Amsterdam, Netherlands

View of a church and floating chinese restaurant

"Coffee Shop" in downtown Amsterdam

Canal in Amsterdam

Canal view of a church tower

I haven't posted in quite a while but about a week ago I was in Amsterdam for four days.  The city was beautiful and I had a good time.  The old buildings and surrounding canals were gorgeous. Every street was cobblestone and I even saw construction workers fixing a street and still doing it in cobblestone.  The weirdest thing was that the entire town literally rode bicycles everywhere, bikes outnumbered cars by a long shot.  Because of that, it was a really quiet and calming city to be in; definitely a different culture compared to the other cities I've been in here in Europe.

Venice, Italy

   Buonasera,

Canals of Venice

   Im in Venice, Italy right now and I've been here since the 14th..and am planning to stay until the 19th. So far it's great..I'm staying in the old part of Venice, about a 5 minute walk from San Marco Plaza, at a decently cheap hostel.



   I've visited the Dali museum here (which strangely resembled the Dali museum in Paris), the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (I got to see original Jackson Pollack, Joan Miro, Picasso, and Max Ernst paintings) walked through the streets shopping for fine leather goods and Venetian masks, and of course I've basically been into every church I come across.

I'm only here a couple more days so I'll try to fit in more and post as I go..

Church top

Gondola

Venetian Mask

Salvador Dali's house

Salvador Dali's House - Portlligat, Spain

About a week ago I visited Salvador Dali's house/studio in Portlligat, Spain.  It was converted into a museum so nothing has been touched and even some of his unfinished artworks are still on display in his studio. I went with my abroad counselor and we first took a bus from Figueres to Cadaques...from there we had to walk over a hill to Portlligat.

Cadaques, Spain

His house was definitely designed by himself personally. He had a huge taxidermic polar bear, wearing large silver necklaces and holding a lamp, standing guard in the entrance of his house. I got to see his studio and even the paintbrushes and other equipment he used on so many of his masterpieces.

unfinished painting and equipment in studio

Dali's paintbrushes

an unfinished painting in Dali's studio

The last great thing about Dali's house is that the view from almost all of his windows mirrored the iconic backgrounds in the majority of his paintings.  The view of the Mediterranean sea and outlying rocks/hills of the Portlligat landscape was his second muse, besides his wife Gala.

View from his studio window

Teatre Museu Dali - Figueres

   I arrived in Figueres, Spain late Saturday evening.  Figueres is the town Salvador Dali grew up in and I went to the infamous Dali museum in town today (on top right). The museum was amazing and was designed by Dali himself...so I guess I couldn't have expected any less. A lot of his big paintings and sculptural works are there.  When you walk into the museum there is a huge garden-like space with a glass dome ceiling and many different golden statues perched in repressed sections of the surrounding wall.  In the center is, hanging from above, is the yellow boat in which Dali and his wife Gala spent a lot of their time in...it's also painted into many of his pictures.  
  Once you get inside the building, you're greeted by a gigantic painting and the room splits off into different sections that generally lead you through the entire collection.

outside of Dali museum

   One of the first sections contains his tomb. A very haunting but beautiful place to lay him to rest I guess.

Dali and Gala's yellow sailboat

Salvador Dali's tomb

Main room of Dali Museum

Space Elephant

   The last leg of the museum was a permanent exhibition of Dali's jewelry works, although many could never be actually worn.  To enter the jewelry area you had to climb a kind of dizzying staircase. His jewelry was extraordinary and some of it even moved, the golden heart (pictured below) beat just like a real heart.  However, my favorite was his golden space elephant; covered in gems with a crystal atop the elephants back.

   

Stairway to jewelry artworks

Beating heart broach 

1st day in Barcelona

Today I got to know the city by walking down the busiest part of Barcelona; starting at Placa de Catalunya and ending at the beach.  I started at La Sagrada Familia, a church inspired by Gaudi that is still being built.  At the moment it has 4 spires completed but the final design has 18.  The detail was incredible and I hope to go back and get better pictures than the few I have now.  And the last stop through was at the beach.

Later around 9:30 I went to Font Magica, or Magic Fountain.  It was a huge fountain controlled by computers and put to colourful lights and opera music. It was beautiful and entrancing to watch.  I'll try to post a video by facebook.

Arrived in Barcelona

Flew out from Paris today at about 11:00am. I arrived in Barcelona and without any mistakes got to my hostel, via the metro system. Barcelona is a pretty city and its much hotter than it was in Paris. It's the first day away from the group and it's a weird feeling being all alone...definitely overwhelming.  Tomorrow I'll explore the city and check out La Sagrada Familia.  More to come then...

   Went to Espace Dali today.  It was a small museum that contained mostly sculptures, etchings, and lithographs by Salvador Dali.  It was amazing and it made me very excited to continue studying him in Spain, which I will be leaving for on the 12th of September.  I've never seen any of Dali's sculptures and every etching and lithograph in the museum was new to me.

   After visiting the museum I took the metro back to Luxembourg, where my hostel is, and walked until I found a restaurant/cafe that wasn't completely packed.  I ended up eating Carpaccio, Italian beef strips in oil, at Les Fontaines.  The beef isn't really cooked apparently so I had to choke down half of my plate so I didn't seem rude. Just a bit slimy for my taste.