I'm not even sure what to say. It's already mid-terms; I can not even begin to believe how fast time is passing. I'm not going to go too far into detail about it, but you probably can't even imagine how fast it's going. It really is amazing. Quite bittersweet as well.
Regardless, time is probably passing as fast as it is because of how busy we've been. Monday was my Renaissance Art History exam. As the compulsive studier that I am, I had to study approximately 85 pieces of renaissance art, memorizing the date, artist, location, and various facts about it. Here's the catch. I had to memorize it in ONE day, Sunday. However, just as always, I managed to pull through and left the exam feeling quite confident. The reason I had only one day? I completely forgot that I had a field trip to Torino on Saturday.
Now that it's all said and done with and I believe I did well on the exam, I'm glad that I sacrificed a day of studying to visit Torino. After all, a big part of the experience here is learning how to juggle your time spent on culture/traveling and on the classes. We took a 4 hour bus ride to Torino and eventually stopped for a bathroom and snack break:
Going north in Italy was quite an experience. The mountains become more prominent, the language changes, the temperature decreases, and not to mention, the towns look completely different. Also, on a side note, I finally bought one of the Nutella & Go! snacks. Wow. We need these at home. It's a container split into three sections. One of nutella, one with little breadsticks, and the last with a delicious lemon tea juice of some sort. Such an excellent snack.
Once we got to Torino, we quickly headed over to the Museo Nazionale del Cinema (for those of you not well versed in Italian, National Museum of Cinema). I've never seen a museum like this. The best way I could describe it would be this: 19th Century synagogue + Universal Studios + photography/cinematography history + interactive displays = Museo Nazionale del Cinema. Not to mention, its the tallest museum in the world. It's amazing inside out, literally:
After spending a good two or so hours looking around the museum, we rode the glass elevator up to the panoramic view part way up the tower. 59 seconds and 75 meters (246 ft.). Pretty neat. The view up there was just amazing:
That was about it for our Torino trip. My photo teachers and the other two kids in my class went out to get some food and then we were on our way back home. Even on a train, I still manage to entertain myself:
What a pain though... Right after I took this picture, I noticed one of the buttons on my camera was stuck. It wouldn't budge. The button that just so happens to initiate video recording was stuck. Meaning: every time I turned my camera on it would start recording.... I just bought the camera three months ago. Even though it was only a button that was stuck, knowing how much I spent on my beloved camera and how new it was, I got sick to my stomach. No Canon repair center around either. I fiddled with the button for a good 10 minutes and it FINALLY popped back up. Luckily, it's been good since. Hopefully that's the only camera issue I have here, I can deal with that.
Fast forwarding to the present, I have only one exam left, then one week until my fall break! My roommate Colin and I are going to be staying in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland for 4 days then I'm either touring northern Italy or visiting Sicily. Not sure yet. I won't have my laptop with me, so it will be awhile until those photos or relevant blog posts come up. Though, I can not wait until I get to Switzerland. Our little town is in the valley between two GORGEOUS mountains. It's going to be such an amazing trip. I am so excited! The next two weeks are looking quite amazing.
I have some fantastic photo opportunities ahead of me. Not to mention, a LOT of editing to do afterwards. But that's half the fun to me! There are a few more photos up on my flickr, so be sure to check them out!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mloiacono
Have a great day!
-Matt
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