Silly Megan

I left my outlet converter in Paris, and the battery on my laptop is uickly running out. Which unfortunately means I will have to cut blogging short by a few days. Unless I can find somewhere in barcelona that sells a converter. Thanks for reading everyone! I will fill in the gaps once I have reached Minneapolis, around this time next week.

Parisian Public Bicycles: Pretty Much Awesome

So my bike obsession continues.

The new super-socialist mayor in Paris has planted 10,000 public bicycles around the city for residents and toursits to use. You can rent them by the hour or day (via debit card or smart chip), and can also get monthly and yearly passes (much like public transit). You can pick up a bike and return it to any of the parking kiosks, which I have seen all over the city. It probably sounded like a crazy idea when first proposed, but it seems to be hugely successful. EVERYONE is using the bikes. Mom and Dad, you should give them a ride when you come in October! I am going to give one a spin tomorrow...

There are a few tourists in Paris

Scotland: Land of Sunshowers, Bagpipes, and Nonchalant Kilt Wearing

I got to Scotland late Friday night, greeted by a plaid-apholstered-double-decker bus, hard to discern scottish accents and a horrible exchange rate. I found Doug's apartment and we headed out to see the Festival revelry. (Every August Edinburgh is taken over by a barrage of festivals. It started with a theater festival, which has since spawned art, film, book, poitics and dance festivals). On Saturday I ate porridge for breakfast. Afterwards we went to see a collection of temporary garden installations around the city ( a good way to tour Edinburgh on foot). Sunday was our day in Glasgow, where we saw the School of Art (building by famous Scottish architect Charles Mackintosh) and tried to have proper tea. Monday I visited the Scottish Parliament building (for my project). I toured the building with a bunch of people from small-town Scotland and the teenage girls on the tour thought it was WAY COOL that I was American, and even COOLER that I used to live in New York. I then hiked up the crags to Arthur's Seat (very Camelot) and got great views of the city. That night we went to a concert of a little band from Brighton called Pete and the Pirates.

Aside from the weather, I had a grand time.

Smile, you're in Rotterdam

Before leaving for Scotland, I spent a day in Rotterdam. Rotterdam is home to many a famous design firm (OMA/Rem Koolhaas, West 8) and a few fancy design projects to match. The Kunsthal (by Mr. Koolhaas) was exhibiting the Rotterdam Architecture Biennial on "Power Cities" which was very interesting. It was all about mass urbanization across the globe, taking shape in different ways: informal cities, spectacle cities, edge cities, etc. The blow-up dolls are a shout out for Lily, I guess AMO made the t-shirts. Did you do any of this last summer on the job last summer?

I also made a stop at Showburgplein, which is a favorite project of landscape architecture students. The big red lamps can be moved around by passers-by and the kids love love love the fountain. The last time I was in Rottedam (spring break two years ago) it was dreary and rainy and cold when we visited here, so I was happy to see people and sunshine.

Watery, Windy Hinterlands

I decided it'd be fun to get out of Amsterdam for a day, so I took my now-trusty bicycle on a ferry over to Amsterdam Noord and hit the road. I got lost in the burbs (twice) but eventually found the route listed in my Lonely Planet. It was a very interesting to see small towns, farms, and the sea. Although, 50km on a one speed in gusty winds is something I probably won't attempt again amytime soon...

My Fleet

My new favorite way to travel.

Dutch Logistics

Amsterdam Docklands

From my trip to Borneo and Sporenburg Islands, two man-made infill islands in the eastern docklads neighborhood in Amsterdam and another Dock project by architecture firm MVRDV.

I heart a good landschaftpark

Day 6:
I found my way to Duisburg-Nord Landschaftpark on Monday morning. It was chilly, rainy, and grey. Luckily, the park was so great I didn't really notice the dreary day once I got there. I rented a bike for the day and rolled around slowly taking pictures of just about every nook and cranny I could find. The scale, weight and history of the structures is pretty incredible. In contrast, the vegetation is subtle and not overly/overtly designed.

Once I had circled the park about five times I headed out on one of the many trails which link the park to a much bigger network (Emscher) of green space in the area. This region of Germany was once heavily industrial and in the past fifty years has had to cope with a huge flight of industry, heavy pollution, etc. The park, along with all the green space, is the government's attempt to bring life, tourism and money back to the area as well as clean up the toxins left behind.

I biked to a gasometer, another old post-industrial behemoth about 10 km away. It has been turned into some sort of theater or cinema. Lots of tourists there.

