....AND WE'RE BACK!!!!

Hello all!

Well well well I'm back again. I'm feeling super lucky and blessed right now sitting at Logan drinking a beer and having a sandwich waiting for the 9:45 flight through Zurich to Venice...and waiting for Melissa!! Going back to re experience all of the wonderfulness that made last summer in Venice studying photography and art history so epic and special once again but as a TA (ahhaha horrid sentence structure--dont care!).

I just graduated this morning at the Garden and I've barely slept but I don't care about that...it's time to grab life by the horns..I'll sleep when I'm dead (not to be morbid)...or later on the plane after having one too many free Swiss wine bottles. This is truly a day for the history books. I got to spend time with my parents (short but sweet visit and had lobster at the top of the hub--truly a graduation rarity and delights thanks mama and papa). I got to say hi and bye to so many people I care about today.

I'm not making much sense right now. However, I promise that my blog this year will be more thorough, witty, entertaining, photo-filled (with captions) and likely a bit deeper and a teeny bit flowery (just for fun/I'll be trying to write as well as Teal does).

I have countless! endless! personal goals set for this trip--I can't wait to get to work. I'm ready to learn all over about the great city of Venice and backpack with my best friends. I'm ready to do some serious self-maintenence--CLEAN UP ON AISLE SARAH! HAHA I'm so excited to have much needed introspective "Skark" time while making new friends in new places all over Europe. I'm ready to be woken up early in the a.m by church bells in Venice, sit along the Zattere at sunset to think or have cheese and wine (or both!), and spend hours with my camera and tripod romping around Venice to capture images that I like to consider beautiful and rare (hopefully more people pictures this year). Most of all I'm super stoked to work (no, I have not forgotten that's the main purpose of my trip) with the Andrea's and Krystina (art history prof) and have great conversation over Venetian food.

I can't wait to walk into the Don tomorrow when we arrive in Venice I know it will feel like home all over again. It's amazing what one month did for me last year, let's see what i can do with two!

Melissa here, bottom of the cup, more to come....

<3

Back to life, back to reality

Yes it's sad and true--I'm back from Europe. Going to Venice was such a great trip for me academically and personally so I'm so glad I got to go however shortlived it was! Wish I was there all summer!

Love,

Sarah

Verona

Salve!

We went to Verona on Saturday! It was beautiful and small enough that we got to see everything we wanted to and have time to goof off as well.

We went to the Arena, the Castle of S. Pietro, saw the Teatro Romano, Duomo, etc! The Fiume Adige (river) flows through the whole city. I bought a map and led everyone around like i had been there before! We stayed for dinner and found this great buffet style place and I got a HUGE salad pasta and 0.5 L of wine for 12 Euro...WHATTA BARGAIN!

This is us being dorky along the River Adige. The Castle Pietro and Teatro Romano are up on the hill behind us. The next picture (kinda emo haha) is me in the grass half way up the big hill. We really liked this spot because we had a great view of Verona and we could hear a band warming up at Teatro Romano. We got snacks and wine and parked there for a while haha.

These pictures were taken by my roomate Julianna. I have my own pictures from Verona but I have yet to convert them all to jpgs and pick five favorites for the blog! Today (Sunday) it was rainy and cold, random! We watched the rowing race down the Grand Canal before going to the Ducal Palace for 2 hours to finish our treasure hunt for Art History. Then I spent hours with my group working on the Campo Project. We present on our neighborhood on Thursday! I spent the whole night researching and preparing a survey of my photo work to go over with my profs tomorrow. 

I still have yet to decide on a final theme...but there's plenty of time because we only meet for an hour or so in the morning for photo this week to check in on our progress so I have tons of time to shoot. I don't know how I'm not going to have a camera once i get home and sadly have to return the Nikon to the NEU photo lab! Hopefully COOP will help me be able to get one! We only have one week left!! BOO! This program really needs to be 6 weeks long---not just because I want to stay here longer but because it was a tad rushed and truncated. Nonetheless, I've had a fab time and I've learned ALOT! Now onto finals week......

Love,

Sarah

OH YES I ALMOST FORGOT! The world is so SO SMALL! 3 years ago in front of a museum in London I saw a huge  sculpture of a pregnant lady with no limbs. Saturday night as we were leaving Verona I SAW THIS STATUE AGAIN! I know its the same one because when we saw it in London we were told it was a traveling sculpture! AH!

Fun!

