Snow!

I was out walking today and it started raining. Just sprikling. Then it picked up a little. Then the rain seemed a little thick, a little heavy to be "just" water. It was sleet! Sleet I tell you! And I thought "Sweet! The snow is almost here."

Well, I just looked out my window and it was closer then I thought. It's snowing! Sweet!

Snow!

leaves and stuff

The days are getting short. Really short. And cold. And it’s these beautiful wet days where the sky is like a blanket of slate pulled over the earth. The leaves are all turned. This city is veined with green spaces, parks and yards, small oasis in the urban landscape. Streets lined with trees, boulevards. Leaves are everywhere. The smell is hypnotic. That fruitmusk of rotting vegetation. People are lighting fires so the smoke mixes in the wind and you walk outside and hug yourself close and say, “Yeah, this is autumn.”



The best is when the sun does show its face. Pushing its way out from behind the heavy sky to lay rays along the trees and prove that It all does mean something somewhere. The days are still cold, but the sun makes you smile.
The last month has been trying. I got back from that trip exhausted. For about two weeks I didn’t do much. I worked on those last posts. I thought about things. About my thesis. About what’s going to happen next. How to start pulling things together. I worried a little bit because I couldn’t find the energy to pick the thing back up. It was soggy with potential, but weighted down with my own expectations of what should happen. So I was rutting it for a while. I’d look at the books piled on my desk and think “How in the hell am I suppose to synthesize all these ideas.” It was a little bit frightening and unwieldy. So I would go on these walks. Look at how the city was changing. Try and feel what the Vikings felt. What the Danes felt when then occupied. I have been trying to understand Oslo as it slips into the dark. And I gotta tell you it is pretty pleasant. This city is of the dark half of the year. It’s made for winter. Made for autumn.
The people on the street have changed. There are still a good number of people that walk the city. Shopping along Karl Johanes gate. But they are no longer tourists, snapping photos of the statue-ized mimes. Now they are mothers buying cloths. And couples strolling in the evening. And families going to supper. This is when the city becomes the city again, and not a tourist outfit.


I walked up along the Akerselva to its source. A lake that sits above Oslo in the forested region. The trail leads literally from my front door all the way. I was hoping that I’d touch the water, but for some reason it’s all fenced off. It looks like private land all the way around. Which I’m sure is not the truth, I’m sure there is access somewhere, just not logically at the end of the pedestrian trail that leads all the way from the lake to fjord. It was a great walk, but I couldn’t get any closer then these for pictures.


I’ve found some good buildings. A couple of functionalist projects that I really like. They are both quite buildings, off the beaten track, but superb examples of functionalist architecture.


I also visited this great church by Knut Knutson. Good stuff.



I have also been noticing this artists work around town. These are stickers. Some of them are big, 2 or 3 feet tall. Some, like the bunny heads are fist size. There is a simplicity to the work that I admire. And a geometric view of color.




I also saw this tag. Usually I’m not a fan of this type of graffiti, but I like this guy.


I met with Christian Hermansen at AHO. He’s my contact here. I wanted to ask about some papers regarding Sverre Fehn that might be available and also find out if I could get into some classes and what not. When I got there he was going to introduce me to Per Olaf Fjeld. An instructor at AHO who has written one of the few books on Fehn and who use to work with him. But Fjeld wasn’t around and so I missed him. It also seems that I missed classes altogether. Or at least the one I wanted to take this semester. Which is entirely my fault. I was out of town at the beginning of the semester and then gone those weeks on the trip and it seems that they are now in the exam and presentation mode. No big, although the class was perfect, all about Norwegian architecture and Sverre Fehn. There is another class, however, next semester and I’ll try to sit in on it for a couple weeks before I leave in March. They actually build different architectural details from Norway’s vernacular. If I can swing it, it’ll be pretty cool.
I did find out that they have a free lecture every Thursday. I attended the last on. It was interesting. By a guy named Shaun Murry, from London. It was called “The Illustrated Primer for Digital Architecture.” It was about the relationship of research and investigation, using digital tools, to the practice of architecture. In other words, using various research techniques, like collecting data for how a tide affects an outcropping of rocks for instance. Plotting that using various algorithms and whatnot. And then creating representations of these phenomena, whatever they may be, that begin to help the architect see architecture in a way that is more connected to the natural processes in any ecology in which he might want to build. It was fascinating. There are questions about how you then start to make space, usable and comfortable, out of these representations, but the path seems worthwhile. At any rate, there is a lecture every week and it’ll get me thinking about other things. Unfortunately, the week prior, Zaha Hadid was here. Which would have worth listening to her. But I missed.

