Stranger days

So other than the first surprise of my roommate's accident, the week seems to be turning out to be very strange. Today it actually rained. Which I have to say, is probably the most surpirising thing I've seen since I've been here. Not that weather in itself is wierd, it's just that the weather here is constant, blazing bright sun in a clear blue sky every single day I've been here; so imagine finally seeing, not just clouds, but actual rain coming down from them.

And the city becomes a lot more dificult to navigate in when you're holding an umbrella, trying to avoid soggy tourists and all the illegal immegrants trying to hawk umbrellas, while also trying not to fall walking on the slick paving stones. But I guess that's what I get for wearing sandals today. And it wasn't even a downpour, it only rained for about 20 minutes before the sun reared it's head back in the sky, although the clouds did manage to stick around for a while longer, making the day a lot cooler too.

Classes today were pretty easy, had the mid-term in my history class and didn't have to paint for today in painting, instead we went to a gallery showing and the art teacher's studio. He does some really interesting expressionistic stuff and doing a lot of paintings on plastic, which I haven't seen before but creates a really unique effect on his work. There was also a really unfriendly cat there, or it might have just hated art students in particular, I didn't ask.

The show at the gallery was interesting, but it was also on top of a really high hill we had to trudge all the way up to get inside, and by that time the sun was back out so it wasn't much of a fun time. But we got to walk by Galileo Galiei's house on the way there. The gallery was full of so-so oil paintings and incredible watercolors by a 19th century artist, Vincenzio Cabianca. There were these huge sheets of paper with the most incredible scenes painted on them. I'm not really a landscape person but I was having fits over how incredible this man's art was, absolutely gorgeous and I cannot figure out how he could do such poor work in oil painting. I guess it just reinforces the superiority of watercolor as a medium, in my humble opinion anyway.