Bonjour, Paris!

Late in February, it was time for a girl’s weekend to Paris! Paris has always felt like such a dream to me, it was hard to believe I was actually going. We set out on Friday morning on the fast, and expensive French Thalys train. We didn’t know just how nice it was however, until the train people came around to check our tickets, and we discovered that our tickets were not in fact tickets, but merely seat reservations. After a bit of confusion and panic, we ended up having to get our first stamp on our Eurail passes. The Thalys workers thought it was quite hilarious we thought a ticket was only 33€. Pah. Silly Americans. We arrived in Paris in four hours though, and were very happy to be there.

Our hotel was very close to the train station, which ended up being not such a good thing since it was a semi-shady part of town. It was also tourisy; we got snagged into a restaurant right in front of the train station with the offer of free wine for lunch. I had an onion soup that was really delicious though, so it wasn’t such a bad deal.

There are so many amazing things to see in Paris it was hard to decide where to start. One thing on my list was Le Corbusier’s Villa la Rouche, and we decided to go there first. Once we got there, Allison and Stephanie decided they’d rather wander around, so Autumn, Shanna, Laura and I went in to see the house. I’ve always admired Le Corbusier’s architecture, so it was really interesting to actually be inside and experience one of his designs. Clean, sleek, and organized unlike any other house I’ve been in before. I was disappointed we weren’t allowed to go out onto the roof garden, because I’ve always dreamed of having a roof garden on my home.

After going through the house, I don’t think I would choose a Corbusier style for my own home, but I would like to take his five points of architecture and apply them in my own way because they do create a nice composition. After the house, we headed to one of the most epic art museums in the world, the Louvre. I was awestruck for the next two hours, especially at the fact that we got in for free with our student visas. Paris was really wonderful in that respect, we didn’t have to pay for one single entrance fee to any of the major sites. We didn’t spend very much time in the Louvre, but we made it through a lot of it and saw many famous works of art, along with monstrous room-sized paintings, majestic rooms of sculptures lit with natural light. It was truly amazing, and I’d love to go back sometime in my life to really take my time and absorb the magnificence of it all.

Posing at the Louvre

The sun was setting when we left the museum, and it was time for dinner. We wandered around for a bit, and got lured into another restaurant, this time receiving free water and bread. The waiters were actually quite accommodating in Paris, which was a relief, because I was nervous about the stereotype of French people hating Americans. Autumn can speak a little French, so we always made her talk for us, and I suppose that helped. Shanna and I shared a meal, accidentally ordering oysters for our appetizer. I tried one for the sake of trying one, but other than that one, they remained uneaten. At least our pasta and wine was delicious!

The next morning we had a lot on our agenda, starting with finding crepes for breakfast! We had heard there were crepe stands everywhere in Paris, but had yet to find one. Apparently this was another downside to our side of town. We made our way up to the Sacre Coeur hill, where we found the Montmartre area with artists and restaurants in good supply. We had delicious breakfast crepes we’d been waiting for since our arrival in Paris. It was fun to walk around the area and have people ask to draw your portrait. I almost got a portrait of myself, but just couldn’t pay the 15€. We took a quick look inside the Sacre Coeur Basilica, which was pretty, but overcrowded. We had to pause for a moment on the hill to listen to a man singing “Let it Be“ and took in the view of the city.

Montmartre painting

Our next stop was the Museé d’Orsay; an old train station turned art museum where I was severely disappointed that we couldn’t take pictures. I ended up sneaking a few because I just could resist the Van Gogh exhibit. I was reminded again of how wonderful his work is in person. We couldn’t spend as much time in this museum as I would have liked; there was so much to see. There were many of my favorite artists’ work in this museum as well, Monet, Degas and their beautiful, beautiful paintings.

You know it’s a good painting when it can be blown up this huge and still be successful.

