The next day we headed up to Montjuic, a mountain in the southwest part
of the city. The bus dropped us off near the Olympic Stadium, built for the
1936 Olympics (which was moved to Berlin because of the Spanish Civil War) but
used in the 1992 Olympics. We were able to walk around the stadium, see where
the torch was lit, and then roam the grounds, imagining what it was like filled
with athletes (and also thinking about what Bob Costas would have had to say
about it). There were also nice views of the city of Barcelona from the Olympic
park.
Olympic Park
Other highlights of Montjuic include a stunning, huge building that now houses the Museum of Catalonian Art, and lots of gardens and fountains. There is one very large fountain, the Font Magica, which does water shows in the evenings, but that’s just during the summer, sadly, so we didn’t get to see it in its prime. We wandered throughout the park for several hours, visiting some smaller art exhibits, and enjoying the perfect weather. We also finally sampled Spanish churros, which don’t have cinammon (lame) but do have the same perfect crunchy yet soft consistency churros are meant to have. Delicious.
Museum of Catalonian Art
Font Magica (sadly without water)
Looking down on Placa Espanya from the Museum
It took us forever to climb up to the castle. The road we followed kept winding and winding, ascending
and ascending, until we finally reached the highest point of the mountain.
While the castle itself was a little disappointing (it was super lame actually)
the views from the top were stunning. On one side was the sea, with the sun
getting ready to set, and the other side the entire city of Barcelona. We were
able to see from this view just how huge and dense the city is. Looking down we
could see basically nonstop buildings, with very little green breaking up the
sand-colored blurr. Barcelona is surrounded by a series of hills, so we could
see the hills on the other side looking across, which also made for a lovely
picture. Since it was so sunny up there we decided to sit and read for a bit
before heading back down to the city for dinner.
View of the harbor from atop the castle
The kid who took this picture for us was less than enthused.
I’m especially glad I got to
relax in Bonn because the next week was a whirlwind. I flew from Cologne to
Barcelona (with a hilarious and eventful RyanAir experience which should
probably be the subject of its own blog post) to meet up with Michal! Here is a
brief overview of what we did. Check facebook for many many more pictures J
Day 1: We began our
Barcelona experience with the classic old city. La Ramblas is the most famous
touristy kitchy but fun street running from Placa Catalunya (a main downtown
square) to the port. We walked down the street, stopping at anything that
looked cool: pretty churches, really cool and very bustling market with
mouthwatering produce, cheese, meats, etc, and eventually the many harbor-side
buildings and monuments. I loved the harbor promenade. There was a huge
monument to Columbus (reminiscent of Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square) as
well as lots of beautiful old buildings lining the port.
Old bullfighting arena, right next to the place we stayed
Buildings lining Placa Catalunya
Newer building behind a statue also in Placa Catalunya
Inside the market on La Ramblas
Columbus memorial
One of the harbor-side buildings
We walked along the sea side into the Barri Gotic, the old city, which has your typical narrow alleyways, winding cobblestone streets, and of course lots of churches. There are ruins of an old roman wall (those Romans were everywhere) and a very large Cathedral that, frankly, was kind of strange. The courtyard was part jungle, part zoo, party mini golf course. There were creepy statues and tacky little fake rivers all over the place and lots of exotic birds and tropical plants. It was kind of strange. Definitely memorable though.
Roman ruins
Cool arch over one of the Barri Gotic streets
Courtyard of the Cathedral. I told you it was strange.
One of my favorite
structures/areas of the city is the Arc d’Triompfe. Barcelona’s version of this
landmark seems to represent the Spanish cultural mix very well. You can
definitely see the sort of Islamic influence mixed with more classical European
elements. The part around the arch is lovely and leads right up to another
park, which might be my favorite spot in Barcelona. There is this awesome, huge
fountain, with dragons and other animals, a large lake with people on little
rowboats, Alice-in-wonderlandy gardens, and lots of museums that were in very
pretty buildings. Poor Michal probably got so annoyed of me exclaiming how cool
everything was.
We also visited the Picasso Museum, although it took us about an hour to find…the Barrio Gotic is super confusing, people. I’ll be real with you, it was kind of disappointing. There was a lot of stuff from Picasso’s Pre-Cubism days, which was definitely interesting, but I was expecting more of the real PICASSO kind of stuff. I very much enjoyed learning about how he developed as an artist and seeing the process by which he transformed from realism to cubism, including all of his influences, but I would have liked to see more than 2 or 3 cubist works. Oh well. Our final stop of the day (after souvenir shopping in this awesome awesome ceramic store with BEAUTIFUL stuff for quite cheap) was the Modern Art Museum. It was a Modern Art Museum. We’ll just leave it at that.
