:: TUPY'S Invade Italia ::

So the adventure begins! Nov 19th the parents and niki took off from Des Moines, flew through Denver then on the Philly and finally destination ROME. the rest of this post I'm inserting from my mom's journal, so please excuse motherly humor that might seem a little cheesy.

DAY ONE:

Our arrival in Roma was about an hour late and now to find the rail to downtown Termini Station. We did it in 40 minutes and there just as we got off the train and walked down the platform was Lisa. Lots of hugs and kisses.

Our first Experience was in a roman taxi. very interesting... noticed that Italians don't really like to follow traffic laws. However our driver was very nice! first stop was our apartment, very quaint and cute. A mix of modern and antique. Wants be got settled a bit we walked around the area and had our first gelato! Mom's fav was lemon, light and refreshing. Next we walked around to some other sites including Tiber Island, the Pantheon, and Largo Argentina (Lisa calls it the Cat Sanctuary) a few churches and Piazza Navona. Despite getting completely soaked in the Rain and having to avoid 500 umbrella salesman. We had a wonderful first day.

Dried off at the apartment than headed out for dinner. Had a little trouble finding place open that you didn't need a reservation at. Found a place a settled in. A few of the highlights: Mom made our server hate us almost immediately by melting the menu on the candle that was on the table for some reason she thought the burnt plastic smell was coming from the kitchen. Italians literally eat 5-course meals and I don't think they like it when we only order from the Primi Section. Italians eat very late. most places don't even open until 7:30 pm. Italian wine is EXCELLENT! we finished off our first night in Rome by stopping for a drink at a pub near our apartment then it was time for a good night's sleep.

DAY TWO::

Rose from a good nights sleep, then off to our Vatican Tour. On the way to our meeting spot Lisa took us to Capitaline Hill which is home to some of the building that house Rome's government and the Capitoline Museum. Also a great place for a view of the Roman Forum. We next headed towards the coloseum and had a wonderful view of the outside as walked around to find our guide at our meeting place Piazza Republica. Justin our tour guide from Rome(ing) tours a company he owns with a Decorah native took us on a great tour of the Vatican Area that included a great (informative and comical) description of how christianity can to Rome, the Bridge of Angels by Bernini, which took us over the tiber river and in front of the castle. We next headed down the long street and at the end was St. Peter's Square and Basilica. A wonderful thing to be walking towards.

Our first stop was actually a small Panini place that we were promised would give us the best sandwiches we'd ever tasted and Justin was right. Here we also learned that if a faucet doesn not have a handle (which most do not in Rome) it is run using a foot pedal on the floor and that most toliets don't have seats on top.

Onto the Vatican Museum. WE saw a number of statues that were used as inspiration in the paintings of the Sistine chapel and learned that Michelangelo and Bernini are basically the most amazing artists ever! Also that the Swiss Guards in the Sistine Chapel take their jobs very seriously, shouting, 'no picture' and 'shhhh' often. At one point I think I even might have heard them say 'no fun'. Other interesting facts: the vatican is home to the largest Pine cone! ( a bronze statue located in the courtyard). We love Canadians. not only was our tour guide canadian (and very good looking in the opinion of Lisa and Niki) but the other couple on the tour were from Canada and were a great addition to the group.

Next stop St. Peter's Basilica. an extraordinary work of art. had a discussion about the controversey of the Pieta (mary holding her dead child, Jesus by Michelangelo). and watched a procession of priests/cardinals as they entered daily mass.

That night we had a great meal at Trillusa Taverina. we were told the food was fresh, it was like eating out of a pan. That was no metaphor! they literally brought out the pan that they used to cook the food in and we ate out of it. Delicious and a great way to celebrate mom and dad's 30th anniversary!

DAY THREE ::

We (Bob/joan/niki) took off to the Coloseum for an adventure, Lisa had classes. Got a tour guide and headed in. learned 100,000 people died building it and even more in games. Also that it was a christian pilgramidge site because of all the saints martyered there. It was absolutely huge. Next off to Palentine Hill (new guide short little italian with a ponytail) we learned again about all the different Roman Emperors and Nero came to the top as being a bad ass. I'm glad he doesn't rule now!

