Bisous and Besos from Europe!

So this will be a quick post before I knock out in my awesome hostel in Barcelona, Spain! I am currently in my fall break so I have a whole week to travel and explore Europe with some friends. I have already visited Paris (we stayed there for about four days) and I arrived this morning in Barcelona and had quite an eventful day!

It's so interesting being in another country other than Italy, although I must admit my head is reeling from the constant change of languages within the past few days. In less than a week I have been speaking in Italian, English, Spanish, mandarin and Cantonese (with some Chinese vendors or tourists I met) and very, very, very little French. It was quite a struggle realizing that instead of "grazie," and "buon giorno" I had to say "merci" and "bonjour", and now that I'm in Spain it's taken me a while to switch off my Italian mode and get back into speaking Spanish. I hadn't realized how much Italian I had picked up until I found myself struggling quite a bit to remember how to talk in Espanol.

Honestly, I didn't know what to expect for fall break, but so far I have been loving every single moment of it from the second I stepped off from the beauvais airport into Paris. From then on every day since has been absolutely magical. I think Paris is the first city that I have really fallen in love with. Being able to walk through the crisp autumn air of the city, having dinner by the seine river, finding the original Shakespeare and co. Bookstore,  visiting countless museums for free because of my student visa (including the louvre, orangerie, and musee D'Orsay) among many other adventures felt like a complete dream. Paris is hands down the most stunning city I have ever been in, I might has well have been living in a painting. (Also, the stereotype about Parisians all being stuck up was not true for me at all, I was fortunate enough to meet many friendly Parisians who were very patient and amused with my 10-word French vocabulary)

I think may be in danger of falling in love with Barcelona as well, although both cities are very different. I am loving the food, architecture, and the festive culture I see everywhere. Tonight my friends and I were able to go to see a Flamenco performance, have unlimited sangria, and have a tapas (dishes of selected Spanish foods). Needless to say, we were all very happy by the end of the night ;) One of the first shocks that I got when I came here though, is that the main language in northern Spain isn't Spanish, but Catalan, a certain dialect that is a cross between Spanish and French with a little Italian thrown in. For example, instead of "salida" which means "exit" in spanish, you would say "sortida" in Catalan. It's a mix between "sortie" (french for exit) and "salida". Apparently,  a lot of northern Spain had a lot of influences from its surrounding countries, so it seems quite different from the stereotypical Spain that we think of. I'm also not sure what I was expecting about Spain since the only Spanish-speaking culture I know is from Latin America, so to hear and experience Spanish in a very European-style is extremely fascinating to me.

And before I leave, here is a beautiful picture of notre dame in Paris,

A spanish choir was singing that day

as well as the street view of Barcelona from the hostel I am staying at:

hoy esta lloviendo!

Hopefully I'll be able to find the time to post more updates and more pictures :) sending lots of French and Spanish kisses to everyone, bisous and besos!

Buenos noches!
Kayee

Adventures in Southern Italy: Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, and Vesuvius

Positano, Italy

It's been quite a while (almost a month, in fact) since I've posted anything because I've been so busy studying, traveling, and learning more and more about Italian culture, but its been such a crazy adventure! My apologies for having slacked on this quite a bit. Everything is going by so quickly and my days are so packed with activities that sometimes I feel like I don't have time to think. So I guess I have this blog to thank for making me sit down at least once in a while and reflect on my experiences here; I'll try to update this blog more frequently with shorter posts from now on. This one will just be a little longer to make up for my absence :)

I'm currently writing this blog post on my way back from the Amalfi coast with Euroadventures. Most people on the bus right now are sleeping or watching the movie that our tour guides have put up-Gladiator. Although I have seen the film before, watching it as the southern Italian hills roll by the bus window is quit a surreal experience. While Russel Crowe urges his horse on through the forest in an attempt to save his family, I can't help comparing the settings with the rolling hills and mountains that I'm currently traveling through. I don't think I'll ever see Gladiator in the same way again after living in Italy.

