Out on the Town Rome'n

 

WHEN i was IN ROME, I was loving life.  My class took over a Hotel located near the Campo De Fiore.  I ended up getting the only single room in my entire class so I was stoked on that! We were a 1 min walk to a bunch of cool American bars at the Campo De Fiore.  Ship Wrecked was my favorite because we got to dominate at Beer Pong.  So this creepy man featured above stared down on us as my classmates and I crawled around the bars at night.  First stop in Rome was the Villa D'Este Gardens.  This place had some ridiculous fountains.  A lot of them looked natural instead of constructed, there were Grotto's that kinda reminded me of the Play Boy Mansion.  This place used to be the summer retreat for the king and his castle.  And I guess he would bring some gals here and have some wild parties and orgies, not a bad life.

              

After the Orgy Pond we went to Hadrian's Villa.  This was a bunch of old Roman Ruins.  It was pretty bad ass, definitely the coolest destroyed thing I have ever seen, L. J. told me to take a lot of pictures of cracks for her in the ruins.

 

     

     
   

   

After a night of Beer Pong domination with some English friend that payed for the beer, we woke up and begun our 8 mile walk around Rome.  First stop was the baddest bitch in Rome. The father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife.  AKA Marcus Aurelius

  

Next we saw a spot where the prison use to be.  And then we saw where they use to hang people... I felt like evey where we went we heard some ridiculous scandal.  The Romans new how to party, I guess thats why we have toga parties.

    

Then we saw the legendary Colosseum where Marcus Aurelius did work.  Its pretty amazing that this ancient structure is what a lot of modern sports arenas are modeled after.  Yet we still can't create a structure as good as the Romans did because the stadium could fill in with 20,000 people in 15 minutes.  A trip to staples center takes forever.

    

 

One interesting thing about Rome was their drinking fountains.  Instead of having a basic one that you hang your head over and look at people's butt ends of cigarettes and multi colored pieces of gum, your standing on a ledge that leads to a boat that is constantly shooting water out of its cannons.  

After another long walk we came upon the Trevi Fountains, this is the point where the Romans first established their water source.  It was pretty cool to see Poseidon and his homies all riding horses through water falls looking all bad ass.  I honestly love Roman Mythology, they were like the super heroes of the past. 

    

 

  

Then we went through some more famous Campo's, watched some weird street performers that would try and look up girls skirts as they walked by?  Definitely not in the U.S. anymore.

 

 

We ended our long journey at the Pantheon.  I love the Pantheon, the hole at the top of the Dome gave the room a very interesting filtration of light.  More importantly if you stared at the hole at the top and spun in circles it made you really dizzy, way more intense than the Gravitron at the Saint Angeles Fair. Check the video at the very bottom, felt like a space ship.

 

The next morning Jonny, Coral, Honeybourne, and I woke up and headed out to go chill with the Pope.  This Chapel was ridiculous.  All of the statues outside were 20 feet tall, with huge columns, and these huge water fountains.  The inside of the Vatican was even more ridiculous.  Beautiful stained glass, gold sculptures, mosaics with over 400,000 different hues of color.  I was so inspired by the Vatican that I bought a cross blessed by priest, then walked outside and bought a ring blessed by Buddhist monks that symbolizes the artist.  Go figure?

         

    

The Sistine Chapel is connected to Vatican and is basically a huge museum.  It was the coolest museum I have ever been to, inside they had an Egyptian exhibit, Roman sculpture and paintings, great landscape pieces, and even contemporary art exhibit.  Two ninja turtles works are also featured at the museum, Rafael and Michaelangelo.  Michaelangelo's fresco paintings in the Sistine Chapel were probably the best paintings I have ever seen.  I was completely amazed on how three dimensional he could make the figures on the wall look.  I was so geeked out over the paintings that I completely lost my group and ended up walking around Rome by myself the rest the day.

