very blessed

I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum with my friend Anderson from the UGA program, ate fish cakes, had tea... weird to see a Cortona friend in another country. It'll be even weirder to see everybody eventually in the states. Anyways, then I went to meet up with Mina and had a shandy with her coworkers and went to watch Sister Act (the musical) at the London Palladium. It was sooo good, much better than I expected. I even cried a little once haha.

Yesterday I went to the British Museum and got my ticket for the Italian Renaissance drawing exhibit, then to the Hunterian Museum and saw tons of strange things: intestines of different animals, ears, eyes, an abnormally large skull, still born baby fetus from 5 weeks to 9 months, dissected animals... it was fascinating, i loved it!

The day before I went to the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and the British Library. The National Gallery is still probably my favorite. I went through the most of the museums, saving my loved one for last and came face to face with a plaque with a tiny photo of Virgin of the Rocks saying "We regret to inform you..." It was in restoration. WOW. So I spent the next hour drawing a few Mary faces from the da Vinci drawing they had there instead. National Portrait Gallery had some interesting things but a lot of portraits of British royalty throughout the centuries that was kind of boring. The British Library was really interesting in the exhibit area, the library itself is just huge but normal. There were original manuscripts by several musicians including Handel's Messiah, Chopin... tons of other manuscripts like illuminated Islamic and Christian books, the Magna Carta, pages from da Vinci's notebooks... then I went to Mina's work to meet up with her. I've been to her work for the past 3 days at 5:25pm, getting to know her coworkers pretty well :)

less than a week :(

I've been going going going ever since I wrote my last post. I think that was after the exhibition, so I had 1 week left in Cortona at that point and did everything I could to make the most of that last week. Then we left for Venice early on Monday the 26th. I think Venice is a nice place to visit but the most touristy place I've ever been. It's beautiful but reminds me of a toy store or Disneyland, not like the rest of Italy.

I left Venice on the 29th and flew to Bari to meet Giuseppe, my host brother from 5 years ago. We hung out with his friends for a few hours and then took a bus for several hours to my host family's town. We went out with his friends, went to the beach, I drove a scooter and rode on his motorcycle, ate with the family... I had a really good time, I miss them a lot. Giuseppe drove us back to Bari where he goes to school on May 1, and from there I flew to Brussels. A bus and 2 trains later I arrived in Paris, met Mina, got on another train, and finally arrived at the hotel. We slept in and the next morning Noah met us at the hotel. The food and art in Paris is beyond amazing, I can't really describe it. However, not my favorite city, surprisingly kind of dirty and the people aren't too friendly. Even though I had heard that, it was different to experience it.
Then Mina went home to London back to work and Noah and I flew to Barcelona to meet my mom's friend. I really liked Barcelona. There's no other way to describe Gaudi except as a creative genius. Then on May 7th, Noah and I left. He went back home and I came to London to visit Mina and Shige. We've had a nice relaxing weekend hanging out. They have to go back to work tomorrow so I'll be on my own wandering around the museums. I'm really excited to reunite with my favorite painting (Virgin of the Rocks in the National Gallery, not the Louvre version), and for the Italian Renaissance drawing exhibition in the British Museum. Can't wait!!

So overall traveling has been exhausting but great. Venice, Bari, Rotondella, Brussels, Paris, Barcelona, London- that was plenty for less than two weeks haha. It probably would've been less tiring and stressful if I hadn't taken cheap airlines, it makes a pretty big difference. But I'm a student so what can you do... plus I have all summer to relax.

I miss Italy. I'm trying to think of how to go back. I'd love to go to grad school in Florence. We'll see...

I need a break so I'll write a blog post...

I'm starting to get emotional about leaving. I looked out at the view from the bottom of the hill, watched people, the car race, and thought about how I won't see these things for a long time or maybe ever.

I sat out on the steps of Piazza Repubblica this evening, wrote in my journal and hung out with Italian friends. I think they're a lot more fun and lively when they speak Italian so I'm glad I understand it and can talk to them. I'm finally getting used to the different Tuscan pronunciation of making "ch" sounds "sh." It's still sometimes weird to hear since it's not the way I learned it.

One final left. My hand is cramping from carving the inlay for my accordion book cover. It's an illustrated book about a kappa from space.

I drove a Vespa yesterday.

We had our exhibition last night. Great turnout, it was a lot of fun.

COUNTDOWN. NOO...

