Tireder Thursday

On Thursday the unthinkable happened. The nutella ran out. No longer could I disguise my stale crust beneath a thick later of chocolately goodness, it lay entirely bare and obstinate on my plate. At length I tried to cover its nakedness with a thin smear of butter, but to no avail. I consoled myself with an extra soup bowl of coffee, and tried not to think of the coming two days of nutella deprivation.

That day we were to exit Torino for the first time, driving out of the city to investigate the intriguing combination of a design agency and a brick factory. The bus ascended endlessly up the mountain, providing an excellent view over Torino that was unfortunately obscured by a thick layer of mist. Someone, who may or may not have been me, began humming the Lord of the Rings theme. This planted the thought that several of my friends do, in fact, look like hobbits. The jokes continued all day to the subjects’ distinct lack of amusement.

We exited the bus upon arrival, returning the hobbits to what was for them a more natural environment in the misty mountains, and tromped through a kind of gauntlet of brick-sculptures and into the brick factory. So this is what happens when creative people get access to unlimited bricks… they build endless variations of lego-esque structures.

The Italians from the company wanted to show us the clay pit where the raw materials come from, and the brick production line. Suddenly everyone was rolling up their trousers, revealing hairy hobbit-like legs or embarrassing socks. All very warmly dressed with nice coats and scarfs on top, but then with thin ankles poking out the bottom. The reason for this rolling fest soon became apparent, as we started to traipse through the stickiest, slipperiest, gunkiest nature walk of my life. The ground was formed entirely of clay, none of the other stuff that you learn about when you study soil composition. We were standing on embryo bricks.

We walked through marvelous scenery (the parts that we could see), with an exaggerated gait born of having an extra inch on the bottom of your shoe. There was no point trying to remove the clay as it gradually built up, so instead we decided to see who could get the most stuck to their feet. The girls with the high heels had the most luck, turning their stilettos into wedges. Following this came the discovery that if you made a fast enough kicking motion you could projectile the clay from your shoe at other people. Guido became the main target of this, by virtue of being the tallest and easiest to hit.

On the way back Geertje made friends with the world’s ugliest but most charming sheep. It had an exaggerated Roman nose that made it look like some kind of alien from the furthest reaches of the galaxy. But you couldn’t hold that against it when it was gnawing so endearingly on the fence. Maybe that’s just what comes from living on a diet of clay-infested grass.

Eventually we shed our feet of clay and regained the indoors; inside to take a tour of the brick factory. The poor girl from the company was saying things like “Please don’t touch the machinery, don’t go over there” but no one could hear her over the whirring machinery. So instead we wandered aimlessly like the sheep we had so recently passed, gawking at the production line. Maarten had picked up some clay from outside and sculpted it into a small and somewhat lopsided head. For most of the factory tour he and Marc were engaged very seriously in the task of trying to photograph this miniature head such that it gave the impression of being on Sanne’s shoulders. Important business indeed.

Then we got down to the important (?) stuff. Designing something out of raw bricks that fulfilled one of the areas of work, sleep, eat, play or love. Our fivesome elected play and then spent a dysfunctional hour arguing over what creative techniques we were going to use, such that our group split down the middle and the two halves did different things. It was like a horrible nightmarish re-enactment of the IAAD forum, only this time the participants didn’t have the excuse of not sharing a common language. Personally I couldn’t care which technique we used, so I sat aimlessly sketching and eating cookies.

Soon the agony was over and it was lunchtime. The sun had come out of the mist, and all the students sat like lizards draped over the warm brick fence, absorbing what precious sunlight they could get. I had been lazy and recycled my sandwich from the day before, and as a result it was so disgusting that I didn’t want it. I subsisted on cookies and tea instead. Maureen’s sandwich had fared even worse, the peanut butter somehow reacting with the bread to dissolve the inside of the sandwich into a cavernous mess. She took one look at it and it joined mine in the bin.

Some people began kicking around a football (astonishingly not the usual culprits) and in a moment of madness I decided to join in. It was ok, when my foot actually made contact with the ball. This little adventure into the sporting life came to an end when the football made a beeline for an elaborate domino-like structure of bricks that had been set up. It hit one, which teetered, oh so teasingly, for one moment before it regained its upright posture. The domino bricks had survived this time…. but we picked up the football and slunk quietly away.

Eventually the people from the company managed to peel the students off the sun-soaked brick wall and get us back to work. I conveniently offered to make the presentation for our group while they made the model, thus allowing me the opportunity to remain in the sun for the rest of the afternoon (and make a wonderful presentation of course!)
We had some rather varied results in the end…. A marble maze, a jewellery box, a tabletop oven, a briefcase shaped desk caddy and…. A shower interior.

Soon we were heading back to Torino. I made the mistake of sitting in front of Koen and Thomas, and as such my chair was continually shaking and I had the constant prattle of superhero accents in my ears. However adversity leads to creativity and as a result I assembled my first bastardized Dutch sentence “CAN YOU MY SITTING PLACE NOT KICK!” After a while I became aware that the bus had stopped. It had gotten a little bit too long for just a traffic light, and so I looked to the front to see what was happening. Some Italian delivery man had wandered off, leaving their truck with its back doors open and lights flashing, completely blocking the bus lane. Judging by the duration of this state, they were probably inside the nearest cafe, drinking teeny tiny espressos and arguing about politics. At least five minutes had passed, and we were now approaching the big Ten. Thon, got out of the bus and calmly climbed into the drivers seat of the van, while Marc and Sanne pushed from behind. They gently nudged the van up onto the kerb, and steered it inwards so it was facing the nearest wall. With this obstacle removed we continued on our way, the whole bus cheering.

Not soon after we stood wedged against the door of a pizza place, waiting for it to open. It was hugely popular, but alas also very small, and we had been told if we didn’t arrive early enough our booking would be given away. So we stood shoulder to shoulder (or elbow to shoulder when some small Italian ladies tried to wedge their way to the front of the queue) for 20 minutes until at last they opened their doors. Even as we were eating the food (which was nice, but I don’t see what all the fuss was about) there was a whole string of disenchanted Italians watching us solemnly from the chairs near the door, waiting for us to finish so they could move in. They waited for an hour. I just don’t understand it… when there are so many nice places to eat in Torino why would you wait for just one? Was there some secret about which we did not know? Do they smuggle diamonds, baked inside the pizzas?

In a post-dinner stupor I stretched, leaning backwards over the chair. My head came to rest conveniently on Marc’s shoulder, who was sitting behind me and performing the same stretching routine. He borrowed my shoulder also. I could have fallen asleep like that, but then the waiting Italians might have gotten a little bit cross.

Determined to find a different hangout this night we walked halfway across Torino, in search of an elusive bar. It wasn’t until we had walked 40 minutes and reached the edge of the map that our guides realised that in fact the bar wasn’t even on the map, because it was so far away from the centre of Torino.

Another 40 minutes and we were back in 5km.