Things are going good for the most part. Except it’s the Daylight Savings weekend where we “fall back.” This happens to be my favorite weekend of the year. That extra hour seems so luxurious. The extra hour of party on Saturday night where at 1am you’re like, no way, it’s really midnight! The extra hour of sleep on Sunday morning to recuperate. They don’t carry on with any of that nonsense here, so I get to miss it this year. Which means I have to experience two “spring forwards” before I get my next “fall back”. Which sucks. I’ll be down a “fall back” the rest of my life. I’ll never be able to get that back. So I’m a little bummed about that. But otherwise, golden. I’ve downloaded a few things off iTunes. Which I didn’t want to do, but I can only read and write for so long before my head starts to hurt. So while I eat I watch a movie or Lost or The Office or Battlestar Galactica. It’s relaxing. It’s what television should be. A good show when I want to watch it. My pleasure on my time. Anyway, that’s the most exciting thing going these day. I’m getting ready to take a trip up to Trondheim. Maybe at the end of the week. And then one more out to Bergen if I can swing it before the weather turns and then mostly day trip close to Oslo after that. I had one planned for last Tuesday, a day trip that is, but I over slept and missed my train. I felt like an ass, like I cheated myself for an extra hour of sleep. But sometimes it’s hard to get up in the dark. And when it’s dark until 8:30, it’s hard to get up at 8. I’m trying to make this a regular thing, getting up at 8. So far I have done it exactly zero times in the last month. Once I slept until 11:45, something not seen since I use to stay up until 4am writing bad novels and dumb poetry. It’s frustrating; because when I finally am awake I really want to get up in the morning. To be adult. To enjoy the day before noon. But when I’m asleep I want to get up at 10am. So my awake self is fighting with my asleep self right now and that’s a little unnerving. Like having two roommates mad at each other and not talking and your still friends with both. So when you hang out with one they’re always badmouthing the other and vise versa the other way around. All morning long I gotta listen to awake Jeff piss and moan about asleep Jeff and how he’s a lazy bum ruining our future cause he doesn’t have the will to stay awake at 8am when the alarm goes off. And the every morning at 8am I get to hear asleep Jeff cuss sleepily as he stumbles across the room to shut off the alarm that awake Jeff set the night before, calling awake Jeff an asshole for even setting the alarm at all and going right back to that blissful sleep you get when you are awakened hour before you actually have to get up. And I’m caught in the middle, cause I like sleeping. And I like getting up. It’s a no win situation really. And the battle continues.

and four days in Rome

Our first day in Rome, I was still excited to be in Italy. The swamping of Venice by tourists was down heartening, but I figured Rome would be a big city, lots of things to do, it would be able to absorb and obfuscate the tour-minded. The airport reminded me of a Fellinni film, the glamorous Italian style, the rush of modernity. I was optimistic. The bus ride was pleasant, and our room was only blocks from the central train station, where the bus dropped us off. We arrived at 10am and were told we could not check in until 4pm. So Hope and I had 6 hours to kill. It was raining lightly, but we both had spent time in Seattle, toughened by months on end of rain, and so went out into the mild weather to pass the time. Aimless, I suggested we check out the Coliseum, it wasn’t far from where we were and on the way we could get some food.



Until now everything seemed fine.
At our first meal in Rome, however, things began to turn with regard my appreciation for the culture. We were sitting outside a little pizzeria. There were two waiters. The headwaiter was Italian. The second was foreign, maybe from Southeast Asia. The headwaiter came to our table and was immediately disingenuously shmoozy in a way that was lame and creepy. He had stuff on his face, a large piece of something or other stuck to the left of his chin and his smile was more of a grimace. After taking our order he approached the second waiter and reported what we had ordered and told him to write it down.



