January 29, 2009

only had one class because the other two were cancelled. One of our studio teachers was sick on Wednesday and the other teacher told us he also wouldn't be coming in Thursday so that he could get better. We were all amazed that a teacher would call out sick ahead of time, but they seem to have a much more relaxed attitude about work here. The photography class that a bunch of my friends are taking was cancelled both this times this week because the teacher was sick, too. Since the sick studio teacher also teaches my Architecture in Italy class, that was also cancelled. With all these unplanned free time, I decided to go see some of the sites of the city we'll be focusing on this semester. In the morning, Kelly and I walked over to the piazza that we're all supposed to be analyzing. Eventually our project will be to redesign the piazza. The main piazza is just this huge open paved area, but just off of it is this smaller piazza with a flea market. Although the flea market is kind of poor looking, it's really cool. People sell new and used clothing, costumes, toys, knickknacks, and all sorts of fruits and meats and things. As Kelly and I were looking around the main piazza, we saw this little kid bring a hunk of plastic to his dad. It looked like a big piece of a broken tail light or something. The dad took the plastic from the kid and chucked it, but it hit me square in the chest, and I was only standing about ten to fifteen feet away from him. I had been looking down at my sketchbook when he actually chucked it, but Kelly said there was no way he didn't know he was chucking it at me. Of course he came over and apologized profusely, but it was super weird.
went to Italian class, had lunch, and booked spring break tickets. When we finally finished finalizing our spring break plans, Kelly, Izzy, Nikul, and I decided to go check out the church and piazza (Santo Spirito) we were supposed to have visited with our Architecture in Italy class. During the day, the piazza has a flea market which I had seen when I went running earlier, but in the evening, it gets a little bit sketchy. We didn't feel unsafe at all, but we saw cops who appeared to be searching a couple of kids for drugs or something. We couldn't go in the church because it was during Vespers, but I plan on going to mass there on Sunday, so I'll get to see the inside.
had family dinner. It was in our room again, and every single person from studio came, so we had 27 people eating dinner in our small living room meant for 7 people. After dinner, some people went out, but a bunch of us decided to stay in and watch Finding Nemo.