No Umbrellas Today!

Today was definitely my favorite day in Venice so far.  Most of us went out to a bar last night and had a really fun time, but that made getting up for art history today a bit of a challenge.  

Challenging tho it was, I love that class so far.  We met in the piazza San Marco and learned about the history of the city.  Their are a bunch of different myths surrounding the foundation of the city and each one makes it older and more important than the last.  I'm so glad I took that Venetian art history class, it's been so amazing seeing the buildings I've studied, and getting even more in-depth information, and being able to walk up and touch them and see the details.  It helped even more that the sun decided to come out for a bit this morning :).  

Our Photo class was this afternoon.  Our teacher is another Brit, and this is another class that I am really looking forward to.  He mixes photography instruction with slide lectures on famous photographers.  Its an area of art history that I'm not too familiar with, but really excited to learn about.  We don't have this class next week because of our first field trip to Florence, but I think I'll live.  

The Italian Bureaucracy

A word to the wise: If you plan to study abroad, make 6 million photocopies of everything.  

So it turns out, all three of my guesses for Monday were correct.  First we met Robin (who turns out to be the printmaking instructor) outside our apartment and headed over to the scuola.  Its a rather long, but interesting walk.  We pass the Rialto bridge and walk along the Strada Nuova.  Along the way are about 5,000 stores, half of which sell Carnivale masks.  We stopped at the post office and picked up the forms that would begin the frustrating and rather complicated process of registering ourselves with the government and began filling them out together in the printmaking room of the scuola.  

The scuola is about 30 minutes from the apartments.  Of what I've seen so far, there is a library with some older Macs, two graphic design classrooms, a printmaking studio, and a painting room.  Each room opens onto a courtyard and there is a gate at the end that goes right to a canal.

After filling out most of the paperwork, photocopying every page of our passports and our credit cards, and buying a 14 euro stamp we put it all in an envelope to give back to the post office. Then we walked up to the bus depot to buy our health insurance and then attempted to get vaporetto passes with a student discount.  Like before there was some kind of problem, so we had to give up on that for the day.  After that we were free.  I went in on a hair dryer with three other people and got a cell phone and a calling card to call home.  If you want to call me you can e-mail me for my number and receiving calls is free for me, but not for you.  

Yesterday we all met up in the printmaking room again.  It was up to us to find a post office and register ourselves by giving them the packet with all those photocopies along with about 50 eruo. I attempted to do this yesterday, but we went after 2 and they stop taking them after that.  I tried to do this today, and realized I left my passport at the apartment.  I am going to try again tomorrow before art history, and if anything else goes wrong, I might just stay here illegally.  I kid, but it's tempting.  

Anyway, after the printmaking room we went to the painting room and met with our art history professor Krystina.  She gave us a syllabus, explained the class and talked about our field trips to Florence, Milan, and Rome, as well as some bonus trips to Padua and Treviso.  She also got out a map and explained a bit about the city and how it was formed.  During this I realized exactly where we went when we got lost, and let me just say that we were really really lost.  I am the most excited for that class, we don't look at slides, we actually go out and look at the art in its natural environment.  The standing-out-in-a-campo-in-the-rain-trying-to-take-notes part worries me a bit, but it should get nicer when it warms up.

Side note: it's been raining since we got here.  The better weather is when it's slightly less gray, and not raining enough to warrant an umbrella.  On the good side, the heat started working and the rain boots haven't failed me yet.

Krystina then led half of us to the library and the other half went to get their water bus passes so that they could go to the glass blowing facilities on Murano, another island.  Since I'm not taking glass blowing I went to the library.  It's not too far away, and the process for just entering and exiting is pretty complicated.  We applied for our library cards (another copy of our passports required) and Krystina showed us around.  The building used to be the house of a wealthy family of Venice that left its large collection of books to the city.  You can actually get books from as far back as the 15oo's, hold them and flip through at your leisure.  

