barcelona

man, TOTAL weather-related drama last night related to runja's flight to NL. it is amazing to think that snow in washington d.c. can make one person in holland fight with one person who is in new mexico. BUT things have worked out in a nice way that will be detailed in the next post concerning WEATHER, including an up-to-date report on the weather conditions here. OK, now on to a warmer topic...

SO

NOW

barcelona



what did you expect? barcelona was awesome. i spent 4.5 days there last weekend soaking up the scene. again all of my photos are on

FLICKR

so you can see too many photos there.

i had to fly ryan air to barcelona which means that the flight was cheap but getting to and from the airport is a pain in the ass. ryan is a cheap irish airline that cuts costs by flying to small airports outside metropolitan areas with lower fees and by having the worst service and worst seats i've sat on in a long time. plus my flights left in the early early morning both ways and that is a total pain as it ruins both the night before and the day after the flight. and you have to pay a lot to get to the airport. i flew out of eindhoven, a city in southern NL. the train ticket to get there and back, without the discount because it is in the morning, is 30 euro! and the bus from girona airport (over 100 km from barcelona, halfway to france practically) is 21 euro! so even if the flight is 10 euro, i still spent a total of 61 euro just getting into the city of barcelona, not to mention all of the time it consumed. so is flying ryan air worth it? if you are young and able to sleep through anything and don't mind all the transit switches (bike > train > train > bus > airplane > bus > subway), then yes! otherwise suck it up and fork over the extra 30 euro or so to fly AMS-barcelona direct.

i feel like i am repeating myself, but barcelona is gorgeous. it is a classic city form like rio de janeiro or even LA situated on a coast and then stretching up into the hills. but like LA the coastline isn't the main center of the city, it is an afterthought, merely a nice addition to an already badass city. there are stretches of beach but a lot of the coast is industrial and dedicated to marinas. in barceloneta the street grid runs at an acute angle to the shore, so that the short end of the rectangular blocks abut the beach; the beach frontage isn't even maximized as property. instead, the real center is further inland, somewhere near plaza catalunya i'd say. the city's medieval city center, the gothic neighborhood, is a winding maze of palaces, plazas, cathedrals, markets, and african men on every street corner whispering in broken english to tourists, trying to sell hash. no! i don't want to buy hash! and especially not from you. raval is the other old neighborhood and is way more gritty (there are more hash sellers), filled with immigrants and cool stores. then the next layer is cerda's famed square block plan (now 150 years old) and the nice areas of passeig de gracia and the avenida diagonal. at the north end of the avenida diagonal is a new developing area, started by the caixa forum building, a purple spray-concrete moon rock by herzog and de meuron (more later). further above that, moving into the hills, is a city scale between the gothic and cerda's blocks, and supremely comfortable. this neighborhood is gracia. i stayed here because my host lived here, a bass player named alex whom i met through UNT. he is studying abroad here for the term before graduating in the spring. gracia is hip but still not really gentrified, tons of bars, shops, pedestrian streets, good scale. there are obviously tons of other neighborhoods but this is where i spent most of my time. also the parque montjuic is awesome, rising by the ocean. there is a university neighborhood at the inland end of avenida diagonal and neighborhoods sprawling out up and down the coast and into the mountains but i didn't visit those. the closest i got was a beautiful hilltop above gaudi's park guell, where the photo above was taken.

OK now highlights:

-when i arrived, the weather was gorgeous. i wore a long sleeve shirt and the sun was so strong. i hadn't seen the sun in weeks. i sat in a park and watched this dog play fetch, simply bathing in the sunlight warming me on a concrete bench. at the end of the day i walked all the way down to barceloneta and just sat on the beach, eventually falling asleep, waking up as the sun was setting. as beaches go it is ok but pitiful for any aquatic experience save swimming. it got chilly on saturday and colder on sunday, but thursday and friday were unusually warm and a great gift. milk duds from heaven.