Our next trip was to the East to St. John Lateran, the church where Pope Benedict says mass. We took a quick tour it again was huge. All the tour guides say "when the roman's do it... they do it big" and yes the church was enormous. Building across the street had the holy stairs, the only way up is to ascend on your knees one at a time.

Stomach's were grumbling and we had not eaten all day except for the "faithful traveling pumpkin break" (the one food Lisa had requested we bring from america, she said it wouldn't be thanksgiving without it). So we crossed the street and grabbed some Pizza then back to the apartment to shower for our dinner date with the Nation's (a roommate of Lisa's family that was also visit now).

Mom's Recap Narrated through the Pumpkin Bread's Point of view... quite humorous!

3 hours before we leave for des moines a phone call comes thru for a plea "Please Bring Pumpkin Bread to Rome" so quickly I pull out recipes to find out no pumpkin.. up to dorothy's to borrow and then together it goes.. into the oven and cooled a little but and put into a Nike Box and pkgd into our checked luggage. The big loaf and small loaf travel by car to Ankeny stays first night a niki's home then off into Dana's jeep for a trip to the airport Then it is tossed around in cargo from Des moines airport to Denver, CO. where it is hit by ice fog and bad end Turbulence bat with a little rest now goes on to Pilly where it had 2 1/2 hour rest before the overnight flight to Rome. The Tupy's picked me up and rolled me across the terminal to the u-rail which took me to downtown Termini station. I met Lisa but she didn't know I was hiding in the Nike show box which then I got rolled around on bumpy cobblestone streets to a taxi... wizzed around to the apartment where I rested for a day. The next day Lisa took Baby loaf away I heard it was devoured at her apartment within an hour maybe shared with friends. meanwhile I a resting in the frig and a slice or two is sliced off each morning for the Tupy's Breakfast. On Wed. I'm back into Nike for a bumpy walk to Lisa's apartment then on bus ride to Termini and U-rail to florence where I again sleep for a day in the shoe box.

ONTO TO FLORENCE ::

arrived and walked to Hotel Donatello, where we were staying. Found the receptionist a funny curly haired Italian with lots of fire. But the minute you started to ask her any questions she went crazy, so we decided better off not to ask. WE headed towards St. Mark's Square and the Duomo. WE were amazed how much faster you could get around Florence vs. Rome. We stumbled upon the Duomo unexpectedly and found ourselves in AWE. After snapping some pictures and a detour into a shoe store quick it was off to find Florence's Best Mexican Restuarant since Lisa's was craving guacamole (it had been months, which is torture to her) WE navigated to Tijuana located on Ghibellina which we decided was the "fun" part of town. Noisey and lively streets! After our appetizer and a pitcher of Margaritas off to another restaurant for supper.

FLORENCE ::

Catching Up

So I just realized a skipped over London! so here's a little recap...

Stayed outside of the city center a ways at the Hillspring Lodge. Bed's here were ten times more comfy than our apartment. awesome. Our first full day in London me n katie met up with Karen a friend from ISU that was studying in Spain this semester. We met in front of the Big Ben strolled the river up towards London Bridge, pretty long walk. Ate at a fun pub on the way there had ale. Feels like food is the one thing thats not outrageously expensive here. Saw London Bridge and Tower. I was surprised at how modern the architecture was around that area.

A couple metro lines were down the weekend we were there, and London, being so huge it was a little bit hard to get around. That night we explored Picadilly Circus and Oxford Circus, seems like the times square area of London, very lively and bright.

London is overall great, to me its the perfect mix of modern and old. Thumbs up to accents, phone booths, and fish and chips! The next day we made it to Abbey Road, explored harrod's department store, another pub, Buckingham Palace, and Green and Hyde Park. While waiting for the guards to change at Buckingham there was actually a procession and the queen was chaufered into the Palace.

outside buckingham

Karen, me and Katie in front of Big Ben

Abbey Road

View from London Bridge

:: INVENZIONE :: Rome Show!

