The Dutchman

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Alright well after a day or two of recovery I think I can now write this blog.

Okay so we woke up on Friday and headed to the train station. We hopped on and went to Brussels and then got on another train that went to Rotterdam. We arrived in Rotterdam at 11ish. We went and saw a Rem Koolhaus building called Kuntshal. Then wandered around and checked out the city and then went and checked out a few other buildings. This was all the the span of maybe 5 hours. After that we were just sitting around so me and two friends decided to walk around and we found a supermarket there which happened to sell some bubble gum and Dr. Pepper, so we decided to make it feel like home and bought some and had a good time.

After Rotterdam we hopped on a train and headed towards Amsterdam. We arrived at Amsterdam and hopped on the train to the hostel. We got off and were walking towards the hostel and I came about 2 inches from getting creamed by a tram. It really is a different world there, the trams just go and they don't stop, so if you think they will, well wrong choice. So we checked into the hostel and ate some dinner.

We met up after that ( I think maybe 7:30) and headed to a library which just opened up in 2006. So this baby was brand spankin new and it was so cool. There were so many elements about it that were great. The interior was lit up and lots of open space.

So it was a lot of fun, and there was a cafe on top which we went to and had a coffee. Well right next to the Library was another building called NEMO.
It really wasn't that impressive of a building (definately looks better in pictures) but it was cool to see anyways. It had copper panels which were aged so they had turned green. Excuse me the proper term is oxidized.

I have to mention one quick thought here. Compare to Paris, Amsterdam is much much smaller. So it is a lot quicker and easier to get around and see stuff. Which made life a lot easier.

After seeing NEMO we walked about half a mile and saw another building called ARCAM (Architecture Academy) I believe. It was cool but was closed so we planned to come back the next day.

Well after seeing that we pretty much called it a night. So we walked home and decided to take a detour to the Red Light district for giggles. And I have to say no one was giggling. That had to be one of the strangest experiences of my life.

Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it (well probably 85% of it). But I didn't expect it to be like BLAM that in your face. But I can't complain too much. So after walking through there we stopped and discussed what we just saw. Kept walking around and then headed back to the hostel (we were all tired).

We woke up the next day and it was raining. And raining, and raining. So it was a nice gloomy morning and we first headed to a Steven Holl building. It was alright but there was nothing too great about it. Sunlight really brings these buildings to life and the mix of light and shadow reveals things about the building that you would not normally see. So we checked that building out and then watched this intense battle between a bunch of ducks in the river. That was fun. We then hopped on the tram and went out to this social living area called Borneo. At first it was not too interesting until we hit these apartments that were built on the water. I really can't even describe them. There was probably a hundred of them all built by different architects.

So that was actually a lot of fun. I made friends with a snail and got some close up's of him. So we headed back to "town" for lunch. Well I had to go to the bathroom really bad so when the group sat down for lunch I departed and went looking for a toilet. The problem is (and the Netherlands are infamous for it) is that there were barely any public restrooms. So I walked around for 30 minutes trying to find one. DUring which I got stopped by not only locals but also tourists who thought I was a Dutchman, and they were both asking me for directions. Okay so that didn't turn out so well.
But okay back to the bladder. So I continued to walk around and time was running out for lunch. So I said screw it and ran over to some bushes real quick and turned both ways and did my business.

One of my prouder moments. ONe quick note here, I cannot talk about all the buildings we saw in the Netherlands, there were so many sick ones that I would write more than anyone...well most anyone would care to read. So I will be paraphrasing a lot.

So we headed back and went to a concert hall by MVRDV. It was....cool I guess. Lots of concrete and wood. It was alright. So it was getting close to dinner time so we headed back to the hostel and ate lots of food. After that some people wanted to go out and party and instead I decided to go out with my professor and her friend and his wife. So we went out and got some cigars and went and sat next to the canals. And just about that time (it was dark) boats started just roaming the waters. So it was a very enjoyable time and relaxing. Not to mention my professor's friend is an architecutre teacher in France and him and I talked four about 2 hours on public space (which I will have to talk to you about Uncle Patrick). It was such an interesting concept about how everything that needs to go into creating a public space but also how it affects people. But that is a different conversation.

