Protests, chocolate, calcio, and international dinners

There hasn't been much new news since the last time I updated...we had our finals for PLP this past week and studio art students have our orientation and first day of instruction tomorrow (Monday the 27th) at the Accademia. Then on Tuesday our apartment and our friend Stefany will be spending the rest of the week in the Amalfi Coast and Sara's birthday (October 31st) on Ischia.
We've had a couple interesting dinners here at the Castella di Nutella as well...
Ramen sent from the Ota family on Willis Lane:

And fajitas made with tortillas and black beans from Sara's parents:

I also went to my first soccer (calcio) game - Fiorentina vs. Regina. It wasn't as crazy or violent because they aren't crazy rivals, but it was fun nonetheless! We also found Vestri, a cioccolateria, where we ordered affogato - hot chocolate with a scoop of gelato. And there have been recent student protests against the school tuition raises and teacher firings, so on Tuesday we saw marches in the street and demonstrations in the piazzas. Italian students are so proactive - and who knows? The Accademia might be occupied tomorrow when we go for our orientation...!?

Siena

Last weekend Sam, John, and a few friends from the CSU program went on a day trip to Siena. It was a gorgeous day - and we started off the day at a small restaurant that served "poor man's food." I had ribollita and pork in wine sauce. Then we went to the piazza (where in the summer, they hold a huge, insance horse riding race) and had some gelato. Siena has three musuems, and we visited each of them - the Museo Civico, the Santa Maria Della Scala, and the contemporary exhibit (the current featured artist was an American named Gordon Matta Clark). Some of us also went into the Cathedral there, which is one of the most expansive and beautiful churches I've seen so far.



The next day, we went to Santa Croce where they were having a so called "international fair" - but the featured countries were only Germany, Austria, France, etc. There was one booth that we thought was American, because it had Indian-made purses and a life-size wooden figure of a Native American with the headdress and traditional clothing.

Visit my facebook album of the trip! (It was getting too hard to upload photos on both facebook and blogspot...)

This weekend has been pretty laid-back so far! Sam and John went with some others to Cinque Terre but Sara, Gaby and I are trying to save money for the Amalfi coast and Capri for PLP break and Sara's birthday on the 31st...and Gaby has been on a cooking streak this weekend! Caramel baked pear with raisins, and a mozzarella bake with all our leftovers (like zucchini, beets, cous cous, tomatoes...) were highlights---

Small thing -- this is the supermarket we like to go to: (hopefully we can start going to the San Ambrosio market, when we get used to its hours)

Accademia Exam Week!

This week, Monday, through Thursday, for 6 HOURS each day, I took the entrance exam for the Accademia. The first day was still life, second was figure, and the third and fourth days they gave us a theme and we also had to do a blow up of the design. I chose a project where I had to design a mural for a hotel lobby/reading/drinking room with red chairs and vending machines. It was very long, and very tiring.

There were plenty of international students in the testing rooms, but all the directions were given in Italian. Luckily we met with Marsha each day after the exam, so she was able to tell us what was going on.

Here are links to photos of the stuff I made during those 24 hours of testing:
DAY ONE: My still life (tempera, 50x70 cm)
DAY TWO: Figure Drawings:
- 20 minute pencil sketch
- 4 or 5 hour charcoal drawing
- 15 minute ink sketch
DAYS THREE AND FOUR: Mural project:
- design
- blow up #1
- blow up #2

Everyone else in the program had great work as well! I'm so happy to be done and the results will be out by this week or next week.