All For Mr. Trent!

This is a very special post dedicated to the one and only Mr. Trent!  I want to make sure that he knows that I'm always thinking of him...  Here's a few of the ways how I do so.  Every morning I wake up to his studly senior picture... it's only 6 years old and a "few" pounds ago, but it's so handsome.  Lucky me, I get to go to bed looking at the same picture sitting right on the nightstand beside my pillow.  What a hunk in his black and red letter jacket :)

I also like to pretend that he gets to travel with me all around the city everyday and see all the amazing views that I get to.  What better way to imagine he was here with me then to actually make it seem like we are here together!  Photoshop is amazing... look how happy we are here at the ancient entrance to the city of Rome.  These collums were part of the original portico facade that held the iron gates that lead into the city from the port on the Tiber River... these are things that we learned from signage on the site :)

Not only these things, but we now have left our mark on the Abintine Hill outlook point that spans the entire city.  Our initials are now engraved into the stone at that point and everyone will know that we were there!  Maybe if we come back in five or ten years, we can see if they are still there... I remember exactly where I put them into the stone!

He's been there through my ups and downs over the last few weeks, always suppoting me in all that I do, and there to make me laugh.  What can I say... he's pretty good to be!  Love you!

My First Weekend Travels!

Watch our Assisi and Cinque Terre... the Iowa Staters are coming to town!  It's our first school day trip this weekend... as in tomorrow... and we're headed to Assisi!  It is supposed to be a beautiful town with a very cool art museum and very famous church.  About 50 of us are headed out on a bus early in the morning and will get to spend the day in this fun little town together.  Let's hope it goes smooth and that we don't lose anyone or anything like that because traveling with a group of 50 people could get interesting!

Then, on Sunday early morning, my roommates and I are headed to Cinque Terre for 2 days.  Cinque Terre is an area right on the coast that is made up of 5 small, quaint towns surrounded by huge hills and cliffs.  We are going to hike through the hills from town to town (don't worry, they are close together otherwise I'd be taking a taxi because I'm out of shape!) all day one day.  It's kinda the popular thing to do there... apparently some of the cliffs are really steep and crazy, but the views are going to be incredible!  The next day, I'm planning on shopping at all the fun little trade store in each town to stock up on goodies.  We also are going to go to the beach for awhile, but it's rocky so not the best for laying out!  I'm really excited for the trip and know that we are going to have lots of fun!

I am putting up new pics from this week so far.  We took another 3 hour art history walk that led us to the very first entrance to the city of Roma, a few churches, and up to the top of the Abaline Hill that overlooks the entire city.  In the pictures you'll see some large, carved wood doors... they are the oldest in Roma and were beautiful!  Also, I threw in the final comp of my volumetric prototype that I talked about earlier and there are a few sketches and the comps of our Primo project.  Hope you enjoy... miss and love everyone from home!

Primo Angeli Workshop Week

Well we have almost made it through yet another week of classes here in Roma, and this one was crazy!  We had a special quest come this week to do a work shop with us on packaging design and his name is Primo Angeli.  I think I told you about him in the last post, but he was so awesome.  Funny, inspiring, and incredibly knowledgeable.  We worked in groups of four over the past four 3 days to completely recreate the identity of a product from an Italian supermarket.  My group was lots of fun and we chose to redesign the packaging and identity for a spice company called Italpepe... and inturn we became the Spice Girls ourselves.  (I of course was Baby Spice because of my blonde hair.)  We created a whole new look for our company, trying to make them appeal as a more upscale company with richer spices.  It has been a long three days with VERY LITTLE sleep trying to pull this project together, but the end product and presentation this morning was a success!  We wanted our product to be more enviornmently friendly, so we switched not only the shape and look of the package, but also the material from glass to bioplastic.  We also made the product work as a system and fit nicely into a kitchen cupboard.  These are just a few of our changes, but here are before and after pics of our product... we like ours a lot better!  Primo and all of our professors were extremely impressed with everyone's work and said that they have never worked with students that were so dedicated and advanced in their skills.  What a completement to our program and hard work!  We finished the morning with pictures and a little recpetion with Primo and his wife, Deeni.  She was so sweet, and before they left for the day, she gave me a hug and said in her sweet, soft accent, "You are so sweet and wonderful."  Ahh... what a great opportunity to work with such amazing people!