What I've been working On

Well I've been home in the States for over two weeks now. And what have I been working on? Why what I'm best at Graphic Design. (I'll promise I'll post pics of my final book when I get a camera since mine broke).

Well before I left was volunteered to help a woman who has been in the business of German to English translation for 13 years. Her website lacked the ability to show her professional prowess. Current site: www.dstranslations.com

I worked for approximately 3-4 hours today on this design and I'm looking for a crtique. I sent it to the client to find out what she wants as well so all suggestions will pend on her thoughts. I'd especially love input on the banner.

I'm also going to start working on a logo for a go green take public transit site, but I just got asked about that one os it's still in the research phase.

Biennale: Arsenale

Arsenale was nice because it was very easy to navigate it was a long strip with very few seperate buildings to explore, but still had a few invididual countries representing along side the overall gallery of artist from everywhere. Though I have to admit I was wasn't nearly as impressed with the art at Arsenale as I was at the Biennale. My particular disappointment was with the United Arab Emirates. I had seen the tote bag around and thought they were really cool which was a motivator to go, but once I saw the exhibit I thought there is no way I would cough up 5 euro to these pretentious bastards. The whole exhibit was essentially "look at the money we have and all the cool shit we can do with it." They called it a exhibition in accomplishments in art, culture and architechture. There was a museum model of a museum they wish to build and by the looks of the scale it took up so much space I can't imagine anyone just havign the laying around. Eminent domain to the max. Plus the so-called video art seemed to be more series of interviews of rich person and influential religious and political figures of the country. Not much an art of the culture if you ask me. I was appalled. So the charming totes saying "It's not you it's me" in over lapping english and Arabic became a boasting symbol of a seemingly oppresive society.

Well Now that I got that off of my chest here's some art I did like: Unfortuantely here is about the time my camera broke. So I'll do what I can.

I'll start with an interesting piece that can't be discribed by photo. This exhibit actually existed at both parts of the biennale, but the lady's full exhibit was at the Arsenale itself. He most fun piece which I hope to use to the best of my ability. She made millions of postcards that say Venezia on them or Venice and any of the sort you'd see on postcards here, but the images themselves were never actually of Venice. As a way of saying we all are a part of Venice. And it's being the city of water and lights, mostly water, each picture depicted a scene totally not venitian, but still included water. These postcards were also free for the taking. So if you would like one comment or email me: abalog@umail(dot)iu(dot)edu. period go where the (dot) is.

This piece was kind of strange until I read the artist statement. It was a room full of broken mirrors, all borken differently. The pieces themselves are a series of self-portraiture since that is commonly what the artist does, but the mirror itself is an every existing portrait device, the breaks act as the portraiture and an expression of self-loathing.

I loved this paitnign when I first saw it in the room it's so simple in execution and charming in form, but what made this piece really special is how this is not the only one. At the exhibit there were three. All the same subject, all a little different, but stil lthe same subject matter. There are many more and I learned this from the video art made of these paintings. Each painting became a frame by frame animation of this little girl figiting in her chair.

This piece was very unusual in nature and I think I'm still deciding how I feel about it, but conceptually it's an interesting idea. The artist wanted to forcefully intigrate new customs into an existing culture. So the artist created this made up tradition of blimps that fly over San Marco. It was advertised and executed fooling some tourists into believing it. (how I'll never know) These pictured are the models as a representation of the whole project. There was also a video of the acutal event playing.

This was a great interaction piece and I really enjoyed seeing it play forth. It was a small room contructed for a "make your own composition piece" where you could step in and re-arrange the pieces how ever you see fit. Along with it was a bench for you to sit and view your creation where there clues on how to evaluate the work you made.

What I love about this piece is how the subconcious is made immediately apparent making it less subconcious. Sitting and pondering that as people interact with it really made this piece fun. Especially watching tourist pick pieces to pick up and get a photo with. What does it really say about them?

You know me and interactive pieces. I would have taken more pictures. There were many of these, all different, but as I said, my camer died so I did the best I could. The whole of this board said "This is not the first hole my finger has been in (hole) Nor will it be the last."

