Day 55, 3/16/2010
This was our last full day in Paris. I was kinda sad to see it go but it was still the best day that we had there. I loved it. The first thing we did was ride the train to the island near Notre Dame. We decided that we wanted to walk over there. Actually Catie decided and we went along with it. We walked along the first island and looked around then when we got to the end we had to cross the bridge back to the main land then walk down where we could cross the bridge again to where Notre Dame was placed. When we got there it was about the time that the line was starting to get long to go in. We immediately got inline because we wanted to go to the roof. It was worth it for Trisha. She wanted to see it more than Catie or I did but it was cool to go up there. Eventually we got inside and walked up the multitude of steps to the top. We got about half way up and there was a souvenir shop inside. I milled around a little too long because before I could by the book I wanted I had to check out and then run up the remaining steps to catch up with them. So we got to the first part of the roof top. The level with all the Gargoyles. That was cool you were right at the same level as them so you could really look at them if you wanted to. We were completely happy about it because it was exactly what we wanted to see. All Trisha could think about the entire time was Hunchback of Notre Dame. While we were on this level we were able to go inside and see the bells. It was awesome. We went through the hunchback door which was a tiny door leading to the bell tower. The bell tower was made entirely out of wood to help absorb the vibrations from the bells because if it was stone, the stone would slowly crack down because of the vibration. It was awesome to finally get to see what I have only seen in animations. It was beautiful. After we saw the bell in the tower we walked up more flights of stairs up to the very top of one of the West Work Towers. We were only allowed to stay up there for 5 minutes because of how small the area was. I walked around and took as many pictures as I could because it was beautiful. It was also a beautiful day so we could see for a long way. It was amazing to be at the very top of Notre Dame. I walked around and looked at everything. Since I had already been up that high I was able to enjoy it a bit more. Then it was time for the 6 min decent down to the bottom. This time to go inside the cathedral. So down we went, down, down, down. By the time I was at the bottom I was fairly dissy. We ended up talking to the people in front of us because they were also from America. We also ended up singing one of the songs from Hunchback of Notre Dame. When we got to the bottom we immediately went inside to the main sanctuary. This was beautiful as well. It was interesting because the movie made it seem so much bigger than it actually was. I was still happy to get to see the inside. It was another cathedral that I had learned about in my class with Vivian Paul my first semester at Texas A&M. So I walked around the inside and took pictures of what I wanted pictures of. A lot of them didn't turn out but I'm ok with that. I plan on coming back to Paris someday anyway. So we walked around and looked at everything then we headed outside to figure out what to do next. I was a little behind Catie and Trisha because I wanted to get something from the shop inside so they went out without me. After I finished I met them outside and Trisha had been feeding the pidgeons. This was hilarious. They were all over her. So she was feeding them straight from her hand. I asked if she had any more bread so I could do it too. This part was so much fun because you could just hold out your hand with the food and they would fly up and land on you. At one point Trisha had a bird on her head. I found it to be completely hilarious. I loved watching the birds fly onto her or onto my arm. Soon a man came over and showed me what to do. He took my bread away and gave me some rice So I could feed them better. It was so cool. We also didn't get pooped on, although it was still kinda gross because they were pigeons. Those birds are gross. After we were finished with the birds we went on our way to the next place. We wanted to go to Sant' Chapelle however when we got there the line was very long. Catie and Trisha didn't want to wait while I wanted to. I didn't say thing though because I was still on their good side. So instead we decided to find some lunch which we got at a shop right there near the Sant' Chapelle. I got a sandwich. So then we found a shop that we stayed at for a little while outside of the metro stop we would be taking. Catie ended up finding a miniature of the Rodin sculpture that she loved so much. The same one I mentioned in a previous post. She really really liked this thing. Since we couldn't go into Sant' Chapelle we decided to head for the catacombs. Catie really wanted to do this because she wasn't able to the last time she was in Paris. This place wasn't very big. We got there and the opening was literally a door in a wall. We got our tickets and then went down. The first part of it was just a quarry that was there before the catacombs. They buried all these people down there because they had all these bodies and didn't know what to do with them. So we got through the quarry then it was the actual catacombs. This was really weird because it was just stacks and stacks of bones. Mostly leg and arm bones that made up the walls. They used the skulls to make different cross designs. The whole thing was really cool but at the same time really morbid and creepy. Like Trisha my favorite bone was the tail bone that we found right at the beginning as well as the skull we found that wasn't quite fused together yet so it must have belonged to a very young person. So we finished with that. At the very end we saw an interesting arch that was put in there to keep the top from caving in. I liked that arch a lot I wish it would have been bright enough to really look at it. I took a picture of it and we started our ascent to the top up these stairs that were slightly too tall. That part sucked because our legs were tired. When we got to the top and exited I turned around and took a picture of the exit but a guy that was there at the end was standing in the door way. He made me delete the picture because he was in it. After that we left on our way to see the opera house. Trisha really really wanted to see this because of Phantom of the Opera. It was a very pretty building I liked it a lot. We walked around this building and looked at the different angles. I wanted to walk farther away from the front but Catie and Trisha were determined that we were at the back although I knew that we weren't. So we walked around to the other side. Lo-and-behold its the back. I told them so... Well they were being lazy and didn't walk back so we decided to mill around the shops and look to see what they had. We found a hat shop for Trisha. She bought herself an artists burre. After that Trisha and Catie did me a favor by allowing me to find the Hard Rock Cafe in Paris so I could get a pin for Sean. He used to collect them and I'm helping him collect them again. Right after that we stopped by the hostel and dropped off our stuff. Then we headed to the Eiffel Tower for sunset and to just sit there and enjoy it. That was how we spent the end of the day. We just watched the sun set and took lots of pictures. Trisha and I also watch a girl friend basically torture her boyfriend because he wanted to go and she kept wanting to take pictures over and over again. We got a good laugh out of that. Then when we were tired and wanting to go we headed back to the hostel so we could pack to leave the next day for Rome. When I was done packing and I had all my stuff placed how I wanted it I went down stairs to talk on my comp. Then to bed so I could have some sleep for the next day of traveling, we were off to Rome next.
Day 56, 3/17/2010
This was a very long day. We didn't do anything more in Paris we just packed our stuff and headed to the Airport. This was the day that we discovered how horrible Easy Jet was and also the day that I lost some drawings that I purchased the night before at this stand near the Eiffel. I was quite upset about it because they shouldn't have been lost in the first place. They just fell out of my bag and I didn't see them again. I wasted 12 Euros with those. I really wanted those drawings so I found it quite upsetting. Well we sat at the airport after going through the usual stuff, security and what not. After a little while we started boarding and it was like sheep running for food. Because this plane company doesn't assign seats, it is first come first serve. Which creates more problems than it helps. So we were just about to go through the gate and the told us that there would be a delay because of a minor problem. This sux because some people had already gone and they had to come back. So we just sat down, right next to the entrance and waited till the delay was over. When it was time to go again we grabbed our stuff and waited till all the people who had already gone through the gate went again. Then we were through. Now finally we were on our way to Rome. The flight was short and when we got there it took forever to actually get into Rome. The first thing was that we had to wait on a bus to take us. That took an hour and a half. Then from there we had to get our Roma Passes. These took a little time to find because they were in a shop that was kinda hidden away. Once we had those we got a train ticket for 24 hours so we could start our Roma Passes the next day. So we got our tickets and headed to our hostel. When we got out at our stop we had no idea which direction to take so we started walking. Turns out it was the wrong direction so we went back the other way. When we got to the corner that it was suppose to be on we couldn't find it. We looked around a little mad because it was hidden. Finally Catie spotted this tiny little sign on the door that said Ciak Hostel. So we had to climb the stairs to check in because it was on the second floor which in Europe means the third floor. So when we got up there and checked in we had to turn right back around and head down again because our rooms were actually in another building. So she showed us over there and we got our rooms. They were actually really nice rooms almost like a hotel. Actually I think it really was like a hotel because they made our bed every day and cleaned. Also if we asked we could have had breakfast brought to us. We didn't do that because we would be leaving too early for that. So we settled in and un packed. After a little while Trisha and Catie wanted to go get some food. We had asked while we were checking in where a good pizza place was so we headed over there. When we got there they told us that they had the whole place booked and it was take out only so we ordered pizzas to go. We ate in my room while trying to decide if we wanted to go anywhere that night. Ultimately we decided to go to the Colosseum for the first night in Rome. It was only appropriate. So when we got to the metro stop Catie practically ran up the stairs because this is the one thing she has wanted to see the whole time shes been in Europe. We got out and walked around admiring this amazing building. We looked at it and walked all the way around it. We also looked at the Arch of Constantine because it was right there next to the Colosseum. It wasn't as big as the Arch de Triomphe but infinitely more impressive because it wasn't built in the 19th century. It was built more than a couple hundred years ago. Yet another thing that we learned about in our history class last semester. It was awesome to get to see that monument as well as the Colosseum. After a little while we decided to walk up one of the roads near by. It wasn't one that was really traveled but when we got near the top we met a very pretty black cat. We pet him a little and soon he found something more interesting than us to look at and we headed back down the road to walk a little ways and to find a different place to look at the Colosseum. After a while we decided to walk down the road to find a different metro stop to go to the hostel for the night. When we found it it turned out that it was the wrong side so we had to go back out and across the street to the right side to catch the metro home. That night we found out how dead Rome is at night. Too bad we didn't use that to our advantage. So we headed home to sleep and rest up for the long next day. I had free Wifi here too so I talked to Sean again before going to sleep.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Day 66, 3/27/2010
Day 53, 3/14/2010
This is our third day in Paris. We started this day out with a museum. This was a museum dedicated completely to one artist, a sculptor named Rodin. This was an awesome museum. This guy was amazing and some of his art was very moving. He used strong emotion in a lot of his art and he made you feel what he was trying to portray in his sculptures. Most of them were either marble or bronze. He was the most famous for 'The Thinker.' This is a detail sculpture from his 'Gates of Hell' sculpture. I think that Sean would have really liked this sculpture. There was one in particular that I fell in love with while I was there. It was called Daphane. It was the story of a girl and her sisters punished to forever carry water to fill a vase that will never be full. It was the moment that she discovered it was a hopeless task. It was an amazing sculpture. Even better than 'The Kiss' that he is so known for. She is bowed over with the vase of water spilling out next to her and she is grieving over the torment that she is being put through. It was an awesome museum. We went to another one right after that it was also another museum. This one had sculptures from the 19th century and painting from many of the most famous masters. I loved every min of it till the end when my feet worse than any other day. I don't know why my feet decided to hurt like that but they did, incredibly bad. I wasn't able to walk so fast so I had to go slow again and again Trisha and Catie finished before me just to gripe at me near the end because I was walking too slowly for them. They ended up waiting for me at a restaurant while I finished the museum and went to the shop. Well we started the museum with the sculpture area on the bottom floor then worked our way through the paintings. I got to see some Caravaggio and Monet!!! and Manet and OMG I got to see so many things that I've never seen before. I got more and more excited as I walked through the place. I loved getting to see the greatest artists works it was just amazing. I don't even know how I was able to leave. I wanted to just keep looking. Especially at the Monet. He is still and will always be one of my favorites. I also got to see the famous self portrait of Van Gogh that they didn't have at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. I just wanted to look at all of it over again but like I said before when I was up on the second floor about to finish the last part of the museum Trisha and Catie called wanting me to hurry up and meet them in the restaurant outside. So I finished the last part of the museum and then I grabbed a book in the shop that I wanted and met them over at the restaurant. They had already finished eating so I felt a little bad but I was tired of not having time to see what I wanted to see. So I took my time getting out of there. So I got a sandwich at the restaurant and then we left to the next place on our list. This building was the Pompidou Center, also known as the 'Inside Out' building. I've also seen it spelled with an 'e' instead of an 'i.' This was an awesome piece of architecture as well. It was fun to look at because it really did seem to be inside out. We didn't plan on going in but they had a feminist gallery that Trisha wanted to see so we went in. I milled about the galleries. I wasn't too impressed with most of it because it was modern art and I'm not really that into modern art. I just find it a little to weird most of the time. I did however like the boxes that one woman did and they also had a wall where they feminized a lot of male artists names it made me laugh. Like, Annie Warhol instead of Andy Warhol and La Corbusier instead of Le Corbusier. It was rather funny. They had some just overly weird stuff as well that I didn't much care for like a video of cutting the head off a rooster then a naked girl holding it by its legs with the head cut off till it stopped flapping. I didn't much care for that. There were other things as well that I plane didn't understand. I did like the Guerrilla Girls thing it had a lot of true statistics on it and the art work was called 'Do I have to be nude to get into an art museum.' That one I think was a really interesting one but not so much art as informative. It was like a Graphic Advertisement from a magazine blown up to mega size. We only looked at that exhibit because I think we reached our energy level for the day. We went outside to admire the building because they turned on the lights and it was even more interesting where they chose to light up and where they chose to keep dark. As we were deciding where to eat we were stopped by a character artist that wanted to draw Trisha. She is a sucker for Characaters. The artist stopped Trisha and got her to sit for a drawing. Catie and I were like fine whatever. So we waited and when he was done she bought it and we walked over to the restaurant that would be cheap. However, Catie and Trisha were on a mission to find pizza. Why they wanted pizza in Paris I don't have any clue. This place didn't have it. Catie remember that there were cheap places near Notre Dame which was right near this place so we headed in that direction. By now the sun was completely down. It was ok because we were going to get to see Notre Dame by night, which I was excited about. Again however we weren't able to just sit an admire it. Catie and Trisha wanted food. So we walked around to the different restaurants and looked at the menus till we found a place that seemed reasonable enough. I just ordered Brochette because I wasn't hungry enough to want a full pizza. Plus the pizza was cheapish. The Brochette was cheaper. So we ate dinner right there in front of Notre Dame. Trisha ordered a glass of wine in honor of her grandmother because this was where her grandmother would have loved to be. She moved to Paris for a while. So we finished our meal and enjoyed ourselves. We caught all the trains we needed to get back to our hostel and I got on my computer again down stairs before I went to bed. This time Trisha and Catie joined for a little while. The next day wouldn't go as good as this one did. We had some bad tempers and I left one of my packages at a museum.
