To the point

– Got back from London, where I visited Miranda and rode bikes 🙂
-Barcelona won over Madrid tonight, 1 – 0
– I am doing this race: buffepicrun.com

Dalí was an insane genius.

This past weekend, the Consortium traveled up the Costa Brava following in Dalí’s footsteps.  We visited his house (with a swimming pool in a decidedly phallic shape), his museum in Figueres (lined with eggs on the roof) and the castle he bought and redecorated for his lover, Gala, with whom he only once had “relations”.  I loved hearing his stories- he has all the eccentricities I’d ever dream of having, and then some.  For example, he has this sculpture of “Christ made of rubbish” in his backyard.

One of the most famous pieces in his museum in Figueres is the Room in the Shape of Mae West’s face.  In reality, it wasn’t made by Dalí, but the idea/inspiration/everything about it came from a painting he made.  Later, another person arranged the room to reflet the original painting, and now there’s a giant face of Mae West made of furniture.

Mae West had a booger.

And then to the Gala castle, in Púbol, on Sunday: Basically, Gala and Dalí were in a love-filled, sexless relationship for a while, then a love-less, sexless relationship near the end of their lives.  Dalí bought this castle and decorated it eccentrically for Gala, and only came when directly invited by Gala.  He was only invited 3 times.

It was gorgeous, with amazing gardens (and leaves changing colors!).  We looked through everything and saw the lonely tomb of Gala.  There’s a spot next to her for Dalí, but after she died, he changed his mind and is buried in Figueres.  Major Diss.

I think the best part is the radiator.  Gala didn’t like the radiator in her sitting room, and asked Dalí to paint something to cover the ugly thing up.

Real radiator behind, painted one in front.

He painted a radiator.

 

 

So that’s Dalí in a nutshell (emphasis on the nut).  I’m sorry I’ve been so behind.  School here is actually existent and I’ve had a string of visitors keeping me happily distracted.  I’d like to shout out to Marisa R. for pestering me about updating (take that, woman).  And then a special Happy Birthday shout out to Margaret W., one of my besties from Brown (studying in Copenhagen) who is visiting me for her 20th birthday and Thanksgiving.

And that’s what I’ve got right now.  I’m heading to London this weekend and then it’s going to be HISTORY OF ISLAM, ALL THE TIME.

peace out

 

Update FAIL

Off to Girona and Figueres, to follow the Route of Dalí.  He was one crazy kid- read his wikipedia article to get an idea of what we’re getting into.

I promise, upon return I will give a more substantial update.

 

PS: countdown until the one and only MARGARET WATSON visits- 97 hours

Without Limits

I found the movie about Steve Prefontaine, that my high school cross-country team would watch in the bus to meets far away, on YouTube. Somehow, I managed to watch all of it. I don’t feel that guilty about it, since there were Spanish subtitles.

I recommend using your time in a similar way.

Vamos a la playa

Venezia

This past weekend I spent in Italy, traveling from Bologna to Venice to Rome.  The weekend was full of delicious food, many churches and rain.  I decided that I didn’t have the attention span to write about the entire weekend in one fell swoop, and so split up the events.  First, Venice:

Matt and I flew into Bologna and stayed with some friends studying in the Brown-in-Bologna program there, including Matt’s BFF Katherine.  Katherine and her roommate Rocio joined us on the overnight train to Rome for our travels in Rome, but now I’m getting ahead of myself.

Matt and I took the morning train from Bologna and made it to Venice around 11:30.  We purchased a day pass for the Vaporetto, the water buses, and took line 1 down the Grand Canal.  One of Katherine’s roommates, Tyler, had told us to just buy a one-trip pass and pretend to swipe it every time.  He was right.  The day pass was a waste of 11 euros, since no one pays attention to the ticket validation booth anyway.

So we traveled down the Grand Canal, zigzagging from one side to the other for all of the vaporetto stops.  You can see the side of the water-bus in this picture.

Grand Canal and Clouds

We made it to Piazzale San Marco, where the Basilica and clock tower are located.  In 1902, the clock tower collapsed, almost spontaneously, into the square.  The city council had an impromptu meeting that day and decided to rebuild it.  You can see it here.

St. Mark's Basilica (on the left) is supposedly home to St. Mark's relics, stolen from Alexandria by Venetian merchants.

My question is: why rebuild the tower when it obviously has some structural integrity “issues”, in regards to the city being built on water? The square had walkways (or as Matt like to call them, fashion runways) in order to lift pedestrians over the growing puddles of water caused by “aqua alta”.

The runways of Venice- similar to those of Milan...

Aqua alta happens in Venice around 60 times a year, and is increasing in its severity. Venice, built in a lagoon, is slowly sinking.

Luckily, the world as Venice knows it still exists and tourists like us continue to flood her streets. Matt and I took the waterbus out to Murano, the glass-blowing island that was forced out of Venice proper by fire safety concerns. I guess I could understand the Venetians thought process about glass/fire cause and effect. We walked into several shops where the proprietors were sitting behind the counter with open flame, crafting some small token while watching Gossip Girl (true story).

Murano proved to be entertaining, as we moved from glass store to store to gallery to store. We made it back to Venice and wandered the streets of the sestiere (Sestiere = a sixth = the subdivisions of Venice). One thing about getting lost in Venice (an inevitability for locals and visitors alike) is that dead ends aren’t always brick walls, but rather open water. I think that in total, we probably crossed upwards of 50 bridges, just circling between the Sestieri San Polo, Santa Croce and Dorsoduro.

So we got lost, got found, wandered across the Rialto Bridge and past the Bridge of Sighs (the latter covered in advertisements.)  After delicious paninis for dinner at a small pub, we boarded our midnight train to georgia rome.

But that’s a story for a different time…

CASB diaspora

I was in the midst of a blog post on Venice when ALL OF A SUDDEN

La Residencia Onix failed us again. The internet is out and we all have abandoned ship- to the local library, university library and the sketchy internet connect point across the street.

And, we actually are all doing work too. Except for this blog post, of course.

Home :)

67 degrees in Providence
67 degrees in St. Louis
59 degrees in Barcelona

Fall has come to Spain

Heading to Italy, be back soon

Bologna, Venice and Rome.

Hasta luego, Barça!

Ciao, Italia!

De Puta Madre

De Puta Madre!!!

Cava spraying from the back, excited to play some frisbee.

(representing Disco…)