Journey of The Exile – Rebirth

This post is the final post that will primarily focus on my time in Italy and all of the introspection that I did while I was over there. To start off I would like to thank all of the people there who helped me with my roller coaster of emotions: Camelo, Dane, Justin, Matt, Brent, Britta, Sofia, and Cecilia. Thank you all for being there for me when I was not at my best and for bringing me up to my new best, I want to thank you all of all that you  guys have done for me. Next I would like to thank my teachers, Darryl and John, for being great professors and instructing me in ways that greatly helped me with my designs and growth as a future architect. I would like to thank our providers, Mirko and Eugenia, for being there to help us with adjusting and for giving us so many great opportunities. Emily and Inga, pretty much the only friends we made over there, thank you so much for being our friends, and for being my friend. And finally, I would like to thank my parents for giving me the opportunity to be able to go off and travel and grow as a person this semester.

Now though, my final analysis of Italy. Italy is a country with a rich history, wonderful food, slightly lazy people, and the best coffee you will ever have. The city of Urbino was a great place to work and study in with its strong history and great atmosphere, even though it was a college town. We were able to use the city as a template for our designs and figure out what it all meant in a historical sense and in a modern way as well. The architecture is unparalleled there and I wish I could go back and live in those cities for the rest of my life, but I first need to learn Italian so I don’t piss off as many people. If any of you want to travel to Europe in general, I recommend Italy, but not just the tourist places that you will go to. Make sure you go to all of the less known cities and really delve into them, even if it’s just for a day. Do it. All of our day trips while we were there were just amazing, and were some of the best times that I had during my time in Italy.

During the course of trying to actually get down all of my thoughts and critiques on Italy, I have come to realize that it is nearly impossible to describe everything that I have done, experienced, seen, felt, and so on that I am unable to continue critiquing Italy. All I can say about my time is there is that it was the best time of my life, and I would love to go back for any reason and experience it again. It has changed me and returning to the states now I have come back a new and better person from everything, so much so that I will once again be able to call myself The Architect.

Now that I have been back in the states for a week, I have experienced a few things that I would like to talk about. The first is trying to find a new home, ie, trying to find an apartment in San Antonio so I don’t live out of my car while going to school. It has not been fun because even though I am a full time student, that means I am over-qualified to rent most of the apartments in the downtown area, meaning I have to keep going farther and farther out. I get really annoyed by that, that I am over-qualified just because I am a full time student, that my money is not good enough to get me a room somewhere so I can go to school more cheaply. No, instead I have to go farther out where the rent is higher and thus making the apartment less viable for me. So the apartment wars continue.

I have also taken up to seeing Tori on a fairly regular basis now, and actually went out on a real date with her, which was one of the best ones I have been on in the past five years. We’ve watched movies, talked for hours on end about anything and everything that comes up, and we don’t talk every day about nothing, which keeps our conversations interesting and the “spark” there as well. Though I don’t think that was ever a spark, I lit a wildfire at the first go. All I know is that regardless of what happens, I have one of my best friends back, I am the least nervous I have been in a decade, and I have smiled the most in the last week than I think I have in my entire life. I know that whether I am at my highest or my lowest, I am the most insufferable person to be around and interact with. My standards are the highest they’ve ever been, both for the people around me and for myself to live up to, and they are the greatest challenges I have ever given myself.

I am good. I am the Black Knight. I am The Exile. I am The Architect.

Whatever the risk, still onward.

-The Architect

Journey of The Exile – Week 11

I began my second to last week in Italy today by sleeping in and just taking the day off for the most part. When I finally get out of bed, I play XCOM for a while, trying to really improve my tactic skills. Over the course of the day, I started to get the urge to form a paintball team that would focus on tactical infiltrations and extractions. Where everyone would be in constant communication with each other through the use of a headset system or something. I feel like the whole thing would be a great way to blow off steam and improve our minds with the use of strategies. We could make a whole ordeal of the thing, turning it into a monthly occurrence where everyone gets together and performs their roles. I think it would be a great, albeit expensive, time and tradition to create. Besides that, I managed to talk to Maggie before she headed off to do her scavenger hunt again; we mainly talked about travel for the brief moment she was online, but it was still nice. I managed to read through the history and theory readings for Monday, only to find that the first one was really weird with how it phrased and displayed the “anti-city”. Darryl also told me that while I’m in Rome again, that I have to get tickets online for the exhibit that I want to see, so that was nice that he was looking out for me. I had to cancel my Thanksgiving plans to travel to Viena so I could have more time to work on my project and be able to render it. I’m hoping while I’m in town that I’ll be able to make those purchases I’ve been putting off, like getting my bowler hat and a hoodie or something with “Italia” on it, and a poster of Raphael’s mistress that they have here in the city. I’ve been feeling like I want to get in some boxing or punching bag time when I get back to the states, really just let everything out right now. Of course, that also plays into my fantasy of finding of girl that likes to fight and ultimately turns fighting together into foreplay, but of course that is merely a fantasy. Not my best one, but one none the less. I am also remembering why I exiled myself and the goals that I wanted to accomplish while exiled in Italy, and, fortunately, I have accomplished many of the goals I set out to. Worked through the recent problems I had in the states, my own addictions, my introversion that I have, stopped biting my nails, eating healthy, and making lasting friendships with people. It’s been an amazing time and I’m excited for when I get back to San Antonio and can tell the rest of my friends there about everything that I did here.