There was another piece in a shed full of what seems like gymnast rings of varying hieghts (some foot from the ground some 7 feet) and there was one objective if you choose to accept: travel from one side to the other without touching the ground. It's difficult I made it like 7/8 of the way.

The Biennale: Giardini

There was no use writing the day number. since it's the last night here. I leave tomorrow. And I will probably write a reflection of my time in Venice as I sit on the plane tomorrow. So until then the last of the art shows I went to:

The Biennale: Giardini

For those who don't know this is the large over all show held in two parts. The firstI went to was the Giardini. This was may favorite of the two (The other being Arsenale which I'll talk about later in this post). There was the over all exhibition first which was amazing. With some really cool installations that really redefine the space. Which is some of my favorite contemporary pieces because of how it mentally and physically affects the viewer and how they percieve the space. If art makes you look at something differently it gets a gold star in my book. Some of the high lights amungst the main pavilion:

Galaxy of Elastic - It was surreal that the lines built up so densely could still stand to be suspended above us and how lines set three-dimensionally create a two dimensional drawing in a white canvas room. But yet you could stand in all dimensions of it.

Plus it was fun to navigate

A Creepy sudo Eden a changed look at Paradise Paired with two strange yet meticulously detialed claymation videos where curruption and sex was a the be falling of all in the eden. And While being surrounded by the large flower you to were taken into this strange seemingly paradise like world.

This was a beautiful sculpture. Strips of Film were rollign through a series of wheels rotating up to create a double helix feeding to a project to play a movie on a screen . Amazing use of space and both the video medium along side the object that displays the art! All I have to say is way to think outside of the box! PResentation is always important.

I know I've trashed Yoko Ono beacuse I've always believed she was a crazy. I've heard some seriously biassed opinions and one good opinion. And now ThatI have seen some of her art all I can say is she is a great conceptual artist!

This piece in paritcular is my fav. She also has a series of bells hooked to a button that sad push me. If you pushed it aroudn the corner 10-15 bells would go off obnoxiously frightening the person who would otherwise not notice thier presence. Brava!

A light and shadow piece. So beautiful and playful and simple the ever changing composition was captivating I only wish I had thought of it.

There were a cou[ple of these painting/collage pieces. I loved this one, maybe the concept of marionettes captivates me but I just liked it no other justification.

A room of cameras the would project different words on different walls uniformly creating sentences of thoughts on the owlrd and art, but they flashed quickly which I didn't mid because I feel like thought do come and go quickly and to properly express them all clearly if difficult. The artist expressed them and showed and shared this struggle at the same time. Equally sharing how he sees the world with you.

Spain: Not bad... Interesting use of medium, but nothing wowing. The paintings were so tactile with e the way paper was added to create texture, negative, and positive space makign it almost sculptural. And the sculptures themselves were interesting, but seemed almsot arbitray they way it was concieved.

Russia: This exhibit was SUPER TIGHT! One of my favorites. Victory over future was the theme and every detial was thought out down to how the buildign was layed out (the victory half was literally over the future part and stood as seperate entities!) Each piece worked spereately and together. And evoked many emotions culminating to one result within the viewer depending on how they see the theme. IF that makes sense. Personally I love winning so enterign a room the simulate cheering and gradual excitement at your presence made me so excited and then when it all disappear in an instant I was kind of sad. The Future was weird and strange, but fun and exciting. In a way I see Sci-fi films and kind of hope the future will be even though I may never see it be.

Hungry: So powerful and moving. A great use of science, culture and history to culminate art. This show was about a very dark past in Hungry where in World War II the jews in the prison camps were examined to prove they were a lesser human. So By using video art to view the human profile and face mug shots and seemingly scientific raw data photos that were typical of these experiements became life like and re-humanized them.

America: Not a fav of mine though I figure since much of my audience is American you want to know. The artist that was representing America was Bruce Nauman. Someone I had previously not heard of, but a coupleo f the people on the trip were alrge fans up. So maybe I was disappointed due ot my high expectations, but really I felt like it was just crap thrown together or just overly simple humor. Not my style, but not every person is going to liek the same art so I will leave to say experience it for yourself. I have no photos this was the only pavilion photos were not allowed due to a deal the Philadelphia Museum the art is typically displayed. He is the current hot this so I say sieze the opportunity.