View of the Italian countryside on the way home to Florence

Quiet towns

So far, I have been in Italy for over a month, and the beauty of this country still continues to amaze me. Amalfi was one of the best trips I've had here so far. I felt like I was living some luxurious life that I had only seen in movies. We went to the island of Capri, had cruises on boats while drinking wine, beer etc., went cliff jumping (I jumped off a 49 foot cliff and still have the cuts and scrapes to prove it) saw the Blue Grotto-one of the wonders of the world- and simply relaxed and sketched on the coast of the Mediterranean sea.

bellisima Positano

booze cruise #1

frands :)

actually the scariest 2 seconds of my life

our Euroadventures group!

The best part of the Amalfi coast though, was taking an independent trip to Pompeii and mount Vesuvius with a couple of friends. My biggest regret about the trip was that I didn't have enough time to explore the ancient city of Pompeii because I'm pretty sure that it's the coolest place I've been in Italy thus far. Wandering around (and getting very, very lost) in such an ancient city was unreal.

It's quite humbling to walk into old houses, stand in the center of old coliseums, and stroll through the streets of these ruins and realize that the thousands of people who lived here long ago were so similar to me- and yet were completely annihilated in a matter of hours. While Positano, Capri island, and Sorrento were breathtaking, Pompeii held the most meaning for me because it was a dead city with so much natural beauty, history, and tragedy. I almost felt intrusive walking through the houses, stables, bakeries, and temples that once would have been so intimate and personal. Even though the place was bustling with tourists, the place felt eerie- for me the presence of death and the destructive power of nature still lingered heavily in the air. It's one of the most intriguing places I have ever been.

one of the many, many streets of Pompeii

me being really excited about the temple of Apollo?

the coliseum was strangely beautiful and peaceful for a place that was once filled with so much death

I wasn't lying about Pompeii being huge- we probably stopped 15 people to ask for directions!

Before we left, my friends Ruth, Steven, Tiffanie, Alice and I managed to find the mummified corpses of the victims of Mount Vesuvius. To see the bodies frozen in gestures of utter despair, or sometimes- peace, was difficult for me to take in. I can't even begin to imagine the overwhelming fear and hopelessness they must have felt to realize that they were about to die. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

After Pompeii, my friends and I decided that we couldn't leave southern Italy without seeing Mount Vesuvius, so naturally we decided to take our own little adventure/bus ride to the legendary volcano.

The gigantic military-like buses that hauled us almost all the way to the top of the mountain

View from looking over the volcano- you can see almost the entire coast of southern Italy

oh you know, just walking above cloud level

Feeling incredibly small next to the giant crater (it's probably twice the size of the USC campus at least)

Sitting on the edge of the crater, no big

Out of breath from literally RUNNING down Mount Vesuvius to catch the last bus, and very happy that we made it!

That's probably enough writing and pictures for now, but I will do my best to update more regularly and with shorter posts! I still have a lot more that I can say but I will save that for another late night in Italia when I don't feel like doing homework :)

Con tanto amore,
Kayee

Sunshine, art history, and too much gelato

Where do I even begin? I had originally intended to update this blog about once a week but I am quickly discovering that every one of my days so far in Florence have been so eventful and jam-packed with little stories that I can't possibly fit one week's worth of material and photographs into one blog post. I'm still trying to figure out this blogging thing.

Italy is slowly but surely stealing my heart with its beautiful city, art history, friendly (and very, very curious) locals, and lovely language. Now that I have been here for more than two weeks I am starting to become used to being a Florentine art student, and I'm thinking that 3 months is not enough time to spend here. The entire city is full of inspiration and new ideas-  how can one possibly live 5 minutes from the Piazza della Signoria (by the famous Uffizi museum) and not want to unleash your inner artist? The whole city is filled with so many stories and so much history: I'm actually living in the Renaissance!

Piazza della Signoria, a square filled with famous sculptures such as the Rape of the Sabines, Menelaus supporting the body of Patroclus, and a copy of Michelangelo's David.

It's very amusing to me how curious and friendly Italians are (despite stereotypes of how local Italians are rude- I have certainly never experienced this). They are especially kind and sympathetic to me when I try and speak in my elementary Italian. Just last night I was sketching by myself in the Piazza della Signoria when an elderly local artist came up to me to see what I was drawing. Aside from receiving drawing tips, I ended up practicing my Italian a good bit and making a good friend. We also got into an interesting conversation about different cultures as he was especially interested in my Chinese heritage.