Pictures weren’t allowed in the museum, which I find extremely disappointing. I guess they just want you to buy the postcard, but that doesn’t really capture the memory for me. Sad times. I snuck this picture anyways because I couldn’t resist. Nice colors, Van Gogh.

It was pouring down rain when we left the museum, but we pushed onward to Notre Dame. There was a service going on when we were there, but it was still crowded with tourists. The rose windows were really beautiful. The deep blue glow was rich, and calming although muted by the grey sky outside. I have to say, besides the windows I wasn’t really too blown away by Notre Dame. I think the Cologne Cathedral ruined me for all other churches.

Notre Dame - Rose Window

We stopped for a snack crepe on the way to the modern art museum, the Pompidou. I swear, being in Paris was like living out my art history classes. Laura and I were particularly excited about the Pompidou, while the others were getting a little worn out. They decided to sit and have a coffee before going in, while we got a head start. They ended up missing the entrance time, but weren’t too disappointed. Laura and I thoroughly enjoyed the museum, even though my feet were beginning to hurt and my back was aching. She was really excited about the tubular entrance escalators, and I had to giggle with her. I always find inspiration from modern art. It’s always more interesting; the techniques or materials used, and the general composition typically intrigues me. Although, I can’t say all modern art is for me. Some of it is pretty weird.

Photo cred - Stephanie

Kandinsky close-up

Kupka - my favorite!

Robert Delaunay

Zoltan Kemeny

Yves Klein

Don't recall the artist, but a work about light and movement

Kupka again

When we finished at the Pompidou, it was starting to get late, and we still needed to see the Eiffel Tower and have some dinner. Half of us decided to stop at a little grocery store to get a cheap dinner of French bread, wine and cheese. We carried it over to the monumental landmark, and just as we sat down to snack, the tower burst into sparkling lights. It was really a beautiful sight, and we had a great time ecstatically taking pictures to memorize the experience. Although we got there too late to actually go up into the tower, we were content with our Eiffel Tower encounter. We headed back to our side of town before the last subway ran, giddy with everything we accomplished in the day. We were back by the tourist trap restaurants, where we stopped for dessert and got a good deal again with free champagne and flirty service. I think we all went to bed smiling that night.

After checking out of our hotel the next morning, we went to the bottom of the Sacre Coeur hill this time for a nice brunch. We had to get our last crepes and coffee before we left! We picked up a couple souvenirs, then hopped on the train to Versailles. The weather was much better this day, and the clouds above Versailles seemed to boast its’ majesty. Every picture was epic, and I could only imagine how much more beautiful it must be when spring is in full bloom. We didn’t have much time at the palace, but we got in for free again, so I really couldn’t complain. Everything inside the palace was so rich and opulent, each room was equally stunning and I couldn’t help but imagine what it must have been like to have such a life. I kept thinking about Marie Antoinette and the luxury and richness of her life in Versailles.

French coffee at brunch!

Posing with my souvenir beret on the train. Pah.

After Versailles, it was time to pick up our luggage and get on the train back to Bonn. Although we didn’t see nearly everything there is to see in Paris, we managed to see a lot in two days, and I can’t wait to go back. The art and fashion was inspirational, and the food was delicious. Couldn’t ask for much more from a city.  À tout à l’heure, Paris!

Arithmeum & Dusseldorf

Laura, the great museum lover, and my personal museum buddy convinced a few of us to go to the Arithmeum in Bonn. It was on a Wednesday when we didn’t have class, and admission was free with our Bonn welcoming packs. The Arithmeum, if you couldn’t guess from the name, is a museum of calculating machines, arithmetic books, and some geometric and algorithmic inspired art! I mostly went for the art, and because Laura was REALLY excited about it. Her happiness is rather infectious. I was happy I went too; the building was modern and open and it’s content was interesting, even for me!

Remember these??

Multiplication tables!

