Italian Vacation: Part I

My trip to Italy was fantastic. This was the destination that I have been hoping to get to for years and three weeks ago was my opportunity to get out of this town and see some amazing architecture and art. Dave and I left Minnesota with our names down to stay at a campsite in Rome, Italy. Camping in Europe is funny. There was space for tents and campers, but the majority of the camp grounds was covered in little bungalows much like a trailer house... duplex style. Our first day in Rome was spent getting to the campsite, hanging out around the pool, and planning the days ahead.

Here's Dave reading the guide books that I got from the library.

An interior shot of the bungalow.

A could bungalow duplexes. They were in long rows.

My display of photos from here on are in no particular order. Dave and I were soon joined in Rome by his parents, Bill and Lisa so we wanted them to be able to experience some of things we saw in the days prior to their arrival so some repetition was occurring. For this reason I've decided to present two "like" groups of sites rather that a chronological representation of the journey. Part I is showing a lot of the hot tourist spots of Rome, the easily recognizable buildings and works... Here we go!

The Trevi Fountain.

Dave and I sitting on the fountain. Throw a coin in over your shoulder and you're bound to return someday. Funny story: while at the fountain we witnessed an elderly homeless looking man with a magnetic device retrieving Euros from the pond.

My favorite feature of the fountain is that the natural rock transitions smoothly into the clean cut facade. I enjoy this type of juxtaposition.

Recognizable site number 2: the Spanish Steps. As you can see they are very busy... You can not see though that they can be treacherous. After so many visitors walking up and down or lounging on them they have worn down to quite a slippery state. I fell down a couple steps during my decent. :)

This picture was taken at the top of the stairs. We conquered them... then they "conquered" me. My dad would tell me that I should have been wearing shoes... flip-flops don't count. haha

Number III: St. Peter's

It looks huge even from a long way away.

Here is the front facade.

And the ornate Baldachin in St. Peter's. This picture unfortunately does it no justice. Check out Wikipedia's pic.

This is a distance version of a typical attraction in Rome, the Colosseum. This picture is actually overlooking the ancient city of Rome. I think that it is beautiful.

The Colosseum.

Here is a shot of the interior the the Colosseum. Here is where the brutal games would take place. What you are seeing is the "cells" where dangerous animals were kept before they would be put in the arena. On the far end is the reconstruction of the floor that would have been over all of the cells on top of which the battles occurred.

Can you guess this one? Apparently not understanding the concept of ancient, I did not recognized number 5 of the recognizable sites as I approached. I knew what we were looking for, however when I saw it from this angle all decrepit looking (though still in fantastic shape for its age) it did not click in my head that we had found it.

If you guess the Pantheon before seeing this shot, +1 for you! Here is the view you should recognize the most. I love how the dome just disappears from all outside views...

...and then you step inside and whoa. Huge! and then the oculus! Speechless. Love it.

Well that is part I. I'm moving tomorrow so Part II will be sometime later. Later!

Time consuming...

I'm trying to compile and format the pictures from my trip to Italy to be able to present them here on Erratic Repertoire. It is tough work for the following reasons:

1) I'm not entirely used to Braeburn, my MacBook Pro.

2) I took almost 500 pictures... so, I'm trying to abbreviate for the blog.

3) Moving pictures around in this blogger is harder than I would have ever imagined. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

I was able to get everything sorted for "Italian Vacation: Part I," but it is late so I'm not going to write anything to accompany the photos tonight. Stay tuned! I'll shoot for tomorrow night to share Part I of III...

And now I'll be leaving...

Don't be sad. It is exciting that I'm leaving. I'm leaving for another trip tomorrow and will be delighted, upon my return, to share with you all some images from the hopefully wonderful Italy!

Crystal Strikes Again!

Hello anybody who follows this blog! I'm back for a little to share with you all a hair cut I was recently given by Crystal Roob. We were bored one Sunday afternoon... hanging out and decided a hair cut would be fun. I had been looking at an Elle magazine whilst at home one weekend. It was from 2006 when she had blonde hair... asymmetric. I had liked that style since I bought the magazine all those years ago, so I asked Crystal if she could replicate. She did a great job in my opinion! This just happens to be my favorite hair cut ever! Thank you Crystal

I'm coming back!

