So I haven't had much time to update. The hostels we've been at have charged for internet. Its lame. And they are kind of expensive. Anyway, the hostel I'm at gives an hour for free which I've spent a half an hour using already somehow on the internet. It goes so quickly.
So recap:
I was in Prague earlier this week. We left super early wednesday morning, 5am, to fly to Heraklion in Crete. We stayed there for two days. Loved it there. Took a ferry very early in the morning to Santorini. Stayed there for two days also. And I also loved it. Then, we took a ferry this morning, six hour long ride, to Athens. And in the few hours we've been here, its not my favorite. Its very dirty. And we're staying in the nice area.
So what have I done? The rest of Prague consisted of a few days of relaxing. Traveling is somehow taxing on your body so I spent a whole day lounging around. Initially, I felt guilty for staying inside but at the same time, if I'm not going to enjoy myself if I go out then there isn't much of a point. I think the traveling jitter is a little over-rated. At the end of the day, you have to enjoy yourself. At least thats my two cents. I think Leslie would argue with me on that point.
I felt like my time in Prague was more about meeting some really awesome people. I liked it alot. The bar in the basement of the hostel made it easy to meet people. And the beer was only a dollar, less than, so you could spend a decent amount of time down there without spending a lot of money. I also watched a few movies. I was conned in to watching Dirty Dancing. Ok, maybe I had a small choice in the matter, but anyway, I hope my masculinity is not increduluous after this statement but I enjoyed it. There were moments of pure corniness, but overall I was very entertained. Later, I think the next night, there was a large group of people watching another chick flick, What Women Want, and I really didn't like it. I realized that I don't dislike "chick flicks" for the romance, its just when they are so poorly acted, directed, scripted-- they just are lousy films. And, at least Dirty Dancing at some meat to it, ya know, like a little class rivalry, a commentary on life in the 60s, but God, the other one just sucked. There was nothing too it. I liked Helen Hunt though. Anyway, we also watched Into the Wild and Hitmen. Into the Wild has faded on me. I still like it but I think I get more frustrated by it more than anything. His search in a way is too romanticized, but they still show the pain he caused, I don't know, I feel ambivalent towards it. OK I'm becoming self-conscious of my movie review when I "should" be talking about my exciting adventures in Prague.
Lets see, one day I spent going around the city finding buildings I liked to draw them. I met some nice people along the way. I found a friendly couple from Kansas in Starbucks who were Christians. They were very excited to hear that I am a Christian. Later that day, I met two dutch girls in a pizza place. Had a really nice converation with them. They spoke english flawlessly. I think their vocabulary is larger than mine.
Oh! I forget which day this was but I met up with Gina Gregorian, a girl who from my church, for dinner. It was her last night Prague. She lived there for the past year teaching high school kids english. She had fun stories to tell. Her comparison of the Czech education system to ours was interesting. The main difference she said was that the Czech kids are given much more freedom. High schools in the US are much more legalistic about stupid rules.
The next day I didn't go to as many places. My goal was to see Fred and Ginger, a Frank Gehry apartment complex. I really liked it. It was on a corner site. It is also called the dancing house because the left part of the house, Ginger, looks like she is dancing, while the right part of the house, Frank, is holding her. Its a neat metaphor represented in architecture. I thought it was successful in that it didn't overwhelm the streetscape. It definitely had a strong presence too it but not as much as some of his other work.
I was sad that I didn't get contact info from some of the people I met. Its odd to connect with someone, hang out with them a few nights, and just never see them again. People just come and go so quickly. Its a little tough if thats your life for a while.
OK, I don't have much more time.
Crete was one of the most beautiful places. I liked it a little more than santorini, which I didn't expect. Well, the hostel we stayed at persuaded me. It was the most beautiful hotel I've ever been too. The manager I think hooked us up with a nicer apartment for the heck of it too. The view was incredible. The was design of the place was incredible. The food was incredible. All good things to say about Crete. We only had two days there. One day was spent on the beach, roaming the little downtown, and checking out one of the bars. The other day we spent at the Minoan Palace in Knossos. I was off that day so I don't think I soaked it in as much as Aaron, who is a classics major, who's main reason to come on this trip was to go there. I'm glad I went still. We explored Heraklion, the main city, for a bit, and I lost Aaron and Leslie. I had to go home alone. It wasn't too bad, just a little frustrating. We didn't go out afterwards because we had to wake up early for our ferry ride to Santorini.
Santorini was interesting. Interesting in terms of my expectation. I think that whenever a place is hyped up too much, it just can never meet that expectation. I think that happened for me. I wasn't as enthralled with it as I thought I'd be. However, I still really liked it. The first day we got there we rented ATVs. That was the most fun I've had on the trip. Hands down. I loved it. You're allowed to ride the ATVs on the main roads. So Leslie and I explored the island. We went to the less touristy part the first night. We really enjoyed it. The next day we went on a tour. It was expensive! But we visited very cool places. We went to remains of a volcano, swam in the hot springs adjacent to it and saw the most beautiful sunset ever! Spectacular.
OK I have to go! Ahtens for two more days. then italy!
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Prague
Here comes an update from PRAGUE!
The city is wonderful. It is very different though than others cities I've been to in Europe. For one, it's in eastern europe. The rule of communism just ended about twenty years ago and an economic collapse followed it in the 90's. The city wasn't visisted much until the late 90's which was popularized by the late michael jackson. Who knew. The effects of communism are still so present that the difference between a western city is very noticeable. Our tour guide yesterday lived during the communist rule and had horrible stories to explain what life was like.
I'm fascinated to compare my life in America to the cirumstances given to those in other countries. We are so blessed to live freely that we don't understand hardship that exists around the world. A part of me worries that there is something in human nature that exists to prepare for crisis. So many generations throughout history have needed to endure some type of crisis that it their life was dedicated more to survival than living. To remove the need of such a dramatic purpose, I wonder if people back home are just waiting for something to activate their need to live. They need some type of crisis to realize who they are. Maybe its not in human nature, maybe its something that doesn't require a crisis, but maybe it is something that is the cause of apathy that a catastrophe is the only thing to wake people out such a slumber. I am not too clear about what exactly I'm trying to say but I feel something intensely when I think about what I have had to experience growing up and the millions of other people who have had to live in such dire circumstances.
The trip started three days ago after Leslie, Aaron and I flew into the city from Barcelona. The trip was great. It was a very smooth transition to get here. I was happy that I didn't get any discomfort from the pressure change. I think I might be better from the cause of the intense pain. Oh yeah, Andrea left us to go to Madrid to visit her uncle. So now its just the three of us.
Its nice to travel with two other people. Its a managable number of people to be with. And I like Leslie and Aaron. I met Aaron here. He knows Leslie through some Jewish connection back home. They are both educating me on both the social and religious aspects of the Jewish culture. Aaron just graduated from the business school and with a classics degree too which will come in handy when we visit Greece. He just got a job in the City so he wanted to travel with us before he settles down.
I'm starving and I realize I have a lot to say so I'm going to get food first.
ok, I ate some pizza, napped, gave the hostel my dirty clothes to do laundry (wonderful service), and talked to emma, jordan and emily. Good little break. I also met two guys staying in the room next to me.
The plan for tonight is to go the bar at 8ish, spend some time there, and i think there are two options for clubs. We can go to either the one went to last night or go to the largest club in prague, supposedly. The hostel is organizing a pub crawl tonight which I think ends at the club from last night. A few people that I went with last night want to check out a different club. We'll see which one I go to.
