Month: June 2018

Death, Budapest, and New Friends

I finally learned how the metro system! This is truly amazing since I was completely lost coming here. It was honestly very simple to understand. One of the things that stood out to me this week was visiting the cemetery. It was very strange and somewhat dark, yet really beautiful. I enjoyed seeing the dramatic and extremely detailed tombstones. While walking around, I reminisced about the importance of life and how short it is. The cemetery honestly gave me the motivation to push through my dreams and struggles. Yes, it was eerie but also very refreshing.

Como is a beautiful city! It rained a little bit but we were still able to see the site. I spent most of my time with Linda, Karina, Pamela, and Baylea… it seems like I am going to make some lifelong friends. Stay tuned to see if Milan makes or breaks us…

This weekend I also went to Budapest. Somewhat similar to Milan in architecture but not in people or language. It was definitely my first time in Austria. They seemed to like alcohol a lot. I went with Karina, Kate, and Courtney. It was a nice 3 days weekend. We did go on a cruise which was very nice since we got to see all the touristy spots at night. We also went to see a castle and a palace.

 

A weekend trip to Budapest!

Another week in Milan and I’m already so used to everything. No GPS is needed to get back home from key areas of the city, and (for the most part) I can order coffee and a croissant. This week was a long one. A cemetary, science museum, design studios, and a trip to Como. I’m truly learning so much about design and starting to connect a lot of things I knew with different aspects.

At the end of the week, I went to Budapest with Kate, Jojo, and Courtney. Kate had a family friend that lives over there and he was SO SWEET. He picked us up from the airport and had someone help us buy a metro pass so we knew how to navigate the city. Budapest is actually split into two different parts: Buda and Pest (which I did not know). The whole city was a lot more quiet than Milan, and I could definitely still feel the remnants of communism.

The first day we did a pub crawl with some other backpackers. These bars were just so cool. They were all in sort of old ruins of buildings. The next day we went to the thermal baths and just relaxed all day. We also did a night cruise on the Danube river where we were able to see magnificent bridges. On our last day, we walked around and went to the castle hill to admire the city even more. All in all, it was a beautiful trip with great friends.

 

A Day in Bellinzona

After a long fun week, I took the bus to Bellinzona to meet my Swiss friend that I haven’t seen in more than 4 years. I was late to the bus and almost missed it, but I got there when the driver was planning to leave. On the way, the view was amazing; the mountains arched down to meet the water, reflecting their image. The green trees covered the side of the road, the sun was just peeking… It was magical. When I almost made it to Lugano, the first stop, the driver had to take the town road instead of the highway to avoid the police (questionable but worth it). Lugano was breathtaking! Going through the town streets, the lake reached so far and so long it was hard to miss. The sun was a bit higher and I could start seeing the light hit the water and make it look like diamonds are floating on the surface.

On My Way to Bellinzona

About 45 minutes later, the driver announced that we got to Bellinzona and I left the bus, however I was actually 30 minutes far from the city, by foot. I asked around and took a bus to get to the city where I met my friend. Since we were both strangers, we first started by walking around the city. It was very busy, and many locals had food stands on the streets as if it was Saturday food market. Also, it was the Italian canton, so most locals spoke more Italian than Swiss-German. We walked through the stands and sat at park for a little, then we decided to eat. She really wanted me to try Swiss beer, so we kept looking till we found a restaurant that served good beer and we ate there.

Swiss Beer with My Swiss Friend, Cheers!

After, we decided to visit the Castle of Bellinzona, it was huge! We walked all around it, and we went underground. After the long walk, we had a glass of Coca-Cola in the castle’s courtyard like true princesses, only we weren’t! After the castle, my friend took me to buy Swiss chocolate and then I took the train back to my bus station. The day was very fun and I wish I stayed longer, but the best part was seeing my friend again :)

The Castle of Bellinzona
A Small Pond in the Castle

 

Rocky Start… Rocky Roads

The plane ride to Milan was pretty exhausting. There were times of discomfort. The second plane ride had a lot of turbulence which completely freaked me out but I did some prayers and gave my worries to the big guy upstairs. It was easier to bear knowing the city I was going to was the fashion capital of the world. Once I got to Milan, I had a rocky start at the airport. I could not find the proper queue where my luggage was supposed to be and the nice Italian guys at the airport only spoke Italian (which make sense but did not help my anxiety). I ended up taking a taxi home to a small but cozy apartment on Via Ausonio. I love how addresses work here. It’s really simple and I feel that America should have picked a similar way of making addresses. Inside my snug Italian apartment, I met Neesha and Celeste who will be my roommates on this trip. Throughout the week we ended up seeing the Duomo. That is where I met everyone on the trip. We had a dinner at Karina’s house with everyone and had amazing pasta made by Baylea and cheese bread made my Pamela. It was great! The whole group bonded pretty quickly. I also became a gelato addict… probably going to have one every day now.

is armani alright?

