Traveling

Well I had hoped to be able to give an extensive report on my last week of traveling in October in Switzerland, Munich and Berlin. Unfortunately, the end of my semester got really busy, and I ran out of time. I will attempt to give a quick description of my impressions of these amazing places. I have however posted many great pictures from my travels which will probably explain my trip better than anything i write.

Zurich, Switzerland:

It is safe to say that Zurich is the most beautiful city I have ever seen. I had a great day of simply walking around the city and taking it in. It is located at the north end of Lake Zurich, and provides amazing views of the Swiss Alps to the South... that is... if they aren't veiled in fog like the day i was in Zurich. For architecture, I saw the Art Museum and the Heidi Weber House which is now a museum for the architect who designed it: Le Corbusier. I also bought a legitimate Swiss Army Knife. :) You can find the pictures i took in Zurich here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/steve04/BestOfZurich#


Bellinzona, Switzerland:

Wow. If you ever have a chance to go to Switzerland... and you like castles.... you have to go to Bellinzona. It is a city near the southern border (near Italy) that guards the main pass through the Alps. It is in the southern foothills of the Alps and features not 1, not 2, but 3 amazing castles. And not just any type of castle... but 3 boyhood-dream castles made of stone blocks and probably the most "manly" castles ever. The reason I went there is the other DIS student I met up with in Switzerland has family that came from this region, and he wanted to see it. Little did I know that going to Bellinzona would end up being one of the most memorable things I have done in Europe. Check out the pictures and perhaps you will understand.

http://picasaweb.google.com/steve04/BestOfBellinzona#


Basel, Switzerland:

Basel is a city full of museums of all kinds. We were only there for a day, so we only saw a couple museums when we were there. I walked by the Tinguely Museum designed by Mario Botta and then walked to and spent a lot of time in the Beyeler Museum just outside of Basel designed by Renzo Piano. It hosts a great collection of art, included many paintings by Monet, who has become my favorite painter. Pictures can be found here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/steve04/BestOfBasel#


Right now I am in Berlin. I am beginning a 5 week trip through Europe and am very excited about all the things I will do and see. When I get the chance I will post pictures of my final project for the semester as well as finish my descriptions of Munich and Berlin from my last trip. Enjoy the Switzerland pictures.

Here is my itinerary for the 5 weeks: Berlin, Munich, Innsbruck (for Christmas), Zurich, Geneva, Paris (New Years), Spain, French Rivera, Italy, Croatia. Stay posted. :)

November update

As you know, I am painfully aware that I am not particularly good at constantly updating my blog. I still have to finish blogging about my travels in Switzerland and Germany at the end of October. However, I will take a brief break from that to tell you what I have been up to this past November.

In short... November was a long cold month with school keeping me rather busy. There really hasn't been much of anything exciting or worth blogging about. I did a couple of papers, had a couple tests and have been working on a new architecture project. There is a joke in Denmark that helps describe what it has been like. "There are 15 months in a year in Denmark: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, November, November, November, December." Its just a long and cold month. The weather has been consistently cold and dreary. The days are getting shorter and shorter. Today was actually a nice day because there was no rain and only slightly overcast and the temperature got up to 40 degrees F (5 C). So if that's a good day.... you can probably guess how miserable the weather has been. However, Christmas season has started. Lights and decorations and candles are everywhere so that helps offset the weather.

Academically, the only thing of interest was a paper I did about courtyard housing by the Danish architect Jorn Utzon. As a part of the research, I visited one of the courtyard houses owned by a retired architect and had a great conversation with him about architecture and Utzon. I am sharing this with you is because I went on a very beautiful (but freezing cold) Saturday right after the first snow of winter. I took some sweet pictures you can check out below:



Jorn Utzon is the architect of the iconic Sydney Opera House and is one of Denmark's greatest architects. He died at the age of 90 two days ago on Saturday, November 29th. The Sydney Opera House is considered one of the most iconic and recognizable buildings of the 20th Century. Utzon never saw the completed Opera House because he was forced to leave Australia after many complications in construction and budget while he oversaw it being built. He never returned even after Australia made amends with him and begged him to return. Utzon cited his old age from being unable to travel again. Utzon remarked "It's part of education - I can't be bitter about anything in life." when asked if he had any regrets about Sydney. There is much I have learned and will continue to learn from this amazing architect. You can read more about Utzon here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7757042.stm

However the highlight of November has definitely been Thanksgiving. It was definitely very hard to not be able to be with my family for Thanksgiving. The only other time I had not been home for Thanksgiving was in 2004 when I was in Colorado. Because there were many of us students from Cal Poly in Denmark, we decided to throw a big Thanksgiving feast ourselves and invited the Cal Poly students in Italy to come up and join us. About 5 of them came and it was great to see them. There were 29 people total. Everyone contributed by bringing food or drinks. There was no lack of food or wine and everyone had a great time. We were at the house of another student's host family who lives outside Copenhagen. It was certainly the most unique Thanksgiving I will ever have and will remember it for years to come. Here are a couple pictures from the night.






Currently I am on the last week of a design project for a multicultural art museum in Copenhagen. When I have the fancy rendering and model done I will post them. I am pretty excited about how this project is turning out and am looking forward to sharing it with you. I hope everyone had a good November. I hear all you lucky people in California had a record hot November. I tried not to think about that when I was freezing over here.

Well I gotta get back to the architecture project.... hope everyone has a good week.