Overall, Prague has been great. This part of the trip is more about going out than Barcelona. I forgot how much I love to go out. I haven't gone out like this since freshamn year of high school. Thankfully, now I'm a little more mature so I can handle it much better. Its a lot of fun to meet such a diverse group of people. Although, last night, I was mostly with people from the US. Still though, its a lot of fun. People are more willing to open up than back home because we're all out of our comfort zone which makes it so easy to meet people. Barcelona was different. We didn't go out at all nor did we meet too many people. At the time though, it was fine. We were so busy that we didn't need to go out.
To sum up what I've been doing the past few days, I'll begin with the day we flew in. As I said, our flight was really smooth. I met a couple from Portugal on the line. Well, they weren't actually from Portugal, the girl from Czech and studied in Portugal and he was from Northern Portugal. They met at university in the south. They were interesting people. They both were very friendly and spoke impeccable english. They decided to meet in Barcelona for a weekend date because they went on a few dates in Portugal. Some life. He was just waiting on line for her to get checked in because he was on his way to China for two years to practice his fifth language. They both advised that I should travel before going to graduate school. They were shocked that I was twenty and wanted to go straight through. I guess its not typical to do that in Europe. People take a lot of time off to figure out what they want to before they go back. The more I think about, the more positive I am that I am going to take a break. I just have to figure out what I would do during that year off.
Anyway, so she was very helpful. She was actually reading a book that I bought for my friend on the plane called Captivating. Its a Christian book that I don't think was too popular. I thought it was pretty random. She was also sitting my seat accidently. It was weird. She gave us her email to advise us on good places to visit. She also recommended a taxi service that saved us a lot of time and headaches that took us directly from the airport to our hostel. Czech is so different that its fairly difficult to figure your way around. However, thanks to globalization, everyone and everything is spoken/written in english. At every restaraunt we went to, the menu was italicized in english and the waitress spoke english well. Also to our advantage, the alphabet is no longer in scyrllic, the alphabet Russian uses, I think, so we can at least attempt to read the words. It makes it easier to remember where to go even though we don't know what we're saying.
We got to the hostel around 7 pm. Its a very nice hostel. Its contemporary and has a more urban feel to it than the other hostels. It also has a free computer lab with about ten computers in it which is so helpful. It allows me to take hours on the computer to write this entry. Our room is at the very top. All three of us are sharing a room. We have a nice balcony. The set up of our room is interesting because its a converted apartment. So, rather than having our own room in a hallway, we have a bedroom of an apartment. About ten people sleep in the living room. We have a little kitchen and a nice bathroom that we share. Thankfuilly, there is an elevator so we don't have to hike six flights of stairs everytime we need to leave or come home.
Another nice amenity that is new to our adventure is the bar located in the basement. Its a nice bar, decently sized with cheap drinks. A nice sized beer is twenty crowns, which is about 80 cents. Its a great way to meet people. I mentioned before that past two nights that I went out began at the bar where I just met people there. Its open til 12:30 so what we've done previously is go out after it closes. Tonight will be different because the hostel is organizing the post-bar activity so they will take us to the club. I guess we're getting a discount. And if its pub crawl, I guess we will venture to other bars.
The first night we were here, Leslie and I ate dinner at a nice restaraunt up the road that a worker recommended. It was delicious and so cheap! After Paris, anything is dirt cheap. We paid six euros for a full dinner. And it was better than most of the meals I had in Paris. I tried garlic soup, rabbit and sometime of potato dish. Everything was great. The rabbit tasted like chicken. The potatoes were made with egg so the texture was really cool. It felt like al dente pasta. I really liked it. After dinner and a nice conversation with Leslie, we went to check the bar out. Aaron met up with after he found a Kosher restaraunt to eat at. There were quite a few people there when we walked in. I felt like I was a high school party at first. The climatic walk down the stairs, the loud music, the awkward initial looks, the crowd forming at the bar. But after a few minutes, I realized it was nothing like it. People were very friendly and were curious to meet each other. I met some swedish guys, two guys from colorado, and another guy from LA. I talked to the kid from Colorado who did architecture for most of the night. We spent about two hours there before a really drunk Australian kid rounded everyone up to go a bar downtown. About fifteen us left to go take the tram there. We get to the tram, and the ticket station is locked inside the tabac so to get on the tram would be a 700 crown risk that I wasn't willing to take if we were caught without tickets. About half the group jumped on the tram, the other half stayed off. I especially didn't want to get on the tram with the really drunk kid because of how much attention he would draw. So seven of us walked into town following three guys who did the same walk a few nights before. It was fun to hang out with everyone, but it took a little longer than I liked to get to the first bar. Well, actually, the first bar we went to was closed so we had to improvise to find a second. It took about an hour before we found one. Along the way, some guy petitioned us to go to a strip club to get sucky sucky and licky licky. I was shocked when one of the guys considered it but thankfully, he looked at me, saw my disapproval, and changed his mind. We got to the first bar, got a beer, stayed for maybe ten minutes. They were playing really crappy 80s music. We went to a much nicer bar across the street. We bumped into two guys from the states within a few minutes of walking in and hung out with them for the remainder of the night. The one guy didn't believe I was from Jersey. All he kept of saying was, 'look at your hair, your not from jersey, look at your hair!' I was offended but decided to still talk to him. He went to John Hopkins for Med school. Him and his friend, who was much trashier, were in Prague for about five days. I love hearing the stories of why people are in Prague. More often than not, the people are traveling so its cool to hear where they are coming from and going to. I'm pretty sure that the trashy guy picked up a prostitute that night. He left saying, I hope my girlfriend won't find out. Dirtbag. So we left at about 315 once we had our fair share of listening to crappy 2000s pop, which for the life of me I cannot understand why they listen to it so much. I heard that the popular music from about five years ago becomes popular here. So they were listening to britney spears, missy elliot, fifty cent and the pussy cat dolls. It was deplorable.
We left there and got home at a ridiculous 515 am. I was so pissed. Well more annoyed than pissed because I knew that I had to go on a tour at 930am. It wasn't too bad. I thought I was going to feel like crap the next day but thankfully, I woke up. I tried to bail though when I first woke up but Leslie wisely talked me into going. It was well worth it.
The tour was a six hour walking tour of the city. We saw everything. Our tour guide was great. By 2pm, I felt it; I was tired. I really liked how the tour guide went into depth about the history of the city. I couldn't believe how horrific the conditions were just twenty years ago. It explained too why there was such ugly architecture. I have to admit it, I am underwhelmed by the architecture in the city. The way that most people built it up, I came here expecting a lot, but after seeing Paris, London, Barcelona, and Rome, it just doesn't come close to any of them, in my opinion. And I don't think its Prague's fault, because a lot of the historic buildings were left in dispair during the communist rule, and many unfortunate buildings were built during that time as well. They were so ugly. Overall, it felt dirtier and poorer than other cities. Its logical though, I mean the whole city was under such strict censorship that there wasn't any exploration for good architecture. The ugliest buildings the tour guide pointed out to us were built for the president of the communist government in the 70s. They looked like bad ambrosian studio projects.
We took a boat tour, walked a good bit, and got lunch. It felt like a typical day in Paris minus the drawing. The people who were on the tour were very nice. We met people from all over the world. I particularly liked two couples I sat next to at lunch who where from Belgium and Norway. They also spoke english very well. They had fun opinions about the city and food. They didn't like the food. We had decent beef goulash for lunch. Well the beef was good, the dumplings were crap. We left there to go to possibly the most beautiful Cathedral I've ever seen. I thought of Lacey because the play of light that the church had was amazing. It effected the space well. I want to post pictures of it. I took about hundred pictures. The cathedral was in the center of a castle. The whole area was really beautiful. Leslie and I hung out in the gardens for about two hours after our tour ended. The cafe overlooked the city and we had perfect seats to watch a storm come into the city. We also had a great view of the Fred and Ginger building by Gehry. I actually liked it a lot. From afar at least. We did some quick shopping afterwards. I finally bought some shoes. I'll break them in tonight.