After the Library we were free to do what we wanted, so Jersey, Dana, Joe, Dan and I went for lunch (the owner of the restaurant stopped us on the street and insisted we go in), went back to the apartments, made sure we had all the forms and documents we needed, left for the post office and after failing to register with the government, we made our way back up to the bus stop to buy our vaporetto passes (for which we needed yet another copy of our passports).  For some reason we don't count as students, so we had to buy them full price, but now we only pay one euro per ride instead of  six.  Since we had the passes we took the vap, as the Venetians call it, halfway down the canal to the other Billa grocery store, picked up some things and headed back.

Today we had our first graphic design class with our professor Pamela Berry, but the section on wednesday is really typography.  They have their own letterpress that we are going to learn how to use.  Today we had to find the letters in the drawers, spell out our names, arrange them on the press, ink it up and make a print.  Its so cool that this is how everything was printed before computers.  Our assignment for the semester is to make a type specimen book cataloguing the scuola's different fonts, because they don't even really know what they look like anymore.  This is the first time our teacher has used it and the first time a class has been centered around it.  If starts to take too long we might have to switch some of it to the computers.

Even though its been rainy, and we've done an absurd amount of walking, and all this paperwork is ridiculous, I've been having a good time.  I'm enjoying seeing all the older Venetian women in their fur coats, hearing every church bell in the city go off on the hour and looking in at all the Carnivale mask shops.  Everyone here has a small dog and none of them are on leashes, they just follow along behind their masters wearing their little sweaters or doggy sized rain jackets.  I can usually tell when I'm near my apartment because of the crooked clock tower that you can see from blocks away.  My first instinct is to say "grazie" to the store clerk or "mi dispiace" when I bump into someone instead of "oh sorry, umm I mean ... whats the word..."  I think I'm kind of getting the hang of Venice.

Shampoo costs more than wine

So we all made it to Venice!  The trip over was rather excruciating.  I got there really early and met up with Nicole before going through security.  I'm very impressed with my mum who held it together really well.  Security wasn't a problem and when we got to the gate we met up with Crystal and Sarah and after that everyone slowly trickled in.  

The flight over was ok. I had an isle seat and was across from Maxine, who held my hand during my freak-outs at lift-off and landing.  Unfortunately I got stuck next to some random old guy the in my row, but he didn't seem to speak English very well, or French so that was fine.  Shortly after settling in I realized I couldn't find the benadryl in my bag, so it was a sleepless flight for me.  Luckily they had those seats with the mini TV's in the back so I watched Tropic Thunder and most of Mama Mia, but I missed the last couple minutes because the plane was landing so they shut everything off. 

We spent 5 hours waiting at the gate in the Paris airport.  I got to practice my French a bit, got some lunch (breakfast, dinner, I don't know what to call it), and about 45 minutes of sleep.  We were quite the sight, at least 4 people were sleeping on the floor on their stuff at one point or another.  We took up a whole row of seats.  Finally around noon we got on the plane to Venice.

The flight over was much better.  It wasn't nearly as crowded (Jersey got a whole row of seats to herself and lied down, the lucky duck).  I slept most of the way, and woke up once just in time to see the alps, take some pictures and miss the inflight meal.  

Finally we got to the Venice airport.  I could see the city from my window while we were landing.  We met Val, a 25 year old grad student who lives in the apartment under ours, and Robin, a soft-spoken girl from England whose position or title we have yet to discover, but we assume must be associated with the scuola in some way.  We had a lot of luggage with us so we had to take w two separate busses across the lagoon to the city.  We attempted to get some kind of student passes for the boats, but I guess we all need letters from the scuola, so we'll have to go back and do that.  We got a boat down the Grand Canal and passed many really pretty buildings and bridges.  