Day 54, 3/15/2010
Disclaimer: This may be one of the worst entries because of how excited I was about the day. I don't even want to go back and read it again because I think It might be very bad.
This day first off started fairly poor. It took me longer than usual to get down stairs and to meet up with Trisha and Catie because I just didn't want to be on my feet. I knew that they were going to hurt and It was getting to where I couldn't even enjoy the day. But this day was also the day that we were going to the Louvre. This was the day that I was most excited about. We were going to get to see things that I have always, ALWAYS wanted to see. Like the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and The Winged Victory. These are sculptures and paintings that I've always admired and are incredibly famous. Personally the Winged Victory was the one that I was most excited about seeing but I couldn't go to Paris and the Louvre without seeing the Mona Lisa it was worth the crowd and the bitching from Trisha about the crowd. She just doesn't handle people well. So we started the day with Catie leaving to do things on her own which I was ok with I was tired of doing things by myself I wanted to be able to talk to somebody about what I was looking at and what I found interesting or funny. So Trisha stuck with me most of the day. We went to the ancient stuff first starting with the Greek and Roman sculptures. Catie didn't leave us till after the Winged Victory which was at the end of the Greek and Roman sculpture section. So we continued through the gigantic area of Greek and Roman sculptures. Before we completely left the area we found the Winged Victory. This was a very impressive sculpture. I loved it. Another happy moment. We spent the most time here because this was one of the pieces that got me excited about history and art. This was one of the things that most impressed me as a student in high school. After that Catie went her own way so Trisha and I were on our own, in our own version of a kids toy box. We decided to meet up with Catie later so off we went. We were probably giddier than her as well. I think she was tired of Trisha and that is why she wanted to be on her own. Trisha doesn't exactly make things pleasant for people who aren't used to her negativity. I didn't care I was in the Louvre, I was so happy I almost didn't notice my feet hurting through out the day. In the ancient part we made a pit stop through one of the painting halls to see the Mona Lisa. That was my third happy moments of the day. I was more excited to see it that Trisha mostly because she thinks that there are more exciting paintings to see. I agree but still it was the Mona Lisa! I took a self portrait to prove that I was there. That I saw her. Then we moved on through the one hall of paintings back to the ancient stuff. Trisha was on a mission to find the Lamasu and I don't blame her they are one of the most impressive sculptures from ancient times. So we continued through the day going through the sections that we wanted surprisingly we covered most of the museum. We only excluded parts of the paintings and the entire area of decorative arts because we wouldn't have the time. After the Greek and Roman stuff we headed into the Egyptian section. This was when I coined the phrase "Witness the Kleptomania of a Rich Nation." This was also a very incredible section. Not as impressive as the Greek section but still very nice. I especially loved seeing the mummified cats. It made me happy to know that the Egyptians liked cats as much as I do. We went through that as slowly as Trisha would allow. But like I said it really wasn't all that impressive. I was excited to get to see some Papyrus scrolls, however. I was also amazed that we got to see a piece of the Ishtar Gate that also made me very excited and happy. Right after we saw that piece of the Ishtar Gate did we find the room we were looking for. It was amazing. The Lamasu are gigantic. I never pictured them to be that big. I simply had no idea how amazing they would be or in how good of shape they would be in. We spent the most time in this room. It was completely worth it. It gave us time to study the art of them and look closely at the details. You could go right up next to in and look two inches from the relief. I was in awe yet again at seeing these pieces of art work. I took so many pictures I kinda wish I had just stopped for a min and admired the art. It was even better to have just learned about these and then getting to see them in person. I only wish that we could have seen where they were originally. But unfortunately those places are in war and it would impossible to see them. Also while we were in this room Trisha decided to draw them because it was just something that she could do quickly and we had the time. Not really but we were going to make the time. Right after that there were a few other things that we studied in class that we got to see like the Code of Hammurabi and the Stele of Naram-sin. It was just so awesome to see all of this in one day. Then we went into another room of sculpture these were all based on Greek and Roman sculptures but they were 19th century copies. I still like this room. At about this time we needed to meet up with Catie like we were suppose to. So we headed back to the main area underneath the glass pyramid. We got there and sat down waiting for her for a while. We walked around first and didn't find her so we decided to get a drink and then eat some bread that we brought with us. We didn't have time to stop and get lunch we had more to see. Catie didn't find us either we just got a text saying hey meet her in the same place at 4. I guess she had more she wanted to see as well. At this point we decided to head up to the painting area and around there because there were several paintings that we wanted to see plus there were things there that we could find that we didn't even know the Louvre had. That was how the last three hours at the Louvre went. I was kinda sad because we didn't have the time to get back to the sculpture room mostly because of how many rooms there were with paintings in them also because we had to rush back through a bunch of different areas that we had already been through because there was one specific painting that Trisha wanted to see before we left it was called "The Wreck of the Medusa." It was near the Mona Lisa. We could have saved so much time if we had know it was there in the first place. Right after that we left. We headed over to the main area and met up with Catie. I wanted to go into the book store and they kinda did too. I found the book I wanted to get and took a quick look around up stairs. Then we headed outside to figure out where we needed to go. This was about the time that the pain in my feet caught up to me. I was in so much pain I couldn't hardly stand it. I ignored it though because I knew that there was another place that Catie wanted to see and it was far enough to be inconvenient to me. I sat in front of the palace that is now the Louvre while waiting for Catie and Trisha to find where we needed to go. I also took pictures of the glass Pyramids in the middle and Arch out to the front of the building while waiting for them. Finally they knew where they wanted to go and we were off. When we got to the stop for the museum they didn't know where it was. So, we ended up walking all over the place. Through a park and around this giant stadium that I think was a Soccer stadium. I was trying very hard not to take the map from them and just go. I was also trying very hard not to just break down and stop and cry. I was hurting. I kept up as much as I could because of my feet. It was a film museum I was interested but when we got there I was in so much pain I didn't want to walk around. I took my shoes off and sat in the lobby waiting for them. I sat there just waiting for my feet to stop hurting, praying that they would take long enough so my feet would recover enough for the ride back home. I fell asleep waiting which was alright with me I was exhausted. After a little while a lady came over and very nicely told me to please put my shoes back on. I was ok with it because it wasn't changing my foot status to not do it. I put my shoes back on and went back to sleep. This was one when things went a little more down hill. Trisha and Catie showed up and we left. As we were leaving Trisha was getting hungry and basically said that she would die if we didn't eat right then. Catie didn't have a lot of money and personally I think she was a little disappointed with the museum as well as annoyed with Trisha already that she snapped. I had no idea what was going on so I kept quite. I was in too much pain and too tired to care anyway. I let them have their minor row. After that Trisha was pissed and Catie was pissed and my head was only on my feet. We were on our way back to the hostel on the second train when I realized that I didn't have my book from the Louvre with me. I was rather upset at this moment too because all I wanted to do was go back. I didn't even care at that moment whether I ate anything or not. So I promptly got off the train and headed back toward the film museum because the only place I could remember maybe leaving it was either in the train stations on our way from or the museum itself. I just prayed the entire way back that if it was at a station no one had touched it and if it was at the museum it was still open. So I stopped at every station we stopped at got out and looked around. Then promptly got back on the train to get back to the museum. I'm glad that I have a good memory for places if I've already been there. I just retraced our steps from the train station as we left. I was able to find the museum easily enough. I got there and Thank God it was still open. I went inside and asked about the book at the first desk. They told me to go to the ticket desk. When I got there I could already see it on the table behind them. I waited in line and when it was my turn I told them want I was missing. They gave it to me and I left. I got a few feet out the door and decided that I should go to the restroom before I left so I turned around and went back in, did my business and left again. This time going back to the train station. On the way there I browsed through some of the menus that were outside the restaurants because clearly Trisha and Catie were going to eat without me. I didn't expect them to wait and I knew that they were going to go to that Chinese place like we've done for most ever night that we didn't eat in a place that I mentioned. So I stopped at this place along the street. I found it to be really nice. I sat down and the water brought me a drink I wish I hadn't ordered because it turned out to be 4 Euros. I asked him what was good to eat and he asked me what I liked or if I liked Salmon. I ordered that with pasta and it was SOOOOO good. I loved it. I almost wish I could back to Paris just to have that food again. I just loved it. I love Salmon so it made it even better. I ate my dinner and read my book while I sat there. Again, hoping that I could give my feet enough rest that they wouldn't kill me for the rest of the week. We still had a long way to go. I finished my dinner and payed then headed out and went the rest of the way home. I got there and grabbed my computer again. This time I met a girl that I talked to several nights before. She was kind of snobbish in a way because she knew she was good at her art but she was still nice to talk to. Trisha embarassed me a bit with talking too much. I wanted to tell her to shut up but you know that doesn't always happen. Then after messing with my comp for a while I went to bed again hoping that the next day my feet wouldn't hurt as bad as they did that day.
This is our third day in Paris. We started this day out with a museum. This was a museum dedicated completely to one artist, a sculptor named Rodin. This was an awesome museum. This guy was amazing and some of his art was very moving. He used strong emotion in a lot of his art and he made you feel what he was trying to portray in his sculptures. Most of them were either marble or bronze. He was the most famous for 'The Thinker.' This is a detail sculpture from his 'Gates of Hell' sculpture. I think that Sean would have really liked this sculpture. There was one in particular that I fell in love with while I was there. It was called Daphane. It was the story of a girl and her sisters punished to forever carry water to fill a vase that will never be full. It was the moment that she discovered it was a hopeless task. It was an amazing sculpture. Even better than 'The Kiss' that he is so known for. She is bowed over with the vase of water spilling out next to her and she is grieving over the torment that she is being put through. It was an awesome museum. We went to another one right after that it was also another museum. This one had sculptures from the 19th century and painting from many of the most famous masters. I loved every min of it till the end when my feet worse than any other day. I don't know why my feet decided to hurt like that but they did, incredibly bad. I wasn't able to walk so fast so I had to go slow again and again Trisha and Catie finished before me just to gripe at me near the end because I was walking too slowly for them. They ended up waiting for me at a restaurant while I finished the museum and went to the shop. Well we started the museum with the sculpture area on the bottom floor then worked our way through the paintings. I got to see some Caravaggio and Monet!!! and Manet and OMG I got to see so many things that I've never seen before. I got more and more excited as I walked through the place. I loved getting to see the greatest artists works it was just amazing. I don't even know how I was able to leave. I wanted to just keep looking. Especially at the Monet. He is still and will always be one of my favorites. I also got to see the famous self portrait of Van Gogh that they didn't have at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. I just wanted to look at all of it over again but like I said before when I was up on the second floor about to finish the last part of the museum Trisha and Catie called wanting me to hurry up and meet them in the restaurant outside. So I finished the last part of the museum and then I grabbed a book in the shop that I wanted and met them over at the restaurant. They had already finished eating so I felt a little bad but I was tired of not having time to see what I wanted to see. So I took my time getting out of there. So I got a sandwich at the restaurant and then we left to the next place on our list. This building was the Pompidou Center, also known as the 'Inside Out' building. I've also seen it spelled with an 'e' instead of an 'i.' This was an awesome piece of architecture as well. It was fun to look at because it really did seem to be inside out. We didn't plan on going in but they had a feminist gallery that Trisha wanted to see so we went in. I milled about the galleries. I wasn't too impressed with most of it because it was modern art and I'm not really that into modern art. I just find it a little to weird most of the time. I did however like the boxes that one woman did and they also had a wall where they feminized a lot of male artists names it made me laugh. Like, Annie Warhol instead of Andy Warhol and La Corbusier instead of Le Corbusier. It was rather funny. They had some just overly weird stuff as well that I didn't much care for like a video of cutting the head off a rooster then a naked girl holding it by its legs with the head cut off till it stopped flapping. I didn't much care for that. There were other things as well that I plane didn't understand. I did like the Guerrilla Girls thing it had a lot of true statistics on it and the art work was called 'Do I have to be nude to get into an art museum.' That one I think was a really interesting one but not so much art as informative. It was like a Graphic Advertisement from a magazine blown up to mega size. We only looked at that exhibit because I think we reached our energy level for the day. We went outside to admire the building because they turned on the lights and it was even more interesting where they chose to light up and where they chose to keep dark. As we were deciding where to eat we were stopped by a character artist that wanted to draw Trisha. She is a sucker for Characaters. The artist stopped Trisha and got her to sit for a drawing. Catie and I were like fine whatever. So we waited and when he was done she bought it and we walked over to the restaurant that would be cheap. However, Catie and Trisha were on a mission to find pizza. Why they wanted pizza in Paris I don't have any clue. This place didn't have it. Catie remember that there were cheap places near Notre Dame which was right near this place so we headed in that direction. By now the sun was completely down. It was ok because we were going to get to see Notre Dame by night, which I was excited about. Again however we weren't able to just sit an admire it. Catie and Trisha wanted food. So we walked around to the different restaurants and looked at the menus till we found a place that seemed reasonable enough. I just ordered Brochette because I wasn't hungry enough to want a full pizza. Plus the pizza was cheapish. The Brochette was cheaper. So we ate dinner right there in front of Notre Dame. Trisha ordered a glass of wine in honor of her grandmother because this was where her grandmother would have loved to be. She moved to Paris for a while. So we finished our meal and enjoyed ourselves. We caught all the trains we needed to get back to our hostel and I got on my computer again down stairs before I went to bed. This time Trisha and Catie joined for a little while. The next day wouldn't go as good as this one did. We had some bad tempers and I left one of my packages at a museum.
Day 54, 3/15/2010
Disclaimer: This may be one of the worst entries because of how excited I was about the day. I don't even want to go back and read it again because I think It might be very bad.
