The Vasari Corridor

Colin -- Above the heads of all the tourists, joining Palazzo Vecchio with the Uffizi Gallery with Palazzo Pitti is the Vasari Corridor. It's a closed passageway that weaves it's way among the rooftops and upper stories of the area, even crossing the river above the Ponte Vecchio, like the secret entrance to Hogsmeade from Hogwarts. And while it wasn't all of my Harry Potter fantasies in one, the whole "real life" part of it more than makes up.

down below the plebs grind through their day

The Corridor is closed to most visitors, but Helen the superprofessor came through with a private tour. Well done Helen. So we saw the part of the corridor that the Uffizi uses to display its incredible collection of self-portraits from artists that extend from the Renaissance until the 20th century. Literally there were hundreds of paintings lining both sides of the wall, with a handful of marble busts in between.

my favorite portrait, I forget the artist

Meanwhile, back at SACI...

an ongoing project I just started

I'm going on a field trip to Mantua on Sunday, I'll see you all then.

EX3, EX3, Read All About It

Colin -- I went to an exhibition opening on Saturday at a gallery called EX3. I wasn't allowed to take photos, so I won't really talk too much about it, since some illustrations would help explain the concept. Basically, there was a single exhibition by an artist in the large central room, while a separate exhibition of many artists took place in the space that wrapped around the main room. There's some dogs at the show. The one on the left was intensely curious about the other, who was only interested in all of the humans around.

This is Aaron making an impressive shadow bunny on an art piece. That man in the projection is looking at a tv on the floor near where I'm standing. The work is basically an animated man displayed from a projector, watching a an animated image of a tv on an actual tv. Oh conceptual art, you slay me. 

 The night after the art show was filled with missing the bus back, walking around, eating kebabs, hanging out in bars, shooting darts, hanging out in people's apartments. Also getting pastries at midnight, which is why I posted this nondescript photo -->

At dead end somewhere, a man will appear from behind a sliding door. You hand him money and he produces pastries. You can't explain that. 

On the walk home it rained, which can only mean pictures of wet streets. Also, here's the door to my apartment complex, so you know what it looks like.

Finally, I picture of traffic lights that I'm proud of. Enjoy it. I'm going to bed now, goodnight all.

I'm 21

Mmm, quite.

Danishes in Denmark

By now you've come to expect matters of pertinent substance from my posts, and continuing that tradition is of utmost importance to me and my blog. Now look at these pictures of the pastries I've consumed since arriving in Denmark:

That is all, thank you for your time.

I Am Left Of Center

Colin - The week has been uneventful, I must say. It's been lots of reading and trying to stay productive. Instead of telling you about all the non-events I took part in, I'll just share some pictures from the past few days.

Reading Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities for my drawing course. It takes place in conversations between the emperor Kublai Khan and the traveler Marco Polo, who is entrusted to describe the cites in Kublai's domain. The descriptions don't lay out the blueprints of the cities (which are imaginary in any case), nor the beautiful architectures, nor any romantic exoticism. Instead, Marco Polo recalls the essence of the places he visits. Each city seems to be a physical representation of its basic function. Very short, very dense and very confusing, but a good read. I'll be looking over it more. Also, Chino cola. Tasty but flat.

I went to the Asian minimarket near my apartment and bought spicy ramen. Then I went to another market and bought Guarana Antarctica. I guess ramen is the same everywhere, except it costs about 10x as much (that's only about 1.10euro mind you). Guarana Antarctica is a wonderful drink from Brazil flavored with guarana. It's very sweet and highly caffeinated. Authenticity be damned, this lunch kicked ass.

Florence is having a chocolate festival until Sunday. There's chocolate kebabs and chocolate waffles and hot chocolate and chocolate liqueur and so many truffles and then just chocolate.
There's also chocolate salami, which is waaay less meaty than you suspect. In fact it has no meat. In fact it is just chocolate and cookies made to resemble cured meat. cool.
But I didn't buy that, I bought this, chocolate with salt. I'm uncertain why, but salt and chocolate go together like one bro with another bro, just hanging out. Salt is way more handy than I ever gave it credit for.

After a literal decade of not eating crispy m&m's, and two years of trying to accept pretzel m&m's as not the unwanted bastard offspring of Mars Candy, I discovered this little guy hiding at Tutto A 99 Cent. My favorite m&m's are still sold everywhere but America. The candy was oddly discolored, like the food dye had faded... like they had survived a long time in a warehouse somewhere. No matter, still got food. The package on the bottom is a Lion bar and it tastes like 100 Grand.