I had no desire to go out last night because I was tired, however, I was persuade by a girl from Middlebury to go while I was sitting downstairs in the bar with Leslie. I'm so happy I went. We went to a 80s 90s club. We left with a group of 15. I only knew one kid so I was little leery to go. Leslie and Aaron were too tired to come out so I was by myself. Within a few minutes though, I befriended a girl from Louisiana who was also alone who was really sweet. I ended up with two guys from LA, the girl who convinced me to go and her friend, a guy from Silver Spring who's now living offshore in Norway, and a brother and sister from Denmark. The other group stayed in a different part of the club. We danced for the whole night. We had so much fun. The group was really nice. Everyone let go and enjoyed it. I honestly haven't had that much in a long time. One of the best nights ever. I was happy I came out to say the least. We got home by 3, not as late as the night before.
Today is my least eventful day of my trip. I stayed in and really enjoyed relaxing. The weather made it easier to do so because it dropped from 80 degrees to 50. And its raining. I'm about to go the grocery story so I have to wrap this up because there are two guys waiting for me. Tonight I'm pretty sure will be fun. I'm excited. I just wish emma was here with me.
The city is wonderful. It is very different though than others cities I've been to in Europe. For one, it's in eastern europe. The rule of communism just ended about twenty years ago and an economic collapse followed it in the 90's. The city wasn't visisted much until the late 90's which was popularized by the late michael jackson. Who knew. The effects of communism are still so present that the difference between a western city is very noticeable. Our tour guide yesterday lived during the communist rule and had horrible stories to explain what life was like.
I'm fascinated to compare my life in America to the cirumstances given to those in other countries. We are so blessed to live freely that we don't understand hardship that exists around the world. A part of me worries that there is something in human nature that exists to prepare for crisis. So many generations throughout history have needed to endure some type of crisis that it their life was dedicated more to survival than living. To remove the need of such a dramatic purpose, I wonder if people back home are just waiting for something to activate their need to live. They need some type of crisis to realize who they are. Maybe its not in human nature, maybe its something that doesn't require a crisis, but maybe it is something that is the cause of apathy that a catastrophe is the only thing to wake people out such a slumber. I am not too clear about what exactly I'm trying to say but I feel something intensely when I think about what I have had to experience growing up and the millions of other people who have had to live in such dire circumstances.
The trip started three days ago after Leslie, Aaron and I flew into the city from Barcelona. The trip was great. It was a very smooth transition to get here. I was happy that I didn't get any discomfort from the pressure change. I think I might be better from the cause of the intense pain. Oh yeah, Andrea left us to go to Madrid to visit her uncle. So now its just the three of us.
Its nice to travel with two other people. Its a managable number of people to be with. And I like Leslie and Aaron. I met Aaron here. He knows Leslie through some Jewish connection back home. They are both educating me on both the social and religious aspects of the Jewish culture. Aaron just graduated from the business school and with a classics degree too which will come in handy when we visit Greece. He just got a job in the City so he wanted to travel with us before he settles down.
I'm starving and I realize I have a lot to say so I'm going to get food first.
ok, I ate some pizza, napped, gave the hostel my dirty clothes to do laundry (wonderful service), and talked to emma, jordan and emily. Good little break. I also met two guys staying in the room next to me.
The plan for tonight is to go the bar at 8ish, spend some time there, and i think there are two options for clubs. We can go to either the one went to last night or go to the largest club in prague, supposedly. The hostel is organizing a pub crawl tonight which I think ends at the club from last night. A few people that I went with last night want to check out a different club. We'll see which one I go to.
Overall, Prague has been great. This part of the trip is more about going out than Barcelona. I forgot how much I love to go out. I haven't gone out like this since freshamn year of high school. Thankfully, now I'm a little more mature so I can handle it much better. Its a lot of fun to meet such a diverse group of people. Although, last night, I was mostly with people from the US. Still though, its a lot of fun. People are more willing to open up than back home because we're all out of our comfort zone which makes it so easy to meet people. Barcelona was different. We didn't go out at all nor did we meet too many people. At the time though, it was fine. We were so busy that we didn't need to go out.
To sum up what I've been doing the past few days, I'll begin with the day we flew in. As I said, our flight was really smooth. I met a couple from Portugal on the line. Well, they weren't actually from Portugal, the girl from Czech and studied in Portugal and he was from Northern Portugal. They met at university in the south. They were interesting people. They both were very friendly and spoke impeccable english. They decided to meet in Barcelona for a weekend date because they went on a few dates in Portugal. Some life. He was just waiting on line for her to get checked in because he was on his way to China for two years to practice his fifth language. They both advised that I should travel before going to graduate school. They were shocked that I was twenty and wanted to go straight through. I guess its not typical to do that in Europe. People take a lot of time off to figure out what they want to before they go back. The more I think about, the more positive I am that I am going to take a break. I just have to figure out what I would do during that year off.
Anyway, so she was very helpful. She was actually reading a book that I bought for my friend on the plane called Captivating. Its a Christian book that I don't think was too popular. I thought it was pretty random. She was also sitting my seat accidently. It was weird. She gave us her email to advise us on good places to visit. She also recommended a taxi service that saved us a lot of time and headaches that took us directly from the airport to our hostel. Czech is so different that its fairly difficult to figure your way around. However, thanks to globalization, everyone and everything is spoken/written in english. At every restaraunt we went to, the menu was italicized in english and the waitress spoke english well. Also to our advantage, the alphabet is no longer in scyrllic, the alphabet Russian uses, I think, so we can at least attempt to read the words. It makes it easier to remember where to go even though we don't know what we're saying.
We got to the hostel around 7 pm. Its a very nice hostel. Its contemporary and has a more urban feel to it than the other hostels. It also has a free computer lab with about ten computers in it which is so helpful. It allows me to take hours on the computer to write this entry. Our room is at the very top. All three of us are sharing a room. We have a nice balcony. The set up of our room is interesting because its a converted apartment. So, rather than having our own room in a hallway, we have a bedroom of an apartment. About ten people sleep in the living room. We have a little kitchen and a nice bathroom that we share. Thankfuilly, there is an elevator so we don't have to hike six flights of stairs everytime we need to leave or come home.
Another nice amenity that is new to our adventure is the bar located in the basement. Its a nice bar, decently sized with cheap drinks. A nice sized beer is twenty crowns, which is about 80 cents. Its a great way to meet people. I mentioned before that past two nights that I went out began at the bar where I just met people there. Its open til 12:30 so what we've done previously is go out after it closes. Tonight will be different because the hostel is organizing the post-bar activity so they will take us to the club. I guess we're getting a discount. And if its pub crawl, I guess we will venture to other bars.
