Motion Picture AND Photoshop Frippery!

Back in the early days of this blog I wrote two posts: one was about movement in pictures - blurred edges instead of catching something in suspended animation; the other was about the fun you can have by fettling your pictures in Photoshop (or the like). I love experimenting with different effects on my camera or in Photoshop: I love taking the mediocre pictures and making them into something really special just by messing around with something as banal as the contrast.

When I went to the Belgian Grand Prix last year I took some bad pictures. Really bad pictures. I tried to capture the movement and failed. I tried to capture them in suspended animation and failed. My only option was to drag them all into Photoshop and try to bring about a miracle.

 This was one of my pictures. Poor colour, no real definition, not the kind of thing you'd really want to hang on your wall. Photoshop was my only solution to haul this poor piece of photography away from its gloomy fate in my recycle bin...

I'm pretty proud of the finished outcome, but then again I love pictures like this. I'm a big fan of pop art and bold blocks of colour: they really are the pictures I'd hang on my wall - in fact I just might get that one printed.

One of the photos I took when I was with my cousin in Formby was one of these awful washed-out images that wasn't really going to win any awards, or even just wall space. I introduced it to Photoshop.

It's not the best image I've ever come out with, but it's certainly better than the original. It's not destined for my wall, but I've maybe saved it from the recycle bin for the time being...

Road Trippin'

Formby, England, 2010

We Are Family!

Currently I've jumped in Padova, Gardaland, Trento, Venice, Bologna, Milan, Manchester, Verona, Switzerland, Lake Maggiore, Florence, Rome, St Andrews, at a boiled meat festival, and at a rice festival, to name but several...

Since I started jumping regularly (in 2008) it's been quite a whistle-stop tour, and that doesn't count all the times I visited places and just didn't get round to jumping. I've been a busy bee. Unfortunately, the life of a busy bee can sometimes be a little neglectful of the people who aren't on the same road as you. In fact it is extremely neglectful of the people that are equally as busy but are instead following their sat nav in a completely different direction - only rarely do your paths cross.

This is the situation with my cousin. We love spending time together, but we don't get to do it very often because we're both flying round the world and living hectic lives without trying to organise cross-country (as in nation and not the Cotswolds) meet-ups.

When, back in the summer of 2010, I returned home for a wedding, we took full advantage of being in the same place at the same time and went for a day out at the beach. It was great fun - we had loads to catch up on and for once the English sunshine rivalled the Italian variety I'd gotten used to (well nearly...).

In order to mark the day in a more special way, I wanted her to take a jumping photo for me.

This took some time.

But we got there in the end.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!

Formby, England, 2010

Afternoon Tea

So after my attempt at cross-cultural relations, I caught the train to Padova to have afternoon tea with my friends. The dress-code was tennis whites, although they made an exception with my cream cricket jumper. My friends called it 'Afternoon Tea' but really it was a large bowl of Pimms and lots of cake to soak it all up.

There was an enormous victoria sponge on offer - each half was an entire cake (sometimes I love miscalculations); we had brought a plethora of freshly-baked scones; some of the other attendees (hailing from other European countries and America) had a go at bringing something relevant (with little success) and of course there was the Pimms punch (complete with cucumber).

It was a really British affair - well apart from the fact that we were sitting on a rooftop in Padova in 27 degree heat, legitimately wearing yah-ishly large sunglasses. It was what people in Britain wish would happen when they have their own afternoon tea parties.

The internationals present at the time were quite astounded with what we could achieve with some eggs, flour, [very expensive] butter [with rivets in the package - seriously what is with that, you could knock at least a Euro off the price if you took the rivets out]. Anyway, with the various ingredients and plenty of jam and cream we'd created a real English treat. The icing on the proverbial cake, however, was what the Italians gave us in return... Sunshine... Lovely.

And I know it's gonna be a lovely day!

Padova, Italy, 2010

Cross-Cultural Relations

Sometimes my life in Italy put me in a real quandry. I fell in love with Italy, the Italian culture, the Italian people, Italian coffee... That said, there were some occasions that above all I just wanted a cup of PG Tips with proper water; I craved roast dinners; I longed for Pimms...

I wished that I could find an appropriate hybrid with the best of British and the best of la dolce vita. Compromise was of course key, but I think I managed to get by quite happily. My parents sent me four boxes of PG Tips and I bought a funny Italian teapot; I turned my nose up at instant coffee and drank only the full-bodied Italian stuff (out of a Moka); I ate my pasta al dente; I showed my roommate how to make scones; I took a casual attitude to queueing; I watched Spooks and Never Mind the Buzzcocks of an evening; I got tanned; my blonde hair went blonder; I supported England in the World Cup; I supported Ferrari in the Formula 1; I drank Pimms in the afternoon and a Spritz at aperativo time. The Toyota Prius has nothing on me.

Anyway, this is all well and good, but I wanted to sum this up in a picture, and a jumping picture at that. I think I've managed it quite well: a cricket jumper and one of Italy's more ramshackled train stations...

