shout out to my Tübingers

hab die Sachen gepackt und sitze jetzt im ganz leeren Zimmer. Schade, oder? was macht man denn? naja, könnte es allein nicht. nicht gleich, wenn ohne die Freunden. cheers!

euch kennenzulernen freute mich sehr, aber wir sind kaum fertig! also, wir kennen uns, sind Freunden und so weiter, aber ich weiß ja wie oft es passierte, dass ich alles nicht klar verstanden hatte und eine dumme Antwort gab oder wie ich immer vergaß und euch mir was ZIGmal wiiiiieder gesagt hattet. habt Geduld, bitte. trotz der Langsamkeit bin ich echt =S und bitte, kennt gut: mir scheißegal, wo ich genau bin oder inwieweit die Zukunft geht. ich hab immer Lust uns wieder zu treffen. bzw, bleibt in Kontakt! bin auf Facebook und wenn das nicht ihr Ding ist, sagt mal ihre Postadresse (weil jeder möchte etwas anders als Rechnungen) oder schickt mir was via spunktkuratomiangmailpunktcom.

danke danke danke für ein schönes Jahr!!

Hamburg, ich bin verliebt!

in the semester break i had passed through the Hamburg train station and something about it made me add this city to my list for the Pfingsten holiday. it just felt right.

[Hamburg Hauptbahnhof]

and so i fell in love. the lack of a blue-collar scene in Tübingen had been nagging me for ages and even still, i felt there to be a clash in other cities as well. here in Hamburg everything felt alive, like a mass of crazy different-sized gears turning and clicking together, well oiled. no matter if they were big and slow-moving or tiny and whirring like hummingbirds. serenity.

[Deichtorhallen House of Photography]

it was also my first experience seeing a port city in full swing. you could not escape from the port atmosphere. most cities, it just lies along the body of water, but here there was water in every nook and cranny. everywhere i walked, there were canals and ships and cranes. and yet, Hamburg is just on a river. it blew my mind!

[Sandtorhafen]

there was also a strong sense of aesthetic in the city. maybe the nature of design grows naturally from an area based highly on function. you know my practical side. Hamburg gave me a home. oh, and then there's all the St. Pauli-ness. remind anyone of the Steelers?

[neuer Teil vom Sandtorhafen]

when i live in Germany again, i hope to be in Hamburg. between all the photo institutions and a huge art community and an age old international scene, i'm sold. my CouchSurfing hosts Karen and Martin were an amazing older couple. i got to meet their daughter's best friend, who also happens to be an art major, plus two other guests as well. aufwiederseh'n? sicherlich!

am Meer ist immer schön

and here is the place that was the beginning reason for this trip. i was determined to see the German seashore. i read about Fehmarn in a train magazine a long time ago and it seemed pretty cool. "why not southern France? it's so much nicer." i don't think some people understand. there is a whole different atmosphere on an island.

[Schwan am Meer]

and i was not disappointed. there was only one CouchSurfing host on the island, who had never had anyone before, so they were super enthusiastic. again, it was a perfect blend of doing my own thing while the hosts ran errands, then sitting together over coffee with nice conversations.

[Himmel über Fehmarn]

Frauke, her sister and their roommates were a bunch of awesome girls about my age, so i fit right in, whether it was about drinking, baking, working, boys... didn't speak a lick of English either. i've come to find that sometimes the language barrier is only like a knee-high hedge, though it makes me wonder who constructed the walls with six stacks of concertina wire that i sometime run into.

[Windräder neben dem Deich]

after a fun going away party for one of the roomies, i walked along endless fields of rapeseed (honey from these plants is aMAZing) and photographed all the wind turbines scattered between them. the next day i helped my hosts with their first yard sale. super fun!

[Max]

and so i keep falling deeper in the rabbit hole. the friendships grow stronger everyday and the awkwardness fades away, although the end of my stay in Tübingen is rushing in and it gets harder to sleep at night, as i think about the future and how i'm going to manage to keep Germany in my life. oh well, i tend to surprise myself when faced with challenges. wir werden sehen.