We were all warned to pack light, but I don't think anyone listened.  We had to drag our suitcases up and down the biggest bridge ever.  My shoulders are still sore.  Once we got to the apartments we found out who would be living with who.  I'm on the fourth floor sharing a room with Maxine.  Also in our apartment: Jersey, Dana F., Nicole, Crystal, and Francesca, a girl from UMass who's lived in Italy a few times before and speaks much better Italian than any of us.  Everyone else lives on the two floors below us, but apparently we have the "best" apartment because this is where the visiting artists would stay last semester.  We do have three bathrooms and a balcony, but its on the cold side.  I am sooo happy to have long underwear, it made last night much better than it could have been.  

Dana Jersey and I went out to try and find some dinner after getting settled around 6 or so, but we headed in the expensive direction.  We passed Fendi, Gucci, Chanel, you name it.  And outside each store was a man selling knock offs of that brand.  Eventually we reached San Marco.  It was empty and breathtaking.  Almost no tourists or pigeons, and the buildings surrounding it were lit up.  I can't wait to go back in the daytime.  We couldn't find a restaurant so we settled for pizza. Delicious.

Even though I'm still sick, Val wanted to go out with us so after talking to the parents, Maria, and Eric a few of us went out to Santa Margarita, a piazza close by that has a few bars.  It was pretty empty for a saturday night, but apparently thats the nightlife here in Venice, especially when it's cold.  I didn't drink in favor of my health, and Jersey and I left early, but the other Julie, Crystal and the Danas all got "surprises" from the waiter, which I tried, not bad.  

This morning we woke up at noon, way later than we all thought we'd sleep, but everyone was exhausted.  Val told us she was taking everyone to Billa, the grocery store, so we could shop.  We said we'd be ready in 20 minutes, but they left without us.  So Jersey, Dana F., Maxine, Nicole, Crystal, Sarah S., Colleen, Becky and I decided we could find it.  We couldn't.  After about ten minutes of being lost, we split up and Dana, Nicole, Max, Jersey and I went off on our own, because Dana and Nicole had maps.  

Two hours later, we found it.  It wasn't the worst getting lost, and we accidentally stumbled upon lots of different churches, the Guggenheim museum, and countless allies and canals.  After giving up and heading back home, we stopped to get some coffee, asked the people there, who just told us "left" and we found it!  And the title of this entry is completely true.  Large bottles of wine you can get for one or two euro, itsy bisty bottles of shampoo and conditioner costs three or four.  We are just glad we got lost getting there and not coming back because our bags were so so heavy.  

Dana cooked us some delicious chicken parm, and we played Uno and drank our wine. Cooking was a bit of an adventure, you have to light the stove with a cigarette lighter and I kinda burned my thumb a bit, but we figured it out.  Later on we went down to the other apartment and where everyone was talking and drinking.  

Now I'm back up in my room and Max is giving out massages, so I'm going to take advantage.  Its been a crazy few days, but Venice is lovely.  Its still all surreal, and I woke up this morning thinking I was still in my bed at home.  Tomorrow we are meeting downstairs at 10 to do... something.  It might have something to do with paper work and the government, it might have something to do with school, it might have something to do with touring the city, no one knows, but as Val keeps saying, "Welcome to Italy!"

Ready, Set ...

Hey everyone, and welcome to my blog!  As you may or may not know, I will be studying Graphic Design in Venice this semester and I'm writing about all my experiences here for all my friends and family back in the states.  I'll also be able to post some of my pictures here so that you can all see me smiling and waving in front of some really old buildings.  

So the group flight takes off tomorrow (well, technically today) from NY at 7pm.  We'll arrive in Paris at around 8am on Saturday and be in Venice by 230pm.  I'm sorry to report that I've developed a cold just in time to travel for almost a day, so I'm going prepared with plenty of benadryl and tissues.  With any luck I'll sleep through most of it.  

I'm super nervous and sad to leave, but also wicked excited.  I'll try to post either saturday night or sunday with all the traveling details and info about my schedule, living situation, and how to mail me things. Now I need to sleep, I've got a long car ride to NY in the morning.