This one was super fun, and loud! I’m sure the museum workers loathe it. I don’t remember exactly what it did, but I’m pretty sure it was multiplication. Set the large wheel to whatever factor you’re multiplying, then crank the wheel around to “multiply” by the other factor. I felt like I was in the children’s museum again, I wasn’t used to being encouraged to touch things in the museum, whaaaat?! Math IS fun! Who knew.

Giant room of calculating machines to play with!

Educated Monkey! I don't understand why I didn't have this as a child. Or now, really.

Arithmeum!

Any engineer, mathmatician, scientist, or general nerd would LOVE this place. I highly recommend it to any Viz kids who are studying in Bonn in the future. Let’s be real, most of us are pretty large nerds.

On the following Saturday, Rachel, Allison, Stephanie and I decided to do a girl’s trip to Dusseldorf. Mainly for shopping, although none of us bought anything, merely scratching an itch. Dusseldorf was only about two hours away, and the Viz study abroad program actually used to be there so I had heard good things about it from Gavin and such. The trip ended up being a fairly short one, but fun regardless. We didn’t really have any idea where we were going when we got there. We just walked straight for 10 minutes and stumbled upon the shopping district. Luck, or fate? Interesting.

[Short fashion rant - permission to skip if desired]

European shoes. I want them. Particularly oxfords, in either the flat or heeled variety. They’re everywhere here, taunting me. One thing I’ve noticed since being in Germany, is a higher degree of fashion awareness in the general population. Something about the way people dress here is individually stylish and always looks effortless. Makes me feel like I need to redo my style. Shiny, poofy jackets are everywhere, as well as oxfords and chunky infinity scarves. I can do without the cheap jacket though.

Photo cred: Rachel

When we found the European Sephora, Douglas, the girls discovered my nail polish addiction. I ended up painting each finger on one hand a different shade of light grey-brown/purple. I had to resist from spending 9€ on a nail polish. Bummer.

Photo cred: Rachel

We did a quick run through of the H&M there, and picked up a free magazine. Even though we can’t read it, the fashion is universal! I’m really going to miss H&M as my new Forever 21. College Station, or even Houston needs to get on it!

We were going to grab some dinner in Düsseldorf, but I had a pretty good headache, and it looked like every place was either expensive or closed. So we hopped back on the wrong train to Bonn. We bought the cheapest tickets to Düsseldorf, and got on the fastest train back. The train man was not very happy with us, demanding that we pay 200€ for the four of us. I told him we had no money, which was the truth, and he told us to get off on the next stop which was Bonn, thankfully. Needless to say, we ran off the bus and out of the train station just in case he decided to find us again and demand money! We had a nice Italian dinner at a little restaurant in Bonn, and closed out a pretty good girl’s day.

Much more to come on this whole blogging thing. I promise I’ll catch up though!

In Bruges!

When I figured out that Belgium was on my side of Germany, I knew I’d have to slip in a weekend trip sometime. The weekend of Valentine’s Day came up, and we didn’t have anywhere to go, or anything to do, so 5 of us decided to go to BRUGGE! I thought we would go to Brussels, since it’s the capitol and is supposed to be pretty cool, but recommendations kept flying in for Brugge. I knew it as Bruges, from the movie, but trust me, the German pronunciation sounds nothing like the English one so I didn’t figure out it was the same city until further into planning. When I found out Bruges and Brugge were one and the same, I couldn’t have been happier.

We left nice and early on Saturday morning, catching a train at 7 still half-asleep. Anything for a cheaper train ticket. When we arrived in the famous town square, I immediately liked the feel of the town. Relaxed. Slightly touristy, but comfortable. Cobblestones. Horse-drawn carriages.

Our Hostel - Charlie Rockets!

Checked into our hostel, Charlie Rockets, and then just walked around town for a while. Every other store was either lace, or chocolate. Lace – chocolate – lace – chocolate – lace – waffles. We walked past the infamous belltower, but the line was too long and the Salvador Dali museum right next door was too expensive. I hear there’s a Salvador Dali museum in Prague though, so I’m really looking forward to that. We found a really cool design store and a soap store that Allison, Jill and Marissa were obsessed with when we were searching for the city hall. The city hall itself was really pretty, it felt very medieval and rich.