Anfang der Pfingsten Ferien!

so, the Sommersemester began, i loved my classes (omg i'm already done with them! wow, i'm behind with the blog) and gobbled them up with so much excitement that i didn't do anything but study until the Pfingsten (Pentecost) holiday! i know, a bit unbelievable, but it's true. after being the States for a month and away from German, my understanding skyrocketed. Elisée said the same, which was refreshing to hear that someone had a similar experience. whoo hoo!

i budgeted the second half of my year abroad and decided that i would squeeze in one more grandiose run, keep it inside Deutschland, and save my free time (and money) at the end of the semester to fully enjoy my last weeks around home in Tübingen. now that i have fast forwarded two months and the semester is actually over, i can say that i made a good choice. ;)

[Im Moore 31]

it was nothing but CouchSurfing and Bahncard50, Baby! first stop: Hannover. and... the CS host fell through. no worries. luck have it, a photo journalism student (who wasn't actually there) had a flat full of AWESOME roommates that housed me last minute. remember what i said about my German skills? yeah, so i didn't realize until two weeks into this trip that i hadn't spoken a PEEP of English. yes, that is no more that maybe three WORDS per person that i just didn't know the German equivalent. i am quite proud, thank you.

[der Herrenhäuser Garten]

super-duper thanks to Lucille for leading me around, kind of. she still had to work, so i just planned my schedule around hers and we mainly just spent evenings together. i found my way to the botanical gardens, walked around to the Marktplatz, a few churchs and a super cool new-musik artwork? in town, then to the Rathaus, where i rode a nifty little elevator to the top and looked onward to the Norden, ie: the next destination of Fehmarn!

[Aussicht der Kuppel via toller Aufzug]

i tried doing a slightly impromptu meeting for coffee with another CSer, but it was a bit too spontaneous. oh well, Lucille got me a student price ticket to the opera house to see the German version of Fiddler on the Roof. the next night we watched an intense mini-series on German history, complete with discussion afterwards. three hours is a bit much, but when managing two separate minds of understanding actual dialog-spoken and the-plot-as-a-whole exhausts me, i can still retain enough bits and pieces to blurb out about two cents worth in a discussion. well, maybe it was only a pence or so. =P

again, thanks to Lucille and pity that i never saw Jo in person or got up with Moritz when i was in Hamburg. i always have hope for a second chance. hoffentlich bis nächstes Mal!

Hafenstadt neben den Bergen

[die Küste Genovas]

bwah. do i even need to say anything about this scene?

Francesco said i would like Genova and i certainly did! after a quick walk through at his university, we drove with his friends out of the city and up into the hills. then it was a little hike to some ruins/picnic area were we grilled and drank homemade wine. perfekte!

now add the factor that Francesco is a philosopher and one of his grade school friends is an artist. combine to two pools of colleagues to create a great mass of thinking and rhetoric. i was right at home. =)

[Campoligure]

Francesco's town is like what Glen Hope must have been back in it's prime; little town, nestled in the mountains, where everyone knows everything about everyone. am i right? Schwaben has hills, but it's not the same as a string of hairpins where you stay in third gear. more lust to have a motorcycle. =P did i mention that everyone in Italy has paintings all over their house? most likely the one who lives there is the artist too. there was a Genova cityscape by Francesco's mom that i could not stop looking at. the colors and reflections made me super excited about taking the painting survey next semester!!

[Grab im Staglieno Friedhof]

first stop was the amazing cemetery that Fabio had mentioned the day before. the graves were extravagant and covered with dust that exaggerated their volume even more. in fact, some of the portrait reliefs reminded me of Daguerrotypes because the contrast was so extreme. check out the album. big graves, little graves, halls that felt like i was walking through a spinal column, giant chambers of traditional Genova black and white marble stripes... oh, two hours was nothing! i was not surprised when Francesco said the keeper knew him by name.

[Wirbelsäule von Gräber]

i said in Milano that Italy felt decadent. there it was more on the gluttonous side, but in Genova it was not so vulgar. the age to the city was not the same as in Prague. i don't know how to explain it properly. it sucked me in and i could do nothing to stop it, but i really didn't care. i happily let my memory drown me with thoughts of world history class with Mason and flood my mind with the absurd amounts of mythology i read with Chia when we were in elementary school.

but it wasn't imaginary anymore. walking the promenades, sitting on the wharfs, buying lunch at the market, that was just the icing on the cake. and damn was it decadent. try to tell me those colors are not juicy like ripe strawberries in a Carolina April.

[die Innenstadt Genovas]

in addition to the philosophy department, i was also introduced to the art school. 'nuff said. picture marble steps so old that they are worn down to where you can barely walk on them. genau.

back to the countryside. the next day we took a little stroll in the hills, well a day-long stroll with a wealth of conversation (all auf Deutsch) and a few lessons on Latin. oh man, visiting friends in their hometown is quite magical. there are no locked doors, no crazy mazes. i'm not saying people are so easily influenced by their surroundings, more that it makes the subtle parts easier to understand. and you know how i like subtleties. =D Francesco knows me well enough to add a dash of suspense too. it was close to sundown and we had no idea where we were. of course a couple instinctive choices and we connected an unknown area to a childhood regular. no worries!