However, just as others who have studied abroad in Italy have warned me, I am discovering that Italian men are much more forward than Americans, and sometimes they have really strange ways of approaching someone they find attractive. Most of the time they just really like to stare, but from time to time my friends and I will end up swapping stories about weirdos who try to hit on us and/or get our numbers. One of the slickest moves I've come across was when this Italian cashier almost tricked me into writing down my number while I signed my credit card receipt. Also, for some strange reason Italian men like using lyrics from "Call Me Maybe" to pick up American girls- um what? I find most of it really funny though, so it's not really a problem when my friends and I can get a good laugh out of it.

Unfortunately though, I must have gotten too excited and overestimated myself since my first day in Florence sooooo for the past week I have been sick- probably from going out too much and exhausting myself- typical. Luckily my friend Ruth Le came to visit me and keep me company with Tiffanie while I was feeling like a total poophead.

Being smiley poopers

I'm almost totally recovered now though! But it seems like the rest of the school has caught the sick bug  after me so I just need to be extra-careful about taking care of myself from now on.

And now we finally get to the part that I've been wanting to tell everyone about- traveling!!! I cannot even begin to describe the beauty and unique atmosphere of the places I've visited so far, which are Ravenna and Cinqueterre. So maybe I'll just do a less writing and bombard you with pictures, which are probably a much better reflection of the towns than my words can ever describe.

Last Saturday, while I was still semi-sick I decided to go on a tour to Ravenna to see the famous mosaic churches of San Vitale and San Apollinare with Professor Helen Watterson. One of the many perks of being SACI student is that we get free art history trips every weekend. For example, I'm planning to go to Pisa this Saturday :D

Learning about art history in freaking San Apollinare, is this real life?

Helen Watterson is incredible: not only is her knowledge of Florentine art history incredible, but even in her 50s her energy level far exceeds our group of 20-year olds. And just so you have an idea of how exhausting the trip was, we all had to be at the Florence train station at 7am for a 6 hour round trip, we visited at least 8 different churches/baptisteries/Dante's tomb/museums within 7 hours, and we walked literally all day under the sun until we headed home around 6pm. Towards the end of the day my friends and I could barely feel our feet and (as you can see above) everyone- with the exception of Helen- was desperate to sit down. And if that wasn't bad enough, Helen apparently woke up around 4am that morning for a 3 hour jog right before the field trip. She's like a walking energizer bunny brimming with art history. Non capisco!

My friends and I being totally exhausted/eating our first Piadina (a delicious local flatbread sandwich) for lunch

The cathedrals, however, are absolutely gorgeous. I can't imagine what it would be like to worship there on a regular basis: the ceilings are so intricately decorated, and everything is built to such a majestic scale. Going to Ravenna was definitely a huge treat for me, especially since I took a year of art history with Dr. Euler in high school. Being able to see the the cathedrals and baptisteries that I only read about in textbooks in person was quite the experience and extremely humbling.

My favorite by far was San Vitale (shown below). I was completely unprepared for the incredible sense of awe and insignificance that hit me when I entered the cathedral, and I could tell that everyone else was just as struck by wonder. I'll let you see for yourself, although the pictures (photo credit to my apartment neighbor Paige,) really doesn't do San Vitale justice at all.

The amount of gold and the richness of the art/mosaics is overwhelming

The ceilings actually go on forever

This past weekend, my friends and I decided to go visit Cinqueterre through Euroadventures. Cinqueterre is this small town that my friend Erica insisted I had to go to while I was in Italy, so I knew I had to take advantage of the warm weather while it lasted to travel there. Also, Cinqueterre is right along the coast and had beautiful beaches, so how could I possibly resist? 