Canals of Brugge

After city hall, we went back to the hostel to take a little break and figure out where we wanted to eat. There was a really cool map we got at the hostel with suggestions for places to eat and things to do.  We decided to check out this restaurant on the map that had a traditional Belgian meal for 9€. Of course, there wasn’t a vegetarian option for me, but I got delicious vegetable lasagna and soup with my Belgian beer. Everybody else had the daily special, a side of rice or potatoes, a salad, and the soup of the day, which was all yummy. The “meatloaf” however, was served cold, and they didn’t enjoy that very much.

Veggie Lasagna + Brugse Zot

When we got back to the hostel after dinner, we headed straight to the bar since we didn’t get internet in the rooms. Apparently, our hostel is a fairly popular bar on the weekends for locals (or at least younger locals). We caught some people’s attention with our array of MacBooks, and they sat down and talked with us for most of the night.

Sunday morning, we plotted our tourist attack. Started with waffles and coffee, gawked at chocolate shops, found our way to the Church of Our Lady, climbed up the Belfry, and visited the Basilica of the Holy Blood.

Waffle with Sugar & Raspberry Syrup

Delicious!

Laura & I got thirsty = Lemon Cactus juice

Famous Chocolate shop - "The Chocolate Line"

I read about this Chocolate shop before going to Brugge, and supposedly it was voted Best Chocolate in the World, so of course we had to check it out.  The flavors were really awkward and aggressive though, so Laura, Allison and I split a box of 3 pieces. Stayed away from wasabi and tabasco.

Chocolate!

A little taste..

Madonna and Child

Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child at the Church of Our Lady. One of the few sculptures of his that left Italy. Small in person, but really lovely sculpture. The church was really nice too. And then the much anticipated Belfry! Or at least I was really excited about it. We ate some Dutch fries like the ones we had in Amsterdam while we waited in line for the tower. The line was even longer than the day before. Oh well. Not everyone shared the same excitement I had about this part, considering the nauseatingly narrow winding staircase people have to navigate going up and down the tower.

Lots of stairs!

See what I mean?

Where the music comes from!

Too bad we weren't up there when the bells were going.

Looking down on the town square!

It was pretty disappointing that half of the “panoramic view” at the top of the tower was blocked off. Especially since it was 4€ to go to the top. But still fun for me, another check off my list. We just walked around town a little more after managing to not  throw up going down the tightly wound staircase. Every street, every corner is a photographer’s dream.

Mmm

Kantcentrum - Lace Factory

We attempted to visit the Kantcentrum, or lace factory of Brugge, but sadly it was closed on Sundays. Which is extremely common everywhere in Europe apparently. Really unfortunate for us weekend travelers.

Creative barbed wire?

Since the lace factory was closed, we just walked around, found a windmill by the city wall, and ran back to our favorite chocolate shop, Stef’s Chocolate, to get our supply of chocolate for the next…forever. Then we found a relatively cheap place to eat for dinner, which wasn’t an easy task.

View of the Belfry from our hostel!

Town Square at night

Belfry at night!

A lot of the postcards for Brugge had this image on it (along with disgusting type), and I thought it looked so ridiculous and gaudy, but it actually looks like this! It was really beautiful in person. We chilled downstairs at our hostel again, but it was a lot quieter than the night before. We still managed to meet some locals, who introduced us to a few authentic Belgian beers. We stayed up pretty late into the night talking with the locals, and then rolled out of bed to catch the train back to Bonn in the morning. It was really a fun trip, and I’d love to go back someday.