The next day we headed out to a University. There was a lot of buildings there to look at but my favorite one was called The Educatorium by Rem Koolhaus. There are a lot of ideas behind it (another conversation we can have). So I really enjoyed that and actually enjoyed it so much I took an hour nap in there. That was excellent. And a lot of fun.

When we got back we headed to dinner and ate a whole bunch of food. That night me and my teacher and her two friends (which I will now refer to as the 'gang') went to the concert hall to listen to a jazz remix of Gershwin. And I have to say that was the highlight of the trip. A few songs in they played Rhapsody in Blue which was just amazing. And to top that the top saxaphonist in Holland was there to play. And he was amazing and it was really great to listen to him.

So we got done with the concert and went to the cafe next to the hall and had some coffee. We sat down and my teacher ran off to the bathroom so I had a nice talk with the rest of the 'gang'. About 15 minutes later my teacher comes back and sits down next to me and hands me a cd case. It was the saxophonists cd and on the back it was written "For Luke" and he had signed it below it. This really blew me away and I couldn't believe that she would do this for me. I was really taken aback and that was the second layer of icing on the cake. So it was a really good night.

The next day we went to a town called Almere where the whole urban plan was layed out before the town was even built by OMA/Rem Koolhaus. It was cool. Too much to talk about there but I should metion that I got bitched out by my teacher (a different one) and so from this trip he became blacklisted. So we were there for 4 or 5 hours and then headed to another town called Den Haag ( I think) and went and saw a few more buildings there and then headed to the town and ate lunch there. Well I finished early and walked around town and came across a bookstore.

So I went it and purused and came across a book called "PUSHKIN: Poems, Plays and Prose" and it took me all of 5 seconds to buy the book. It was like 14 Euro so I was happy. We headed back to Amsterdam after that and went to dinner.

That night people went off and did their own things so I went to the park and sat down and started reading Pushkin. And it was great....confusing but great.


The next day we had some free time in the morning so most everyone slept in. I went with my teacher downtown and went looking for this great tea shop. It was one that she had always wanted to go to but it was always closed. So we went down and found it and it was open so we went in a browsed for a long time. Smelling and doing such things. I ended up buying some tea and a cup and saucer. And some damn good chocolate which I ate later. After that we took a train to Utrect and saw some other builidngs there. Nothing too great but nothing too bad.

We then went and hopped on the train to head back to Leuven. We just had one problem. We hopped on the train from hell. So the ride back was about 1:30 minutes. And the whole ride felt like sitting in an 400 degree oven. It was pretty miserable.

Ironically when we got off half of the group was in another cab and they complained that it was too cold. So I stick with my theory of the hell train.

And then we were back in Leuven. We have been playing soccer every night having a lot of fun with that.

And so that is about the end. It is Saturday morning and we have one week of school left. Me and my friend Sam are heading to Paris today at 3:30 and are going to catch the end of the Tour de France tommorow. We haven't figured out what we are doing for sleeping arrangements so it is going to be a very interesting and possibly horrible night. But anyways we get to see the tour so that will be fun.

The Frenchman

Oh where to start. I guess I can say that I am still caught with the Paris fever.

Alright well again I will start from the beginning.

Wednesday we wake up and eat breakfast and hop on a train to Brussels. When we reach Brussels we get on a train to Paris (can't remember the exact stop) it takes about 1:20 min. So I fall asleep, and when I wake up I am hearing the horns and whistles of the Paris train station (Paris north I believe). So we get off and get our GO pass:

The GO pass is a pass that is good for 2,4, or 6 days and you can ride all trains, metro's and buses. I think it was about 40 euro but it paid off.