Rise and shine, it’s time to endure another history and theory lecture. They aren’t that bad, but they just don’t resonate that much with me at the moment; they don’t have much material that I particularly agree with. Also, Cecilia brought her boyfriend by the studio after class, so that was fun to watch (not). I’m trying to get better, but having that around is really counterproductive for me because it just reminds me of my codependency issues and the fact that I am currently alone. Then, during studio, I got the green light to continue with my project in more detail and figure out how the actual structure for the whole thing will actually work. After a bit of work in section, which I think look really cool, I have more or less figured out the logistics of how it all works. The rest of the night seems to be descending into beer, movies, and hopefully some actual design work, or at least some reading for history and theory. Though, it will probably just turn into me playing some more XCOM and trying to really get a hold of the strategy involved in it. On a more internal level, things are going iffy at the moment. I’m kind of lonely and have been for a while. This is partly because I have chosen not to participate in group TV watching, and because I have been trying to talk to some of my online friends more. Problems with that are that I am looking for a romantic relationship, and using the internet box doesn’t really convey that well. Now, while writing this, I can feel my anger building, and I’m not enjoying it. I’m starting to really consider taking up boxing now, or at least having the chance to punch something. I just want my life back.

Tuesday, we went out to the main piazza to meet everyone, and get the Italians mad at me again because I still don’t know enough Italian to really make a difference. We went and sketched some statues that they had plaster molds of in one of their historical offices or something. It was kind of weird. Especially when the photographer came in and started taking photos of us while we worked on our renders in the room. I did mine in “sephia” ink, even though it was just burnt senia. The day went well though, I managed to get a kebab before heading back to the studio to continue working on my project for the semester. It is turning out pretty interesting. Besides that, not much else happened besides my usual conversations with people. Though it does seem that most of my friends from Houston don’t take initiative to go and talk to me, so that’s really comforting, but hopefully that will change when I get back to the states.

Wednesday was our last history and theory class for the semester, thank God. It was very lack luster because most of us were really tired of the material and we were all really tired from working most of the night for our final pin-up. I feel like every time we have a “last pin-up” that it isn’t really the last pin-up. Afterward we had our pin-up/desk crit thing where Darryl basically told us how our structures really needed to function and be drawn. Though, it was annoying when Britta spoke; I think mainly because she has becoming increasing annoying to me, plus the fact she thinks she’s a know-it-all. Other than that, the rest of the day went well and I managed to get some rest in.

Thanksgiving was kind of fun because I didn’t have to do anything that day so I was able to sleep in until noon, at which point the guys knocked on my door and invited me to lunch. The day continued on with only a few things of interest coming up. While at dinner with everyone we discussed Eugenia constantly saying that if we stay here that she’s sorry we’ll be missing turkey and the food that normally comes with Thanksgiving. We also discussed that the girls would be completely screwed when they got back to work on their projects because we have at least 12 drawings, each on has to be drafted and rendered. Four of those drawings have been done for the most part, but still, that leaves the rest of the drawings for them to do over two and a half days. They aren’t going to make it. I continued talking to some of my friends online and got drunk on vodka (partly by accident) and eventually just passed out on the couch in the studio. I was kind of surprised because for a while before I passed out, I thought I was going to throw up at some point.

Friday was very lack luster, I slept in again, missed lunch, and basically spent the entire day working on my project. There is so much to do in these next few days that it’s pretty ridiculous, that we have started to take bets on if anyone will finish early or not.

Saturday, work.

Sunday, work. Also, the girls made it back and are conversing about their trips instead of buckling down and getting to work. I think it’ll be funny when Wednesday comes around and they are all running around franticly trying to finish their projects while the rest of us run around at a much slower speed. Also, hopefully Sarah will get her postcard soon. I can definitely tell that I am starting to get nervous; I’m starting to nibble my nails now, not bite them, but definitely getting close to it. I’m trying to keep it back and manage my time wisely.

Whatever the risk, still onward.

-The Exile

Journey of the Exile – Rome

We set the stage with many millennia of history, ruins, stories, lives lost, wars won, emperors, peasants, scholars, culture, and, most importantly, architecture. We step back, glancing up at the piercing sun, squinting slightly as we recoil from the harsh glare of that which is now obscuring our view of the meeting place. We see that business continues as usual here, that men are discussing policy, while others peddle fruits and other wares, and that there are those who merely wander through. We are dwarfed by the structures around us, forcing us into awe of their majesty. We come to realize why we are here, and more importantly, where we are now.

We are in Rome. All times of Rome meshing into one coherent culture that we can experience even today if we choose to travel. My commentary on Rome for this matter will focus primarily on the current city of Rome, but I will be referencing the past for a few of the points that I will make to illustrate the complexity and power of the city. We begin our look at the city by analyzing the overall structure of the transportation system that is most prevalent for my experiences, the metro. We used the metro to get to the general vicinity of whatever we were going to go see, because you could not get too close to it due to the fact that when constructing the metro in Rome they build about 10 feet, then hit ruins that need to be excavated and evaluated for their worth. Because the metro only takes you so close to what you want to see, you are forced to walk through the rest of the city and experience all of the joys, wonders, and annoyances that Rome has to offer.