Art Inspiration

This past weekend we had to stay in town since we had a Maya workshop on Saturday. On Sunday, a few of us wanted to check out the “Museum Mile”, or at least one of the museums. We decided on the Kunstmuseum, Bonn’s art museum.  I definitely wanted to check out their art museum, and it was only 3.50€ for students, so that was a plus. When we climbed out of the subway, I was shocked to see how big the museum was. I definitely underestimated Bonn there.  There was a lot of great artwork there; I really loved it.  In fact, it might be my favorite museum we’ve visited before, second to the Van Gogh museum. Again, it took Laura and I at least twice as long as everyone else to go through this museum.  We actually had to stop halfway because the rest of our group was done and wanted to grab a coffee before they went home. However, there wasn’t a place around besides actually inside the museum, and they thought it would be too expensive (which it really wasn’t, we got a delicious coffee for 2€ later), so they took the subway back into town. Laura and I decided that we’d visit the museum again before we leave Germany, since there’ll be different exhibits and we found a free pass in our Bonn welcome pack! Very exciting. This post is mostly about the art though, so here it is!

Anyone afraid of heights?

Last Wednesday, we went to Cologne, and it was another really incredible day here in Germany. I feel very privileged to be here, and to be experiencing the things I am, because these are truly once in a lifetime experiences for me. This time in Cologne was much better than the first time we went for Interior Design week, especially because it involved less walking, and more looking. We started our tour of Cologne right outside the train station at Museum Ludwig. This is Köln’s (German spelling of Cologne) modern art museum, which houses Pop, Abstract and Surrealist art. It also has one of the largest collections of Picasso works. It’s a really huge museum, and beautiful too. We had a short “tour” of the Pop art exhibit; I’m not really sure I’d call it a tour, mostly a German hippie talking about what each piece meant, and what message the artists were trying to convey. It was interesting, I guess, but I prefer to take museums at my own pace. She actually had us get into groups of four and each write three words that came to our minds while viewing a certain Jasper John? work. Then we were to take those words and compose a short story or poem. My group wrote a haiku out of our words, since it was super easy, but she thought that was so unique and clever. She actually really liked all of ours, explaining that normally German students just say exactly what they see, instead of potential meaning or representation. I guess we are getting art training after all. After the mini-tour/art discussion, we were free to explore the rest of the museum. And since we were in a group, and signed a waiver, we were allowed to take pictures! Something I did find interesting about the Pop art exhibit was nearly all, if not all, of the artists displayed were American artists, and all of the pieces I saw had some political undertone.

Wall of Andy Warhol

The image we "analyzed"

Robert Filiou - 7 childlike uses of warlike materials

James Rosenquist - Rainbow

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff - Dune in the Forest

 

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Forest in Winter

Pablo Picasso - The Kiss

Cy Twombly - School of Athens II

Gerhard Richter - Abstrakte Bilder

I really enjoyed the museum, although I still wasn’t able to spend the amount of time I would have liked there (like usual). I’ve seen a lot of really great, inspiring modern art thus far in Europe, and I hope to continue. After the museum, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at one of the little Bäckerei (bakeries) that are all over Germany. Then we had a historical tour of Köln. Most people were not excited about this tour since it was pretty cold that day, and the last tour we had was a lot of walking. However, this tour was a lot more fun than the tour of Bonn. Our tour guide was great, and he seemed to embody the sense of humor and city pride that Köln has. He told us a lot of fun stories, and was extremely knowledgable. He told us all about the old Roman city walls, the “medicinal” (alcoholic) cologne-water, Eau de Cologne, some city fables, and a brief history of the Cathedral. I almost wanted him to stay with us the whole day and take us around. When the tour was over we split up, and I had free time before the Cathedral tour.

Old Roman road

Roman ruins they're excavating

Market Center clock

The face under the clock sticks his tongue out at the rivals across the Rhine river on every hour. Pretty funny people.

The Anonymous Face

This statue serves as a reminder of the days when there were no toilets in Köln, and people solved this problem by sticking their ‘anonymous face’ out the window and taking care of business that way…so glad I live in modern society!

