Barthelona 9/1/2008

When we woke up our legs were achy from the hiking the day before. We have done plenty of walking over the past few days, but not with nearly as much elevation change. Kelly’s feet were worse than mine and she had to wear shoes instead of sandals due to her blisters.

First we went to the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe (a very influential modern architect). It was designed originally for the World’s Fair in Barcelona in the early 1900’s. I know that if I start going into any detail about architecture, or any other element of culture, I am liable to severely confuse and disorient some of my less learned relatives from back home (Avid-day Etty-pay). Therefore I will just say that it is a very famous and influential structure that we walked around for a while. We have studied it many times and it was pretty cool to see in person. We wanted to sketch some, but forgot our sketchbooks so decided that we would come back again later in the week.

From the Pavilion we walked up some big steps to the Olympic Park from 1992. There was a large plaza surrounded by the stadium and aquatic center that had a great view of the ocean and the city. I think it would have been really exciting to have been there when it was full of people before an event, but when we went there were probably 10 other people there. I went up to each one and told them “Michael Phelps #1” but most of them didn’t understand. There was a giant telephone tower at the plaza designed by Santiago Calatrava, who is a famous Spanish architect who does some amazing things with the engineering of his buildings.

After the Olympic Park, we went to La Pedrera, an apartment building designed by Antoni Gaudi. The apartments look like they were molded out of giant hands. The railings were very interesting, and looked like a train wreck was molded onto the outside edge of the balconies. There were curves all over the building, which was drastically different than the orthogonal geometry of the Barcelona Pavilion.

From there we walked to a restaurant which Win had recommended us from his stay in Barcelona called Tapa Tapa. It was our first taste of tapas, which comes in smaller portions and is meant to be eaten family style so that you can order a wide range of foods. More importantly than the tapas was the sangria, also recommended by Win, which we loved. That night we made the goal of drinking a pitcher of sangria every night we were in Spain.

The food was delish, and afterward we walked down Passieg de Garcia, which is full of shopping (my FAVORITE!). Kelly got some girl stuff but I was way too manly to buy anything. From there we walked down La Ramblas, which was full of street performers dressed up as tons of different things, from cowboys to angels to flowers. We walked all the way till we came to the waterfront and we ate some ice cream on one of the piers before calling it a day.

Marseille to Barcelona 8/31

When Kelly and I were planning where to go on our journey several months ago, we settled on Marseille because it was as close to halfway between Paris and Barcelona as we could find. We didn’t have any real intentions in spending a lot of time there, or doing anything really cool. However, it definitely was one of my favorite things that we did on the trip.

We got up early and our host drove us to the metro station. From there we went downtown to the main train station where we rented a locker and stashed our bags. Then we took a metro and a bus (We drove by a Le Corbusier building AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!). We ended up at the outskirts of town at some university. From there we entered an area like a little state park and went hiking up this trail. The trail was hot and dry, the vegetation reminded me of a lot of Philmont. There were a fair amount of people on the trail for a Sunday morning, but it wasn’t too crowded. When we reached the top of the hill we were on we had an excellent view of Les Calanques.

Les Calanques are these giant cliff peninsulas on the Mediterranean Coast. They stretch up the coast for a few miles and there are lots of trails up to the tops and down to the bottoms (haha ‘bottoms’) where there are beaches. We didn’t have a lot of time to spend there so we hiked to the top of the nearest one. We stayed for a short while and relished the beautiful view, then began our descent. The lower we went the bluer the water became. We finally made it to a very small “beach.” This beach is nothing comparable to anything in North Carolina. There was no sand, only small smooth pebbles. The total size of possible space to lie down was about 30 feet by 50 feet, and pretty much all of it was already staked out. This didn’t bother us because it is physically impossible for our skin to get any tanner than it already is, so instead we went swimming. The water was extremely cold and felt very good after hiking in the midday sun.

We swam for about an hour. There was a small steep little rock island that we jumped off of into the water. Kelly wanted to go first. She got out of the water and walked to the edge, looked down, and took the walk of shame back to the water. It took some convincing and reminding her of how she chickened out at Long’s Peak 12 months ago before she finally jumped.

The hike back up to the top was very hot, and our feet rubbed against our wet sandals giving us blisters, but it was well worth the journey. We took the bus back and made it in time for our train to Barcelona. When we arrived in Barcelona we were extremely tired and went straight to the hostel and to sleep.

Marseille turned out to be one of the best days of our trip, and we are very excited to see Barcelona tomorrow.

Paris to Marseille 8/30/2008

We checked out of the hotel and took the metro to the train station. We had never ridden the train before in Europe and had to ask several people until we figured out where we got our pass stamped. We were also new at reading our train ticket and when boarding the train went right to where we thought we should belong, at the front of the train in the first class car. We didn’t take a closer look at our tickets until we got to the very front of the train and our seat numbers were not in the car, and then realized that we were not in car 1, but car 15. I got in a long argument with the conductor about how it was an outrage that such high class citizens like Kelly and I would be required to sit in the back with the commoners, but I decided to take the high road and we ultimately sat in the back.