The first night we were here, Leslie and I ate dinner at a nice restaraunt up the road that a worker recommended. It was delicious and so cheap! After Paris, anything is dirt cheap. We paid six euros for a full dinner. And it was better than most of the meals I had in Paris. I tried garlic soup, rabbit and sometime of potato dish. Everything was great. The rabbit tasted like chicken. The potatoes were made with egg so the texture was really cool. It felt like al dente pasta. I really liked it. After dinner and a nice conversation with Leslie, we went to check the bar out. Aaron met up with after he found a Kosher restaraunt to eat at. There were quite a few people there when we walked in. I felt like I was a high school party at first. The climatic walk down the stairs, the loud music, the awkward initial looks, the crowd forming at the bar. But after a few minutes, I realized it was nothing like it. People were very friendly and were curious to meet each other. I met some swedish guys, two guys from colorado, and another guy from LA. I talked to the kid from Colorado who did architecture for most of the night. We spent about two hours there before a really drunk Australian kid rounded everyone up to go a bar downtown. About fifteen us left to go take the tram there. We get to the tram, and the ticket station is locked inside the tabac so to get on the tram would be a 700 crown risk that I wasn't willing to take if we were caught without tickets. About half the group jumped on the tram, the other half stayed off. I especially didn't want to get on the tram with the really drunk kid because of how much attention he would draw. So seven of us walked into town following three guys who did the same walk a few nights before. It was fun to hang out with everyone, but it took a little longer than I liked to get to the first bar. Well, actually, the first bar we went to was closed so we had to improvise to find a second. It took about an hour before we found one. Along the way, some guy petitioned us to go to a strip club to get sucky sucky and licky licky. I was shocked when one of the guys considered it but thankfully, he looked at me, saw my disapproval, and changed his mind. We got to the first bar, got a beer, stayed for maybe ten minutes. They were playing really crappy 80s music. We went to a much nicer bar across the street. We bumped into two guys from the states within a few minutes of walking in and hung out with them for the remainder of the night. The one guy didn't believe I was from Jersey. All he kept of saying was, 'look at your hair, your not from jersey, look at your hair!' I was offended but decided to still talk to him. He went to John Hopkins for Med school. Him and his friend, who was much trashier, were in Prague for about five days. I love hearing the stories of why people are in Prague. More often than not, the people are traveling so its cool to hear where they are coming from and going to. I'm pretty sure that the trashy guy picked up a prostitute that night. He left saying, I hope my girlfriend won't find out. Dirtbag. So we left at about 315 once we had our fair share of listening to crappy 2000s pop, which for the life of me I cannot understand why they listen to it so much. I heard that the popular music from about five years ago becomes popular here. So they were listening to britney spears, missy elliot, fifty cent and the pussy cat dolls. It was deplorable.
We left there and got home at a ridiculous 515 am. I was so pissed. Well more annoyed than pissed because I knew that I had to go on a tour at 930am. It wasn't too bad. I thought I was going to feel like crap the next day but thankfully, I woke up. I tried to bail though when I first woke up but Leslie wisely talked me into going. It was well worth it.
The tour was a six hour walking tour of the city. We saw everything. Our tour guide was great. By 2pm, I felt it; I was tired. I really liked how the tour guide went into depth about the history of the city. I couldn't believe how horrific the conditions were just twenty years ago. It explained too why there was such ugly architecture. I have to admit it, I am underwhelmed by the architecture in the city. The way that most people built it up, I came here expecting a lot, but after seeing Paris, London, Barcelona, and Rome, it just doesn't come close to any of them, in my opinion. And I don't think its Prague's fault, because a lot of the historic buildings were left in dispair during the communist rule, and many unfortunate buildings were built during that time as well. They were so ugly. Overall, it felt dirtier and poorer than other cities. Its logical though, I mean the whole city was under such strict censorship that there wasn't any exploration for good architecture. The ugliest buildings the tour guide pointed out to us were built for the president of the communist government in the 70s. They looked like bad ambrosian studio projects.
We took a boat tour, walked a good bit, and got lunch. It felt like a typical day in Paris minus the drawing. The people who were on the tour were very nice. We met people from all over the world. I particularly liked two couples I sat next to at lunch who where from Belgium and Norway. They also spoke english very well. They had fun opinions about the city and food. They didn't like the food. We had decent beef goulash for lunch. Well the beef was good, the dumplings were crap. We left there to go to possibly the most beautiful Cathedral I've ever seen. I thought of Lacey because the play of light that the church had was amazing. It effected the space well. I want to post pictures of it. I took about hundred pictures. The cathedral was in the center of a castle. The whole area was really beautiful. Leslie and I hung out in the gardens for about two hours after our tour ended. The cafe overlooked the city and we had perfect seats to watch a storm come into the city. We also had a great view of the Fred and Ginger building by Gehry. I actually liked it a lot. From afar at least. We did some quick shopping afterwards. I finally bought some shoes. I'll break them in tonight.
I had no desire to go out last night because I was tired, however, I was persuade by a girl from Middlebury to go while I was sitting downstairs in the bar with Leslie. I'm so happy I went. We went to a 80s 90s club. We left with a group of 15. I only knew one kid so I was little leery to go. Leslie and Aaron were too tired to come out so I was by myself. Within a few minutes though, I befriended a girl from Louisiana who was also alone who was really sweet. I ended up with two guys from LA, the girl who convinced me to go and her friend, a guy from Silver Spring who's now living offshore in Norway, and a brother and sister from Denmark. The other group stayed in a different part of the club. We danced for the whole night. We had so much fun. The group was really nice. Everyone let go and enjoyed it. I honestly haven't had that much in a long time. One of the best nights ever. I was happy I came out to say the least. We got home by 3, not as late as the night before.
Today is my least eventful day of my trip. I stayed in and really enjoyed relaxing. The weather made it easier to do so because it dropped from 80 degrees to 50. And its raining. I'm about to go the grocery story so I have to wrap this up because there are two guys waiting for me. Tonight I'm pretty sure will be fun. I'm excited. I just wish emma was here with me.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
9 minute update
Okay, I only have nine minutes to update. I´m pretty sure I can do it.
I´m in an internet cafe right now. Andrea and I just tried to go see Harry Potter in spanish but missed the 7 o´clock showing. The 10 o´clock is the only other one that they are playing. Andrea was bummed, and we came to the cafe in hopes that there was another theater in Barcelona playing an earlier showing. Nope. Just 7 or 10. We think its because the movie is three hours that the theaters are sticking to the same schedule. We don´t want to see the 10 oclock because the metro closes midnight. No Harry Potter in spanish. Oh well.
Tomorrow, Leslie Aaron and I are off to Prague. Andrea is leaving us to see her uncle in Madrid. I can´t believe we´re already on to our next city. Barcelona has been so wonderful. We lucked out too with two great hostels, even though my room is literally the size of a closet. My suitcase doesn´t have enough space to open! But, its fine though, I don´t mind, at least the bed is comfortable.
Anyway, so here is a recap of the past two days.
Yesterday, we went to one of the most beautiful places I´ve ever seen called Montserrat. Its a monastery located about an hour and twenty minutes away from Barcelona. Its built really high in the mountains. We took something like a ski lift to get there. We were shocked to see that there was a little town up there because we expecated a desolate monastery perched high up away from everyone. We were wrong. It was packed, as if we were at the base of the eiffel tower. I couldn´t believe the amount of people. Anyway, the monastery was nice. It was large. Amazing to think they built something so beautiful so high up. After a lousy cafeteria lunch, we took a funicular to one part of the mountain to go on a three hour hike. The hike was marvelous. About an hour and twenty minutes in, we reached the summit of the highest point of the range. The view was spectular. We had a panaromic view of the whole city, its something I won´t forget. I have plenty of pictures.
Ahh my time is running out.
Not much else happened after the hike. We just took it easy. ill be on later to update about today.
ok i'm back.
So we attempted to go to another viewing of Harry Potter but to our dismay, we were unable to find anything. Although, I did manage to get both McDonalds and Starbucks on our trek. It was just too good to be true!
Anyway, so to continue on my update Montserrat was amazing. The rock formation of the mountains is unlike anything I have seen. It reminded me of the red rocks in Arizona. They also look liked large phalic objects. One was very realistic. We also compared them too short, fat men or chubby fingers. They were pretty freaking cool.