So we got that and headed off to the hostel. Dropped our baggage off and then headed. Our first stop was Jean Nouvel's Arab Institute, which is known for it's transparency but also for it's light filtering devices. We took a walk over to Notre Dame and hung out there for a little bit.

After doing that we started walking over to the Louvre. Walked around the main lobby and then went and got some dinner. It was kind of a slow day so not really much happened. Just experiencing the life of Paris and just getting adjusted to stuff.


So we woke up Thursday at the hostel and ate breakfast.
We got on a train and headed out to the Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier. It is a modernist building that does all this cool architecture stuff that I don't really want to explain (5 points of architecture). But it was a really great villa to go to. So we spent about 4 hours there and headed back into town. Once we got back to Paris we went to check out another modern building and then a new contemporary building by Jean Nouvel. It is pretty sweet, called Institute de Quai Brawnly. Again maybe too much to explain so I will just leave it to Wikipedia.

After that we broke up for dinner and we asked a local where a good restaurant was. Well she took us walking for about 15 minutes and came up to this small little restaurant. Well we went in and sat down and overheard the lady say that the restaurant had one star from Michelin. Michelin is like the food evaluating company in Paris. A restaurant can get up to 3 stars. If a restaurant can even get 1 star then it is already a top dog. so I was excited to hear that. So we ate a lot of good food for about 3 hours.



After eating we headed to the Pompideau center and hung out there for a big taking pictures and then headed home to bed.

When we woke up the next morning we headed to another Jean Nouvel building called Cartier Foundation. It was yet another sweet building. We then headed downtown to the business district and went to the Arc de la Defense. We hung out there for a bit taking an amazing amount of photos and continued to walk around the enitre business area. We sat and ate and then took the metro to the Arc de Triumph.

We went up to the top....

I forgot to mention that we also got a 4 day museum pass and there is a huge list of places that we can get into with this pass, including the Arc de Triumph and Versailles.

So we hung out at top and looked around at all the boulevards. So after that we went down and walked down the Champs enjoying life and looking at people (hrmm creepy). So we kept walking down and ended up at this large fountain and our teacher says to us, "there is a museum right over there with Monet's lillies and other French Impressionist work. So I hauled ass over to the museum (I got a thing for Impressionism) and spent about 30 minutes there until I was pulled away. We continued to walk and our destination was the Louvre.

At this point the teachers decided they would go to the Pompideau (Kandinsky exhibit) and the rest of us went to the Louvre.

David (a fellow student) were slower than the rest of the group so when we got to the Louvre it was just us. So we started touring and looking at all the great art. Wow we got to the Mona Lisa and it was the most amazing moment of my life. Okay not really and I might get in trouble for this but I was not too impressed with it.

Anyways so we finished looking at the art and wentback to the lobby and met up with some guys. We all were hungry and we headed out of the Louvre and got about 300 steps and had to sit down because our feet were tired. I had a great picture of myself laying down with the Eiffel tower in the background (you can fill the rest in) but it got lost somewhere so I don't have it anymore.

Anyways we rested for a while and hoofed it to the tower and waited in line. It was 9.90 Euro's to go to the top (it wouldn't have really mattered) and so we all bought tickets and hopped on the elevator to go to the top.

We reached the second level and there was a pretty long line to get to the top. So we waited for another 30 minutes in that line. So we finally reached the top and started enjoying the views of Paris. One of the guys (Mike) ran into a girl who had the same idea as him and they started kissing on the top. It was pretty hilarious (later it was, I will explain). So we hung out up there till they made us leave. So we went down and started
walking towards the metro when we walked into one of our professor's who was on the Paris study abroad trip. The time was about 12:45. He told us that it would be wrong of us to go home right now because at 1:00 the Parisian's light up the Eiffel Tower. So we headed back to the tower and set on some steps and waited.....and waited.....and waited. And it lit up......and it sparkled....okay it was kind of cool but I was tired.

So we went back and rode the metro home and got to the hostel like 15 minutes after it shut down. So we had to flag the guard down and he let us in. He turned out to be a very angry Frenchman with a lot of testosterone and was angry. But we didn't care.

