Two weeks ago we arrived in Florence to an empty apartment, a courtesy bottle of water, a box of spaghetti, a container of milk that we are still skeptical about consuming, and a whole lot of anxiousness to find our place in this country. It seems as though a month has passed since then. Classes are in full swing and we've already made some of Florence our home, whether the Florentines approve of it or not.
Academically this semester I am taking Roman Achievement, Italian Art History, Sketching and Drawing, Design Studio..6 now?, and Reading Cities. Reading cities is referred to as "field trip class." We meet the week of a trip to talk about the city, and then go see it over the weekend. Through Reading Cities we will be traveling to Rome and Siena in February, Venice and Verona in March, and Milan in April. Roman Achievement covers...well...you get the idea. The class itself is a little different as only five students signed up but it makes for a very interactive lesson and the professor is extremely intelligent. Being that Florence began as a Roman city, it's always nice to see what you are studying on your walk to class. In fact, Piazza Republica, a couple blocks away from our apartment, is the center of the old Roman military camp, the castrum. In it a column marks the center of the city where the Cardo, the north/south road, runs all the way to Rome, and the Decumanus, the east/west road, runs from one end of the modern city to the other. Theoretically if you know the two streets, you should be able to split the city into four "relatively" easy chunks. My realistic advice is to, whenever you get turned around, look for the dome. From the center of the city, the dome is to the north, the train station to the northwest, Piazza Signoria to the south, the Ponte Vecchio (big bridge, can't miss it) south of that, and the Piazza Santa Croche to the east. Art History, much like Roman Achievement, embodies a lot of what I see on a day to day basis. For the most part the class in run with a lecture one day a week, and a site visit the second day. The site visits function much like a tour, just with a midterm and a final. We'll be visiting all the museums, and on some occasions places that are not normall accesible to the public without a reservation, such as Santa Maria del Carmine. For those museums which I want to further explore, we were given a museum pass which allows us unlimited access to every museum in the city. Being that museums have an entrance fee upwards of 30 euro and a wait time of 4 hours during the peak season, I fully intend on using it. As for design studio, we only have one project this semester: design a "welcome" center in the Piazza Lorenzo Ghiberti, next to the Sant'Ambrogio market. The center will incorporate all the elements which make Florence..Florence. Food, art, crafts, fashion, it is to be a place not just for tourists, but a progression which revitalizes the Piazza for everyone to enjoy. Being just a 10 minute walk away, it will be very powerful to be able to design from the site itself, sketching, taking pictures, and observing the movement and flow.
With one class on monday, one class on wednesday, and no class on fridays, there has been plenty of down time to explore, eat, shop, and plan ahead. Today we booked our trip to Vienna and Salzburg for the weekend of February 14. Our accommodations for Paris over spring break have been finalized, and in April we are looking at the Amalfi Coast in the Italian Riviera, and either Barcelona or Germany for Spring Fest. Along with the Reading Cities trips, I should be kept pretty busy this semester. And once we start travelling I know the weeks are going to fly by. I'm just trying to take in as much as possible.
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| View From Studio Site |
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| View From Studio Site |
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| Italian Hot Chocolate |
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| Design Studio |