As I said before, we hiked to the top of one of the summits and the view was amazing. We met some other travellers from the US and Mexico at the top. I had to hide my panting to not appear so out of shape. I was dying. To my credit, it was a steep climb for the last twenty minutes and I decided to run it. Regardless of my panting, it was the most climatic end to a run that I have ever had. It was a great reward. The rest of the group followed behind and we had some group shots. I'll post them on facebook once I figure out how to get access to a computer with a USB to upload photos. The descend was just as amazing as the climb up. We had a few guys from Seattle join us on our way back. We cut through the forest that had little clearing that framed amazing views of the rocks. There also were steep cliffs that also looked cool. The hike back took about an hour. Wasn't too bad. It was just hot when we were directly in the sun.
Our timing with trains was serendipidous. Both times we thought we were going to be late but we arrived at the same time that the train did. Andrea and I sat next to a woman who lived about twenty minutes away from the monastery and talked with us the whole way back. At first, I did not have the energy to talk in spanish for the whole ride but the lady was just too nice. It was also a great opportunity to practice speaking spanish.
I can say that I am really going to miss speaking spanish. I have had so many great opportunties to practice here that I think something clicked with me. I don't have to translate anymore, I can just speak. Its a bizarre feeling that I've heard other people talk about but never felt before. After talking with Andrea earlier, I realized that I want to take another spanish class before I graduate. I am considering dropping my american studies class for a spanish class. As long as I fulfill an upper level non architecture course I can do it. And I won't be too bummed about American Studies because I am taking a humanities english class so I still will be exposed to that type of material. I also was thinking about possibly picking up my minor. A part of me doesn't think England is going to work with problems concerning the University based on the past few conversations with Du Puy, which is a whole other conversation, but if it doesn't work out, I want to try to take a winter abroad with the spanish department. If that works, then I will only needc to more classes which I can do in my final semester. I'm happy to know if England doesn't work I'll have a back up plan.
Let's see so that recaps yesterday. Today was similar to Sunday in that we were busy from morning til night. We started off at Park Guell which Allison told me I was going to love. She was right. I drew quite a bit there. While I was waiting for Leslie, I started to draw people and I was hooked. I have about ten pages full of people. I am fascinated with how people work. Its really interesting and difficult. From the super cool gaudi playground, we ventured to Sagrada Familia, which is another fantastical creation from Gaudi. We ate lunch before going in and stayed there for about an hour. I liked both the exterior and interior, although I liked it a little less than I expected. The exterior was highly decorated and used an interesting canterary system to derive the parabolic shapes, but it didn't connect with too much. I liked it but not as much as the symbolism in Casa Mila. The interior was built in reference to a tree so the columns were tree trunks and at each level there was a knot where branches came off from. The trunks were cool but I didn't like the knots. They were too bulky. It was interesting to see the church while it was under construction. The pamphlet they gaves us said that they are going to have services in one of the chapels by 2010 and complete the church by 2030. I can't believe that they are going to spend another twenty years on it. Construction began in 1898! I didn't find out exactly why it has taken so long but I speculate that with the level of ornamentation plus the size of the church that it must have taken a while for them just to build it. But, I also think that there must have been some type of buracracy to hold it in abeyance. (GRE word, thank you)
We went below the church to a musuem that explained Gaudi's philosophy. They repeatedly showed the connection his work has to nature. Its odd that we don't analyze nature more often in studio. When I met the professor at Pratt in Ecuador, he told me that their studio focuses on the connection between architecture and nature. One project they analyzed trees and had to design a type of structure based on their anaylsis. It seemed interesting enough that I'm inspired to try it in studio. I don't know exactly how to approach it but I'm sure with some practice, some type of analysis will inspire me somehow.
Andrea and I broke off from Leslie and Aaron to Richard Meiers Institute of Contemporary Art. I wasn't too excited to go but Leslie paid to go to the top of the cathedral and Aaron went to find a kosher deli, so I didn't have too many other options. I mainly didn't want to go because I'm not a big fan of his work, especially the ministry of justice (or something like that) in Paris. But, I was still curious to see what it looked like. On our walk there, we passed Las Ramblas again, which I really like, and wound up in a chunk of medieval fabric. We found a really nice cafe called Buenas Migas, I think it means good friends, and had an iced espresso. It was well-needed. We continued down the street, turned the corner, and bam, a huge, white paneled, mass was directly in front of us. A nice plaza rested in front of the museum that was full of bikers and skateboarders that warmed me up to the idea of entering. There is a slight, very slight, similarity to the Pompidou Center. Just downscale it about twenty times in both the scale of the building and the scale of the site and it could be considered to be a little more similar. We entered the foyer, which was about forty feet high, the height of the occupiable space, and paid about four euros. Wasn't too bad, and I got to speak in spanish AND they spoke back to me in spanish, that is the best compliment to be responded to in spanish. I'm not going to go too deep into an architectural analysis of the place, but there were a few things that I thought of while I was there. I noticed a direct connection to Villa Savoye, at least I speculate a direct connection, to the adjacency of the ramp to the spiral staircase. The space also had a good range of light to dark. I didn't like the circulation. You had to retrace the same path to leave. The heat in certain parts were unbearable due to the glass facade. His stupid, square, planar openings took up space on the facade. The cafe was nice. The lady working at it was nice too. She also responded to me in spanish. And don't get me started on the art. If there is one strong opinion that I developed on this trip, it is my disdain for contemporary art. There was one exhibit that I liked in the entire museum. I just don't have the tolerance for contemporary art. It seems way too forced to be effective to me. The exhibit that I liked was about a really nicely design playground that was eclectic, full of ridiculous things in it that was shut down by the fire chief after a week it opened, despite the 10,000 children that played in it. They considered it political discrimination. Or something like that. The actual art piece wasn't that great, but the subject was interesting. Next the exhibit was another exhibit that was a slideshow of playgrounds around the world that were completely empty and sterile. The contrast was very effective. During the one art show, I attempted to redesign playgrounds in my head, but had to give up after a while. I was spending more time trying to redesign one than actually observe the playground they redesign. I struggle with appreciating things that other people do. Unfortunately, my instinct is to think that I can do a better job at whatever the objective is than anyone else. It is on my list of things I want to mature in my life.
After the musuem, we took the advice of the woman on the train to go to the beach. She told us which stop to get off at so that we could see the buildings that were built during the Olympics. They were okay. Some were cooler than others. What I really liked was the boardwalk and the restaurants underneath it. It activated the edge of the beach really well. Another interesting sight we saw were the plethora of topless women. Apparently, it is fine for women to be topless on a very public beach. I knew that topless beaches were common in Europe, but I thought they were segregated from the other beaches. Or at least, a little further away from the main entrance. Well, they aren't. We were actually greeted with a topless woman walking with her naked baby on the ramp down to the beach. It was an eyeful. At least the guys weren't wearing the little speedos. I expected that more than the topless women.
We spent about twenty minutes there. We didn't have our bathing suits with us so we didn't want to stay too long. It was too much of a tease. The water looked so nice and blue. Again, I have pictures. I actually got a topless woman in one of the pictures when I was taking one of the ocean. You can barely see her. I probably shouldn't admit that.
Anyway, after the beach, that is when we decided to go to Harry Potter. We called the hostel to ask the girl Joanna to help us find a movie theater. She laughed at us, but was super nice and gave us directions. After we checked out what she recommended, we ended up in the internet cafe that I began this marathon long of an entry in.
I enjoyed writing today. I hope it was enjoyable to read. Its theraputic to write it more than anything else. It helps me reflect on my days well. I wish that I wrote during the Paris trip especially because we did so much each day.