So last night was the big occasion.. we held a student work exhibition in our studio space and we all got to look at each others work along with all our professors and other friends and students around rome. I was a lot of fun and a great end to the semester's studies. Now a couple days of relaxing in rome then back to the states... its gone by too fast. Oh also the last couple days we've had some free time to do some fun stuff two days ago we explored Villa Doria Pamphili a beautiful park in the Trastevere hill and today we hiked it up St.Peter's Dome so theres a couple pics from that also. AMAZING VIEWS!

graphic design work at the show

the table with some of work displayed

me allison madison and ariel enjoying some wine after a great semester!

Me n kels on top of St Peter's Dome

Villa Doria Pamphili. Absolutely beautiful

Another 2 bite the dust!

haha ok so excuse the extremely cheesy title ... but like said in the previous post caffine craziness is def here to stay! Finished two projects in the last couple days so thought I'd share. The first is Rome Squares a project that has been ongoing throughout the semester and now at the end developed into a book to explore through type and image our time here in europe. The second is a typographic experiment to develop a 27th letter to the alphabet. For the project we had to combine all the letters found in a prefix or sufix of our choice. I decided to go for the suffix -ful. The project included the letterform itself and then a poster to introduce it within words.

Once again hope you enjoy the designs!

10 days mark...

time has gone by sooo fast here only 10 days left. Finding out rome is no different and no matter where you are in the world the end of the semester is still and Chaotic, busy time of no sleep and way too much caffeine!! Projects are starting to round up and we have our final Rome Exhibition here in Rome, next wednesday. I just finished up another Advanced Typography project where we had to design and construct a book on a set up opposites somehow connected with Rome. Here are a couple pics from my final book. Yay the end is getting closer!!

view of one spread

close up typography

looking down the whole project

another type close up

Switzy land!!!

ahhhh so it's been over a month since my last post... I'll try to catch up over the next couple days.

I'll start with our north field trip to Switzerland!

We traveled by train starting in rome changing trains in Milan than off to Zurich Switzerland. It was a very long ride around 8 hours, but worth ever minute while we were coasting through the swiss alps. Absolutely breathtaking views of snow topped mountains and waterfalls spilling out from the cliffs.

Upon arriving in Zurich our first stop was a Graphic Design Poster Gallery, where we got to see works top swiss designers. Our guide then took us down into the archives where they house the entire collection and let us see an original Art Nouveau Mucha Poster close up. For a graphic designer this was incredible, spine tingling. It would pry be the equivilant of catching a homerun ball from your favorite player or something lol.

After the museum we checked into our hostel which was quite far away from the city center but very nice, and modern. The rest of the night was on our own so we went out to find some food later... finding out zurich is very expensive, talking 30-80 franks for a meal... the cheapest we could find and had to settle for was a tiny italian restaurant where we found pizza for 15 something we would have only payed 8 for in rome...

The next day we were off to Basel, another hour and a half train ride. Basel, was much prettier and more of a small town feel. It borders both france and germany so when we were there it was only about a 20 minute car ride to either country. Once again our hostel was veryyy nice, clean and great breakfast so sneak lunch from! Exploring Basel there was a carnival around every corner. Fair rides and food stands lined all the main squares and parks. It was a very fun cultural atmosphere. It reminded me alot of Prague but not quite as bohemian. While here we visited the Vitra design museum, crossing over the germany line. A lot of the building on the complex being done by Frand O.Gehry were works of art themselves. We took an architectural tour of the facilities, then got to spend a couple of hours inside the vitra show room. Vitra is a high end furniture line, that focuses alot on the design aspects of their pieces. Many of the pieces inside the museum art collector pieces done by famous industrial designers. It was an incredible space and must see for anyone interested in interior design or any design at all really!

In Basel we also visited an old fashioned paper mill where they still do all production and decoration by hand. We got to make our own paper starting with shifting the particles throught the water. We also got to see how print making worked and marbalize paper.