Belgium: This artist choose a couple streets in major cities in countries and drew seemingly scientific drawings of the plants along side photos of the street and dried pressed versions of the plants. There were also beautiuflly simple line drawings that combined sexuality fo the flower with female sexuality that I was simply in love with.

Eygpt: This was a medium one for me. The art was particularly provoking, but the simplicity of the sculptures against how difficult a task it would be to weave something that large was still beautiful. It also reminded me much of the papyrus tradition of Eygpt (possibly just my ignorance ot culture there is probably so much more I don't know) reminded me a lot of the culture. It was enjoyable all in all.

Not a country, but the cafeteria! ahah an artist was asked to design it so here it is. When I first entered I wasn't even sure if I was allowed to sit here before I realized just beyond the second set of doors was a snack bar with funky cool cafeteria style seating.

Day 21

Wow...Blogging has really fallen behind. I guess I've just been so busy, but don't worry I haven't forgotten about. Lately in class it's been work days so that's not that exciting, but I deffiantely have a plan for my final book down and am working on the plates for it!

Other than class I've tryign to visit as many biannale art shows as possible. So I will now talk of art shows....

The End - http://cia.is/venice/

This exhibit is by Iceland and was free along the way to school so I decided to drop in to give it a peek. The first room I entered had four screens of the painter and one other guy playing various instruments (depending on the screen) at varying distances from the camera. It also included a space along the canal where there were beer bottles left about a record player, a couch, lots of

canvases in the corner and the artist and his model (occasionally hanging with some other people). Along with other personal effects of the artist. The artist has been painting during his time here random pantings of the model in different places in the space. I liked how you as a view intruded on the artist space and became part of the piece, but the paintings I felt lacked something to be desired. Later I found out that the painter was on the cover of Modern Painter magazine. And I didn't find that out until later, go figure...

Life by Imitation -http://www.nac.gov.sg/

This exhibit was put on by the Nation of Singapore and was right upstairs in the same building as Iceland, and was paled in comparison a bit. Especially since it was easy to compare painting/video art combos. Nonetheless I was intrigued by it since I didn't know it was video art walkign into it. I had seen adds for the paintings and expecting nothing more. They were all based off of old movie posters in Singapore, but there was also a video portion of the poster. They were filmed multiple times and the roles were switched and played either by the same person or at different times different actors reading the same lines. There was a lot of play on race and gender roles which intrigued me.

Giraffe-Bottle-Gun - http://www.nzatvenice.com/

This is one of two exhibits hosted by New Zealand. This exhibit featured larger than life canvases shaped like a giraffe, a bottle, or a gun (depending on what you saw), thus the name. And were painted abstractly using high contrast colors. What I liked most about this exhibit was the pride in culture they had (and their lovely volunteer she was very friendly). They had a room in the back with lots of reading material. Some on the artists, but also on maori art and a video clip (which was given to you on disc) or preformance maori art they did through out Venice. They also gave us a free necklace of a shell!

Save Yourself - http://www.nzatvenice.com/

The Second Exhibit from New Zealand in a seperate building hidden in the back of an apartment complex near Ca'D'Oro contained different small sculptures of people (mostly men) painted in vibrant colors some solid colors some patterns. They reminded me a little of Maori art I had studied in Art of the South Pacific, but I feel if you hadn't studied the culture the beauty fo the pieces was lost. I had seen images of the pieces too and was expecting something larger, but nonetheless the fluidity of the figures and the personality portrayed theough motion was executed very well int he stylized figures. Plus I have to say thanks for the free bag!

Glasstress - http://www.istitutoveneto.it/

This show is a collection of art in the medium of glass made by well established artists. It's right by the academia bridge here in Venice. Sculpture isn't much of my thing and there were things I liked and didn't like, but over all what made this show so great was see all the possibilities glass has to offer. I've never worked with glass, but sometimes I was just like, "I didn't know glass could do that!" If that's not enough to convince you to see it the buildign itself was GORGEOUS! It's held in the Insitute of Science and Letters (well this but in Italia so it sounds much more offical). The institute was started by Naploeon when he occupied Venice, and so it's decorated super fancy for him.