The first joy is the fact that the metro is easy to use to anyone who has a map, if you have one then you are good to go for your stay in Rome. Once you leave the metro, you have many options for what you could do next: grab a cappuccino at a local bar, wander around looking at all of the monuments and ruins, grab some pizza to walk around with, visit a fountain to relax at, or go around shopping if you like. Most of the time, we chose to get a drink at a bar and then continue on to our tours that we had planned with our professor. The wonders of the city are all around you because the entire city is many layers of ruins upon ruins upon future ruins. It’s all a great tapestry to stare at for years. The annoyances start with all of the annoying gypsies trying to sell you something useless at every corner. Every turn you make, there will be one there, trying to sell you something stupid, and they will continue to try to sell you stuff even after you’ve said no a million times.

Now that we have navigated some of the streets for the most part, we find ourselves wondering about how this city still functions in modern day society. Well, for the most part, it stays true to its old roots and keeps the Italian style of life strong. The only real addition that I feel has been made to the city is the addition of the roads to accommodate cars and other modes of transportation.

I will finish this brief analysis of Rome with just one thought: Saint Peter’s. Everyone should visit Saint Peter’s whether or not they believe the same way or not, the space is one of the most daunting spaces you will ever experience when it comes to religion. My professor railed me once for saying that many cathedrals, churches, what have you, are supposed to make you feel small and insignificant compared to the powers and grace of God. He believes the exact opposite of that and proceeded to completely disregard the conversation about Kahn, and instead voice his own personal views on the matter while shutting down that one statement I made. Experience St. Peter’s and you will definitely know what I am talking about. You will not feel close to God and it does not make you want to be close to him if this is what is meant to be brought about in his name. I won’t get too much into the religion aspect of this, but St. Peter’s is an experience.

We now look at the city of Rome and how it is dealing with architecture in the modern era of society. We went to see a few modern buildings in the Rome and found that they were either not well received or underused for the scale of them. The MAXXI is barely used and isn’t even finished as the original concept had intended for it to be, it’s only half done if anything. Designing in such dense areas of history now is becoming a great challenge. Do you try to mimic the past? That’s hard because most people don’t have the formal teaching to use classicism correctly. Do you try to contrast to the past with a very modern structure instead? Well most of those aren’t well received because they are so out of place amongst everything else that the city has. Walk two steps and you trip over a church, forum, coliseum, or other great structure; so having some giant white monstrosity next to it, doesn’t seem to make much sense either. Do we try to fuse both together to create a more dynamic structure that embraces both the past, present and future? Personally, I think this is the most appropriate way to go about designing in places such as Rome. I personally think the works of Carlo Scarpa should be looked at by anyone fortunate enough to design within Rome, that way you may make a more informed design choice.

Whatever the risk, still onward.

-The Exile

Journey of the Exile – Week 9

Today we had the architects from Milan come in and critique our work. I think it went really well, even though I still suck at explaining my designs and everything that is going on in them. They said I should revisit Scarpa for my designs again and stop my rectilinear designs and start working more with the site. I should start working on trying to create more dynamic forms instead of interesting boxes. They also gave me some ideas of turning my colossal columns into things that could mimic or represent the trees on the site that I am still not allowed to get rid of. I think I’m going to look for some precedents for the actual column trees; I’m thinking I’ll use one of the gardens in Japan or China I think it is. Other than that, I’ve been listening to more of my classical music to help calm me down more and just chill me out and I have been talking to Sarah still. We’ve been getting to know each other more and more, she seems really nice and pretty chill and it’s been the highlight of the past week or so for me.

We went touring through some of the projects in the city with the architects from Milan today. It was a lot of long walks and brief lectures, but pretty good for getting some ideas. Urbino has a lot of interesting buildings and different kinds of entrance and exits that put you out into amazing parts of the city. Afterward we got kebabs for lunch and then proceeded to go back and finish out our day as usual before turning in to get ready for our Rome trip that starts tomorrow morning. At 6am, sharp.

Note, the next post will be made after I return and will be analyzing Rome as a whole.

Whatever the risk, still onward.

-The Exile

Journey of The Exile – Wandering

Another long time since my last update and there is plenty to get out there for everyone to read. Since my last post, we have been working on a contextual building for the city of Urbino off in one of the back streets. I basically finished it today, but that is without adding the shadows to it because I think it would just mess up the whole composition of the work. I really enjoyed how my elevation render turned out for this project, the windows really make the project pop off the page and come alive. The rest of the drawings are alright, the plan came out fine and so did the detailed elevation drawing, but the perspective did not come out the way I really wanted it to, but that’s partly because I don’t have the skill and partly because the technique I tried didn’t work with my skill level.

We went on a week-long break and all travelled around Europe hitting Amsterdam, Paris, and Milan for the most part (one group also went to Munich). We first had a seven hour delay in Bolonga where we just kind of looked around the city and then went to the airport to get on our really cheap flight to Brussels. Once we made it to Brussels though, we had to rent a car and drive to Amsterdam, which was our original plan, but it turned out to be more complicated when it came time to return the damn thing. After getting into Amsterdam, we all explored the city and picked up a few rent-a-bikes and then broke off into two groups: one would go have fun, and the other would teach me how to ride a bicycle. After that day of fun, we broke off again and I went out into the city on my own and just explored the place, which was really cool, until I stumbled into part of the Red Light District, at which point I turned around and went back the way I came. It was just kind of depressing there. Our last day in Amsterdam was spent shopping and trying to recover Camelo’s phone, which he had lost on one of our tram rides.