Rain started coming down as I moved towards the train station and on to Amsterdam...

only missing a few cheeseheads

Day 5: As I rolled into Duisburg on Monday afternoon, I realized I had arrived in Germany's equivalent to Milwaukee. A giant, lit-up beer sign adorned the train station, and most people were sporting mullets and/or stone-washed denim. It definitely felt a very long way from the asymmetrical haircuts, Nike high-tops and skinny jeans of Berlin.

Birthday by the Lake

Day 4: Birthday!

Today we packed up some food and beer and headed to a lake a bit out of town with Kaarin (graduated from Penn Landscape a few years ago and is working in Berlin) and her friend Michel. We took the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn to Bernau and then biked to a nearby lake. Michel told us that this is the lake where all the former GDR bigwigs would vacation. The lake was beautiful, calm and quiet. There is a law in Germany that states no one can build outside city, town or village limits; this protects natural landscape from being developed. Also to note on our trip: Germans love hanging out at the lake with out clothes on. Naked Germans everywhere! Couples and entire families--not just wacky people like the ones who walk around locker rooms nude. I felt like a total prude in my swimsuit...

After swimming and sunbathing we all headed back to the city for very yummy dinner and beers at Dr. Pong, a bar with crazy Soviet-esque group ping pong games. Doug was the only one of us who played, and her ended up winning a round!

A great birthday indeed.

Those Berliners, so clever

How cool is this: Call-A-Bike. Like ZipCar/Philly CarShare on two wheels. They make it so easy for you to ride bikes over here, you'd be crazy to hop in a car. I love it.

Walking Berlin

Day 2: I was thinking of getting on another train to see another Zaha building in Leipzig, but Yadiel suggested I stay aorund Berlin, because there's so much good stuff to see in the city. So I took his advice and headed out on foot from his house. I wound around his neighbrhood and north Mitte for a bit in the morning, window shopping and gazing at all the lovely houses and young german families strolling about. After a bit I found myself at Alexander Platz, which is home to the television tower (a brilliant east german relic) and city hall. From here I followed the other tourists towards all the historic/photogenic buildings along Karl-Liebknicht Strasse and Unter den Linden, eventually finding teh Brandenburg Gate. The only obvious remain of the GDR along the main drag is the huge fortress-like Russian embassy, complete with a massive gold fence and scary gurads.

From there I found the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, one of the proejcts on my itinerary. I was beautiful, subtle and well made. What struck me most strongly about the project was the wasy in which people intercted with it. Rather than being a somber and reflective space (i.e: Vietnam Memorial) it was active and excited. Kids were hoping aorund on top of the concrete blocks; grown ups were playing hide and seek amongst them. Not sure what to think of all of this. It must have something do to with the nature of the project's form, just not sure what yet. Must think more...

From there I stopped at the Neue Nationalgalerie, design by Mies van der Rohe. It was intersting to see these two projects back to back, because at the Nationalgalerie, people were very sedate, quiet and mostly stuck sitting on the perimeter wall. While enjoying an ice cream cone I decided to walk to Hamburger Bahnof, a contemporary art museum. An exhibit on Pain (how German!) was up and thoght it'd be intersting. Unfortunately, I arrived too late, got tired, and headed back to the house.

I rested up for a night of drinking in public (perfectly legal here), attending a film party and dancing until sunrise. so fun!

The sun is now shining

So I am of to bike around the docks of Amsterdam. Stay tuned.

More from Phaeno

The Science Center seemed to work more like a park than a building, with everyone milling freely about the exhibits. The information is organized and conveyed via small interactive kiosks which reminded me of follies in a field rather than a typical museum exhibition.

My first excursion

After arriving in Berlin last Wednesday morning and finding my way to Yadiel's house via a tram and the S-Bahn, I slept off my jet lag while my gracious host finished his day at the office. That night he showed me his neighborhood of Prenzlauer-Berg, which is the Berlin equivalent to Park Slope: leafy, lovely and stroller-laden. We counted pregnant ladies pass as we ate Vietnamese food. Dinner was followed by a visit to a Biergarten. The following day I hopped on a train to Wolfsburg, an hour ride southwest, to see Zaha Hadid's Phaeno Science Center. The building is quite incredible, both in its design and construction. I won't bore all of you with the gorey architectural details, but suffice to say it is exceptional. Also, it looked as if everyone using the building really enjoyed it too.

Hello!

Altough its taken me a few days to get up and running, I will now be blogging strong for the rest of my trip!