brace yourself.

the wrong way: Go hiking in Germany with a partially-torn lateral ligament.
the Wright way: If you think you got an injury in a foreign country, even if it means missing a series of site visits in Rome and a day of sketching, get it checked out.

____________________________

Yesterday, our group went on a bus tour around Roma. Because I wasn't there, I'm not sure which sites they hit. If you're curious, check out our main blog, cuaarchrome2011.blogspot.com.

So what did I do with my day? Let me begin with my Sunday.
Sunday morning, instead of church, I found myself in a taxi on the way to Fatebenefratelli, the main hospital on Tiber Island. There exists an interesting history about the island and its medicinal practices. A legend about the old Roman god of health being brought to the island influenced its use as a place of healing and rest.

Well I haven't been healing for the past two weeks, but I did do a lot of resting in the waiting room for seven [7] hours [yes. seven hours.]. I sat among the old Italian geezers using their urinal bags in their wheelchairs, nuns praying a decade in a corner, a teenager with the skin around her eye changing from red and swollen to black, blue, and convex, a woman letting out hushed weeps as some liquid from her abdomen turned the pale blue of her shirt a dark dotty red, and bodies on stretchers racing by. Several Italian soap operas and fitness commercials blared in the top left of my peripheral.

At 4:45pm, I got to see the doctor. Claudia came with me to translate, and through her, I learned I needed to see a specialist. The hospital gave me a prescription for pain-killers [which as of late I've realized kick up the acidity of my poor stomach], wrapped up my knee in temporary supports, made me a different appointment, and kissed me good-bye.

Monday and Tuesday were a blur-- a mixture of frustration from limitations, knee/stomach pain, guilt from being snappy at people, and drowsiness from medication. Wednesday's knee appointment was interesting, as a French Italian-speaking doctor used Google.translate and the anatomical sketches I drew on his post-its to figure out what happened to cause the injury. [Long-story-short, I twisted my knee in Germany two weeks ago and continued to walk on it, not wanting to complain. It got really bad on Friday morning after I went running, inspired by the recent 26-mi. Rome Marathon and the marathon that passed through D.C. last week].
Then Dr. Jean and I played charades and "if i hit this, does it hurt?" to diagnose my problem. I also taught him how to say "simple" in English.
He wrote down a knee brace and topical cream to get at the pharmacia, which I picked up this morning. I feel so much better with the brace it's remarkable. I want to go running again, but I think the most I'll be doing is sunning myself on Tiber Island and sketching from a seated position.
Neither is bad, in fact. I could use a few freckles, and my sketchbook does need a touch-up. . .


We leave for Southern Italy on Monday. We're hitting Naples, Pompeii, and Capri for sure. Apparently, it's a lot of walking. On the bright side, Dave will be there! That should encourage everyone, no matter what they're dealing with at the moment. Everyone could use a little bit of home.

_______________________

Last week, Stanley Hallet, a retired CUA professor, visited and helped us out with a photography/film project, assigning us a site and a final due date. We had about two days to work on it. The purpose was to give the viewer an essence of the location with a MacBook based slide presentation, so we had to have a team member with an Apple computer. Andrew was our man for that part of the project. Andrew and I shot the photos, Rebecca did a lot of the editing, and we collectively chose the song for the background music. Here's a link to our final product:

Palazzo Spada

Hallet visits during our field study to give us some pointers

SPOTTED! Andrew helping with the shopping for the final presentation snack table.

Why we sometimes refer to Marina as "mom."

What do you think?

modern transcendence.

the wrong way: don't drink water or coffee all day, even though in the back of your mind you know you're probably going to walk about 3 miles again.

the Wright way: get over your focus on health for just this one day-- share a gelato with good company, and pop a few Tylenol. The migraine isn't worth it. Then remember that keeping yourself hydrated is in fact a really important issue during hot days in Roma.

____________________________

The act of getting to the MAXXI in itself was an art form, or maybe more of an acrobatic feat. Never try to fit 30+ people into a mini-bus unless you're trying to win something. It gets a bit claustrophobic. I would say that we all got a bit CLOSER as a group.