After Amsterdam, we took a train to Paris, where we met up with the guys and talked about our travels thus far. While we were in Paris, we stayed at some guy’s apartment that he lets travelers use some times. It was a really nice place, with a kitchen and working wifi which was really helpful whenever we needed to figure stuff out. While in Paris we hit all of the typical tourist spots, which were all amazing in their own special way, though some were better than others. We met up with some people from Rice that had spoken to the girls in Italy once and wanted to meet up, though they seemed slightly surprised when they saw Camelo and I there. We all had a really nice dinner while in Paris with them, which felt great because we hadn’t had a real sit down meal since our first night in Amsterdam. Before Camelo and I headed out of the city to go to Milan next, we hit up a local bakery by our apartment and got a lot of bread for the upcoming train ride. I got a bunch of croissants and a cookie before we ran to the train station.

Our train to Milan was a sleeper train, which was a new experience for us, but was one with mixed results. We made it to Milan around 5:30 in the morning, but during the train ride we were woken up by customs asking us what our nationality was and we didn’t get to see the Alps while we were on it. Milan was a beautiful place, and we had so much time to explore it all, though most of the buildings that we wanted to see either weren’t open to the public or didn’t exist anymore. We also did a small amount of shopping while we were there and to keep us away from our hostel. The hostel was interesting, it was run by a bunch of Chinese people who had at first lost our reservation, and then after half an hour found it. You also could not plug anything in to charge if you wanted to still have the lights on, and the shower could not be controlled, you had scalding hot water for bit, then freezing cold water for a bit. Camelo and I left on Saturday so we could have Sunday to ourselves and just relax and regain our strength after the long trip.

We made it to Pesaro in just enough time to catch the second to last bus to Urbino, which meant that we could get dinner at the cafeteria and not have to pay for a meal for once! We also caught Emily and her friend getting on the same bus, apparently they had been in Pesaro all day and were just heading back, so it was nice to have someone besides the usual group to talk to about stuff. Once we made it back to Urbino, we spent the rest of our time sleeping and using the internet, just relaxing and enjoying our time to ourselves.

I have been using eHarmony for a while now and things are looking just kind of subpar at the moment. I had been talking to one girl, but she stopped replying, and then I was talking to another girl, but she doesn’t seem to give the kind of responses that I’m really hoping for, but she did say she was shy, so we will see what happens with that. I also got a message back from Vicky, which was nice, I think it means that she doesn’t completely hate me, I think. And to finish things off, I think I might quit Facebook. Partly because I don’t give a crap about 99% of the things that go on there, partly because the people that I do talk to are only a text away, and partly because my ex-girlfriend is on there and she is still happy.

Every time I see these kinds of things I start to feel that I want to just start new, fresh somewhere else far away from here. Somewhere that no one knows who I am, and what I’ve done, somewhere that I can forget my past and just have a good life for once. I think it’s still because I need to find the person that will help me get over everything, but also because I hold onto things too much. I really need to be able to get over things and just let go of all of this crap, but of course I’m always more invested in things than everyone else is so it’s harder for me to just be free of everything.

I am still The Exile, in a foreign land, trying to gain greater vision into society and the human condition, but the exile is still a man. A man with feelings, desires, hopes, dreams, and ideals. The Exile is a hard position to be in; I must be impartial to things, look from the fringe of society and nature, endure what no one should have to endure. I can be thought of as the Giver, the one citizen who is chosen to take on the hardest part of society so that everyone else may live peacefully. I see the difference in societies, between borders, classes, races, creeds, and other bounding elements that persist. And within the society, there are smaller societies that exist, making up the larger, but with their own unique traits. Italy, as a society, has a unique feel to it, what with its more laid back personality traits and overall contentment with life. The smaller societies, or the cities, have their own feelings. Take Venice, for instance, a tourist city with generally unhappy residents because they live in a place that is so frequently visited by tourists. This constant flow of foreigners is a constant irritation and disruption to their daily lives. If we look at another society in Italy though, for this instance Urbino, we see that they love foreigners and are overjoyed to have them in their city, sharing their lives and history with everyone that comes to visit. The society, of a country, is interesting to peel apart and examine the subtle nuances and traits that they all have within them.

Again, I am The Exile, The Architect in training, The Lover with no love, The Traveler with no destination, The Man with no soul. I say to everyone out there, to be an architect is a joy and burden, one that a person does not choose lightly.

Whatever the risk, still onward.

-The Exile

Journey of the Exile – Week 3

The week starts off well with my history theory class going smoothly with little discussion and more of a lecture instead. Once we finished that we went on to starting our studio project for our classical courtyards, which we were all really worried about because none of us really know how to use the orders properly, so most of the rest of the day was spent working on that. On the way back to the dorms that night I was talking to Sofia and told her that I was planning on get drunk on the 21^st. She asked why and I told her it would have been my anniversary then, and she told me that whatever thoughts I have I should write down to just kind of get them out of me. We’ll see if that actually happens or not though.