The Two Rivals

Tuennes and Schael are reflections of the industrial and rural sides of 19th century Köln and are popular characters in jokes and anecdotes.

On our free time, Allison, Stephanie and I decided to check out the Schokoladenmuseum. (Chocolate museum/factory!) It was pretty cool, but definitely too much looking at chocolate, and not enough eating it, in my opinion. We got one little measly taste of it on a wafer from a worker who dipped it in the chocolate fountain for you. Weak. Then they made you stare at the millions of Lindt chocolate squares they were making, huge molds of white chocolate goats, and old tiki chocolate gods. It was a big place, and there was a lot to look at, but honestly the best part was the hot chocolate I bought in the cafe after the tour. It was delicious, creamy chocolate with orange liqueur. Mmmmm!

Mr. Chocolate Tiki Men!

Last, but absolutely not least, was the tour of the Köln Cathedral. We were lucky enough to receive a special tour of the cathedral, and it was really amazing. Before I tell you what we did on this tour, I’ll fill you in on a little history. The Köln Cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the most visited sights in Germany. It has been a place of worship for almost 2000 years, when early Christians came to pray during old Roman times. The church that stands now was started in the 13th century when the relics of the Three Wise Men were brought there from Milan, making the church a pilgrimage and thus one that required larger accommodation for worship. Worked stopped for about three hundred years because of a lack in funding, until the old plans for the rest of the cathedral were found, and then the Cathedral was finally completed in 1880. I use the term ‘completed’ because apparently there is constant renovation construction, with dozens of people working full-time. This Cathedral is amazing though, the sheer size of it is astounding. It’s so hard to compare, and definitely hard to really get the feel for it from pictures. I couldn’t even fit all of it in one picture it’s so big. At 157, 38m it is the second highest church in Germany and the third highest in the world. For four years after it was completed, it was the highest building in the world, until it was surpassed by the Washington Monument and then the Home Insurance Building in Chicago. It remained the highest building in Europe until the Eiffel Tower was built. And let me tell you how thrilled I was when we went damn near up to the top of it!

I’m pretty terrified of heights, and our tour began with a trip up the sketchy scaffolding elevator located on the outside of the Cathedral, situated just perfectly so you can watch the ground slip further and further away. We stopped about a forth of the way up, and our tour guide took us inside and through the narrow balconies along the inside perimeter of the Cathedral. She showed us the new (2007) southern window designed by the German artist Gerhard Richter. The old window, along with many others on the Cathedral were destroyed during the war, and it had remained unadorned glass for years. I had to borrow a few pictures, since our tour was later in the day, and the sun wasn’t streaming through, but it was still beautiful. The tour guide said the unveiling was quite magical, an abundance of color streaming in and scattering through the nave. As if the church wasn’t beautiful enough already. Unfortunately, there was a mass going on at the time of our tour, so we couldn’t walk around down in the nave. Guess that means I’ll have to come back and check out mass sometime. It was really wonderful to have such a unique view of the cathedral, instead of craning your neck up and around you can really see details in the church that you wouldn’t be able to notice from the ground.

We didn’t stop there though. We climbed back into the rickety scaffolding elevator and rose to about halfway up. At this point, I practically wanted to crawl across the scaffolding to the ‘safety’ of the edge of the Cathedral. I didn’t though, I walked very calmly to safety, where I firmly kept my back to the people with a death wish who were looking over the scaffolding railings. This time, our tour guide took us along the railing at the bottom of the roof of the Cathedral (look at following picture for reference). Needless to say, I gripped Eugene’s arm like a stress ball, and definitely did not take any pictures. Sorry! Despite the cold and the height, our guide had a lot of other interesting stories, but I think I was too stressed out to remember them. So of course, it was time to go up even higher, yay! We climbed up through the bell tower (no more elevator!!) and out onto a 360 view of the city. It was really beautiful, but the railing was too low for my liking, and again, my dear friends were too close to the edge, so I went back down a flight into the bell tower and peered out of the slits in the walls. Still got the 360 view, and I knew I wasn’t going to die. Success. We voted to take the narrow spiral stairs all the way down, instead of the death elevator, another personal victory. Once on the sweet ground again, Allison heard the choir singing for mass, so we went inside to listen for a bit. Beautiful acoustics.

