Burn Baby Burn

Despite just having been in Lugno for an evening, we went back as a class yesterday for an architectural tour. We spent the first half of the day walking around with someone from Giraudi-Wettstein (pronounced Jeer-ow-dee Vet-shteen). Which is a relatively local firm here in the Ticino. The tour ended at the USI, which is the university in Lugano featuring buildings by some heavy-hitting architects and a master plan by Peter Zumthor. The building pictured above is by Giraudi-Wettstein, and the one behind the guys below is by Galfetti, who also happens to have designed the elementary school in Riva, which is sketched in a previous post.

After the tour, we sketched a little bit in Lugano and then had free reign of the city. As usual, Will fell asleep.

We decided that I'm going to post a picture of will sleeping in every city in Europe we visit. Because it's inevitable that this occurs, that kid can sleep anywhere.

The picture is of Will and our classmate Chris sleeping during a break in the tour. I have to give the photocredit to my other classmate Kristin, she's the one who captured this golden moment.

During our free time Jane, Will and I self-toured around Lugano, checking out the architecture, as I proceeded to get yet another burn. I have some ridiculously sensitive skin! There's now a running joke here that includes the phrase, "Hey Steph, it looks like you're a little red..."

Anyways, we ran into some really cool buildings, if you want to check out all the pictures so far, I'll be putting them online soon, whether it be flicker or somewhere else, I don't know yet. That should come in the next post once they are all up (so I'm not posting dead links all over the place). We saw so many things, and walked so much that we were only too happy to get gelato at the gelateria closest to the train station, which has this ridiculous view over Lugano.

Once again, I didn't get to do any shopping, which is definitely good for my wallet, and definitely bad for my morale. But this time it was because I didn't feel like shopping, whereas in Milan, we moved so fast I never had time to stop and shop. (But you better believe next time I will make time) 

As we were leaving the gelateria I heard a familiar accent. Yes, dear readers, I heard the unmistakeable accent of an American. So, being the socially graceful person that I am, I smoothly interrupted their conversation with a big, whopping, "OH, Are you Amercian?!" It turns out that the three people sitting at the table were all American, though one has been living in Europe (Lugano, mostly) for 50 years. She's a retired opera singer, and was discovered at Juliard by Toscanini and sang in La Scala and many opera houses all over southern europe. Her guests were a husband and wife photography team from Chicago (the accent I picked up), and we all had a great conversation. Rather exciting when I think about it.

We got back in time for dinner, which is very good considering I started my shift in the Dining room last night. (At the villa, each week three people have dining room duty, eventually everyone will do it as we rotate through- 1 from Architecture and 2 from business. This includes, cutting the bread, setting the table, and cleaning up.) Gitano and Luigi are our kitchen staff and cook, respectively, and Gitano actually speaks some english. Luigi speaks very, very little. I'm pretty sure he only knows the phrase "I don't speak English". 

Dinner and Lunch should be interesting, seeing as it's a bunch of guys and me in the kitchen (The other two students are guys from the business program). Today we discussed in Italian whether I liked ragazzi (loosly translated to "guys").  The boys got a huge kick out of that conversation, so I had to narrow it down. I'm an uomini (men) type of girl. 

I think we got it sorted out though, at least I hope so (some of those business guys are pretty cute!)

I have the rest of the day ahead of me, so we'll see how that goes. I have a 1/4" detailed model due on friday, for a project that I haven't got very far on yet, so these next few days may include a couple of late nights. 

For now, Ciao Everyone!