The second waiter was clearing a table which he had moments before been commanded to do. He stopped and wrote down our order and disappeared into the restaurant. The headwaiter smile/grimaced at us. Before I go on I want to point out that I know nothing of the established relationship of these two people. I know nothing of their interaction before we sat down at the table. I can only report what I saw. But we watched, throughout our meal, the headwaiter yell and ride the second over various meaningless restaurant tasks. The second waiter stood up for himself, did his job, never got mad for the railings he got, simply went about his business. At one point, the headwaiter commanded the second go retrieve something from the kitchen. The second left and in the process dropped his pen on the ground. When the second was gone, the Head picked up the pen off the ground. I watched him do this. He held the pen with disgusts. Clicked it a few times and then tossed it back on the ground. He knew it was the seconds. Had seen him several time use it to write down the order the headwaiter delivered. He knew. And what he did next solidified my dislike for this man, that restaurant and eventually Rome in general. He actually kicked the pen into the corner behind a table, made sure that it was well hidden and looked up at me and smiled/grimaced. That act, that display of pettiness for pettiness sake we would see again. When the second came back, Hope pointed out his pen in the corner and he smiled and nodded and went about his business.
We shortly left for the Coliseum, potted the thing down a street, looming in anachronistic bravado, and walked towards it. When we reached an overlook I was at first captured by the architecture. I scanned the crumbling structure, imagining the construction, the battles, and the streams of people attending the games and then I saw the streams of tourist snaking a line out of the entrance and causing me to immediately be put off.



We walked down and found the grounds crawling with people. It started raining harder so we took shelter in one of the closed arches of the Coliseum to wait out the rain.
It was here, sheltered by the Coliseum, that I found one of the things that annoys me in this world. Umbrella salesmen who think that just because it’s raining, that I want an umbrella. Men, hundreds of them, all over the city, carried umbrellas for sale. And they would try to hard sell you a bumber like if I wanted one, I wouldn’t have bought one and they had to talk me into it. I grew up in Seattle where it rains all the time. Not life threatening or anything. And not the most measured by inches per year, but a lot, steady and all the time. I have never owned an umbrella. I get wet and then I dry. In Seattle you can spot the people who didn’t grow up there by the umbrellas. So my feeling is the same wherever I go. I can’t bring myself to buy an umbrella. I am close to doing so here in Oslo as I’ll need to draw outside even in the winter months and an umbrella will help with that. But even so I haven’t yet done it and I am trying to think of a way not to. So when the first guy asked I laughed. It was barely raining. And the second guy, not three steps behind the first, still I laughed. And as the rain increased the hard selling increased. I realize these guys need to make a living, but I don’t want an umbrella. I just don’t. I’ll wait it out or get wet. And as we stood, waiting it out, under the Coliseum, bumbermonger after bumbermonger approached demanding that we buy umbrellas and become indignant when we decline, as if I am obligated to buy a portable roof to keep of the water falling from the sky. I am not obligated. I am not. The humor quickly wore off. Because if I wanted to buy an umbrella, if I wanted one, would I not have had ample opportunity to purchase one from the four guys that just asked me.



So you, fifth salesman in line, what makes you think I want one of your umbrellas any more then I want that guys umbrellas? And it went on. And on. And on. I we wondered where they came from, all these umbrellas. Who would plan for rain in such a way? Eventually I saw a shop, an umbrella shop, filled with umbrellas and men collecting them, as many as they could carry. Salesmen. Umbrella salesmen.
The rain let up and we decided to walk up to the Pantheon. As we walked the rain came harder and then let up and stopped all together and still the guys with the umbrellas. We made it to the Pantheon, a little wet but no harm done. It started raining again and, uckily, there were guys there selling umbrellas, just in case we broke down. We didn’t.
The Pantheon was also packed with tourist. But I was there and wet and I didn’t have an umbrella so we went in.






It was perhaps, one of the most magnificent places I have ever stood in. Despite the hundreds of people taking stupid flash photography and milling about, it was still serene and mystical. The rain fell through the oculus as through a hole in the sky. Drifting down. We hung out there a while. I was awed. The porch on the Pantheon was gathering more and more people as the rain continued to pick up. Eventually Hope and I decided to go sit in a café that ringed the piazza where the Pantheon sat and have some coffee and wait out the storm sitting down. And by now it was a storm. It was two o’clock by this time so we still had some time to kill before we could check into our room. We choose a café, the closest to the Pantheon and found a table. Since we had just eaten we ordered coffee and a desert. The total of Hope’s coffee and tiramisu and my tea and chocolate cake was over twenty euros. But we were there and the rain was now actually pouring from the sky. So sitting and drinking five euro tea was all right.



