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