I have had so many amazing moments since arriving in Florence, but I honestly have to say that this was by far the best day I have had in Italy so far. Cinqueterre is composed of 5 tiny tiny towns- hence the name cinque (meaning five) and terre (lands): RioMaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso. In the 8 hours that we were there I visited all the towns except for Corniglia because we wanted as much beach time as we could get in Monterosso. Here are some of the first views that greeted us as we arrived:

This was one of the first towns that we visited, I believe it's called RioMaggiore

Being in Cinqueterre is literally like walking in a dream

Even the colorful laundry made us smile :)

Cinqueterre must be one of the most romantic and quaint little towns that I've ever been to. I swear it was made for lovers: first there are all the pretty colors of the buildings, the beautiful golden sunsets, amazing pesto sauce and white wine, and then of course you have the gorgeous beaches. The dark sand is so clean and brilliant it actually sparkles, and when you walk it looks like there are little flecks of gold flashing in the sunlight. There is even a street of love, called Via dell'Amore, which is a 15 minute path along the cliffs of the mediterranean sea. It's literally the street of love because tourists and lovers have written all sorts of lovey dovey notes along the whole entire walk. There are even areas lined with fishermen's nets or fences, and tourists will place locks on them if they believe that they have found love that lasts. 

Cute no?

But my friend Jane and I don't have Italian significant others so we made our own lopsided heart in the Via dell'Amore =)

Viva i romantici!

The colors decorating the town are amazing: the whole time we felt like we were walking in a storybook. It makes me wish that Los Angeles could be just as colorful instead of being all brown and gross and smoggy- I'm sure people would be much happier and cheerful! I wish I had a better camera so the sky wasn't so washed out, but at least you get a taste of how brilliant the colors are in Cinqueterre next to the blue ocean and green mountains. The view is absolutely breathtaking! I must have taken at least 10 pictures of the same view.

This is still along the Via dell'amore

We had heard from our tour guide that the specialty of Cinqueterre is the pesto sauce and white wine, so my friends and I somehow wandered on top of a restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean sea and decided to eat there. (And if you look closely enough at the picture below you'll see what I mean by the ridiculous guy girl ratio in SACI that I mentioned in my previous post ;)) The waiters were quite taken with all of us, and one of them was so excited that I spoke Spanish! At this point, my "Italian" turns into Spanish so often that being allowed to speak real Spanish for once is like taking a huge breather- it's a language that I can actually understand and use fairly well.

Our lunch group, and note the gorgeous oceanfront view behind us

Trying to be artsy while waiting for our food

Lunch finally! A local pesto dish with grilled vegetables and a glass of reallllllly delicious white wine :)

My apartment neighbor Lindsey and I splitting our yummy yummy lunch

I don't think my friends and I could have picked a more perfect day to go: it was about 80 degrees all day, sunny, blue skies, and the mediterranean ocean was SO warm! After lunch we took the train to our last stop, Monterosso, which is where the beach was. It was my first time touching the mediterranean, and unlike the grey Californian beaches, the ocean was actually bright blue and sparkling!

Aside from being super crowded and touristy Monterosso was perfect. I also noted that the people here are usually much more fit than Americans, and it's probably socially acceptable to have "tramp stamp" tattoos in Europe since so many people had one. Some guys even had belly button piercings, which I thought was wayyyyy weird, but I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

That pirate flag makes me so happy, in addition to many other aspects of Cinqueterre :)

Jane and I taking a mini break from the beach to get gelato! Mine was mango (of course,) and coconut

Well this has been quite a lengthy post, but I hope all the pictures made up for it! I'm having a lot of trouble condensing so much fun and adventures into a concise blog entry, and I just had to share all the wonderful experiences that I've been blessed to have. I miss everyone back at home tons and tons, so I hope you receive the buckets of love and Italian kisses that I'm trying to mentally send over from Europe right now :) Here's to too much gelato, not enough coffee, and 3 more months of Italian adventures!

Con tanto amore.
Kayee :)

Le Dolce Vita

It's been about a week and a half since I've been in Florence, but all my days have been so packed with random events and class and getting used to the city that I feel like I've been here for much longer than that. I'm still trying to get used to waking up every morning and feeling the thrill of being in Firenze, the art capitol of the world. One of my professors, Tina Fallini, told us that Italy has 60% of the world's art, and half of that is in Florence! Thank you USC animation department for choosing one of the most inspirational and beautiful cities for animajors to study in!! I am actually living in the Renaissance. For example, here is a picture of the beautiful Duomo that I walk past every single day on the way to school.

I can't even begin to describe the massive size of the cathedral, or the majesty of it- the picture doesn't do it any justice at all. To see the Duomo in person is literally awe-inspiring because you feel so insignificant in it's shadow, I highly doubt I'll ever be able to take it for granted in the next 3 months that I'm here.