-alex and his friends are there in the city to play music, so we went to a jam session on thursday night at a club only a few blocks from his apartment that he shares with a pianist and a catalan poet. it was high-level so i didn't play but alex & friends played well. i was super stoked to find out that the jam session was run by jorge rossy, a spanish drummer well-known for being in brad mehldau's trio for a long time. he was there, playing piano and schmoozing with friends. at the end of the session he thanked everybody for coming and then, drink in hand, proceeded to croon a chet baker tune with a medium rare spanish accent ("joo'd bee so eezy to laav"). que barbaro! brutal! puta madre!

-SAGRADA FAMILIA


spent an entire afternoon combing this building from top to bottom. its construction has been continuing off and on for over a century and will probably continue for at least another 200 years at this pace, thanks to the immense costs involved and the laid back spanish mentality. i was overjoyed to see the frequent use of ruled surfaces throughout the building. anybody who has taken ochsendork's class would have appreciated it. and such steep spiral staircases! the structural details are immaculate and the ornamentation everywhere, from the elliptical bulbs where columns meet to the facade depicting the immaculate conception.


it was also both terrifying and great to pay the extra 2.50 euro and go up to the top of the spires where you can examine the ongoing construction and gaze out at the city. i had a few moments of vertigo but overall i was fine. there are bridges between the spires that you cross over and narrow staircases that some americans wouldn't be able to fit through sideways. ironically, i even ran into a dutch person in the top of the spire. you can never escape the dutch. the final plan calls for a higher spire in the center with a cross that can be occupied. the building is also supposed to extend across a street for its main entrance but that block is now a dense apartment block. what will happen? when will it be finished, if ever? who knows!


-la boqueria! colorful market off of la rambla in raval. it has tons of delicious everything, from mantecados (almond holiday candies that start as a powdery thing and instantly aggregate in your mouth to rich wet goodness) to all types of vegetables, fruits, cheeses, cuts of meat, candies, and even all the disgusting meat products that vegetarians love to stare at and be thankful they don't eat those things. like this:




-food. i ate a lot of falafel in barcelona, including a hat trick at the maoz store on la rambla. it is so good and all vegetarian. they have a buffet where you can totally load up on toppings and actually get full. TASTY. but you can only sit there for 20 minutes before they kick you out. and the skinhead that works there always plays this addictive ricardo villalobos minimal techno shit that will rot your teeth. also ate a pizza without having to pay like 12 euro like in holland. also cheap good wine. it was fun to cook at alex's house too.



-lifestyle. i am well-adapted for the spanish late-night lifestyle. eh, we'll eat dinner at 10:30, that's cool. i guess we'll go walk around a bit at 1, no big deal. on friday we were at a concert at an old palace in the gothic area that didn't start until 10. it was traditional music and people were all doing large pagan circle dances and laughing while pakistani men weaved through the crowd trying to sell you estrella for 1 euro a can. sometimes it worked. this was somewhere close to a palace built on top of roman fortifications leftover from their empire. the concert didn't end until midnight, at least. and i think bars stay open until 3? that is nice. i missed going to secret bars because they are open super late and in the old neighborhood and by that time in the night i was already tired and in gracia or at alex's apartment. next time!

-montjuic is a big hill near the ocean. it has a lot of cultural destinations as well as facilities from the olympics in the early 90s (1992?). i started on saturday at the bottom and walked up, seeing this big catalan museum, botanical gardens, and the mies van der rohe pavilion.



the mies pavilion was worthwhile. of course the stone was exquisite, etc. it was overcast and i was the only person there at the time. it is a nice space. i wanted to sit on the chairs like i did in the neue nationalgalerie in berlin but the signs told me not to. the mixing of inside/outside and the ambiguity are nice. good bookstore too. there was an installation by AI WEIWEI too, with milk in the pool. it didn't smell but it looked good. the olympic facilities were OK, now sort of abandoned and windswept with a calatrava communication tower looking like a medieval tool for lancing adolescent acne. my favorite part of montjuic was the jardin botanico de barcelona, the botanical garden featuring mediterranean biomes from across the world. it is really well design with angular cortens steel walls everywhere and nice seats. the main pavilion are some angled planes and there is a pond that must be nice in the summer but is now a placid puddle. the botanical institute building sits uphill above the garden and is a clean austere building, with a glassed first floor and a second story that looks out on the city, also finished in corten. the plants were fascinating too, of all shapes and sizes. i crumpled eucalyptus leaves in my hand from australia and was instantly transported to the hills north of addis ababa where i had completed the same act only 11 months ago (ethiopia imported these trees from australia in the late 19th century to combat deforestation). perhaps the mediterranean is the toilet bowl of western history?