I bought my new computer for school! Yay! So, I think I want to start blogging again. Stay tuned!

It's Cattle Ropin' Time!

Itching for a project at one point a few months ago, after having purchase 8 yards of cowboy plaid cotton during a fabric store close out, I had decided to make myself a sort of dress from an oversized shirt pattern. With this "cowgirl" dress I would be able to feel comfortable walking into the most "down home" establishments I could find, or while sitting around a campfire, or while visiting one of my grandparents farms.

The fabric. The pattern pieces.

The quite oversized front piece of the shirt.

All of the pieces strewn on the floor.

My dummy, wearing my unfinished dress.

Here is the dress. After a little adjustment in length (it was way long) and a belt, it turns out to be quite cute, I think.

At home last weekend I asked Jon to take some pictures of me wearing the shirt with Mittens.

So, totally farm-like, but with a bit of feminine flavor.

Mwah! It's cattle ropin' time!!!

What is your distraction?

Twice, while preparing to blog about something serious, I've been distracted by the same little project. The first time was while I was prepping my pictures for one of the Tokyo blogs. The moment when I decided that I was going back in time to make a friendship bracelet was today. If you had ever made one you'll know what I'm talking about before reading the following description. In elementary school, my friends and I went through a phase where we would make ourselves, each other, our parents, everyone, embroidery floss bracelets. The trend took off! The variety became wide. It started as simple braids, using three colors for a very small very simple string. It advanced later round knotted bracelets, then flat knotted bracelets, to woven bracelets. The kind that I decided to make instead of blogging about Tokyo was a woven bracelet. I spiffed it up a little with a star charm, a bead, and a button. Tonight is the second time I've been distracted by that little bracelet. I wanted to blog about it, so, here it is! Ta-da!!!

Baby's Reversible Dress

One weekend while trying to go through my things to clear out my bedroom at home, I came across a bunch of old patterns that I had once wanted to save... in case I ever started making clothes. Well I'm making clothes now so I decided to bring them back with me to the cities to see if I wanted to work on any of the patterns. There was one pattern in particular that I wanted to use. It is toddler sun dress from 1985 that I had worn when I was little; thank you grams! I told my mom I wanted to try the pattern and she commissioned a little outfit to give to her friend that has a little girl. We picked out fabric and decided on a monkey to be the character stitched on the dress. So, the first steps included drawing up a monkey and creating a pattern for it.

Here are the fabrics for the two sides of the dress and for Monkey.

Here is Monkey after a gazillion hours of hand stitching! haha I should get compensated for at least the effort put into that little part!

Monkey side of the completed reversible dress.

The back side of the dress.

Since the back flaps open, baby will need to cover her bum so the reversible dress comes with two pairs of little baby bottoms.

The dress reversed, showing the mix and match of solid and pattern.

The completed set...

...and reversed!

That was a fun project. Took waaaay longer than originally planned, (no Monkey next time ;) ) but I like how it turned out!

Tokyo: Part II

There was a lot still to see in Tokyo that Dave and I had to fit into our vist and I had learned after one day of walking around that I had underestimated the damage a Tokyo vacation would do to my feet. We walked and walked and after 12 hours of walking... well feeling one's feet gets difficult! Despite the lower body pain, we had to keep moving. Monday morning, bright and early, we got up and headed for Tokyo's fish market. It is located in Tsukiji and is the largest fish market in the world. I didn't want to take too many pictures there because I had a fear of being run over by the men speading around on there little delivery truck things. Imagine: aisle upon aisle of fresh sea food, crammed with sellers, buyers, and tourists taking pictures. Workers cutting tuna with ban saws, tuna that weigh more than I do... and all of this taking up an area of about 43 football fields! I felt kind of awkward there... The workers don't like that there are always tourists wandering obliviously around their work place. I had been awar of this before going so I tried as hard as I could to stay out of the way (no pictures helped), but it is busy place... I did manage not to get hit by anything. After the fish market we hopped on the subway to go to the oldest garden in Tokyo, Koishikawa Korakuen. Below, Dave is looking up the wall that separates the garden from the rest of the city.



















Here was a little Bonsai tree in the park. First without scale figure and then with Dave as the scale figure in the scene.




