Okay, the title is a lie. This was more like a 45 minute update. And the computer I'm in the hostel is way too expensive so I keep putting coins in like its a slot machine in a casino. I feel like an internet junkie. Well I sort of am. I kind of freak out when I see an internet cafe. There is just way too much to do when I'm online. And I always need at least another twenty minutes after whenever my minutes run up. So I hoard the minutes that I have. I catch up on the news when I can. Email a lot. Blog.
Okay this I'm rambling. We have to book a hostel for Santorini. Somehow the one we were looking at fell through. I'm not too concerned.
Time to get some sleep! Ah my last night in Barcelona. I'm sure I will return.
I´m in an internet cafe right now. Andrea and I just tried to go see Harry Potter in spanish but missed the 7 o´clock showing. The 10 o´clock is the only other one that they are playing. Andrea was bummed, and we came to the cafe in hopes that there was another theater in Barcelona playing an earlier showing. Nope. Just 7 or 10. We think its because the movie is three hours that the theaters are sticking to the same schedule. We don´t want to see the 10 oclock because the metro closes midnight. No Harry Potter in spanish. Oh well.
Tomorrow, Leslie Aaron and I are off to Prague. Andrea is leaving us to see her uncle in Madrid. I can´t believe we´re already on to our next city. Barcelona has been so wonderful. We lucked out too with two great hostels, even though my room is literally the size of a closet. My suitcase doesn´t have enough space to open! But, its fine though, I don´t mind, at least the bed is comfortable.
Anyway, so here is a recap of the past two days.
Yesterday, we went to one of the most beautiful places I´ve ever seen called Montserrat. Its a monastery located about an hour and twenty minutes away from Barcelona. Its built really high in the mountains. We took something like a ski lift to get there. We were shocked to see that there was a little town up there because we expecated a desolate monastery perched high up away from everyone. We were wrong. It was packed, as if we were at the base of the eiffel tower. I couldn´t believe the amount of people. Anyway, the monastery was nice. It was large. Amazing to think they built something so beautiful so high up. After a lousy cafeteria lunch, we took a funicular to one part of the mountain to go on a three hour hike. The hike was marvelous. About an hour and twenty minutes in, we reached the summit of the highest point of the range. The view was spectular. We had a panaromic view of the whole city, its something I won´t forget. I have plenty of pictures.
Ahh my time is running out.
Not much else happened after the hike. We just took it easy. ill be on later to update about today.
ok i'm back.
So we attempted to go to another viewing of Harry Potter but to our dismay, we were unable to find anything. Although, I did manage to get both McDonalds and Starbucks on our trek. It was just too good to be true!
Anyway, so to continue on my update Montserrat was amazing. The rock formation of the mountains is unlike anything I have seen. It reminded me of the red rocks in Arizona. They also look liked large phalic objects. One was very realistic. We also compared them too short, fat men or chubby fingers. They were pretty freaking cool.
As I said before, we hiked to the top of one of the summits and the view was amazing. We met some other travellers from the US and Mexico at the top. I had to hide my panting to not appear so out of shape. I was dying. To my credit, it was a steep climb for the last twenty minutes and I decided to run it. Regardless of my panting, it was the most climatic end to a run that I have ever had. It was a great reward. The rest of the group followed behind and we had some group shots. I'll post them on facebook once I figure out how to get access to a computer with a USB to upload photos. The descend was just as amazing as the climb up. We had a few guys from Seattle join us on our way back. We cut through the forest that had little clearing that framed amazing views of the rocks. There also were steep cliffs that also looked cool. The hike back took about an hour. Wasn't too bad. It was just hot when we were directly in the sun.
Our timing with trains was serendipidous. Both times we thought we were going to be late but we arrived at the same time that the train did. Andrea and I sat next to a woman who lived about twenty minutes away from the monastery and talked with us the whole way back. At first, I did not have the energy to talk in spanish for the whole ride but the lady was just too nice. It was also a great opportunity to practice speaking spanish.
I can say that I am really going to miss speaking spanish. I have had so many great opportunties to practice here that I think something clicked with me. I don't have to translate anymore, I can just speak. Its a bizarre feeling that I've heard other people talk about but never felt before. After talking with Andrea earlier, I realized that I want to take another spanish class before I graduate. I am considering dropping my american studies class for a spanish class. As long as I fulfill an upper level non architecture course I can do it. And I won't be too bummed about American Studies because I am taking a humanities english class so I still will be exposed to that type of material. I also was thinking about possibly picking up my minor. A part of me doesn't think England is going to work with problems concerning the University based on the past few conversations with Du Puy, which is a whole other conversation, but if it doesn't work out, I want to try to take a winter abroad with the spanish department. If that works, then I will only needc to more classes which I can do in my final semester. I'm happy to know if England doesn't work I'll have a back up plan.
Let's see so that recaps yesterday. Today was similar to Sunday in that we were busy from morning til night. We started off at Park Guell which Allison told me I was going to love. She was right. I drew quite a bit there. While I was waiting for Leslie, I started to draw people and I was hooked. I have about ten pages full of people. I am fascinated with how people work. Its really interesting and difficult. From the super cool gaudi playground, we ventured to Sagrada Familia, which is another fantastical creation from Gaudi. We ate lunch before going in and stayed there for about an hour. I liked both the exterior and interior, although I liked it a little less than I expected. The exterior was highly decorated and used an interesting canterary system to derive the parabolic shapes, but it didn't connect with too much. I liked it but not as much as the symbolism in Casa Mila. The interior was built in reference to a tree so the columns were tree trunks and at each level there was a knot where branches came off from. The trunks were cool but I didn't like the knots. They were too bulky. It was interesting to see the church while it was under construction. The pamphlet they gaves us said that they are going to have services in one of the chapels by 2010 and complete the church by 2030. I can't believe that they are going to spend another twenty years on it. Construction began in 1898! I didn't find out exactly why it has taken so long but I speculate that with the level of ornamentation plus the size of the church that it must have taken a while for them just to build it. But, I also think that there must have been some type of buracracy to hold it in abeyance. (GRE word, thank you)
We went below the church to a musuem that explained Gaudi's philosophy. They repeatedly showed the connection his work has to nature. Its odd that we don't analyze nature more often in studio. When I met the professor at Pratt in Ecuador, he told me that their studio focuses on the connection between architecture and nature. One project they analyzed trees and had to design a type of structure based on their anaylsis. It seemed interesting enough that I'm inspired to try it in studio. I don't know exactly how to approach it but I'm sure with some practice, some type of analysis will inspire me somehow.
