The title of this post probably sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but it was actually the demographics of the trip my class took to Umbria, the Italian region between Lazio (Rome) and Tuscany (Florence), this past weekend.
The Italian was our no-English speaking driver with a TomTom GPS that led us through a maze of obstacles to places like a road closed for an Italian carnival, gravel roads so old and desolate that they could have passed as early Roman roads, the Medieval streets of "super blocks," as my professor calls them, that are barely wide enough to fit a car through (it's common to have to pull in your side mirrors in Italian towns just to fit through), and a bumper to bumper traffic jam so bad it looked like a parking lot. I'm not just using the cliché of describing traffic as a parking lot, but it literally looked like a parking lot as all the Italian drivers turned off their engines, got out of their smart cars, and proceeded to socialize in the middle of the highway. This was so typical of the Italians. Any chance they have to strike up a conversation, they take - stranger or not.
The Cuban is my self-proclaimed "spacey" professor. His teaching style is just as spacey and fragmented, but the man knows his stuff. He often encourages us to work on "half moon" days because they are supposedly our "creative days." He's into all this philosophical kind of stuff...lunar phases, feng shui, ying and yang, etc. As crazy as these ideas are to me, they work for him and his way of describing things that are often not taught. He's an interesting dude to say the least.
The rest of the group is my studio class, 3 of which are my roommates. Needless to say, we are together a lot. My Chinese and Korean roommates are teaching me all kinds of great Asian things to cook. Apparently the minute rice or rice cooked in the microwave that my Mom and I have always cooked is no good. Who'da thought? I put my own southern spin on rice a week or so ago when I cooked all my roommates soul food. In this case, I made gravy to put on top of the rice. Naturally. Mmm, mmm good. Since the name of my blog is "Cheese Grits," you probably understand how much southern food means to me, but I digress...
Getting back to the trip...after leaving at 6:00am Friday morning, we arrived in Orvieto around 7:30am tired and groggy. Shortly after, the crisp, cold mountain air, with the help of a delicious cappuccino, woke us up. Orvieto was beautiful, clean, and surprising. Literally every step you take gives you another spectacular experience with the architecture, urban structure, or the people. Towers and churches pop up and are framed with each turn of a corner...it's so hard to put into words, so just take my word for it. It was an amazing town.
Next stop...Todi. Its large L-Shaped piazza fronted by the cathedral on one side and beautiful picturesque landscape on the other was amazing, but not my favorite...maybe we didn't stay there long enough to get see the best of what Todi had to offer.
We left Todi (all of these towns are within 20-30 minute driving distance, by the way) to go to Perugia to spend the night. Its large "corso" piazza which stretched from one church down to an overlook of the surrounding mountains was different than any other urban spatial type that I've seen before. When we arrived Friday night, it was empty and a little too vast, but the next day, in spite of the rain, when it was filled with people, it felt incredible. Lesson learned: you can design a wide street/piazza as long as you have people to visit and loiter in the space.
During this trip I got a little taste of what things are important to Italian hotels. Showers are not. Bidets are. When Huaxia (my Chinese roommate), JiYeon (my Korean roommate), and I got in our room, we were surprised to see two single beds and a bunk bed. Guess who got the bunk? This girl. And no, I didn't claim top bunk. As we were all getting ready for bed, a large puddle of water started coming from under the bathroom door...it was seriously a great flood of Perugia. Huaxia was taking a shower and the "tub" of the standing-room-only shower was only about a half of an inch deep...yeah, so water doesn't exactly stay in the basin. I, of course, started freaking out trying to dry up this tsunami before it got to my bag. Meanwhile, JiYeon, as nice as can be cracked the door and said, "Um, Huaxia...there seems to be water coming from the shower..." I can't tell you how hysterical it was to see this situation unfold. It got even better 5 minutes later when Huaxia tried to plug in her blow dryer and blew the electricity. That made two times within five minutes that JiYeon had to go to the front desk and attempt to charade to the Italian desk clerk our situation. Hilarious...let me tell you.
Quite possibly one of my favorite places I've ever visited is Assisi. This hill-side town was founded by the Romans and later became a pilgrimage site for the "Franciscans" (founded by St. Francis of Assisi) and the "Poor Clares" (founded by my patron saint, St. Chiara, or St. Clare). I'm not sure if it was the church with my name, the delicacy of the pink and white stone, or the narrow winding stairs that led you to the top of the hill and the Rocca (old fort/castle) but this place was unforgettable. The cannoli weren't too shabby either.
After Assisi, we ventured over to Spello, another hill-town close by. It had some cool things going on urbanistically, but the architecture wasn't anything to write home (or blog) about. However, there was a resident that is totally worthy of blogging about.
I'm standing in the street sketching (this is what we do - nerdtastic, I know) and hear a man cough/hack, so I turn to make sure this disgusting noise didn't come from Robert (whom I had lost and who frequently makes questionable noises), but I see a man about 70 years old walking down the steep hill. After he hacks his lungs up, he spits (gooo! I threw up a little bit when he did that), I hear something hit the ground, then see him running after whatever dropped while shouting Italian obscenities. Once the falling object gets close enough for me to recognize it, I realize the man accidently spit out his dentures! The old man was chasing after his teeth!!! The dentures looked like those little toy teeth that chatter when you wind them up. I kid you not; this was just about the funniest thing I've ever seen.
After this comedic experience, we went to Spoleto for a quick tour of the Cathedral Piazza and an awesome Roman bridge that spans across a ravine probably 600 feet. Apparently learning about landscapes is just as important for urban design as streets.
Who'da thunk that I would be hiking up mountains, crossing ancient bridges, watching old men scramble for their dentures, cleaning up a flooding shower, or going to Perusia to eat their wonderful chocolate for my grad school education? This really is becoming the experience of a lifetime.
*Please visit my picasa account for pictures from this weekend. I'm over fighting with blogger to insert pictures.
Love the blog, please post more so we can live vicariously through you.
ReplyDelete-Stuart