So we woke up the next morning (Friday) and headed to the Biblioteque National (which I did a lot of research on) so I had a lot of fun going through. We kept walking around and saw a really neat bridge (I believe it was called Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir) but it is a cool bridge. Then we went and saw a Frank Gehery Building and it wasn't a total waste of my time but close.

Lunch Break

Well we walked around Paris and checked out some more stuff. (Since you are my family I am going to be honest with you, I can't remember what exactly happened the rest of the day. That just means it wasn't important)

Blur

Okay we woke up Saturday and headed out checkin out some sweet architecture. But we all had our minds focused on something else (us as students had decided to change the schedule and take a trip to Versailles). So the morning was a blur until we hopped on the train to go to Versailles. As we reached it everyone was really excited and we walked up in there.

I was talking earlier about that girl on the tower, well we ran into her again and we all had a laugh about that.

Thank goodness for the Museum pass, so we skipped all the lines and headed into the Museum. Checked that out and then headed to the gardens. I think we spent about 4 hours there and I took a nice little nap on the grass. So we really enjoyed Versailles.

We walked back to the train station (getting a bite to eat on the way of course) and headed back to Paris. Well my teacher and I are both really into Kandinsky so we took a trip over to the Pompideau and went to the exhibit. Well she knows everything about Kandinsky so she explained it all to me (interesting is that he did work in Moscow so some of the titles were in Russian) so I did a little translation (no idea how) but it worked out. So we finished there and went to get some food and ate some steak tar tar. Which I have to say was really really good, and I am craving some right now. So we finished there and went to bed.


Okay so sunday we woke up (our train left at 4:55) so we went to this newely developed promenade that was a mix between a park and a running path, but it went through the city. It was really cool. So we spent a lot of time there and headed back to the hostel, grabbed our gear and went to the train station. We headed back to Leuven and got there at 6:30. And the hostel forgot to make dinner for us so we hit the town and found a restaurant who for 15 euros served unlimited ribs. So that was just great.

We finished up with some ice cream and came home and crashed hard.

These past two days of studio have been horrible. Our teacher is in a bad mood because he is a socially akward jerk and I think is pissed off because we had so much fun on the Paris trip. Anways we are all looking forward to studio tommorow.

By the way we played soccer tonight and I somehow pulled off this sweet Ronaldo move with the ball. Can't explain it but it was sweet I beat 2 defenders.

Anyways we have homework so I need to go do that.

In Bruges

Okay where to start. I just returned from Bruges (or Brugge) depending on who you are. Let me just start from the beginning.

We packed up all our stuff Friday night (in preparation to leave early Saturday) and watched the movie "In Bruges" with Colin Farell. It was a pretty funny movie and I enjoyed it.


So we woke up Saturday morning and hopped on the train for Bruges which took 1:20 minutes. It was a good train ride and nice for sleep. When we got there we headed straight for the city passing a minimalist building and markets and shops and all the grand stuff. We got to the city and started touring buildings and snapping photo's like crazy. It was of course the 4th of July so we celebrated by all getting hamburgers. They weren't the greatest things but hey it's the thought that counts right?

So after lunch we started on our assignment which took about three hours to photograph. After that 4 of us guys when and created a cheering section for a bunch of old guys playing Bocce Ball. It was really interesting and we talked with the guys during the match. At the end we asked for a photograph but they turned out to be grumpy old men and so we left.

The rest of the day we walked around Bruges and then went over to the hostel. After checking in we showered, cleaned up, ate and then walked back over to town to check out the buildings.

The next day we all woke up and ate breakfast and hopped on the train to go to Blankenburg. It is a city on the coast of Belgium and was the supposed 'hotspot' beach. Well we went and checked it out and it was overcast and cold and only kids and parents on the beach. So we sucked it up and ran into the ocean and played around for a bit.

