Day 16 (4/6/11)

Today we woke up and left for the school so we could work with the Italians and have desk crits…woo hoo!!! It was another pretty productive day, our professors told us it has improved a lot and they seemed to like all the final decisions we made. I was in charge of the Rhino (3D modeling software) model for our project, so I was pretty much glued to the computer until lunchtime. We are really excited about our project, and I have included an image of the model although this doesn’t show much.
Anyways, after a quick walk back to town for a slice of pizza, we met with the Italian professor for a little bit and worked on some final pieces parts that needed to be worked out. Then we said goodbye and left for home at around 6-ish. On our way back, we had to stop because one of my group members left her phone at the school, so I went on a little adventure. We have seen a pretty cool parking garage down in the valley below the main road that circles the town, so I found the switchback road that heads down there. The area was pretty awesome, lots of nature and some great views back up to the town as well as out onto the landscape and hills that surround the area. After some snooping around I found a pretty great bridge that crossed the river and took me into this concrete cave-like structure that housed elevators to take me back up into town. All in all it was a pretty fun little excursion, and it is really annoying that we are spending so much time working in studio instead of being out doing that.
Anyway, no need to pout! So after we all met back up we walked back to the hotel where we relaxed for a little bit before Joe and I went to go do laundry. On a side note, the most fantastic discovery of the day was a two-door Rav4 that looked to be the same year as my own, with the same interior as well!!!!!!!! Although I just said that I wanted more adventures, this was one I could have done without. When we got there and looked at the machines, we realized how woefully unprepared we really were; there were probably 20 buttons on the front and nothing but Italian on the directions. But thank goodness for the friendly Italian man there who helped us out. Continuing the adventure, we were sitting there after about 15 minutes and it looked like we didn’t put enough soap in the machine. So we paused the machines, put more in, and tried to start it up…nada. We ended up having to reset the machine and pay another 4 euro (that’s 8 euro for one laundry session…ouch). Anyway, we got the clothes cleaned and dried (another 2…) before heading back home dejected but clean.
After hanging up the clothes all over the place in the hotel, I met my group members for a little bit where we finished the interior walls of the Rhino model and set up a little plan for tomorrow! Now it is bedtime because we are up early for a long day of production!