It’s been a while but I’m back at school,
attempting to slip back into routine, and I’m going to do my best to recap
everything I’ve been up to the past several weeks (broken up into several blog posts)!
To start my vacation I went into Vienna to
meet up with my friend Annie, who had tickets to see this German Hip-Hop
group called Blumentopf and invited me to come with. Although we had no idea
what we were getting ourselves into, the night certainly did not disappoint.
The opening act was this Asian German hip-hop rapper who said a lot of things
about Jewish people/Nazis that we couldn’t really understand (we just kep
hearing the words Jew, Nazi, Hitler, etc). We can only assume they were anti-Nazi
rather than anti-Semitic, but one can never be entirely sure. Although I’m
generally anti-rap, I thought Edgar Wasser was actually quite good. He was kind
of funny and satirical, so I enjoyed him more than I expected.
Similarly,
Blumentopf were actually pretty awesome and really fun as well (video below, if you're interested). However the
real highlight of the night was the people-watching. Annie and I are both hilarious, and we provide witty commentary to literally every second of our lives, so
this setting provided prime material for us. We looked super out of place (Like Quakers at a war rally, we remarked) and I’m pretty sure we were judged super
hard by the Austrians around us (including one guy who read a caption I was
putting on an Instagram photo over my shoulder and literally laughed out loud,
and then proceeded to explain to his friend who also laughed, causing me to be
quite embarrassed), but we were judging them too, so all is well. After 2 hours
of hip-hop (we left early because we literally could not handle one more
second), we went home and listened to lots of Fleet Foxes and smooth jazz to
attempt to balance out our brains. It was a super super fun night and a great
way to kick off my break!
we so hardcore.
I knew I wasn’t going to go home for
Christmas so I was delighted when I was invited to Bonn, in the western part of Germany, to spend Christmas with
the host family I lived with when I studied there during Spring Term of
sophomore year. I developed a great relationships with Ela and the rest of the
clan when I was there for spring term abroad, and we’ve kept in touch since. It
was so so lovely to just relax at home with wonderful people, truly enjoying
vacation like it should be. I read a lot, watched lots of movies, ate a lot of
cookies—basically everything you want to do on vacation. Ela and the family are
such awesome and welcoming people that I felt so at home, and they really made
my Christmas special. Of course it was really difficult being away from home
this time of year (especially considering how obsessed I am with Yadlin Family
Christmas Traditions) but if I couldn’t be at home, this was exactly where I
wanted to be!
When I was last here, the Rathaus was under construction, so it was lovely to see the beautiful finished product! Complete with a Christmas tree of course!
Christmas Dinner: Raclette! Yum!
Wandering the city itself was really fun because I got to go back to all the places that were so dear to me during the study abroad trip. Since that trip was my first experience with study abroad, and really my first big trip abroad without family, it was a very special time for me. All the fabulous memories that came rushing back to me made me super nostalgic for my
Spring Term trip, and W&L in general!
Part of the University of Bonn
The building we had all our classes in!
I also got to go to this AWESOME
exhibit at the Bonn art exhibition hall called Pixar: 25 Years of Animation. It was not
only about the history of Pixar and how it developed from a tiny company
working out of a high rise office with donated furniture to one of the most
successful production companies of all time, but also about the techniques used
in the making of the films. They used one scene in Toy Story 3 to show the
various stages of the animation process, from sketches to storyboards to
animated storyboards to adding each and every detail including light and sound
to all the frames. It’s absolutely incredible how much thought and detail goes
into every tiny piece of a film. I don’t often think about how with animation you
have to artificially create all the lighting and sound effects, and make it as
true to life as possible. Each and every piece of fur on Lotso or bubble in
Finding Nemo is animated precisely and intentionally, making these films all
the more impressive, even just from a technological standpoint. They also talked about how Pixar works to create entirely new worlds that seem to defy reality, but then operate within those worlds under strict restrictions. For example, the world of Toy Story seems to be such fantasy, but then there are rules that restrict the world, most notably the fact that the toys cannot be seen moving by any people. I'm not explaining it well, but it was super interesting. There's also such complexity in Pixar characters, which is something the company strives for when making these films. They really work hard to create fantastical stories with all the pathos of real life. I just love Pixar so much.
There was also a ton
of really really cool concept art from every Pixar movie, and I kept thinking
throughout the exhibit how I want basically every single piece of art on those
walls to decorate my house with. They were SO cool. If I wasn’t already in love
with Pixar, this exhibit did it for me. It’s a travelling exhibit so if it
comes to your area, GO SEE IT.
Screen caps from Up, used to provide an overview of the color scheme and lighting in the whole movie
Storyboard from a scene in Toy Story 3
Character sketch for Jaques in Finding Nemo. So detailed!