Mapping the Studio - Link

This was another two part gallery, but it was not hosted by a country rather it's a colelction of Contempoary artists. The first one I went to I entered it and encountered an "nazi dancefloor"

Which as strange as that sounds was rather cool. It was a large dance floor you were allowed to walk on with pictures of people who have played nazis in movies. One of my favorite parts was the 101 things to make art which were done in different ways around the gallery. Including: Put

googley eyes on things. And googley eyes were literally put on to the stone statues that were already apart of the space. There was soem strange stuff, but alot of it was realyl cool and I liked this first oen the best of the two. The Second was at Salute and had the statue featured on the posters (a little naked boy holding out a frig by it's legs) on the ledge that sits out

on the canal. Some of the stuff in this one was a little much for me. My favorite pieces were "fucking hell" and "uterus" two seperate artist, and pieces you can only expiereince in person (that and you can't take photos though I tried). One thing I found funny were two particular. I had read about them online (thanks to a certain perverted friend) and these scupltures had sold for about 15 Million dollars a piece. And I walked in and just went "no...way." I couldn't believe there they were in person.

Marialuisa Tadei - www.marialuisatadei.com

Here is an exhibit that was fun because it really utilized the space as a whole. It was in a church and the first one I saw within a church so I was surprised. (you also were'nt allowed to take pictures of the church, but you were allowed to take pictures of the art discuss...) It was presents by the Republic of San Marino. Waterfall was the most iconic piece which was ribbons of platic in bright and metallic colors cascading from the ceiling, but there was also this grave yard piece that you walking into a black box with a grave yard setting while other worldly music played and you approached the other side of the box which had a key-hole looking into a white and sivler feathery world seeming heavenly. You could realyl feel the piece emotionalyl which I like because it wasn't in your face it just touched you in a way.

I also attended this book art show; though I wasn't aprticularlly impressed with a lot of the books. Except for two:

Day 13

Well today was most exciting when we took a trip to Verona. Verona is West of Venice and gorgeous! Saw some trees and flowers and grass again! haha Fun fact this is the town where Romeo and Juliet takes place and Where Dante's Inferno was written! Pictured to the left is a statue of Dante himself from a Palazzo in Verano! Cool yes?

Well the first stop on our tour was the most beautiful gardens! And since we hadn't seen much greenery in a while this was quite exciting. From the top you could see a wonderous view of the city! See the following video. There was even a maze of bushes, and I'm proud to say I made it through!

We then went to lunch and saw much of the Roman architecture since Verona used to be a Roman city. We tried to get into the colleseum, but they were setting up for an opera. Outside of the colleseum was saw a few street preformers and pieces of the set they were moving into the colesseum. We at lunch pretty good - Brek is not as good of a bargain as Ed cares to believe, but I'll eat as along as IU's paying (though since I payed tuition I suppose I really am paying).

We then went to Zino Basicilica which Ed was very excited about and was

saving the best for last as he said. He really wanted to show us the fancied carved doors (to the left. And I ust say that a fine piece of Mideavel work. I loved the look of the warm marbel. the Chrch was beautiful. It was fairly dim lit. you sit in the main section an see Crypt and the Choir at the same time. The crypt being down and the choir up. The pillars and wall were frescoed beautifully. THe unusual part was that some of the fresoces along the wall had graffiti carved into them. And it make me wonder how it's being cared for and how hold the names carved in are. OR even when they actualyl started caring for the church. Here's a video of me panning around the church.

Our day was concluded with a VERY long train ride home. I should have walked into the apartment at 7:30. But rather I walked in at 8:45. ah well...we made it.