[Wanderung oben Campoligure]

and so closed a jam packed semester break. super thanks to Francesco! i may chuckle at your love of the kitsch, but i never find your ideas far-fetched. ;)

food for thought: everyone i visited is an Einzelkind like me. interesting, or?

Aliiiiicheyyyyy!!

i have been here so long. when the weather was warming up in Tübingen, i had a rush of memories from us sitting on the church steps in the night, drinking beers and chatting. they were real memories. they felt so far away. and what have i done since then? wow.

i was visiting Alice in Milan. i had been sending her postcards and little trinkets. i visited Jessica earlier in the States. i still see Elisée probably at least once a month. same with Oli. Reece sent me books. Erika and Gianluca invite me to parties and what not. naja, you can't exactly watch the grass grow, but i think through my photos it was like i made a stop-action film of the grass growing.

it was like my road trip from last summer. you know someone is a real friend when their friends are like instant friends for you. =D Alice took me around town for a bit, but we spent most of the time at her apartment and her friend, Fox. conversations were easy and interesting. the dialog just sang and i learned so much stuff about Italy! amazing.

then we went to Sanremo on Easter Sunday to stay with Alice's mom. enter: introduction to the Mediterranean Sea. lovely. Elena complained that the weather was not fit, but it was like the snow in Brussels to me. i was just happy to be there (shout out to Heath). the clouds were lovely. the rain was lovely. the Colomba was lovely. dinner together and long talks on the balcony were lovely. this smile is lovely too.

thanks for keeping me, Alice! seeing you again after the Sommerkurs was amazing and i hope we can meet many more times. =D

Paris, ohne Fotos des Eiffelturms für die Faule =P

i couldn't resist. i had to see it and why not use my InterRail Ticket to catch a night train from Berlin to Paris when there was a full moon? worked out lovely. arrived early morning, stopped by the hotel (all hostels and couches were full), dropped off my things and promptly went wandering.

[kleines Zimmer mit Dégas]

for Paris, my room was quite inexpensive, and especially considering it was directly over a subway station for Montmartre. i definitely fell in love the area. Paris is freaking expensive, but i felt i could skate by as a starving artist.

[Friedhofs Katze]

so i spent my first day just wandering on foot around the Montmartre area, inside and out. i found a cool cemetery underneath one of the main streets, browsed through artist stands around Sacré-Cœur, checked out the Moulin Rouge, marveled at the old subway entrances, drank coffee outside at a tiny café, got asked fifty million times if i wanted to buy an Eiffel Tower keychain, chilled in my tiny little room for a bit and repeated almost the same process at night, without my camera.

[retro Metro]

day2: more walking. lots of walking. i took the subway to the Arch de Triomphe, then walked to a beautiful outlook on the Eiffel Tower from the Palais du Chaillot, across the Parc du Champ-de-Mars, photographed the Ecole Militaire, continued to the Esplanade des Invalides, walked along the Seine, looked at the line going into the Musée d'Orsay, decided against actually going inside, crossed a bridge to the Île de la Cité, photographed Notre Dame, crossed to the other side of the river and settled at the Louvre for a moment.

[der Louvre]

i rave about seeing art in person, and well it applies to I.M.Pei's Pyramid as well. damn. you see it in a book and you're like, "yeah, it's pretty neat. and?" see it in person. see the different pyramids in relation to one another. see it surrounded by the enormousness of the Louvre. see the clouds reflect off the glass and the water together. go inside. see the world through the pyramid. look closely at how it is put together. see the sunlight make patterns around you. ... i would love to be there with rain pelting against the glass.

[Straßenkünstler vor der Sacré-Cœur]

Elisée once said that you should go to Paris with friends. now i understand. the beautiful buildings and parks are all amazing, but at the end of the day it would have been perfect to sit at a café and chat about everything we had seen. there is something about Paris that is so finished, constructed and finished. i guess you could say it was like an artwork in itself. naturally, as an artist, that leaves Paris open for LOTS of discussion. ;) next time.

endlich, Berlin!

so, not visiting Berlin would definitely have been more sacrilegious by my book than missing Oktoberfest. ;)

i don't even know where to begin. of course there is all the heavy stuff about Berlin that first comes to mind, but i was also well aware of how alive it is. plus, Greg and i had been planning this visit together for a while, and were totally psyched about getting to hang out with our other (good) roommate, Marie. her family was just a nice and bubbly as she! couldn't have been better.