         

    

I was actually enjoying walking around by myself. I sat down at the Colosseum and watercolored while I watched the sunset, took some night shots and headed to the Trevi fountain for some nights shots.  Then shit hit the fan, and I thought I knew the way back but ended up walking down the wrong road for like an hour.  Getting lost isn't that bad because it always becomes an adventure.  I stumbled upon an anti-gay parade.  It was a pretty cool sight actually.  In no way do I respect their anti-gay movement, but I thought the huge flaming torches they were all carrying were pretty cool.  They almost lit my afro on fire while i was taking pictures of them so I got out of there.

 

 

Finally somewhere compared to Paris.  Rome was so much fun, I really liked how you could walk around and see all these different monuments from different periods of time.  The people there were nice too, I would have never made it back to my hotel without them.  After 3 days in Rome me and a couple of my friends headed to the ghetto of Italy, Naples.

Now we heard a lot of bad things about Naples, but honestly it was my favorite Italian city I have been in thus far.  Artistically Naples was beautiful, all of the buildings were painted in these bright reds, turquoises, and yellows.  There was also very cool Graffiti Art and Contemporary sculpture pieces.

       

My boy Jonny hooked us up on this trip.  He found us this modern designed, brightly colored hostel that was a lot of fun(it was directly to the left of that centered Naples picture).  He planned a trip better than most my teachers could.  He didn't even charge a bull shit teaching fee.  I owe that big man.  First place we stopped on the itinerary was the Duomo of Naples, which was the second best Church I have ever seen next to the Vatican.  One peculiar thing that was going on in there, a bunch of people lined up to kiss this heart shaped vile of blood?

      

 

 

After that we went to Naples underground.  Basically Naples is a new city built on top of an old city.  It was a weird feeling walking around though because if felt like I was outside yet I was 20 feet below the ground.

After that we went to a Contemporary(modern) art museum called MADRE.  This was the best Contemporary art museum ever.  I was expecting to see only paintings and sketches and was shocked to see a bunch of famous Land Art pieces, exactly the area of Landscape that I want to get into.  A bunch of huge names like Richard Serra, Richard Long, Andy Warhol, Anish Kapoor, so many famous designers were featured there.  I was stoked.

   

After that we went to a hookah lounge.  It was pretty fun, I just wish the food was better.

 

 

Next morning we headed to the Volcano that preserved the entire city of Pompeii and its inhabitants, Mt. Vesuvius.  The journey up the Volcano was really intense, we got into these huge lifted Mercedes buses and drove up this 10 foot wide road.  This was no relaxing road either, it was like the Indiana Jones ride at Disney Land, or as crazy as Ace Ventura drives, Like Aaa GloOve!

  

 

Then we went to the preserved city of Pompeii.  The only current inhabitants of this city are now a pack of wild dogs.  It was pretty cool to see dogs completely on their own.  We saw some preserved dead people, It was weird seeing peoples body positions as they died, some were curled in a ball, some were kneeling, and some looked like they were just hanging out accepting it.  Makes you think what you would do, I think I would bust a quick hand stand.

   

   

 Get some

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All in all Naples was a really cool place.  Ya we saw some needles on the ground in the city and a lot of trash piled up in the streets, but it had a very unique artistic atmosphere to it.   Definitely a diamond in the ruff.

 

Italian

Bonjourno! Welcome to Castiglion Fiorentino. When I left off I was in France, well the trip to Italy was another real pain in the rear, literally. We took an 11 hour train ride to Florence. It was a sleeping cabin train, so we had 6 people in our little ass 10 by 10 cabin. I probably wouldn't have minded the trip but I was cooking Hersey’s chocolate all night so it was not a good time. Don't trust the Grek's from France, even though they are delicious...Anyways... This little town I'm living in under the Tuscan sun is beautiful. Its located on a hill top, and we have this amazing view out over half the city. The palace we are staying in, use to be a nun's residence. Then became an orphanage. Then there were too many babies donated to the orphanage so they buried like 400 under our school. Next thing you know a bunch of college kids are running around this beautiful place. AKA this place is haunted. A lot of creepy stuff happens on a nightly basis. There are a bunch of stories of little girls dancing in a circle, someone dying in a room that’s closed off, and the maids refuse to clean a room without someone else in the room with them. Other than the ghost that might posses you, its a great place. We get two three course meals everyday, and the food is delicious. There is also a bar next to the kitchen, so basically we have everything we need at this place.