This day first off started fairly poor. It took me longer than usual to get down stairs and to meet up with Trisha and Catie because I just didn't want to be on my feet. I knew that they were going to hurt and It was getting to where I couldn't even enjoy the day. But this day was also the day that we were going to the Louvre. This was the day that I was most excited about. We were going to get to see things that I have always, ALWAYS wanted to see. Like the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and The Winged Victory. These are sculptures and paintings that I've always admired and are incredibly famous. Personally the Winged Victory was the one that I was most excited about seeing but I couldn't go to Paris and the Louvre without seeing the Mona Lisa it was worth the crowd and the bitching from Trisha about the crowd. She just doesn't handle people well. So we started the day with Catie leaving to do things on her own which I was ok with I was tired of doing things by myself I wanted to be able to talk to somebody about what I was looking at and what I found interesting or funny. So Trisha stuck with me most of the day. We went to the ancient stuff first starting with the Greek and Roman sculptures. Catie didn't leave us till after the Winged Victory which was at the end of the Greek and Roman sculpture section. So we continued through the gigantic area of Greek and Roman sculptures. Before we completely left the area we found the Winged Victory. This was a very impressive sculpture. I loved it. Another happy moment. We spent the most time here because this was one of the pieces that got me excited about history and art. This was one of the things that most impressed me as a student in high school. After that Catie went her own way so Trisha and I were on our own, in our own version of a kids toy box. We decided to meet up with Catie later so off we went. We were probably giddier than her as well. I think she was tired of Trisha and that is why she wanted to be on her own. Trisha doesn't exactly make things pleasant for people who aren't used to her negativity. I didn't care I was in the Louvre, I was so happy I almost didn't notice my feet hurting through out the day. In the ancient part we made a pit stop through one of the painting halls to see the Mona Lisa. That was my third happy moments of the day. I was more excited to see it that Trisha mostly because she thinks that there are more exciting paintings to see. I agree but still it was the Mona Lisa! I took a self portrait to prove that I was there. That I saw her. Then we moved on through the one hall of paintings back to the ancient stuff. Trisha was on a mission to find the Lamasu and I don't blame her they are one of the most impressive sculptures from ancient times. So we continued through the day going through the sections that we wanted surprisingly we covered most of the museum. We only excluded parts of the paintings and the entire area of decorative arts because we wouldn't have the time. After the Greek and Roman stuff we headed into the Egyptian section. This was when I coined the phrase "Witness the Kleptomania of a Rich Nation." This was also a very incredible section. Not as impressive as the Greek section but still very nice. I especially loved seeing the mummified cats. It made me happy to know that the Egyptians liked cats as much as I do. We went through that as slowly as Trisha would allow. But like I said it really wasn't all that impressive. I was excited to get to see some Papyrus scrolls, however. I was also amazed that we got to see a piece of the Ishtar Gate that also made me very excited and happy. Right after we saw that piece of the Ishtar Gate did we find the room we were looking for. It was amazing. The Lamasu are gigantic. I never pictured them to be that big. I simply had no idea how amazing they would be or in how good of shape they would be in. We spent the most time in this room. It was completely worth it. It gave us time to study the art of them and look closely at the details. You could go right up next to in and look two inches from the relief. I was in awe yet again at seeing these pieces of art work. I took so many pictures I kinda wish I had just stopped for a min and admired the art. It was even better to have just learned about these and then getting to see them in person. I only wish that we could have seen where they were originally. But unfortunately those places are in war and it would impossible to see them. Also while we were in this room Trisha decided to draw them because it was just something that she could do quickly and we had the time. Not really but we were going to make the time. Right after that there were a few other things that we studied in class that we got to see like the Code of Hammurabi and the Stele of Naram-sin. It was just so awesome to see all of this in one day. Then we went into another room of sculpture these were all based on Greek and Roman sculptures but they were 19th century copies. I still like this room. At about this time we needed to meet up with Catie like we were suppose to. So we headed back to the main area underneath the glass pyramid. We got there and sat down waiting for her for a while. We walked around first and didn't find her so we decided to get a drink and then eat some bread that we brought with us. We didn't have time to stop and get lunch we had more to see. Catie didn't find us either we just got a text saying hey meet her in the same place at 4. I guess she had more she wanted to see as well. At this point we decided to head up to the painting area and around there because there were several paintings that we wanted to see plus there were things there that we could find that we didn't even know the Louvre had. That was how the last three hours at the Louvre went. I was kinda sad because we didn't have the time to get back to the sculpture room mostly because of how many rooms there were with paintings in them also because we had to rush back through a bunch of different areas that we had already been through because there was one specific painting that Trisha wanted to see before we left it was called "The Wreck of the Medusa." It was near the Mona Lisa. We could have saved so much time if we had know it was there in the first place. Right after that we left. We headed over to the main area and met up with Catie. I wanted to go into the book store and they kinda did too. I found the book I wanted to get and took a quick look around up stairs. Then we headed outside to figure out where we needed to go. This was about the time that the pain in my feet caught up to me. I was in so much pain I couldn't hardly stand it. I ignored it though because I knew that there was another place that Catie wanted to see and it was far enough to be inconvenient to me. I sat in front of the palace that is now the Louvre while waiting for Catie and Trisha to find where we needed to go. I also took pictures of the glass Pyramids in the middle and Arch out to the front of the building while waiting for them. Finally they knew where they wanted to go and we were off. When we got to the stop for the museum they didn't know where it was. So, we ended up walking all over the place. Through a park and around this giant stadium that I think was a Soccer stadium. I was trying very hard not to take the map from them and just go. I was also trying very hard not to just break down and stop and cry. I was hurting. I kept up as much as I could because of my feet. It was a film museum I was interested but when we got there I was in so much pain I didn't want to walk around. I took my shoes off and sat in the lobby waiting for them. I sat there just waiting for my feet to stop hurting, praying that they would take long enough so my feet would recover enough for the ride back home. I fell asleep waiting which was alright with me I was exhausted. After a little while a lady came over and very nicely told me to please put my shoes back on. I was ok with it because it wasn't changing my foot status to not do it. I put my shoes back on and went back to sleep. This was one when things went a little more down hill. Trisha and Catie showed up and we left. As we were leaving Trisha was getting hungry and basically said that she would die if we didn't eat right then. Catie didn't have a lot of money and personally I think she was a little disappointed with the museum as well as annoyed with Trisha already that she snapped. I had no idea what was going on so I kept quite. I was in too much pain and too tired to care anyway. I let them have their minor row. After that Trisha was pissed and Catie was pissed and my head was only on my feet. We were on our way back to the hostel on the second train when I realized that I didn't have my book from the Louvre with me. I was rather upset at this moment too because all I wanted to do was go back. I didn't even care at that moment whether I ate anything or not. So I promptly got off the train and headed back toward the film museum because the only place I could remember maybe leaving it was either in the train stations on our way from or the museum itself. I just prayed the entire way back that if it was at a station no one had touched it and if it was at the museum it was still open. So I stopped at every station we stopped at got out and looked around. Then promptly got back on the train to get back to the museum. I'm glad that I have a good memory for places if I've already been there. I just retraced our steps from the train station as we left. I was able to find the museum easily enough. I got there and Thank God it was still open. I went inside and asked about the book at the first desk. They told me to go to the ticket desk. When I got there I could already see it on the table behind them. I waited in line and when it was my turn I told them want I was missing. They gave it to me and I left. I got a few feet out the door and decided that I should go to the restroom before I left so I turned around and went back in, did my business and left again. This time going back to the train station. On the way there I browsed through some of the menus that were outside the restaurants because clearly Trisha and Catie were going to eat without me. I didn't expect them to wait and I knew that they were going to go to that Chinese place like we've done for most ever night that we didn't eat in a place that I mentioned. So I stopped at this place along the street. I found it to be really nice. I sat down and the water brought me a drink I wish I hadn't ordered because it turned out to be 4 Euros. I asked him what was good to eat and he asked me what I liked or if I liked Salmon. I ordered that with pasta and it was SOOOOO good. I loved it. I almost wish I could back to Paris just to have that food again. I just loved it. I love Salmon so it made it even better. I ate my dinner and read my book while I sat there. Again, hoping that I could give my feet enough rest that they wouldn't kill me for the rest of the week. We still had a long way to go. I finished my dinner and payed then headed out and went the rest of the way home. I got there and grabbed my computer again. This time I met a girl that I talked to several nights before. She was kind of snobbish in a way because she knew she was good at her art but she was still nice to talk to. Trisha embarassed me a bit with talking too much. I wanted to tell her to shut up but you know that doesn't always happen. Then after messing with my comp for a while I went to bed again hoping that the next day my feet wouldn't hurt as bad as they did that day.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Day 65, 3/26/2010
I only have 6 more weeks in the country I can't believe it. Just one more period.
I'm over 2 weeks behind with spring break to write about so I don't expect to be able to catch up at least not for a while.
Day 51, 3/12/2010
This was the first day of spring break. We had to start the day with school. It was our last day of Videography so we were suppose to look at the videos that we've made throughout the last two weeks. I went first because Trisha, Catie and I would be leaving early. He put Colton and my video in and gave his critique and then we looked at the lighting exercise that we did last week and he gave his critique and then we did a few other videos and we also watched Catie, and Trisha's video before it was time for us to leave. I went through my bag and decided not to take my video camera because I was too afraid that I wouldn't use it and it would take up a lot of room. So I left it in the video room so they could lock it up while I was gone. The we left and headed to the train station. We caught our train to Dusseldorf then on to the airport. When we got there we had to do the usual check in and check and go through security. We waited the mandatory time till our plane was ready to go and then we were off on our way to Paris. As we were waiting for our plane in the airport I went and bought some Haribo that I've wanted for a while. We also met an awesome person while waiting for the plane. Her name was Bernadette. She talked to us for a while and it turns out that she would have some time to hang out after we got to Paris so we decided that she could come along with us. While we were on the plane she came and sat by me so we could talk during the flight. She also helped us out with the train system and how to find things while we were in Paris and she helped us find our hostel. After getting to the air port then getting to Paris by bus we went on the underground to our hostel. At the first underground station we came to we bought our Paris pass for the days that we would be there this allowed us to use any public transport while in the inner part of the city. So in that way she helped us find our hostel. We dropped our stuff off then immediately went out again. Our first goal was to find a place to eat. So we walked around the streets near our hostel to find a cheap place to eat. We finally found one that had 6 Euro meals. It was a Chinese food place. Not my ideal place to eat but better than nothing. After that we headed back to the hostel so I could grab my camera and we would be able to learn our way to the metro from there and not from the restaurant. We didn't ride this time because we wanted to see Moulin Rouge. It wasn't too far to walk and we weren't tired yet because it was the first day. It was humorous in this area because it was like the Red Light district in Amsterdam. Lots of sex shops. Trisha and I laughed about it fairly hard. The building was awesome. Although it isn't used a brothel anymore it is still used for the dancing. It was still an awesome thing to go see. After that we got on the metro to go see the Eiffel Tower for the first time. It was amazing. I was more in awe of it than anyone else was. We got out of the train station and ran outside to see it sparkle. It sparkles because of lights that they do at the top of the hour every hour for a little while. Usually around 15 mins. So we walked around and I took a lot of pictures. We also walked up to the 'perfect' spot to take pictures. Its up a hill and some long stairs but is one of the best places to take pictures. It was amazing to get to see it at night. We walked around a bit more and found an artist that Trisha and I really liked. We talked to him for a few mins before we headed to the other side of the Eiffel. After a little while of walking around Bernadette had to go. After she left we walked around a bit more and looked at the lights and talked. After that we decided it was time to head back to the hostel and get ready for bed. We rode the train back and when we got there I put the sheets on my bed because apparently that is what you have to do at this place. I also discovered that I had to use the community toilet and shower. That was kinda gross. Well I wasn't tired yet so I grabbed my computer and went down stairs to talk to Sean on the internet. After that went to bed so I could be fresh for the next day.
Day 52, 3/13/2010
Well this morning I got up and had to wait for the shower before I could get one and head down stairs. I grabbed a breakfast of cereal and cresonts with butter. Then we waited for Catie to head out. The first thing that we did was get on the Underground and head to the RER station that would take us to Versailles. This is the palace of King Louis XIV. It was also used by several of the kings after him including Napoleon. It was beautiful the whole place. It was also very very gaudy. We got there and before we walked up to the palace we had to get our Museum pass. This was being sold in a shop around the corner so we walked over there and bought it. It was rather expensive but completely worth it. It paid for itself over that week. The we walked to the gates. I of course took WAY more pictures than necessary but I don't really care I loved ever min of it. We walked inside and that is where the self guided tour started. We spent the entire first part of the day doing this. It was awesome. We walked through all the rooms and saw everything that we could. Again like most of this trip I spent most of the day by myself seeing this stuff by myself. I was amazed at how much money was put into these places just because they could. I walked every room as slow as I could so I was able to take it all in. The one room that was the most impressive was the hall of mirrors. It was amazing to be in this place. It made me wonder if the king ever thought that a nobody like all the people there would ever be just wondering through his home like that. The inside was beautiful but nothing compared to grounds. It was just as amazing. Sadly it is winter time so all the statues were covered and it wasn't very green. I was just happy to get to see it. I wish I could have been there when the fountains were running. I learned something about the fountains which I found amusing. There wasn't enough water pressure to run them all at the same time so servants had to keep track of where the king was so they could turn the fountain on nearest him. We walked down the lake in the middle for a little while and I decided I wanted to go see the other palace on the grounds. First, however we wanted to eat lunch. Catie remembered a cafe that she ate at the first time that she was here. So we found it. It was a small little place but also expensive like every where else we realized later. I had a club sandwich and some tea. It was really good. After that was when we headed to the other palace. This palace was supposed to be where Marie Antoinette stayed most of the time. Personally I like this place better. It wasn't just Covered with stuff and it was entirely too gaudy like the bigger palace was. I walked through these halls also. This was when I realized that Trisha and Catie have very little patience. I like to take my time and they zoom through these places. It kinda irritated me. This wasn't the only time it would happen on this trip either. So I finished this place and we walked back to the lake then down to the big palace again. This was about the time that we decided it was time to go. So we headed out of the palace grounds toward the train station again. Along the way we stopped at several souvenir shops to see if there was anything worth buying. I ended up getting a Picasso cat and a picture frame that I could frame our group picture that I made of us. Then we headed back to the main part of Paris. Since it wasn't too late in the day and we still had time to do something we decided to go to the Arc de Triomphe. This was an arch built in the 19th century dedicated to all those who died in war. It was huge I've never seen a monument that huge. It also had some very interesting sculptures on it. I took as many pictures as Trisha and Catie would let me and keep up with them. Again the no patience thing. Well we walked around it and studied the sculptures and looked at it. We couldn't walk around the entire thing because they were having some sort of ceremony I don't really know what for. They had the memorial lite underneath the arch and there were a lot of people in uniforms. Since we couldn't walk around the whole thing at the moment we decided to go up to the top. This was awesome but hard. We had to walk up all the steps to get to the top. It felt like forever but once we got up there we were able to get a very nice view of Paris and it was right at sunset so it was even more beautiful. It was a very colorful sunsets but I just find them to be extremely beautiful. We stayed up there taking pictures for a little while. I was OK with it because I was able to get as many as I wanted. After that we noticed that whatever ceremony was going one was over so we were able to head back down. Before we went all the way down we stopped by the souvenir shop and milled around. I ended up getting a book. I also bought a book at Versailles. I forgot to mention that. Then we headed back to the hostel for the night. Again, after we got there I grabbed my computer and went down stairs to talk to Sean. Then I headed to bed.