The first day of school for me was on Thursday, and I am happy to say that after a few days of running about between my advisor here at SACI (Studio Art Center International) and USC, I finalized my classes! I'm now taking 3d animation, Italian cinema (my professor worked on the Godfather!!!), intermediate drawing, sculpture, and creative writing (which I managed to convince my professor to let me "narrate" primarily through storyboarding :D ) Unfortunately this meant that I had to drop Fresco painting (see attached picture of my friends mixing the calcio for the fresco below)

 -which I was having a lot of fun in, but I think this will work out for the better. I am absolutely loving all of my classes so far and my professors are all wonderful and intriguing. I'm finding it really amusing that most of them are from Europe, so many of them have Italian or British accents. I guess it's just a constant reminder that I'm not in the states anymore just in case one day I forget and decide to take things for granted.

The only complaint that I have is that we work outside in the courtyard for sculpture class, and for those of you who don't know, Europe is buzzing with little terrible monsters called mosquitos this time of the year. SO half the time I feel like I'm at risk of being eaten alive. Fortunately for me though, I think I either have a lower body temperature than most people/living in North Carolina has built up my mosquito immune system so in the rare moments when I do get mosquito bites, they disappear after an hour or two. That still doesn't stop me from being paranoid though, but maybe that's because while I'm working on my sculpture I'll hear someone clap their hands on their legs about every 2 minutes in a failed attempt to kill another blood-sucking minion.

Outside of class, my friends and I have had plenty of time to meet other SACI students and get to know the city better. The funny thing is, there are about 100 students in SACI, and I think there are only about 10 guys, so you can probably imagine the weird dynamic of having a 1:10 guy girl ratio! But I guess that's what makes life interesting :) During our times off I either go grocery shopping, grab a quick brioche (a pastry) or cappuccino, or simply go wandering around the city with a friend or two. All the food here is SO good and SO rich that I almost feel bad for eating so much of it on a regular basis, but quite frankly with the amount of walking that I do every day I think I'm going to end up losing weight rather than gaining it. And just so you get an idea of what the Florentine streets look like, here is a picture of my way towards school during sunset- the streets are practically golden:

Anddd here is a picture of me and my friend Jane in a failed attempt to do a model shot!

And here we are eating our first gelato in Firenze by the Duomo

This past week I also went to a local Italian market for the first time and shopped for food in Italian! The experience was, to say the least, very unique and a bit overwhelming, but in a good way! Imagine walking into a huge farmer's market, but everyone speaks Italian and there are vegetables, ingredients, fruits, fish, ten bajillion kinds of pasta, cheeses, bread, pig heads, pork chops, roasted duck, every kind of meat you can imagine hanging from ceilings, packed in crates, stuffed on shelves, placed in baskets, etc. etc. and the thing about Italy is that everything is so colorful! The colors, combined with the really yummy smell of all the food is incredible. Thankfully, grocery shopping here is much cheaper (and healthier) than in the States, but the only thing I learned quickly is that I have to eat everything within a few days because Italians don't put any preservatives or hormones in their food. For example, my apples from 4 days ago already went bad. If I were in the US they would probably take 2 weeks to even start feeling gross, (which now that I think about it, is really gross and makes me wonder what other crap I've been putting in my body). It was so much fun shopping in the local grocery markets. I'm starting to realize how much I can get by with a little Italian, and when I'm absolutely at a loss I find that I can just resort to spanish. At one point I was desperate for olive oil and had no idea how to express what I wanted, so before I knew it I sad "Tienes aceite?" (Spanish for 'do you have oil'?) to the storekeeper, and immediately she responded "Ahhh aceite!!!!" and came out with a huge jar of it for me. At the end of the day I managed to use my broken Italian and buy a good handful of food to bring back to the apartment, and here is a picture of my first home-cooked semi-Italian dinner with a small glass of white wine!

This has been quite a long post and I still have sooo much to say about my first week but I'll stop this here and leave the rest for the next time I post (which will be much sooner I promise). But before I go I have to show you guys the beautiful view from my bedroom window and of the Ponte de Vecchio bridge. This is what I am blessed enough to be surrounded by every day for the next 3 months! 

Con tanto amore,

Kayee :)