Deep Blue

So pretty, so painful. Why is it, that nature's way of warning you of danger, poison, etc., is often also beautiful? Sometimes colorful, or in the case of these jellyfish at the aquarium in Genova, just elegant and beautiful. An interesting paradox.

Love at the Sea

This heart art was found at an overlook of the Mediterranean sea, it Boccadassee (a little fishing village that is part of Genova). These little overlooks or benches in public parks are often places that young lovers will meet for a bit of privacy. It's not really private exactly, but when so many people live in such close contact it's all relative I guess. You will often find "love" graffiti in little spots like this.

What's This?

Take a moment to guess what this is before I tell you...

We saw this in Genova, in an art exhibit called "Dumping Art" at the Palazzo Ducale. This exhibit was cool for a couple of reasons:
1. The art was all made of things that people had scavenged from the trash or recycling, and it was all amazing.
2. Brandon's "Unit of Inquiry" at school right now is all about Recycling, Reducing, Reusing - so this fit in perfectly. He actually created a presentation with my pictures in Powerpoint and emailed it to his teacher to present in class. 21st century grade school!

So, what is it? It is old computer printed circuit boards, like CPU boards. They are painted black with the different components and connectors painted in day-glo colors that show up in black light. They are then arranged to form a column, with mirrors on the top and bottom which made it look like it extended forever when shown in the dark with only black light on it. It was super creative and fun.

That's what I love about Italy, when you explore, you just never know what you are going to run across!

Let there be light

Love windows. Love windows with light coming through. Love windows with light coming through on a wood floor. Doesn't this look peaceful? Doesn't this look like what you want a living room to look like? I do. I want a comfy chair and a book and a blanket in that light. A cat on my lap. A pot of tea by my side. I can't help it, when I see something like this, I just have to capture it. My own personal light when it's dark outside.

What a crazy week this has been. It's not work, that's been reasonable, it's this darn Italian driver's license test! I've studied probably 15 hours or more in the last 7 days. Taken probably 50 or more practice tests. My passing rate is maybe 70-80% on average. The wonderful thing is that we can take the test in English. The horrible thing is that the English book has about half of the info that you can be tested on. So, I'm literally taking the tests to learn what I don't know! If I'm lucky, I'll get a test that has answers I know. If I'm not... well... I'll be studying a lot more.

The test is tomorrow at 10am. Wish me luck!

Arches

I loved this courtyard in the Palazzo Ducale in Genova. I've been looking at the photos I have in queue to post on my blog and have noticed that I have a LOT with arches. Arches inside buildings, arches outside. Arches of gates, arches of hallways, arches of windows. Either arches just catch my eye or they are just everywhere here in Europe! Maybe both. I will probably never be able to answer that question, because you can't really extract the photographer from the photographs to see the true reality. You just see the piece of reality that the photographer saw at that moment. And my reality includes a LOT of arches...

La Piccola Rana Rossa

That means: The little red frog. These little guys were one of the exhibits at the Acquarium in Genova. They were really tiny. I loved the bright little spots of color among the green leaves and brown soil, so delicate looking. I'm not usually a frog person, but for some reason this image got stuck in my head the other day, and I had to share it.

To the Sea

This weekend we went to Genova (aka Genoa), on the Mediterranean Sea, about 2 hours from here. It was an interesting port town, with a large medieval and rennaisance historic city center. This image is from Boccadasse, a small fishing hamlet down the coast from the city center. It was an interesting little village with colored buidings, narrow alleys up and down the steep hills leading to the sea. Going to a place like this is such a delight, when you have no preconceived ideas and never know what you might find. Things are often much better without expectations, don't you think?