I forgot to write about the meal that we went to Sunday
night at “The 3 Black Birds,” which was in Italian, of course. Everyone got all
dressed up for it and we had a bit of a prom moment outside in the garden
before leaving. Once we got to the restaurant, however, the story took a
turn for the better. Way better. We got there and the wine was already on the
table – some sort of white wine that wasn’t too dry, really not bad. It didn’t
hurt that we basically had all the wine we could drink, heck yes! The first
course (haha never had to say that before) was some kind of fococcia bread with
cheese and a chick pea based bread that were both delicious! Second course
consisted of a tortellini with white sauce and noodles with pesto. The
tortellini was probably my favorite of the entire meal! Main dish = fish (which
was, again, amazing; and I’m not even a fish person!). And then, to top it all off, for dessert,
“half cold” ice cream! It was coffee flavor and just a little melty. And let’s
not forget, during the course of all of this, the waitress keeps the wine
coming! I didn’t drink too much, did pretty good I think. All-in-all, not too
shabby.
As for Tuesday, I woke up and remembered that I had some kind
of crazy dream. I dreamt that I went home and my dad had the bright idea that
our next family trip was going to be in Poland. Then I woke up and fell back
asleep to another dream that had something to do with the Hoover Dam. We were
walking along a small stream talking about how beavers make their dams and with
what kind of trees and then all of a sudden, whoever it was that was walking
with me turned and said, “And that’s one that the beaver’s didn’t make,” as he
pointed toward the Hoover Dam in the distance. Whatever. I was afraid that today
would be one of those days that I wouldn’t be able to wake up – wouldn’t be
functioning at 100%. Luckily, I was wrong on this one.
Tuesday, we went for our first day trip, this one on a tour of
the city of Genova. My job this semester is as the “day travel assistant,” so
today was my first go at it. Basically, my job was to carry around the 500 Euro
that Silvia had given me the day before and track our spending of it; on bus
tickets, train tickets, museum fares, and what have you. Our teacher was not our
usual Professor Bruhns, but was Gulietta, whom we had met before. The only
thing that I remember about her is that she told us that we “wouldn’t like her”
because she “talks a lot, is fast paced, and smokes a lot.” I initially thought
that she was crazy, but after our first hour of listening to her go on and on
about the general history of the city, she pretty much hit the nail on the head
with her first comment. She gave us all these names of kings and queens that I
really had no care for and her fast paced, long winded story quickly lost my
attention. I did, however, like the view that she had given us for the back
story – overlooking the entire historical center and harbor. From there, we
went on down the hill and made a few stops at various piazzas, Cathedrals, and
points of interest. I got a few sketches of the areas, but mainly focused on
analysis of the “personal bubble” that everyone has by watching how people
interact with each other and estimating the distances between them. I found
that people have several different “personal bubbles” depending on who they are
with. For instance, if they are with someone that they love, their personal
bubble (measured from the center line of their head to the center line of the
other person’s head) I have estimated at 12”. If they are with family or close
friends, the bubble exists at around 30”, and if they are around people that
they don’t know (and have room enough to keep their space) the bubble extends
to around 48”; this all as best I can tell. I’ve thought about this a lot over
the course of the past few months, and I think that it can be useful in
designing different spaces. Designing a mall, for example, I would be more
inclined to use a unit square of around 48” (based on individual space in a
public setting), while at home, using a unit of 30” (based on individual space
in a family setting). Whether that is a good idea or not is up for debate, but
as for now, I think that it is a pretty good one.
Today was a rather interesting day. We had history class this morning and it wasn’t so bad. Talked about the Berlin Monuments and Nazi Architecture, at least at the part that I was there. I blogged about how the Nazi party established a new culture through architecture in just a few years and it took 50+ years to undo this and reestablish a new culture of architecture for the city of Berlin. Kind of crazy. We took a little coffee break half way through, so we all filed down the stairwell and swooped down upon the coffee and foccocia. I leaned over and told Denver that if we just stopped class here, that’d be fine with me. Not five minutes later, he is cutting some bread and slices his finger. Oops. At first, we just think that it is a small cut, so he goes to wash off the blood and someone gets a first aid kit with band-aids. The only problem was that it didn’t stop bleeding. We took him into the kitchen where they had more first aid stuff and he is leaning on the sink and suddenly begins to faint! So the villa staff lay him down and prop up his feet so that the blood in his legs will return to his torso and one of the staff tells me to make him some sugar water. Silvia, the villa administrator, calls and finds a pharmacy that is open and we take a taxi over to get some “sterile strips” and have his blood pressure checked, and it was 104/52 – pretty low. So for lunch Cristina, the cook, makes sure that he has some form of meat to replenish his blood iron. The staff did an excellent job with the situation – they knew what to do and did so quickly. As for why he fainted, I think that it was because he is so tall and lanky, plus the sight of the blood and knowledge that it wasn’t stopping. The sugar water, I learned was to get his blood sugar back up – another reason why he fainted.
Today was a rather interesting day. We had history class this morning and it wasn’t so bad. Talked about the Berlin Monuments and Nazi Architecture, at least at the part that I was there. I blogged about how the Nazi party established a new culture through architecture in just a few years and it took 50+ years to undo this and reestablish a new culture of architecture for the city of Berlin. Kind of crazy. We took a little coffee break half way through, so we all filed down the stairwell and swooped down upon the coffee and foccocia. I leaned over and told Denver that if we just stopped class here, that’d be fine with me. Not five minutes later, he is cutting some bread and slices his finger. Oops. At first, we just think that it is a small cut, so he goes to wash off the blood and someone gets a first aid kit with band-aids. The only problem was that it didn’t stop bleeding. We took him into the kitchen where they had more first aid stuff and he is leaning on the sink and suddenly begins to faint! So the villa staff lay him down and prop up his feet so that the blood in his legs will return to his torso and one of the staff tells me to make him some sugar water. Silvia, the villa administrator, calls and finds a pharmacy that is open and we take a taxi over to get some “sterile strips” and have his blood pressure checked, and it was 104/52 – pretty low. So for lunch Cristina, the cook, makes sure that he has some form of meat to replenish his blood iron. The staff did an excellent job with the situation – they knew what to do and did so quickly. As for why he fainted, I think that it was because he is so tall and lanky, plus the sight of the blood and knowledge that it wasn’t stopping. The sugar water, I learned was to get his blood sugar back up – another reason why he fainted.
And
all of this went on during the second half of class – which I missed and it’s
fine with me.
In
studio, we kept chugging along with our proposal. We had the history teacher for
our desk crit and he said that our project had good ideas, but was too
symmetrical, too “beaux arts” as he called it. Apparently this was the style
form 100 years ago – everything symmetrical and in line. He doesn’t think that
we should follow this in today’s world. I will agree that it’s more interesting
if it isn’t perfectly symmetrical, but the project starts to get pretty
complicated (and not to mention expensive!) pretty fast when you deviate from
that. We decided, though to make our tunnel under the road follow the pattern
of the sun rather than go straight across the road following the existing axial
line. This way, the plants that will be inside the tunnel will have substantial
light to grow and make the space less dreary; at least that’s the hope.
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