The train ride was probably like 4 hour or so. It was very pretty to see the countryside and the small towns. We saw an old aqueduct.

We arrived in Marseille and took a bus from the train station to Chateau Gambert. I think this would be like a neighborhood within Marseille, but it was much more rural than downtown Marseille. We walked up a hill to a large house that was to be our hostel. We found out that it was basically a bed and breakfast type place. There was a couple with a child who lived upstairs, and rented out rooms downstairs to travelers. They were extremely nice and spoke pretty good English.

They recommended a pizza restaurant down the road for dinner. We walked to it and they spoke very little English, so it was fun for me to try my best to talk with them. I found out that I knew surprisingly more French than I would have anticipated, since I hadn’t used it since high school. We talked a little while we waited for the pizza, and then took the pizza back to our room at the bed and breakfast to eat. The room was very large and very nice. It was filled with a bookcase with French books, and paintings that a friend of the family had done. Just outside our room was a nice sitting area where we ate our pizza and coke (which was the cheapest meal by far of the trip so far). Using the G.W.M., (Grant Williard Method, commonly used for creating spreadsheets but can also be applicable for photographs [see exhibits 2, 4, 78]), I took a picture of us at dinner.

After dinner we talked with our hosts for a little bit. We asked about a picture in our bathroom of a place called Les Calanques, and they helped give us directions there for tomorrow before we left for Barcelona. We told them that we would be staying in Prague for three months and they gave us tons of restaurants and recommendations about the city, since they had recently visited. One of the restaurants was one that Kate’s boyfriend Oliver had also mentioned, Klub Architectu, so we would be sure to see that.

We went to bed early in anticipation for our journey to Les Calanques in the morning.

Paris 8/29/2008

We went to the Eiffel Tower again today first thing, to beat the crowds. We took the stairs up as high as we could, which is about halfway to the tippy-top. I counted 708 steps. Kelly had trouble counting (as usual) and got 716. There were pictures around the whole edge of the level we were on that had pictures informing which buildings were what in the Paris skyline. I looked and looked but couldn’t find the Eiffel Tower which was disappointing. There were also some really cool photos of lighthouses around the world, but they left off Cape Hatteras (snobby Europeans). It was cloudy when we started, but by the time we were ready to go down it was sunny.
We walked around the city some more trying to kill time until 6oclock when the Louvre would be free to students. While walking around, we looked for a place to eat. We were sick of paying a lot for food, and wanted the cheapest thing possible that would keep us from being hungry. We finally found a place that had a few good sandwiches and decided on it. Cost was most important to us, and when he asked us for our drinks we both got Orangina which said 5 Euros on the menu. When he asked medium or large, we both responded immediately with the obvious answer: medium. We were so proud of ourselves for finding the one decent place in Paris when we got the bill back. We then learned that the “small” was 5 Euros and the “medium” (probably about 20 oz with no refill) was 10 Euros, or about 15 dollars. It was the best Orangina I have ever had.
Disappointed in ourselves, we moved on to the Louvre, this time to go inside. It was busy, but navigable. We entered through the pyramid. We went pretty quick through the Renaissance Paintings exhibit, and saw the Mona Lisa. We also saw a lot of Egyptian artifacts. We also saw the Venus de Milo, which I missed the first time. A friendly man took a picture of Kelly and I in front of this which was nice. My favorite was the French sculpture. There were two spaces that used to be outdoor courtyards that they converted into an indoor sculpture garden. We saw it right at dusk so that there was still some natural light coming in. It was very pretty and probably my favorite space in Paris. When we left the museum, it was night and the Pyramid was lit and very pretty.
Today was our last full day in Paris. We did a lot of things and had a lot of fun, but we were ready to leave and go to new places tomorrow.

Paris 8/28/2008

The robot eater was out again this morning.

The first thing we did after getting up was we walked to the Cartier Foundation. It is a contemporary art museum that was designed by Jean Nouvel, that we learned about in school. It was built on what used to be a small wooded lot, so instead of destroying all the trees to make room for the building, he set the building back from the street and put a glass wall on the street creating a wooded space for art between the building and the street. We didn’t go in (this is the last time, Phillip), but looked around the outside. We then decided to go to the Rodin Museum, which my sister had recommended. We took the metro and on the way there we came across the Musee de l’Armee. We didn’t know what it was, but saw that it was a really old building so we walked through it. It had a big courtyard with a statue of some dude with his hand in his jacket. It turned out that that same dude was buried in the adjacent building.

We continued on across the street to the Rodin Museum. I had seen castings of some of his most famous sculptures when the exhibit came to the North Carolina Museum of Art several years ago. The museum consisted of an outdoor sculpture garden with large scale bronze castings and originals inside his home. According to Encylcopedia Mary the French government realized Rodin’s value while he was alive and gave him this wonderful home to live in, in agreement that he would leave them his work when he died. Some of my favorites were the smaller simpler sculptures like the hands in this photograph.