also eating a questionably vegetarian sandwich in the courtyard of sert's miro museum and riding the funiculare down to raval from montjuic. i didn't go see the castle, a decision i now regret but it is ok (next time).

-park guell. hit this on sunday with alex. an amazing wonderworld of gingerbread houses, leaning columns, comfortable benches, and scenic views. horribly faceted, tiling everywhere, even a didgeridoo playing some cromagnon circular breathing grooves in one of the caves by the entrance. lots of tourists of course but gorgeous work. the plantings were a bit average and the park seemed normal after you climbed above the main terrace, but nice. i saw gaudi's house! also alex and i hiked up to a scenic vista above the park where i took the first picture of the post and also the following panorama.



then time at the picasso museum which was free on sunday but not that impressive. large gaps in the collectionand a circulation pattern that was confusing and ambiguous. ew. they had a ton of his early work and then only a series he did while living near barcelona and some ceramics and etchings. there was also an exhibit on picasso's japanese influence including a heavy dose of erotic art that awkwardly contained some book plates of a pair of giant squid making love to a woman. double ew. i think there was some analogy between the mystery of the deep sea and the sexual mystery of women? but still. thanks. the museum is in some antique repurposed manor with interior light wells. they left one room, some salon, unchanged with gold entablatures and mirrors and a chandelier that probably cost more than my house.

-caixa forum area. tons of construction relating to this area in the northeast of the city, at the end of the avenida diagonal. of course the herzog and de meuron forum, a sprayed concrete floating monolith with some expectedly cool perforated triangle cladding but deserted, now only the property of skateboarders kickflipping down its inclined areas under the building. this is a cool area to wander around in. it was frigid and the wind was whipping off the sea when i visited. cool marina with some cor tens and a huge solar array. impressive but deserted. also i recognized the FOA park with its curving crescent concrete pavers. it looked so overgrown and poorly-maintained now. i walked through the EMBT parque diagonal. it had the feel of an abandoned amusement park with rails everywhere and coiled steel sculptures that supported giant floating planters. it seemed wasteful. maybe i don't understand their work enough? their market downtown was nice though. with factories around and construction and weird pavilion space, it was an exciting area. maybe a future node of the city? we'll see. regardless, windswept and intriguing.



-language. whereas in holland the language is hard for me to understand because of the throat sounds and compound nouns, i got along well in barca with my spanish. i was surprised that some of it came back a bit once in the city and listening to other people speak. of course i am not good at it, but i could carry on a bit of a conversation. also it was intriguing to hear catalan, a mix of spanish and french sort of. i am definitely more partial to the romance language sounds of portuguese and spanish but maybe i am biased because of my early childhood experience in brazil or something.

-politics. coming from holland, the city seemed quite politically turbulent and aware. holland, although its government is shifting more right in the recent history like most of western europe, is a country where anything goes and politics aren't at the forefront of discussion. regardless of the actual laws, anything goes basically. all the spoils of liberalism are here. i was surprised to learn about barcelona's history as a center for anarchism and radical politics throughout the past century. i also knew nothing about catalan history before going or the interest in seceding from spain to become a separate nation. apparently some people are serious about this. the catalan state makes the most money in spain and some are angry that their tax dollars go to supporting poorer states throughout the country. there is a theory too that christopher columbus might have been catalan as some of his journals were discovered to be written in catalan.

spaniards even protest late at night. on saturday after dinner around 11 we were sitting around when we heard screams and loud sounds. moving onto the balcony (barcelona is a balcony culture like paris), we saw a parade of people marching down the street with big signs, chanting, and a poster of a local politician. they were also carrying communist flags with the hammer and sickle. the story is that a local cultural center is set to be destroyed to make way for new development and people are angry about this. later at night we walked through a square where there was a benefit concert to save this center. the event was over but young people were milling about, the pakistanis still hovering like vultures hoping to sell more estrella. one group of boys were jostling a port-a-potty with a friend inside. you could here the liquid sloshing around and the guy yelling for them to stop. when he finally emerged (unscathed by waste), he slipped one of his arms into a crutch and hobbled over to his friends, angry but laughing.

