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France Part Nine

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Trip so far

right now im in my hostel in athens and am waiting to go out for dinner and drinks with about 20 people from my group. but, to recap where i've been so far. basel switzerland was the first stop, which had some really nice contemporary architecture, then took a 9 hour train through the swiss alps (beautiful) to venice. venice has no cars, no bikes, nothing but people and boats. and we got there before tourist season and it was still packed because all of the streets are about 3-6 feet wide. but it all opens up into san marco square, which was amazing and personally made venice for me. then charlie and i went to florence, which had beautiful weather and a massive church, but otherwise just ok. then we left for rome, the best city in italy. that city is massive, i dont know how many millions of people live there but it was ridiculous. saw the vatican and st. peter's, the sistine chapel, and the coloseum, among other countless ruins and cool things, but my favorite building was the pantheon. ive written papers and had tests on this building, but it is still the most interesting thing and to see it in person was incredible. after rome charlie and i met up with our class in athens, after traveling for over 30+ hours via train, boat, and bus. but now we are in athens, saw the acropolis (the parthenon and other buildings) and have had some good food and are leaving for the island of santorini in a day or so. so ill put up pictures in about a week or so. and then ill be home soon!

Ronchamp, Archaeology Musuem and La Tourette

This last week of school before our month long travel break to switzerland, italy and greece was actually spent, traveling. our class of 43 went to three significant architectural sites in france, ronchamp cathedrale, the celtic archaeology musuem and la tourette monestary. the first and last buildings designed by the french architect, le corbusier. i really enjoyed this trip, because ronchamp is one of the most famous and interesting pieces of architecture of the 20th century and we got to stay in a monk's cell in la tourette. but now i have to pack for a month of traveling.

Mathilde's Uncle's House

Last weekend i got a chance to go with mathilde to her uncle's house. he is an architect in paris and has designed and built his own house by hand. he and his wife bought an old house a few years ago and next to the original stone structure built a wooden copy of the original but with a modern language, really interesting and very "homey", i really liked it.

video from mathilde's house

La Rochelle and Theire

A few weeks ago charlie and i got the chance to travel to la rochelle to visit our friend mathilde in her village called theire, about 30 min from la rochelle. it was an awsome experience and probably one of the most memorable from my stay in europe. her family was extremely nice and it was nice to experience traditional french life for a change.

New Spain Video

Back from Spain Video

France Part Four New Video

saturdays in fevrier

sorry i didnt update my blog last week, we are getting pretty busy with our projects and i was just tired in general. last week liz sprained her ankle during our weekly basketball game and had to go to the hospital, so that was a trip. but besides that nothing out of the ordinary has been going on which i guess is good. last sat, and yesterday (sat) i went to paris again with colleen, liz and charlie. and this is my third sat in a row. and i still am seeing new things. we saw the grande arch (which is the giant white cube below) and lots of walking in paris where we saw the rodin museum, invalides and the picasso museum. chinease new year was last week, and there was a parade in the area of the pompidou (the contemporary art museum), where there were lots of firecrackers apparently. i didnt go, but the remnants were still there, and it seems that someone set off a lot of firecrackers by a row of motorcycles and blew them up and burned the front of a nearby building i bet that wouldve been a site.

my project is coming along, i had some setbacks last week, got stuck in a bit of a rut. but i got some constructive feedback from my professor last week and now im a little more inspired to do some better work. so im excited to see how this cooking school turns out. and once again, im trying to create something different, not just to be weird, but to stand out and get attention that way and then have a well thought out project behind that, so ill keep you updated on how that turns out. have a good one.

Sat in Jan

well we are finally really busy. with only two classes, its actually hard to get free time. but our weekends are starting to fill up, some students travel to neighboring countries but for the rest of us, those who are "financially lacking" just go to paris, so not a bad alternative. This pictures are from last saturday, when charlie and colleen and I went to the Modern Art Museum, where there are skateboarders and graffiti on the outside and no crowds and awesome art on the inside and free. Then we went to the tokyo center, right next door, which is just a neat place with things that are sure to be cool 5 years from now. Then colleen and I walked about 5 miles to where her new apartment is going to be. But this carefree day, this walking from art museum, under the tower and threw saturday morning markets, under the metro cars and threw hundred year old apartments to visit a friends new house, THIS is what i'm going to miss about being here, just BEING here. and seeing these things, going to the boulangerie every morning to get bread and the market to get fruit. I know that there are things like this in America, but they are hard to get to and expensive, so I will do my best to enjoy all the living i have left to do here, and strongly recommend that if anyone ever has the chance to travel abroad, or knows someone who is thinking about it, no matter the cost, do it.

France Part Three

New Semester

We've started out new semester now. Our first week we went to a lot of le Corbusier buildings, Villa Savoye was the highlight. Wikipedia le Corbusier because he is one of the most influencial architects of the 20th century. But we also learned about Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvaro Aalto, Oscar Neimeier and Utzon and some other architects of modern architecture. We visited a lot of these buildings in the Paris area and had a pretty laid back week our first week back. It was fun because Emily was still here and got to see some of these buildings. But she left on sunday and this week has been spent making a tour out of dried spaghetti noodles that has to be 1 meter tall. It is an annoying project but in teams of three we are building it slowly, ill post some pictures of it finished later. This semester I will post on this blog weekly, because i didnt really do that much last semester and i know some people wanted to hear more about what was going on.