Switzerland was a great place to observe and see for graphic design. Their cities wayfinding and signs are great design examples. Home of the clean swiss design style and bold typography.

inside the vitra store house

frank o gehry architecture at vitra complex

eating curry wurst at the festivals in basel

mucha poster up close

our hostel nicer than some hotels i've stayed in!

the girls in the leaves. beautiful fall weather when we were there!

making paper at the paper meal

AMSTERDAM

beautiful train ride back through the Alps to Milan then Milan airport straight to Amsterdam.

We took a train from the airport to centrale station looks dark and lively and the canal streets look beautiful even at night! Got to our hotel its cheap, near everything, small but decently clean.

Set our bags down then walked the red light district, not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. But yes prostitutes everywhere. Met a fun group of people from Brown, studying abroad and hung out with them the rest of the night.

Morning delicious Pancake Breakfast at Sara's Pancake House. Met up with natalie and simon a girl in our major and her boyfriend. Went to the museum district and looked around, tried to see the modern art museum but it was underconstruction with only one small exhibit up. In the afternoon we visited the Ann Frank house. Great Experience very sad, but saw the space where the frank family hid and her actually diaries.

statue of anne frank in front of the house

amsterdam pier

More Videos!

Hey guys cait finished a couple more videos of our travels in Prague and Nice!

Here's the links check em out :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilvATo93l2Y

http://www.youtube.com/user/cakuhne#p/a/u/1/ilvATo93l2Y

:: 1000 Paces ::

So just got done turning in my first Advanced Typography project!!! ahhh after a late night/morning up till 4:30 am ... it feels sooo good to finally be done! The project was to document a street in rome or "1000 paces" in rome by using a mixture of imagery and letterforms, along with self-generated text on your experience there. I choose a vibrantly colored street close by our apartment Via di San Francesco, it was super lively and full of locals. It ended in the beautiful Piazza di San Francesco home to the San Francesco di Ripa church.

Here's some screen shots of it I thought I'd share with you guys... the final form in a 3-D version with multiple levels but I haven't gotten to take pictures of it yet so these will have to do!

full piece all four plates together

teeny tiny letterforms layered to create texture

my favorite plate out of the four (type dominate)

:: Bohemian Adventure ::

Last night I got home from a great weekend in Prague, Czech Republic!

We arrived in the evening on friday and went out for a great traditional Czech meal right away along with delicious Bohemian Beer of course :) Our hostel the "Czech Inn" was by far the best hostel we have stayed at yet. Was actually more like a hotel very clean and designed with a very modern style would definitely recommend it to anyone traveling to prague. We were all tired from a long week of classes so went to bed early on friday since we knew we would have a full day on saturday...

In the morning first thing we did was explore the Prague Castle Area. It was absolutely gorgeous and looked like it was straight out of a storybook. It had different buildings with the old medieval castles and basillicas but the best part was the cathedral it had gigantic stained glass windows that beamed amazing colors when the sun hit them. The whole area was like a little village separate than the city, it felt like you were stepping back into the past.

Me n kels in front of the Cathedral

Amazing colors inside from the stained glass

sweet statue

From the castle we made our way up to Petrin Hill. It was a beautiful walk up in the great cool fall weather and the changing leaves. When we reached the top we stumbled across a cool festival with lots of Czech reinactors, for those of you from Northeast Iowa it was a lot like Rendevous Days... only czech style. People were decked out in authentic outfits and lots of old fashioned food stands. We climbed the stairs to the top of the Prague version of the Eiffle Tower for more great views!

hiking up Petrin Hill

View of Prague's Eiffle

food at the festival on Petrin Hill

crazy czechs shooting guns and eating weird food hah

Going back down the hill we stopped by the Lennon Peace Wall. Dedicated to the deceased Beatle's member it used to be a protest area against communism. There had originally been a massive painting of Lennon on it but it was painted over by communist officers.. today it is a graffiti wall symbolizing peace and love. lots of beatle's lyrics and signatures and messages from visitors.

the group in front of the lenon wall

One of my writings on the wall for dad and the Busta's!

