Switzerland

I finally made it to Switzerland. Wifi access has been scarce so I'm finally posting pictures now. I've had a busy couple days. We started out visiting Lake Como in Italy and form there went to Lake Lugano. We've been to Bellinzona, Corripo, Gorduno, and Vals so far. I'm adding pictures as I have time and as the wifi connection allows me, so I'll post more with more information on each of the places that I visited.

Tour of Vicenza in B&W

Time Lapse to Studio

I tried to do a time lapse video of my commute to studio. It was the first attempt and didn't come out as well as would have liked, so I'll be trying again soon, but thought I would post this in the meantime.

The Veneto

We spent the day touring the Veneto region of Italy. We visited Bassano del Grappa, Treviso, Fanzolo, Caldogno, Possagno, and Asolo. Highlights from the day included the pink bus that we rode around in for the day. We got more than a few looks a laughs because it could not have stood out anymore. We also visited more Carlo Scarpa projects, as well as some more Palladio villas. 

Earthquakes Yesterday, Flooding Today

It's rained a good amount today and the rivers have started flooding in Vicenza. The picture of the bridge below is were the water levels were yesterday and the one below it is from 3 this afternoon, so the rivers have risen quite a bit. The last 3 pictures are from the bride by my apartment that crosses the other river in Vicenza. 

Earthquake

Well the excitement continues. We had an earthquake early this morning. I was just getting home and was getting ready to head to bed, when I thought I heard a really loud truck driving up the road. The apartment began to gradually shake, and it took me a bit, but I finally realized what was going on. It was a 5.9 and happened just outside Bologna with a couple minor ones following. It was a quite a bit south, but was pretty strong in Vicenza. It woke everyone up at 4 am this morning. Only the people that had lived in CA knew what it was. The strangest thing about earthquakes is the fact that you can hear them coming. It's a little odd to have experienced an earth quake. The whole time I've been on this trip, I have wondered what would happen to all these old buildings in an earthquake. At least in Vicenza, there were no damages.

We've been getting aftershocks all morning. Most have been to small to feel but there have been a couple pretty large ones. We just had a 5.1 at about 3:15 while I was in studio. This one lasted for quite a while and no one seemed to know what to do. We've since googled it and if we need to, we are prepared if it happens again. No one will be leaving the building and we'll be under our desks.

So, we are still getting aftershocks. There have been 5 that I've felt with the largest one being a 5.1 earlier this afternoon. It's been really interesting just how many we've felt in the last 16 hours. We have a window in studio that will begin to shake just before we are able to feel the building shake. It's become a good indicator for an oncoming earthquake.

Quick Update From Vicenza

I just wanted to write a quick update of what I've been up to. I've been pretty busy with school. We went to Verona this past week and next week we will be going to Padova. We do a lot of sketching and I've been posting some of those.

A funny story, I've been getting a lot of sun and my skin has been really dry and itchy so I thought I'd get some lotion to help with it. While I was at the market, I stood looking at the shelf of hygiene products trying to decipher what could be lotion. I decided that the bottle of Dove that had a small blurb about moisture was the best bet and I bought. I used it for a couple of days and thought it was the weirdest lotion I'd ever used, but just assumed it was some Italian thing. It seemed to be working after all. After a couple days I decided to translate the bottle and figure out what it really said. I wasn't quite convinced I had bought lotion anymore. I translated it, and it turns out I bought a bottle of bubble bath, not lotion and had been using it for a couple days. I've got to get deodorant and a few other things. I think I'll get the Italian translation of those before I got to the market to buy them. Other than that, not much else is going on, and things are still going really well.