The thing was the owner of the restaurant was all bent out of shape because we didn’t order food. We ordered twenty dollars worth of product. It’s not like we were drinking water. And it’s pouring down rain, pouring down rain. This group of three people comes to sit down and the waiters are asking them if they are going to order food. The owner is standing over our table yelling that they can’t sit unless they order food. Not just coffee. They say they aren’t interested in food and the waiter turns them away. Tells them they can’t sit down. Tells them to go out into the rain and find some other place to sit. Another group comes and the same thing happens and we know it’s because of us because we weren’t asked whether we were going to have food or not and they keep hovering around our table and side eyeing us like were bringing down their house. But the thing is, it’s going to cost us twenty euros to sit here out of the rain. And it’s not like we imagined we couldn’t order something. So this next group says they are interested in ordering food. And all of that would have been fine, but I swear to God the owner, a real piece of work, topped himself. As the group of four people began to order, one gentleman ordered a pizza that him and his grandmother were going to split. The waiter looked at the owner and I could see the uncertain fear in his eyes. He asked if this was all right. The owner, man this really rips into my gut, he looked at the table and said no. They had to leave. And at this time it’s really pouring rain. I mean thick sheets of rain like Noah saw. And this owner kicks this table out of his restaurant into the rain. Old ladies and all because they wanted to split a pizza. Unconscionable. And I could see maybe if the place was full of people and there were other people waiting to sit, but it was half empty. And so another example of Roman’s. I grew more and more uncomfortable with the sidelong glares and the whole situation so eventually left. Hope wanted to stay because we were paying. But to me it’s not worth it. So after I finished I went and stood under the Pantheon to wait out the storm. Hope sat for a while longer to spite the guy. Eventually she paid and when she found me she reported that they charged us 10 euros just to sit there. Amazing.

While waiting under the Pantheon porch for it to stop raining, a group of Christians from Korea began to sing gospel songs really loud. The Pantheon is currently a catholic basilica, but its origins are as a house of the roman gods, thus the name Pantheon. And I wondered if this group of people realized that that was the case and they are, in fact, worshipping in front of a pagan building. Anyway, they sang and people watched. Eventually the rain let up and it was close to four so Hope and I decided to head back to the room. Not a block away from the Pantheon the rain picked up. And picked up. And fell harder and harder until it was raining so hard that walking in it was difficult and eventually we had to stop and find shelter. The worst part was I had to find our way back without the map because I couldn’t pull it out in the rain. We are now soaked through and the rain isn’t letting up. We find shelter in an car entrance to a building and we’re not there thirty seconds when a guy comes and kicks us out. It’s literally raining so hard you can’t see across the street and this guy is like, you can’t be here, with his tsk-ing Italian disapproval. So we head out again. And there is no shelter for blocks. Eventually we find a cloths shop and stand there. But the lady comes out, and although she doesn’t tell us to leave, our being there disgusts her. She shakes her head and goes back into the shop. Eventually I tell hope we just have to keep going. It’s not going to stop and we’re already wet. Hope is reluctant, but I insist. So we head out and find our way and make it to the hostel completely soaked. The kicker is people were still trying to sell us umbrellas. I mean I am as wet as if I had just gotten out of a witch dunking and these guys are asking me if I want to buy an umbrella. How is that going to help at this point? So yeah, maybe I should have bought an umbrella earlier, but how was I to know there would be a mini biblical flood in the afternoon?
The Hotel was pleasant. We stayed in the rest of the afternoon. I eventually got some food and beer at a grocery store and we ate and drank for under 10 euros that night. I decided the next morning I would get up at 7am and go to the Coliseum before the throng of people showed up.




