Oh my goodness I apologize for not having posted in so long!! It has gotten crazy busy here and I have loads to tell! So I'll start where I left off...
Going all the way back to the end of October. On Tuesday the 29th we left for our field trip to the North! Milan and Venice were on our travel agenda :) We arrived in Milan around noon that day, checked into our hotel, and then went to go visit a college called Domus Academy. They gave us an introduction of the school and what they had to offer in terms of programs, and then we had a lecture by one of their professors! We then were able to take a tour of the campus and the studio spaces. The school was amazing! If I had a lot of money, and could afford to live in Milan I would attend Domus Academy for graduate school in Interior Design. I absolutely loved the school and the programs they offered. Dream school for sure! They even teach in English ;) Anyways, after visiting the school we had the rest of the day to ourselves. MK and I went to visit the duomo. It was beautiful, but on the downside it's always under construction so that kinda ruins the experience. But it was still pretty. After seeing the duomo we went back to our hotel to freshen up and meet up with our friend Michael. The three of us then we out on the town and explored Milan at night. We walked around for an hour walking by all the flagship, high end stores and then sat down for a nice dinner outside. I fell in love with Milan that night. I enjoyed Milan more than Rome because it's a cleaner and quieter city but yet still a big city. It was nice and had a good atmosphere. After dinner we headed back to the hotel for an early night; we were exhausted.
The next morning we visited two museums. The first one we went to was Studio Museo Castiglioni. It was the artist Castiglioni's studio turned into a museum for people to pay to visit. It was really cool to see all of it and our tour guide was Castiglioni's daughter! It was tons of fun and at the end I bought a spoon that is shaped so you can reach all the way to the bottom of the jar and reach the corners. No wasted nutella anymore ;) We then moved onto the Triennale Design Museum. It was filled with a bunch of interesting and unique things. It was fun to see all the different things it held. Following the museums we took a lunch break. Our professor showed us this famous and cheap place to eat behind the duomo. What they served was basically a fried hot pocket pizza and they were amazing! They were so good that I crave some now haha. After filling our stomachs we went to go visit a studio called A4A. It was a company that made most of their items out of cardboard. It was really cool to see. We then had some down time before heading out to apertivo that night. Apertivo is bascially the Italian's version of happy hour. They serve you one drink and then you have a buffet of food that is endless. We went to one of the most famous places for apertivo called Roialto. It was a lot of fun! After hanging out and socializing with each other, we headed back to the hostel to end the day and have our last night in Milan.
Thursday morning before departing to Venice, we did a retail survey for an assignment. We walked around the flagship stores in Milan looking at all the different window displays and analyzing which ones we thought were best and could be relevant to our project. It was a lot of fun to see all the different designs. We then departed on the train to head to Venice! Once in Venice and after checking into our hotel, we had the evening to ourselves. A few of us grabbed a quick dinner, walked around for awhile and then headed back to go to bed. It didn't take me long at all to fall in love with Venice. It was absolutely gorgeous and surrounded by water. And what can I say, I've always been a water girl at heart :)
Our first full day in Venice, we had the Biennale Arsenale Museum first on our list of things to do. We toured the museum and it was very interesting. It was full of contemporary art, some that I didn't like and some that I did. Certainly some I didn't understand haha we then continued to the Biennale Giardini after grabbing lunch. The Biennale Giardini holds pavilions of different countries and each pavilion holds exhibits. For an assignment in our groups we had to research a specific pavilion. MK and I presented on the Hungary pavilion and it was fun to do. It was also fun to learn and see about the other pavilions. After presentations, we went into the Italy pavilion to see the exhibit there. It was really cool and I enjoyed the clay sculptures and some of the paintings they had. After visiting the Biennale Giardini we had some free time before our group dinner that night. So Amanda and I went shopping long the water and of course looked at the masks. I ended up buying two because they're so pretty haha it was a beautiful night. We were surrounded by water, no cars around transportation only by boat; it was magical. Venice won my heart without a doubt. We then met up for group dinner. It was a classic Venice meal which meant seafood. I didn't really enjoy it...not the best meal I've had but o well it was a good experience.
The next morning we got up to go to Piazza S. Marco. It's the only piazza in Venice and is also the lowest point in the city so it was pretty flooded (since Venice is sinking). At one point in the center, the water was up to people's ankles! It was crazy. When we started walking to Museo Fortuny we weaved around all the flooding streets and managed to stay mostly dry. Museo Fortuny was a museum that used to be a house so the layout was pretty interesting for a museum! It was fun to see that and I loved the dresses the museum had and the models of buildings were really cool. It was once again enjoyable to see everything. We then took a trip to the island of Murano, the island known for their glass making. We just wandered around the island and did some shopping and ate food before departing back to Venice. It was a cute little island and fun to see all the glass! We were also fortunate enough to have a tour of a glass showroom which was neat. We then headed back to Venice to wait for our train back to Rome. It was a fantastic trip!
Sunday morning we woke up in Rome and celebrated MK's birthday! We made her stir fry for dinner :) We just stayed in the apartment that night and MK decided she would want to go out on a non school night to celebrate some. The rest of the school week consisted of lots of school work. But, I did get taught how to use a real espresso machine! The bar we always go to, we know the owner pretty well. So one day, I was telling them that I am a barista back in the US as my job but that we had different machines so I didn't know how to use the kind they had. He told me he would teach me so I got to go behind the counter and be taught! It was a ton of fun!! :)
Thursday night was the night we celebrated MK's birthday. We went to a restaurant called Mad Jacks for dinner and then to Scholar's Pub. It was a fun night and MK seemed to have a lot of fun which was what mattered!
The next week was more school work, but that weekend MK has friends come visit so we hung out with them some. Saturday night we went to an ice bar. It was awesome! We got these capes that we wore to keep us warm once we got inside the bar. It was 21 degrees F inside and literally everything was made of ice, even the cups! We sat inside this igloo for the night. It was a really fun experience but slightly cold :p
Overall, since I've last updated you all I've been having a lot of adventures and been staying super busy with school. My art history class and my drawing class have now ended and are getting filled with more studio time. Lots of studio work still ahead! I'm just working away over here in Rome haha but Thanksgiving break is now upon me and tomorrow morning I head to Paris for 4 days!! :) Talk to you all later!