After Rodin Museum we went to the Pompidou Center, another building we had studied. This was one of my favorite things in Paris. It is a modern art museum that has a very unique look to it. The concept is that the building is basically inside out. All the things that are normally hidden within the wall are celebrated and expressed on outside of the building. So the façade is covered in brightly colored piping and structural trusses. To go to the exhibits one has to travel up an escalator that is in a giant tube attached to the outside of the building, and overlooks a large courtyard. The exhibits were fun to look at, especially one on a French architecture firm and several models they had created.

Paris 8/27/2008

We slept in a little today because we both slept so horribly last night. The window overlooking the street that seemed so nice when we first arrived proved to be one of the worst things about the room. It didn’t get quiet outside until late in the morning. It wasn’t until probably 6AM that some giant robot came thundering down the street eating cars and other smaller machines. At least that’s what it sounded like. Kelly said she thought it was a garbage truck, but I’m pretty sure it was a giant machine eating robot.

The first thing we did was walk take the metro to the Eiffel Tower. There were ridiculous lines to climb it, so we just hung out in the park in front of it for a while and ate lunch. From there we walked around some more across the river to the Arc du Triomphe. It’s bigger than I remembered. The traffic circle around it is ridiculous and I would be so scared to drive into it. We went through the tunnel under the street to the Arc and walked around underneath it, but didn’t go up. We then walked down the Champs Elysees. The side walks were real big because there were a million stores with a billion people. We kept walking all the way down till we got to La Place de la Concorde. I remember this from when I came here in third grade. It has a big ol’ obelisk and fountains. We continued down to the Louvre. Once again, we chose not to go in, but walked around the outside and saw the Pyramid (Kelly and I are really deep thinkers and love looking at modern architecture and stuff). It was right around sunset and was real pretty.

We killed a little more time and ate dinner in the park in front of the Louvre. We decided we would broaden our horizons and ordered a beer with the most French sounding name we could find which was Panache. It would probably be my sister Mary’s favorite beer ever because it tasted just like yellow Sprite. Afterwards we walked back to La Place de la Concorde and I tried to retake the picture of my family and grandparents that was taken 15 years ago as best I could…

Today was good because we got to see alot of the city and alot of the big famous stuff. I liked it because I got to reminisce on the family trip from when I was in third grade yet the company wasnt nearly as annoying this time around.

Prague to Paris 8/26/2008

We awoke early this morning and went downstairs for our free breakfast consisting of Tang, yogurt, and bread. We took the metro and found the Institute, located in a nice little courtyard near Old Town Square.We were scheduled to meet Jakub (pronounced Yakub [Czech people are way dumb and don’t know how to pronounce their j’s]) at 11:00. We became a little worried when 11:15 came around and we were still sitting on the curb, however the woman who cleans the building came by and let us in. She didn’t speak hardly any English (idiot) but was very nice and even called a cab for us to get to the airport.

We got to the airport, and took a plane, and then arrived in Paris. We took the metro to our hotel. You can tell that the real estate in Paris is real valuable by the way they crammed the stairs, hallways, and elevator in the building. It seems nice and we have a window overlooking the street.

After checking in, we walked around the city. We went to Le Jardin du Luxembourg, which translates roughly to ‘The Jardin du Luxembourg.’ There were statues and fountains and stuff, and public ping pong tables. We then walked across the Seine to Notre Dame. There were a bunch of people outside but it was neat to see. We kept walking around and found a million places to eat where you could sit out on the street. We found a place that had a menu where you could get an appetizer, entrée, and desert for 10 euros so we jumped on it. It took us a while to figure out that you seat yourself, but we finally sat down outside. I had a nice beefsteak and some good tiramisu. When we got the check, our meal was 15 euros, and we discovered the Parisian custom that it is more expensive to eat outside than to eat inside.

(There are no pictures today because I left my camera in the hotel instead of carrying it around. It won’t happen again. Promise.)

Raleigh to Prague 8/24-25/2008

Today, Kelly and I left Raleigh to fly to Prague. Mom almost didn’t cry at the airport, but she did. Duh. The plane was real cool, a lot cooler than I remember from the last time I flew on a plane that size (15 years ago). Everyone had their own TV screen in front of them and you could pick which movie you watched (I picked Ironman). The flight was real long but I was able to fall asleep.

We arrived into Heathrow early in the morning. We were about to go through customs when I realized I had thrown away my receipt for my checked luggage (Genius). I was worried for a while, but then I just talked to the customs lady and she said I just needed to tell the guy at the gate for our flight to Prague, and it was as simple as that. Sure enough when we got to Prague, my stuff got there too. When we took a van to the pension we were able to see a little bit of downtown and the Charles River. We took a little nap when we got our room, and then walked around Prague. We found a church with an extremely large clock in its façade, and a giant TV tower with sculptures of giant black faceless babies crawling on it. It’s pretty normal.

Tomorrow we begin our trip across France and Spain.