Andrea and I broke off from Leslie and Aaron to Richard Meiers Institute of Contemporary Art. I wasn't too excited to go but Leslie paid to go to the top of the cathedral and Aaron went to find a kosher deli, so I didn't have too many other options. I mainly didn't want to go because I'm not a big fan of his work, especially the ministry of justice (or something like that) in Paris. But, I was still curious to see what it looked like. On our walk there, we passed Las Ramblas again, which I really like, and wound up in a chunk of medieval fabric. We found a really nice cafe called Buenas Migas, I think it means good friends, and had an iced espresso. It was well-needed. We continued down the street, turned the corner, and bam, a huge, white paneled, mass was directly in front of us. A nice plaza rested in front of the museum that was full of bikers and skateboarders that warmed me up to the idea of entering. There is a slight, very slight, similarity to the Pompidou Center. Just downscale it about twenty times in both the scale of the building and the scale of the site and it could be considered to be a little more similar. We entered the foyer, which was about forty feet high, the height of the occupiable space, and paid about four euros. Wasn't too bad, and I got to speak in spanish AND they spoke back to me in spanish, that is the best compliment to be responded to in spanish. I'm not going to go too deep into an architectural analysis of the place, but there were a few things that I thought of while I was there. I noticed a direct connection to Villa Savoye, at least I speculate a direct connection, to the adjacency of the ramp to the spiral staircase. The space also had a good range of light to dark. I didn't like the circulation. You had to retrace the same path to leave. The heat in certain parts were unbearable due to the glass facade. His stupid, square, planar openings took up space on the facade. The cafe was nice. The lady working at it was nice too. She also responded to me in spanish. And don't get me started on the art. If there is one strong opinion that I developed on this trip, it is my disdain for contemporary art. There was one exhibit that I liked in the entire museum. I just don't have the tolerance for contemporary art. It seems way too forced to be effective to me. The exhibit that I liked was about a really nicely design playground that was eclectic, full of ridiculous things in it that was shut down by the fire chief after a week it opened, despite the 10,000 children that played in it. They considered it political discrimination. Or something like that. The actual art piece wasn't that great, but the subject was interesting. Next the exhibit was another exhibit that was a slideshow of playgrounds around the world that were completely empty and sterile. The contrast was very effective. During the one art show, I attempted to redesign playgrounds in my head, but had to give up after a while. I was spending more time trying to redesign one than actually observe the playground they redesign. I struggle with appreciating things that other people do. Unfortunately, my instinct is to think that I can do a better job at whatever the objective is than anyone else. It is on my list of things I want to mature in my life.
After the musuem, we took the advice of the woman on the train to go to the beach. She told us which stop to get off at so that we could see the buildings that were built during the Olympics. They were okay. Some were cooler than others. What I really liked was the boardwalk and the restaurants underneath it. It activated the edge of the beach really well. Another interesting sight we saw were the plethora of topless women. Apparently, it is fine for women to be topless on a very public beach. I knew that topless beaches were common in Europe, but I thought they were segregated from the other beaches. Or at least, a little further away from the main entrance. Well, they aren't. We were actually greeted with a topless woman walking with her naked baby on the ramp down to the beach. It was an eyeful. At least the guys weren't wearing the little speedos. I expected that more than the topless women.
We spent about twenty minutes there. We didn't have our bathing suits with us so we didn't want to stay too long. It was too much of a tease. The water looked so nice and blue. Again, I have pictures. I actually got a topless woman in one of the pictures when I was taking one of the ocean. You can barely see her. I probably shouldn't admit that.
Anyway, after the beach, that is when we decided to go to Harry Potter. We called the hostel to ask the girl Joanna to help us find a movie theater. She laughed at us, but was super nice and gave us directions. After we checked out what she recommended, we ended up in the internet cafe that I began this marathon long of an entry in.
I enjoyed writing today. I hope it was enjoyable to read. Its theraputic to write it more than anything else. It helps me reflect on my days well. I wish that I wrote during the Paris trip especially because we did so much each day.
Okay, the title is a lie. This was more like a 45 minute update. And the computer I'm in the hostel is way too expensive so I keep putting coins in like its a slot machine in a casino. I feel like an internet junkie. Well I sort of am. I kind of freak out when I see an internet cafe. There is just way too much to do when I'm online. And I always need at least another twenty minutes after whenever my minutes run up. So I hoard the minutes that I have. I catch up on the news when I can. Email a lot. Blog.
Okay this I'm rambling. We have to book a hostel for Santorini. Somehow the one we were looking at fell through. I'm not too concerned.
Time to get some sleep! Ah my last night in Barcelona. I'm sure I will return.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Busy two days
The past two days in Barcelona were wonderful.
I am now sitting in the living room of the second hostel that is located a little further out of the city. Its much different than the first hostel. Its more like a bed and breakfast rather than like a hotel which was more of the feeling of the first hostel. Its nice because there are a ton of people around. Its very easy to meet other travellers.
We saw quite a bit the last two days. We started the day off Sunday at 9am at Palau de Musica. Drew for a bit then headed over to the Museo de historia de Barcelona. The museum was fascinating. It explained the development of Barcelona from about 8000 BC to present day. The city went under a major transformation during the mid-nineteenth century similar to the Haussmann plan. I want to do more research of what happened during that time. We went to the basement of the museum to find an excavated part of city from Roman times. Jenny would have passed out if she saw it. I was impressed with how well the museum preserved the ruins and the amount of effort they took to recreate what it felt like to actually walk through the city. It was very cool.
After the musuem, we had a wonderful lunch tucked in the medieval fabric. The food was so much cheaper than Paris and tastier too. We headed next to see Mies´s Barcelona Pavillion. I was pleasantly surprised to see how interesting it was. I liked the spaces a lot. It was an interesting compare it to Le Corb´s Villa Savoye since they were both built at the same time. We spent a good amount of time there. We left after I started nodding off while I was drawing sitting on the ground. We museum hopped to another free museum Caixa-something, that had an exhibit on Palladio. I developed a deep appreciate for his work in the hour that we toured the exhibition. I book in spanish.
My spanish skills are significantly improving. Andrea and I are trying to speak as much as we can in spanish. Its helping me a lot. I also am trying to speak as much as I can while I´m at. Although, I mostly am responded to back in english. Whatever. At least I get to practice.
By the end of the museum tours, we were exhausted. We came back to our hostel, got some beer and pizza, and hung out on the patio. The weather was perfect.
We slept in a little later today. We had to check out of our hostel to go to the one I´m at now. Its only a few stops away on the same line so it was easy to transfer our stuff. Leslie left Andrea and I on our own to pick up her friend Aaron at the airport so the two of us went into the city. We went to Las Ramblas first, which is ilke the Champs Elysees or the 5th Ave of Barcelona. We walked around a while. We found a starbucks, my guiltiest pleasure in Europe, hung out for a little bit, then continued along to find an art store. I indulged and bought a new water color set. It was needed. I was eager to use it so we found a bench and water colored for about an hour and a half. I spent the time experimenting with my water colors more than anything now that I could actually mix decent colors instead of the crappy paint I had before. Afterwards, we were soaked in sweat because we sat directly in the sun and we headed for some refuge in a restaraunt. We had some good food. King Prawns and Calamari. It was expensive but that was our nice lunch for the trip.
Oh the other night we created a budget that we are going to try to stick to. We already know that it the next few weeks are going to be ridiculous with the amount of money we are going to spend, but we want to at least be cogniscent of the amount of money we are spending. So we deciding to budget our meals, musuem visits, drinks and excursions. Most meals will be in the 6-8 euro range. Two to three meals can be more. (We had our two today) We have about 20-30 euro for musuems and spending money. And the rest goes to our hostels. I have begun to record each purchase so that I can see how quick my money goes. Its a little terrifying.
Anyway, after lunch we watercolored--oh I mixed it up before, we watercolored after lunch. Doesn´t matter. We ended up at Casa Mila, Gaudi´s apartment complex. It is one the coolest places I have gone to including all the places we went to in Paris. I have a bunch of pictures and drawings to show it. The main parti is centered around two interior courtyard. Its shaped very irregularly but somehow manages to still maintain a strong clarity to it. The light and air in the apartment is wonderful as are the interior spaces. We explored one apartment then went upstairs to the attic, which was full of canterary arches that were repeated about every two feet. The rhythmn was intense. It made some cool spaces. We progessed to the terrace which blew me away. It looked like a star wars mini golf course. It has these towers petruding from the roof that looked like the desert aliens from Star wars. It was very peculiar. I did a drawing of them but I didnt get to finish to because we got kicked out due to closing. We still felt satisfied.
