Lucca e Pisa

Spent the day in Lucca and Pisa today - the land of the tranquil and the land of the tourists. Lucca was beautiful and relaxing in a sleepy Italian way, with 87 churches within its tiny walls. Pisa was a bit like Disneyland, but there was a tower with swarming tourists taking dorky pictures instead of rides and Mickey Mouse - but, of course, it would be a shame to leave Italy without seeing Pisa and its tower.

(Lucca)

(Pisa)

(Hi Alex!)

(the most difficult picture to take and it didn't even work)

(Alex, Me, Audrey, Cat)

After a day of running around between Tuscan towns, dodging tourists and fighting death by heat, I'm exhausted. A presto.

Ciao Amori!

Laura

"Nothing ever changes here - except for the Gucci and Armani."

- Venetian gondolier, July 2007

Just returned from a morning marathon of art, running around from 8:30 this morning until I returned to the villa about an hour ago. After seeing art from various different portions of the Renaissance today (and, well, throughout the past 7 weeks), it has become apparant that Mary is STILL wearing blue, Jesus still looks like a bizzare little man as a child, and they are both still in almost every single painting. Surprisingly, Renaissance Art has not made any shocking new developments. That being said, although the Renaissance and it's art are fascinating, they are, well, in the past. And no matter how much we study them and apply our fancy color coding and perspective theories and "ohh" and "ahhh" over the introduction of trees as naturalism, the art doesn't change. And even with all of those theories, the fact of the matter could be that Cosimo di Medici was really rich, and when he commissioned the thousands of paintings that he did, he really wanted people to add some trees. Just saying. There are two sides to this Renaissance coin: one is beautiful, and the other is, well, exactly the same. Art here is repetition - there is growth, of course, but the subjects remain the same.

Anyways, now off to Italian for the afternoon. We're going to a photography museum this afternoon, which could be a nice breath of fresh air - art that didn't happen during the Renaissance! Art of the present!? Woah. After that it's time for some real dinner in Firenze after I locate Erica, who is planting her crazy self in Florence for the next 8 days :)

Ciao Amori!

Laura

"All these ways of making a living, since they depends mainly on our personal powers, are what you call arts."

"There are activities in which the powers of body and mind function together to bring profit. Such are the occupations of painters, sculptors, musicians and others like them. All these ways of making a living, since they depends mainly on our personal powers, are what you call arts, and do not go down in shipwrecks but swim away with our naked selves. They keep us company all our lives and feed and maintain our name and fame." -Della Pittura Introduction

Buona sera! Spent this morning roaming around Firenze singing along to my ipod, ducking in and out of stores to buy presents for people, and savoring the temperature of less than 90 degrees (in l'estate Italiana, one can NEVER take bearable temperatures for granted). This afternoon it was off to Italiano to start learning the past tense - aye, dio mio. Just another day around Firenze and La Pietra. About to go finish up an art history essay on Filippino Lippi's Apparizione della Madonna a san Bernardo and call it a night. A domani.

Ciao Amori!

Laura

Roman Holiday

Just back from Roma! Spent Friday getting extensively lost by myself en route to the Spanish Steps and frolicking in and out of designer stores with SALDI written all over the windows. Spent Saturday morning in Cinecitta' to see set after set of extraordinarily deceitful styrofoam which completely fascinated me (Gangs of New York was filmed there - isn't that crazy?). After lunching by the Spanish Steps with some friends, Audrey, Aggi and I made our way to the Catacombe di San Callisto to see one of the ancient underground Christian burial sites - very, very cool.

After, we decided we wanted to go to "the mouth of truth" (it's in Roman Holiday, forgive us for being Audrey Hepburn fanatics and really dorky tourists) - anyways, we asked our Catacombe tour guide how to get there, who was standing with a Priest (dressed like a normal Italian guy), who thought my Italian was entertaining, as usual. Long story short, Priest (who I thought could have been in the Mafia based on his constant reference to "brothers" - apparently this was religious) announced to various comrades that "these English-speaking people need to get to la bocca della verita," and then drove us to the said mouth with his sidekick Luigi sitting in the passenger seat giving him directions. As we drove, he told us all about how he has a special pass to the Vatican (including a parking spot - very serious) and nonchalantly told us about ancient landmarks as we drove by them. While making an illegal three-part (at least) u-turn, he turned around and said to us: "ok, now we're doing a little bit of cheating here..." coming from a Vatican Priest, that was one of the most hilarious sentences that any of us had heard in a while. Everyone needs a Roman adventure every now and then. Anyways, pictures!

(Friday)

(Saturday: Cinecitta')

("oh...this isn't a rock...this is styrofoam...")

(the Fellini museum inside Cinecitta')

(La Bocca della Verita!)

(ciao ciao photographers!)

(strolling past Il Colosseo)

Allora, io sono molto stanca! Domani: a much needed day of resting and dancing around in the fitness room before another week of running around Florence. A presto!

Ciao Amori!

Laura