We then continued the rest of our evening with some dinner, a deserved shower. Then we got ourselves gussied up and stalked Yoko Ono. lol No actually we had found some invitations to some ritsy concert in the Armenia Center in Venice and since one of the songs being played is dedicated to Yoko Ono we just assuemd she'd be there. So we wandered and found the place. It was by Campo de San Margarette, where we had gotten "lost" for Print making. Turns out this is where the Night life is and even saw the MICA kids there from Scuola. We went to the concert and it was played by this famous Pianist whose especailly known for palying the toy piano. I was expecting some sweet piano and toy piano duet action, but the she played a John Cage song. I had heard of John Cage, but never actually listened to any of his stuff. And in my opinion I wouldn't reccomend it. It includes parts in the music that say "pour glass of water". Frankly I almost fell asleep. Wouldn't recommend it. I try not to write of Modern art at first glance, but this was too far. Nonetheless I feel we snuck into celebrity status and even if you aren't a fan of Yoko Ono wouldn't you try and go to a party she'd be at?

More photos and trust me there are lots!

Day 12

So The internet went out last night otherwise you'd already know that, Shepar Fairey has been spotted in Venice. Last night when my friends Cristina and Alyssa went out on a run they met Shepard Fairey. That's right ladies and gentlemen Shepard F***ing Fairey. 

Today we had class blah blah... THEN! we went for a walk (not to self my short shorts in Venice attract much unwanted attention). Found the second Shepard Fairey mural, and hoped to see the man heimself... to no avail, but we did take some scraps of his work left behind...mwahahaha.  We peaked in at many pre-biannale art parties non- of which we coudl get into, but Cristina and Annie Lucky found invites to some swanky party...luck ducks. I did find a Yoko Ono Poster for her art show. It's a giant picture of her boob and it's deffinately goign to be hanging in out dining room.

PS I found a Pirate bay balloon, so they are totes goign to be here.

Day 10

Well the last todays have been fun filled days of class. We Critiqued our scrolls and it was nice seeing our porfessor Ed excited. I guess he's been afraid we weren't having fun, but now that he's seen how wee feel about our "journeys" in Venice he feels better. Dominicks was funny because up until recently he hasn't enjoyed Venice. He has been really homesick and just isn't fond of Cities, pigeons and especially Gypsies. lol

We are going ot turn our scrolls into Codexes. Mines goign to be a serpintine pages book with a non-adhesive cover. I'm pretty excited about it It's going to communicate the meaning of the imagery very well. Pics later! We also started mono-prints in Intalgio I kinda like it. Though I still need more practice.

I'm realyl starting to warm up to Ed. At first I thought he was kidn of mean but I find he is just a crazy old man with no tact. But he can be really kind as well. He is genuinely interested in his students, and if you talk to him there is kidness hidden beneath those silly New York Jew Yiddish terms and Stuck in the 60s art opinons.

Day 8

The evening before (after the friday excursion and such) Soem of us went out to Dinner. Got some pizza and just leasurely enjoyed our time together. Our waitor was amusing because when he came up, Will asked him how to say something. And the waitor decalred himself out teacher. He took the the time too flirt shamelessly with us and learn our names. I had a little arguement with him that I am Alysha not Alice (in italian it is pronounced Ah-lee-cha). Then after I hung on the second floor with the other half of the students here from IU (we are all one big family living on two different floors). I listened to Liv and Erin play. Erin has actually toured check it out (this is a live recording of one of the songs she played for us): Floatsam Wake Sorry for the bad quality.

Then began Our first saturday in Venice. Woke up at noon like any responsible college student. Then went to the Billa (groceries!). Along the way we saw people gearing up for the Regatta which is the following day. Boats everywhere needless to say. We came back and I ate food cleaning out the old food from the fridge. All I can say is I can get used to olive oil bread and cheese all the time, ahaha! Nom nom...

We worked on our homework most of the evening. THat night we tried to find Harry's Bar which apparently is super famous, and the students last year used to go all the time. But when we got there it was close. Note to take when in Venice Things don't open until 8 or 9 AM and close 8 or 9 PM. So some people bought a beer and we all sat by the grand canal and just talked before some us got tooo cold from the wind. We curled into bed and slept.

Day 7

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. There wasn't much to report other than Class 9-5. I will include one funny quip about how Dominick, Alyssa, Will, Annie, Cristina, and I went to get gelatto. Alyssa was second to last to go, then Dominick. Once Alyssa got hers she exited the store and Dominick went up to pay. The Gelatto guy said, "Is she your girlfriend?" Dominick quickly replies no as he has a girlfriend. Then the gelatto guy was like "I give you this for free if you put in a good word?" Dominick just shrugs and behold free gelatto.

