HOOKAHS, HALLOWEEN & HAIRCUTS

on friday alec and i went out to find some more chisha (sp) for the hookah. by the way it's a three hose hookah. anyway the chisha we first got was absolutely terrible dry and harsh. so we were told about a place closer to the studio. it was a nice shop that sold middle eastern rugs, beads, etc. alec asked if they sold chisha and he brought out some double apple. he then asked if he carried any other flavors, the man reach into a secret compartment in the seat he was sitting on and pulled out a box of some of the most potent double cherry chisha that i've ever seen. alec thought that we didn't have enough so the shop owner said if you don't have the money in 15 minutes he wouldn't sell it to us, because we were to much of a hastle. we actually had enough on us at the time. alec then asked if we ever needed anymore if he would sell us some more. the answer was no he said, "if you go through this entire box before two months your worst than the turks." we had a chuckle and were on our way.

yesterday the guys threw a halloween party. lets just say it was nothing short of amazing. given the lack of resources people came up with good costumes. out of the entire group of 70 designers about 40 made an appearance. the guys costumes were hilarious; zach was a terrorist, zak was the late steve irwin, alec was paula, nick was tom cruise, trevor was a pan handling gypsy, frank was a italian, reid was borat, scott was a turd, tony was static cling, and i was a panda. pictures courtesy of niki brown and the facebook.

























i got a hair cut, and finally we got an appointment for last friday at nine for our permessos. they asked about tatoos, then the hand printed me. yes, you heard it correctly hand printed me. so finally i got my permesso of stay. if i hurt my self i can actually go to the hospital. also i'm heading out of the country on thursday for our northern fieldtrip. we are going to zurich and venice. but don't worry i'll be back in time for the florentina game on sunday.

AS ROMA vs CHIEVO VERONA

on sunday twenty two designers went to the AS ROMA vs CHIEVO VERONA match. although days before the match trevor and i went to the ROMA store to purchase our tickets. we accidentily bought tickets for the curva sud (south side) instead of or regular curva nord. this means we were with the hardcore season ticket holder ROMA fans. everyone else got tickets for the curva nord. the game was really intense. ROMA had so many chances to put the ball in the goal but could never capitalize. there was an offsides and a hand ball in the box causing the goals to be withdrawn. VERONA scored first when the keeper rushed to the 18 but misses the tackle as well as a defender, this left the striker wide open. ROMA answered back with a string of fabulous passes leaving totti to slot it home. the south side went insane screaming TOTTI. the game ended in a draw. another great game. i think ROMA is at the top of the table in the SEIRE A. i might be going to a champions league match next tuesday. we'll see though.

MIDTERM

i didn't get a midterm. so mom you don't have to worry. although i did get a ticket to the AS ROMA game. school is starting to pick up, we had a in class crit on our packaging prototypes. cheri and paula liked my idea of the broken bridge package. i've been working on my symbol and type journal as well. the topic is graffiti in centeral rome. i have to find as many non-crappy stencils and a wide variety of type and then analysis them. i've also started on working on an identity system for tiber island. i need a hair cut.



we started playing soccer at a park last monday. it feels great running around again. the pitch is absolutely horrible, i think everyone fell at least once. it was hilarious when the italians would stop to watch a bunch of americans look absolutely ridiculous trying to play soccer. although a lot of them wanted to play with us. i think this is going to be a weekly activity.





because of the amount of work that has come down on me this month and mom and jessie visiting in november niki and i are think about moving our trip to germany to late november/early december.

