Simple Pleasures

Here in Europe, there are many wonderful things to see, such as art and architecture, but there are also little things that make me supersuper happy. One actually has little to do with being in Italy...but since I've been here it's been one of those things that makes it more like home. That thing is The Office! Aaaand since I finished watching all of seasons 2 and 3, my mom did something very nice. She bought me seasons 1 and 4. And mailed them to me. Which was extremely nice.

My mom is the best. Ever.

Another thing that brings me great joy is the street cleaner that comes around every Wednesday at like one in the morning. Ok so I guess that's Thursday morning. But anyway, for some reason Lauren and I have made Wednesday nights our stay-up-ridiculously-late-and-watch-boy-bands-on-Youtube night. (Last time we watched JC Chasez's attempt at a solor career...it was kind of sad but very entertaining.) Anyway, the street cleaner has these little scrubbing things on the bottom that spin all the trash on the ground into the abyss or somewhere and we lovingly call them "scrubbies". So when we hear the street cleaner coming, our ears kind of perk up and we're just like, "...SCRUBBIES!" And then we run up to the windows and look for it. It's so exciting and silly. I tried to take a picture of it through the window but it didn't turn out so well. Next time I'm going to get up enough courage to actually open the window and lean out and take a picture. If the guy sees me...who cares. I am just an admirer.

Scrubbies. Bahahaha.

The Cats at Fuji Studio

Fuji is the studio where I have my serigraphy class. I went today to finish my first project since I don't have anymore class time before our critique. I finished, yay me! There are these cats though that live in the apartment across the garden and sometimes they'll jump down from the window and chillax. Or play in a pile of leaves. And they are adorable. I don't see very many cats here; there are TONS of dogs, however. People are always walking them and letting them defecate on the sidewalk. That is fun times. Seriously though, they are really cute too. Nevertheless, I am a proud cat person, so I try to spend time with these cats when I see them. Not even kidding. I went outside and had a mini photo-shoot with them.




There are a few more cats, but these were the only ones being photogenic today. They made me happy. Then, since I was the first one to open studio and was by myself for a little while, I put my ipod on the little ipod player thing and listened to The Beatles. Then I finished my project, came back to the apartment, ate, watched The Office, and slept. Tomorrow will be spent in the darkroom, and I'm anticipating some more of The Office. Just a feeling.
Ta-Ta for now!

How Horrible Our Apartment Smells Sometimes

But you can't see smells. Which is fortunate. Because this particular smell would look like a decaying carcass. And poop. I have no idea why this happens. It happened a few weeks ago. I woke up to the most hideous stench ever. I had a more pleasant blog for today, but I'll have to save it for later. Maybe tonight. I am quite put out.

Language Barriers

Today, my roomies Lauren and Kassandra went on a Helen field trip to Siena. Firstly, let me explain the meaning of a Helen field trip. Helen is one of the art history teachers here at SACI (Studio Art Centers International, my wonderful school of which I am very fond). She is INTENSE. She knows pretty much everything about every work of art produced ever. Well, I don't know about ever, but as far as Renaissance art goes, she is quite knowledgeable. Anyway, she takes her classes and anyone else who signs up on really structured, art-filled field trips every weekend. And she walks really fast. I have yet to go on one of her trips, but she's actually the one who led us around the Uffizi yesterday. I don't think half of what she said stuck. There was just so MUCH information. But it was cool. And interesting. And tiring to my poor feet. But that's ok.

Since the roomies were out for the day, I decided to get some cleaning and laundry and shopping done...because apparently I'm now a 1950s housewife...but seriously, I did need to get some things done (I finally found nail clippers! I'm SO excited!). I went to one of the many fantastic 99 cent stores around town (not the one next to Standa, but the one a little further down the street. Nine-t Nine Cent Paradise, baby!). They have lots of items for 99 cents, as the name suggests, but some of the stuff is really crazy! Like, they have ceramic plates that are really cute! For 99 cents!! Unfortunately, I didn't get any of these plates because 1) we have plates and 2) I'm not going to have room in my luggage for plates. I mean really. But I did get some other little necessities, and found some funny translation errors on the packaging. I love stuff like that. Go to engrish.com. It is SO fantastic.

Yep...that says "Spum for sew." To clarify, this is a package of spools of thread...?

This is the back of a package containing a comb. Its description amuses me, because it's not like some super-special comb, but it claims to be a better comb than other combs. And I feel like any old comb could massage your scalp...I could be wrong.

The English description on this bottle of conditioner is also pretty great. I'm so glad the cheap conditioner that I bought is a "caring substance."

At the cash register in this particular Nine-t Nine Cent Paradise, there was a large display of lighters, some of which were Valentine's Day themed. Some of them had little cartoon animals and word bubbles with badly translated English phrases. They were so great. I didn't buy one since I don't have the money to spend on a lighter when I really don't need it for anything, and I couldn't take a picture because it was at the cash register and that would have been a little awkward. Let's see...ah, I think one of them said "I am ready to give my wholeness to you." Hahahaha. That's the only one I can really remember.

My day has been pretty chill. I listened to the Beatles on Kassi's iTunes library all day, so that was good. Oh, and then I found out that stupid Ruckus has died and about 75% of my songs' licenses are expired. The rest expire anywhere from the end of February to the beginning of March, so they will all be gone soon. I am so pissed. Good thing I can creep on Kassi's playlist. Haha.

Well, that was pretty much my day. Not too much to share, but it made me chuckle. So there you go.

Galleria degli Uffizi

So this is my first blog post. I created this blog about a week ago and was kind of doubting that I'd ever post anything. Now, however, I feel like this might be a cool thing to do.

I named this blog "If Only You Could See..." and I'm going to (attempt) to name each post after some cool thing I've visited/done/whatevsies whilst in Europe and post pictures and whatnot. Today I went to the Uffizi galleries in Florence (my first museum visit since I've been here-and I got here a month ago today. Weird!). And it was awesome. I saw SO many paintings that I recognized from my first art history class and I was just really stoked in general. Sadly, we weren't supposed to take pictures in the museum, so I have none to post. But never fear! I can just post images of some of the paintings I remember seeing!

Piero della Francesca- Double Portrait of Federico da Montefeltro and his wife, Battista Sforza

Michelangelo-The Holy Family

Cimabue-Virgin and Child Enthroned

Bronzino-Bia de Medici

Leonardo da Vinci-The Annunciation

Titian-Venus of Urbino

Hugo van der Goes-Portinari Altarpiece

Duccio di Buoninsegna-Virgin and Child Enthroned

Sandro Botticelli-Birth of Venus

Sandro Botticelli-Primavera

Caravaggio-Bacchus

This took SO much longer than it needed to...but I really wanted to get at least the artists' names and titles so you'll know! In case you're interested! The Uffizi was really amazing though. I might have to go back later so I can sketch some of the paintings there. There were also some really cool statues that were Roman copies of the Greek originals. Aaaagh it's pretty late here, so I will close this most boring blog post. And leave you with the promise of a better one later.