Castiglion Fiorentino has around 5,000 people living in it. You think the Brea bubble is small? Shut your mouth. These people all have respect and love for their city when it is like 10 times smaller. Everyone knows everyone and you see the same people out at the bars every weekend, the bar scene is a lot of fun too, people travel from great distances just to come here. Below is the roommates of "Viva Mexico and a Quarter" They all speak Spanish and I am a quarter Spanish. We also have the local basketball court, isn't it nice! And a that corner shot of the beautiful architecture is where we all live in. I really can't believe I'm living in such a cool old building.

One night we decided to go out to a winery for some drinks and dinner. Little did we know that I was walking into the best 7 course dinner I have ever had in my life, best dinner in my life, hands down, even artistically.

Now I know what your thinking, "That’s only 5 courses" well they consider the ample amounts of Vino(wine) a first course. Then as the last course they give you some delicious grappa. Which is basically vodka wine. This meal was too much fun, and way too good. Every Wednesday we go on a day field trip somewhere in Italy. Our first stop was Florence.

Florence was O.K. Has nothing on France except for a lot more history. The next field trip we went on was to Sienna. Sienna was really pretty, a lot of cool roman architecture. We also went into this church with a saint’s head and finger on display. It was pretty creepy I must say. I wanted to take pictures but you weren’t aloud to. So I did anyways hence all the crooked pictures of the stained glass windows and what not.

The church I'm standing infront of was really cool inside. There were insane amount of details on all the pilars, ceilings, and sculptures. I was struggling to take pictures because there was way too much to look at.

Probably the coolest thing in Sienna is the Piazza de Campo. Featured below. It was this huge square that everyone hangs out in, like its a huge grass field. But it’s not, it’s a stone plaza on a large incline. It was weird to see 100's of people all hanging out and relaxin on stone. I decided to post up and do a sketch there, then all of a sudden it started raining. I thought I'd be a bad ass and draw in the rain with an umbrella, but then the storm really came in. So there I was in the middle of this famous square by myself frantically trying to clean up my art supplies. It was fun, I might just become a transient with a dog, a hat full of change, and a sketch book.


School in Italy is the best education I have ever paid for. My design class is focused on the precognitive awareness. Basically how you see something, before you realize what it is, then provide a name to it. So we are suppose to take these trippy pictures where you don't know what your looking at, yet its still interesting. Then we talk about our future careers as Landscape Architects and what were gonna do once we graduate. Its pretty surreal actually, talking about getting a big boy job, its coming up and it scares me, yet I'm ready to start makin' doe and move out! Sorry Mama and Paps... Then we have graphics class where we get to Watercolor. I also signed up for this mixed media and print making class. Which is way too sick! I get to get away from all the my class mates that i love so much and go do real art, sometimes accompanied by a bottle of wine. All in all I get to draw for like 3 to 4 hours each day, paint, and work with ink in print making class. It is hott like Kobe, and I hate Kobe. And that shouldn’t even be a saying because he’s old and is going to suck this year.

This weekend I decided to go to the leaning Tower of Cheeeeeesa. Sorry goofy movie flash back, I meant Pisa. I heard some mixed feeling about it but I really loved it. I thought it was the most interesting thing i have seen in Italy thus far. Ate some delicious pizza while staring at this big mistake, grabbed some gelato, and some grappa and called it a day.

Every night is a new experience at Santa Chiara (that’s my school center) one night we were chilaxin out and realized that two bats had somehow gotten into our hallway. We decided to pull out some Steve Erwin techniques and try to catch them. It was a lot of fun catching them then almost getting hit by them, then screaming like little girls. In the end we caught them both and set them free. Bat man would be proud.

Italian culture is very similar to French culture, except they aren't complete assholes for no reason. But almost none of them speak english, which is kind of fun because that makes me have to try a lot harder to learn Italian. The Damn siesta sucks though. Tyler I know you thought I would like it, but on the weekends I get my beauty sleep till 12. Then I go to walk around the town and realize that all the shops will be closed for the next four hours. I don't know how anyone makes any money around here. The siesta is Wack. Point USA.