B&B Cancabaia, Santa Maria del Piano

This school week was full of drawing, I have a mid term assignment that is to draw two statues from the Bargello Museum, it sounds pretty ordinary, but the fun twist is that one is done in white charcoal (aka chalk) on black paper, and the other is graphite and black ink on white paper. I am having tons of fun drawing these, they are both of boys struggling with fish that they have just caught, but they are very different in form, one seems very European and the other looks almost like it came out of South America or the Philippines. The interesting thing about drawing projects in a museum is that you become a tourist attraction. People don't hesitate to creep over your shoulder, or talk to you, and often they take pictures. Some days I wanna put out a hat or a cup or something and see if I can make some extra cash while doing my homework.  A cardboard sign maybe "Struggling artist, anything helps."

 Only kidding, but the thought crossed my mind.

Fishing Putto by Giambologna. Il Museo Bargello 1561-1562
13.10.2011

Il Pescatore by Vincenze Gemito. Il Museo Bargello
13.10.2011

Fishing Putto. Part one of my midterm project
18.10.2011

Il Pescatore. Part two of my midterm project
17.10.2011

Other than that I have been learning more and more about photoshop every week, and it is getting increasingly painful to edit my photos on iphoto, but you work with what you have, and if I actually edited all my photos on photoshop, I would not have any time for anything else, it is so addicting. We also did a classical project in photo class, which is taking street photos with a film camera, We'll find out soon if any of mine turned out well, I havent shot film in a really long time, and the light meter on our camera was hit or miss. If I get any good ones I'll upload them. 

An extra goodie for you
My friend Meg attempting to lure in pigeons in Venice
9.10.2011

Over the weekend a few friends and I went out to Parma and stayed at a bed and breakfast on a cheese farm. This might have been my favorite weekend here so far. The B&B is called Cancabaia, and is close to Parma but is actually in the town of Santa Maria del Piano. Although it is actually really easy to get there we were lost since 10am friday morning. The train tickets we bought at one station were actually for a train that leaves from a the OTHER train station in Florence. Which we didn't find out until it was too late, and the train that could take us to that station closed its doors on us. So we waited in the big line to change our tickets, and we got on a train that made us transfer in Bologna, but the second ticket didn't day which train we were supposed to transfer to, so we just hopped on one that we thought would be right, and it was, but if they had checked our tickets, we would have been in big trouble, cause we were in the first class car, and on a train that goes to parma, but not the one we paid for. Once we got off the train we walked around parma a bit and then got on the bus we thought was going to the B&B but it was the #12 to some random place, not the #12 to Lesignano, ugh, so we rode the whole route out and back to Parma the hopped the last bus to Lesignano, and even then we missed our stop... luckily the couple who runs the B&B, Simona and Bruno are the nicest people, and they came and picked our lost butts up and took us to the house. We brought them flowers and a bottle of wine, when we gave the flowers to Simona she was almost in tears, I don't think people usually do that but she really appreciated it. Because they are so nice, and probably cause we brought them a gift they invited us in immediately for a glass of wine made by a friend of theirs at a vineyard nearby, and cheese from their cheesery. This was so special and we immediately knew this was going to be a sweet weekend. We found out that Bruno was born and raised at the farm and took over for his parents when he was grown. I think the farm has been in the family for 3 generations, and it used to be really big but has since decreased in size. Their farm is a part of a co-op of farmers, there are 5 farms that contribute to the parmesan cheese making and the factory is right out front of the B&B. We had huge comfy beds, and a kick-ass breakfast each morning, with jams, cheeses, yoghurt, and pastries, all homemade. Delicious. 

The only photo I took on Friday, a delicious and beautiful cake for two in Parma
14.10.2011

On Saturday we went in to parma for some of the day and explored the market, and the Kuminda which is kind of like a farmers market, but it goes on for 4 days. It is all local, or fair trade goods, organic foods, and goods straight from the farms around Parma. Being in Parma felt like I was back in Bellingham for a little bit, it is smaller than florence, less tourists, less people, and so much organic, local, and fair trade stuff. It was refreshing and made me miss Bham a little. That night we got a little bit of homework done, it is after all midterms week. That night Bruno and Simona made reservations for us at an agritourismo restaurant in Lesignano. Their menu changes daily and everything is local, fresh, and organic, not to mention DELICIOUS. I had walnut tortella (basically a ravioli) and I was in heaven. We were so stuffed afterward, that after Bruno picked us up he invited us in to the house for some limoncello, which is strong, but aids in digestion, he also brought out a blueberry-grapa limoncello type liqueur, and a basil one too, we sat around and talked to Bruno for a bit before we headed off to bed. 

the tool shed out front of the B&B
15.10.2011

In the morning on sunday Bruno gave us a personal tour of his cheese factory (cheesery) and showed us their aging house with about 1.5 million dollars of real Parmesan in it, not the fake stuff we usually get sold in the states. I pretty much became a parmesan cheese snob in one morning. Then he showed us his cows in the barn, one of them was pregnant and due any day now. After this we had breakfast with the other guests, one of which plays for the Italian National Rugby team, cool! Then Bruno got one of his friends who owns a Parma ham factory (Prosciutto) to have is son give us a private tour of the ham factory, a medium sized operation, that holds itself to very high standards. We walked through all the rooms of ham with different stages of curing meat. It was kinda gross, but still really cool. When we got back we decided to hitch a ride into Parma with Bruno and Simona, so we were packing up our stuff and bruno comes up to our rooms and says that the Pregnant cow is giving birth and if we wanted to watch we were welcome. So of course we said yes, and hurried down to the barn. I won't go into detail, but this was one of the coolest and grossest things I have seen in my life. The calf was a healthy baby girl, and Bruno let us name her, Emilia. After the birth we cruised into town and walked around a bit until we had to catch our train home to study for mid-terms, boo. 

Baby Emilia and her proud Mama Georgia about 2 min after birth
16.10.2011

And here I am, not quite studying... but I'm mostly prepared so I figured I'd get this thing all caught up, done.

Also sorry for the excess of words, but I just don't want to forget anything about this weekend, it was that cool!