Mind the Gap

Verona, Italy, 2010

Gardabubs

The 'Gardabubs' weekend came to me courtesy of the same group of friends with whom I shared the 'Super Happy Fun Day' in Venice. 'Gardabubs' was to be made up of two events - hence the composite word 'Gardabubs'. I shall deal with each separately:

Garda

The Garda of 'Gardabubs' refers to the day we were going to spend at 'Gardaland', a theme park on the southerly bank of Lake Garda. It's no Alton Towers, but it was certainly respectable and gave us a jolly fun day full of in-jokes and banter that I won't bore you with now.

Bubs

Now 'Bubs' refers to an event on the following day - when Michael Buble came to town. He was playing a gig at the Arena in Verona and a couple of my friends were going. I didn't want to spend 50Eur on a ticket because, let's face it, the Arena doesn't have a top so even if I was sitting at home in my apartment, I could still hear his dulcet tones drifting over.

The combination of these two magnificent events, however, meant that the only logical next step was to give the weekend a name, and this is where 'Gardabubs' came from.

To celebrate this, it only really makes sense to do one more thing: take a commemorative jumping photo:

Another summer day has come and gone away in Paris and Rome (and Gardaland)...

Gardaland, Lake Garda, Italy, 2010

Trenta Tre Trentini

My radio involvement was going nicely. I was properly established as part of the team and we were actually making some headway with the student body. Our plans were gradually getting more and more elaborate and after a version of CSI, a remake of the original Star Wars films, it only made sense that now we go for three Top Gear-inspired races across Bella Italia.

The first race pitted a lift against my legs and a flight of stairs; the second saw a three-way spat across Verona - who would win out of a runner, a bike, and a bus? The third race was going to have to be something special - it was going to have to take us outside the medieval walls of the city, but where?

We chose Trento.

We chose Trento because it took one hour on the train and one hour in the car - I genuinely didn't know who was going to win. I was on the train with one co-presenter, and the other had some merry men to deal with in the form of some other Erasmus students.

We raced. If you want to know who won, watch the video. But after all that, we were in Trento, an hour out of Verona and to be honest once we'd wandered round for a while, we all got bored. The only solution to our problems was first, to Grom, second to jump...

The Victory Jump

Trento, Italy, 2010

...and third, to go home.

Radio Gaga

You may have read that when I was in Verona I got involved with student radio. This was a lot of fun. We had a show aimed at other Erasmus students and we discussed everything foreign from habits to haute cuisine. It was actually quite a success. We'd get hundreds of downloads each week on our podcasts and we created quite a stir on the station.

Despite this the station was undergoing some changes in staffing and let's say they needed a kick up the bum in order to publicise their shows. we may have got 1,000 downloads for our podcast about Verona, but if there was one thing we could guarantee it was that the listeners weren't coming from the university. In fact they weren't aware the university had a radio station.

My co-presenters and I felt that we needed to change this and embarked on an ambitious campaign of printing tshirts and orgainising events for our fellow students. This was something we managed to do quite easily in the end and begged the question, why haven't we done this before? (Or rather why haven't they done this before).

So one evening we took our box of tshirts and went to the local pub (that was really the only 'pub' in Verona). We handed out our tshirts, did a spot of publicity, and tried to get the student population to listen to our show - this actually involved explaining to them what student radio was. It was a little hopeless really.

Still, what wasn't hopeless was the jumping picture we took to mark the occasion.

Lost in Translation, only on Fuori Aula Network

Verona, Italy, 2010

The Pant Bug

There are many, many things I love about Italy: the culture, the people, the buildings, the food. I could go on for hours. There is, however, one thing I am partial to above all else - fashion. When in Rome, I decided to do as the Romans, and I bought the same clothes as they did (at least I tried, there were some that were a little out of my budget...).

I continued in this vein for the entire year and found a small collection of shops that tickled my fancy in a way that H&M and New Look had ceased to do in the UK. I will tell you a few of these as I feel it's important comsumer research: Promod, Bershka, Tezenis, Yamamay, Calzedonia, and my absolute favourite, Brandy & Melville.

I really miss it.

One of the things that I loved buying above all else was nice pants. I don't know why that was, but it started when a friend of mine tried to eek out his pants so that he wouldn't have to do any washing. This inevitably meant he had to buy some more. When in Italy, why not buy Italian pants. Anyway, this inspired me so much, I also invested in a pair.

It was months later, on the radio, that we mentioned our pants in passing and my friend said to me that he gave me the pant bug. Unfortunately this sounds quite a lot like an STD and it made us laugh quite a lot. There's only one way to celebrate something like that...

Fuelled by Diesel

Verona, Italy, 2010

High Ceilings

In Italy the ceilings are high. Really high. I'm not sure why that is because in an apartment block, if the ceilings were the standard 7-8' that you get in Britain, then you would probably be able to fit an extra floor into the building.

Still they've obviously done it for a very good reason - maybe it helps air circulation. I don't know. I don't really care, because on one evening it gave me and my friend the perfect opportunity for a little game... see who can touch the ceiling.

Easy.

No. It really wasn't.

In fact we didn't manage it. The ceilings must have been 10' and when you're jumping from the ground and not something that will give you a little leverage, it really is an impossible task. But I like a challenge and I wasn't going to be beaten, at least not without giving it a jolly good go first.

We jumped.

'Who was higher?'

'I dunno' my friend replied.