Museum Ludwig and Cologne Cathedral at night

Cologne Cathedral from across the Rhine River

We didn’t actually get this far away from the Cathedral, but I just wanted you to see how huge it is, and for a point of reference for where we went. The bell tower we ended the tour on is in between the two tall towers, so we didn’t go all the way up, but believe me, that was high enough! (And we walked along the bottom of the roof.)

After the tour, the 10 of us went on to a legitimate German restaurant where we had a delicious meal, a few beers, and then hopped on the train back home. Long day, but full of exciting new experiences.

Tschuss!

Den Niederlanden – Days Vier und Fünf

Not a lot to tell about the first night in Amsterdam. We checked into my very first hostel, which was exciting, then we explored a little bit and crashed early since we were all exhausted from a strenuous day at the beach. Got some awesome sleep except for the British guy who was snoring for a little while, but if you know me, you know I’m a hard sleeper. The five of us, Allison, Autumn, Shanna, Jarrod and I woke up for our hostel breakfast and then SOMEBODY wanted to take a NAP even though we were only in AMSTERDAM for a DAY and a HALF. But I didn’t care. I just twiddled my thumbs for half and hour and then walked around a few blocks to wear out the boredom. I actually enjoyed walking down the canals. There’s houseboats, ducks and swans everywhere. The swans were beautiful, I watched a pair float down the canal, craning their heads from left to right, taking everything in. Just like the tourists that cover the streets of Amsterdam. There are bikes everywhere too. Apparently at the bottom of the canals is a meter deep of stolen/broken bicycles. Which is probably why the water looks so filthy. Anyways, after everyone was done with their relaxing, we plotted out our day. The first stop, of course, was lunch at Bagels and Beans, where they serve my favorite bagel in the world.

Tomato bagel served Tuscany style: pesto and tomato cream cheese, olive tampenade and sun-dried tomatoes

After lunch, we decided to venture into the Sexmuseum. That was interesting. It was funny to look around and see everyone’s face, “Ew…oh my god!”, “Woah”, “That’s so crazy!” I’m sure my face was saying the same thing. There’s Amsterdam for you. So after we made it out of there, we all were excited to go to the Heineken Brewery! We had a lot of fun here. It was definitely a lot more commercial/touristy than any other brewery I’ve been to, but I guess that’s Heineken. There were plenty of places to take pictures, goof around, etc. There was even a 20 foot long foosball table, which had all the boys drooling. They also talked about the process, the four ingredients, the ‘head’ of Heineken beer. It was pretty cool, but beer’s still not really my thing. Although I was still excited about our two free beers that came with the tour. Good fun, funny pictures, and lots of cool stuff to look at and play with.

Heineken!

Old labels

Woo hoo, hops!

Mmmm...

Refreshing

Shanna's gonna hate me for putting this up!

Longest foosball table ever!

Following the delightful tour of the brewery, we meandered back to the hostel and freshened up a bit before grabbing a cheap bite of pizza. Then we headed over to the area of town where we went a few nights before and happened upon some of the Loyola Marymount boys from Bonn. Small world. They were on a pub crawl, so we latched on with them for a while, had fun dancing to all the American music again (except one bar got a little too crazy and played some Ghostbusters, Inspector Gadget, etc. Not my favorite DJ.) Then we had to catch the last tram home and crashed. Oh, and we checked out the Red Light District. Weeeirddd! All in all though, pretty good day!