On Wednesday this week we all visited the Armani Silos in Milan.

I thought that this exhibit was really unique, a little bit strange and fun.
a series from the exhibit.

We started out by looking through the art exhibition that had on the ground floor. A lot of it focused on photography done by Paolo Ventura involving a series of portraits that depicted an odd story. I can’t say that I completely understood them all but they were on a broad range of being deep and dark to silly and confusing. Characters included clowns, twin soldiers, children, dolls, and uninterestered women. We are going through dreams, personal conflicts, social interactions and life with the photo series… and we can even see this in Armani’s clothing collection.

Now… let’s talk about the Armani collection. I thought that it was pretty cool to see the transitions throughout the garments over the years and seasons BUT I didn’t really like some of their exhibition floors — specifically the “Ethnicities” exhibit.

First of all, why even name an exhibit “ethnicity” when there are over 175,000 words in the dictionary. This wasn’t about people’s ethnicities, it was about cultural appropriation used in his work. He says he was inspired by these different cultures —

“I avoid merely copying traditional forms, styles, and decorations, preferring instead to explore a reinterpretation that is both decisive and nuanced. This is my personal idea of exoticism: imagining and reinterpreting an ‘elsewhere,’ capturing its purity, it’s capacity to move the soul.” 

Most of his work literally looked like traditional clothing remade with expensive fabric. I interpreted his quote to mean that he intended to pull little threads of inspiration from these different countries to add an eclectic twist on modern clothing. He definitely did NOT do that in all of his pieces.

This isn’t the first time he attempted to culturally appropriate in his designs… Just last year he received about the doobie hairstyles of his models were wearing at a show.

I would just like to say that although it’s a pretty weird exhibit and I have some opinions about his work, everything was interesting to look at and learn about. It was interesting to see the transitions between seasons and years with fabrics, styles, colors, etc.

 

I watched a girl kill a lavender plant at Milano Arch Week

Sunday was the final day of the Milano Arch Week, so I and some others went to a lecture by Toyo Ito. He’s famous. I didn’t know that, but some of his work looks like stuff you can get in a Sims 4 expansion pack, so you can say I’m familiar with his work. The garden area of the Triennale was packed (this is when we realized that he’s a famous architect), so a girl sat down on one of the plants. Not very nice…

I enjoyed his lecture about combatting homogenization in Tokyo’s architecture. Newer architecture in Japan is very rational and strict (I’m not sure if this is what Ito meant by “homogeneous” though), in contrast to Milan’s architecture, which I feel is more unique to the designer and period. His main goal in his projects is to create a space that functions well for the area and the people using it. This is done by both drawing from and integrating nature. For example, the Gifu Library Ito built acts like a living structure, and adjusts its temperature by using water from the land around it (or something like that, I don’t get physics).

WordPress won’t let me upload photos, so here is a photo
of the Tama University Library from an Australian website.

I thought it was interesting to think about Ito’s goal in comparison to the Milan designer, Portaluppi. Like Portaluppi, Ito’s work is a reaction to rapid urbanization, although his focuses more on the functionality of a specific space, whereas Portaluppi wanted to capture a message through structure and aesthetic.

Week 2 in Milan

Week 2 went by so fast, it feels like I’ve been here for months! This week was full of adventure and getting my sleep schedule on track.

The highlight of my week was visiting Alessi/Omegna and Florence.

I had known about Alessi for a while so I was super excited about going to the museum. It was so interesting hearing about their point scale system for determining whether an object would be original or successful enough. For example, if an element got a total score of 12, it was then deemed not interesting enough. It was also fascinating to see the multiple prototypes and final products. If only I visited Alessi before taking Introduction to Design…

My favorite item I saw there was this beautiful cutlery set. Future home purchase? Maybe so.

The view at Omegna was breathtaking! I definitely will head back there one day.

On Saturday, Kalissa, Celeste, Moira and I decided to take a train to Florence for the day. We got up 4 am and called Heetch (a car service like Uber) to get to the station. Once we got to Florence we quickly noticed that more people were speaking English than Italian, which is dramatically different than here in Milan. The best of the day was visiting the Gucci Garden. Gucci Garden is a museum/store dedicated to all things Gucci. The exhibition talked about the history of the brand as well as showcasing several pieces that reflected it over the years.

It was also in Florence that I had the best fruit tart I’ve ever had in my life. It was worth every bite.

And that was my week.