This was proving to be an ineffective competition.

'I know! Let's take a photo to see who's highest.'

This is what we did, the results of which you can see below.

Reach for the Stars

Verona, Italy, 2010

So though we didn't reach our goal, we had a lot of fun in the process. It lulled us into a false sense of security in a way because my roommate casually mentioned to me the following day that we ought to be careful about the amount of jumping we do, as the girls in the apartment below may not be loving our competition as much as we were.

All Things to All Men

I'd been in Verona quite a while and I'd got involved in all sorts. One of the little projects I had was student radio. Now radio isn't really what I want to go into full-time, no, that would be television, but as the University of Verona didn't have a TV station, radio was certainly the next best thing.

Still I'm not one to go down without a fight and decided that the solution to my problems was to do a few films and videos to accompany certain episodes of our highly successful show. We did it all - CSI:Verona, Star Wars, Top Gear - they may not have gone viral, but they were so much fun to film.

Having said all of this, we were limited by a number of issues:

1. We were using my poxy digital camera that makes people sound like they're lisping when they talk.

2. We were using very basic editing software - no Oscar nominations for us.

3. We were in Verona.

Now why does being in Verona hamper our chances at making a decent film? Locations.

Fair enough CSI:Verona was set in Verona, but Star Wars wasn't. We had to trawl the city looking for the Death Star, Cloud City, Tattooine, Jabba's Palace, the Millenium Falcon and so on...

In the end we used what we could and it turned out ok. George Lucas isn't quaking in his space boots, but considering the things we were up against, it's not too shabby. We categorised all the scenes and worked out what we could film where and set to it. My friend lived in a reasonably plain flat which became Cloud City, the Death Star, the Millenium Falcon, and many, many more places.

It seemed only right, therefore, that at the end of this escapade we jumped to celebrate.

Using the Force

Verona, Italy, 2010

Teacher Training

In Verona we were there with the blessing of our university and once during our year we were to expect a visit from our year abroad co-ordinator. Ours happened to be an absolutely brilliant woman who was Italian through and through. She had flown out and was staying in a hotel in the city but because she was there for quite a few days, she got bored. Really bored.

We had agreed to meet up with her for dinner. We didn't know if we would be paying, or whether it was on the university, so we went to our favourite little pizza place on the banks of the Adige. We dined, chatted, caught up on the latest gossip from St Andrews and told our tutor about how we were getting on.

She was concerned that we weren't getting a good deal and so we went through everything in minute detail. Once we had discussed our courses, she wanted to know if were happy in Verona, if we were getting involved in student life. I told her about getting involved in student radio.

She was delighted we were making such an effort to fit in and get to know the locals and then I may have let slip about my jumping pictures. This she was really curious about.

'Jumping? What do you mean jumping?'

'I mean I go somewhere and take a picture of me jumping there like a momento.'

'Ahh... I like this.'

'We can take one now if you want.'

'Great I have my camera.'

So we stood in Pazza Erbe in Verona jumping up and down whilst our tutor tried to work out how to take jumping pictures on her camera. We got there... mostly...

How do you say 'jump' in Italian?

Verona, Italy, 2010

Grom! For My Love!

One of the things I did to celebrate my birthday was going to see my friends in Padova. We had decided to go, see the city, get something to eat, then go out in the evening to a club, classily named as Fishmarket.

This we managed, and then some. But we also managed something else. Padova boasts something Verona does not: a Grom. Now Grom, despite having a disgusting-sounding name, is actually an ice cream parlour, making some of the best ice cream I have ever tasted. Ever.

We Grommed. Or rather we had some Grom ice cream and decided it could quite easily be made into a verb: if we can Google, we can most certainly Grom.

What then began was a Grom-athon: we substituted the word 'Grom' into films, books, songs, bands - you name it, we Grommed it. Think of 'Grom Against the Machine'; 'Grom with the Wind'; 'Gromsters Inc.'; Have I Grommed You Lately?'... I could go on, I have them written down somewhere...

Anyway in this vein, I can introduce the next picture:

You Know You Make Me Wanna Grom!

Padova, Italy, 2010

Pontoon.

The majority of UK students that do a year abroad at university turn 21 while they're out there: you start university at 18, and in your third year, which you start aged 20, at some point over the year will become the point where you reach pontoon - 21.

This was the boat I found myself in towards the end of March, nearing the end of my eighth month in Italy. How do you celebrate your 21st birthday? How do you celebrate it in a foreign country? I couldn't have a big party for my friends because most of them were back home. I had a couple of really close friends in Verona, but it doesn't make much of a party with a mere handful of people.

A solution was reached in that I was to have lots of little birthday parties: breakfasts, dinners, movie nights etc. It's like getting lots of little presents instead of one big one. That said, it is always nice to have a big present, and I did get one. My parents came out to see me and asked what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to go to Venice: they'd never been and I could think of no better place to spend my 21st birthday than the canals of arguably the most incredible city in the whole of Italy.

So we went. And it rained. Incessantly. Still, Venice is Venice and it was beautiful despite all that. We got to Piazza San Marco and I accounced that I wanted to jump (not that I lacked jumping pictures in Venice). When I made my announcement, I didn't realise that I'd still be trying to fulfil my wish fifteen minutes later.