Today was an early morning for me since we had to go into town to meet up for our watercolor class. I went out early and grabbed some breakfast in town with a cappuccino and then sat down to start sketching one of the buildings in the main piazza. Though every couple minutes, more and more delivery trucks would park in the way, obscuring the bottom portion at first, which was alright, I could still work on the upper part. That was until a truck parked a foot in front of me and blocked the entire thing so I couldn’t sketch the thing at all from where I was. After a while I just moved and then gave up and waited for everyone to show up so we could head out to the mausoleum. Once we got to the mausoleum we did three hours of watercolors before we finally headed back into town for a quick lunch and then head back to the studio for our first Italian lesson. The lesson dragged on, and I don’t particularly like non-formal teaching for this kind of subject, it doesn’t stick very well. After that though, some of the people went to the travel agent to buy tickets for our trip to Venice next weekend that we are all apparently taking. I knew they were planning a trip, but I didn’t know if I was included because I usually work while listening to music, so I don’t hear most of their discussions. It was nice that they included me though, because I do want to go and do things. The night again descended into working on our courtyard projects before I called it a night at midnight here (first one to go to bed, I think that night) and headed back to relax and indulge my internet needs.

Not much happening stress wise so far this week, I’ve kept up with all of the readings that I’m supposed to be doing and I’ve been productive with my studio project. So I was kind of able to slowly work on my project and still finish early compared to everyone else right now. Though now John comes in and tells us we need to layout our shadow lines, but that only makes things more difficult for me because of the weird geometry of my building and the fictional sunlight. We are using a fake angle for the sun so we can cast interesting shadows, but most of my project will be in shadow save for the columns themselves.. We have our first official field trip starting tomorrow to the Veneto to study some architecture there for most of the weekend. I still need to figure out what media I’m going to use though, do I want to use my consistent felt pens or my new toy, the fountain pen? I’ve also been thinking about romance and relationships more recently, not so much my previous one, but future ones and the past of other ones instead. For the future ones I kind of muse over the ideas of an Italian fling, or a French relationship, but I don’t have much hope for those. And I just kind of fall back to thinking about my actions in the past to other people who cared about me and how that kind of burned the bridges with them. I don’t need those people in my life, but I would like to have some in my life at least a little bit, because they were good company and good conversation most of the time.

Early morning for all of us today, we had to get to the meeting spot for our trip to the Veneto so we could all catch the bus. Our first stop in the region was Verona, which was just one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We started our tours of the city starting with the Arena which is beautiful just to see how much of it is left to see. After that we saw a few churches and then made it into a school building which had some wonderful frescos in it, though the tour was really long because they had some school official lead us through the entire school, which wasn’t architecturally relevant. The city was so alive during the day and then when we got the night to ourselves we were able to find a couple bars and gelaterias where we spent some time. The gelato place we went to had some really good stuff and a cute girl who worked there had an interesting tattoo on her hand of a musical score. After gelato we all sat around a bar and had a few drinks and talked about all of the things we had seen, but as the night progressed we started to just be more stupid and drunk (I was the first, but not the worst). The girls went off by themselves so we sent Matt with them to watch over them so they wouldn’t get raped or do anything too stupid, while the rest of us walked around the town. I had a pretty deep conversation with Camelo and the others about life and relationships and how I was dealing with things and how he had dealt with things and what he went through. It was all really good, also helped that we finished our deep conversation while lying on the banks of the river looking up at the stars. After that we all headed back to the hotel for the night, but Matt came back after a while and informed us that the girls had even more to drink after we all left, which I thought was just stupid. I knew I was already pretty drunk and they go and choose to drink more? Stupid.

The next morning we had our trip to the Castelvecchio by Carlo Scarpa where we would spend about two hours observing, sketching, and photographing. Before we went off to the Castelvecchio though, I got to see how drunk the girls had gotten the night before by seeing their reactions to the morning sun, which was one of the best things of the day for me. The Castelvecchio was just an amazing place, and even with those two hours to sketch and photograph, it was not enough to fully take in the amount of thought that went into the building. The number of lines and levels that you will experience in just the front entrance is astounding to try and grasp. It is hard to put it all into words about the experiences that you go through in the spaces that Scarpa creates, but the best one that I can think of is to explain how he placed an image of Christ. Scarpa also designed the placement of all of the pieces in the building, so that the building would create an even greater experience for those pieces of art. Scarpa placed a sculpture of the crucifixion of Christ so that when the sun was first out in the morning, it cast light right across his face, bathing the religious figure in pure light. It was breath taking. After we finished at the Castelvecchio we went on to Vicenza where we again explored the city, but when we got there we couldn’t go into the Teatro Olimpico like we had planned so we instead started our tours early and explored the city. On the bus ride over to Vicenza I started to rethink how I thought about my life and where I was in my life, I always would say that I was already 20 years old and I haven’t done much with my life yet. Now though I’m starting to think more in the realm that I am only 20 years old, and that I have so much to look forward to in my life and this is just the tip of the iceberg for me. While we were in Vicenza we had some free time so we all managed to do some shopping; I was able to pick up a new shirt and a scarf while we were there. Afterwards we all had a nice dinner and then explored the town a bit more before we all went to sleep for the evening.

We started our next and final day of our field trip by going to Palladio’s Villa La Rotonda to sketch and document the building. The building is actually quite simple in respect to the geometry that was used to create it and even for the detail work that was used on it. I was able to manage a few sections and plans of the building to help me figure out the different proportions that he used. Afterwards we went back to Urbino and all worked on our summaries that we had due Monday.

Sunday I finished my summaries, but ended up going to sleep for the rest of the day to catch up on some of my sleep after the long trip. Wasn’t a very productive day, save for the summaries, but it was a nice and restful one.

Whatever the risk, still onward.