-walking. of course this goes for any city, but walking is the ultimate joy. you see everything, the people, the tiles falling off the buildings, the shitty electronics stores, every bodega and old woman. raval especially is a great place to walk, a potent mix of second hand stores and immigrant culture. there were stores for halal meat, indian ingredients, african food, and asian markets. i saw a combination laundromat and internet cafe (a super smart mix). i saw design studios, artist spaces, booths set up on la rambla de raval. i stopped in the open door of a cultural center to hear a quartet of drummers playing samba in the late afternoon, rehearsing for an evening performance. in the gothic area alex showed me the side of a cathedral where there was bricked depression, like a pond that had been drained. here was a monument where the french had dug a low spot and installed a drain. they proceeded to execute a large amount of spaniards/catalans, their bodies piling up and the blood draining efficiently to the sea. nearby i passed a man eating at a open air bar, his dog sitting in the street watching obediently, his marbled fur wrapped at the neck with a red bandanna. the joy here is not to wander between museums and gaudi buildings, but to walk with open eyes and see every little piece of each street, even if the reality escapes you and all you are left with is the scent of a memory.

there is so much more but i will stop here because it is dark and i am hungry now. barcelona was tan guapa in its rough luxury, in its heavy city blocks and thin streets, in its sea breeze and nightlife. i hope we will meet again someday soon.

work space: SAP vs BK

i am going to talk about the differences in work environment between MIT and TUD. both are architecture programs at well-known technical schools. the programs are distinct, both with advantages and disadvantages. the most interesting part of this to me is how the culture of each school is evident in the work that is produced at the school. the pictures here are all from the TUD campus because i don't have pictures of MIT and i think any person who actually reads this will know the space well enough to not require pictures.


this is BK (BK = bouwkunde; bouw = construction, kunde = knowledge) city. before last year it was an old chemistry building on the north part of the campus (closest to the center of delft) slated for demolition. a building of similar vintage across the street is actually in the process of being torn down, though right now it looks more abandoned than in the process of deconstruction. the old TUD architecture building and tower was further south on campus but it burned down. so, in a rush, they held a quick competition and decided to inhabit an older building while a new building is designed and built in the next 3-5 years. i guess my criticism comes at a weak moment for the faculty, as they struggle in a new, temporary space. but, here we go regardless.

first of all, TUD's school is huge. there are about 3000-3300 students enrolled in architecture, both for bachelor's and master's degrees. at MIT, i think it is a combined figure of around 500-600 with SMarchs and Ph.D. students. MIT's program gets a few parts of a few floors of the main building at MIT, but here the building is about the same size as the main MIT building and has two tall floors. why the ceilings are so tall here i don't know, but it is luxurious.

most students arrive by bike so during the week hundreds of bikes fill the main entrance area and around other entries.

the largest differences to me are the type of workspace available and the hours of operation. in an earlier post i showed the orange mountain where my department is located. here, for example is the workspace they provide:


it is only a table with electrical strips in the middle spine. an optical computer mouse doesn't track on the black finish so you have to put paper under your mouse. you don't have any permanent space to work here, unlike at MIT where you get a fair amount of personal desk space to pile books, papers, models, food remains, whatever. there are tables where you can place material to be "saved" or not removed. there are large models here but they aren't built here (more on this soon). once i tried to leave library books here with a sign on them but most people thought it was too susceptible to theft so i ended up returning the books to the library after a few days. this table is also where we have studio meetings, gathered around in chairs leaning in trying to hear what people are saying over the roar of the room.