I'm over 2 weeks behind with spring break to write about so I don't expect to be able to catch up at least not for a while.
Day 51, 3/12/2010
This was the first day of spring break. We had to start the day with school. It was our last day of Videography so we were suppose to look at the videos that we've made throughout the last two weeks. I went first because Trisha, Catie and I would be leaving early. He put Colton and my video in and gave his critique and then we looked at the lighting exercise that we did last week and he gave his critique and then we did a few other videos and we also watched Catie, and Trisha's video before it was time for us to leave. I went through my bag and decided not to take my video camera because I was too afraid that I wouldn't use it and it would take up a lot of room. So I left it in the video room so they could lock it up while I was gone. The we left and headed to the train station. We caught our train to Dusseldorf then on to the airport. When we got there we had to do the usual check in and check and go through security. We waited the mandatory time till our plane was ready to go and then we were off on our way to Paris. As we were waiting for our plane in the airport I went and bought some Haribo that I've wanted for a while. We also met an awesome person while waiting for the plane. Her name was Bernadette. She talked to us for a while and it turns out that she would have some time to hang out after we got to Paris so we decided that she could come along with us. While we were on the plane she came and sat by me so we could talk during the flight. She also helped us out with the train system and how to find things while we were in Paris and she helped us find our hostel. After getting to the air port then getting to Paris by bus we went on the underground to our hostel. At the first underground station we came to we bought our Paris pass for the days that we would be there this allowed us to use any public transport while in the inner part of the city. So in that way she helped us find our hostel. We dropped our stuff off then immediately went out again. Our first goal was to find a place to eat. So we walked around the streets near our hostel to find a cheap place to eat. We finally found one that had 6 Euro meals. It was a Chinese food place. Not my ideal place to eat but better than nothing. After that we headed back to the hostel so I could grab my camera and we would be able to learn our way to the metro from there and not from the restaurant. We didn't ride this time because we wanted to see Moulin Rouge. It wasn't too far to walk and we weren't tired yet because it was the first day. It was humorous in this area because it was like the Red Light district in Amsterdam. Lots of sex shops. Trisha and I laughed about it fairly hard. The building was awesome. Although it isn't used a brothel anymore it is still used for the dancing. It was still an awesome thing to go see. After that we got on the metro to go see the Eiffel Tower for the first time. It was amazing. I was more in awe of it than anyone else was. We got out of the train station and ran outside to see it sparkle. It sparkles because of lights that they do at the top of the hour every hour for a little while. Usually around 15 mins. So we walked around and I took a lot of pictures. We also walked up to the 'perfect' spot to take pictures. Its up a hill and some long stairs but is one of the best places to take pictures. It was amazing to get to see it at night. We walked around a bit more and found an artist that Trisha and I really liked. We talked to him for a few mins before we headed to the other side of the Eiffel. After a little while of walking around Bernadette had to go. After she left we walked around a bit more and looked at the lights and talked. After that we decided it was time to head back to the hostel and get ready for bed. We rode the train back and when we got there I put the sheets on my bed because apparently that is what you have to do at this place. I also discovered that I had to use the community toilet and shower. That was kinda gross. Well I wasn't tired yet so I grabbed my computer and went down stairs to talk to Sean on the internet. After that went to bed so I could be fresh for the next day.
Day 52, 3/13/2010
Well this morning I got up and had to wait for the shower before I could get one and head down stairs. I grabbed a breakfast of cereal and cresonts with butter. Then we waited for Catie to head out. The first thing that we did was get on the Underground and head to the RER station that would take us to Versailles. This is the palace of King Louis XIV. It was also used by several of the kings after him including Napoleon. It was beautiful the whole place. It was also very very gaudy. We got there and before we walked up to the palace we had to get our Museum pass. This was being sold in a shop around the corner so we walked over there and bought it. It was rather expensive but completely worth it. It paid for itself over that week. The we walked to the gates. I of course took WAY more pictures than necessary but I don't really care I loved ever min of it. We walked inside and that is where the self guided tour started. We spent the entire first part of the day doing this. It was awesome. We walked through all the rooms and saw everything that we could. Again like most of this trip I spent most of the day by myself seeing this stuff by myself. I was amazed at how much money was put into these places just because they could. I walked every room as slow as I could so I was able to take it all in. The one room that was the most impressive was the hall of mirrors. It was amazing to be in this place. It made me wonder if the king ever thought that a nobody like all the people there would ever be just wondering through his home like that. The inside was beautiful but nothing compared to grounds. It was just as amazing. Sadly it is winter time so all the statues were covered and it wasn't very green. I was just happy to get to see it. I wish I could have been there when the fountains were running. I learned something about the fountains which I found amusing. There wasn't enough water pressure to run them all at the same time so servants had to keep track of where the king was so they could turn the fountain on nearest him. We walked down the lake in the middle for a little while and I decided I wanted to go see the other palace on the grounds. First, however we wanted to eat lunch. Catie remembered a cafe that she ate at the first time that she was here. So we found it. It was a small little place but also expensive like every where else we realized later. I had a club sandwich and some tea. It was really good. After that was when we headed to the other palace. This palace was supposed to be where Marie Antoinette stayed most of the time. Personally I like this place better. It wasn't just Covered with stuff and it was entirely too gaudy like the bigger palace was. I walked through these halls also. This was when I realized that Trisha and Catie have very little patience. I like to take my time and they zoom through these places. It kinda irritated me. This wasn't the only time it would happen on this trip either. So I finished this place and we walked back to the lake then down to the big palace again. This was about the time that we decided it was time to go. So we headed out of the palace grounds toward the train station again. Along the way we stopped at several souvenir shops to see if there was anything worth buying. I ended up getting a Picasso cat and a picture frame that I could frame our group picture that I made of us. Then we headed back to the main part of Paris. Since it wasn't too late in the day and we still had time to do something we decided to go to the Arc de Triomphe. This was an arch built in the 19th century dedicated to all those who died in war. It was huge I've never seen a monument that huge. It also had some very interesting sculptures on it. I took as many pictures as Trisha and Catie would let me and keep up with them. Again the no patience thing. Well we walked around it and studied the sculptures and looked at it. We couldn't walk around the entire thing because they were having some sort of ceremony I don't really know what for. They had the memorial lite underneath the arch and there were a lot of people in uniforms. Since we couldn't walk around the whole thing at the moment we decided to go up to the top. This was awesome but hard. We had to walk up all the steps to get to the top. It felt like forever but once we got up there we were able to get a very nice view of Paris and it was right at sunset so it was even more beautiful. It was a very colorful sunsets but I just find them to be extremely beautiful. We stayed up there taking pictures for a little while. I was OK with it because I was able to get as many as I wanted. After that we noticed that whatever ceremony was going one was over so we were able to head back down. Before we went all the way down we stopped by the souvenir shop and milled around. I ended up getting a book. I also bought a book at Versailles. I forgot to mention that. Then we headed back to the hostel for the night. Again, after we got there I grabbed my computer and went down stairs to talk to Sean. Then I headed to bed.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Day 53, 3/14/2010
Day 46, 3/7/2010
This was a Sunday I slept most of the day. Nothing seriously excited happened. A sixteen year old friend of my host family wanted to meet me so she came over at around 2 in the afternoon. She stayed till around 4 talking when Trudy's mom and aunt came for there afternoon coffee and cake. We sat and talked and ate. Then after that I did my usual evening thing then went to bed.
Day 47, 3/8/2010
This was our second week of Videography. This day started early that sucked but I was ok. We started the day with another lecture and not much more. We also did some lighting situations with three point lighting to try and help us out with getting the shading correct on people in an interview situation. This was fun because first it took up most of the class and two because we were able to get some really cool stuff with the dramatic effect of the lights. We interviewed both Catie and Trisha because that was the easiest at the time. We spent all of the morning doing that. Then because we were done by lunch we packed up and Jens our teacher left. We all grabbed lunch I don’t remember what I got I think I went with everyone else to the burger place down the street. Then after we ate it was time to do a little work before going home. I spent the first part of the afternoon talking to Colton coordinating because we still had stuff to do. Then I got to go home fairly early. Typical evening at home, except the talking on the internet part was a little longer than usual.
Day 48, 3/9/2010
Today was our second filming day in Videography. The nice thing was that we didn’t have to show up really early so I got to sleep in just a little bit. When I got to school I was almost late but no worries I wasn’t. This was a filming day so immediately grabbed our cameras and headed out. Colton and I knew what we wanted to do so we headed toward the place that we found last week to do some more filming with a coffee cup. We spent the morning right there gathering footage for our coffee cup scene in our animation. This took a while. That was all we did that morning because we had so many different things that we wanted to do with the cup. Plus we wasted some time trying to find the location and grabbing me some coffee so we would have a cup to work with. After we filmed it was time to head back to the AIB because we were supposed to be having a group meeting with pizza. So we got back and dropped our stuff off. We decided to keep the tripod and the camera even though later we didn’t use it and it ended up being the worse inconvenience ever. I had to take the tripod home. You can imagine how heavy that thing is. So we dropped our stuff off and went into the classroom off the main room for the food. Turns out that we needed to wait for more people. All of us were crowded around the pizza just waiting for the go ahead to eat. We were all hungry. Nobody waited for the go ahead as soon as Jacob and Brian, the two guys we were waiting for showed up, it was a free for all. People were just grabbing left and right. I didn’t even get one of the slices I wanted to try because of people grabbyness. I guess I should have expected it; they are guys after all. After we all had our pizza and drinks we sat down to eat. We munched on the food for a while and when we were done we had our group meeting getting us ready for Spring break because we would be leaving at the end of the week. It was basically just an update meeting and what could we do better meeting. After, that meeting I stayed around to do a little bit more work on the computer but since I didn’t have my Wacom I wasn’t able to work on the story boards. I also wanted to go home because I wanted to pack. I headed home, talked to Sean packed my bag. Stayed up too late and regretted it in the morning, yet again.
Day 49, 3/10/2010
This is Wednesday, and yet another excursion, this time to Dusseldorf. This day started out bad because I wanted to get there at my usual time and this time I was late. Very late. I almost missed the train. I got up just way later than I should have. I know it’s my fault. I just need to avoid staying up late the night before but since my body is programmed to stay up late at night and not wake up easy in the morning I was unable to get myself out of bed as quickly as usual. Most of the time I end up staying up too late because I want to talk to Sean and since his time is 7 hours behind mine that time is about right for talking to him. Anyway, I got to the train station just before it left. Lars had the door to the train to Dusseldorf held open for me. I ran as fast as I could to get there after I got off the train from my stop. I caught the train, just in time. It was nice. After that we got on our way. I talked to Lars most of the way there. After we got there we headed over to an area nearby to start our day. This time instead of a city tour they decided to give us a scavenger hunt for buildings. I liked it but Trisha was in my group she made it very known that she didn’t like it, but I’m getting used to her not liking things. Trisha, Garrett, Jacob and I made up our group. We got our list and we were off. There were way too many places for us to go in the time allowed. It was impossible to finish. I was ok with this but it was hard because the boys can move faster that I can. I simply can’t walk very fast. I’ve never been able to. I don’t really understand why I can’t. I think it’s because of the shape I’m in but that can’t be fixed in this short period of time. I don’t quite understand why everyone walks faster than me. Well we went through the questions and we found all the ones we were able to. It was sad because we didn’t get to see most of the city because of how we answered the questions but at least we weren’t last. We walked all around this certain area to find what we needed. It was cool because we got to see three Frank Gehry buildings. That was very cool. I’d never seen one before and It was cool to get to see my first. Other things we saw were parliament, a building that they used to sell coal out of, a sculpture that tells the resources currently being used in Germany, and a Tower that tells the time according to windows in the side of the column to the top. There were several other things as well. I got to see an interesting building sculpture of these weird amphibious creatures climbing the buildings. They were all bright neon colors. Other minor things I got to see was the Alte Rathaus, the Rhine and a brewery. It was a long morning trying to find all that stuff and dealing with Garrett and Jacob running off. Trisha wouldn’t shut up about how Brian and Tyler had left the other two people in their group behind so I know that’s why they were running. I stopped trying to keep up after a while. When that was finally over with, we headed to the restaurant that we were meeting at for lunch before our company visit in the last part of the day. This was a great restaurant. I loved the food that I got. Potato soup with smoked sausage inside; It was wonderful. The Rye bread that was served with it was amazing as well. After we ate Lars gave out the prizes for the scavenger hunt. Our group got third out of four groups. Fairly lame. First and second tied so they had to figure out what they wanted out of the prizes provided. I was happy with the third place prize which was a bread cutting board with the Frank Gehry houses imprinted on it. After lunch everyone headed outside. I waited on Jason because he left his jacket on the chair while he went to the restroom. Then we headed out and joined the group for the company visit. This one was the best one so far because the company we visited was a larger one and they actually knew before hand what they wanted to show us. It was very nice. We learned what game they were working on, called Civilization VII. The game comes out March 25 in Europe. I doubt I’ll be able to get it because I don’t know when it comes out in America. The studio was really cool as well. They had tons of posters and sculptures everywhere of famous games and they showed us some animations that they were doing for their game. We were able to talk to them more. It was just all around more interesting. After the game company it was time to head back to the train station and head home. It was a long day and now it was over.
