gelato flavors i have tried.

ciao belli. sorry it's been so long since an update from little old me. but here comes (probably) the most important post you've seen so far.

an all-inclusive list of the gelati i've tried.
expect this to be updated VERY frequently.

• nutella
• cioccolato (chocolate)
  
• amarena (black cherry)
• pesca (peach)
• tiramisu
• menta (mint chocolate chip)
• creme caramel (this tasted JUST like werthers' hard candy)
• frutti di bosco (literally, "soft fruit," actually berries)

up next: there is a blue-flavor in a gelateria i walk past every time i go to the beach. i'm dying to try it; i have no hints at all about what flavor it is. it's called "dolce stelle," literallly "sweet stars." soooooo, who knows. i'll find out, and report back.

the guggenheim.

last saturday (the 30th), the other girls and i went to the guggenheim. there are four "guggenheim" museums, all operating as a part of the solomon r. guggenheim foundation. this one is the private collection of peggy guggenheim, wife of artist max ernst and niece of solomon, the orig guggenheim. this little museum is located in peggy's home on the grand canal, the palazzo venier dei leoni. this 18th century palazzo was never finished: only the ground floor was ever built, and peggy lived there until her death in 1979. after her death, the collection (which she had collected through her life and donated to her uncle's foundation) was opened to the public.

this museum has an amazing collection of modern art, especially when you consider that most of the pieces within are from peggy's private collection. there are works by picasso, dalí, magritte, kandinsky, and pollock. the courtyard of the museum also has a scupture collection, and there is another building behind the main house that holds special exhibits. the exhibit there now is called "utopia matters: from brotherhoods to bauhaus," and it examines the influence of utopian-esque environments on modern western art, moving from the french primitifs through the german bauhaus and russian constructivism.

OH. MY. GOD. it was soooo incredible. i never thought i'd see a dalí painting in real life, let alone works by ernst and magritte as well. here are some of my favorites:

the sun in its jewel case by yves tanguy
(this wins the prize for absolute favorite)

pi by john tunnard

at the cycle-race track by jean metzinger

the red tower by giorgio de chirico

little machine constructed by minimax dadamax in person
by max ernst

the postman cheval by max ernst

chapala 3 by charles pollock

the birth of liquid desires by salvador dalí

the voice of space by rené magritte

the empire of light by rené magritte

setting for a fairy tale by joseph cornell
(this was awesome; it was a shadowbox).

defeat by stanley william hayter

upward by wassily kandinsky

and these next three were from the special exhibit:


a baron numbering his vassals by sir john everett millais

in the current six thresholds by paul klee

blue painting by wassily kandinsky

all in all, one of the absolute coolest art museums i have ever been to. the location was amazing, too; the terrace of her house opened onto the grand canal. i'll upload a pic or two of that later, but right now my camera is super dead. night, y'all.

murano.

on friday i went with the kids from the other american university (drew, in new jersey) to visit murano. murano is a tiny island about 15 minutes north of venice by vaporetto (waterbus). it's famous for glassmaking, specifically lampworking, which basically uses a blowtorch to melt and then manipulate thin rods of glass.

murano's glassmakers were the first in all of europe to figure out how to make mirrors, and they held this monopoly by forbidding artisans to leave the venetian republic. hired assassins were even used to make sure the secrets wouldn't spread outside of this tiny island.

since i was lucky enough to tag along with drew's students, we got to see some behind-the-scenes stuff i'm sure i wouldn't have gotten to see otherwise. we went to the glassmaking school, abate zanetti, and saw a master blow glass and a woman do lampwork.

it was incredible! here are some of the photos i took:

this guy has been working with glass for forty years, and he's still an apprentice.
the process of becoming a master glassmaker is INSANE.

this is the master. he just took that glob of glass out of the furnace
(where it was chilling at 2900 degrees farhenheit)
and is rolling it on that marble slab to shape it a little.

now he's rolling it in yellow glass powder to color it.
the base color is clear; it's just orange-ish because it's super hot.

he kept blowtorching it while he was working so it would stay malleable.
these guys used this torch without any eye protection or gloves or anything.
because they're italian. and badass.

makin' it into a vase. he put the black stripe on by pouring molten black glass
onto the vase while the apprentice fried the shit out of everything with the torch.

then he put it into this furnace, which is comparably nippy
at only 1200 degrees fahrenheit, to slowly bring it down to room temperature.
it stayed in here for two full days.

next we saw this woman do some lampworking.
here she's softening some glass rods in front of a blowtorch that's
mounted on her desk. look at how close she is to that thing!

she shaped the stuff she was making by using the solid ends of the rods,
some giant tweezer things, and a couple long needley things.
it was so amazing to watch.

here she is putting the finishing touches on a candy she made
by blowing a tiny clear glass ball, like a bubble, and affixing green
glass to the sides. the thing in her left hand is what she used to hold the glass
while shaping it, and the thing in her right hand is a pair of tweezers.

this is one of the things she made. it took, seriously, less than twenty minutes.
apparently dolphins are a signature murano figurine.
this was so little; it fit in the palm of my hand.

this little genie is a pendant. there's a hook in the top of his
turban to hang him on a necklace. i love his tiny earrings!


and, finally, this is the bear she made for the kids from drew.
see his tiny "D' t-shirt?
this guy was the smallest, probably about 2.5 inches tall.

it was so incredible to watch these people at work. their jobs are UNBELIEVABLE!

CIAO VENEZIA.

updating this is going to be a little harder than i originally expected since my computer is not working. :( but we will find a way. mostly by using this confusing computer at school.

venice is amazing so far! i haven't done any official sightseeing yet, but we've been walking around for hours every day. all of venice is so beautiful; the buildings are such pretty colors and there are flowers in every windowsill.

my apartment is TINY. my bedroom is maybe half the size of a dorm room. but the view out the window is gorgeous. and i can leave my window open all the time because the weather has been absolutely perfect so far.

i really hope i can resolve this issue with my computer soon. it's super frustrating to not have one (or access to one) at night. but we'll see! i've got to get back to round two of my two hours of classes today. will write more later.

hi team.

urgh. finally finished packing and now i'm tying the knots on all four hundred things i have to finish before i leave. super nervous about this trip, but i'm also rull excited. just thought i should make this so i have something for all my beautiful friends to look at.

more tomorrow. or sunday.

love you all.