FIRST ALL NIGHTER

i had to go back to my sight which was tiber island, because i heard that the bottom half of the island was open to the public. so niki and i decided to check it out. when we got there the stairs were being cleaned so niki climbed over the railing by the church (it was a less of a drop). she then started her way down the hillside made of cobblestone. i then hopped the fence and started down the hill. i saw her sitting and scooting down the side of the hill and asked myself why she was sitting. i then slipped on pine needles and fell on my tailbone, both hands, my right elbow, and my camera. i then proceeded to slide down the ten foot hill and got up quickly and tried to walk it off. niki burst out laughing and so did the doctors that were on their smoking break. note to self use the damn steps. after taking one of the hardest spills in a while i took some pictures of my sight and made some observations of the people visiting the island. then i decided to do some freestyle walking, because that's what all the cool kids do. ha. after going back to the studio i worked on my sketchbook until i had to go to art history. we went to the vatican where there were 1,500 german pilgrims. they were really loud and excited. they wore light blue shirts that read ROM. most of them were pretty nice and spoke english pretty well. the parents on the other hand were not cool, they would cut in line, push, and breath really hard on me. it was like they didn't know what a personal bubble was. this was weird because germans that i've met are so much more hospitable. one parent pinned me against a barrier and wouldn't let me pass trying to block me in so his kids could cut in front of me. so i said he should calm down, we're all going to the same place. he then pushed me hard into the barrier, so i push him back and got back with the rest of my class. after finally getting into st. peter's we were told we couldn't be there because of the size of our group and our professor wasn't supposed to be taking. so i guess he was the only one that couldn't talk, because everyone in the entire church was allowed to. so we had our leture on the steps. after class i worked until four in the morning. i then had to listen to a lecture on illuminated manuscripts. i love how they stress sketches and research when in the real world we might get a couple of hours instead of a month and a half of not doing anything productive. i 'm glad i'm paying a lot of money to do absolutely nothing. i just want a project that applies to graphic design not arts and craft. for adrianna's birthday niki and i bought her a 5 kg industrial size jug of nutella. she was happy.

SOUTHERN TRIP

I’m really tired and I'’m at the studio because our Internet went out at the apartment. our trip started out by getting up at 5:1a.m.m. and making it to termini by 6:45. After getting our tickets and boarding the train I slept all the way Napoli. All I can say about Napoli is wow. I would describe Napoli as Detroit and Mexico City rolled into one. After arriving at stazione Napoli centerale we boarded charter bus that went to the museo archeologico. Everyone had a chance to see amazing sculptures from ancient Rome, this also included Pompeii erotica. After the museum Scottie, Alec, and I ventured out to find some lunch. Although the "food" we found was cheap. It was the greasiest thing in the world. Scottie had some pizza, Alec also had pizza but it had some white sauce on it and he only took one bite before having to get another piece. I had a sandwich, which had hot dogs and French fries that were on two pieces of what tasted like corn dog bread. It was gross, I felt horrible after eating this thing. It was the most greasy any of us had consumed in the last six months. Except for Scottie. After consuming the inconsumable we got back on the bus and headed to the museo capodimonte. I enjoyed the capodimonte much more due to the variety of the pieces. From a window in the museum I looked out across the urban sprawl and that was the only time Napoli looked decent. I wish we had more time at the museo capodimonte but we had to make our train to Sorrento. The train rid to Sorrento was hot and long. The only reason it felt so long was because I was standing for about 3/4 of the ride. After reaching Sorrento we divided up into groups based on the hotels we where staying. Tony, Trevor, and I were rooming together in another room was Zak, Zach, and Nick. Cheri also stayed at the hotel as well. We stayed at the Hotel Villa Elisa, which is a five minute walk from the train station. The hotel was beautiful. There was more vegetation in the courtyard than any place I'’ve seen so far in Rome. After getting settled in we had a cafe on the terrace and talked about what were ours plans after graduation, and if we had ever had any surgery. I know this was a very strange conversation. I then got ready for dinner at La Favorita O'Parrucchiano. I highly recommend La Favorita O'Parrucchiano it was absolutely beautiful and the food was amazing. After dinner some of went down to the coast and sat and drank a bottle of wine while admirring the sea. On the way back to the hotel Tony and I saw some pomigrantes and tried to pick some. I gave Tony a boost and held him while he tried to pick two from the tree. he got some but on the way down he dropped them. They weren't ripe, although they were quite sticky.

































