Oh yeah - Portugal...

Hehe - actively procrastinating. anyway, heading to Portugal on Thursday. Final presentation on Wednesday, blah. I should be anxious and a little frantic, instead I'm just bored. and irritated. Way excited about Portugal though, all the descriptions sound tres lovely, and I don't think I know anyone who's been there (silly criteria, but an intriguing one). Flying into Lisbon, have tickets to see a concert at Rem Koolhaus' Casa de Musica in Porto... it's supposed to be an amazing building, I'm excited. Also feeling like I blogged this already. Oh well.

Overly touched up photo courtesy of the Rodin Museum and procrastination, do you like the style? Fun to do anyway.

Decent weekend, Sat unproductive mostly, Sun looked to be the same so I did some catch-up tourism... saw 'The Lady and the Unicorn' tapestries at the Musee de Moyen Age, the Picasso Museum, Carnevelet Museum, Place de Vosage in the sunlight so i actually got to go in, Cimetere Pere Lachise (Oscar Wilde's grave, amother other famous people), Parc de Belleville, Butte Chamont again, a few random churches - a good half day ;). Think I walked about 10 miles. I'm going to miss wandering and having new things to see every time SO much. Chicago isn't terribly wander-able, the well-planned streets, the density, and much better parks make Paris infinately better for a walk. Sigh. hmm i should work.... 

Mmmm Paris

Warm lovely week, finished beautifully at the Rodin gardens and then a Cinco de Mayo celebration. 4 days till finals now though.... sigh working :P. 

Weekend w/ Brandon Low

I had a friend visit me yay! Fun weekend, beautiful weather, bones and skate rally and wandering and funness. Working on finals right now though so you can check out his description of the weekend instead. won't forget details because... he wrote alot. And took a lot of pictures.... even videos on the last page, quite shaky as they were taken on skates.

Giverny and week

Another boring Paris week.... or as boring as it can be in this city.... Mon Tues just chill/work, standard Paris lovelinesses like pastries and cheese... Wednesday out with a group of American students in another group to get cheap Pho (indonesian?) soup, asian noodles anyway delicious, way out in the 14th - haven't gotten out there in a way, we got to eat outside! makes Paris even lovelier - green trees too?

On Thursday our teacher successfully planned and implemented an outing to Giverny. Education value was provided on our own however - it was the house and gardens of Monet, so I got to see the Japanese bridge and all the spring tulips, really a large wonderful garden in a cute little old French town. Did some sketching there, haven't scanned yet.

The coolest part was riding bikes - classmates ducked out, and it was cloudy, but I keep meaning to rent bikes (amsterdam and berlin particularly) and it hadn't happened, so I still did. Left Kober in the dust unintentionally, sometimes hard to remember I'm more fit then other people (besides unbeatable walking stamina I haven't been exercising much here). Amazing time bike riding though, Giverny is on the edge of a tall-hill ringed French valley - I made it up to the top of the hill on almost unrideably steep pavement - then gravel - then tracks through grass - then singletrack hehe.... Amazing views rising up above trees, calm fields, little villages, ring of trees. No pictures - I was almost glad not to have a camera, not like you can take pictures while biking, and they'll stay in my head pretty well. Headed down the hill - ha i'm rather of the opinion that the challenge of muscling through to the top of hills is more fun then the slightly uncontrolled decent.... interesting to realize when I mountain bike and ski and skate and other fling-yourself-downhill sports :P. oh well, should be good at both right? through the town, tried to go up another direction but time ran out. Biked past a Huge flock of sheep - lambing season done and there were adorable lambs honestly frolicking around. Bells on the neck, and black sheep too - so cute!

Fin de Rotterdam

More wandering, this was a really cool building, theater thing, 'old Rotterdam' I'll find the name later. Wander up to find OMA's office, disappointingly normal ugly office building. Stopped at a Pannekoken house on Pannenkokenstrasse for my last taste of dutch pancakes, a really cute, comfortable place. Reminded me of a 50's diner somehow, brown floor and red structure and furnishings. Amazingly nice workers. Amble through a street fair, knock a few more buildings off the list, then back through the shopping district to the train station and gone. Was a lovely calm wandery day by myself. 

Rotterdam Day 2

Woke up early, none-the-worse for a late night, had a really lovely walk around an empty city. Nice weather, hazy-morning in an industrial/developing part of town - Rotterdam's docklands. Aldo Rossi lighthouses, Rotterdam's version of the space needle (The Eiffel Tower got it right. Nothing else really does).