Ice Dancing in Torino

I have had numerous requests to post this video up so I am throwing it up on here for your enjoyment! We were searching for the Olympic Stadium in Torino when we happened across this nice patch of ice.  Synchronized ice dancing broke out and the rest is history.  Hope you enjoy!  

We are headed out of town in the morning.  Check out Lindsay's latest blog post for a list of the places we will be visiting.  I think after you read the list, you will hopefully be able to appreciate what we are going to see this week.  Its really pretty incredible.  I hope we have internet while we are there so that we can keep you updated on our day to day activities.  If not, then we will catch you all in 10 days!  

Ciao! 

Second Day Trip

We all loaded up in our private tour bus this morning at 7:30 to set off for our second travel trip!  It was another long day of sightseeing.  We went to a church first near Pavia.  There are currently 8 monks living there.  One of the monks gave us a tour of the entire campus.  This particular church was finished and occupied before America had even been discovered so that was a pretty interesting bit of information.   Its really awesome that we get to walk in and out of these structures on a daily basis.  The inside of the church was another amazing site as they all are.  It was the typical roman cross plan with a large dome.  I made sure to bring my tripod today so that I could take some longer exposures inside.  My back is paying for it now but I was happy with the shots I was able to get.  

After the church, we headed into the town of Pavia to check out some other buildings.  We headed to one of the private university buildings to do a quick walk in tour. The building was built to house honor students for the University of Pavia and it is still serving that purpose today. We were a little late getting there because we left the church late and because we drove out of the way to get there.  Once we arrived we only had a few short minutes to step inside and take some pictures.  I did happen to catch two love birds in the fountain at the end of the private garden.  Who knows, maybe its a sign, ha!  

After we left the university, we toured the city a little longer checking out a few other projects.  Then we loaded back up in the bus and headed for Vigevano.  Specifically The Ducal Square/Piazza Ducale.  Once again though, we were a little too late so we weren't able to go up in the tower.  We did however get to tour some of the public garden as well as a really cool open air gallery.  It was called "The Covered Road" or "Strada Coperta".   The main purpose of this passageway was to allow the Dukes of Milan to enter and exit the castle without being seen.  There was some really great natural light coming in because it was almost dark.  We set up the tripod again and had some fun with long exposures and the use of an extra flash.  

After the self guided tour, we headed back to the bus and drove the 2 hour trip back home.  I would tell you more about the trip but I was out cold for the whole ride.  All in all, another great day of sightseeing.  Now its time to work on finishing up some sketches and getting ready for a presentation on Thursday.  

Ciao! 

Bardonecchia Skiing!

So I should start by saying we all made it back in one piece.  The only injury was a bruised and possible broken nose (lura) but we think everything is good.  I have to give her props though for snowboarding, thats one thing I haven't learned yet and I know it takes some skill.   The weekend trip went pretty well.  Torino was cool on saturday.  We basically got in from the train around 10 in the morning then headed to our hostel to drop off our packs.  Once we did that, we headed back out to take in some of the sites.  The group I set off with headed for the Olympic site.  We ended up finding it after about a 4 mile hike.  We did however find a nice patch of ice on the way there.  I hope to have a video up from that before too long.  

After playing in the snow for a while, including a small children's playground (and again, more pictures and videos to follow) we made our way on over to the Olympic site.  It was all done in a very contemporary design.  It was a little disappointing though because we weren't really able to go in.  The actual stadium was closed and the gym had a wedding show or something going on.  We were able to snag a few shots though before we set off back for the hostile.  

On the way back, we stopped in to get some caffe, hot chocalate, snacks.. etc.. basically all the things you want when your hungry and its cold outside.   After warming up a bit, we set out again toward the hostel.  We walked for close to 45 mins. or an hour and we were starting to get closer to our place but it was already so late, we decided to stop in and get some food.  We ate at a chinese restaraunt, ha, it was actually surprisingly good too.  And we couldn't beat the prices.  After dinner, we headed back to the hostile and hit the sack early to get ready for our long ski day ahead.

At 5:50 the alarm went off on Jon's phone and mine at the same time.  Of course, Jon could probably sleep with the phone going off inside his ear so I got up and turned them off.  We got dressed and packed back up and then headed out the door by 6:35 or so.  We made it to the train station and on our train with no problems... well if you don't count the 45 mins... "en retardo" (that means delayed in Italian)  Nonetheless, we eventually pulled out of the station and made our way for Bardonecchia.  On the way there we pretty much all slept.  As we were getting closer, I decided to try my hand at some video work.  So I will let the video take you from here.  Hope you enjoy!

Tuesday Port Visit!