-The Exile

Journey of the Exile – Week 2

I had my first classes today, starting with my history and theory class for architecture. It was a fairly standard class, sit there, listen, and maybe talk about the material we had read the day before. The material was pretty interesting because we read older texts concerning architecture and the patterns and forms in it. On the readings focused on the idea of modules and construction of the orders, which was pretty interesting because it went into the stories behind why the orders were the way they were. After class we met up with Emily, one of the other American students who are studying here, and had lunch in the cafeteria. We mainly discussed the current green movement in Italy and why it came about here the way it has. We basically concluded that it came about due to the limited resources here and was out of necessity rather than desire to actually do it. After lunch we met up in the city to start our first studio project, an analysis of the orders using one of the buildings in town as an example of what the usual ideas behind them are and how they can change while still falling within the norms of the order. We were given a building that used the Doric order except that it didn’t have a base for its column. The building itself is actually not the detailed, and we were divided into groups so we could further divide up the drawings, making it so each of us only has to do one drawing and then trace the others from our group members. After we finished our analysis I hit up the grocery store as it opened and picked up a bottle of Disaronno and some snacks for the studio. The evening descended into working in the studio for a while and then a night of rough sleep on my bed.

We had our first watercolor class today outside of the studio. We did a fairly rigid wash on a transfer drawing we did the day before of a painting that a famous artist I had never heard of had painted. By the end of class I had a sunburn and kind of shitty piece of artwork to show for my three hours of class time. After we finished our class work we all went into town to look at our buildings for our studio projects and make sure that we had all of the details and measurements that we needed. Once we finished our analysis of the buildings we all seemed to go to the art store at the same time to go and look around, something I do not recommend people do if they ever come over here because I think they get mad when all of us go in and look around and then leave with nothing. We were trying to figure out the paper situation, but that didn’t get resolved so we’ll have to do that tomorrow or something. We went back to the studio after we had dinner and worked on our studio projects, I pretty much finished mine because our building isn’t that complicated in plan view, though the rest of the drawings are more detailed. While working on my drawing I opened up a bottle of wine and had some for the rest of the night. By the end of the night, I had basically had the entire bottle, so while working on my summaries I had to make very certain of what I was typing and how it related back to my work. I wasn’t drunk, just kind of tipsy by the time I left to go to bed for the evening. It was a pretty good day, a part from the sunburn.

We had an interesting discussion of previous projects in the history and theory class today, and I actually talked during this class, unlike the first one, so go me. After class we all went into town to figure out the paper situation and to actually get what we need so people can shut up about having the wrong things or using the wrong paper. Best part of the day though was while I was in the art store because I actually went ahead and bought my fountain pen that I wanted. It came with blue ink so I’ve been practicing with it and see what it is actually like to use one and to get used to the color. While we were in town we had lunch at a local place, at which we all got kebabs with picante sauce, which was just amazing. As we were walking out of town we also picked up a couple of lemon pastry things that were again, delicious. Before heading back to the studio, I went back to my dorm room to use the bathroom, and while there the maids knocked on my door and wanted to clean the room and change my sheets. Well I couldn’t exactly have a conversation with them saying to come back later, so I just told them not thank you. They left after that, which leaves me with the same sheets that I’ve had since I got here, which isn’t bad, but it would be nice to have some clean ones now. After all of our food we hit the studio hard and plowed through our drawings again, only to find that some of the measurements we took were wrong, so we had to go back into the city and take new measurements of the building which was time consuming and annoying. Annoying mainly because Cecilia kept saying “I told you” and “should have done it the way I said” and other crap that was just annoying. The main measurement that was wrong for the building was the repetitive brick pattern measurement we did. We measured one brick and thought that all the bricks were uniform and thus made the pattern easy to measure. Well, it turns out that the bricks are different sizes, but the overall pattern is uniform. It was just really annoying because she kept thinking that she knew what she was talking about, but she really didn’t when it came to the measurements, because even if we had measured one of the other bricks we still would have drawn it wrong because of the irregularity in the bricks. So that just got annoying, but the redo of the drawing was easy for me since I still had the plan view. The rest of the day was pretty normal, just some studio time and internet for the most part, I practiced with my new fountain pen some and updated my Tumblrs. We are meeting up in the morning tomorrow to finish our drawings and start the transfers so we can have a three day weekend and enjoy ourselves some more while we’re here, probably hitting the town some and go grape picking at a winery or something.

Well we all made it into the studio around 9:30am to get to work on our projects, only to have a few hours pass and all of us decide that we didn’t want to have class today and instead have studio on the right day. So Camelo called up John and told him about what we had all decided on, and then we all kind of relaxed for a bit and took things more slowly so we could enjoy our day. It was raining most of the day so we ended up not going out, which was kind of a bummer because I had wanted to see what all of the hype was about for Thursday nights here. We also went to the store today to pick up some snacks and to get some more wine (at least that was the main reason I went) and other liqueurs, but since it was raining, the dirt path we usually take to get to the store close by had turned into a mudslide. We all ended up with some form of mud stuck to our shoes and pants by the time we actually made it back to the studio. So instead we all ended up drinking some wine and watching movies and TV shows together. After that we all were tired and just kind of went off to bed. I’ve been keeping myself busy with Tumblr, drawing, and hanging out with everyone here, which I think has been good for the part. Whenever people go out to do or get anything, I go with them, which has been nice for the most part, but I’m kind of hoping that nothing actually happens this weekend so I can just kind of relax for a bit and maybe just explore town and eat some good food there. The first two weeks here have been really jam packed with things to do and see and eat, and I kind of want to keep looking through the town for all of the little food stores and shops. I also found a hat store in town! A legitimate store that sold only hats and things relating to hats. It looks really cool, and they have a bowler hat!!