The awkward DJ bar

On Sunday, we got up for our free breakfast again, then had to pack up and check out almost immediately. Luckily, they had a luggage room, so we were free to explore the city for a few more hours. At this point, my pockets were feeling lighter, so we had to throw away a couple of ideas because they were too expensive; Madame Toussad’s wax museum, Rijksmuseum, Rembrandt house. We did actually take the tram over to the Rijksmuseum because I thought it was free, but there was a super long line to get in and it was not free. By that time, we were hungry so we stopped in this cute place we saw on the way to the museum. It was more of a bakery, but Shanna and I split an omlette, and we accidentally got gypsied into spending more money than we meant to. (They brought me the large tea which was 5 euros, brought Shanna an extra muffin, etc.) They didn’t really speak a lot of English there, so it was kinda hopeless. Food was good though. We went through the Rijksmuseum/Van Gogh museum gift shop, and I bought a 6 euro poster and a postcard, which I was very excited about. Then we meandered back to the hostel for a bit, and chilled out. After a while, we went to the main street to get the Netherland’s classic fries in a cone, which were pretty good and cheap (it was an extremely healthy weekend for me.) When the fries were gone, it was time to grab our suitcases and catch our train home. I definitely slept the entire way, which was pretty great, but led to me leaving my Van Gogh poster on the train. Super sad.

Awesome poster that I lost.

After my first vacation, it felt good to be home away from home. Tschuss!

Den Niederlanden – Day Drei

On Friday morning, we caught a quick German breakfast before walking to the beach for our first studio project. When we got there, our first order of business was to walk around the beach, observing and taking pictures. We were told to look for an area in the sand that would be specific to our idea to lay down our 30×30 cm frame. My first spot failed, since I chose an incline, and wasn’t able to dig my box frame deep enough in the sand to prevent the plaster from oozing out the bottom. My intention was to create a plaster cliff for my tiny character, but I found another spot that I found interesting. So I started making my mold in the sand, fingers freezing, face freezing, sand everywhere, but at least there was sun. Apparently, last year they had another beach project and it was super cold and rainy, so we really lucked out. There were a lot of locals walking on the beach in the nice weather, most of them with their dogs. This turned out to be pretty hilarious because several people’s projects got peed on. Whoops….haha. When my mold was ready, we had to walk up the beach to the nearest restaurant and get buckets of water for the plaster, and then actually mix the plaster itself. Which is harder than it sounds when your hands are frozen in one place. I definitely got plaster all over myself, but that’s why I was wearing a trash bag dress. I looked really good that day, I will definitely not be showing you any pictures of myself, I looked like a giant blue monster with pink sunglasses on.

After everyone poured plaster into their molds, we had to let it dry, so we walked up the beach to get some lunch. Had a pretty good goat cheese sandwich and rooibos tea, but we had to wait over an hour for our food. Some of the boys turned into 6 year olds and took a nap on their table. Luckily, I was not sitting with them, although us girls were pretty whiney at our table too. (It was also about 2 o’clock by this time and we ate breakfast before 9 just to put it into perspective a little bit.) When we got back to our molds, everyone wanted to flip it over immediately and see how it turned out, but about a third of them were not dry. (Oh, and Eric actually had dog pee IN his frame, on top of his plaster. Pretty hilarious.) Mine was dry, so I flipped it over, but the plaster didn’t separate from the wooden frame like it was supposed to, even though we had oiled the frames when we made them. All I could see of my relief was sand, so I had to lug some buckets of water from the receding ocean and splash it onto my project to reveal the plaster. Looked pretty good! It was getting late by this time, so our teachers just told us to try and get a couple good pictures, and call it a day. I had to borrow a few cameras since I still didn’t have mine, and other people’s were dying. I snapped some, and then 15 minutes later when we were getting ready to leave someone found a screwdriver and started taking apart people’s frames. I wish now that I could have gotten a few pictures without my frame, but I think it turned out okay.

First location = Fail

Everybody workin' hard

Final Mold

Plaster fun

Then it was off to Amsterdam! Long day.