If you've ever been to the MAXXI museum in Roma, the first thing that should strike you is the architecture around the exhibition spaces. The circulation is simple and somewhat muted in order to highlight the purpose of the building, the art itself. But like successful works by Carlo Scarpa, the building maintains a modern aire as it adds subtle charm to the spaces with its materials, texture, and lighting outside of the exhibition spaces.

There are multiple ramps suspended over the main lobby space which carry the flow of people to different spaces in separate quadrants of the building. There are metal grates you can look down through which constantly remind you of suspension, as the landings give you a break from the translucency of material and replace it with lighting, casting interesting shadows and emphasizing the pattern of the metal grates. These ramps are mixed in with some steps [which 9 out of 10 people in our group were spotted tripping over] and are completely separated from the art exhibition spaces, which are absolutely focused on the artists. I felt that the museum was excellent in this regard, and my taste for modern art just made the museum come alive. It was enchanting.

I decided to go into today with more positivity than I've been feeling recently. It helped me to focus more on the experience, and on the art itself. I keep forgetting how I almost became an art major. I constantly get dragged away from compositions in museums. I tend to linger too long for many peoples' tastes. If you ever go to a museum with me, be prepared to be there for a few hours, minimum.

Here are some of the more memorable pieces I took pictures of from today. I didn't get many shots because of the 'no pictures' rule.

merhaba, bro.

the wrong way: forget to blog about the best experience of your life

the Wright way: make a separate blog post because it was so amazing. no, i did not forget about Istanbul. how could you say that?

_____________________________________________

There's never enough time to finish everything I want to. For that, I'll always feel guilty.

Unfinished sketches, thoughts, songs, unfinished poetry, stories, bars of chocolate, cups of tea, naps, movies, moments, goodbyes...

does anyone else feel like that?

Anywho, highlights from Turkey:

There is way too much about this place to summarize. The only way I'll be able to explain it is in small glimpses, similar to how we take note of the world around us.

Upon arriving, we realized that we were actually in the Asia side of Turkey [Turkey is in both Asia and Europe]. Our lovely bus driver and his wife drove us over a huge bridge to the other side. Because of the weather and time of day, we were unable to see much of the skyline. We were distracted by the neon blue of the bridge we were crossing, and the Turkish pop music playing in the bus, anyway.

How cool was it that the Spice Market and Grand Bazaar was within walking distance of our hotel? I have honestly never seen any place like it. You can haggle down anyone you want, for anything you want, by any means you want. We made some odd friends [unintentional of course], I got a marriage proposal from a Turkish spice man who named me "Maria," dogs tended to follow us around, and the smells were phenomenal.

During the trip, some of us visited the Turkish Baths. We found a shop in the Grand Bazaar that sold the same towels that the bath house used, and some people bought them. What a salubrious way to remember a large Turkish man/woman rubbing down your naked body.

Our hotel absolutely beat when it came to views. When we went for dinner there, the floorplan told us to climb to the roof. There we found plenty of typical Turkish fare, and a beautiful view of both Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. Every morning we woke up to breakfast with the mosques.

We quickly dove into Turkish [and non-Turkish] traditions. Ismet, a carpet merchant who has known Eric for his entire academic career, disclosed a lot of helpful information concerning the dishonesty in the markets, the antiquity of Turkey, and the people and traditions that keep the city of Istanbul alive. We shared stories, meals, and our fortunes with him [Ismet can predict the future through the remnants of your turkish coffee], and were given a rare opportunity to see his collection of fine, old, new, ragged, damaged, simple, intricate, traded, machine and handmade Turkish carpets. A few students dropped some coin and made a carpet from Ismet their souvenir of the trip, something they'll treasure as the time between that day in the carpet bazaar and the present grows. I think it also helped to reinforce our relationship with Ismet's company, establishing Eric's legacy there.

Helping to repair a carpet I ended up purchasing. There were some burnt patches, so I went through a few boxes of extra string to find matching colors [that rose color was a problem. Who could even PINK of using it in a weave?]. The patterns are different on both sides, representative of a tribe of Northern Turkey. It used to be a wheat-carrying device, hand-woven in the 1880s.

Istanbul is somewhere I would never had thought to visit. In the back of my mind, I wanted to know about the Muslim culture because my friend Alan comes from a solely Turkish background, and he practices the religion. He also has an obnoxious Turkish flag covering an entire wall of his house, filtering all the musical equipment in the room a rich, blood red color. I bet he'd be impressed to know that the symbolism of the moon and star isn't foreign to me anymore.