I was in Rome for two reasons. I figured being so close in Venice I should check it out and one of my advisors was there from UW teaching this quarter at the Rome Program. Her name is Kathryn Merlino and she is the vernacular half of my team. So I wanted to take the opportunity to talk to her about what I had done over the summer and show her some things. We had planned on this, but not set a date. So after the Coliseum I intended to go to the UW Rome Center and see if I could connect with her. I would meet Hope in the afternoon and we would go and do some stuff. The Coliseum was great in the morning. I showed up before it opened and drew for a little while. Then went in and took some photographs and read some history. After that I walked up through the ruins of the Forum and found the district where the Rome Program was located.



I found the program offices and went in. Some of the kids from UW were arriving. I knew some by site, others by name. I asked after Kathryn, but she wasn’t around that day. I left her a note saying I would come back the next day to set up a meeting. I then went and found Hope. We had lunch on the Piazza Navono. And then went to Campidoglio to see the head of Constantine.




The sculpture here was pretty cool. The head was awesome. And the building, designed by Michelangelo, was magnificent. On this trip I saw a lot of buildings that I always really wanted to see. This was one of them. I missed the bronze of Romulus and Remus suckling at the teat of the wolf. But the other sculpture was amazing. Then we walked past another of my favorite architectural items, Trajan's column.



This was a column erected for the Emperor Trajan and it contains a spiraling story carved in the column in relief. After this we headed back to the room. The next day we were heading to the Vatican.
I met Kathryn at 10am and we made arrangements to talk the following day. Then Hope and I walked up through Trastevere to a botanical garden and a nice view of the city and eventually to the Vatican. I wanted to see the Sistine Chapel, but we didn’t get there until close to three and the last people are let in at 3:15 so there was no way we were getting in there. We walked around St. Peters, I looked for something for my grandma at the Vatican gift shop, but could find nothing reasonable. Hope sent some postcards from the Vatican.




I would have too, had I had anyone’s address. I’m just not a fan of fancied up churches, and this is a pretty fancy church. I understand them in terms of architectural development, but give me a simple, understated place to worship any day and spend all that extra cash on helping people out in the world. I mean compare Gamel Aker to St. Peters, I’d rather be in Gamel Aker. Any day. So although there are some beautiful things in the cathedral, it wasn’t my favorite place as far as house of God goes. And I told Him so.








To top it off, the Vatican was over run with tourist. And it was here that I finally decided that Rome has the worst management of its tourists and tourist sights of all the places I’ve been. And that there is no respect for the sites that these people visit. I believe the Romans themselves generate this lack of respect. If they are not going to respect the cultural things that make their city great, why should the throng come to snap pictures of it respect anything about it? In their defense, Rome has been a tourist destination for more then 2000 years and I can see how that would, eventually, eat at you. But still.
After the Vatican we made our way back to Trastevere. A lot of the things I wanted to do and see in Rome were courtesy of my buddy Josh who had been to Rome the year before on the Rome Program and who had sent me an email listing the places he recommended. One of them was his neighborhood, Trastevere. And where I found Rome a disagreeable city for the most part, I like the neighborhood of Trastevere. It was filled with artists and families and people just living. The streets were quaint and quiet and there was a lot of graffiti. It’s across the Tiber from the main part of Rome.



We made our way back here and found a place to have dinner. But there is this thing I also found annoying about Italy. No one, or the few places we wanted to eat anyway, served food between 3 and 7. I understand it’s cultural, but it’s still annoying. So we had a few beers at this place and then split. Still hungry. Eventually we made it back to the area where the hostel was, planning on eating from the grocery store. But it was after nine and they were closed, so we ate at a pizzeria. It was fine. A couple of beers here and I was ready to go to sleep. Hope wanted to go out, but I’d been up since 7 and wasn’t really in the mood. Plus, unless you have someone to show you where to go, it’s a crapshoot and I didn’t feel like exploring the nightlife. Just didn’t feel like it in general the whole trip. So we turned in. I think Hope was a little disappointed by this.
The next day I got up early again, planning to make it back to Vatican to see the Sistine Chapel before I had to meet Kathryn at 1. I struck out on a different path then I had traveled thus far and ended up at Circus Maximus, which was great.



