The Canals are Filled!

It finally warmed up enough to justify filling the canal on my street. The green, semi-opaque liquid looks a lot like Venetian water. Along with the green grass and high tides (of the canal) came a horde of flies. This won't be fun. I left the windows open for 5 minutes and 10 flies were visibly flying around the room. We might have to keep the windows closed. But at least I can wear shorts!

We got back this morning from Barcelona and the albums should be coming sometime tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Parigi - Paris (Part III: The Orsay Museum and the Pompidou Modern Art Museum)

Alright, now for the other two museums I went to! I liked these museums because they were both unique to each other and to the Louvre. The Louvre had ancient works up to the Baroque period (with some later works). In the Orsay Museum, you will see a lot of Impressionism and the like, with some Baroque art. The Pompidou was strictly Modern art, and I saw nothing earlier than about 1970.

See the album here.

Parigi - Paris (Part II: The Louvre)

On Friday, my second day in Paris, I got to the Louvre. The Louvre is the biggest, most famous art museum in the world. It houses countless masterpieces and artwork ranging from Mesopotamian art up to the 1900s. If you are an artist reading this or a museum lover, you probably already knew that. The place is massive; several blocks long, five floors high, with two long wings and a large center wing. To see every artwork at a reasonable pace would probably take 3-4 days from opening to closing, and with actually absorbing the art and/ or listening to an audio guide/ tour it would take much longer. And so, I got to only a portion of the exhibits.
After going for about 7 hours on Friday, and without any concrete plans on Saturday, I decided to visit the Louvre a second time to see some of the important/ interesting items I missed. I was there perhaps 3 hours or a little more the second day. Using my 3DS as a tour guide, I was able to quickly get to the spots I needed to that day. I'm very glad I went back and I feel blessed to have been able to visit such a place for so long.
If you love art and you visit Europe, do yourself a favor and visit the Louvre. There is something for everyone there. Bring a map and a snack. Anyways, here are the pictures I took with some commentary on the pieces I remember best. Let it be known that I took a lot of pictures because they were funny... that's a part of the experience I feel. For a chunk of the first day I went through the art looking for humor, and the second day I went through fully to learn and see things I'll never get another chance to see. What's a learning experience without a little fun?

Find my album here.

Parigi - Paris (Part I: Around the City)

Well, I just got back from Paris a matter of hours ago. I've come back with way more pictures than my other trips (over 300), so I'll need to divide my trip up into multiple posts. This first post will be about the sights of the city, foods, and generally everything BUT museums. The second and third parts will be about the three very different museums I visited; the Orsay Museum, the Louvre, and the Museum of National Modern Art.
What a big city. We needed to metro practically everywhere, it was certainly bigger than Milan with a much more complex metro system. The general atmosphere of the city (while I was there) was not in itself charming. In contrast, Amsterdam was a beautiful city in itself and certain Italian cities like Genoa and Venice have their own charm. Paris is modernized (read: gray) like Milan or New York. The charm the city comes not from walking down a random street, but from seeing the scattered old architecture and finding decorated government buildings by turning a street corner. No, I did not fall in love with the city as some people seem to. Perhaps that is because of the cold temperatures, or cloudy, smoggy days occurring when I visited. That actually brings me to this article I discovered when I got home:
City of Lights dimmed
Paris has a temporary ban starting tomorrow on half the city's vehicles. Additionally, the metro is free. This was a funny coincidence finding this article, as we rode the metro free all Saturday and Sunday (after paying Thursday and Friday) and we had no clue why. I'm glad they are taking such measures. It's a temporary solution, but perhaps it will lead to bigger legal solutions.
But anyway, the city was certainly not ugly and I have no doubt that a summer tourist would find it beautiful. And the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Arch, and other individual structures were all really impressive! Without further ado, here's my commentary on the whole of my trip ignoring the large amount of time spent in museums:

See my album here.

New McDonald's 'Great Tastes of America' Edition Sandwiches

These were kinda funny. The McDonald's in Milan started running some limited edition sandwiches with the tastes of the biggest American cities! Which one looks the best to you? They didn't have every sandwich, so I ended up getting the Louisiana Smoky Bacon. Also I just learned Smoky is spelled without an 'E'. Anyways, I fittingly got a chicken patty since, you know, Louisiana.

The box it came in. Not the most beautiful thing ever, but they got the red, white, and blue there. I guess there's a highway sign shape like you're on a road trip to the different cities. Note the baseball equipment and football. So American.

And how it looked out of the box. You know, with pretty good cheese on it, bacon, lettuce, and a unique sauce, it didn't taste unlike a Chik Fil A sandwich. That was a pleasant surprise. And don't worry, I'm still having Italian cuisine here. It's just that sometimes, you gotta have something from home.

Amsterdam Weekend Trip

This weekend, Friday to Sunday, Matt and I went to Amsterdam. Woo! My first trip outside the country. This was Matt's most-wanted city, as we all picked one we must visit. Originally unsure what attractions were there, we managed to fill up the hours we had there well, hitting places like the Van Gogh Museum, Rembrandt House,  and Public Library. Of course we hit some not-so-educational places, like the Heineken Experience and the Amsterdam Dungeon. Even still, the Heineken Experience had some detailed design history of the brand, and the Amsterdam Dungeon included a small amount of history. Any attraction in a foreign country is sure to teach you something.
Overall the experience was fun and I'm glad I got to visit the Netherlands. For a more detailed commentary and photo album, see my album at this link.

p.s. I switched my past and present tense a lot as I couldn't decide whether to talk about the trip in the past or the city as it presently is. Bear with that.

Giò Ponti Mini Trip

For our Italian Design History trip today, we went around looking at the architecture of Gio Ponti, one of the most famous Italian architects. I, of course, knew nothing about him previously as I'm not much into architecture at all. He was also a designer and artist, like many great architects. He worked from the 20s all the way up to the 60s. He also worked mostly in Milan, lucky for us. We went to his grandson's design studio that was filled with Ponti's art, then to check out a very unique church he designed.
Check out the album here to see the pictures I took.

Pisa

Yesterday I went to Pisa! The train ride was long, 4 hours both ways. We stayed in the city for just 5 hours. However the city has one main attraction, which is the plaza that houses the duomo and the leaning tower. I feel we saw what we needed to see in that time frame. Check out the album with commentary, this time with a map of our route,
AT THIS LINK.