There was a lot of "Strolling Through Istanbul" going on throughout that week, the times when I was completely focused. I love antiquity and ruins. Eric and Marina accidently found a staircase leading to the roof of a han, which of course we scaled. The passages throughout the complex created a sudden hush for me and my thought processes. All of the thoughts of "I'm freezing... i'm very cold... did my toes fall off? What time is it? Where are we? Is that another cat?" completely shut off. I was inside a structure made for someone else, one that was sympathetic to the surrounding ones, connected to a courtyard, had stairs and doors leading everywhere and anywhere... and a rooftop view that literally took my breath away. The wind was that strong.

This was one of my deepest moments of self-reflection. What am I doing here? Do I deserve this opportunity? I was getting worried that efforts to show me the world through specific design and historical-oriented lenses was becoming a waste of time. There were twenty students chosen to leave the country. I was one of them. And I do belong here.

Being the coffee addict that I am, I'm always up for finding new ways to achieve my caffeine overdose [God knows, I'll be investing in some Crest Whitestrips when I get back to the states]. I was actually warned at the restaurant that I wouldn't like the Turkish Coffee they offered because it was for refined tastes. Curious [and feeling challenged], I tried the coffee anyway. I figured if they serve it as a menu item, it's nothing bad. This cultural unfamiliarity "makes my socks go up and down," as Michelle, my professor at CUA, would say.

The coffee was very tiny, and impressively delicious. I'm getting used to this whole "shot glass" style of coffee now, though Starbucks and my associated "gold card" still hold a place in my heart. The Turkish coffee, though, was rich and thick like a hot chocolate, and has about a quarter of an inch of coffee "sludge" at the bottom. Apparently if you read the sludge, you can predict someone's fortune.

I know what you're wondering.... yes I tried to eat the sludge. It was kind of dry.. like trying to eat wet ash.

One of the coolest things we did as a small group was visit a waterpipe bar. As we medicated our stressed-out selves with some tea and smoke, we also designed a 17-sided mosque complex, complete with 15 minarets, a frontal, receded courtyard, tons of floor changes, and a huge front gate.

After that, I walked over to the next room where some of my other peers were, and found they were trying to talk with a Turkish rock band. They gave us a free CD and I got to jam with the lead guitarist. What a night.

As I said before, one of the most charming things associated with mosques is the antiquity and the small pieces that become dilapidated, if only by frequent use.

The Sultan Beyazit Camii is something worth taking note of. It reminds me of the Velveteen Rabbit, really. Something that is so loved and obviously valued, somehow holds onto something very lonely.

I loved the half-domes complimenting the full dome in the center of the mosque. The bouncing ceilings started making me think deeply about the geometries involved in the space, and how they could be manipulated to create a similar effect.

This mosque took my breath away.

There is something in placing yourself in the middle of history. With the context achieved, time becomes the main focus. This mosque has stood for more than 500 years. The complex within which it establishes itself dates back to the 16th century, as well. There is a lot of memory within those walls. There is memory everywhere in Istanbul. You can simply feel it.

I have to go back.

This isn't a choice.

making moves.

The wrong way: the right way.
The Wright way: the left way.
[only in the UK, folks.]

________________________________________________

I'm sitting in a tepid common room with my fiction book resting, reading-side-down, on my left knee like a bag of ice. I can't read just now, I just need the familiarity. It's drizzling outside. And all of the memories of the past two weeks are causing my mind to buzz in and out.

If you've ever traveled, have you noticed how meeting different kinds of people, and I don't mean "different" by clothing style or color pallete, will change your outlook on your own life? This is what I've been thinking about.

GERMANY [,images of].

Sometimes I hang out with graffiti artists. They taught me to make a mark wherever I go. The rest of this trip is dedicated to that idea. You abort a bit of yourself along the way, and leave it to do what it will. Something else is always engaged in its place, and you already have it within you.

[my initials carved into a tree deep in the Schwarzwald]

I was coming back from walking around the enormous park in Stuttgart and saw the walls flooded with scenes made out of drippy spraypaint. Something my horrid memory decided to hold onto.