Not planning to get here and then getting here and seeing the place where they had all those chariot races. Today it just a big field with a faint bowl shape where people jog and gypsies sleep. I wonder if people running here think about how they are running in the tracks of the ancients. I would. Just walking there made me think of the races and the violence. I made it to the Vatican by 8:30. The line for the Sistine Chapel was already so large that it simply wasn’t worth it. It stretched around five blocks and it wasn’t even open yet. So I decided to skip it. There was, however, something I had neglected to do the day before. Josh had asked me if I would, when I visited the Vatican, try to locate a small door where unwanted babies are left to be raised by the church. So instead of seeing the Chapel, I walked the perimeter of the Vatican looking for this door. I found three doors. One was this back door, which I don’t think was it.



The second was a door for the Vatican train. The Vatican has it’s own train line if you didn’t know. The doors were huge steel. I found a path that lead up to the rail lines. The lines were fenced off and the path, paved, ended there. But next to the path, on the Vatican side, was a small grove of trees, which was enclosed by a waist high wall. There was a break in the wall and I figured two things, maybe the door I was looking for was back there in the grove, because I assumed a door like that would have to be both secluded and accessible and this place fit the bill. And second that those big steel doors were cool and I wanted to get a closer look. So I made my way into the grove of trees. The grove broke into a small lawn before hitting the Vatican wall and as I came out of the trees into this lawn I noticed out of the corner of my eye a couple standing there looking at me.



I glanced up and found them both with I-just-been-caught eyes. It was a young woman, pretty but street hard, and an older man, nicely dressed. I kept walking, the space wasn’t that big. I realized that I had intruded into some sort of transaction. Either at the beginning or the end of a transfer of money for sex or drugs. I walked up to the train doors. Looked at them for a moment. Nodded like I was really interested and turned around to see what they were up to. But they had left. So that was interesting. I also found this door.



Of the three doors that were accessible on the whole exterior of the Vatican, this is the most likely candidate for the baby-leaving door. But I don’t think this is it either.
I met Kathryn at 1 and we had a good talk about my thesis. She gave me some good advice and directions to go. In the afternoon Hope and I went to a couple of museums. I was ready to leave Rome and not really go back ever. That night we were going to have dinner at an another restaurant. But sitting there, looking at the prices, feeling the vibe off the waiter we deiced to just go back and have pizza and beers again. Which was fine by me. The next morning I woke up at four to catch a bus to make my flight to Paris. I left Hope in Rome. She was headed back to the states having decided that a) it was too expensive to come to Norway and dive in the North Sea and b) she had had enough time with me the last three weeks.
I made my flight and landed in Paris a 10am. It felt good to be back in Paris. I dropped off my bags and headed to the Dali museum. A collection of drawings by Dali. Illustrations for various literary works Gargantua and Pantagruel, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Tristan and Isolda. I liked these drawings a lot, but was disappointed there were none of his paintings there. Then I went back to the Louver and wondered around the ancient Egypt and Greece exhibits. I was exhausted and found my way back to the Hotel. I got a couple of beers and some food and ate in my room watching French television. The next day I was back in Oslo. And that was my trip to the continent.
And now here I am. I was exhausted when I got here, and a little sick. I had a cold. So I took the last week and rested. I am now getting back into the work. I visited a great church my Knut Knutson the other day. It was by Ikea, where I bought a new chair to read in. That’s pretty exciting. I’ve been sitting on crappy chairs and the bed, which is pretty uncomfortable for three months. Now I can lounge a little, be comfortable while I read. I’ve got a couple of buildings lined up to visit in the next week. And then maybe I’ll start trying to meet people at the architecture school.
To recap, Paris is the best European city I’ve been too. Bavaria has great people and good food. Venice is a charming city loaded with tourists and Italians. Rome has few redeeming qualities. Oslo is where I live.

As a side note two men just showed up at my door looking for faults in the alarm system. I told you about the first alarm that went off and how it was the middle of the night and how I had ripped the alarm from the ceiling in a confused effort to make it stop. Well, it turned out I ripped a few wires from their housing and these men were here to fix it. The alarm goes off a lot as it turns out. A couple times a week. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening. I think people are starting to ignore it because less and less people are outside waiting for the firemen to come and turn it off. I myself have thought about ignoring it figuring if it really was a fire, and my life became threatened, I could jump out the window. It’s not that high up. I am also pretty much at the exit, so unless the fire were at my door, I’d be fine. But that’s dangerous thinking. I’ll probably just leave when the alarm goes off like I have all my life. Following the alarm bell out of the building so I don’t die in the “fire”.