After the oldest garden we went to the Imperial Palace grounds. Unable to enter a tourist must walk all the way round the moated, walled palace grounds. Here is a picture at one corner of the grounds showing the moat, the wall, and a little building of what purpose I do not know. The entire grounds are unavaible to visitors unless you are the Emperor, his son, or somebody with special connections or unless it is the Emperor's birthday or New Years. While we were at the entrance we saw two cars leave the property (one, I speculated, containing the Emporer, the other, his guard). Also, we witness a guy on a motor bike enter the grounds... a son perhaps?



















Here is a picture of another building on the grounds. It is set very romantically back in that are, probably with great views so I imagine that it is the palace... haha














This is the view on the other side of the street from the palace grounds. A garden or park in Tokyo seems always to have a view of skyscrapers. There was something about this arrangment of buildings that attracted me. They were all to stark and repetative, but together formed a nice composisiton I thought.














Next stop for the touring was Roppongi. In Roppongi is located the 21_21 building designed by Tadao Ando. In school we learned of Ando's reputation to spec the smoothest concrete possible for his buildings so it was fun to visit this work of his to be able to touch his smooth concrete! Last time Dave was in Tokyo, he saw this building, but didn't get to enter. This time, there was an art show displayed, therefore open to the public for 1,000 yen! So, we got to touch the inside too!














This building was beautiful inside and out and it felt great too!














The picture below was the only interior shot that I was allowed to take. It looks into the first and only upper level gallery. Ando created a playful art gallery with daylighting, a not so appreciated element in the world of art display as sunlight has deterious effects on art. Ando, however used varying degrees of natural light and interestingly angular spaces of the gallery allowing the movement one takes through the spaces to give a visitor a higher sense of interaction through the ever changing light and dark. Past the upper gallery space one decends downstairs to look over a light filled space, but the stairs continue around a turn and lead into the first gallery that is more void of natural lighting, only receiving what it can from the light of the adjacent room. You are directed through this smaller room into a dark transitory gallery which leads into another smaller room adjacent to the largest gallery of the building, which if my memory serves me right is also artificially lit. At the back corner of the gallery is a small entry to another small, dark transitory gallery that leads to a little passage that gets darker yet, having no access to any reflections of day light. As you turn the corners of this passage and exit, your eyes take a second to adjust to the light of the space you overlooked while decending the stairs. On the left are large windows looking out into a small courtyard below ground level. I wish there were pictures to accompany this verbal tour... Hope it painted a little bit of a picture.



















...and another shot.














After Roppongi and Tadao Ando, we made our way to Shibuya. Shibuya is a ward of Tokyo that is a major fashion location for young people. Dave and I spent a lot of time wandering this streets visiting some of the many stores that were there. The last building we visited was an eight story "shopping mall" just for the ladies. The floors were filled with boutiques with overflowing merchandise... Tokyo's style at the moment is very frilly and floral. There were some very cute clothes, however I didn't get any. I'll hope to make some perhaps. After visiting 6 of the 8 floors we decided to head to the big crossing depicted in the pictures below. In this first image, the crossing is empty, just before the walk signs turn on, see the crowd standing across the way.














The way this intersection works is simple, cars get their turn and then pedestrians get theirs. In a span of, lets say, 30 seconds, thousands of people are crossing the road going every direction. It is choatic and exciting to participate and to view.

































And as the sky gets darker, the lights of the buildings begin to shine!



















There was one last place we wanted to get to that night, Tokyo Tower. That was located back in Roppongi and from the subway station where we got off, a really, really long walk.



















On Tuesday morning we wanted to take a look around the area we had been staying. This is a picture of the Sensoji Temple entrance.














This is a picture of a pagoda on the property.



















After visiting the temple we decided that sushi in Tokyo could not be missed even if Dave's stomache wasn't quite up to food yet. We had found a sushi-go-round to eat at. Set up on a circulating conveyor belt was the best sushi platters that I have ever eaten. We did get too adventurous in our tastings but here is what we did try: fatty, expensive tuna - so good!, shrimp spring roll, yellow tail, mackrel, shrimp, crab roll - this one was probably my favorite after the tuna. Oh Tokyo! You were awesome and had awesome sushi! Where will the world lead me next?
p.s. One last thing about the trip. I almost forgot, though not sure how that was possible. We flew home first class... yeah... it was awesome!