 This is just a knife in my kitchen, yearning for the window. I am an art student.

This is whisky and also oranges.

 This is our apartment's first effort to make a lot of chili. Holy god is this tasty. We were missing chili powder and cumin but we made it work. Beef, red beans, black beans, onions, garlic, beer, tomatoes, red pepper, black pepper, and salt. Every Tuesday we will do this.

My first print from serigraphy (screen printing) class. This is a cartoon of the Epiphany Celebration, which I mentioned a while ago. I'll post some on facebook if I can ever get a quality picture of it. Screen printing is fun. Once you have a design on the screen, printing is as easy as lining a paper up and wiping a squeegee across with ink. Much less hassle than printing etching or woodcuts, though I love all types of prints.

Just a food cart by Piazza San Lorenzo

That's everything for now.

America? Obama!

As the title suggests, many people from Ghana are very excited about President Obama.  They don’t seem to know exactly what his policies are, but they’re pretty happy that he’s president.  Anyway, as my time in Ghana draws to a close, I’ll reflect on a couple of interesting tidbits of my visit.

On the first day, I went to Cape Coast with a couple of friends.  We took a tro-tro, which is a 12-person van that doesn’t leave until it’s full.  When it finally took off, the ride was kind of like a rollercoaster.  A three-hour rollercoaster.  A three-hour rollercoaster that has no airflow at all.  But the experience was overall good because it was 6.5 cedi, which is like $4.  We found a hostel to stay at in Cape Coast that was also inexpensive and we toured the area a little bit.

One of the famous slave castles is in Cape Coast and it was in walking distance from the hotel.  The experience of going to a slave castle is sobering, to say the least.  I’ve been to two now—I went to Elmina today—and the feeling is strange.  Both castles have “condemned rooms,” where they just let people who were “unfit” for slavery die.  I really don’t know how to explain the whole thing. 

Also weird is the fact that there’s a market in and around the dungeons.  It’s a strange atmosphere.  And it’s a little disconcerting when you walk out of a serious environment and people start surrounding you and telling you to buy their things.  “Friend, I have a gift for you!”  No, sir, you don’t.  You have a business proposal for me and I won’t fall for it a second time!  We did spend a little bit of time in the market and talked to some people.  One person knew where Columbus was and he apparently knows people in Cleveland, so I bought a painting from him. 

The next day, we went to Kakum National Park and did a canopy walk.  IT WAS SO COOL.  I don’t know how high up we were, but it felt pretty high.  Then we had a long tro-tro ride back to Tema, where our ship is docked.

Yesterday I participated in Habitat for Humanity, where I learned that I am unable to plaster walls.  Also, a small child almost stole my watch; I had to barter with silly bands in order to get it back.  But I was successful. 

Today I had a trip with Semester at Sea (because FDPs are the worst) and it focused on slave dungeons.  We went to Elmina, another big castle, and then back again to Cape Coast (but this time on an air-conditioned bus).  Guess what?  The vendors remembered me and didn’t bother me.  Instead they asked how my trip was and where my other friends were.  Yay Ghanaian friends!

I want to take a moment to acknowledge my newfound love of goats.  There are a lot of them here, and they are hilarious.

Sorry there are no pictures.

Neptune Day!

February 8^th marked the day that the MV Explorer crossed the equator in open waters.  We didn’t have class (because apparently we can’t have more than 4 consecutive days of class), and we celebrated an old maritime tradition, formerly associated with hazing marines or something.  I feel like we shouldn’t celebrate these things, but I also don’t want to go to class, so it’s the lesser of two evils? 

In order to become “shellbacks,” we had to be drenched in fish guts (that looked suspiciously like Nickelodeon slime), jump in the pool, and kiss both a fish and King Neptune’s ring.  Basically, they want us all to come down with the same illnesses.  Some people shaved their heads and I’m far too vain for that.  I don’t want a bunch of bald pictures of me to exist. 

The festivities took place from 7-12, and after they were over, we had TACO DAY.  That’s right, taco day.  After weeks of relentless pasta and potatoes, the kitchen came through and we had a fantastic lunch.  It was probably the same quality of Taco Bell, but it just felt so right.