...and, well, Venice

Italy was not the most impressive place on the trip. Both Venice and Rome were filled with two types of people, both largely disagreeable: the tourists and the Italians.

In Venice we stayed at a campground across the water in a place called Fusina. Camping Fusina. We arrived about 7pm and so didn’t have time to go into town that first night. The campground was decent. It was really cheap. 14 dollars a night for a “cabin”. There were tent sights and trailer hook ups available as well. Two restaurants, a bar and Internet service. A boat left from across the street to Venice and it was pretty cheap also. It only ran until 10pm though, so the first night we ate at a restaurant at the campsite. I was stoked to have real Italian food made by real Italians. In Italy, most of the restaurants are Italian. The food was mediocre; it was a campsite restaurant after all. But the wine, the wine was awesome. A cheap red house.

After the meal we went and sat outside and had a few beers from the bar. We met some people and I took their picture. Drank a few beers not nearly as good as the wine. On the way back to the cabin we found one of the restaurants had turned into a dance club. We went in and had another beer. Hope met some Australians on a huge bus tour. We hung out for a while. Hope got sick and went to bed and I stayed and bullshitted with the Australians. Good bunch of people. Most of them were blue collar, electricians and carpenters and the like.

The next day we got up early to catch the first boat into Venice. It was a thirty-minute trip across the water and it was a brilliant way to enter Venice.

Venice, early morning ferry ride


I found Venice to be architecturally charming. The canals, the bridges, the jagged streets and winding alleys. I enjoyed navigating the city, although I found it really difficult to keep my bearings. Eventually, I began to navigate from Campo to Campo and Piazza to Piazza. I would say, I want to go to this place. That will take me through this campo and this piazza and then it’s right there.







I was in Venice to attend the Architecture Biennale. I was pretty stoked for this event. In my mind it sort of means something larger then it is in reality. There is a Biennale every year. But it alternates between architecture and art. Essentially, for the architecture anyway, there is a theme and each country produces an installation based on that theme. This year, the theme was Cities. In addition to the country pavilions, there was a large exhibit about the cities of the world and the importance of understanding the urban environment. This was cool. There was also an exhibit about stone architecture that was great.

Urban Exhibit


I organized this adventure to the Biennale because Sverre Fehn designed the Nordic Pavilion and so I went to take pictures of it and draw it.





I even talked my way into the back rooms and took some photos of the bathroom.



The building was beautiful. Simple, gracious. Not perfect. I went back twice, and the second day I met ladies who got the pavilion ready into the morning. (They are the ones who let me into the backrooms.) Their job was to clean up the pigeon crap off the floor since the pavilion was not closed to the outside, the joist being exposed on the ends, pigeons made their nest there in the night. But still, the place was inspired. It’s one of the first buildings I encountered by Fehn when I began architecture.

The exhibits as a whole I found lacking a certain passion. A few stood out, though. The American exhibit was all about the devastation in New Orleans and Mississippi with some urban solutions to building in flood regions. This was both touching and well done. I also liked the Korean exhibit. They had a series of boxes that opened like books. They were on a shelf incorporated into an undulating wall. There were several sets marked by different colors. Each box contained some artifact from a different place in Seoul. But the exhibit I found the most intriguing was the French (Which continues my theme of thinking France rocks.) They had built a little community in their pavilion called Metavilla.







It was different work/live spaces built out of scaffolding. There was a kitchen, a nest of sleeping spaces, some work areas, a TV space, and on the roof were the showers, bathrooms and sauna. And they had people working and living there as part of the exhibit.

I went two days because the first day my battery ran out while I was taking pictures of the Fehn’s building and the other battery was back at the cabin in my backpack. Hope didn’t go the first day because she wanted to go to Murano. Murano is a glassblowing island off of Venice. So I met her in the afternoon. The second day Hope didn’t go either, because it wasn’t that interesting for the twenty bucks it cost to get in. I met her in the afternoon again at a restaurant on a campo. We started drinking wine at 3 and stayed there until after 7. Drinking wine all afternoon on campo in Venice, it turns out, is one of my favorite things to do. All the people with their families come out and inhabit the square. There were few tourists. It was really pleasant.

We were in Venice for three nights. And then we flew to Rome. Also full of two types of people.