Study Hard, Party Harder

Our last full day in Ascoli Piceno. Our final review of the project was at 2pm, so I took my time walking the normally 45 minute hike up to the school of architecture, and just experienced the city for a little longer during the journey.

Pizza...Pizza, the closest pizza place to our Hotel that wasn't a restaurant, they had thick crusts, which a lot of us enjoyed because most of the pizza crusts we encountered were ultra-thin.

Euro Spin, our local supermarket chain with really good prices.

Mountain that watches over Ascoli, I should probably figure out the name of it sometime.

On the main East/West street that runs through the city, there are many posters glued to the retaining wall. We often found old men standing here looking at them. People here aren't always running around being hectic, and so they walk very slowly through the streets, and stop to view the signs often. This street is also home to the biggest dog (we hope) poo any of us has ever seen. Sadly, I do not have a photo of this.

A statue of...someone important, I don't know who because I wasn't so concerned with the statue as I was with the graffiti ruining it. Graffiti as a type of street art, done by artists is one thing, graffiti that defaces public monuments is another.

The "sea horse" fountains in Piazza Arringo

After walking down the main street for a while I decide to take the stairs to the school of architecture (Convento e Chiesa Dell'Annunziata, or Convent and Church of the Announced one-the architecture school). There are a few options, or ways to get to the school, the stairs are fairly hard, but they feel so rewarding when you get to the top, so I took them often.

The first 71 steps

86 more steps

24 steps

the final 124 steps

The Convent! (School of Architecture)

The Chiesa (Church) and entry to the school

Nick and Maiko are finishing up our Model for our final review, while Mauro helps

Our model!

Our final presentation boards, designed by your truly, and our final models.

Lindsey and Lyndsey playing with the well out in the courtyard, taking a break from reviews.

After all reviews were done, we all went to a house party in Ascoli to celebrate!

Americans (Evan and Steve) playing drums and guitar at the festa!

Last project work day in Ascoli

I know there isn't a post for Saturday the 5th, but we didn't do anything exciting, sometimes architecture takes over fun photo days. Sunday was more of the same. But, on Sunday, all 6 of us in our design group headed over to Andrea's house to work on the project and then their friend's came over later and cooked dinner for all 9 of us. It was a great time, and great food.

Nick trying out the hanging pod chair thing in Andrea's apartment. Christian approves.

Maiko fit into it much better. I also fit, but my photo in the cahir is too embarrassing to post. :)

3 days in Ascoli

Not much happened these days. We were finishing up our project, and so most of it was spent inside, building computer models and rendering images, and compiling boards for our final presentation. But, gelato was eaten, and it was delicious.

(4.2.08) More gelato from Meletti's. Looks like...I forget what flavors I got this day.

(4.3.08) Adam, Brandi and I eating our Meletti's gelato in the incredibly bright sunshine of Ascoli. A whole huge group of us went down to the Piazza that day for gelato. That day I remember getting pistachio and bacio (the Italian word for kiss).

(4.4.08) That day we spent at the school of Architecture working all day. This is our whole group! (Clockwise from center- white sweatshirt) Christian, Maiko, Me, Nick, Mauro, and Andrea.

Death of a Laptop

Monday night, after many an effort, I finally had to admit to the complete corruption of my laptop. Its death brought about first anger, then woe, then anger, then stress and frustration, and eventually the costly solution. The system restore discs, with the aid of my roommate in Ohio and my mom, are being shipped to the Hotel in Ascoli, so I can have my computer (and a little sanity) back for the rest of my Italian tour. I feel bad that I have such a need and want and attachment to my computer, especially when there are so many things to do here, but at the same time, not having it creates some personal obstables when it comes to getting my school work done. The Luckiness of the situation? Before I left Ohio, I dumped all of the photos and personal files onto DVD's, and everything that I have from Italy has been backed up on my flash drives, so I am not losing any vital information, just some time and effort to get everything running again.

Anyway, yesterday when we were up at the Architecture school, tired from 9 hours of working on our architecture project with our Italian group, we were preparing for the hike back up to the hotel when they graciously offered us a ride in their car. Amazing. This was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It was so different viewing Ascoli from a car rather than by walking the city, as we have been doing for the last week. The roads are small and windy, and the street signs unfamiliar. But from the "car" roads, which are not part of historical center of the city the views from above and around the city are far more different than looking at the city from the inside perpsective. The view from inside an old Mercedes, going around the hills listening to Italian pop music, is an experience so different than walking up and down hills with a heavy pink packpack, looking for food and dodging cars. Everyday is a new experience, can't wait for tomorrow.

April Fool's Day, Ascoli Piceno

Ok, so April Fool's Day is not an Italian thing, and no jokes were played that I know of, but I thought I'd acknowledge it anyway. Not much happened in these next couple days, we worked on our project, an art exhibition space/museum for the Ancona airport, for most of the time.

American folk hanging outside of Annunziata, the school of architecture in Ascoli Piceno, it used to be a convent.

A view outside of a windows from a classroom.

Maiko and I got some more gelato this day. Mine looks like pistachio, my usual. This time we got it from Meletti's, in Piazza del Popolo, the only cafe open during pranzo (lunch time break when all the stores and businesses close for about 3-4 hours).

Trevor was there too! And, I have to make faces in my pictures to liven them up sometimes. It would be boring if you saw a normal cheesy camera smile all the time, right?