The light was terrible and every time we'd take a photo the flash would go, but not at the same moment as the previous attempt. We had hundreds of pictures by the end, but none of them had me airborne. I was actually accumulating quite a crowd because people thought I was either famous, or it was a peculiar flashmob.

Anyway, if you don't try, you don't succeed, and we got there in the end:

Happy Birthday to Yah!

Venice, Italy, 2010

Looking Forward

So in my last post I looked back at the five months I'd had in Verona, this next post will look forward at all the banter that was to come. I was approximately halfway through my time in Verona and things  were getting better all the time.

I felt like I knew more people and I knew them really well too: I had found a niche and settled into it. I was getting really involved in student radio, I was really enjoying my classes, and I was getting out and about in my environs.

I'd had so many great experiences so far, I couldn't wait for what was to come: trips to Padova, Venice and Trento; a few spoofs of things like CSI and Top Gear made especially for our radio show; a whole summer of travelling and seeing new places and meeting new people: if there was part of the Italian culture I'd missed, I would like someone to point out to me exactly what it is.

So after jumping and looking back at Verona, there was only one thing to do - look beyond the city and jump there too.

The Only Way is Up

Verona, Italy, 2010

Fair Verona

After our trip to Bologna, myself and my friends studying in Verona acquired a couple of interlopers that wanted to come back with us to see where we lived. I say it's like it's a bad thing - I loved having people to stay; how often can you take someone round a place as beautiful as Verona and say, oh yeah, this is where I live by the way. I should know - I'm from Manchester...

It was March and I'd been in Verona about five months; I was absolutely loving life and I wanted to share it with as many people as I could. Having a couple of friends to stay, therefore, put the icing on the cake for me. We took them up to the Medieval walls so that we could look down on the city and I examined the city I'd called home for nearly half a year.

Quite honestly I didn't want to leave. Things were beginning to get a little hinkey with my friends back in St Andrews and I wasn't relishing my return. I'd got involved in so many things in Verona that I had no real reason to leave and I felt more at home there than I ever did.

I took a jumping picture to celebrate.

Home, Sweet Home

Verona, Italy, 2010

Spaghetti Bolognese

The trips kept coming as soon as exams were over. Exams had been a bit stressful, but things seemed like they'd turned a corner with the start of the new semester and I was excited for the fun that was to come. Part of this aforementioned fun was to be a trip to Bologna. There was a number of St Andrews students abroad that year. There were five of us studying, and the rest were either working as teaching assistants, or in real jobs.

After much organisation, we managed to fix a date for a big St Andrews meet-up in Bologna (as central as we could make it for everyone). The day came and we all boarded our various trains and in a slightly faux Top Gear set-up, we raced towards our destination to begin our day of much hilarity.

I won't lie in saying that we absorbed a lot of culture and we went round all the museums and churches we could find. No, instead I will tell the truth - we moved from one eating establishment to another, pretty much all day.

Visiting Bologna wasn't the real point of the trip, it was so we could all catch-up and share our horror stories from Italy and our in-jokes from St Andrews. It was a brilliant day, and the best way to celebrate it (as well as burning off some pizza calories) was to jump.

High Flyers

Bologna, Italy, 2010

You Make Me Feel Like The One

I had a brief hiatus from jumping for the rest of January and most of February - I was in the midst of exams and the destruction of a dear friendship so as you can understand, it took some time away from jumping frivolities.

My next big road trip coming up was to Milan. I had organised with a friend to go and see the Stereophonics on their European tour at Alcatraz in Milan, and we thought we might as well have the day sightseeing in Milan.

Milan was grey and wet and to be honest, a bit horrible. The buildings looked more fascist in poor light and everything seemed a little sinister. We walked for miles around the city, trying to find some gems to take pictures of and some nice places to stop and rest our weary feet.

By the time we reached the main piazza, the rain was light, but persistent and it was cold. The Duomo looked yellow against the grey clouds, and I confess the first thing I thought when I saw it was, 'Ouch! When someone threw a pot replica of that at Silvio Berlusconi, no wonder it did some damage.' That may not have been the effect the architect was going for...

Anyway I jumped. Why not.

I Don't Know Where We Are Going Now...

Milan, Italy, 2010

Both the picture and the post take their titles from Dakota by the Stereophonics. We got hopelessly lost in Milan (hence the title) but it all came good in the end because the gig was incredible. It was beyond belief in so many ways. Even with the rain, the fascism and the cold seeping into my bones, it's still one of my favourite EVER days in Italy. Punto e basta.

Let it Snow

I left St Andrews and came home via Edinburgh. I'd managed to hit the sweet spot in between the chaos-inducing snow showers that paralysed the UK for much of December 2009 and January 2010. I arrived back in Manchester with bits of snow still left here and there, but the roads were clear and I was having a cup of PG Tips with my feet up on the sofa about half an hour after leaving Manchester Piccadilly.

It was a couple of days later that the snow came, more ferocious than the first time, and stubbornly refusing to leave until mid way through the month. It was beautiful to behold, but a nightmare to travel in. I was looking at the thousands of people inconveniencd by flight cancellations and thinking, yep, in a week that's going to be me...