The next day i woke up around eight in the morning. I ate our FREE breakfast, the breakfast included a crossiant and a glass of oranage juice. after breakfast i found gel shaving cream at a tabacchi stand. this is the first time in italy that i've seen gel. i personally like gel because it gives me a closer cut. so i had gel finally but i forgot my razor, this knid of stuff only happens to me. as i was going back to the hotel i was cat called by ten year old girls from a third story window. there are so many things wrong with that situation. ha. when i got back to the hostel we packed and went to the train station. we then headed to pompeii for a full day of touring. after arriving in pompeii we ate lunch and bought our tickets. we then proceeded to try to check our bags, but they luggage station was to small and had to walk around the outside of the ruins to another station. after checking our bags we had to walk another 15 minutes to meet our tour guide. after meeting her she wanted to discuss how she was going to get paid and how she wanted it up front. she wasted 20 minutes with this crap. she new she was going to get paid, this totally set a bad mood of the group. also she was a horrible tour group leader, she knew where everyone wanted to go but never really took us there (everyone wanted to see the bodies). what a waste of time. after wasting the day in pompeii i headed to amalfi with the girls. we took the train back to sorrento and took a ferry to amalfi. i didn't get sick on the ferry. after getting to amalfi angel realized that she had forgot her camera on the ferry that was pulling a way. after that horrible situation we started walking to our hostel which was the next little town over. it was about a five minute walk from amalfi. after getting to the hostel we were given our room assignments. katie, jessica, melissa, and hana shared a room. amy, angel, katelin, adrianna, niki, renita, shared another. ashley, kasey, joey, joe, and kelly shared the third. wait where was i sleeping? i was given a closet. literally a closet that had a bed. the only thing protecting my bag was a luggage lock. seriously. after getting settled in my closet we got something to drink and sat on the rocks by the coast. on the rocks we met a girl named ola from australia. she has been travelling by herself for the last three months. this is her winter break, you know that whole messed up southern hemisphere thing. anyway i was tackled by niki and had to wrestle her on the beach. it was fun. after getting all sandy i went to bed. the next day we went to the beach. after eatting our FREE breakfast. amy, niki, and i head to amalfi because we heard that the beaches were a little nicer. the water felt nice, but the mixture of salt water and tropical twist trident gum was absolutely terrible. after the beach we walked back to ... and ate at a local cafe. i had a "hamburger" which ended up to be more like a steak burger. it was still fantastic. after lunch i met up with adrianna and we sat on a bench which over looked the beach and the sea. after we walked back to amalfi with amy and niki and saw the tail end of a wedding and bought some limoncello and wow it packed a punch. after doing a little shopping adrianna and i went to ravello. the ride to ravello was scary, it was a 20 minute ride up a mountain which looked to be only a lane and a half. everytime we would turn the driver would blare the horn to let everyone know we were coming. after that horrible ride we finally reached ravello. the town was surreal, it felt like i was standing in the sqaure and the town was floating. we didn't spend much time in ravello, but we did have enough time to buy gelato. then it was time for another hellish ride down the mountain. after getting back adrianna, niki, ola, and i went to dinner. we then discussed bizzare topics. after dinner we met up with the rest of our group who had already started the night of fun. although someone was being quite the ass so i decidedd to go to bed early. that night was crazy. if you really want to know what happened just ask. i didn't get much sleep that night and the conversation over breakfast was an interesting one. after breakfast niki, adrianna, melissa, renita, amy, and i decide to head back to rome. we decided to take a bus to solarno( which is an hour south of amalfi) because the girl at the ferry stand told us it would be easier. so to make a long story short the bus rie made me sick and the train was a long one. we made it back to rome around 6:30 p.m. i made it back to my apartment around seven.