This past weekend was wonderful!!!!!! I can't even describe it. We went to Siena. That was one of the churches I remember tearing up at last time I came. Then we left the field trip group early and went to Florence for the Fiorentina/InterMilan game. We drew a lot of attention in our matching purple jerseys. I felt weird until we got to the stadium and saw that everyone else was decked out in purple and we fit right in. The game was like a dream come true, I can't put it into words. I have a 2 inch bruise from getting knowcked over by the fans, which is a pretty good memory and makes me laugh when I see it. Fans were crazy, I learned several bad cheers, I recognized/caught on to them because last time I came the other kids taught me all the bad words haha.

Then Sunday I went to San Marco. I would like to live there for a while, it would be really interesting to be surrounded by those paintings. The Savonarola room was a little creepy. My first drawing in my Italy sketchbook is a figure that was towards the bottom of the Last Judgment wall in the Sistine Chapel (because it was closest so I could see it better). I asked one of the guards later who I was drawing, and he said it was Savonarola. At that point I didn't know who he was but now I do after studying him in art history and going to San Marco and seeing his room. That was at the very beginning of the trip and now this is the end, it's all coming around in a circle!

I also got a medium purple leather wallet. I haven't bought one since I was 14 so I thought it was about time, and what better place to get it than Florence. I got it down to 15 euro from 23 euro. Pretty good... :)

I haven't been writing much because of finals. 2 down, 2 more to go. Last Thursday my painting professor decided that our finals would be due on Monday. I just had a critique last Monday, so that meant I had a few days to start and finish my painting. I haven't gotten enough sleep in... I wish I could remember... but anyways, I'm sleeping enough to function but I've caught a cold I guess I need to slow down a little. The other final was yesterday for drawing. I turned in my 40+ hour drawing. I've never spent so long on one. It looks good but sadly doesn't look like that much time went into it. I guess that's just the way it goes with art, toooo bad.

The art history final is this Friday and bookmaking is due Tuesday. Seems possible. I also need to go to Florence one more time before leaving, there are too many things left undone. Maybe next Sunday.

Our end of the semester exhibition is Saturday! We can only put in one piece so I decided to put in the green/white wall painting that's on my art blog. It's my favorite painting this semester.

painting update

I finally uploaded photos of paintings I've been working on here to my art blog.

http://emakubo.wordpress.com

It took 2 hours to do it so I'm just posting the link here...

Buona Pasqua!

Even though it's part of the culture and people probably don't believe everything they talk about, I appreciate the Catholic traditions here on holidays. The last one was Santa Margherita day, the patron saint of Cortona. I don't pray to the saints or worship them, but their lives (at least the ones told in stories passed down) are inspiration for how I would like to be remembered after I die. Today is Easter, so this past Friday was Good Friday and there was a procession through town stopping at each church to pick up a statue of the suffering Christ. There are photos on my facebook, it would take too long to upload them all! It ended at Piazza Repubblica in the center of town. There was a skit with Mary and Jesus, and the Archbishop spoke. The statues of Christ were displayed in the piazza. After studying tons of paintings from before and during the Renaissance, I understand the purpose of how they painted. It wasn't to say: "this is exactly what the scene would look like if you were there." The paintings might look a little awkward because people don't usually stand symmetrically on two sides of something in a 3/4 view away from who they're looking at... BUT the point is all the symbolism in each figure as reminders to the viewer. That might be a vague explanation but it would take too long to explain further. Anyways, all these traditions like the Good Friday procession with statues of suffering Christ, Saturday midnight mass where they run through the church with the resurrected Christ statue right at midnight, Easter mass... have all been reminders to me of God's grace and Jesus' suffering to cover my sin. Praise the Lord, Jesus Christ is risen!

"For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."
Romans 5:6-11

"Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen."
1 Tim 1:17

time is ticking

Exactly one month left!! NOOO!

My parents visited this past weekend. I showed them around, we went out to dinner several times, and they went on the field trip to Assisi and Perugia on Saturday. It was great to see them and I'm glad they got to see things that I can't really explain. They even got to be part of the Palm Sunday procession through town! We used olive branches instead of palm branches, quite appropriate for Italy.

I bought 2 plane tickets today and yesterday for traveling afterwards. I have mixed feelings, soooo excited for the sibling reunion in Paris but not excited for the program to end because it seems like I have to go back to reality then.

So far I have 2 possible Florence trips planned and maybe Cinque Terre this weekend but I haven't decided yet.

this is home!