To take my mind off that, I decided I was going to look at the snow and concentrate on its aesthetic qualities and not on the torment it would no doubt cost me. This involved going for walks and getting shin deep in the untouched flurries. I wanted to jump in it, but I was hindered by a number of factors: some of the snow still had the ice left over from the original covering making it really slippy; I was padded up and movement was a little restricted; and there was very little to launch myself off as the snow had gone and covered it all.

Still perseverance won out in the end and I found a little inclince to jump off.

Jumping in a Winter Wonderland

Manchester, England, 2009

Back Home

After my epic jumping spree in Venice, I was psyched for as much jumping as possible. This coincided with my trip home from Italy for Christmas. The way it went was that the cheapest flight I could get home was not to Manchester, but to Edinburgh. As I was so close to my old university haunts in St Andrews, I decided that I'd go and have a few days with my friends over there to see how they were getting on without me.

I arrived in the midst of essay deadlines and I was a bit of a loose part for about a day. Still no bother. I found a way to amuse myself - coastal walks, coffee shops, and as time wore on some of the girls living with my old housemates left, and me and my old housemate had the place to ourselves. We decided to have a Christmas dinner and watch the latest series of Spooks on BBC iPlayer.

Inspired by Spooks we decided to take a whole host of entertaining spy pictures. We continued in this vein into the kitchen when I made some coffee in the new Moka that I'd bought for my friend for Christmas. Whilst I was standing at the hob controlling proceedings, I noticed some herbs and spices.

The way that they organised meals in the house was that one person cooked each night and would use communal money for it. In my opinion this doesn't work, principally because it's the most expensive way of doing things. Instead of working out what each person will cook that week and buying accordingly, or even using someone else's leftovers, they each bought things for each meal so there were hundreds of packs of peas in the freezer and several peppers gradually turning into a liquid state in the bottom of the fridge. Nice.

Anyway, another of the things they would buy for each meal was herbs and spices.

'This meal needs cumin. I'll buy some cumin.'

It seems that many of them had that idea at certain points over the course of the semester.

One bottle out of the bunch happened to catch me eye. Italian Seasoning. I picked it up - that's me alright! Maintaining the theme of the evening of taking a lot of pictures in wild and wonderful poses, I decided I was going to jump - with the Italian Seasoning.

Tu vuo fa l'italiano

St Andrews, Scotland, 2009

Jumping Pros

By now you will be seeing a common theme. I am in Venice and I am enjoying the art of the jumping photo with my friends. It really was a good day. We called it a Super-Happy-Fun day, but that's probably not something I should admit to...

Anyway, this post appears directly after the previous one chronologically: that's not unusual in this blog, but I mean directly after. It's still in the five minute jumping marathon that we'd staged by the disused well. At this point I'd like to say that none of us were beginners - we were all experienced jumpers and advocats of the art of the jumping photo.

Because we were all pros we liked to go beyond the standard jumping picture and take it to a new level. I don't mean we jumped off higher things because that would have been kinda dangerous, but we tried to think outside the box and get a little creative.

This paid off with the Evolution of Jumping (see yesterday) and we tried again with something a little more posed. Well that's the theory, I can't actually remember what the pose was supposed to be. It might have been a kind of Santa and his reindeer or just one of those happy accidents.

Anyway however it happened, we got ourselves another corker of a jumping picture.

Origins of Symmetry

Venice, Italy, 2009

The Evolution of Jumping

I wasn't kidding when I said the day we went to Venice was truly snap-happy. We decided to have a breather from our intensive sightseeing and we stopped for a nutella-filled crepe. I personally didn't have one as I got distracted by the man making glass earrings in the shop opposite. All I can say is that I still have my fishy earrings, the crepe is long gone.

Anyway, I appreciated the break and we stopped in a small piazza. There were no free benches, so we sat on the steps to an old well. Once the eating had finished, we decided that we would take some more jumping pictures. I don't know why because my feet were so tired and we still had a fair distance to cover.

Whatever the reason was for deciding to jump, it was good enough to galvanise four of us into action. We did a lot of jumping. We didn't have an audience, so we just took good sweet time and jumped for a good five minutes (I felt that the next morning, I can tell you!).

Inamongst all the standard jumping pictures was the one you will find at the bottom of the post. I haven't touched it - it came out just as you see it: my friends, may I present the Evolution of Jumping. There's not much more I can say about it, so just sit back, relax and enjoy it.

What Would Darwin Say?

Venice, Italy, 2009

The Tourist

When I was studying in Verona, I was with two friends from my university; down the road in Padova we had another two friends. We met up as often as we could so that we could catch-up, reminisce and eat lots of Italian food. We went to Padova in October and the visit was returned a little while later. As a Christmas hurrah, we decided that we were going to go to Venice.

I had never been to Venice before, but I fell in love with it instantly. It was early December and we expected the city to be busy. It wasn't. Hardly at all. It was a beautifully sunny day and we did all the touristy things - the gondola ride, St Mark's Square, the Rialto Bridge, the getting lost...

We all had our cameras out and were snapping away here there and everywhere. The others had all been before, but Venice is constantly changing - whenever you go it's different: the water levels, the quality of light, the amount of people... There are always new things to capture.