Day 50, 3/11/2010
Thursday was not as exciting as Wednesday. We had studio in the morning where we basically did the same thing as we did in the last studio because they asked the same questions as before. We were also able to get our character a lot more nailed down as opposed to before when she wasn’t as clear. Oh, I don’t remember if I told you about our character. Basically she is a Monstress from the underworld that dreams of becoming a stewardess. She loves flying but hates anything else that can fly because she can’t. She kills the other things that can fly with her crossbow umbrella. The animation we have her doing will be something really simple because we don’t really have a lot of time to spend on this. I’m hoping that It will look impressive enough to use in a demo reel someday.
We worked on that in the morning, again I forgot my tablet. *face palm.* After studio that morning we had lunch then headed out for our second day of shooting with the film camera. We also used the afternoon to try to get permission to use the locations we scouted out for our time laps. First we decided to go to the Stern Hotel. This was the first place that we chose for a good location it was our first choice. After only talking to them for a few minutes, they told us no. It’s a good reason, so I didn’t argue the matter. Next we tried to see if a Fitness place would allow us to film for a little while out one of the windows. After they found out how long it would be they didn’t even want to talk anymore. So we were at a loss. We didn’t know what else to do so we headed to a location to do some more filming. This time we were going to work on trying to film some pigeons. This took the rest of our time. We filmed the birds and a few other shots to try and get our places covered. Then we headed back to the AIB to figure out what we needed to do to get this time laps recorded. We talked to Jens. He didn’t know what to do. So, we went to talk to Lars. He had some better ideas that might get us the location where we can film. We told him not to rush because we had a lot of time to get this done. It was no problem. After talking to him our day was done. I messed around making sure that we had our stuff written down that needed to be done and then I headed home to make sure I was ready for the next day, Spring Break. Again, I got to bed late.
Day 51 3/12/2010
This day was a long but awesome day that I don’t have time to write about now. First day of spring break.
This was a Sunday I slept most of the day. Nothing seriously excited happened. A sixteen year old friend of my host family wanted to meet me so she came over at around 2 in the afternoon. She stayed till around 4 talking when Trudy's mom and aunt came for there afternoon coffee and cake. We sat and talked and ate. Then after that I did my usual evening thing then went to bed.
Day 47, 3/8/2010
This was our second week of Videography. This day started early that sucked but I was ok. We started the day with another lecture and not much more. We also did some lighting situations with three point lighting to try and help us out with getting the shading correct on people in an interview situation. This was fun because first it took up most of the class and two because we were able to get some really cool stuff with the dramatic effect of the lights. We interviewed both Catie and Trisha because that was the easiest at the time. We spent all of the morning doing that. Then because we were done by lunch we packed up and Jens our teacher left. We all grabbed lunch I don’t remember what I got I think I went with everyone else to the burger place down the street. Then after we ate it was time to do a little work before going home. I spent the first part of the afternoon talking to Colton coordinating because we still had stuff to do. Then I got to go home fairly early. Typical evening at home, except the talking on the internet part was a little longer than usual.
Day 48, 3/9/2010
Today was our second filming day in Videography. The nice thing was that we didn’t have to show up really early so I got to sleep in just a little bit. When I got to school I was almost late but no worries I wasn’t. This was a filming day so immediately grabbed our cameras and headed out. Colton and I knew what we wanted to do so we headed toward the place that we found last week to do some more filming with a coffee cup. We spent the morning right there gathering footage for our coffee cup scene in our animation. This took a while. That was all we did that morning because we had so many different things that we wanted to do with the cup. Plus we wasted some time trying to find the location and grabbing me some coffee so we would have a cup to work with. After we filmed it was time to head back to the AIB because we were supposed to be having a group meeting with pizza. So we got back and dropped our stuff off. We decided to keep the tripod and the camera even though later we didn’t use it and it ended up being the worse inconvenience ever. I had to take the tripod home. You can imagine how heavy that thing is. So we dropped our stuff off and went into the classroom off the main room for the food. Turns out that we needed to wait for more people. All of us were crowded around the pizza just waiting for the go ahead to eat. We were all hungry. Nobody waited for the go ahead as soon as Jacob and Brian, the two guys we were waiting for showed up, it was a free for all. People were just grabbing left and right. I didn’t even get one of the slices I wanted to try because of people grabbyness. I guess I should have expected it; they are guys after all. After we all had our pizza and drinks we sat down to eat. We munched on the food for a while and when we were done we had our group meeting getting us ready for Spring break because we would be leaving at the end of the week. It was basically just an update meeting and what could we do better meeting. After, that meeting I stayed around to do a little bit more work on the computer but since I didn’t have my Wacom I wasn’t able to work on the story boards. I also wanted to go home because I wanted to pack. I headed home, talked to Sean packed my bag. Stayed up too late and regretted it in the morning, yet again.
Day 49, 3/10/2010
This is Wednesday, and yet another excursion, this time to Dusseldorf. This day started out bad because I wanted to get there at my usual time and this time I was late. Very late. I almost missed the train. I got up just way later than I should have. I know it’s my fault. I just need to avoid staying up late the night before but since my body is programmed to stay up late at night and not wake up easy in the morning I was unable to get myself out of bed as quickly as usual. Most of the time I end up staying up too late because I want to talk to Sean and since his time is 7 hours behind mine that time is about right for talking to him. Anyway, I got to the train station just before it left. Lars had the door to the train to Dusseldorf held open for me. I ran as fast as I could to get there after I got off the train from my stop. I caught the train, just in time. It was nice. After that we got on our way. I talked to Lars most of the way there. After we got there we headed over to an area nearby to start our day. This time instead of a city tour they decided to give us a scavenger hunt for buildings. I liked it but Trisha was in my group she made it very known that she didn’t like it, but I’m getting used to her not liking things. Trisha, Garrett, Jacob and I made up our group. We got our list and we were off. There were way too many places for us to go in the time allowed. It was impossible to finish. I was ok with this but it was hard because the boys can move faster that I can. I simply can’t walk very fast. I’ve never been able to. I don’t really understand why I can’t. I think it’s because of the shape I’m in but that can’t be fixed in this short period of time. I don’t quite understand why everyone walks faster than me. Well we went through the questions and we found all the ones we were able to. It was sad because we didn’t get to see most of the city because of how we answered the questions but at least we weren’t last. We walked all around this certain area to find what we needed. It was cool because we got to see three Frank Gehry buildings. That was very cool. I’d never seen one before and It was cool to get to see my first. Other things we saw were parliament, a building that they used to sell coal out of, a sculpture that tells the resources currently being used in Germany, and a Tower that tells the time according to windows in the side of the column to the top. There were several other things as well. I got to see an interesting building sculpture of these weird amphibious creatures climbing the buildings. They were all bright neon colors. Other minor things I got to see was the Alte Rathaus, the Rhine and a brewery. It was a long morning trying to find all that stuff and dealing with Garrett and Jacob running off. Trisha wouldn’t shut up about how Brian and Tyler had left the other two people in their group behind so I know that’s why they were running. I stopped trying to keep up after a while. When that was finally over with, we headed to the restaurant that we were meeting at for lunch before our company visit in the last part of the day. This was a great restaurant. I loved the food that I got. Potato soup with smoked sausage inside; It was wonderful. The Rye bread that was served with it was amazing as well. After we ate Lars gave out the prizes for the scavenger hunt. Our group got third out of four groups. Fairly lame. First and second tied so they had to figure out what they wanted out of the prizes provided. I was happy with the third place prize which was a bread cutting board with the Frank Gehry houses imprinted on it. After lunch everyone headed outside. I waited on Jason because he left his jacket on the chair while he went to the restroom. Then we headed out and joined the group for the company visit. This one was the best one so far because the company we visited was a larger one and they actually knew before hand what they wanted to show us. It was very nice. We learned what game they were working on, called Civilization VII. The game comes out March 25 in Europe. I doubt I’ll be able to get it because I don’t know when it comes out in America. The studio was really cool as well. They had tons of posters and sculptures everywhere of famous games and they showed us some animations that they were doing for their game. We were able to talk to them more. It was just all around more interesting. After the game company it was time to head back to the train station and head home. It was a long day and now it was over.
Day 50, 3/11/2010
Thursday was not as exciting as Wednesday. We had studio in the morning where we basically did the same thing as we did in the last studio because they asked the same questions as before. We were also able to get our character a lot more nailed down as opposed to before when she wasn’t as clear. Oh, I don’t remember if I told you about our character. Basically she is a Monstress from the underworld that dreams of becoming a stewardess. She loves flying but hates anything else that can fly because she can’t. She kills the other things that can fly with her crossbow umbrella. The animation we have her doing will be something really simple because we don’t really have a lot of time to spend on this. I’m hoping that It will look impressive enough to use in a demo reel someday.
We worked on that in the morning, again I forgot my tablet. *face palm.* After studio that morning we had lunch then headed out for our second day of shooting with the film camera. We also used the afternoon to try to get permission to use the locations we scouted out for our time laps. First we decided to go to the Stern Hotel. This was the first place that we chose for a good location it was our first choice. After only talking to them for a few minutes, they told us no. It’s a good reason, so I didn’t argue the matter. Next we tried to see if a Fitness place would allow us to film for a little while out one of the windows. After they found out how long it would be they didn’t even want to talk anymore. So we were at a loss. We didn’t know what else to do so we headed to a location to do some more filming. This time we were going to work on trying to film some pigeons. This took the rest of our time. We filmed the birds and a few other shots to try and get our places covered. Then we headed back to the AIB to figure out what we needed to do to get this time laps recorded. We talked to Jens. He didn’t know what to do. So, we went to talk to Lars. He had some better ideas that might get us the location where we can film. We told him not to rush because we had a lot of time to get this done. It was no problem. After talking to him our day was done. I messed around making sure that we had our stuff written down that needed to be done and then I headed home to make sure I was ready for the next day, Spring Break. Again, I got to bed late.
Day 51 3/12/2010
This day was a long but awesome day that I don’t have time to write about now. First day of spring break.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Day 51 3/12/2010
This is another time that I will try very hard to catch up but I get on a plane for spring break in a couple of hours.