Next we explored old town and found yet another festival! The Spice and Chesse Festival again it was a lot of traditional czech food stands and some street performers with authentic czech dancers. The atmosphere was very friendly and inviting, we had a great time soaking it all in and testing some yummy crepes and candy stands!

streets of old town prague

on charles bridge

We headed back to the hostel and that night did the Prague Bar Crawl which took us to 4 different bars and ended at Pragues famous 5 story dance club. Each floor featured a different type of music and dancing!

Sunday we just bumbed around and did some more exploring of old town then at night we bought tickets for the Czech Ballet and Opera performance of "Carmen". It was my first of both and it was fantastic! the singing was amazing and it was a familiar story line so the fact that it was in french didn't bother too much haha.

exploring downtown prague

Sunday morning we left the hostel early and back to rome...

after three back to back weeks of travel I'm looking forward to some time in Rome and relaxing at the apartment... Next too weeks will be a little slower but lots of projects do...

Missing the fall weather back home! leaves are brown here :(

:: Laura's in Rome! ::

Last week a friend from Hanna Design in Colorado this summer was visiting Rome! It was great to meet up with a familiar face and catch up with her! I had dinner with her and her husband Dave at a great restaurant right on the Piazza Navona and of course some gelato afterwards. They were beginning their cruse the next day from the Rome port so they were just in the city for a couple days. It was so weird but nice to have a great conversation in English with someone outside of school... thanks so much you guys for meeting up! hope you had as much fun as I did and a great trip!

my new computer background i made :) lots of pics from ireland and some of my fav from the semester so far...

:: GALWAY GIRLS + dublin + countryside ::

Just returned yesterday from our 2nd weekend in a row traveling.

This time it was off to the grand country of Ireland with a great group Me, jackie, kelsey, and allison. We left Rome late friday night around 9 so didn't get into dublin till about 11:30.

A little rough flight.. screaming babies...

Loved the english speaking and accent right off the bat when we landed even thought we were tired we knew we were in for a great weekend. We checked into the Abigail Hostel very close to the Temple bar area, but instead of hitting the town crashed since we had a 7:30 am train to catch. This was our first encounter with what seemed like a parade of snorers for the weekend to come... we didn't get too good of a night sleep but adrenaline and excitment carried us through the early morning and we made our way to Hueston Station a short taxi ride from our hostel. The trains were very clean and comfortable.

The excitement started on the train when we noticed the entire car next to us was reserved and everyone in it was wearing a red spandex suit with weird tentacles coming out of the top... we were a little weirded out but then just thought there must be some sort of festival going on in the one of the cities. We brushed it off till well into the train ride when the food cart came around the people started crawling around on the ground following the vendor man. It was extremely weird so we asked the vendor guy what the heck was up! he tried to explain to us that they were part of a very popular ad in the UK supposedly for a snack called figrolls... they were supposed to be tastebuds and as a type of advertising campaign the "tastebuds" rode the train. When we reached galway around 10:00 am they all stampeded off the train through the town and at the center of a near park was a large cardboard cut out of a figroll package. They gathered around it chanting and practically worshipping the thing! it was by far one of the weirdest things I've seen in my life... I guess it was successfull advertising! haha

OK enough bout that..

Galway! by far the cutest small town I've been to yet in Europe... Although the weather is gloomy the people and colors there are definitely not!!! The Colorful section of town known as the Latin Quarter is full of pubs and restaurants and some of the best street performers we have seen so far. Rather than a man with a guitar on a street corner there were full out bands playing on the corner. Violins, chellos, harps, traditonal irish music and rock bands... With my love for music it was Absolutely amazing to see so many talented performers.

Our first afternoon there we walked around for a couple hours exploring the town, found a neat market of homebaked goods and crafts and grabbed a falafell, delicious full of humus and veggies! We checked into our hostel the Galway City Hostel, it was a great place very friendly staff and right across from the train station so very easy to navigate. We showered then went out to explore more, we found the galway cathedral and scoped out places for later in the night.