Including jumping pictures.

At this point I just want to explain something. One of the reasons we were so snap-happy was because we were super excited for Christmas and had all purchased some sort of Christmassy headgear to help celebrate the day. This made us subjects for other tourists throughout the day and was generally entertaining. The other tourists didn't seem to realise that Christmas was coming, the only decorations the watery city had provided was UFO-like saucers that flashed blue and looked generally a bit tacky. Still, no worries, we had plenty of Christmas cheer ourselves.

So when we made it to Piazza San Marco, we were ready to have a Christmas jump in Venice. What a combination!

Duck boards really do make a great jumping platform...

Venice, Italy, 2009

Side Streets

Shortly after jumping on the Postumian Way, we moved over to a side street to get back to the main piazza in Verona, Piazza Bra. We came across a red carpet, a little festive addition to a restaurant to generate a little more custom. I decided that I was going to jump there because there was a handy bollard I could jump off. My friends gladly obliged and the result is below.

Of all the places in Verona I chose to jump down a side street. Not only is this completely illogical, but it's kinda disappointing considering there are so many other beautiful places to jump in the city.

So why did I jump there and not in front of Juliet's balcony? Because I'd been in Verona three months and I was really getting to know the city. I was discovering new routes and new side streets every day - I loved to go for a walk in town after class; my apartment was really close to the centre and wrapping up warm and going for a stroll through the busy streets was the perfect way to unwind.

I guess I'm jumping in a side street and not in Piazza Bra is because it never occured to me. Even after just three months I'd started to look upon these fantastic monuments - the Arena, Piazza Erbe, the Roman walls, the Medieval walls - as normal, as a part of daily life.

The Red Carpet

Verona, Italy, 2009

Who Put Balls on the Postumia?

Christmas had arrived in Verona. It's a little different to the UK because Christmas arrives over here about the 30th September: stores are decorated in October and remain so until after the January sales have finished. Italy is a lot more restrained when it comes to putting up Christmas decorations - well actually it depends where you go.

Verona went all out, but waited a little while before doing so. It was late November before we saw any signs of Christmas arriving in the city. The signs that we saw were the beginnings of a Christmas market in the piazza where Dante resides looking disapporivingly at whatever is below: he spent most of December giving condescending looks to the Christmas tree sponsored by confectioners Bauli from his majestic plinth.

Anyway the reason we discovered this happy news that Christmas had arrived in Verona was because we were on a tour of Roman Verona that happened to take us directly through the piazza. No doubt we'd have found it in good time ourselves, but still, it was a nice addition to our little tour of all the things the Romans did in the city.

Our tour had started on the Postumian Way, the road originally built by the Romans. We met at the Arco dei Gavi which was the gate to the outer ring of the city (for those of you that know Verona, it has been moved because it wouldn't make too much sense to have the gate facing the river...). Anyway but a few days later, the Postumian Way was laced with fairy lights and sparlking blue balls.

It was funny to see Roman Verona together with commerical Verona in perfect, if a litle incongruous, harmony. I felt I had to jump.

Jumping on the Postumia

Verona, Italy, 2009

Boiled Meat

You may have read about my ill-fated evening at the rice festival. It was so bad, that it couldn't be anything other than hilarious, and certainly a favourite story of mine when conversation ebbs at dinner parties. I called the last post 'a very Italian obsession' because that is what the Italian attitude to food is.

A rice festival is understandable when you consider that the region produced rice and other natural produce - what better way to showcase it, but a few months later, my next jumping opportunity came at another food festival, when my housemate asked me if me and my friends wanted to go out with her and her friends.

Great! We'd all been out together once before and it was a laugh, so i had no reason to think that this time would be any different. So where was it that we ended up? What fun had my housemate planned?

A boiled meat festival.

I'm going to write it again so that you can be sure that's what I said.

A boiled meat festival.

We got our food and sat down together at the long canteen-style tables. We even had birthday cake for one of the girls. After that we got to chatting. It turns out I had a fan. One of my housemate's friends was an admirer of my jumping photos - first showcased on Facebook - and wanted to jump with me.

I'd never had an admirer before - well not of my work. I gladly obliged. The ironic thing was that the photographer (my housemate) cut his head off. I hate it when that happens...

Jump if you love boiled meat!

Isola della Scala, Italy, 2009

A Very Italian Obsession

Now safely settled in Verona, I began to get to grips with university life. You may have read that my last post happened after this one that I'm now writing, but I felt an introduction to Verona needed to begin with a picture of the city itself.

So what was it that happened before? Readers, the most monumental waste of time on earth.

When British universities organise Freshers' Week, there's usually lots of partying and some fun things to do so that all the sparkling new undergrads can get to know each other. The orientation week for Erasmus students in Verona had the same effect, only for a different reason. It had been so terribly, bone-crunchingly, earth-shatteringly boring that we all bonded out of sheer desperation.

The event I'm principally referring to is the tour of Isola della Scala, the Veneto region's rice cultivation hot-spot. Exciting huh. But it was free and I went on it with my friend. This was a mistake. We spent four hours touring the top rice sights and then another four hours at a rice festival.

Oh my goodness.