Day 45 3/6/2010
Today is Saturday. Trisha, Colton and I decided the day before that we wanted to go on a day trip somewhere. I ended up choosing Koblenz. There we several castles, fortress and a huge monument in Koblenz that we could go see. There were also several churches that I wanted to visit. We decided to meet at 9 first, however, when I checked the trains there wasn't a train leaving until around 10 so when I woke up that morning I called to ask if they were still coming then I told them not to go to the train station till around 9:30 so we weren't waiting around for an hour. Finally at 9:30 Trisha and I met up. We needed to get tickets so we messed with the machine. We still don't quite know how to work it so we sat there and messed with this machine almost too long. Finally we were able to get our tickets to head out. We got over to our platform and grabbed our train to Koblenz. This ride was about an hour and a half but it wasn't too bad. We were able to sit down and talk for the most part. When we got there we exited the train, and started to head toward town. Apparently, there was a soccer game that day and Colton was wearing the colors of the soccer team that was playing. The police stopped us before we could head out the correct exit and sent us the other way. We can only assume that it was because of Colton's scarf. We walked all the way out that end of the exit only to find that were on the wrong side the rail tracks. The town was on the other side and there was nothing on our side. We didn't know what to do because the police were at the other end. Finally we just decided to head back and when we got to the place that we were turned away the police weren't there so we just kept walking. When we came out of the station we decided to head toward the first monument in my book. This was at the meeting place of the Rhine River and the Mosel. This is the two largest rivers in Germany. We just started walking in the direction that we thought was right. Turns out, it wasn't exactly the right direction because apparently I suck at reading maps. We finally got to a street that I knew and there was a very pretty church there. We took pictures of that and tried to take a peek inside but the doors were locked. So we started heading down the street toward the monument at the river meeting place. It was enjoyable to go at our own pace and to actually enjoy the sites. We saw a few shops and stores but we decided to wait until later to shop. We eventually got down toward the monument. We passed an interesting building that Trisha and I both laughed at. It was basically a 'fortress' that the bishop of Cologne barricaded himself in because he was hiding from the people of Koblenz. They didn't like him very much I don't quite remember why. We also passed the Markt Platz, which isn't nearly as big as the one in Bonn because, I don't think it's used anymore. We also saw another church before we got all the way down to St. Castor's church. I think the exact order that we went in was first, Herz-Jesu-Kurche. Then we passed Alte Burg which was the fortress that the bishop barricaded in. After that we passed our second church and the first one we were allowed to enter called, Florineskurch. It was beautiful. All the vaults were painted and there were nice sculptures all over. There was also a pretty tapestry on the wall behind the baptismal altar. There were several nice praying areas on either side of the altar. After the church we continued to walk toward the monument. The next thing that we reached was Alte Berg even though at the time we didn't know the importance. Now I know because I was doing research after the fact. The last thing that we saw before we saw the monument was St. Castor Kurche (church). This was another building that we were able to go inside and see and another one that I was impressed with. It was beautiful. I loved this church again with the painted rib vaults and ceiling. There were other things in the cloisters but the roof was the best part. Finally we arrived at Deutsches Eck. This is the place where the rivers meet. This was neat because there was a flag for every region along the water. I'm guessing the flags for the regions down the Mosel on the Mosel side of the point and the flags for the regions down the Rhine on the other side. Either way it was neat. I was able to pick out the flag for Bonn. The monument that was there was a replica of the original built in 1895 the first one was destroyed in the World Wars. This was a huge Equestrian statue with King Wilhem I riding it. He was decked out in the fancy clothing of the Royals or course. We were able to walk up the stairs that lead to the gigantic pedestal that this statue was on. It was like a small temple without the altar underneath him. The pedestal was open with columns so we were able to go up there and look out over the convergence of the waters and the town of Koblenz. After a while we decided it was time to go see something else. We walked down the Rhine for a while toward the bridge that would take us to the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress on the other side, just to run into construction that blocked of the path that ran along the water. This was frustrating because I wanted to walk along the river. We doubled back to try to find a way around that wasn't too bad because the road are nearly square. During this we decided to grab some lunch. We ended up stopping at a shop that sold pizzas. This was alright. Trisha and I split a pepperoni and cheese pizza. It was ok even though the pepperoni's weren't really pepperoni but they were some kind of spicy meat. We walked down the streets and I think this is when we found the Markt Platz... Or it may have been called something else. We also found a shop to look in but there really wasn't much in there. We eventually made it to Rheinbrucke Bridge. This was when the temperature dropped and the show was falling upward because of the wind and the water combination. It was very cold walking across that bridge. We got to the other side and the snow that was falling was huge. The clumps were bigger than my thumb. We spent our time walking down the road toward the Fortress because that was our destination. We walked throught the small 'town' that is now a part of Koblenz. We got to see yet another church. This time we couldn't go in. Then we kept walking along the river to try to find the fortress. Part of the way we ended up walking along the river bank because of some more construction. I was determined to stay on the road that went along the river. It was cool because we weren't walking on pavement it was the actual river bank. When we got to the end to start walking up to the bridge there was a cluster of Mallards. This was cool because the all thought we had food so they all came waddling up to us to get some, quacking the whole way. It was quite amusing. After Trisha and I shot some pictures, we continued on our way. At one point we walking through some of the buildings but for the most part we stuck to the river till it was time to climb the hill up to the Fortress. This was an awesome looking place but unfortunately we would find out when we got to the top that the place was closed till later in the year. That made me sad because it looked like an interesting place to go. At this point we had made it up to the typical entrance to the place but again we found it closed. Then Trisha spotted a set of stairs that led up. So we decided to climb them. This ended up being a great idea. We got to see the small part of the fortress that was on those stairs and when we got to the top we found an open gate leading out onto a part of the fortress that provided us with an incredible view. It was amazing because we were higher than the town and we were able to get an awesome picture of the city line. After that we climbed back down. At that time I needed to go to the restroom so we tried to find the cafe that we saw earlier on our way up there. After we found it we bought a desert because it would be rude to use the bathroom and not buy anything, plus I'm not entirely sure they would let me otherwise. After we bought the pastery we headed back the way we came because we didn't want to get lost. This wasn't too bad because we got to walk along the water again. It was ok we got to see the ducks again. This was about the time that we wanted to head home. However I had some other things I wanted to see. So we headed over the bridge then to the left of the bridge was a VERY small wine 'village.' In the guide book it said that it was just a replica. However it was still interesting to go look at. Before we went inside Trisha spotted a pair of unusual geese. They were very pretty because of the coloring. I liked them quite a bit. After we got some pictures I started to head toward the village area. However, Trisha decided to chase them which was quite amusing because they refuse to fly so I got to see a goose run out right. We peeked into the village and looked around there wasn't much to see it was just three buildings grouped around a small patio area. Then we headed to the other place I wanted to see. This was the highest point in Koblenz because the Fortress was technically in the other town. There was church placed at this point called the Church of Our Lady, or Liebfrauenkirche. This was by far my most favorite church. Although I kinda wish we had seen it earlier because we walked right past it a few blocks over. We sat inside and just looked around this one. The vaults were again painted but it was the best out of the three that we saw. This one was also darker inside but still very awe inspiring. I got quite a few pictures of this one like anything else that I take pictures of. After that we stopped by a shop that I bought a spoon at for mom but since I didn’t find anything for myself I don’t think I’ll be giving it to her. At this point all three of us were very tired and we decided it was a good time to head home. We grabbed the train back to Bonn and we actually got there before the sun went down. Colton said goodbye and Trisha and I grabbed the train we usually catch then when we got to our stop we went our separate ways as well. When I got home I talked to Sean for a while then I practically fell into bed.
Day 45 3/6/2010
Today is Saturday. Trisha, Colton and I decided the day before that we wanted to go on a day trip somewhere. I ended up choosing Koblenz. There we several castles, fortress and a huge monument in Koblenz that we could go see. There were also several churches that I wanted to visit. We decided to meet at 9 first, however, when I checked the trains there wasn't a train leaving until around 10 so when I woke up that morning I called to ask if they were still coming then I told them not to go to the train station till around 9:30 so we weren't waiting around for an hour. Finally at 9:30 Trisha and I met up. We needed to get tickets so we messed with the machine. We still don't quite know how to work it so we sat there and messed with this machine almost too long. Finally we were able to get our tickets to head out. We got over to our platform and grabbed our train to Koblenz. This ride was about an hour and a half but it wasn't too bad. We were able to sit down and talk for the most part. When we got there we exited the train, and started to head toward town. Apparently, there was a soccer game that day and Colton was wearing the colors of the soccer team that was playing. The police stopped us before we could head out the correct exit and sent us the other way. We can only assume that it was because of Colton's scarf. We walked all the way out that end of the exit only to find that were on the wrong side the rail tracks. The town was on the other side and there was nothing on our side. We didn't know what to do because the police were at the other end. Finally we just decided to head back and when we got to the place that we were turned away the police weren't there so we just kept walking. When we came out of the station we decided to head toward the first monument in my book. This was at the meeting place of the Rhine River and the Mosel. This is the two largest rivers in Germany. We just started walking in the direction that we thought was right. Turns out, it wasn't exactly the right direction because apparently I suck at reading maps. We finally got to a street that I knew and there was a very pretty church there. We took pictures of that and tried to take a peek inside but the doors were locked. So we started heading down the street toward the monument at the river meeting place. It was enjoyable to go at our own pace and to actually enjoy the sites. We saw a few shops and stores but we decided to wait until later to shop. We eventually got down toward the monument. We passed an interesting building that Trisha and I both laughed at. It was basically a 'fortress' that the bishop of Cologne barricaded himself in because he was hiding from the people of Koblenz. They didn't like him very much I don't quite remember why. We also passed the Markt Platz, which isn't nearly as big as the one in Bonn because, I don't think it's used anymore. We also saw another church before we got all the way down to St. Castor's church. I think the exact order that we went in was first, Herz-Jesu-Kurche. Then we passed Alte Burg which was the fortress that the bishop barricaded in. After that we passed our second church and the first one we were allowed to enter called, Florineskurch. It was beautiful. All the vaults were painted and there were nice sculptures all over. There was also a pretty tapestry on the wall behind the baptismal altar. There were several nice praying areas on either side of the altar. After the church we continued to walk toward the monument. The next thing that we reached was Alte Berg even though at the time we didn't know the importance. Now I know because I was doing research after the fact. The last thing that we saw before we saw the monument was St. Castor Kurche (church). This was another building that we were able to go inside and see and another one that I was impressed with. It was beautiful. I loved this church again with the painted rib vaults and ceiling. There were other things in the cloisters but the roof was the best part. Finally we arrived at Deutsches Eck. This is the place where the rivers meet. This was neat because there was a flag for every region along the water. I'm guessing the flags for the regions down the Mosel on the Mosel side of the point and the flags for the regions down the Rhine on the other side. Either way it was neat. I was able to pick out the flag for Bonn. The monument that was there was a replica of the original built in 1895 the first one was destroyed in the World Wars. This was a huge Equestrian statue with King Wilhem I riding it. He was decked out in the fancy clothing of the Royals or course. We were able to walk up the stairs that lead to the gigantic pedestal that this statue was on. It was like a small temple without the altar underneath him. The pedestal was open with columns so we were able to go up there and look out over the convergence of the waters and the town of Koblenz. After a while we decided it was time to go see something else. We walked down the Rhine for a while toward the bridge that would take us to the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress on the other side, just to run into construction that blocked of the path that ran along the water. This was frustrating because I wanted to walk along the river. We doubled back to try to find a way around that wasn't too bad because the road are nearly square. During this we decided to grab some lunch. We ended up stopping at a shop that sold pizzas. This was alright. Trisha and I split a pepperoni and cheese pizza. It was ok even though the pepperoni's weren't really pepperoni but they were some kind of spicy meat. We walked down the streets and I think this is when we found the Markt Platz... Or it may have been called something else. We also found a shop to look in but there really wasn't much in there. We eventually made it to Rheinbrucke Bridge. This was when the temperature dropped and the show was falling upward because of the wind and the water combination. It was very cold walking across that bridge. We got to the other side and the snow that was falling was huge. The clumps were bigger than my thumb. We spent our time walking down the road toward the Fortress because that was our destination. We walked throught the small 'town' that is now a part of Koblenz. We got to see yet another church. This time we couldn't go in. Then we kept walking along the river to try to find the fortress. Part of the way we ended up walking along the river bank because of some more construction. I was determined to stay on the road that went along the river. It was cool because we weren't walking on pavement it was the actual river bank. When we got to the end to start walking up to the bridge there was a cluster of Mallards. This was cool because the all thought we had food so they all came waddling up to us to get some, quacking the whole way. It was quite amusing. After Trisha and I shot some pictures, we continued on our way. At one point we walking through some of the buildings but for the most part we stuck to the river till it was time to climb the hill up to the Fortress. This was an awesome looking place but unfortunately we would find out when we got to the top that the place was closed till later in the year. That made me sad because it looked like an interesting place to go. At this point we had made it up to the typical entrance to the place but again we found it closed. Then Trisha spotted a set of stairs that led up. So we decided to climb them. This ended up being a great idea. We got to see the small part of the fortress that was on those stairs and when we got to the top we found an open gate leading out onto a part of the fortress that provided us with an incredible view. It was amazing because we were higher than the town and we were able to get an awesome picture of the city line. After that we climbed back down. At that time I needed to go to the restroom so we tried to find the cafe that we saw earlier on our way up there. After we found it we bought a desert because it would be rude to use the bathroom and not buy anything, plus I'm not entirely sure they would let me otherwise. After we bought the pastery we headed back the way we came because we didn't want to get lost. This wasn't too bad because we got to walk along the water again. It was ok we got to see the ducks again. This was about the time that we wanted to head home. However I had some other things I wanted to see. So we headed over the bridge then to the left of the bridge was a VERY small wine 'village.' In the guide book it said that it was just a replica. However it was still interesting to go look at. Before we went inside Trisha spotted a pair of unusual geese. They were very pretty because of the coloring. I liked them quite a bit. After we got some pictures I started to head toward the village area. However, Trisha decided to chase them which was quite amusing because they refuse to fly so I got to see a goose run out right. We peeked into the village and looked around there wasn't much to see it was just three buildings grouped around a small patio area. Then we headed to the other place I wanted to see. This was the highest point in Koblenz because the Fortress was technically in the other town. There was church placed at this point called the Church of Our Lady, or Liebfrauenkirche. This was by far my most favorite church. Although I kinda wish we had seen it earlier because we walked right past it a few blocks over. We sat inside and just looked around this one. The vaults were again painted but it was the best out of the three that we saw. This one was also darker inside but still very awe inspiring. I got quite a few pictures of this one like anything else that I take pictures of. After that we stopped by a shop that I bought a spoon at for mom but since I didn’t find anything for myself I don’t think I’ll be giving it to her. At this point all three of us were very tired and we decided it was a good time to head home. We grabbed the train back to Bonn and we actually got there before the sun went down. Colton said goodbye and Trisha and I grabbed the train we usually catch then when we got to our stop we went our separate ways as well. When I got home I talked to Sean for a while then I practically fell into bed.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Day 49 3/10/2010
Day 44 3/5/2010
I think I might be able to catch up today... again this is a big maybe. You saw how those claims went at the beginning of my other blog entries.
Well this was a Friday and another long day. We had our videography class from Wednesday rescheduled for this afternoon. It was alright though because we were able to get some things done that made our life easier for next week. First, Jenz started the day with passing out the cameras to the groups then we were sent out on the town to find what we could find and see if we could figure out how the camera works. This was our first day of actually getting to use a camera. It wasn't too bad for our first time. Colton, my partner, and I started with heading over to the castle gate area where there are lots of pigeons and places to eat that attracts the pigeons. We recorded the birds for a while to see if it could actually be done. It worked out fairly well. Next we went up to the upper part of this area where the actual food places were and we decided to record a few minutes of the walking street right below these restaurants. It was just a little higher than the street so it wasn't exactly the best place but there was a lot of movement so it worked for a time laps. We did a time laps setting so that we could make it look like time was moving very fast. We messed with different settings there. After that we headed to a different location. We didn't really have one in mind so we just decided to walk around and see what was available. We walked all over the place looking for something that would work. We looked up and down different streets then we found a place that seemed to be the perfect spot. There wasn't a lot of street traffic and there was some interesting visuals that we could include in the film. One thing that we did was film this location while using a cup, that Colton pulled out of a trash can. We did different things with it. Over and over again to get just the right timing. We tried several different situations for this. Then after that it was about lunch time. We headed over to Markt Platz so we could take another time laps and eat lunch. I had to borrow money from Colton to get some food. Then we ate and watched the time laps till we felt we had enough and headed back to the AIB. We got there and reviewed what we had recorded to make sure that we had the zoom numbers written down correctly. Although, I don't think that we got them right even there at the end. We finished that and we had a review in class over what was on the tapes and what we could improve and what we did right. The class ended right after that and we all made our way home. It was yet again the usual routine then I went to bed.
I think I might be able to catch up today... again this is a big maybe. You saw how those claims went at the beginning of my other blog entries.