I finally feel like I'm at home here and the people around me are my community and family. I have some friends, I know my way around town and Italian has somewhat come back to me so I can communicate, I'm familiar with a lot of the store people, I'm getting an idea of what stores are closed when (like 1:30pm on Sundays, closed on Tuesdays, etc). Unfortunately now that I'm getting comfortable, I realized that the program ends in a little over a month and I hate to think about it. The professors are trying to fit as much in as possible before the semester ends so they keep talking about how we only have 6 more class sessions, etc... I can't think about leaving, it makes me sad and I don't want to think about trying to adjust back to American life as if nothing has changed. It will be a very weird transition, like Italy was a dream even though it has affected me and made me grow in ways I can't really explain.

I need to get some photos from my friend Maggie (the red headed one in the last blog post photo) and then I'll do a photo update too, but probably more on facebook and just a few here.

This past week was a normal week of painting, drawing, bookmaking, and my art history midterm. We went to Volterra (I guess the real setting of part of Twilight, even though they filmed it in Montepulciano because Volterra charged too much...this is all from some Twilight fans on the trip and I have no idea if it's true or not) and San Gimignano on Saturday.

I went to San Gimignano almost 5 years ago last time I came to Italy and I have two photos: one of me eating an heirloom tomato I bought at the market, and another with a girl named Sarah in some kind of fresco/arch/stone cove up some stairs. I had no idea where it was and wasn't planning on finding it but I told one of my friends about it who had been to San Gimignano a while ago and also had a mystery spot in her memory, and she told me to go up an alleyway by the church where there's a well and some arches because she had a feeling that might be my spot. I walked through a dark stone walled alley thinking "I doubt this is it, I have such a vague memory I didn't even explain it to her except that there were stairs and stone which is like 90% of hilltop towns in Tuscany" but at the end of the walkway I got a flashback that made me smile so big. It was the mystery spot that I had been to where I had taken the picture with that girl that I don't talk to anymore. It was one of the most exciting things since I've been to Italy so I literally ran out from there to the piazza outside of the church to look for Karen who told me to go in there. I had her come back in there to take a picture with me in the same spot I think I had the picture taken before.

I also had gelato at the gelateria in San Gimignano that has won the world gelato contest for the past 4 years. I wondered why I hadn't remembered it from last time and realized it was because they won the contest starting in 2006 but I came in 2005 before it was famous...

On a side note, the angel in the Annunciation by Luca Signorelli (the one in Volterra, I don't know if he painted more than one Annunciation) is beautiful and I want a huge poster of it!! I admired it with Maggie for a long long time. However, disregard the creepy babies in the top left corner of the painting.

shorts and snow

I walked outside in shorts today, still a little cool with piles of snow still not melted, but it's finally sunny...so different from the snow storm a couple days ago. I hope that was the end of the crazy weather. There were people playing in the snow on the terrace right outside of my room. I just took a picture from the inside haha, my suede boots and pea coat aren't quite snowball fighting gear. I think this is from Wednesday:



We went to Orvieto yesterday. There's a big cathedral with green and white encrustation all over except the Gothic facade, with TONS of detail, I can't imagine doing that.





The bronze doors were made recently, by a guy named Emilio Greco (not El Greco haha). There was a little museum dedicated to him full of his drawings and sculptures, as well as the process of making the doors. Since I've been paying attention to varying brushstrokes in painting it was interesting to see that even sculptors vary their strokes. I'm leaving some of the gesso background in the painting I'm working on now, and noticed that on some of Greco's sculptures he left bronze in small chunks just as is without making them smooth or putting some kind of mark in them. I like to see how different media overlap. At school I'm usually around drawing/painting people because of classes but I talk to people outside of my niche here including English majors. I didn't expect it at all but the process of writing can be really similar to making "art" like having a notebook to put phrases in like sketches in a sketchbook, writing, rewriting, editing, drawing, erasing, deciding when it's finished...
Art history is much better in person. We read about different monasteries and I saw a structure from Orvieto that I previously would have called something like a castle, but I recognized it as a monastery because of its location and design. I'm learning!

I didn't write last week because I was doing a lot of makeup work, but I'm caught up now so I'm back on the normal schedule. We're having midterm grades already, the semester is flying by!
Our semester exhibition is April 17th, wow that's soon.