What is Stuttgart, Germany like? Stuttgart is Chrome.

There are buildings of reflection and glass EVERYWHERE.
Art.
Streets slowly nod the morning down without the intention of returning to lock eyes for long. Building skins complain I can't be like their models.
Fashionable, plastic, unmoving unmovable. So I retreat to shadows.
This one breathes that something understands. Their models snog behind an illusion of privacy. Their models are made of stronger stuff. Their models look through the reflective membrane towards me and see their own flaws, their collective idea of themselves never enough to translate into what I'm feeling. They love often. They love hard. What do I want?

We went to the Museum in the heart of Stuttgart, which at the time held an expose on Rudolf Steiner's works.
It helped catalyze my guilt of ignoring my musicality
Since I arrived in Rome back in January, I found it especially hard to keep up any of my musical interests. My excuses included an abundance of schoolwork, fear of criticism, lack of instruments, and the idea that maybe it was a part of my life I had "grown out of." Now that I've assured myself that the latter is more than ridiculous, I've been trying more than ever to let that part of me breathe. It's my little weed: an unavoidable, stubborn little thing, refusing to be ripped out by any excuse I try to poison it with.

Art.
Her hair was black, the walls white, the piano and shadows which conducted themselves from wordless instructions were a mixture of these perfect movements. Her body is moving to sounds she has made hundreds of times before as she sits. The dress highlights her bones, peaks in her skin which are lit gold by the silk where it hangs. No one needs to listen, watching her create music makes you hear the music, someone says.

I don't know the pieces she played, but she played them well. I've never been to a piano recital in a museum. As we walked through and experienced the different spaces of the building, her music echoed and changed pitch depending on how far away and how many walls came between us. A good introduction to a museum that held a great collection of all types of art by many great artists, only a few who I've heard of.

who wouldn't recognize Albers' "homage to the square?" I didn't know it was here!

Glass envelopes are such a PANE for their building's HVAC systems. Hasn't that become CLEAR to modern architects yet?

The chocolate around the shopping street is amazing. The fraulein would bring out a fresh batch of around six different blends every morning, and we each took turns to buy a daily bar. My turn came after Andrew flew back to Rome to see his family, so Corin and I shared. It tasted better between three.

Chocolate kept me alive during this break. I discovered my new favorite brand, Milka, which is made by Kraft and has the same type of packaging as many of their "cheese products," something my PETA newsletters scold me about.
Brands to avoid: Kraft, Nestle. Brands available internationally: Kraft, Nestle. Brands which are cheap. And therefore, in this state-of-mind, good.

Walking the streets of Stuttgart was just plain fun. My favorite part by far was Theo, the street performer. There's nothing more odd than a German comedian. I have no idea what he was saying.

SCOTLAND [,images of].

I've never tested myself like this before, to the point where the bones in my legs woke me up in the wee hours from pain in a hostel in Edinburgh. It was the lasting effect of hiking in the Black Forest of Germany.

Edinburgh was cold. Rain, snow, wind, & no way to keep my coat closed for the malfunctioning zipper and lack of buttons. Getting the bed closest to the window in the hostel wasn't something we should have raced for, either. The condensation from the exhilation of 14 humans kept my bed cold, moist, and smelling like rot. My tolerance level has boosted about 40 per cent, if I thought it wasn't maxed out, already.

I don't mean to complain. I enjoyed 'roughing it' in Edinburgh. The fact that I was there in the first place cast a positive lens over almost everything that happened.

I made a few friends at that hostel, none of whom have "homes," but who travel all over the UK looking for work and a place to sleep. We shared a lot of laughs over a reality TV show called "Coach Trip," prawns, the habits of people we had to share the room with, Cadbury chocolate, ghost stories of Edinburgh, the "magic" button on the television remote, and other random things. We taught each other a lot of slang terms and about our different lifestyles.

Being the jetsetter I've become, I have seen a lot of different types of people, and have never been able to quite fit in by looks. Having such a mixed heritage doesn't help, either. I'm too light for Italy, too white for Turkey, too dark for Germany, but it seems that I've found my place in Scotland. The moisture in the air curled my hair, similar to the gals there that let theirs go natural, and my skin color matched the porcelain features of the people on the streets. Even proportionately, The Scots have the same body-type as my brother and I, and they dress very similarly [minus the kilts, of course]. Needless to say I was thrilled at this, and found the men in Scotland very attractive.