Well this was a Friday and another long day. We had our videography class from Wednesday rescheduled for this afternoon. It was alright though because we were able to get some things done that made our life easier for next week. First, Jenz started the day with passing out the cameras to the groups then we were sent out on the town to find what we could find and see if we could figure out how the camera works. This was our first day of actually getting to use a camera. It wasn't too bad for our first time. Colton, my partner, and I started with heading over to the castle gate area where there are lots of pigeons and places to eat that attracts the pigeons. We recorded the birds for a while to see if it could actually be done. It worked out fairly well. Next we went up to the upper part of this area where the actual food places were and we decided to record a few minutes of the walking street right below these restaurants. It was just a little higher than the street so it wasn't exactly the best place but there was a lot of movement so it worked for a time laps. We did a time laps setting so that we could make it look like time was moving very fast. We messed with different settings there. After that we headed to a different location. We didn't really have one in mind so we just decided to walk around and see what was available. We walked all over the place looking for something that would work. We looked up and down different streets then we found a place that seemed to be the perfect spot. There wasn't a lot of street traffic and there was some interesting visuals that we could include in the film. One thing that we did was film this location while using a cup, that Colton pulled out of a trash can. We did different things with it. Over and over again to get just the right timing. We tried several different situations for this. Then after that it was about lunch time. We headed over to Markt Platz so we could take another time laps and eat lunch. I had to borrow money from Colton to get some food. Then we ate and watched the time laps till we felt we had enough and headed back to the AIB. We got there and reviewed what we had recorded to make sure that we had the zoom numbers written down correctly. Although, I don't think that we got them right even there at the end. We finished that and we had a review in class over what was on the tapes and what we could improve and what we did right. The class ended right after that and we all made our way home. It was yet again the usual routine then I went to bed.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Day 48, 3/9/2010; Maybe today is the day
Day 41 3/2/2010
Ok now I can talk about this day. Maybe today I'll finish it... no I probably won't..
Well this was Tuesday. It was a very long day. We had to be up at the school at the normal time but we wouldn't finish for the day till way late. We started the day with videography again. Today was just another lecture because we weren't ready to mess with the cameras yet. We went through that part of the day with nothing more exciting happening than me taking notes and everyone else messing with their computers. We didn't really pay attention because this is stuff that we've been over before. Right after that we had lunch then the last half of the day was studio. Today we were to start a new project because we finished the last one last Thursday. We were to split up into groups of two. Today was not a good day for me emotionally. I was beginning to get that left out feeling again. Then I get stuck with the person that no one else likes either as a partner for the rest of the semester. It kinda sux. It was just like Jr. high when you know no one else really likes you that much and you get stuck with the only other person that they don't like more than you. Well we got our character. I wasn't too happy about it because I couldn't think of anything at first. She is a Monstress, shes half pretty half ugly. Shes obsessed with flying and hates flies and mosquitoes. That was all they told us, O and she dreams of being a stewardess. So we had to come up with a character analysis based on the questions they provided. It was rather difficult. We came up with one though and it was a good one. After we did that I started to try to draw her but it was little difficult. We spent the rest of the day coming up with her story. After that we presented her to the rest of the class. Everyone else presented as well and the day was over. I didn't have much else to do so I headed home.
Day 42 3/3/2010
Today class was canceled for both. The last game class was suppose to be today and the videography class was moved to Friday. I ended up sleeping most of the day. Again. I didn't want to go anywhere. I also spent part of the morning taking pictures for an assignment that we had due the next day. Vanessa came home early today and I didn't take the bath I wanted to take because she was here. So I messed around in my room and talked to Sean over the internet. I should have gone out and done something but I didn't want to go anywhere. I was tired from having to get up early and the next week we would have to get up even earlier. This was all that I did this day.
Day 43 3/4/2010
This was one of our excursion days. We had several company visits as well as class. We didn't have to meet up till around 10 so it was ok that I slept a little later. We were also meeting up at the hauptbahnhof which cuts off most of my travel time in the morning so I can leave later in the day. I got to the hauptbahnhof and we caught one of the region trains over to Bad Godesberg. Our first excursion was to a movie theater. This was really interesting because we were able to go behind the scenes and learn about the projector and how they get the movies out to the customer. We were allowed to inspect a normal analog projector as well as a 3D digital projector. This movie theater was named Kinopolis. We didn't learn much about the history but we did get to see the giant plates that the film sits on and is how it is realed out to the projector then respooled after its finished. basically the film is pulled from the center then respooled so that all they have to do is move the reel back to the top plate if they want to start the movie again. The reels are huge. At least three foot in diameter and they looked incredibly heavy. There was also a movie playing while we were there so we were able to see the reel as it was moving through the projector. He also talked about the distribution of the reels and the digital films. He told us how they get the sound to work in the entire theater. Which is also really cool. They have perfect surround sound in every chair so you have the optimal seat no matter where you sit. I found that the most interesting. What else did we talk about? O I also forgot to mention that he told us all this through Jens our Videographer professor because he didn't speak English very well. Another thing was that he told us all this while we were standing around these projectors and watching him point out the different parts of the projector. He turned it on and also showed us how fast the thing actually moves. There are huge light bulbs in these projectors that the projectionist has to know when to change them they can work for up to 4000 hours of movie time but it depends on the watts. These bulbs have at least 4000 Watts. They cost close to that much as well so its the mark of a good projectionist if he knows exactly when to change the bulb so he doesn't waste the theaters money because these bulbs cost several thousand Euro. We asked a lot of questions that I don't remember because there were so many. After that we presented the theater owner some candy and it was time to go. Basically we got there he met us down stairs we walked up to the projection room. We talked and he talked. Then we walked over to the projection room that was showing a movie. We looked at how the whole thing works and how the film is taken in by the projector and then respooled on the bottom plate. Then we walked back to the first room. Talked some more and looked at the projector some more. Then we were done. We walked down stairs said our Thanks and goodbyes then left. By then it was time for lunch. Ariana wanted to take us to another student cafeteria that was near one of the stops on our train. We hoped off the train when she told us to and headed to eat. When we got there there were two lines. One to go upstairs to get Essen 2 and a line downstairs to get Essen 1. Essen 1 was a Cannelloni plate with tomato sauce. I didn't feel like chicken and I was the only one that wanted that plate so I went to stand in line for that one while everyone else went upstairs for number two. I got my meal and headed up the stairs to meet with my group because that was where Ariana wanted to eat. I got up there and none of them had finished getting their plate so I sat down where there was enough room for us but she found a better table. Before I could even start eating at the first place I sat down she waved me over to the new table. I gathered my stuff and went over there. It was just two tables away so it wasn't that bad. I sat down and we ate and of course talked and laughed. After lunch we caught a train back to get to the AIB because we had a small lecture session that we needed to do before the excursion in the last part of the day. This was mainly about the pictures that we took for an assignment. We spent the class period looking at and critiquing peoples pictures. Right after that we were late heading out. So, instead of waiting for Jens and the rest of the class several of us just left to get to the hauptbahnhof on time and we were still a little late. When we got there Lars wasn't happy that we were the only ones there. It didn't matter because the rest were right behind us and the train showed up right as they got there. We hopped on the train to head to Cologne for our company visit. This was another gaming company. This one was the worst out of all of them. We got there and headed up stairs to their level. First, they had us do a survey and it turned out to be pointless. I don't quite understand the point of it. Not that I wouldn't take the opportunity it was like they were using us for some reason. I guess it was for a study they needed in relation to a conservation game they are working on. All the questions had to do with energy and similar things. After that we had a brief showing of the two games that they have worked on featuring what they focus on the most. I was only impressed with the lip sync educational game that they had created. Otherwise the presentation didn't make it too interesting. We talked to two of the employees there about what they do and that was the extent of the visit. Trisha and I lingered behind to talk to an artists that works there doing concept art. Lars and Jens lingered too to let us talk while everyone else went outside to wait. After a few minutes Lars asked us to come on and we reluctantly left. After that we made our way back to the train station to catch the train home. Trisha, Catie and I caught our usual train and then the day was done. Normal routine at home then bed.
BTW the normal routine is me getting here unlocking both doors to get in because that is how you open them is with a key there isn't a handle on the outside. Usually I have to go up the outer stairs because Trudy leaves her keys in the bottom inside door and they are usually pushed too far in so I can't unlock that door so I have to go up the stairs and go in the upper floor. This is ok because my bedroom is on the second floor. I go in drop my jacket, scarf and sometimes gloves in my bedroom. Then I go to the bathroom and then I usually get on my computer till 7 depending on what time I get home. I eat at 7 or around 7. Then I go back to my computer where ever I've ended up. It all depends on the internet. Sometimes I can get it in my room for a while then it turns off and I have to come down stairs. Other times it works just fine the entire time I'm on and I can stay upstairs. Other times, that is most of the time lately, I have to come down stairs and plug into the router next to the couch. I usually sit here the rest of the night messing with the computer till its time for 'bed.' In other words when Sean gets off for my own good. Other wise I would stay up much later talking much longer and he knows it. So after he and I get off I usually finish whatever I was doing, usually messing with facebook. Then I go upstairs. Some times I end up reading and that takes up longer that I should let it, or I go right to sleep. Which is what I should do every night but don't.
Ok now I can talk about this day. Maybe today I'll finish it... no I probably won't..
Well this was Tuesday. It was a very long day. We had to be up at the school at the normal time but we wouldn't finish for the day till way late. We started the day with videography again. Today was just another lecture because we weren't ready to mess with the cameras yet. We went through that part of the day with nothing more exciting happening than me taking notes and everyone else messing with their computers. We didn't really pay attention because this is stuff that we've been over before. Right after that we had lunch then the last half of the day was studio. Today we were to start a new project because we finished the last one last Thursday. We were to split up into groups of two. Today was not a good day for me emotionally. I was beginning to get that left out feeling again. Then I get stuck with the person that no one else likes either as a partner for the rest of the semester. It kinda sux. It was just like Jr. high when you know no one else really likes you that much and you get stuck with the only other person that they don't like more than you. Well we got our character. I wasn't too happy about it because I couldn't think of anything at first. She is a Monstress, shes half pretty half ugly. Shes obsessed with flying and hates flies and mosquitoes. That was all they told us, O and she dreams of being a stewardess. So we had to come up with a character analysis based on the questions they provided. It was rather difficult. We came up with one though and it was a good one. After we did that I started to try to draw her but it was little difficult. We spent the rest of the day coming up with her story. After that we presented her to the rest of the class. Everyone else presented as well and the day was over. I didn't have much else to do so I headed home.
Day 42 3/3/2010
Today class was canceled for both. The last game class was suppose to be today and the videography class was moved to Friday. I ended up sleeping most of the day. Again. I didn't want to go anywhere. I also spent part of the morning taking pictures for an assignment that we had due the next day. Vanessa came home early today and I didn't take the bath I wanted to take because she was here. So I messed around in my room and talked to Sean over the internet. I should have gone out and done something but I didn't want to go anywhere. I was tired from having to get up early and the next week we would have to get up even earlier. This was all that I did this day.
Day 43 3/4/2010
This was one of our excursion days. We had several company visits as well as class. We didn't have to meet up till around 10 so it was ok that I slept a little later. We were also meeting up at the hauptbahnhof which cuts off most of my travel time in the morning so I can leave later in the day. I got to the hauptbahnhof and we caught one of the region trains over to Bad Godesberg. Our first excursion was to a movie theater. This was really interesting because we were able to go behind the scenes and learn about the projector and how they get the movies out to the customer. We were allowed to inspect a normal analog projector as well as a 3D digital projector. This movie theater was named Kinopolis. We didn't learn much about the history but we did get to see the giant plates that the film sits on and is how it is realed out to the projector then respooled after its finished. basically the film is pulled from the center then respooled so that all they have to do is move the reel back to the top plate if they want to start the movie again. The reels are huge. At least three foot in diameter and they looked incredibly heavy. There was also a movie playing while we were there so we were able to see the reel as it was moving through the projector. He also talked about the distribution of the reels and the digital films. He told us how they get the sound to work in the entire theater. Which is also really cool. They have perfect surround sound in every chair so you have the optimal seat no matter where you sit. I found that the most interesting. What else did we talk about? O I also forgot to mention that he told us all this through Jens our Videographer professor because he didn't speak English very well. Another thing was that he told us all this while we were standing around these projectors and watching him point out the different parts of the projector. He turned it on and also showed us how fast the thing actually moves. There are huge light bulbs in these projectors that the projectionist has to know when to change them they can work for up to 4000 hours of movie time but it depends on the watts. These bulbs have at least 4000 Watts. They cost close to that much as well so its the mark of a good projectionist if he knows exactly when to change the bulb so he doesn't waste the theaters money because these bulbs cost several thousand Euro. We asked a lot of questions that I don't remember because there were so many. After that we presented the theater owner some candy and it was time to go. Basically we got there he met us down stairs we walked up to the projection room. We talked and he talked. Then we walked over to the projection room that was showing a movie. We looked at how the whole thing works and how the film is taken in by the projector and then respooled on the bottom plate. Then we walked back to the first room. Talked some more and looked at the projector some more. Then we were done. We walked down stairs said our Thanks and goodbyes then left. By then it was time for lunch. Ariana wanted to take us to another student cafeteria that was near one of the stops on our train. We hoped off the train when she told us to and headed to eat. When we got there there were two lines. One to go upstairs to get Essen 2 and a line downstairs to get Essen 1. Essen 1 was a Cannelloni plate with tomato sauce. I didn't feel like chicken and I was the only one that wanted that plate so I went to stand in line for that one while everyone else went upstairs for number two. I got my meal and headed up the stairs to meet with my group because that was where Ariana wanted to eat. I got up there and none of them had finished getting their plate so I sat down where there was enough room for us but she found a better table. Before I could even start eating at the first place I sat down she waved me over to the new table. I gathered my stuff and went over there. It was just two tables away so it wasn't that bad. I sat down and we ate and of course talked and laughed. After lunch we caught a train back to get to the AIB because we had a small lecture session that we needed to do before the excursion in the last part of the day. This was mainly about the pictures that we took for an assignment. We spent the class period looking at and critiquing peoples pictures. Right after that we were late heading out. So, instead of waiting for Jens and the rest of the class several of us just left to get to the hauptbahnhof on time and we were still a little late. When we got there Lars wasn't happy that we were the only ones there. It didn't matter because the rest were right behind us and the train showed up right as they got there. We hopped on the train to head to Cologne for our company visit. This was another gaming company. This one was the worst out of all of them. We got there and headed up stairs to their level. First, they had us do a survey and it turned out to be pointless. I don't quite understand the point of it. Not that I wouldn't take the opportunity it was like they were using us for some reason. I guess it was for a study they needed in relation to a conservation game they are working on. All the questions had to do with energy and similar things. After that we had a brief showing of the two games that they have worked on featuring what they focus on the most. I was only impressed with the lip sync educational game that they had created. Otherwise the presentation didn't make it too interesting. We talked to two of the employees there about what they do and that was the extent of the visit. Trisha and I lingered behind to talk to an artists that works there doing concept art. Lars and Jens lingered too to let us talk while everyone else went outside to wait. After a few minutes Lars asked us to come on and we reluctantly left. After that we made our way back to the train station to catch the train home. Trisha, Catie and I caught our usual train and then the day was done. Normal routine at home then bed.