On Friday night I went out at night for the first time in several weeks. Our whole group went to a show at the theater to hear Orchestra della Toscana and a British singer perform Broadway songs. After that we went to the pub and a few of us watched a local band in the back room play songs we mostly didn't recognize. Afterwards we met two of them, twins from Cortona. They were hilarious and kept a safe distance so that was a fun night. It was refreshing to meet people that weren't creepy looking like they're on the prowl for American girls. But we'll still be careful just in case :)

a fresh start

I'm glad I didn't stress out much about being behind, I decided to take it one day at a time and see what happens. So far it's working out fine. My art history professor extended our paper a few days, my painting professor extended my painting a few days, bookmaking and drawing still have the same deadlines coming up so I'll be busy but not as bad as I expected. It's still Monday though, who knows, maybe later this week I'll say I spoke too soon.
I went to town to find hotels for my parents to stay at, and on my way back I bought a boar meat sandwich. It was delicious. They eat boar here, I guess it's pretty normal. I'll probably get another one at some point before I leave. I also bought fresh mozzarella because it was finally on sale :) The store I got the boar sandwich at had like 7 kinds of honey made around here from different flowers. They ranged from the crunchy textured lighter kind to medium brown and smooth. The lady at the store let us try one of the darker ones and it tasted like burnt sugar/honey. It was weird but really good, so I bought mini jars of 2 other kinds.

The gelateria is finally open, YESSS!!! I haven't been yet but I've heard it's good. The pastry shop is also calling to me every time I walk by but I haven't been inside yet. When we go on our Saturday field trips there are pastry shops at every other block, and I stop by almost all of them, kind of like in Japan. I'm somewhat glad that they aren't all over in the states, or else I would be a big spender on sweets at home too.

Maybe I should talk about where we go on Saturdays. Two Saturdays ago we went to Pienza and Montepulciano. Montepulciano is where New Moon was filmed but I haven't seen the movie so I couldn't appreciate that. There were posters all over and even wine called New moon haha.
This past Saturday we went to Arezzo. It was a pretty big city, they even had a Zara. It was weird to see young men because I don't see many in Cortona (mostly high school and middle aged~old) and there are 45 girls and 1 guy on this program.

This post was mostly about food. Clearly I'm ready for a predinner snack :) and bookmaking homework.

sick

I've been sick since Monday evening and it's Thursday now. This is unusually long...
There's only so much you can do on facebook and youtube, hulu doesn't work outside of the US, and there's a selection of about 6 movies here, so I've had a lot of time to sit and think about classes that I've been missing and how I suddenly got this sick. After many 18 unit semesters preparing for this one, I was really looking forward to this 12 unit semester thinking I would finally get a break...wrong.
3 studio art classes=18 hours/week
1 lecture class=4 hours/week
mandatory field trip=12 hrs/saturday
that's a total of about 34 hours per week of required class time, plus a semester crammed into 11 weeks, meaning every project is done in superspeed. It's mostly been fun but no wonder I'm sick... Despite all the makeup work coming my way, I hope next week will be more upbeat.

weekend

It's starting to warm up, it's finally in the 50s!! I haven't had to wear a jacket yet today.
I went to a movie called Scusa ma ti voglio sposare (Excuse me but I want to marry you) on Saturday night. It was an Italian romantic comedy, the main guy was Francesco from Under the Tuscan Sun. We got a special room on the second floor, I'm not sure why.
This is what the theater looked like: (I took it at the end of the movie when people had left, it wasn't that empty)


For Jennica's birthday on Saturday we went out to dinner at a restaurant (first time going out here!!) called Nessun Dorma and I got Tortelli with Deer with apples and smoked ham on top. Delicious. It kind of tasted like Japanese soboro. Marlena got curry ravioli with ricotta cheese and walnuts inside. It was an ethnic pasta dinner haha. I still think it's weird that they charge for tap water though. If you visit Italy, keep in mind the sitting fee and charging for tap water.




This week I'm motivated to get stuff done early: Karaoke night is Friday and Saturday is the last night out with the Canadians in town because it's their last weekend here.

I've been here for a month already! I arrived January 31st. Each day feels long but it's flying by so fast. I'll be back home in no time, anxious to fly away again and see another exciting place. I'm already thinking about where I want to go next and how that will happen. I love home and everyone there, but I feel like this is the only time in my life with so many possibilities and not that much to worry about (besides money!! haha, a major roadblock in my traveling dreams)

busy week!