We all met up in the studio early Friday so we could keep working on our drawings and readings, until John showed up for class and we all started to do our ink washes. They went well for the most part, but we all really didn’t enjoy defacing our wonderful drawings with our subpar watercolor skills. Afterwards we all went to dinner and then went back to the studio and watched movies. And when I say we in this case, I mean everyone but me. I just didn’t feel like sitting around watching a movie, so instead I stayed in the other room doing my usual things, drinking wine and cruising the internet for interesting things. After a while I went back to my room and just kind of relaxed before going to sleep for the night.

Today we explored the town of Urbino and the markets that were going on to see if we could find anything really cool or interesting to get. While exploring some of the guys got scarves for their girlfriends, which I tend to avoid all conversation about or leaning towards out of the fact that I still don’t enjoy other people being happy yet. I’m getting better on the whole being alone thing though, still not past that undeniable fear of truly being alone, but still making progress. Back to the city though! We went around the walls of the city and ended up outside the walls a couple times, which confused us because we had been on top of the walls the whole time, but we got some great photos and had a really good time. We also encountered this old woman who we think was trying to tell us she was a professor of Italian and English at the university, which we didn’t really buy because she never said a word of English to us. We went to get kebabs again at the place we went before, and then got some gelato to help finish off our lunch. The we all made it back to the studio again to keep working on our summaries for Monday and generally try to get some actual work done.

Today was a very special day, we went out with Eugenia and Mirko around the Marche region of Italy and see all of the sights that we could for a day. We went to the coast and looked at the water and the cities along there and got lunch at a great bar that over looked the water from a cliff side. After lunch we explored a castle for a while, but only Mirko yelled at the ticket lady for not letting us in for free because we were architecture students. She wouldn’t do it because it didn’t say architecture on our student IDs, which we all thought was stupid, I mean who goes up to you and says (translated correctly) “We are students of architecture and would like admission”? It was really annoying. So after we explored the castle we went and looked at some birds and actually practiced some Falconry! I asked Eugenia if I could after Camelo had asked, I’m getting better about this trying things and being more open-minded I think. Once we finished with the Falconry we all went back to Urbino to keep working on our summaries. While driving around the country though, I got to experience Mirko’s driving and how people drive in Italy in general. It was really cool, and I would like to correct what I tell people about why I don’t like having other people drive. I don’t like riding with bad drivers. Mirko knew what he was doing and knew exactly what his car could do, it was actually pretty relaxing, he turned on the radio and we all just talked about what we saw and what we thought. The rest of the day was devoted to summaries and killing zombies to chill before leaving the studio to sleep and indulge my internet needs.

Whatever the risk, still onward.

-The Exile

Journey of the Exile – Week 1

It has begun, my journey has started. It began when I first started with the plane rides with my professor over to Rome where we met up with the rest of the students. When we first got there we had to wait for another plane to come in with them on it, so John (my professor, he asked us to call him John) and I went and had a cappuccino at the bar (bars are different here). It was the most glorious thing I have ever tasted, the milk was steamed properly, and the coffee was just beautiful. They really do have a totally different culture here when it comes to coffee, I have been experiencing it every day since I got here. After a while the plane came in and we all grouped together to get our train ticket to go to the bus depot where we would then catch the four hour bus to Urbino. During the trip I told the story of my relationship to Cecilia and we had a nice conversation about what laid before everyone and how it was going to help and change us all. Once we made it to Urbino, we went to the university where we got dinner and our dorm rooms. The room is alright, it has the essentials: bed, desk, chair, shower, and toilet. We all ended up in the studio after everything so we could all use the internet and contact our loved ones and family. Well part way through Camelo plugged something in wrong and basically blew up the internet. I’m not kidding, there was a loud pop when he plugged it in and it just killed the whole socket he tried and the internet, all in one go. So after that we all started to fade and drift off back to our rooms to sleep for the night.

The next day consisted of a lot of tours around the actual city of Urbino, guided by John and Eugenia (one of the providers) and her husband Mirko. This introduced us to the hill we would be going up and down most of the time we wanted to do anything in town. It is a steep, slick hill that does not lend itself to high heels, and gets really annoying after the first billion times you have to go up it. We looked at the art store in town first so we would know where we could get supplies and stuff for our classes to come. They took us around the city to see what all there was to do and what the city had to offer us. For lunch they took us out to a local restaurant where they served wine and pasta and just so many amazing dishes for us to enjoy while we talked amongst ourselves. After dinner we continued touring the city and finding out so much about it and seeing all of the different amazing buildings that the Duke was a part of. Once we finished our tours and everything, we were left to our own devices. We ended up having gelato in the main piazza, which is just beautiful might I add. The day ended with us having dinner together in the cafeteria and going to the studio to once again mess with the internet. It’s interesting to see how much we all depend on it, and it is a little depressing that we depend on it so much now.

The next day we went on more tours (we were starting to get tired of tours at this point, and because our feet hurt so much) of the city except with a woman who may be giving us Italian lessons later on so that we can better understand and talk to people. We took a break in one of the bars to have a cappuccino, though I had an espresso to help keep me going. There was a woman working in the bar who wanted to practice her English and basically told us about when people go out in the city, which is Thursday here, and how they would love to see us there again.