Today was out first "Friday excursion". We went to Padova, Italy. And saw cars and grass for the first time in a week. lol We took the train there. First we went to a chapel to veiw some frescos painted by Giotto himself. And trust me those frescoes look much more inspiring in person than projected on a wall in art history! Giotto really was amazing in being one of the first painters to use expressions in his figures so vividly. There are no photos of the frescoes unfortunately. They had me check my Camera, and we could only be there for 20 minutes. It was a very controled enviroment to avoid further damage. But here is a picture of the outside of the chapel.

Next we traveled to a market. Lots of cheap stuff. I got a shirt. Exciting no? haha Then we went to the building where the market orginated. Palazzo della Regione (the plazza of reason). Here is a statue of a horse modeled after the legended of Troy. They would celebrate it annually and actually come out of the horse! There were frescoes all over the walls as you can see. Including the Zodiac. There were lots of funny little pictures of mythology and people. This plazza is known as the heart of the city. Padova isn't very touristy but very interesting.

After that we hit up another church. This one I snuck some pictures of the frescoes.

Next we went to the thirs oldest University in Europe and the oldest university in Italy.

Universita Degli Studi de Padova is home of the first human disection and Galileo taught here. Here's the photo of me at the University! Not many pictures were allowed here there. We did see the auditorium where the first disection took place. It was built by boat builders and is surprissingly small and big at the same time. Someting you just have to experience for yourself. We also so the memorial of the fisrt female University graduate. And as the tour guide said, "the begining of the end....of men." Bahahaha!

After that we hit up a museum about the science of Galileo. Lots of science...but interesting nonetheless.

More pictures for your pleasure: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2075&id=1711770129&l=00610ffa99

Day 5

Today was lots of class lol. I had my frist experience of Italgio. I will hopefully start printing soon. Pictures coming soon! I also did some more book binding acordion fold books mostly, plus a look at some more artist books. Some made by our professor. To the left is the sketchbook I was telling you we were binding using a criptic stitch. ^^ Done all by me! WOOO Even the cover gluing. It was fun! Not perfect, but hey it was my frist time.

Today was actually cool too. The last few times it's been

85 degree plus, but today was 75 and due to the ususally heat I wore a sweater. Oh well it was glorious. First day I didn't sweat profusely. William, one of the Grad students had his birthday today! Quarter of a Century so to Celebrate the occasion I went to the BP and bought some cake mix and constructed this monstrocity that William is displaying. It fell apart a bit, thus it's lumpy shape, but we repaired that with Nutella. So it then became no mistake, but a process of Design. And a Delicious one at that. Cristina added the 25 swedish fish in the shape of a W. If you can't figure out why you fail. THe cake was delicious by the way.

Happy Birthday William

Day 4

Well woke up at 8:30 this morning and took a shower then had some breakfast, as usual. Today however did not start with class. Our assignment instead was to get "lost". So Cristina, Annie, Alyssa, and I went and grabbed some authentic Italian cappacinos and the continued on our way. We wandered about and found this adorable little campo and decided to draw there. The main point of persuasion was the benches shaded by trees. I thought this cute little calle off the campo was adorable so I drew that. It had a clothes line which are all along the lines of ideas I have for some projects here. The drawing of the Calle itself will be for a print I'm making tomorrow. 

Then 12:30 rolled around and we wandered off in the direction we believed would take us to our apartment. Then we noticed the San Marco signs stopped. So we were like WTF? we check our maps and realized we had walked much further than we thought and to the Realto Bridge across the Gran Canal and then just walked to class since we were almost there and had lost a lot of time wandering in the wrong direction. 

It was very crowded adn very touristy, but we made there. We took a stop for lunch at this deli and then took it to class and ate with the 15 minutes we had left before class. Thus began binding the sketch books we made. We'll finish them tomorrow we ran out of time all I have left to sew is the cover. 

We stopped at the grocery store the Billa on the way home for dinner. Tonight we made a delicious Penne with tomato sauce. In the sauce (which you can only buy plain in Italy apparently) were mushrooms, garlic, balsamic, pepper, olive oil....mmm.. Topped with parmesan. Good eats. 