[Gebäude wie eine Jet-Turbine]

the good company made up for the shitty weather. Marie took me and Greg all over the city, complete with nights out. we had wonderful meals with the family, with long discussions over many bottles of wine. after the piano got tuned, i taught Greg the lower part to Heart 'n' Soul and we jammed away for a whole hour.

[Mischung auf dem Potsdamerplatz]

i felt the city had a general lust for new and modern, but more than just material things. there was so much thought put into concept. we randomly found the Science Center for Medical Technology that was amazing. check out the link, but the kicker was a video artwork that would have impressed Twarog. in the lobby hung three pendulums with three flat screens each. it began with images of hands that interacted between the screens, reaching towards one another or pushing and pulling against one another, all in sync with the actual motion of the pendulums. from the outside, the screens were just colors that blended when the pendulums overlapped one another. ganz geil!!

[Holocaust-Gedenkstätte]

the Holocaust Memorial was tenfold as well executed, as well as one-hundredfold heavier. i cannot begin to explain how this museum was a work of art in itself. the maze of monoliths on uneven ground, illuminated floor exhibits like glowing graves, exhibits hanging as stalactites in heavy blocks, a dark room with names being read... the stories were so disturbing, but the beauty kept drawing me back in. respect.

[Brandenburg Tor]

more walking and more beautiful Berlin. i found a photographer on Behance with some nice collections of the city. check it out.

[im Museum für Naturkunde]

further on museums: i had never been to an older natural history museum until now; didn't have enough time while i was in New York. wow. i've always been a closet science enthusiast and seeing exhibits in a building this old, with taxidermy this old, with archives of specimens this old... blew me away.

[das Archaeopteryx]

despite the common idea that Americans have superficial friendships, i have been lost in a sea of new people with no interest in opening up to a temporary resident. to be in the home of friend is one of the greatest gifts ever. thank you so much, Marie!

Wolken über Dresden

when i walked out of the old school train station, everything was new and big, almost like the States, with an urban sprawl kind of feel. then i realized that it was my first time out of southwest Germany. biiiiig difference. as i made my way towards the city center, i began to link the old and new buildings. maybe the clouds added to the heaviness. let me just say, it's probably good that i travel so often alone. my head is always swimming with thoughts and i am seldom sure if it would be possible for me to function with the presence of company.

imagine the majesty of Prague, but broken, and then patched together again, like a quilt. you even saw it literally so. the Frauenskirche used some of the old stones (black from age and siege), so the building is a beautiful salt and pepper mix. also refer to the cathedral in Köln with a new white chunk in one of the corners.

i will talk about Berlin later, but there was a definite contrast between the two cities. i felt a kind of stony pride out of Dresden. i couldn't completely understand the context, but at the same time, there was a familiarity in how i enjoy holding on to memories both good and bad. i wanted to come back later in the spring when there were flowers and the trees weren't bare. there were wide open promenades and meticulously trimmed gardens, café terraces and riverfront walkways that would seem to shine differently; another perspective to help me unlock the city.

oh boy. i think everyday about how little time i have left in this study abroad experience.

Anfang in Osteuropa

yay for Inter-Rail Passes! first stop: Prague. i liked it from the moment we arrived at the train station. it was beautiful in that old-fashioned, regal sort of way with a nice touch of aging that i love so much. Alphonse Mucha prints hung on the walls in the main hall, then you go down to the regional trains and there are modern murals spray painted on the walls. the subways were super deep, too. i think it is in part from how long ago they were built (less knowledge about the structure). not entirely sure on that one.

[der Hauptbahnhof]

the hostel was amazing. it was close to night life, squeezed in a downtown strip a lot like J-Hoppers in Japan. the ceilings were high, with a great big bay window and an awesome mural directly outside!

[Ausblick von meinem Fenster]

everywhere, the city had a wonderful blend of old and new. maybe it's just something about the Neo-Classicism when it's old and darkened that feels so decadent, and especially when it stands directly next to an Art Nouveau or Cubist building. the mix lets the different styles accentuate each other. i love it. feels like me; so many contrasting characteristics that only make you wonder how they all came to fit together.

[schöne Straße]

it is embedded in my heart that i want to come back, but the likelihood this year is very slim. =( oh well, these toe-in-the-water experiences are good alone, but i would need company to really immerse myself. btw, randomly ran into a classmate! Pavel had told me that Prague was considered the biggest 'little town' and by golly if i don't see him in the train station on my way out.

Prague is definitely the fiery broad that keeps a cowboy coming back. hope to see you again soon, darling.