I hand washed my laundry today, it took about an hour and a half total. I need lotion now but sometimes it feels good to work with your hands. I mean besides art, I guess that's work but it's not the same. I don't think I'll ever complain again about the washer+dryer being $1.75 at school. The washer here is 3 euro= $4.50 and there is no dryer... I might indulge one day but I felt like trying out the hand washing this time.
Our fieldtrip on Saturday is to Pienza this week and my group has a presentation so I have to finish that by tomorrow as well as get ahead on my painting. I'll think about what's due Friday after these two are done tomorrow...one day at a time. I'm not really comfortable speaking, especially loudly, in front of people so I'm looking forward to Saturday being over.

Today the three asians (one full, one half, one quarter asian) went on a hunt for a Chinese restaurant because we heard there was one in Camucia, the town a bus stop away down the hill. We got there and..... it's closed on Wednesdays. (It reminded me of when we got to Cortona, the lady introducing us to the town said "the pastry shop is closed today... oh of course, it's tuesday!"... i don't understand how people keep up) So we were very disappointed and went to the co-op that was our destination #2 in Camucia, and the guy at the register told us about another Chinese restaurant a bus ride away, so we went there. Speaking to a Chinese waitress in Italian was probably one of the weirdest experiences I've had so far...

first assignments

Painting still life:




Where I draw:




The view from the drawing studio:




Self portrait- Working on it...




Still in progress...



I have to be done by Tuesday and then maybe I can put up the final version that hopefully I'll be proud of...

Painting

Paint til 2am, wake up at 6:30am to continue...2 and a half days to go from underpainting-->painting is a little bit rough. I bought a men's white button up shirt to paint in. When I wear that, my paint stained jeans and glasses I feel like a pro even if whatever I'm painting doesn't turn out that way...
I bought more chocolate today, it was a candied fig covered in dark chocolate. It didn't taste like a fig at all, more like chewy sugar, but the chocolate was good. There's an Italian practice pre-dinner meeting and dinner twice a week where we can only speak Italian, so I'm learning faster by trying to use it more. I need to start studying from a textbook on my own though, especially all the unusual verb conjugations.
Last night was Carnevale so everyone went out. It's like Halloween, some guy was even dressed as Marge Simpson. Italians are fun to be around, I like it here.

School

I'm not sure how I usually manage 6 classes and other activities because here 4 is plenty, at least for the studio classes. I haven't been out to town much. I'm not so sure about the professors yet but I guess they make up for it by making you do more work so I'm teaching myself through success and failure in experimentation. Usually projects get a couple weeks but here we get 1 week including the practice sketches or paintings, I don't know where to begin beyond the practice that I've done so far, which is why I'm sitting here writing this blog. It's probably the usual overwhelmed feeling at the beginning of the semester. Hopefully I'll have something good by the end but if not at least I'll have lots of practice and maybe the the bad drawings and paintings out of my system. A few days and 12 self portraits later they are finally starting to consistently look like me. I've already learned something :)

music

I have 143 Bon Jovi songs... No matter what mood I'm in everything feels okay when I listen to them and life seems more simple, they are like a serenade to my soul :)

I'm becoming intense

There are a few indications recently that make me think I'm becoming an intense person. 8 hours at a museum was way too short, I spent 11 hours straight practicing drawing my face today (not homework, just practice for homework) and skipped lunch, while most other students are complaining about seeing too many Madonna and Child paintings and marble statues I can't get enough of them and take notes on subtle differences that I think are very interesting. I probably started out a little "different" but now I've gotten even weirder. But if that means I'll improve then I don't mind at all.
Besides that, while I was drawing today I noticed that I smile a lot here even when I'm alone. Things like finishing the last touch on a self portrait that finally makes it look like it's looking back at me, watching the snow collect throughout the day outside the window of the drawing room, noticing improvement in drawings, listening to Bon Jovi, feeling at peace, knowing that God is mending my heart and blessing me more than I could imagine... these things make me happy.

Ephesians 3:20-21 "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."

The snow is beautiful but I was not prepared! haha

Getting settled

I've moved into my room with 3 other roommates, we have a door that opens out to a terrace, where we can also hang out laundry so that's convenient. Today we had short classes to go over the syllabus for each class. It looks like I'll be pretty busy. Drawing and painting are pretty much independent study classes so we come up with our idea for the semester. I'm considering plants for painting because I went to this da Vinci invention exhibit in Florence and in a video that was showing, it showed a painting that I had just seen a little while earlier that he painted with his teacher. It pointed out how da Vinci had studied plants and landscapes, and that's why his landscapes fade into the background naturally while his teacher had painted some palm tree that didn't really fit the space or the landscape. I always thought da Vinci's trees were weird but that's just because they don't exist in the states, but I've seen them here! For my drawing class our first assignment is a self portrait in Italy, whatever that means to you, so open ended! I have a potentially really good idea for that but it will take lots of practice for the background part and it's due Tuesday so I might change my mind about that.
There's a Nutella party this evening for the town. There are Canadian students here too staying somewhere down the hill so we'll get to meet them.