The tour guide couldn't speak English, most of the rice sights were no longer in use and those that were, were boring, and the festival was all about rice. There is literally no upside.

Well they gave us a dinner voucher for... you can probably guess this... a risotto. It was nice though and then after having rice cakes for pudding, my friend and I decided to go exploring in the rice festival. It was at this point I decided to take a jumping picture to kill some of the two hours we had left.

Jump if you love rice!

Isola della Scala, Italy, 2009

Ironically, it was only after the picture had been taken that we happened across a large market at the back of the festival and realised two hours would probably not be enough time for a look around...

The Start of Something New

So after crossing the border back into Italy, and finishing my summer holiday, I moved over to Verona in September. I immediately fell in love with the city - it's not big, it's not one of the grandest, but it will always hold a special place in my heart.

I got myself sorted in a flat overlooking the many terracotta-d rooves. I was settling in with my new housemates, I'd even started to get to know my surroundings and I was in the midst of an orientation week at the university. To be honest, this jumping picture isn't the next chronologically, but I felt that the beginning of my time in Verona had to be marked with the first jump I did within its walls.

Just.

The first full weekend I was there was the Tocati festival in Verona. Tocati is how the Italians say 'your turn' in Verona's dialect. There were a number of pop-up marquees all over the city dedicated to games. Every year a host country provides the entertainment. Last year it was Scotland, this year it was Greece.

After spending the day wandering round Verona with the tourists, but in the knowledge that I could just go home in the evening, we wandered up to Verona's walls. There is a garden about half way up to the Castel San Pietro. It looks down over the river and some of Verona's fantastic churches.

I decided I was going to jump.

In Fair Verona, I Laid my Scene

Verona, Italy, 2009

Every End Has a Start

Or at least that's how I think the song goes - it is The Editors? I can't remember. But it's true, every end has a start and every start has an end.

That's how I felt when I jumped at Monte Rosa at the end of my family holiday in Piemonte. The clouds had rolled in and there was a storm on the way - the weather (which had been glorious up to that point) had turned and was about to engulf our holiday in its threatening clouds as if to sign it off and done and dusted.

But as I said, or The Editors said, every end has a start, or maybe every end is followed by a start. The following day we were travelling to Verona to move me into my flat so that I could start my year abroad. It was a big moment in my life and one of the greatest chapters of it so far.

But it had to start with an end. And the end was at Monte Rosa when I jumped for the last time before becoming a resident of Verona, like Dante, Romeo, Juliet, and other such whimsical characters from history.

Hopping Off

Monte Rose, Italy, 2009

Looking Back...

In going to Switzerland, I got up close and personal with the beautiful mountains I'd seen in Italy. I may have reached my nemisis, and though I wasn't able to conquer it, I did the next best thing and jumped in front of it. To be honest, it was the most I could do purely because though I'd like to ski, I have an over-developed sense of doom and I get the feeling it wouldn't end well...

Now I'm not going to say that I ran screaming from the snow-covered peaks, but after my trip to Saas-Fee I ran back over the border to Italy, and that's where I stayed for many, many months.

But before that happened I turned my back on the mountains and took a jumping picture looking in the other direction. The view was nowhere near as spectacular, but by now there was something comforting in looking back towards Italy and also the many jumping opportunities it would give me over the next 12 months...

Who needs a disguise when you have hair?

Saas-Fee, Switzerland, 2009

Crossing the Border

You may have read about how much I love the mountains. I've seen the mountains in Italy, France and on this particular family holiday, I saw them in Switzerland. I'd been in Italy for a few months by that stage and I'd seen lots of their furry hills and grassy mountains. There was something comforting about wandering over the plains, but in the distance, like a dragon waiting to be bested, were the Swiss Alps.

It wasn't long before my dad decided that he couldn't wait anymore and we headed to Saas-Fee in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. I suppose it makes sense to draw the border of a country where the landscape changes, but I wasn't quite ready for it when we drove through the eerie no-man's-land and blasted out into the Swiss countryside.

From the soft, furry inviting hillsides, we suddenly found ourselves in an unfriendly landscape with rocky mountains as far as the eye could see. Hostile though it may have seemed, it was hypnotic and all I wanted was a closer look.

So by the end of the day, not only had I jumped higher than I ever had before, but I'd made it into a new country.

Oh, I think I'm about to crash through the roof of the cable car hut...

Saas-Fee, Switzerland, 2009

A Jump with a View

We'd waited for our cable car and managed to get to the top of a small mountain overlooking Lago Maggiore on one side, Mont Blanc on the other. It was beautiful - the air was fresh and the horizon had a haze over it that made everything look softer.

Looking out at the view reminded me of the time I went to Mont Blanc. We took the train part of the way up the mountain and walked around. We wandered, I had a wee in a draughty squat (truly an eye-opening experience) and then we went back down the mountain.

I love the mountains.

I really love the mountains.

I would much prefer to go to the mountains than to the beach. There's something special and wonderful about being high up and looking at the pristine world below. The air is fresh and there's so much of it too: it's freeing (pretentious, but true).

I've always wanted to do proper mountaineering. Bear Grylls took Miranda Hart up to the Alps for a couple of days trekking - I would write and star in a sitcom just to be able to do that! But alas all I've managed is a stroll around about a third of the way up Mont Blanc, and even then I took the train.