We went and got lunch and decided that we wanted to go to another beach. So we took the tram about 15 minutes West to a town called De Halle (I believe) and went there. Well it was great as we walked up the hill and the ocean and beach came into our view the clouds parted and the sun came out. So we walked to the beach set up camp and had fun. Swimming, laughing, diggin, walking, running and all those great things.

We left the beach and hopped back on the tram and headed for a town called Oostende (pronounced Austin...seriously). And we got on the train and took a 2 hour ride back to Leuven (where I am right now).

so all in all it was great and lots of fun and I have a interesting shaped sunburn from it (I put my own sunblock on and wherever I couldn't reach it got burned) I actually had to laugh at it.

And so that is that. We have studio Monday and Tuesday and then we head to Paris on Wednesday and hang out there for 4 days.

So enjoy the rest of your days and remember "I would only like Brugge if I grew up on a farm and was retarted" - (from In Bruges)

The Mosquitos

Okay well a lot has happened since my last post but all I can think about now is the damn mosquitos. They are everywhere and are relentless.

Okay so that was my rant about them.


Besides that let me think of where to start. After we finished our soccer game on Tuesday we all went to bed and woke up bright and early, ate breakfast and got on the train to Brussels Central. We got there and hooked up with our teachers and from there we headed out to the Comic Strip Museum. I had a lot of fun there recognizing many comics that I read as a kiddo. One of the most popular one's at the museum was Tin Tin. It was really great to see Tin Tin again and read up on him.

After that we visited another museum and then began our Art Nouveau trip. We saw about 5 different places all over Brussels that were amazing and really great representations of Art Nouveau.

Okay so we finish up and walk back to the train station to head to Leuven. We are sitting in the train station, the train pulls up and we all get on, except one guy who was waiting for another guy getting a milkshake. Okay so they missed the train. So we laughed about it and the train left and we were headed back to Leuven. Well we got to the next stop and people started murmuring and realized that WE had gotten on the wrong train. So in a mad rush we all ran to get off the train and right as I got to the doors SLAM!!! the doors swung shut and I couldn't open them. Luckily my friend Austin also got stuck with me, so again we had a laugh with our friends outside and went and sat down and continued on to the next stop (thinking that we would just hop on a train going the opposite way).

So me and Austin got to the next stop, got off and saw a train coming from the opposite direction. When it stopped we hopped on and waited for it to leave. Well when it did it reversed directions and went the opposite way that we needed to go. At this point we both really had to laugh because of how muddled things had gotten. We ended up befrending a ticket lady on board and she wrote down directions for us on how to get back. We ended up getting off the train an hour outside of Leuven. Well we had to wait there another hour for the train and got back on and rode it all the way back to Leuven.

The irony of this whole thing was that the two guys who we had left at Brussels central were the first to get back to the hostel and Austin and I were last.

But all in all it was a fun day. We got back and went and played a few hours of soccer.


To put the icing on the cake, we all came home from soccer dead tired (we had played on a field and ran a lot more) so we all came home, showered and crashed. It was actually the first night that I slept good. Our plans for the next day (Friday/today) was to wake up and catch a train at 9:35. So having a good nights sleep I suddenly woke up in the morning to Sam yelling "OH SHIT, IT'S 9:30!!!!!" Our alarm (a phone) had died in the middle of the night so our phone never went off.

In a mad rush we threw on clothes, no time for deoderant or brushing teeth. We ran down the stairs, taking 4 or 5 at a time, and sprinted out of the hostel down into the tunnel and up the stairs to the platform. Ten seconds later the train showed up. So we were in clothes, were hot and sweaty, smelled and hadn't eaten. We got lucky because the day was overcast and there was a strong breeze so it helped a lot.

Now I am back at the hostel and we are about to watch a movie called In Bruges. You may ask why and this is because in the morning we are heading out at 8:30 for Brugge. We will stay there Saturday night and Sunday is a free day so we will spend the ENTIRE day on the beach relaxing.

I heard there was a few nudist beaches so I will...try and stay away.