other studios meet in this room on these same tables too. studios on the public realm, some 2nd-year masters studios too. desk crits happen rarely but i have seen some where the professor will stand with the student at the "save" tables looking over drawings or a model. sketch models usually are built at these tables. people also work here on drawings, mostly using 12" rolls of trace or autoCAD. i have never seen a parallel rule used or anybody working on a drawing larger than A3 (though they may do this at home or print posters of a larger size). this room is incredibly crowded. at its busiest moments every chair is filled, a studio is having a lecture on the orange mountain, and nomadic classes led by mad max professors prowl for space. during one studio meeting in a why factory room, another professor interrupted us, asking if his (larger) class could use the space. we offered to vacate when we were done and were immediately swarmed by his class of 30 or so bachelors students, all with A3 prints, eager to present by pinning up their drawings with magnets.

while this is initially annoying, it is surreal to be around so many people studying architecture. at MIT it is a tiny community holed up in one corner of the main building. here it is a vast enterprise. i've never had so many potential peers before. most of the friends i've made have been through architecture where at MIT i am friends with people in my major but a lot of my other friends are studying totally different things.


most of the bachelors studios meet in specified places on the 2nd floor, which is largely open studio space like in the picture. it has lots of windows and seems better than my studio's space on the first floor. there is still the division between work space and "save" space, but rails for hanging drawings with magnets are visible in the picture. reviews happen when everybody gathers around an area with suspended drawings.

and the hours of the building: 8am until 10pm on weekdays, 8am until 7pm on friday, and CLOSED on the weekends. this is the ridiculous part. so even the unassigned, cramped quarters they give us are only available during these hours. most of my work is done at home at my best desk, on the computer. compare this to MIT with its intensive 24-hour culture. at 9:30 there is announcement about the building closing and at 9:55 security guards march through the facility to herd people to the door.

but hardly anybody is left at this hour. the dutch have a very strict sense of work. the building is packed from around 9 until about 6 when it empties as students go on to sporting activities or home to cook or on to other social events. they drink tons of coffee throughout the day too, an act i cannot compete with as one cup will wire me for 4-5 hours and leave me with a headache. we even have a bouwpub that is open on campus tuesdays and thursdays to provide cheap drinks from 1600 until 1730. a big part of the culture is to work but also to have time to enjoy yourself.



ok, other facilities. there are two places to eat in the building. there is an espresso bar with baked goods and paninis. it is OK. it has a nice place to sit. the main eating area is the ketelhuis and serves lunch. the food is lightweight and not vegetarian friendly. they serve meat sandwiches, soups, and assortment of benign water salads. vegetarian options are tomato soup and bread, a smoothie, salad, or some tired vegetable sandwich. can you please just make some hearty chili or curry or something? if my brain is going to work i need some more material in my stomach. people eat so light here. some people get a cup of soup and a piece of bread for lunch. others just buy bread, a slice of meat, and a slice of cheese and have a sandwich. how is that enough food? recently i went to a cafeteria on the main campus for lunch. their vegetarian options were terrible too. i could only eat a vegetable sandwich. even the egg rolls had seafood in it. the main course was potatoes, green beans, and some steak-thing. real dutch food.




the main glassed-in area in the center of the building is the model-making room. here there are tables, paper cutters, a large wood shop, and rooms for more advanced machines like lasercutters and maybe one 3D printer. the wood shop has things like bandsaws, etc, but is only open from 9 until 5 (9 until 4 on fridays). and the building is closed on the weekend.


most of the models made here are massing models at an urban scale. only a few times have i seen models at a significantly smaller scale. i bet those emerge at the end of the semester, though. i think there is also a greater pedagogical emphasis on urban conception and massing too. one of my friends is in another studio that is more traditional and they're spending half of the semester on site research, context, and establishing some kind of massing idea. modeling materials are mostly wood, foam, foamcore, paper, and some basswood. all of these materials are available at a shop that is in the building. so this business has a monopoly on supplies. it is convenient instead of having to go to pearl, artist supply, or utrecht (the shop), but the prices are super high. i've been told there are other modeling shops around but i haven't found them. i've also been told there is a FABLAB nearby, inspired by MIT. interesting.


