Week-end à Barcelone

Thanksgiving weekend, Margaret, Mayra, Anne and I headed south to Barcelona.



Our first stop on Saturday morning was Casa Milà (or La Pedrera, which means The Quarry in Catalan), one of the apartments designed by Gaudí. The facade is curvy and other-worldly, with balcony railings fashioned out of twisted, ribbon-like metal.


We climbed up and toured one of the apartments that is now a museum. Most all of the rooms (except the maid's room) had big windows that let in lots of natural light, and every room was decorated with furniture and appliances from the beginning of the 20th century. At the top you can walk around the rooftop terrace, which has amazing views of the city.



These crazy shapes hide stairwells, vents, and chimneys.



Comme d'hab, I loved the details like this mélange of paint on one of the walls.



Next we headed to a covered market of the main street, Las Ramblas, called Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria. This graffitied wall was just outside the back of the market.


Inside there were rows and rows of stands bursting with fresh fruits, vegetables, bread, cheese, meat, and fish.


We picked up a loaf of this bread (so good), some grapes, apples, cheese, and champagne, and had a picnic by the Mediterranean for lunch.


And there was seemingly every kind of chocolate/ candy imaginable!


We stopped to eat our picnic and enjoy the sun (!!) on this pier at the Olympic Port.





Next we headed up to Sagrada Família, Gaudi's (still unfinished) cathedral. Warning: I'm obsessed. Lots of pictures to follow.


FYI none of these are edited. The sky was really just that blue.





The exterior is decked out with so many sculptures, its like playing real-life eye-spy. We even found escargot!



The inside is monumental, with beautiful stained glass windows.







The windows were all different shapes, projecting beautiful shadows everywhere.



The stone was such a beautiful color, especially in the afternoon light.



Next we headed up to Gaudí's Parc Guel to watch the sunset. It's on top of a huge hill and has great views of the city and the Mediterranean. I took this shot of Mayra and Margaret when we were riding the escalator up the last part of the climb.




This curvy balcony is also a bench that goes all the way around a large terrace area of the park. The surface was a mozaic of lots of different colorful ceramics.



The dusk looked like an illustration from Grandfather Twilight!







Sunset at Parc Guel was definitely a highlight. We climbed up as high as we could and had panoramic views of the whole city!




The next day, as we were winding our way to the Picasso Museum, we stumbled upon a Christmas Market.

It was so busy, and bursting with red and green.


Mistletoe!


The market was such a great and random surprise. Bilan: Barcelone, je t'aime.

Week-end en Provence

P.S. Merci à Ebbe for this shot:



This weekend we took the TGV down to Provence, a region in the South of France. Our first stop was Pont du Gard, an Roman aqueduct in Nîmes. Its amazing to think of the Romans constructing the bridge without cranes . . . some of the stones weighed up to 6 tons, and the the entire pont was made by carefully fitting together the huge stones without mortar.




Pont du Garde is huge! And it is purposefully constructed to bow slightly upstream, so that it can better resist a sudden deluge.




Next, we stopped at Abbaye de Montmajour. Apparently Monks don't update their website very frequently . . . the visiting hours had changed, so we couldn't enter. Nonetheless it was pretty from the outside . . .


We were staying in Arles, in the (south of France, near the Mediterranean coast) for the weekend. Think small cobble-stoned village, dabbled with Roman-age ruins, and divided by the Rhône.


Oh, and it's where Van Gogh lived and painted!






This is the "Van Gogh Café," aka the subject of his painting, Terrasse du Café le Soir. Side note: the french pronounce the second "g" in Gogh.



On Saturday in Arles, we first visited the Roman Arena.


It's in the midst of being restored so that it remains structurally sound.

If you look closely, you can tell the difference between the column on the left (the original) and the one on the right. Our guide explained that in restoring ruins, they make sure that the new part mimics, but does not replicate the original, so that people can always know which parts remain from the original construction.



Next we visited the Roman Amphitheater.



And then the Roman baths.


During Roman times, the floor was on top of the columns of bricks. Underneath the floor, hot air circulated among the columns to heat each room to a specific temperature.


Laurent, enlightening us all.




On Sunday, before taking the train back to Paris, we headed out to Avignon. Apparently there is a song about this bridge; Sur le pont d'Avignon, on l'y danse, on l'y danse. It cost 8 euro to go on the bridge, so we took the budget route of dancing sous le pont.


Another highlight of Avignon was le Palais de Papes, or the Pope's Palace. Pope Clement V moved the papal residency from Rome to Avignon at the beginning of the 14th century


The ceilings and walls were adorned with murals, but taking pictures of the painted rooms was strictly interdit.



I loved the tall ceilings and arched doorways, as well as the color of the stone.



At the top of one of the towers, there is a panoramic view of all of Avignon and the Rhône below.

Cimetière de Père Lachaise

Classes were canceled on the 11th, so my friend Ebbe and I headed to Cimetière Père Lachaise to take pictures.






We wandered around for about an hour, taking in all the beautiful fall colors and chasing the last rays of the sun as it set behind the Eiffel Tower.






Unfortunately, we were both dans la lune (literally "in the moon," but the English equivalent of head in the clouds) and managed to miss all of the important people buried there, like Oscar Wilde, Chopin, and Delacroix. Oups!

Weekend à Oxford

This past weekend, Lexy and I took the train from Paris to London, and then up to Oxford to visit our fellow Ephs studying at Exeter College for the year.



We really lucked out with the weather; in the morning the wasn't a cloud in the sky. Exeter is so beautiful! The only thing I didn't like is that you can't walk on the grass, but it made it feel like Paris. La pelouse est interdite . . . comme d'habitude.


Exeter is small (400 students?) so even though Oxford University is big, the college really fosters a sense of community. Walking around it seemed like the Williams kids knew everyone. . . well enough to request Phantom of the Opera from the organ master inside the Exeter Chapel. Unfortunately he did not acquiesce to our request.


Even with three broken ribs, Dale was nice enough to take us on a tour before hitting the library.


The whole town has this air of academia that's pretty inspiring. As Dale said, its just kind of cool to crack open a book in the Bodleian Library. I know. I'm a dork.



It was crazy how much the Williams-Exeter houses felt like dorms at school. The walls were purple and the font on posters was the same. Where they found a purple-cow knome, I just really can't be sure.


November 5th was Guy Fawkes night! Think "Remember remember the fifth of November" from V for Vendetta. First there were fireworks, then they burned a giant effigy of Guy Fawkes!

After the effigy started to burn, they also lit a HUGE bonfire behind him. It was by far the biggest fire I've ever seen!