BTW the normal routine is me getting here unlocking both doors to get in because that is how you open them is with a key there isn't a handle on the outside. Usually I have to go up the outer stairs because Trudy leaves her keys in the bottom inside door and they are usually pushed too far in so I can't unlock that door so I have to go up the stairs and go in the upper floor. This is ok because my bedroom is on the second floor. I go in drop my jacket, scarf and sometimes gloves in my bedroom. Then I go to the bathroom and then I usually get on my computer till 7 depending on what time I get home. I eat at 7 or around 7. Then I go back to my computer where ever I've ended up. It all depends on the internet. Sometimes I can get it in my room for a while then it turns off and I have to come down stairs. Other times it works just fine the entire time I'm on and I can stay upstairs. Other times, that is most of the time lately, I have to come down stairs and plug into the router next to the couch. I usually sit here the rest of the night messing with the computer till its time for 'bed.' In other words when Sean gets off for my own good. Other wise I would stay up much later talking much longer and he knows it. So after he and I get off I usually finish whatever I was doing, usually messing with facebook. Then I go upstairs. Some times I end up reading and that takes up longer that I should let it, or I go right to sleep. Which is what I should do every night but don't.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Day 47 3/8/2010 still not talking about the right day here
Day 36 2/25/2010
This was another extremely busy day. We didn't do much else except try to get our work done on our project that was due that day. We had game history in the morning. After that we grabbed lunch and we worked. That was what the afternoon ended up being like. Talking to our group and getting our stuff done. I was the official render-er. I cranked them out. Although I was getting irritated because they wouldn't put the files I wanted in the right folders. So I would have to go find them. After that was done we had to present over the internet for the final time for that project and we were finished. That was the entire day cut down to a paragraph. It wasn't a really exciting day.
Day 37 2/26/2010
This day was Friday and we didn't have any class luckily. I ended up sleeping most of the day like I usually do when I don't have class. Like I said I slept most of the day. I also spent part of the day going through my souvenirs and talking to both mom and Sean. I didn't do much else for that day. Also I forgot to mention that during the day I got some help from one of the student workers. He called the Cologne Airport to see what I needed to do to get my ipod back. He called the airliner first and they gave him a number to call. Then he called them for me. Finally I was able to get some instructions in order to get my ipod back. That was when I decided to make planes with Alvaro, and David to go to Cologne so while we were there I could get my ipod.
Day 38 2/27/2010
Today was a good day. I had made plans the day before to meet up with Alvaro and David so we could go to Cologne and find stuff to do. So at around 10 I left the house to meet up with them at 11 at the hauptbahnhof. I waited for them and finally David showed up and told me that Alvaro had missed his bus so he would be a little late. After he got there we caught our train to Cologne. This time I handled the tickets and we didn't get charged un-necessarily. When we got there the first thing that we wanted to do was to go get some food. I had a restaurant that I found in my book we tried to find. Once we did find it, down one of the roads near the dom, they decided that it was too expensive and that they wanted to find a different place to eat. This was after we walked all the way to the Rhine and back looking for the place. We ended up going down several more streets then into a shopping center. When we were in there we found a Chinese food buffet and decided that that would do. We grabbed some food and then finally decided what we wanted to do and off we went. First we went down stairs to the grocery store to get some bottles of soda to drink for the day. I got a big bottle of Sprite. Then we were off again. The first place we went was a museum. Another amazing place. This building was built around the dining room floor of a Roman Villa found in 1944 when they were trying to build a bomb shelter. They didn't move it when they built the building so it is in its original location. They also had tons of Pottery and glass jars. There were busts and statues of course. They also had pieces of buildings. The other really neat thing that I spent a lot of time looking at was the jewelery and the statutes that they had from all over the place. There were statues not only from Roman Gods but also from Persian and Egyptian gods. David and Alvaro ended up waiting for me because I walk so slowly through these places. It was just a really interesting place and I loved that place more than most other places. When we finished there we walked around some more. We went over to the old town to see if we could find some buildings to look at and we also we walked down the river to see if there was another museum we might want to go look in. We got there and went inside and it was sweltering hot. Then we looked at the price and it was 7.50 Euro to go in. Again if you didn't notice from earlier David and Alvaro are kinda cheap. We didn't go in because they didn't want to spend that much money. I milled around while they checked out the chocolate store inside the museum. Then we walked back to the Dom and the hauptbahnhof. That was when we went our separate ways. This was when I decided to head to the flughafen (airport) to see if I could get my ipod back. So I gave then the group ticket that I bought earlier that day and then I bought myself a ticket to go to the airport then back to Bonn from Cologne. I grabbed the train to the airport. When I got there I followed the instructions to get to the building I needed to get to. When I got there I realized that the worker didn't speak English. This was a frustrating 20 minutes while I worked out what he wanted and then, he asked for my passport... Guess what I left. You guessed it. So crap I had no way to identify myself except my Texas Drivers License. I showed him that but he didn't understand that it was my id and not my credit card or something. I kept trying to tell him that it was my id. then he needed my Bonn address and I didn't have that so I had to give him the address to AIB which I figured was good enough. I gave him what I could give him because I didn't always know what he wanted. I also ended up giving him my drivers license number because I didn't have my passport. After that I went right back to the train platform to catch the train first to Cologne Central Station then to Bonn. While I was riding the train my ipod ended up dying. It was a really good thing that it died then and not while I was still at the airport because he needed to see something on the ipod that proved it was mine. There really isn't anything like that on an ipod. I purposely left off personal information. But I found on the 'About' page that it said 'Hali's Ipod.' So luckily he took that as enough identification. Well I got back to Bonn and met with the guys at the AIB building. I kinda wish I had just gone home because I was wanting to go to a birthday party that one of the guys was throwing but he didn't invite me and he wouldn't answer his phone so I couldn't find out if he was ok if I came so I ended up just sitting up at the AIB talking to Sean on the computer. After a couple of hours I headed. home. The reason I didn't go home right away is because I had told my host mom that I was going to the birthday party and wasn't able to meet with someone she wanted me to meet. But, it ended up working ok. I came home and stayed up for a while again reading and talking to Sean then bed.
Day 39 2/28/2010
This was the last day of February and a Sunday. I didn't do much and nothing really happened. I didn't go anywhere and Trudy's mom didn't come over...Lets see. What else did I not do? haha. I just organized and lazed because I had no homework.
Day 40 3/1/2010
Well this was our first day of two weeks worth of videography. We had a lecture for the first class he gave us notes and began to tell us the basics that we need to know for videography. That was how we spent the morning then we had lunch and it was time for our last video game class till after Spring Break. We were suppose to have another one on Wednesday but he canceled. Trisha and Catie presented and we were able to talk about the point and click adventures that they presented. It was yet again quite an interesting class. After that we had nothing to do but fart around. I messed with my computer till I felt like going home. Same stuff happened at home as every night. Also mom sent a package out to me that I should have got by the next Monday but (Today is Monday I haven't got it yet).
Day 41 3/2/2010
Finally I've got caught up to under a week from being behind. YAY!! and now I don't want to write anymore. I finish tomorrow.
This was another extremely busy day. We didn't do much else except try to get our work done on our project that was due that day. We had game history in the morning. After that we grabbed lunch and we worked. That was what the afternoon ended up being like. Talking to our group and getting our stuff done. I was the official render-er. I cranked them out. Although I was getting irritated because they wouldn't put the files I wanted in the right folders. So I would have to go find them. After that was done we had to present over the internet for the final time for that project and we were finished. That was the entire day cut down to a paragraph. It wasn't a really exciting day.
Day 37 2/26/2010
This day was Friday and we didn't have any class luckily. I ended up sleeping most of the day like I usually do when I don't have class. Like I said I slept most of the day. I also spent part of the day going through my souvenirs and talking to both mom and Sean. I didn't do much else for that day. Also I forgot to mention that during the day I got some help from one of the student workers. He called the Cologne Airport to see what I needed to do to get my ipod back. He called the airliner first and they gave him a number to call. Then he called them for me. Finally I was able to get some instructions in order to get my ipod back. That was when I decided to make planes with Alvaro, and David to go to Cologne so while we were there I could get my ipod.
Day 38 2/27/2010
Today was a good day. I had made plans the day before to meet up with Alvaro and David so we could go to Cologne and find stuff to do. So at around 10 I left the house to meet up with them at 11 at the hauptbahnhof. I waited for them and finally David showed up and told me that Alvaro had missed his bus so he would be a little late. After he got there we caught our train to Cologne. This time I handled the tickets and we didn't get charged un-necessarily. When we got there the first thing that we wanted to do was to go get some food. I had a restaurant that I found in my book we tried to find. Once we did find it, down one of the roads near the dom, they decided that it was too expensive and that they wanted to find a different place to eat. This was after we walked all the way to the Rhine and back looking for the place. We ended up going down several more streets then into a shopping center. When we were in there we found a Chinese food buffet and decided that that would do. We grabbed some food and then finally decided what we wanted to do and off we went. First we went down stairs to the grocery store to get some bottles of soda to drink for the day. I got a big bottle of Sprite. Then we were off again. The first place we went was a museum. Another amazing place. This building was built around the dining room floor of a Roman Villa found in 1944 when they were trying to build a bomb shelter. They didn't move it when they built the building so it is in its original location. They also had tons of Pottery and glass jars. There were busts and statues of course. They also had pieces of buildings. The other really neat thing that I spent a lot of time looking at was the jewelery and the statutes that they had from all over the place. There were statues not only from Roman Gods but also from Persian and Egyptian gods. David and Alvaro ended up waiting for me because I walk so slowly through these places. It was just a really interesting place and I loved that place more than most other places. When we finished there we walked around some more. We went over to the old town to see if we could find some buildings to look at and we also we walked down the river to see if there was another museum we might want to go look in. We got there and went inside and it was sweltering hot. Then we looked at the price and it was 7.50 Euro to go in. Again if you didn't notice from earlier David and Alvaro are kinda cheap. We didn't go in because they didn't want to spend that much money. I milled around while they checked out the chocolate store inside the museum. Then we walked back to the Dom and the hauptbahnhof. That was when we went our separate ways. This was when I decided to head to the flughafen (airport) to see if I could get my ipod back. So I gave then the group ticket that I bought earlier that day and then I bought myself a ticket to go to the airport then back to Bonn from Cologne. I grabbed the train to the airport. When I got there I followed the instructions to get to the building I needed to get to. When I got there I realized that the worker didn't speak English. This was a frustrating 20 minutes while I worked out what he wanted and then, he asked for my passport... Guess what I left. You guessed it. So crap I had no way to identify myself except my Texas Drivers License. I showed him that but he didn't understand that it was my id and not my credit card or something. I kept trying to tell him that it was my id. then he needed my Bonn address and I didn't have that so I had to give him the address to AIB which I figured was good enough. I gave him what I could give him because I didn't always know what he wanted. I also ended up giving him my drivers license number because I didn't have my passport. After that I went right back to the train platform to catch the train first to Cologne Central Station then to Bonn. While I was riding the train my ipod ended up dying. It was a really good thing that it died then and not while I was still at the airport because he needed to see something on the ipod that proved it was mine. There really isn't anything like that on an ipod. I purposely left off personal information. But I found on the 'About' page that it said 'Hali's Ipod.' So luckily he took that as enough identification. Well I got back to Bonn and met with the guys at the AIB building. I kinda wish I had just gone home because I was wanting to go to a birthday party that one of the guys was throwing but he didn't invite me and he wouldn't answer his phone so I couldn't find out if he was ok if I came so I ended up just sitting up at the AIB talking to Sean on the computer. After a couple of hours I headed. home. The reason I didn't go home right away is because I had told my host mom that I was going to the birthday party and wasn't able to meet with someone she wanted me to meet. But, it ended up working ok. I came home and stayed up for a while again reading and talking to Sean then bed.
Day 39 2/28/2010
This was the last day of February and a Sunday. I didn't do much and nothing really happened. I didn't go anywhere and Trudy's mom didn't come over...Lets see. What else did I not do? haha. I just organized and lazed because I had no homework.
Day 40 3/1/2010
Well this was our first day of two weeks worth of videography. We had a lecture for the first class he gave us notes and began to tell us the basics that we need to know for videography. That was how we spent the morning then we had lunch and it was time for our last video game class till after Spring Break. We were suppose to have another one on Wednesday but he canceled. Trisha and Catie presented and we were able to talk about the point and click adventures that they presented. It was yet again quite an interesting class. After that we had nothing to do but fart around. I messed with my computer till I felt like going home. Same stuff happened at home as every night. Also mom sent a package out to me that I should have got by the next Monday but (Today is Monday I haven't got it yet).
Day 41 3/2/2010
Finally I've got caught up to under a week from being behind. YAY!! and now I don't want to write anymore. I finish tomorrow.
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