We trekked back to our hostel to meet up with Leslie and Aaron. We played scrabble, Leslie and I both won a game, and called it a night. Now, I´m here taking a break planning our day for tomorrow. We are taking a day trip to Montserrat, a monastary located in the mountains about an hour a way which is supposed to be one of the prettiest parts of the region. We´re excited.
I´m going to get some sleep.
I am now sitting in the living room of the second hostel that is located a little further out of the city. Its much different than the first hostel. Its more like a bed and breakfast rather than like a hotel which was more of the feeling of the first hostel. Its nice because there are a ton of people around. Its very easy to meet other travellers.
We saw quite a bit the last two days. We started the day off Sunday at 9am at Palau de Musica. Drew for a bit then headed over to the Museo de historia de Barcelona. The museum was fascinating. It explained the development of Barcelona from about 8000 BC to present day. The city went under a major transformation during the mid-nineteenth century similar to the Haussmann plan. I want to do more research of what happened during that time. We went to the basement of the museum to find an excavated part of city from Roman times. Jenny would have passed out if she saw it. I was impressed with how well the museum preserved the ruins and the amount of effort they took to recreate what it felt like to actually walk through the city. It was very cool.
After the musuem, we had a wonderful lunch tucked in the medieval fabric. The food was so much cheaper than Paris and tastier too. We headed next to see Mies´s Barcelona Pavillion. I was pleasantly surprised to see how interesting it was. I liked the spaces a lot. It was an interesting compare it to Le Corb´s Villa Savoye since they were both built at the same time. We spent a good amount of time there. We left after I started nodding off while I was drawing sitting on the ground. We museum hopped to another free museum Caixa-something, that had an exhibit on Palladio. I developed a deep appreciate for his work in the hour that we toured the exhibition. I book in spanish.
My spanish skills are significantly improving. Andrea and I are trying to speak as much as we can in spanish. Its helping me a lot. I also am trying to speak as much as I can while I´m at. Although, I mostly am responded to back in english. Whatever. At least I get to practice.
By the end of the museum tours, we were exhausted. We came back to our hostel, got some beer and pizza, and hung out on the patio. The weather was perfect.
We slept in a little later today. We had to check out of our hostel to go to the one I´m at now. Its only a few stops away on the same line so it was easy to transfer our stuff. Leslie left Andrea and I on our own to pick up her friend Aaron at the airport so the two of us went into the city. We went to Las Ramblas first, which is ilke the Champs Elysees or the 5th Ave of Barcelona. We walked around a while. We found a starbucks, my guiltiest pleasure in Europe, hung out for a little bit, then continued along to find an art store. I indulged and bought a new water color set. It was needed. I was eager to use it so we found a bench and water colored for about an hour and a half. I spent the time experimenting with my water colors more than anything now that I could actually mix decent colors instead of the crappy paint I had before. Afterwards, we were soaked in sweat because we sat directly in the sun and we headed for some refuge in a restaraunt. We had some good food. King Prawns and Calamari. It was expensive but that was our nice lunch for the trip.
Oh the other night we created a budget that we are going to try to stick to. We already know that it the next few weeks are going to be ridiculous with the amount of money we are going to spend, but we want to at least be cogniscent of the amount of money we are spending. So we deciding to budget our meals, musuem visits, drinks and excursions. Most meals will be in the 6-8 euro range. Two to three meals can be more. (We had our two today) We have about 20-30 euro for musuems and spending money. And the rest goes to our hostels. I have begun to record each purchase so that I can see how quick my money goes. Its a little terrifying.
Anyway, after lunch we watercolored--oh I mixed it up before, we watercolored after lunch. Doesn´t matter. We ended up at Casa Mila, Gaudi´s apartment complex. It is one the coolest places I have gone to including all the places we went to in Paris. I have a bunch of pictures and drawings to show it. The main parti is centered around two interior courtyard. Its shaped very irregularly but somehow manages to still maintain a strong clarity to it. The light and air in the apartment is wonderful as are the interior spaces. We explored one apartment then went upstairs to the attic, which was full of canterary arches that were repeated about every two feet. The rhythmn was intense. It made some cool spaces. We progessed to the terrace which blew me away. It looked like a star wars mini golf course. It has these towers petruding from the roof that looked like the desert aliens from Star wars. It was very peculiar. I did a drawing of them but I didnt get to finish to because we got kicked out due to closing. We still felt satisfied.
We trekked back to our hostel to meet up with Leslie and Aaron. We played scrabble, Leslie and I both won a game, and called it a night. Now, I´m here taking a break planning our day for tomorrow. We are taking a day trip to Montserrat, a monastary located in the mountains about an hour a way which is supposed to be one of the prettiest parts of the region. We´re excited.
I´m going to get some sleep.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Just Arrived in Barcelona
Hello everyone.
I just arrived in Barcelona. It appears to be a very cool city from the few blocks we walked. We already passed a ton of Gaudi architecture. They love him here. Its cool to see an architect painted as a celebrity.
The hostel we are staying as is wonderful. Its nicer than any of the hotels we stayed at in France.
I guess before I go into any more detail, I'll back up to explain where I'm at on my trip.
I studied architecture in Paris for five weeks then boarded a bus to travel Eastern France for a week. We visted Nancy, Dijon and Lyon. This morning, I flew to Barcelona with two girls from my class. We will be here for five days.
The itinerary for the next months looks like:
Barcelona- now until the 16th.
We fly to Prague afterwards for five days.
Then we head for Crete for three days. We then board a ferry to Santorini for the weekend. We leave Sunday night on an nine hour ferry ride to Athens. I leave my friends in Athens after two days for Milan to meet up with my family.
My family and I are traveling Italy to see our family. The whole clan is coming. Parents, brother, aunt, nana, my cousin and his family. We are going to a wedding in Torino the first two days. After that, we drive down the coast to Sorrento. Along the way, we will visit my nana's hometown in Naples. We'll spend about four days in Sorrento. Ironically, that is where Emma, my girlfriend, is studying abroad right now. We drive back to Torino to say goodbye to our newly acquainted family and fly off to the states. I return the August 8th.
Its about one more month. In total, I'll have been in Europe for two and half months. Not a bad summer.
Time to go explore Barcelona!
I just arrived in Barcelona. It appears to be a very cool city from the few blocks we walked. We already passed a ton of Gaudi architecture. They love him here. Its cool to see an architect painted as a celebrity.
The hostel we are staying as is wonderful. Its nicer than any of the hotels we stayed at in France.
I guess before I go into any more detail, I'll back up to explain where I'm at on my trip.
I studied architecture in Paris for five weeks then boarded a bus to travel Eastern France for a week. We visted Nancy, Dijon and Lyon. This morning, I flew to Barcelona with two girls from my class. We will be here for five days.
The itinerary for the next months looks like:
Barcelona- now until the 16th.
We fly to Prague afterwards for five days.
Then we head for Crete for three days. We then board a ferry to Santorini for the weekend. We leave Sunday night on an nine hour ferry ride to Athens. I leave my friends in Athens after two days for Milan to meet up with my family.
My family and I are traveling Italy to see our family. The whole clan is coming. Parents, brother, aunt, nana, my cousin and his family. We are going to a wedding in Torino the first two days. After that, we drive down the coast to Sorrento. Along the way, we will visit my nana's hometown in Naples. We'll spend about four days in Sorrento. Ironically, that is where Emma, my girlfriend, is studying abroad right now. We drive back to Torino to say goodbye to our newly acquainted family and fly off to the states. I return the August 8th.
Its about one more month. In total, I'll have been in Europe for two and half months. Not a bad summer.
Time to go explore Barcelona!
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