. Well spring break is for scoundrels and rouges, I have midterms this week. I actually can't complain, I only had one written "study-for" exam, then I had to make a book of fotographs out of found materials, and then come up with a proposal for my final project in working with artists. In contrast my flatmates had at least 4 exams a piece, so it hasn't been all that bad. Matt Warner was here for the weekend, but I'm going to write about that in my next post entitled "The Visitors" So stay on the edge of your seats for that. Now to the main part of this blog post, my visit to Lake Como.

I'm dreadfully late in writing about this adventure, I actually went to Lake Como not quite two weeks ago. I can't actually think why it has taken me so long, just the usual conflagration of homework, sleep deprivation, and procrastination. So Saturday before last, Arseniya and I were just chilling in our room, reading and checking email and so forth.
"Dude."
"Yeah man?" I replied.
"We should go somewhere this weekend."
"F'shiz" I quipped wittliy. (Yes, I know this response was neither a quip or witty, I'm embellishing)

So a little while later we decided that we should go to Lake Como, for several reasons: A) It was supposed to be beautiful B) It was relatively close and cheap to get to C) George Clooney lives there sometimes (running joke, you had to be there, but really he does) We decided we would leave early Sunday morning so we could catch a train from Cadorna and give us a nice leisurely day of wandering around a gorgeous Alpine lake.

So at about 10:30 we hauled our groggy butts out of bed and grabbed our friend Kyle from his sleeping place on the couch. (I don't think I ever told you about Kyle. He is this 18 year old Australian dude who is going on this long crazy walkabout typw thing around Europe, sleeping in parks and trying to get by on as little as possible. Pretty chill dude and fun to hang with.) And we headed to Cadorna where we met our three Italian friends, Elisabetta, Martina, and Costanza (as awesome a group of girls you could hope to hang with).

And here we are, the Como adventurers:


Martina


Elisabetta


Costanza


Arseniy


Kyle


Me

So as it turned out, we didn't move our groggy butts (I think this phrase is funny) fast enough and missed the first train out to Como. As it turns out, this is a theme for the large majority of my trip so far, just missing trains... But not to worry, all we had to do was hang out in front of Cadorna and enjoy the beautiful sunny day. We only had about 40 minutes to waste anyways. In a while we bought our tickets and boarded the ghetto train for Lago di Como. (It really was, everything was carpeted in a poop brown, including parts of the walls.) We had a nice chatty train ride, a smattering of English, Italian, fighting for window seats. Como actually isn't all that far away only about an hour. And once in Como, you're aggravatingly close to Switzerland, so I'm going to hate myself if I don't go visit for at least a weekend. Here, look how close it is:

I'm pretty sure that if we set our minds to it and had our passports with us, we could have walked there. Ach, well...another time perhaps. Anyways, we arrived in Lake Como and it was just beautiful. There are mountains right up to the point where the lake starts, and buildings scattered on the slopes of some of the lesser Italian Alps. We didn't really have any particular plan for the day, just wander around and enjoy the beautiful weather and at some point get pizza and gelato. We casually strolled down one road that followed the shore, occasionally stopping in small parks and looking around at our beautiful surroundings. Here are just a few pictures of the first few sights we encountered in our passegiatta (literally translated a walk with no real purpose other than enjoyment).



After we had walked about maybe a kilometer, we ran into a pizzeria that seemed ready to fit our needs (i.e. they served pizza, and my Italian muddled brain has doubts whether or not I just used i.e. correctly). After a delicious repast of about 5 diferent types of pizza, we waddled our stuffed bellies out into the sun, where there were some very conveniently placed steps in a sort of odd park-hang-out-here kind of way. So hang out we did. For the first little while our activities consisted of this:

Which was awesome. But after a while Arseniy, Kyle, and I felt the urge to explore so we followed this path behind the stair area up the mountain a ways. We would later find out we had not ascended far at all, but it felt like we could see everything. We hung out on the bend of a road for a while, sitting on a wall and erasing a little more dreariness with the sun's rays.

Walking up...

Lake Como

Me

Arseniy really enjoyed the sun.

And I actually have another video for you all. So here it is:



And afterwards we made our weary way back down our little trail and back to the girls on the steps. Naturally such a great endeavor as taking a 5 min walk had worn us out, so we settled back down for nap due. This may sound ridiuclous but let me explain something about Como. As soon as you get there every muscle in your body starts relazing, and your stress and worries just melt away like snow in Tennessee. This is only the fourth place on earth where I have felt this utter relaxation, the others being Marathon Key, Kalaloch WA, and the Blue Grotto in Malta. I love these places so incredibly much, I'm not even going to try and describe it. Anyways, I decided to forsake the sun (redhead you know...) and found a nice place and settled in for a nice nap. About an hour later I woke up and found Martina sitting by my side. She asked if I was all right. I told her of course... why did she ask? "Because you are all the way over here," she said "away from everyone." I laughed and explained it was merely b/c of my condition(redhead) and I didn't want to push my luck with the sun (Isn't that right ASB 2008ers?). But moving on, shortly thereafter we began moseying our way back to the train station. Just in time too, as soon as the sun dipped behind the mountains it got really cold very fast, and none of us were really that prepared for it. We boarded the rain, and headed back towards Milan, tired somehow in spite of all of our napping, but happy with a beautiful day up in the mountains.

