Dayne in Europe

Monday, June 15, 2009

Sleeping on Trains

Both Steve and I have taken advantage of train rides to get some shut-eye. Here's a couple of shots we've taken of each other.

Steve holds his head up with his hand.

Dayne holds his head up with a blow-up pillow.

On our way to Dessau we missed our connecting train because we couldn't open the door for some odd reason, so we didn't end up arriving there until around midnight, which didn't really leave us enough time to find a place to stay.

(waiting at the station late at night)

So we decided to find a park and sleep there, but a couple of old ladies told us that that wasn't a good idea since Dessau was a dangerous place at night. To make a long story short, we ended up staying at an all-night cafe with the ladies, chatting until around 5am.

The only reason for going to Dessau: the Bauhaus, which was basically the first Industrial Design school ever, you could call it our mecca. Steve and I joked about how we were making our pilgrimage to the design center of the world.

Waiting at the entrance for the museum to open.

Some cool balconies that used to be where the students lived.

Prague...

Prague was an interesting experience for us. On the one hand it was beautiful; its cobble stone streets were endearing and its old architecture was impressive, but no one we talked to was at all pleasant and most of the buildings seemed dirty and black. It didn't help that we got a ticket for going an extra stop on the subway than was permitted, unbeknownst to us. But we did go to a cool art museum exhibiting the work of a couple artists who have inspired us.

An interesting statue in the square

The Anatomical Clock

A piece by Salvador Dali in an exhibition we saw

A piece by Alfons Mucha in that same exhibition

Prague Bridge

Dancing House by Frank Ghery

Vienna...

Both Steve and I really like Vienna. Unfortunately we only spent a day there; it's big enough to spend a lot more time. Not only was the city beautiful, but so were the young ladies. That's part of experiencing a city too, right?

This is the view we had of Vienna from our hostel, not bad.

St. Charles Church was beautiful both outside and inside. I'm not much of a Baroque fan, but this church blew me away.

The dome inside of the church was covered in heavenly, colorful frescos that dazzled our eyes. We climbed all the way up a large scaffolding inside to get a better view of the paintings.

The Secession Building is one we both learned about in our architecture class, so it was neat to see it for ourselves. Our professor would be proud.

Steve eats strawberry ice cream in the streets of Vienna.

I think this was some government building. Quite impressive.

The Hundertwasser house is just out of control. Loved it!

Munich...

Ok, I'm a little behind on my blogging, so I'm going to have to give only a few quick pictures of where I've been in the last couple weeks. Steve and I met up in Munich and saw some incredible places there. Here are some of them.

Dachau concentration camp was the model concentration camp for the Nazis. It wasn't considered an extermination camp even though over 40,000 people were killed there. It was a sobering place to experience.

Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the castle that was supposedly used as inspiration for the castle at Disneyland. It was a shame it was covered in scaffolding while we were there.

The inside of the castle was ridiculously decorated with frescos on every wall and ornate wood carvings. Cool to see, but is tiring to look at.

The BMW museum was really modern cool. We saw a lot of sweet cars... yeah, that's pretty much it.

This is a concept car at the BMW museum that has a fabric body, so the headlights "blink" like eyes and the doors open like wings spreading. Pretty out there.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Berlin's Sub Culture

While in Berlin I went on a "sub-culture" tour, which explained a lot about the city's history of street artists, squatters, and graffiti art. The city seems to attract a lot of creative people, not just street artists but designers too. ;)

Jose from Portugal was commissioned to "re-create" an

original painting he did on the Berlin Wall.

Large-scale mural under an apartment building

Drinking fountains turned flower pots surrounded by graffiti

This building had been taken over by squatters in the 90's, but now houses a number of alternative artists' studio spaces. Every inch of the building is covered in graffiti, but that's just how the artists like it.

Historic Berlin

Berlin is saturated with WWII memories. I think I learned more about the war than in any of my history classes. Germans are very conscious of the history of this city and make a significant effort to remind themselves and others about it to prevent history from ever repeating itself.