So even though it's totally inadequate, about four years later when I found myself eye-balling Mont Blanc from afar, I thought I'd do the next best thing for me, and take a jumping picture...

Soft Walk to Horizon

Lago Maggiore, Italy, 2009

Stresa-d Out

A couple of posts ago I talked about perspective - getting some perspective in terms of the people I spent a mere month of my life with, and also getting some perspective in my jumping photos so that it was obvious I was jumping and not crouching next to a tiny Italian flag.

This is true of the next picture in my jumping album: you'll see that it looks like I'm a giant on top of a Borromean Island in the middle of Lake Maggiore. This would be unlikely and again, it's just an interesting perspective which is currently winning the battle against common sense in my blog 2-0.

So, like my previous post, I'm in Stresa on Lake Maggiore. Feeling rather invincible, I decided to have another go at jumping as I'd managed to escape unscathed from my previous escapade and I quite like tempting fate. Ultimately I was killing time with my family before we went up on a cable car to above the lake.

I hate killing time. I'd already taken pictures with all the exercise signs along the waterfront. Firstly I never saw anyone else attempting them, and secondly I'm always up for a bit of ritual embarrassment. There were several signs with suggestions for different exercises every few yards. What a waste of money...

Anyway, I'd completed them all with varying degrees of hilarity, and we had about half an hour before we had to get the cable car. We didn't want to be late so there was no point venturing into town for a browse. The only option was to kill time.

Now I don't wait well. Waiting stresses me out. My only alternative was clear: take some jumping photos.

How to Ruin a Beautiful Photograph

Stresa, Italy, 2009

It Started as a Good Idea...

When you're sitting in hospital in plaster up to your eyeballs and dosed on morphine; in those hazy moments of silence you do think 'well it started as a good idea...' A plan fraught with complications is usually pursued if the end product is worth it, so much so that the risks really are worth taking. Sometimes, however, these things don't happen, and they're just plain stupid.

Sometimes I think that about my jumping photos. I see a brilliant spot to jump off, but it's only after I think that I may have been jumping off something a little dangerous, or in front of something a little dangerous...

Take the picture in Florence, for example. I was jumping off a wall (with a hefty drop on one side). One slight miscalculation and I was looking at broken bones and a stay in a hospital that could probably learn a lot from the NHS. All that in the name of jumping. Is it really worth it?

That was my first thought when I saw today's jumping picture. I'd forgotten about it for the mostpart. If I remember one, it's a different one - the next one in the series.

What can possibly go wrong?

Stresa, Italy, 2009

I was struck by the fact I didn't have a great deal of ground clearance and it looks like I'm about to smack my knees on the concrete wall, that or end up in the lake. I don't think about things like that when I jump because I'm confident enough in my jumping ability to be able to take off and land without doing myself too much of an injury.

But the camera never lies and sometimes shows me how close I get to just plain stupid.

Nooks and Crannies

When I travel, I always like to discover the nooks and crannies of a place. I really believe that you can only get to know somewhere if you get completely lost in back streets and deserted plains. I do think I'm intrepid and I'm always up for a bit of exploration here and there. This was true of the middle Sunday of our holiday. There was little point on going to a town - especially a small one - because most things would be shut. For those of you who are avid Top Gear viewers, you may have seen that the only reason the boys got pulled over by some friendly Carabinieri was not because they were exceeding the speed limit, but because they appeared to be working on a Sunday.

So we decided instead that we would go somewhere unaffected by things like opening hours and Catholics and went instead to a place of natural beauty off the beaten track: a lake called 'Antrona' up in the hills.

By the time we got there, the sun had fallen below the mountains and left the water looking impossibly blue. The only thing missing from our scenic pictures was indeed me jumping. I hastily obliged.

Day of Rest

Lago di Antrona, Italy, 2009

Ok so I may have disturbed the peace a little, but the place really was deserted and that really is the beauty of nooks and crannies...

Getting Some Perspective

My language course finished and I moved on to a family holiday in the north west of Italy - Lago Maggiore, Swiss Alps and plenty of sunshine. It was beautiful - absolutely breathtakingly wonderful. We spent about three weeks there in total - 3/4 of what I'd spent in Camerino on my language course.

To be honest the experiences were much the same - lots of sightseeing, lots of driving around, lots of wonderful Italian food, lots of great company and that was that. My time in Camerino has just been succinctly swallowed up and rendered no more special than any other time spent in a foreign clime.

Perspective indeed.

But still, more than two years later, I still keep in touch from the people on my language course. Admittedly as the years creep by the number is reducing, but the fact that I'm still in touch with anyone after spending an isolated month with them one summer is quite frankly miraculous.

A different perspective indeed.

This takes us nicely to my next jumping picture, taken on a walk I went on with my family from the villa where we were staying.

Crouching or Jumping?

Domodossola, Italy, 2009

One of my friends from my language course picked up on this picture and said it looked like I wasn't jumping, but crouching next to a teent tiny Italian flag: two persepctives.

I can dismiss the language course as just another month of my life in Italy, or I can remember it as one of the best months of my life: two perspectives.