Well, I think I've finally finished this post, and now can begin on my next two. I hope to have one more up today and the other within a day or two. Until later...ciao.

Under construction

I have so much info it's ridiculous and midterms tomorrow, but I should have some posts up this evening. Sorry for the radio silence!

WARNING: ART NERD POST!!!

Its true, so brace yourself and strap in for some good old fashioned nerdiness in relation to the art world. But first a little normal news. This week has been pretty uneventful, just going to class and doing some minor exploring. I took the Italian exam that I mentioned in my previous post. And I have only one thing to say about that darned thing...

MY CHEST!!!

Ehhmm, sorry. It went pretty well. The hardest part was writing the composition (side note: being so immersed in Italian is REALLY messing with my English spelling/speaking ability. I just had to go back and rewrite the word composition in its English spelling). We could write about a friend of ours, so Joey, there is now an Italian professor who knows all about you. The hardest part about writing the composition was I couldn't use all the words I needed (i.e. drums, quarter baron, victory boxes)

And for the oral examination, Aresniy and I talked with Paolo about how rather than studying the night before, we watched some tv and drank wine. Later the subject moved on to calcio (soccer). So the long and short of it is that the exam was dominated and now we're moving on to round two...the semester course. So at the very least I can say this: Parlo piu italiano di prima.

But now for the art nerd part of this post. This Tuesday I went to La Acadamia di'Brera to see their advertised Caravaggio exhibit. Unfortunately, they didn't have student discounts unless you were from Europe, so I ended up paying 10 euro to get in (I feel like it was some type of discrimination. My bad that I was born on the wrong continent. Cripes) But luckily it turned out to be totally worth 10 euro. I went with my friend Anja from Germany, so I got to play docent to some extent. We spent a little while wandering around rooms of medieval and Byzantine icons, which was pretty cool. I mentioned to Anja that if all else failed, medieval artists only needed to follow this simple formuala:

1 Madonna
1 Child (creepy man/baby of course)
Then select one of the following hosts (and if necessary combine the two):
Saints
Angels
Bling (gold leaf preferred)

And voila, you have a religious medieval masterpiece.

Then we turned the corner and I ran into a painting straight out of Art 212.



Andrea Mantegna's Dead Christ.

I was so filled with incredible art nerd joy I think I scared Anja. But it was amazing. It had been one of my favorite paintings in Art 212 and I had just randomly
stumbled across it. Awesome.

After spending what Anja thought was an inordinate amount of time in front of the Dead Christ, we continued on through the museum. I was surrounded by names such as Della Francesca, Rubens, Barberini, and many other names that probably don't mean anything to the great majority of you dear readers (But the following posts are filled with lots of not art history! So don't stop reading! Please!) I also got to see a few random pieces by Raphael and El Greco. And of course we finally came to the Caravaggio exhibit...

Which consisted of four paintings.

What the devil?

I was really puzzled for several minutes. Where was this giant tour-de-force of Caravaggioness? I talked to one of the real docents and found out that they had been able to temporarily get two more paintings, and it was a very exciting opportunity. (Wait, you mean there are only two more paintings than usual? And this merits posters all over Milan?) I realize that I sound unbelievably whiny right now, but I had been expecting to wander around at least two rooms of one of my favorite painters, and instead was faced with only four paintings. *sigh* In all fairness though, they were spectacular works and were not disappointing in and of themselves at all. I'm really happy to have any chance to see anything by Caravaggio, so I left the museum with my mind blown from the sheer amount of great art I had been lucky enough to see.

Okay, I got some of my art nerd out now. Thanks for bearing with me. My next post will contain such exciting things as...a lake, planning, hopes unfulfilled, and a visitor.


Man...the suspense I leave you all with.

Bumming around....

No surprise there right?

I'm actually just giving you all a quick update in this quirky little span of time I have before I have to go to my 5:30 class. It's Shaping the Contemporary,and since its Monday that means I'll have the professor who is trying to teach me to be an elitist (psssh, like I need help with that ;). I'm also turning in two papers: 1) the doomed paper :Me telling an exhibition designer who considers himself an artist that I don't think he is 2)an analysis of a local artist who we visited, and then read two terribly translated review of (like you know, all someone did for these documents was plug them into babelfish or something. Its really bad). Then I'll probably spend the next two hours bored as hell. Then come home and cook. Hmm, what should I make tonight? Probably some tortellini. Ugh, I'm having trouble eating enough and healthily on a budget. I still haven't gotten my codice fiscale (Like a SSN. I've already applied, just haven't gotten it back), which the school needs to open a bank account with which to give me my meal stipend. Here in Italy I'll probably get it around the end of April.... Pasta is really cheap, I mean fresh pasta too. For a pasta lover like myself, its pretty awesome. I'm just going to have to watch it or I'm going to come back and be all unrecognizable due to a pot belly or something. Oh yeah, I have my final in my intensive Italian course tomorrow. I'm not too worried about it. Just the part where I have to chat with Paolo for like five minutes. I know I can do it, I've had much longer conversations in Italian than that. Its just...you know. Okay, well I have to head out so I can catch the metro downtown so I can make it to class in time. Wouldn't want to miss this class... Not at all.

ciao