I went upstairs to hang with the other half of the gang on the trip. For a while. But class bright and early tomorrow. We begin Printmaking which should be interesting since I've never done it before. And then more book binding or maybe caligraphy I don't remember. And after I'm going to make a journey for my project. 

Ciao

Day 3

Today I woke up at like 5AM and I don't know why... I think it may ahve been goign to bed at 10PM so I'm goign to try and stay up until midnight tonight. We're going to go out and do some night drawings later! 

Once 9AM rolled around we headed to our Orientation at La Scuola Internationale Della Graphica.  It was cool, but I don't know anything about printing, I'm curious to see how this turns out. Later was bookmaking and we started by making covers for sketch books we are going to bind for tomorrow using a Criptic Binding technique. 

But the REAL fun began this even because at 6:30 there was an art Opening at the Guggenhiem! That's right THE Guggenheim and I went!

 We even had to wait in line to get in! I felt super special. Once we got in there was a DJ, drinks, and Ea'douvears to taken in 

(while they lasted peopel were grabbign them left and right). I know, I know...I came to Venice to eat jalapeno poppers and tuna? Psh whatever it was delish. At least 

I weas like those crazy Italians that once a new tray of pork sandwiches that the cateres were carrying over their heads to 

the table. The Italians started jumping up grabbign them right form the tray! HA! I Was laughing so hard. Then these Italians infront of me were laughing too and turned to me and commented about the specticle we both just witnessed in Italian. I of course 

had no clue what they were saying so I just laughed and nodded.  

  There was lots of crazy cool art including Picasso, Pollack, Dali, and so many more! It got so crowded too. It was deffinately the happening place in Venice this evening. And I was part of it. I'm living an Venitian Fantasy.

 

Ciao!!!

Day 2 - Photos

The clock tower in San Marco Square!

    

San Marco's Cathedral

Making Dinner

Le Gran Canal

Where they fix the Gandales

Day 2

Today I woke up to the sounds of church bells  a ringing, though Venice has never really been a religous city in Italy. It was different. haha! But I still got a full ngihts sleep. As I got ready this morning I heard the music in the Vivaldi museum playing across the campo and people singing behind us. Ed later told us there is a music school in the area thus all the music, but it was rather pleasant to hear. 

Some of us met up at 11AM to go on a tour to see where the grocery store and art supply store. Along with other points of interest. We hung a talked during the Dormentia or Ceista. We Then bought some groceries. On the walk back I indulged myself in some Gelatto. nom nom...We got some good preices on the gorceries. 

At 5-ish we made dinner. Katya was our main chef, spaghetti noodles, Balsamic, onions, garlic, and bell peppers. It was delish! 

Then A bunch of the people from our aparment wandered around. And we saw some cool sites!

Day 1

We arrive in Venice much earlier than expected. The flight was expected to land at 9:05 AM, but rather we landed at about 8:30 AM not to mention we started 30 minutes late! So our pilot was booking it. Overall the flight took about 8 hours. Customs was a breeze, stamp and we were done. Pick up our luggage and realize we have 7 hours until we could meet Ed at the Apartments. So we started our journey through Venice carrying out luggage in tow.

We got our tickets and took a bus to Pizzale de Rome. The plants

here are a wierd combination of plants you

see at home and down in florida. The houses and apartments are old and colorful with tile roof tops! So gorgeous. The bus took us to the heart of Vencie and there we got on a Water bus to Giglio.  

We got a little lost trying to find the campo where are plaza was and traveled in the completely wrong direction for over an hour. it was hot, and our luggage was heavy NO FUN! But we made it to the apartments then by noon-ish and waited for three hours for Ed. And other joined us along te way.

All of us are here except for Mollie of course. We got ot know each other pick our rooms and Then at 7 seven we enjoyed a delicious Pizza Dinner with some delicious wine! This is the Italian life. We walked back and got some Gellatto. I ahd Coffee and Mint chocolate ship, mmmm. I will have more pics now that I'm not schlepping my luggage around. 

Chiao!

More photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1881&id=1711770129&l=c74589fd71