here is the lasercutter room. there are 4 small lasercutters for over 3000 students. and they aren't open 24 hours a day. and you don't even cut your own files. you send them to some email address and they get cut for you (so you can't mess up or negotiate any lasercutter funny business). the average time for lasercut parts, i've heard, is a week, which is an eternity when you're trying to build a model. as a result, almost none of the models involve lasercut pieces. most designs i've seen are, to be blunt, rectangular, orthogonal masses. i haven't seen any blobs or curves or polygonal nightmares. there is an area called hyperbody led by kas oosterhuis which is totally blobitecture and more in the jurisdiction of the media lab. maybe the pedagogy here is not really about weird forms and is more about program organization, urban ideas, and detailing (a topic not even touched at MIT). but maybe it is also because they lack access to tools that allow for easy physical modeling of these shapes. it is another interesting reminder of how the tools we have shape our ability to make things.




at first i complained about the library because of its narrow collection compared to MIT. then i realized that MIT has a world-class library and TUD lost most of its collection in the fire. beyond that, they have some important things i had never found at MIT and a lot of older ancient things that would be in the limited access collection at MIT. the library has short hours too and you can only check out 10 books at a time! i guess that makes sense if you have nowhere to store them and you're not going to bike back and forth with 10 books in your backpack. but i checked out 10 at the beginning of the year and the librarian looked at me like i was crazy. so the book-hoarding technique i had at MIT isn't going to fly here.




beyond that, the library is one of the most enjoyable spaces in the building. it is quiet with nice furniture. the ceilings are high and with some gnarly exposed brick that has been ripped up and painted red. there are some good nooks to sit and read. the magazine collection isn't bad. i like it here. there is also a bookstore on campus that sells texts for classes and lots of other architecture books, some that you'd never find in the US. lots of books published by Actar and piles of El Croquis just laying around (whereas they are a rare item in the US). good monographs and things about landscape architecture. i'd never buy anything though because books are so expensive here. even buying something online at amazon in the US and shipping it at a medium priority level is cheaper than just buying the book here. another good library is the NAI library in rotterdam. that place has everything.





this place has awesome furniture, all of it from vitra. the school has a deal with the company where they get free furniture but in turn act as a showroom for the collection. there are cozy places to sit throughout the building, all with contemporary furniture. oh yes.

beyond that, most studios only meet twice a week here, even at the graduate level. my studio meets once a week for maybe three hours. at MIT you're "in studio" for a minimum of 12 hours per week usually. you get a lot less face-time with professors in addition to fewer assembly and space resources.

but, consider the costs here. one year of tuition at MIT is about 36,000 USD. i've mentioned this before, but according to dutch students, a year of education is about 1600 euro at TUD. lets say it is a bad time for the dollar and so that works out to about 3000 dollars. here, a bachelor's degree takes 3 years of full-time study and a master's degree takes 2. so you could potentially complete your entire formal architecture education in 6 years (allowing some slack and time off) for the same amount as attending one year at MIT. that is crazy. and, in addition to that, once you get a master's degree here, you are able to practice professionally in europe. whereas in america you have to get some stupid AIA credits and take the exam in a certain state. but, to add more levels, i've heard that the grading is tougher here, so that passing your final thesis might take two or three tries. but in america it seems there is some grade inflation or a sense that if you make it this far and you've paid this much money, you're going to get your degree and move on with your life. it is complicated.