It has been a fairly busy week.  We started our day trips this week.  On tuesday we visited the historic port of Genova.  We did a lot of walking but we were able to cover a very large section of the harbor.  We started at 8:30 in the morning and got back to the villa just before dinner at 7.  It was a long day of museums and historic site visits but we got a lot of great pictures and sketches.  We got to take a boat ride out into the port district to see what Genova looked like from the water.  It was an overcast day so we didn't get many shots of the hillside but it was still impressive to see.  There was also some cool breakwater over the seawall that protects the port.

After we got off of the boat we headed to the Museo della Mare.  We got caught in a storm though while we were inside! 

Everyone came out fine but Lindsey had a close scare with a shark!

After checking out the southern end of the port we headed over to the more historic district where most of the shipyard containers are handled.  We also got to see the Lanterna! It is a very old lighthouse that sits on the coast of Genova.  It was actually destroyed during one of the World Wars but it was rebuilt shortly after and has stood for many years since then. 

After taking lots of pictures and getting our history lesson, we headed back to the villa to heat up our dinner and rest our legs!  All in all, it was a successful first day trip! 

Ciao Barbara!

We had our last Italian class this morning.  We have all learned a lot of material in this short amount of time.  We basically crammed a semesters worth of Italian into 10 days.  My hat is off to our prof, Barbara, for even attempting it.  

She made the classes very interesting though and we had a lot of teacher/student interaction.  She gave us a very practical understanding of the Italian language.  Now its our job to go out and apply our skills in the city.  We have been very fortunate so far to make some Italian friends that have been helping us practice our new language.  I am finding Italian very easy to pick up.  I have been able to have some great conversations with some of the locals and I am lucky to be able to call them friends now. 

Tonight we went out to Barbara's favorite restaurant which happens to be very close to the villa if you don't count the 162 stairs, ha.  The food was great.  It was a very traditional meal with first course, second course, and dessert.   Oh, and in a health news side note, Italy has actually served as a pretty good diet for me so far.  I have already lost 10 pounds since I got here so I cant complain.  Between the exercise and drinking a lot of water, the Genovese diet has worked out pretty well the last couple of weeks.  But I don't want you people back home to think that Im not eating.  Believe me, I have plenty of food to eat.  Our chef makes sure of it.  Plus the food out at the local restaurants is always wonderful.  This is one of the traditional Genovese desserts.  My kind of diet!

After some vino and a espresso, we headed back up to the Villa to decide on our group partner for the semester.  There are 16 of us students and we are splitting into 2 person groups.  We all set down as a studio and discussed our interest for Italy and what we wanted to learn from this architectural experience.  Drew and I found out that we have common interest and goals for the semester so we will be working together on our research project as well as our design projects.  We also share a common appreciation for Landscape Architecture and how it combines with the structural component to form a complete package.   Drew is actually studying Landscape Architecture at Clemson so I feel like I will be able to learn a lot from him this semester.  Tomorrow we will begin our actual studio work and we should be able to get a good handle on our research project.  

In other news, we are heading to Torino (Turin) this weekend to ski the Alps.  So uh yeah, that's pretty exciting!   I will def. update you with some pictures from that trip after we get back.  I think we are taking a train Friday night so that we can ski all day Saturday.  We will prob. stay sat. night too so that we can visit the museum and some other structures before coming back on Sunday.  This is a link to the place where we are going skiing on saturday.  

Wish us luck on the mountain!  Until next time! 

Ciao!

Never judge a book by its cover!

Just a quick note!  A couple of guys and I were out walking around this afternoon when we stumbled across a couple of churches!  We were exploring some of the back streets of the city.  I couldn't actually tell you where we were on a map if you had one sitting in front of me.  I just wanted to give you a little taste of where people do church over here.  This is the church from the outside.  We very unassumingly entered not knowing what to expect. 
And this was the view when we went inside!

"Its a Long Trip Alone"-Dierks Bentley

I know you all will def. appreciate this video.  It gives you a feel for the trip we have to take each time we climb down the mountain!  This movie is professionally edited and narrated by one Mr. Jonathan Edens with keynote speaker Lindsey Edens.  We had to cut out a few parts of the trip because it had to be under 10 mins long.  We will be posting more videos now that we have this figured out!  Hope you Enjoy!

Trip to the phone store! 

Studio Begins

We started studio today.  We got a basic run through of what we will be doing this semester.  We are taking a new direction this semester for Clemson by trying to incorporate more engineering into our design.  I think this is a great addition to Clemson's great design program.   After meeting with our prof. for a while and discussing the coursework, we headed out to the site to explore our first project.  This first design will focus on verticality.  We will also be doing a research project this semester based on a topic of our choosing relating to our own architectural design principals.  After hanging around the site for a while and taking some good sunset photos, we headed back to the villa for dinner.