Week 1

We've been to Rome and Florence for several days each. My days started by waking up at 6 or 6:30am (i know, hard to believe) and i got back to the hotel before dinner usually around 7pm. We had set morning plans and then many options and some requirements in the afternoons. I'm inspired seeing so many famous paintings, sculptures and architecture. I'm actually sketching and enjoying it, probably because last semester I drew a lot and got better at drawing so I feel more comfortable sketching in public now even when every person who walks by peeks over and gives a nod of approval or a blank look which isn't very reassuring. This afternoon I drew two guys on the steps in front of Santa Croce in Florence and they knew it so they started playing guitar and staying in the same position and smiling, it was funny, I showed them the sketches later and said thank you so I wasn't such a creeper haha.
I won't include every single thing I've done because every day is so packed but maybe some highlights...
I spent the longest I've ever spent in a museum at the museum that included the Sistine Chapel. I've been waiting to see it since last time I came and it was definitely worth all the hype haha. I got to the museum at 9am and left at 5pm (8 hours but it wasn't nearly enough) to make it to St Peter's before it closed at 6pm. I was in the Sistine Chapel for 2 and a half hours out of those 8, sketching 2 of the figures on the bottom of the Last Judgment and making friends with the guards with my broken Italian. They seem to be excited about people who are really interested in it. One of them, Giuseppe, talked to other guards and had them let me into the pope's Crying Room, right under the Last Judgment wall, that was off limits. It's where the pope goes after he's chosen to change his clothes from the red cardinal robe to the white pope robe, pray and often to cry. There were decaying frescoes on the wall from centuries ago. Giuseppe called his brother who works in St Peters, so that he would take me up in the dome for free but the museum took me too long and I didn't make it out in time...too bad.
We went to see David by Michelangelo in Florence and it was SO much better than photos. Obviously everything is different in person, but this was much more different than I had ever seen in comparison to a photo. It's 17 feet tall on top of an already tall stand. In case you look up photos, David looks out of proportion if the photo is straight on but since Michelangelo's a genius he made the proportions perfectly skewed so that he would look correct from below, since the sculpture was originally meant to go on a buttress of a cathedral (very high up). I'm learning lots and lots of interesting things. I feel much more curious than I've ever been, about pretty much any subject even outside of art.
There's a whole range of different people on the trip, a lot from the midwest and south which is interesting. There are maybe 2 people from socal. The group is mostly art majors but there are a few Art Education and English majors too because they added English to the trip.
Overall it's been a wonderful week and i often feel like I must be dreaming.
Another side note, I've noticed how closely my emotions are tied with my interests, unless I'm just being emotional haha. For example, this morning there was a Renaissance musical instrument exhibit in the museum we went to and a Stradivarius was in a glass case and it made me upset and my eyes teared up. How could it be put away like that, never to be played again when it's one of the most rare and beautiful violins ever made!! I wanted to take it out and play it.
This is so long already. We arrived in Cortona early this evening. We have to take a 5 minute hike up a steep hill to get to the place every day for dinner or out to town, it'll be a good little work out whenever I go out. The view from our building is just like whatever image of Tuscany you find online, lots of green open land and some old houses, it's like we were placed on a movie set.

i'm in

i got my passport back with a visa in it so i can go, i also got my program tshirt haha.

WHEW

I sent in my US passport with my student visa application form for Italy... and then flew to Japan for the holidays with my Japanese passport since I already had a plane ticket. Of course it was fine going to Japan but on the way back I was very nervous about how to get back in the states... I'm pretty sure you're supposed to travel between countries with your passport, a California's driver's license isn't quite enough. I already knew about the worst case scenario (The Terminal- he was relatively fine...) so I figured it probably wouldn't be that bad, haha. We went through immigration, got sent to the corner office for people with immigration problems, an hour later I came out in once piece and they let me in the country. I'll legally be here for the next month and the government won't have to hunt me down.