I'll be back soon with more about the rest of my break, including the trip to Barcelona!!
In a few hours I'm headed to Vienna to spend the evening with a friend and go to a concert of the German hip-hop group Blumentopf (yeah, you read that right...we'll see how this goes?). Then in the morning I'm off to Germany to celebrate Christmas with the incredibly delightful and wonderful family I lived with when I studied there my sophomore year of college. After about a week in Bonn I'm flying to Barcelona where Michal will meet me for Part 2 of "Yadlin Sister 1 & 3 Take On Europe"!!!!!!! I CANNOT WAIT to see her! Michal and I will be in Barcelona for just under one week and then we will come back to Austria, where I will get to test my tour-guiding skills, showing Michal around Vienna! I am so so so excited for the next few weeks!!!
Here's a very short update of what I've been up to in the past two weeks. First of all, I've visited practically every Christmas market in the city of Vienna several times, and I still can't get enough. Here's yet another picture of the Rathaus market--it's so beautiful you just can't help but feel the Christmas magic!
It should be illegal to have such pretty things.
Five other TAs and I had a lovely little Christmas party complete with a secret santa gift exchange and Ikea gingerbread house construction. The evening with these ladies reminded me once again how special my life here is and how grateful I am to have such wonderful friends! I can't wait to get back from break and see everyone again!
Ikea Gingerbread kits come with no frosting and no decorative candies. Just Gingerbread and very detailed instructions. So our house-builders improvised.
Last weekend, some friends of mine descended upon Purkersdorf to finally see what I have been talking about for the past 3 months. We visited our adorable little Christmas market, which was having a special concert that night. The group was called the Holy Moly Christmas Band, and it was made up of local residents dressed up in festive costumes, singing holiday songs in English with Austrian accents! They were fantastic and so much fun! There was also a craft area where we got to try our hands at dip candle-making. Although we got shown up by some very young children, I'm pretty proud of our finished products.
The candles as a work in progress
Finally, it's not all Christmas Christmas Christmas here. We also had a Chanukah celebration as well!! Luckily my friend Annie had the foresight to bring her Menorah from home, so a group of us got together to make latkes and light candles. I told the three gentiles in the group the story of Chanukah and together we all stuffed our faces with food drenched in oil. It was fantastic.
I want to wish you all a frohe Weihnachten and einen guten Rutsch ins Neujahr! Till 2013!
It’s that time of year: when students are done learning,
teachers are done teaching, and the teaching assistant is asked to talk about
Christmas almost every day. Luckily, I certainly have not yet and hopefully never
will tire of talking about Christmas, so I’m happy to do all these lessons!
Plus, I can do different activities with different classes, depending on their
age and skill level, thus keeping it exciting for me!
It’s been really fun learning about the Austrian version of
Christmas, which is surprisingly different from the typical American Christmas
(even though traditions vary widely within America as well).For example, there is a Christmas
figure here called Nikolaus, who is basically St. Nicholas, and essentially the
closest thing they have to Santa. Children celebrate Nikolaus on December 6th
by putting their shoes on their windowsills or outside their doors. Nikolaus
visits the kids at night and puts treats in their shoes following the same
rules as stockings in America: rocks or coal for the bad kids and candy for the
good ones. One of the teachers dressed up as Nikolaus at school last week and
visited all the classes, bringing them mini oranges, apples, peanuts, and
chocolate. I didn’t know he was coming to one of my classes so I was as
surprised as the kids when he walked in! He even visited the 18 year olds,
keeping the fun alive even through adolescence! :)
Because they don’t have a Santa Claus as we know him, I
thought it would be fun to focus on the character of Santa for the Christmas
lessons I’m doing with younger kids. Today I worked with the 2nd
form, meaning they’re around 11-12 years old and generally in their 2nd
year of learning English. After telling them a little bit about Christmas in
America, I had them write letters to Santa! You can imagine this activity
produced some real gems. Here are some of my favorites:
I just enjoyed this line of this letter. Nationalstolz FTW.
Homegirl is not shy about her requests. What is she going to do with an iPhone 4S AND and iPhone 5?
creative decorations!
After reading 18 letters all asking for iPads, cell phones, Wii games, and other technology things, it was lovely to see a girl request books, stuffed animals, and movies! Well done, girl, well done.
I just like that she added a PS with more things she thought of :)
Three guesses as to what she wants to do during her break.
This wins the prize for most adorable letter ever. It's hard to read, but she wants ski trousers and a cell phone case. Favorite line: "And give Mrs. Claus a kiss from me :)"
After class I showed another teacher all the letters and she suggested with do the same activity with the 17 year olds next week! I'm excited to see how it goes with them!
