Brussels Day 2

Elselien and me just ripping up the town!

That rest didn’t last long though! Bright and early the next morning we had breakfast at the hostel and hit the road! We bought a group ticket for the tram all day so that we wouldn’t completely wear out our feet the first day. This was our lazy day, as we called it. We started out at the big flea market at Place du Jea de Balle. I bought a cute pair of heels at a store near the market for a fantastic price (not to brag about prices, but I kind bargained my way into a great deal and I’m pretty proud!), but I really wish I could have taken home some of the paintings, antique furniture, vintage clothing, books, etc. that was available at the market. If you think an American flea market is great, you should see a European one! Our antiques just can’t possibly even touch theirs! Oh well, a pair of new, cute, leather heels will have to do.

Then we followed the path up adorable, winding streets to the Palais du Justice, the Bridgettines, la chapelle, Sablon (a church with another great market place where I bought some lovely silk bags), the Beaux Arts and eventually the Elselien and I split off to the Rene Magritte museum. Of course, “ceci n’est pas une pipe” is not on display there, but there were plenty of others to see. Not to be nerdy, but I sure wish I had my theory notes with me while I was there! There was an entire floor about his word-art and I would have loved to discuss some object-sign business while I was there. Of course, poor Elselien would have had to listen to me going all art theory on her, but Amber would have been so proud! Haha. After that lovely museum, we tried our first Belgian waffles! YUM! They weren’t like the “Belgian waffles” that we make in America though, they are much sweeter. We had ours without any toppings at all and they were plenty sweet. We met up with Vincent and Katrin again to tour the Chocolate Museum, but unfortunately, and without notice, they scheduled a group tour and therefore wouldn’t give us a tour because they were full. I really wish they had posted notice earlier that they were closing early. We could have made other chocolate tour plans. Then thru indecisiveness and faulty plans, we ended up not getting to tour a chocolate museum at all. Bummer. Next time I’m in Brussels, I guess. We did however get to visit the Atomium (or as we call it, Atom thing). It’s the huge atom shaped building thing that was built for a world’s fair. We didn’t go to the top because it didn’t really seem that exciting, but we did visit it. For our final activity of the day, we visited the European Commission (which is a total snoozefest of architecture) and then a Brussels version of Arc de Triomphe. Then it was back to the hostel to rest our feet.

Finally to start posting about my trip!

The short of it: one week around Belgium and then two weeks at a watercolor painting course in Southern France. The long of it: I first traveled up to Spokane the night before my flight and then caught a bright and early flight out of there. I then flew from Spokane to Phoenix, Phoenix to Philadelphia, Philadelphia to Frankfurt and then Frankfurt to Brussels. I nearly missed the plane from Frankfurt to Brussels because of that bloody airport. Seriously, take note. Do not get a short connection in Frankfurt. The transfer between the two terminals is total murder and you have to go thru security, passport control, customs and the whole nine yards at each end of it. They only gave me about 45 minutes between flights and that was a disaster. I ran through all parts of that airport and arrived, completely out of breath, at my plane just as they were closing the gate. Yikes! That was a close one! Thank goodness I caught that. After three other flights, I really did not want to miss the last leg of the trip. Then by train from the Brussels airport to the Brussels North train station to meet my friend Elselien. Quite a long day, if you ask me….but you know me, I didn’t stop there!

We checked into the Van Gogh hostel in Brussels in the afternoon and met up with Vincent and his friend Katrin. We then headed to the main station to purchase my ticket for the trip down from Antwerp to my painting class in Gramat, France. We also explored the downtown area including the main squares, grand market place and Manneken Pis which is the original sculpture of a little boy peeing in a fountain and it’s become rather a symbol of Belgium. Eventually, after about 30 hours of traveling, I crashed into bed at the hostel.

Let's get the show on the road!

Hi everyone!

Sorry that it's been such a long time since I've updated! Since I last wrote, I moved home from Germany, moved to Idaho to continue my art degree and I'm now planning my next trip!

This time, I'm flying to Belgium to travel around with my good friend Elselien for 8 days and then I'm going to Southern France to take a painting course for two weeks. This all starts happening in about 16 days! Crazy! I will update along these travels just as I did before; as often as possible!

Here we go again!

Cori

Vienna Day 3 Pictures

Karlskirche with scaffolding.

On the first level of the scaffolding. I still had a ways to go, but you can see the frescos behind me.

The Upper Belvedere Palace.

I forgot to explain this: This is the Hundertwasserhaus which I thought was going to be an architectual eyesore comparable to the Gehry crap we have in Seattle, but it was actually very interesting. It was very in tune with nature and didn't stick out at all. I actually liked it and wish I would have allocated more time to spend there. Next time, I will.

And I didn't explain this either: I treated myself to a piece of the famous Sacher Torte at the real, original Sacher Hotel in Vienna. It cost a pretty penny, but it was a lovely, must-do experience. This was my piece:

Vienna Day 2 Pictures

Schönbrunn PalaceThe famous Vienna Spanish Horse School.

Hofburg

Royal gold setting.

The line of chairs from my story.

Vienna Day 1 Pictures

The church right outside my hostel.

The front of Hofburg (the main palace).

The back of Stephans Dom.

The Austrian Parliment.


The Otto Wagner art nouveau building.

Vienna

So, it's about time that I posted about Vienna....seeing that I visited there in May and all. Haha. Okay, so I went to Vienna for a see-as-much-as-possible-in-three-days trip and it was amazing. I had a two week vacation in the end of May and beginning of June and my plans fell thru for the first half. I thought about it, looked at the money that I had saved from my English teaching project at the school here, and decided to go somewhere. I wasn't sure where I could get and how much I could see for 200 Euros, but I was sure going to find out! I made a list of places that I hadn't been and wanted to go to still, then looked for airline tickets, viola!, Vienna it is!