Tonight we had fish mixed wither herbs and spices as well as pan roasted vegetables and a type of Italian bread that was much like a quiche that we might have at home.  I am not doing the food near enough justice with this description because it was all delicious.  

After dinner, I was able to work on some more photos that I took today.  Jonathan has shown me a new technique to use with our cameras called HDR or high dynamic range.   In quick description, it basically involves taking 5 pictures of the same frame with different light metering.  It is a good way to capture all the highlights and shadows of an image.  I have tried a couple so far and seen some pretty good results.  I will put a few up just for you to get an idea of the contrast range that they produce.  

We are just hanging around the villa again tonight! More Italian class in the morning!  

Ciao!

Vodafone

Today was a fairly productive day here at the Villa. We had Italian class again this morning at 9:30. Then after class I was able to start my duties in the kitchen. I will be helping the chef in the kitchen this semester with daily meal preparation and clean up. I should be able to pick up some great recipes while I am working with such a great cook.  I will also be able to practice my Italian a lot more often.  

After lunch and clean up in the kitchen, we had our afternoon Italian class for about an hour.  After class, the other half of us students without a phone headed down into the city to fill out the information and pick one up.   We ended up getting some pretty cool phones because they were out of the standard ones that come with the small start up plan.   It took about an hour and a half for Vodafone to set up our information and give us our phones.  Luckily we were able to shop around for a while until they were finished processing our info.   I got my new number though and it seems to be working fine.  We can text each other over here and it doesn't cost very much so it will be helpful when we are around town trying to meet up.  Plus the phone seems to work pretty well too, as some of you know who have already called, ha!  Just be careful about those rates, not sure how much it will charge you!  My number while I am here is 349.088.2568.

Once we picked up our phones, we headed back out of the city toward the villa.  There is a elevator on our route down to the city that actually cuts out about 500 steps.  We normally don't take it on our way down to the city but we decided to use it on the way back up. It cost .70 Euros for one ride but it was pretty windy out tonight so the ticket paid for itself.  To use the elevator, you actually walk about 200 yards into the hillside through a long tunnel, then you ride for about 30 seconds.   The top of the elevator has a great view of the city.  I included one photo in this blog, as I try to do with each one, that shows the view you can see from the entrance to the elevator.  I took a couple of shots and made it into a panorama.  Hopefully it will give you a little feel for how much you can really see from there.

After using the elevator, we walked back up the mountain to the villa.  We heated up our dinner which Angela (our chef) leaves for us each night.  We had kebabs tonight and green beans as well as some left over pasta from lunch.  All in all, another great meal.  We cleaned up after dinner and did a few things around the villa.  We are watching a movie tonight which Jon brought.  He hooked us up by bringing and entire cd sleeve full of movies and series dvd's.  After the movie, its off to bed because we start studio tom.  I will update you once I know what its going to be like.  

Until next time! 

Ciao!

Italian Theater

Last night was another interesting time out on the town! We had Italian class at 6 then we got a quick bite to eat before heading off to meet up with Luca again. One of his friends girlfriend was in a local play at the theater. I believe she is studying theater at the University here in Genova. We were excited about the chance to see it. The play was at 8:30. I was able to snap one shot before it started and we had to turn our cameras off. I was playing with my camera's color settings so that it only shows the red chairs and some of the blush on peoples faces.

The play was great but we obviously did not understand much of it. We were able to get the gist of the play because we could understand the emotions they were portraying. The play was about a game of chess being played for peoples lives. Its a Swiss movie that has been converted for theater. We are hoping to get a copy of it somehow so maybe we can understand more of what we saw. Either way, it was a great Italian cultural experience.

After the play, we headed out to a local pub with Luca, Alesandro, Ljuba (loo-bah), Sarah, and her family. Sarah was the girl in the play. We had some really great sandwiches and a couple of beers and sat around practicing some more Italian. By the time we finished dinner, it was around 12:30.  6 of us originally went to the play. Jonathan, Lindsey, Drew, Leslee, Heather, and myself.  After we finished eating, we wanted to go see Luca's friends who were playing in a club near by.    Heather and I had talked to Luca earlier in the day about going to the concert so we didn't want to back out now.  Plus I had a nap earlier in the day, so I was still good to go energy wise. The others in our group headed on back to the villa.  