Random, fun light and space pics! 

Fun with flashlights and 20 second exposures in San Marco, corner of the Ducal Palace, random stairs near Santa Maria delle Salute.

List

Things to do and see:

Do:

Come up with a theme for photo final

Campo project

Go to a dance club if there are any in Venice

A tid bit of laundry

Go the Lido beach atleast 2 more times

See:

Peggy Guggenheim Collection

Verona (think Shakespeare)

Murano (glass blowing island)

Jewish Ghetto 

Burano

I took these random colorful pictures on the Island of Burano I talked about in an earlier post! It's 40 mins on the boat from Venice. For some reason the colors in ALL of my pics are muted by Blogger.com 

sad

Milan was fun!

Salve!

I went to Milan this past weekend! Vanessa (one of the TA's) and I took a night trip to Milan on Saturday. We took TrenItalia and it took 2.5 hours to get there. Once there we took the subway two stops to Loreto to our extravagent, classy Hotel Laguna Blu. That was completely sarcastic! HAHA! There was a garden that looked like a crack head decorated it; childrens toys spewed everywhere, a random vacuum cleaner, stacks of chairs, cleaning supplies....it looked more like a storage closet than the garden they asked us to wait in. We had two lil twin beds in a room that smelled like cig smoke! The perk: AIR CONDITIONING! Which came in handy after a night of clubbing and a heat wave. But first I should talk about the turisty stuff. We went to see the Duomo, which looks like a big frosted cake. It is extremely Gothic inside and out. IT IS MASSIVE! We went through the main shopping area (the first of its kind) which is right off of the Duomo Square. Then we hit the public gardens.

Main shopping area in Milan

Vanessa and I had to get some key things out of our system. After 2 weeks straight of pasta and pizza we went out for sushi. GUILTY!!! I needed to switch up my taste palette. Also, the nightlife in Venice is lacking, which is fine because we're so busy anyways.  SO Saturday night in Milan we went to a crazy chic club called The Oracle seeking fun Euro techno music with a lot of bass and beat---and that's what we got! We danced and drank vodka tonics til 3 am! I wore heels (which I NEVER DO!!) We made random friends at the club. We took a cab home. 

Vanessa and I in the Public Gardens in Milan

Monday we went across the canal to Giudecca with our Prof. Holly to do some shooting for the space assignment. We took us to her old rowing club and a ship yard for some random and interesting shots. I will return to Giudecca to probably do some much needed laundry....

Last night (Monday night) I wrote 4 art history papers, one page per work of art from different churchs around the city. One paper was about the facade of the Palazzo Dolfin-Manin, which is on the Grand Canal near the Ponto Rialto. 

Hotel Laguna Blu, Milan 

This week in photo we we are working on the space assignment. Today we went to the Franciscan Basilica Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. The facade and exterior architecture is purposefully simple. The monks of this church lived off of charity and focused ALL of their energy on meditation. St. Francis meditated SO hard that he bears the same wounds on his hands as Christ. The Assumption of the Virgin by Titian is the main altarpiece in Basilica Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. This piece truly launched his career.  I'm working on the campo project with Krissy, Jenna, and Abbey. Solid group. We study a neighborhood for a week and a half and then give the  class a tour of the campo's church, architecture etc.....We pretend to be our art history teacher for 40 minutes. And of course we each write our own 8 pages papers.

TEAL, WE HAVE LIBRARY CARDS FOR THE BIG PUBLIC LIBRARY IN VENICE!!!! I know you'd love to hear that!

Random pic of shadow and light (the weekend assignment)

Monday we went across the canal to Giudecca with the photo class. Holly took us around to her old rowing club and an old ship yard. Though, I have had my fill of pictures of boats. 

After class today we went to Punto supermarket for lunch, where I was WAY OVERCHARGED FOR MY PASTA SALAD AH!!! Because of the language barrier I lost the argument with the cashier. Oh well. My Italian has gotten a lot better and natural sounding.

 

Tomorrow night we're all meeting Piazza San Marco to have a workshop on night shooting. Thursday night we're having a cocktail party at Prof. Andrea G's house! We're wearing masks like Venecians do during Carnivale. 

Vanessa and I in front of the Duomo, Milan

Anyways! The NEU Photo Venice 2009 website has been started with our bios and random unfinished pictures to fill it until they post our final projects in mid June!

www.neuphotovenice.com

Arrividerci,

Sarah