September 13th

Sorry for the lack of an update. I didn't really want to update until I had actually done some painting. I've spent the last few days sorting out documents for the resident card we need to obtain. It's really just a giant hassle and another way we can spend more money for limited gain. It is ~30 euros to apply for, 20 more euros to stay more then 9months and then you need to buy a 14 euro stamp. In the end it's like 70 euros which I need to spend for this document. However, we don't need to submit our passports though, just a photocopy of 'em. A nice lady from the Italian government came by to 'inspect' our passports. By inspect she stopped by the studio, briefly saw that some of us happened to have passports with us and assumed everything was just peachy and then left. The forms we needed to fill out were all in Italian too, but the Prof had a filled out version from before we used as a rosetta stone.

I've been spending the last few days exploring more or less as well. I've been trying to find neat places to visit in the future and generally just seeing what's available in the city. I'm finding I'm more easily able to maneuver through the maze of streets, but I make sure I keep my map on me at all times. I've also found the compass on my Iphone helpful in numerous occasions. However, I have managed to find a place that sells non-Italian food, like Peanut butter. So that's payed off.

I cleaned out my room in the studio the other day. A lot of folks are all jammed into a lot of the rooms, but I lucked out being the only person to take the room I've been assigned (basically, as I like to plain air paint, I don't really use a studio all that much). There is one other person, Heather, on the second floor with me. She is in the process of transforming one of the old storage rooms into a dark room. It'll be much roomier then any dark room I've used before, that's for sure.

Speaking of studio, I've started working on paintings. Some for fun, some for my first assignment. Varying quality, but that's fine. Some of the girls who live next door were over last night and seemed to quite like my paintings (one said that she thought I was a hack and was shocked that I could make pictures). I brought with me my paintings from camp to use as reminders of the summer.

I've not done any site seeing sort of stuff. Tomorrow we have our first 'art history' class with Peter, who is a really cool dude. He lives half the year in Florence and half the year in in the Czech Republic. He's been teaching art history for OCAD florence students for a good decade or two.

Weather here is still in the mid 30's, but it's bound to cool down soon. My arms hands and feet are covered in mosquito bites (as I slept with my window open in the first week I was here and there is no screen). I've bought a fan now to propel the pesky buggers away from my tasty flesh and hopefully allow my skin to heal. It looks like I have some sort of terrible infection.

Also, there is a sort of American university thing which happens in September in which all the American students in florence gather for some sort of session/meeting/seminar (maybe followed by dinner) and then the next night is a dinner which contains music, food and drink. OCAD, although not an American school has been invited to attend both functions. I feel like I'm going to go, as it'll be nice to hear English as the predominant language somewhere. My learning of Italian is not really all that great, but I'm learning more words.

So, my schedule is art history tomorrow, thursday is critique for our first assignment and then on saturday we are going to visit Lucca to check out the cool city, which is one of the few remaining cities fully surrounded by walls. When Italy was founded, most of the cities knocked down their protections walls as a sign of celebration. Lucca decided the walls were rather nifty and kept 'em. Good thing too.

Here are a couple of my paintings/sketches. First is of my Studio, second is a view from a window in a studio on the main floor.