We ended up eating at a place called Mustard, very cool atmosphere in the basement of a building and had all the old decor of an Irish Mill. The food was ok but not quite up to the par we were expecting... We hit up very fun pub called the King's Head arfterwards! Double decker pub and later in the night it had an Irish Rock band called unstable, they covered a lot of american music but still did some fun irish rock. They played a lot of kings of leon which we loved! and one of the guys did an insane impersonation of ACDC it was great. Me and kels stayed out later than the others and danced the night away in the pub. lots of fun!

me and kels first afternoon in galway

sweet wall on the streets of galway/street performers

weird tastebuds in action

nun's island?

bad ass fwiends :)

Next day we were up early again.. lots of snoring during the night.. ugghhhhh.. mixed dorms at hostels will be the death of me... dang men snore wayy too much haha

Today we hopped on a bus tour that took us out into clare and galway county to see the cliffs of moher and lots of pits stops on the way to ruins of castels, the burren, neolithic tombs!

The Irish countryside was absolutely breathtaking... I believe kelsey described it as "Grass on steroids" it was sooooo greeeeeenn! I'll put lots of pics up from the tour but way too much to write it all out. It was a great day tho and we had tons of fun sightseeing/being complete goofballs in our pictures... I love the girls I traveled with this time it was the perfect mix and we all got along so well we referred to our little gang as the "Galway Girls" after the song :)

We arrived back in galway around 6ish we took a little nap exhausted from a long day then showered and this time found a GREAT local place that served traditional irish food! It was right in the Latin Quarter and we got a 2 course meal plus tea for 12euro! deal! I had seafood chowder and shepperds pie. Irish mash potatoes=god's gift to earth! We headed back to the hostel after dinner pooped from a long day. On the walk home we came across a great band playing on the street called Keywest, we stopped for just a few seconds then they said this would be ther last song and of course what did they play Galway girl :) it was the perfect end to our time there. we listened did a little jig in the street and headed back

my cool friends

abbey ruins in clare county

kels, alli, me entering the burren

pure excitement

cliffs of moher

view of countryside

gangstas ?

O'brien lookout castle at Cliffs oh Moher

up at 6 am

train to dubbs

drop our stuff off at our next hostel Abbey court, another good hostel and very affordable, great location right by temple bar area again.

Walked around dubs explored a sweet park in the city center, walked to see the dublin castle, did a little shopping on the way. Absolutely love the style of people in ireland, alot of the young people are very punk also lots of fun layers and patterns, they wear wayyy too much makeup however haha which I thought was strange for ireland.. Awesome shopping in dublin Favorite places, River Island and Top Shop. Bought a clad ring at one of the street vendors! had starbuck coffeeeeee :). In the afternoon we toured the old jameson whiskey distillery. fun tour not really a factory more of a historical building. tried a jameson and cranberry Delish! Alli got to be part of the Whiskey tasting contest... it was pretty funny they made people compare jameson to irish scotch and Jack Daniels. Ali thought Jameson was way better than both as did most....

Headed back to hostel showered to prepare for reservations we had made at the Arlington Hotel that night... met our cute german roomate kevin he was adorable he looked like a german zac efron :) haha

Our last night was probably one of the funnest night I've had in europe yet. We had a three course Traditional Irish meal veggie soug/bangers and mash/baileys cream tart with bananas!

We were seated right next to the stage since we had made reservations earlier in the day and it was a monday night... The food was amazing! the beer was great! the performers unbelievable!!!! At first it was a group of older Irish men singing alot of traditional music but they were also sort of a comedy act and interacted with the crowd a lot. we were some of there favs since we got into it and were pretty much some of the only people in there under 40... haha We requested Galway Girl and they gladly played it for us! Later on a group of River dancers performed and when the time came around for audience participation of course I got dragged up.. haha it was very fun they tried to teach us some stuff but of course I was a complete failure.. but hey I got a certificate! and some very funny photos!!!

4:45 alarm

6:00 flight to rome...

Grand weekend lads!!!