Well we actually went out on Friday because we had been too tired the previous day. This was my first time actually going out and drinking socially with friends, and to go out with drinking at all with people, so it was an interesting experience. We started off at the bar in which we encountered the woman who told us about going out during the week. I started with a nice glass of scotch, but after that we had what they told us was “Tequila Boom Boom”. This was basically just a bit of a mix of tequila with something else to lessen the strength. It was also my first time doing tequila shots, but it went well for the most part. Once we finished up at that bar went looking around for another and ended up in one that was just across the piazza. I tried to order a scotch and soda, but they just couldn’t get and I couldn’t help them, so I caved and just got a gin and tonic. After a bit I started to loosen up and talk more to people about things that I was thinking and feeling. I ended up telling Sofia that I wouldn’t mind getting to know Britta more, but that I figured I didn’t have a chance for two reasons: one being that she was twenty-seven, and two being because she was vibing up another guy in the group. Once the night was basically over we started to head back to the dorms, but on the way there I just instantly sobered up and became really self-conscious about everything I had said and done while out with everyone. So I hung back for a bit and then just walked at the end of the group not saying much until we reached the dorms.

Now we come to the weekend! John took us to Pesaro and basically just stuck around long enough to show us the beach and how to get on the train if we needed to or wanted to so we could travel. After that he helped us figure out hotels so we could get that taken care of before we went off to the beach. So once John parted ways with us we all grabbed a bite to each at a local café, this time it was a café, though it did seem pretty close to a bar. We had an amazing meal there of some sort of penino or something, which had uncooked ham, cheese, and tomatoes on it. Afterwards we walked along the beach until we found the free section of it and set up camp for the day and play in the water. It was so beautiful there and so much fun. The water was perfect, the sand felt amazing, and everyone was having a blast. There were parts, though, where I just kind of sat and thought about life and where I was going and where I had been. I was a lot quieter than I had been the previous night because I was still self-conscious about it all. I decided to stay the night with a few people that were staying, which was an alright choice. The next day we went shopping in the market they set up each weekend in towns to sell things. Here markets are different, they sell EVERYTHING, from socks, to vacuums, to cars. We wandered around while a couple of people went to the beach. We ended up not getting much of anything, though I did get the most amazing donut thing ever created by human beings, it had a lemon taste to it and was covered in sugar. It was so delicious. After a while Sofia, Cecilia and I headed back to the bus depot to grab a bus back to Urbino so we could relax, have lunch, and start on our homework for the first day of class (which confuses me, but whatever). The end day descended into my usual indulgences, a warm shower, and dinner with everyone in the cafeteria. I finished up my summary homework right after dinner, and rewarded myself with some well-deserved internet time.

Whatever the risk, still onward.

-The Exile

40 Days: Body and Mind – Day 40 – Journey of The Exile

By the time this post is posted I will be in Italy, but not only that, I will have been there for a day already. If you hadn’t noticed it yet, all of the posts were posted two days after they actually happened. This post is mainly to explain my final feelings before actually leaving the country. With this journey ahead of me, I will be taking the role of The Exile so that I may better understand not only architecture, but the world as a whole. The person separated from everything and can see things from an unbiased point of view.

The journey will take me from the shell that I am now, to the full being I will become at journey’s end. I will explore myself as an individual in a new world, myself with respect to other people, other people in respect to me, and to explore everything else that comes to mind. I will be making new friends while I am abroad and creating new bonds. Hopefully through everything that I will experience I will grow to be the person I want and need to be for the future, because I think I’m going back to karma, fate, and maybe a little luck for what happens to me.

To everyone who has been with me through all of this, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and hope you will stay by me because I have a feeling the future has a few twists and turns left for me.

Whatever the risk, still onward.

-The Exile

40 Days: Body and Mind – Day 29

So today the important things that happened to me were kind of mixed, I got a text from her brother asking when I leave. I guess she’s just waiting till I’m gone so she can give my mother back her stuff, if not then she’s in deep shit because that’s my mother’s stuff. Still makes me kind of angry that she can’t be decent enough to just give my mother back her stuff until I leave. But whatever, I leave in a few days so none this will matter.

So with that happening, I decided to take a jog and clear my head some before getting ready for the rest of my night. It was a good jog; only three miles, but it helped me get out all of my thoughts that I had for the past few days and the new ones that sprang up today. It helped me clear things up with myself and what I was doing with my life and why I was doing everything.

I am doing things for myself, and no one else. I will study abroad and have an amazing time. I will get my bachelor’s degree and go to grad school. I will intern during grad school and hopefully have a job by the time I finish. After that I’ll become a fully licensed architect after that and begin working on my actual career. During all of this I will travel across the country so I can experience all that there is here. After that I’m going to travel the world to broaden things even further and do all of the amazing things out there. And somewhere in the mess of all of this, I’m going to get married to the right girl for me and have a family. All of this will be for me, and only me. I won’t do these things because of someone or something. I will only share my journey if someone will accompany me, but I won’t do any of this just because of them. If they are the right person, they get their own set of things that I would do. While finishing that sentence I feel like I want to add an emoticon to the end of it to help drive home the point, but I’m trying to keep this blog fairly classy so just picture a happy after that sentence.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the plot for a story that sounds kind of clichéd, but very interesting, and very me. It’s about a secret military project to create the perfect wetboy. Of course I picture myself as the main character, so if I ever get around to writing it you’ll get a glimpse into who I am.

Whatever the risk, still onward.

-The Architect