A funny thing about the UK is that they ALL DRIVE ON THE LEFT. I almost had a heartattack after trying to cross the street a few times, and never quite got used to knowing which way to look first. Now that I'm back in Italy where they drive on the right-hand side like normal people, my skill at crossing the street like a New Yorker has become extinct.

Edinburgh was a bit more structured of a visit, in that we went on a few tours while we were there. The first was a tour of Mary King's Close, a famous close in the Old Town named after one of the most well-known [a.k.a. wealthiest at the time] inhabitants living on the close.

Architecturally, the structure of the entire place is impressive. If you lived in Edinburgh in the 1600s, you lived in a building that could've reached 7 stories high, with a 2 foot wide street separating your neighbor's building called a "close." Since these enormous buildings were made with the sole goal of maxing out living space by building up, plumbing was ignored. Each family had to make use of "the bucket:" a small bucket in the corner of the room for all their nasty business. The two times of day they could be emptied was at 7am, and 10pm. The streets were sloped, so the concept of getting the waste out existed but wasn't successful. While strolling the close, you could be ankle-deep in peoples' "muck."

I guess at that point, you would be sloshing rather than strolling.

At the time the Royal Exchange was built on top of it, they ordered an evacuation of the area. After a partial demolition, the rubble and existing foundations of the old buildings sustained their use. Legends and myths were born out of this, centering around Plague victims being left and walled up underneath, and ghosts wandering the area.

We went down to the parts of the close that were preserved, realizing that these were sites of the Black Death, and numerous kinds of diseases branching from it. It was incredible. An entire city existing under a government building?

We also went on a free tour that afternoon, although we ditched halfway through because of the weather. We saw the gravesite of John Knox, which is parking spot 23 behind St. Giles Cathedral. They mark it with an unetched gold slab. I don't think the Scots cared for the guy.

Wondering about the origins of the word "shit-faced?" I wasn't, but it was explained that clean water was scarce, so during the day, the Scots didn't drink much. They would work all day and go to the pub at night to drink whiskey in order to avoid dehydration. The pub's closing time was 10pm [remember the "bucket" emptying time?] which is when the guys would stumble out of the pub and venture home through the closes in the pitch black night. Warning calls of "GIRD YUR LOU!" could be heard, and if you were one of the unfortunate, when you looked up, you might've been nailed in the face with the contents of the bucket. Shit-faced. Brilliant.

I also went on a ghost tour that night. One of the stops was the cemetery, and our guide told us a myriad of legends and stories while we stood inside a ransacked mausoleum. The medical school and the desperate resurrection-men were brought up, people who did ridiculous things to dead bodies just to make some money.

We visited sites of witch-burnings, and learned about three types of faeries: The half-a-man, who you topple over by pushing him or poking him with a stick, the kelpie, who drags you into the water and eats all of you but your liver, and the red-cap gnome, who has blades for fingers, and tears your stomach open while you're still alive [I was thinking of Jurassic Park I, when Alan differentiates turke

ys from velociraptors].

To get away, you must recite a verse from the bible. We were given the verse

"Jesus wept." Just in case we got in trouble when we invaded their territory that night. The views from the heights we climbed were gorgeous, making the ice-rain and wind not completely unbearable.

We visited the "National Disgrace" of Scotland, and afterward, were treated to a pint at a local pub called the Bank Hotel. They were playing live music which entranced me. Probably because the guy was playing Mr. Brightside, something that always makes me think of my brother.

When visiting, remember to reload your Starbucks card! There are about 8 of them in Edinburgh. The cups are bigger, too, which means more coffee for your quid. Also, get potatoes for lunch. Scots are enthusiastic about them, going so far as to make whole shops dedicated to the perfection of the potato. They call them "jackets," or baked potatoes with some kind of filling spooned on top.
Scotland is extremely vegan and vegetarian-friendly [always a plus for me]. If you're adventurous, they also offer some vegetarian haggis, which I've been told tastes exactly like traditional haggis. I, however, have no idea what they put in it, so that's all your call.