I left on a monday evening, and after 4 hours of delays, it only took an hour to fly there. Isn't ironic how sometimes the delays can be longer than the flights? Anyway, I ended up getting to my hostel late and went almost straight to bed to get up and go-go-go! I spent the first day walking around and getting acclimated to the city. I walked from my hostel, down into the museum quarter, further into the "downtown" area to the most famous Vienna church; Stephans Dom, watched a famous clock, Anchor Clock, do it's noon parade, and then decided it was much too hot to keep walking and spent the remainder of the afternoon in the art history museum. Then it was on to the famous market place (which wasn't really all that exciting, honestly), to see an original Otto Wagner art nouveau building (now that WAS exciting!) and back to the hostel for dinner.

The second day, I walked the opposite direction of downtown until I found one of the palaces, Schönbrunn Palace. What's really exciting is that they have a combo ticket called the "Sisi Ticket" which tours most of the things that had to do with Empress Sisi's life. That means that I got to tour every part of Schönbrunn palace that's open to the public, the main palace or Hofburg in the museum quarter, the royal silver collection (which includes gold, silver, ceramic, porcelain, glass, etc. settings from the royal family of Vienna as well as gifts from other countries and empires.), and the royal furniture museum (drool!) for one price! Also, being that I'm tiny and cute (que to rolls eye), I got the kid price. Hooray!! (Which, as I will tell you later, was a very good thing...) I loved every part of that day and I saw so many beautiful and wonderful things that I could hardly keep track of it all. The sad part was, you're not allowed to take photos inside most of those places because flash can damage the fine interior materials. I understand and I'm glad they're preserving it for future generations, but I'm still a little sad that I have no photos to share all the amazing things I saw.

Okay, now I have to tell you a little, funny furniture museum story. Any of you who truly know me, know that I have a slight obsession with chairs. (Especially my daddy, who probably wouldn't call it a "slight" obsession and I think will kill me if I bring another car load of chairs home any time soon. Haha.) The furniture museum was basically a storage house for the furniure used in the royal palaces over the 600 years of their reign. Seeing that each empress redecorated to suit her taste, and probably again several times to suit the style of the times, that's quite a bit of furniture. In one very long aisle of the museum, they have little showrooms set up on one side that show how a whole interior would have looked in the appropriate time period and on the other side, they have a long line of chairs just sitting out for people to touch. Then, I saw a sign that I will never forget....it said that we could TRY the chairs. Not just SEE them, but TRY them! So there I was, standing with my jaw dropped open, looking at all these beautiful old chairs, and deciding if it was really right to add wear to them. Well, duh, of course I tried them! I switched my backpack to my front and, one-by-one, sat in every chair in the entire row. (I wish I had a video of me doing that because I'm sure I looked completely ridiculous! I mean, can you imagine? Stand up, move over one, sit. Repeat about 50 times. Hahaha.)

Day three was another day filled with churches, art, palaces, and TONS of beautiful architecture. I started the day at Karlskirche which, I must say, is a quite amazing church. Architecture wise, it's almost more like a temple, honestly. And, if you know about my curse, of course, it was under rennovation. (If you don't yet know, it's time you do. I have a curse. Everywhere I travel, eveything is under construction. Castles, museums, famous architecture, you name it. If I'm going to see it, it's being rennovated.) Now, I could tell you a list of all the things that were being rennovated in Vienna while I was there, but it would actually be shorter to tell you the things that WEREN'T. So anyway, this time, for the first time ever, the rennovation actually did something for me! Not only were they rennovating and fixing the outside of the building, but they were also repairing the frescos painting on the inside of the dome and I got the chance to climb the scaffolding and be within inches of amazing 1700's frescos! Now, I will say that climbing on scaffolding, in the middle of a church, very high above marble floors is not exactly the most comfortable, but it was also totally worth it. There was an elevator to the first section of flooring and then there was an opportunity to climb into the very top part of the dome. I did so. The teenage boys who were on a school trip to visit the church, cared little for the art that was around them, and who were dropping coins from the top of the scaffolding and jumping up and down did nothing to ease my nerves at the top, but it was quite a view. (I can assure you, had they been English-speaking students, they would have gotten a tongue-lashing from me! But sadly, although I have learned quite a bit of German, I'm not good at angry emotions and scolding like that... yet.)

Next it was on to the last palace in Vienna, Beveldere Palace, which houses two art museums; one in the Upper Belvedere and one in the lower. I went thru the upper belvedere and saw "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt (one of my favorites and one of my reasons for going to Vienna!) and many other paintings that I have studied in the past. I always love seeing paintings in person that I have discussed and studied in art classes. It makes it so much more special when I can really see the things that teachers were talking about on a big scale instead of on a computer screen or in a book. Anyway, then I found out, much to my suprise, they were having a special showing of one of my favorite artists! Wow, cool, eh? Mucha, an amazing art nouveau, mostly graphic artist, was the special in the lower Belvedere. You've all seen his work, whether you know the name or not, you've seen it. Needless to say, I upgraded my ticket right away and went down there! Lucky me! I thought I was going to have to go to Prague to see his work! (Well, I probably still will someday. There is a stained glass window he designed there afterall!)

Anyway, I could probably drone on about Vienna for a very long time, seeing that it's one of my favorite cities that I have visited so far, but I won't go on. If you want to hear more Vienna stories, you can always ask me. Oh right, I said I would explain the ticket thing from earlier. Okay, well. I had planned my money out really well for this trip because I knew that I didn't have much to spare, but I still ended up going to more art museums and such that I had originally known about in the planning and I literally came back to Stuttgart with about 1 Euro in small change in my pocket. That was it. I spent everything spare a handful of pennies. Haha, oh well. It's just money. It was worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat.