Blanc du Noir Restaurant

This is a French Restaurant based on French New Wave Cinema, European Metro, COntemporary French Cuisine. The emphasis is on texture, color and presentation. A place to eat where you will forget the outside world.

Waldorf Residence

The Waldorf Residence located in Oakley ID, built in 1903 and in need of a remodel. This house is registered as a historic preservation home, so much of the origionakl Victorian characteristics were preserved.

The Hospital

May 10, 2010
I cannot believe that the time has gone by so fast! I leave in literally 2 days.
Poor Nizhoon has had a bad cold for about 5 days and has been coughing really badly. He boyfriend was supposed to be here Sunday morning, but has had 3 malfunctioning planes. So at 6 am this morning we got an email that he had still not boarded the plane. Then we decided that we had better get Nizhoon to the doctor to make sure she doesn't have pnumonia. So we headed to the "hospital" where we were in for the ride of a lifetime!!!!!
We walked up and the hospital is a bunch of different buildings.... No one knew where we supposed to go, then someone said go to the ER first. We asked a DOCTOR where the ER was he told us somewhere that was not correct, but finally we found it. When we got there, the ambulance people were checking someone in and then the front desk guy took our information and we sat down to wait. Nizhoon was labeled as "white" meaning she was the lowest of low priorities. We sat there for about 3 hours. I watched 10 different "emergencies" come in with the ambulance. They all took presedence over us. We heard a few doctors complaining that they had too many patients to see. We watched everyone get about 5 coffees each instead of helping patients. Italy has public healthcare and from what I saw, it's crap. Heaven help us if we ever get public healthcare. It was a joke. Even our Italian translator thought it was a joke. We left after 3 hours and just decided to self medicate her.
After that we tried to sleep and just hang out then we headed to the school to fill out evaluations and turn in our phones. I know have no way of knowing what time it is, and no alarm. Hopefully I'll get up on time for our flight!
Today was our last day of cooking class and we made tiramisu, some sauces and something else. It was so good and I ate too much. After that we hit up a pizza place for all you can eat pizza. This is not any ordinary pizza. Pizza in Italy is an art. It's so amazing. I can't even describe it!!! Here they had a bazillion different pizza's with FRENCH FRIES and sausage, a vegetarian pizza, a hamburger pizza. Oh it was amazing and I ate too much.
Now I'm home recovering from a very long day. I'm thinking I need to pack but have no desire whatsoever to start......

Lugano, Switzerland

May 9, 2010
Slept in and hopped onto a train to Lugano, Switzerland. For some odd reasons the trains were super crowded. Then we started talking to the ladies next to us. They were from Germany and had been in Venice. They were supposed to take a plane to Frankfurt Germany this morning, but surprise, surprise, the Milano Airport was shut down this morning with no flights going in or out. Family and friends of other students in the group are arriving in the next few days so we're hoping that everyone is able to get here. More importantly I hope I can fly home. As much as I love it here, I'm ready to go home.
We got to Lugano and started walking around. Everything was closed so there was not much shopping. We stumbled upon a fountain and started taking pictures then some

random guys wanted us to take a picture of them so I jumped in and joined them in the picture. After that we found a souvenir shop and discovered that Switzerland uses Francs and Euros. I thought Switzerland was part of the European Union? Then we kept wandering around the lake. It got a little bit cold so we stopped for a snack of hot chocolate. Oh my goodness. This was literally a melted chocolate bar with some milk added. It was SO yummy!

As we walked we saw a mini castle up on a hill and decided to see if we could get closer. It was not a hill, it was a mountain. Not the Swiss Alps, but I'm sure a sub terrain of them. It was nice to get out and stretch my legs on some hills. There are not any hills in Milan. Turns out the mini castle belongs to a famous person because there was surveillance all around and huge bushes that we peeked through. I considered breaking in but I didn't really want to be arrested by the Swiss guard.


I didn't make it to Pisa, but while here I found a mini Leaning Tower of Pisa!
I decided to stalk up on Swiss chocolate and had to pull out money. Bad idea. They only give you Francs. So now I have an endless supply of useless European money. I randomly found 1200 Rubles in one of my bags! At this point I found out that Switzerland is not part of the European Union. (Guess I should pay more attention in history) Someone told us it's because Switzerland has to stay neutral, and they have all the banks so it doesn't matter...


After the money fiasco we had a lovely dinner of lasagna and watched the rain come down. Then we wandered the quiet lonely streets and headed home.

Dancing!!

May 7, 2010
It feels so good to not have homework! I slept in and had the entire day to do whatever i wanted.
We found a nice salon across the street that does pedicures. So amazing. She scrapped off about 2 pounds of gross skin. Too much walking. Then we hit the town and went shopping. After 2 years and a trip to Italy I found the perfect pair of black shoes!
Today was a very chill day. We planned to go dancing for Monica's birthday. So of course we played dress up to get the most perfect outfits.
Then at 11 pm we celebrated with gelato cake and then made our way to the club. Got in for free and started dancing the night away. It was a crazy night. There was stage dancing and some making out. I would give full details but what happens in Italy, stays in Italy.

End of Finals!!!

May 6, 2010
Today marked the end of classes and finals. Thank goodness that is done. It started early at 8:30 AM with a 2 hour essay about the pro and cons of Italy and my critique on Italian design, how it could be better. That's too early to start an essay so it took my quite a long time. Then we had a really long lecture about Italy and how they get all of their influences for entertainment from America. They even had their very own Elvis Presley. Weird.
After a quick lunch of tomato and mozzarella cheese salad I headed back to school. I tried not to throw up my lunch because it's presentation time. This is my project that I presented. It's already been ripped to pieces so don't worry about offering your critiques or advice. I personally think this is one of the better projects I've done and I'm pretty proud of it. But teachers always have ways that you can improve. And I spoke SLOWLY and I breathed in my presentation!


Milan 2015 World Expo-Retail Boutique
I choose to showcase the state of Texas. Texas has the most land farmed than any other state and Dr Pepper was invented in Waco Texas.
My concept was to follow the Texas Hold 'Em Poker game. I wanted it to be in a very high end saloon. Very low lighting. High end, elegant but edgy.
Everything in this space are recycled products that can be found in the Texas landfills. The walls are made from Portafab, a portable space company that makes portable spaces that can be moved easily.
Open floor plan-floors are dark hardwood floor made from wood pallets. The tables and chairs on display are from recycled drum barrels and recycled street signs. The Jail dressing room is made from recycled metal.
The lighting is from recycled shot glasses and whiskey bottles.
The areas that Is show cased were the front entrance, cash wrap/bar and the retail dressing room/jail area.
After finals we celebrated at the Mexican restaurant and had some much needed Mexican food! Then I passed out at 10 PM.
I have more pictures......stay tuned.

8 more days

May 4, 2010
Another eight hour day. We had a guest lecture from the Director of the Master s Interior Design program the school we go to. He talked about the design in Italy; how it differed after the war all the up until now. It was pretty interesting.
After that we headed to commercial design to work on finals. Our presentation is due thursday so it's crunch time. I feel pretty good about my presentation it's just a matter of figuring out and practicing what I want to say.
We had cooking class today as well and we learned how to make risotto. It's really not that hard and I think I could do it.