The club was called Milk.  We had to sign up  for a local concert pass which was 15 Euros but it will last us all semester and now we can get into those shows for free.   Once we got inside, we found out the concert was basically a rock show and the band was bringing the house down.  Reminded me of the House Blues with Candlebox Allen, ha.  You will be happy to know that I got the set list too!   Anyways, after the show stopped around 3 a.m. The music switched over to all American rock music and the place turned into a dance club.  There was a strobe light going the whole time which made for a pretty wild experience.  I threw in a short video just so you could get a feel for what it was like.  

We danced for a couple hours and hung out with our Italian friends some more!  Ljuba, another friends of Luca's,  is trying to work on her english so she makes me talk to her in Italian and she tries to speak to me in English.  Its really great practice for both of us.    

At about 4:30 am,  we decided it was prob. time to head back home.  Ljuba gave us a ride back up to the villa which was a life saver.  Its normally about a 20 min hard walk back up to our place.  I will be able to run stairs in my sleep by the time I come back home.  We are getting tons of exercise.  

We had Italian class this morning and we are headed down to the port tonight for dinner with our Italian professor.  We are having a traditional 3 course meal in the true Genovese style.  It should be a great time!  As with all of our other experiences, I will let you know how it went as soon as I get time.   

Until next time! 

Ciao! 

Genoese Nightlife

Just wanted to fill you in on some of the experiences we have been getting at night.  We were lucky to have some friends of the villa that have been showing us the ropes on Genoese nightlife!  Mainly one guy in particular, luca!  He has taken us to some really cool little places that we would prob.  have never found on our own.  Certainly not in the first week!  I will try to cover the places we have been so far.  The first night we went out with him, we went to a pizzeria accross town that was awesome. It is supposedly the best pizza in Italy.  After eating there, I have no complaints.  Italians use only fresh ingredients in their food and no preservatives which means that we have been eating some really great meals.  After we left the pizza place we headed to one of Luca's favorite bars.  I only have one picture of the inside because I was too wrapped up in learning Italian while I was there.  However, you need to read Jonathan's blog about the inside of this bar.  He did a really great job describing exactly what it was like.  This is his blog post about the inside of the bar.  This is the one snapshot I caught while I was there. 

  A few of Luca's friends met up with us at the bar and they have been really helpful.  I am surprised how willing the Italians have been to speak with us as we struggle to learn their language.  I am picking up the language pretty quick because I can relate most of it with spanish.   We have had a lot of fun talking with the Italians we have met.  It is nice to have someone to bridge the gap for us here in the beginning.  We are so far ahead of the curve from where I was in Barcelona.  We are making friends very quickly!  

Jon and Lindsey - Backstreets Genoa

Downtown Genoa

Exploring

We were able to get out and travel around Genoa some today.  We are trying to learn the quickest way to get down the hillside into the city.  Im sure it will take a lot of wrong turns to learn the right ones.  The hike is actually better then I expected though. Its about a 15 min trip to get down into the central part of the city. We were able to find a grocery store that is close to us in case we need other items in the house.  The food has been really great since we arrived.  I met the cook and the house keeper and the house manager.  I helped the chef with lunch today and she seems really personable.  She asked me to help in the kitchen this semester so I guess that will be my chore.  Should be fairly easy though to work around the kitchen preparing great food and learning Italian as I go.  

We are just hanging around the villa tonight. We had a great dinner and sat around trying to get to know each other a little better over a couple bottles of wine.  We have our first Italian class tom afternoon.  Other then that, we will just be exploring and hanging out.  Catch you again soon! 

Ciao!

Frustrating Travels

We finally made it to the Villa tonight.  Our travels didnt go quite as smoothly as we had hoped for.  The first two legs of the trip went fine.  We flew overnight and arrived 30 mins late into Rome.  That put us behind for our next flight which was supposed to take us into Genoa.  We missed our 8:30 flight and ended up waiting for about 4 1/2 hours before finally catching another plane to Genoa.  When we made it to Genoa, the weather was too bad for us to land.  We made a few attempts but finally gave up and re-routed to Pisa.  The company we were flying with provided a bus for us to ride back to Genoa.  When we started getting close to Genoa, we started seeing the snow.  Genoa is covered in a couple of inches right now.  We dealt with a few baggage claim people at the various airports because we had pretty much given up on getting our luggage today.  While we were waiting in line at the Genoa airport, we noticed a terminal toward the back that had luggage sitting around it.  Luckily ours happened to be sitting there so we were able to retrieve it.  Some of it was wet but we were just glad to have it.  That could have been a long ordeal trying to get it back or even worse, it could have been stolen.  Who knows how long it had been sitting in the airport. 

All in all, our trip wasn't too horrible.  We are settled in the Villa.  Time to hit the sack and try to fight off the Jet lag.  I will try to keep you all updated as much as I can!  

Ciao!