---------------------------------------


on thursday there was a big event at the orange mountain. winy maas was officially recognized as a professor, the why factory was "opened", and the first book ("visionary cities") was released. tons of people were there including government officials. winy gave a speech about the goals of the why factory, citing the need for research about the future of cities and the need for new visions. he cited the fact that while the 20th century has been the most productive era for visions, there haven't really been any since the 1970s (a fact recently lamented on lebbeus woods's blog too). beyond the speech there was a forum where lots of people presented ideas about his or her future city. this part was really boring because it was all talk about "how i want there to be equality or diversity." the most interesting talk was one by the two other partners of MVRDV with some good accompanying images.

at first i thought that the dolly was left under the podium as a symbol of the department's ability to change or reconfigure at any moment. it seems like a sly way of emphasizing that trait once again. then, after the lecture, i examined the podium and the dolly chassis is bolted to the lectern so you can't separate the two! i thought that was weird but still sort of interesting.


there is also an exhibit of the recent work by the why factory, all shown in a paneled A4 fashion. i spent about 10 hours on wednesday helping put up all of the A4 pages in 4 rooms. it took a lot of effort. but the big mosaic tiles look OK, i think.


afterwards there was a party with cheese and food. and lights. the food was pretty bad. DJs spun some type of electro/disco music while the big screen alternated renderings of projects with movie clips from films like "metropolis" and "blade runner." the gargoyle lion faces on the walls cast long shadows on the walls. they used to be outside but now they are face in, watching students as they work.

i still think it is fascinating that a program that labels itself as researchers of the future is squatting in the courtyard of an early 20th century building that was supposed to be torn down. next to the space frame and orange volume with an inside that looks like "solaris" are these mouthed moldings from one hundred years ago. it really visualizes the layers of our built surroundings and how they just keep piling up. none of them go away. cities now are exercises in not allowing new layers (preservation) or letting them build up (development). part of the appeal of films like "brazil" or "blade runner" is that there is still so much of the present in the future that it is almost believable. most people forget that the future is right now and this is what it looks like.

now, back to fighting off being sick.

haarlem

wednesday is update day, apparently.

on this sunday, i braved the gale force winds of coastal holland to visit haarlem. it was the one day in the past week where the sun was out more or less continuously. it was also the first day i had used my voordeeluren card, securing me a 40% korting on my train ticket and the first time i had taken my bike on the train.


haarlem is west of amsterdam, about 5 km inland. while other regional cities like utrecht are quite developed, haarlem remains a compact, small scale village still well-defined by its downtown. it is also known for being an early art capital and housing the oldest museum in the netherlands.



the cathedral marks the center of the city. it was sunday afternoon so lots of people were out and shopping, like in every other city center.


some streets south of the main center had some active gardens, with vines and trees stretching over the narrow streets. this was only possible because the houses were only two stories tall. i passed lots of shops selling flowers and even a band in the street, playing a type of african marching band jazz. kind of like an amateur either/orchestra. the lead tenor player even looked like a shrunken version of russ gershon.


in the land of non-serifed fonts, i was excited to see an appropriate use of rosewood in the title to a steak house.


check out this kid with the fresh spider web etching in his hair. what a badass.



then i visited the teylers museum, one of the oldest in holland. it featured some archaic scientific tools for experients like measuring the force on a rotating object and experiments in sound. lots of fascinating mechanical creations all in glass cases. it reminded me of the museum from "la jetee," mostly because of how the light was coming in the window.



here i came face to face with the early dutch masters. i have no idea how they rendered such realistic settings in their paintings. i was really impressed with petrus johannes schotel and his ocean scenes. the sea has never seemed so vicious and real. there was also a good exhibit on anton mauve, a member of the hague school, who taught vincent van gogh for a while. he worked in the last half of the 18th century so his work is more impressionistic but the consideration of light and shadow was still unbelievable.

from there, i rode out towards the ocean. there is a national park just outside of haarlem called kennemerduinen nature reserve. it has preserved some nice coastal fir forests and impressive dunes. i had my bike so i cycled throughout the park on the fietspad.



after riding through some of the gorgeous dune landscapes (dotted with gatherings of firs on hills) i reached the beach. the wind was killer and without the sun it would've been too cold. people were kite-surfing even with the rough seas. when i arrived, paramedics were loading a person on a stretcher into a car with a neck brace. the sea broke him.



after a small meal and short nap on the beach, i ventured up into the forest for a while. it was quite peaceful and provided some good views up and down the coast.




the netherlands are small enough such that everything is close to something else. even in this park you could see the towers and smoke of factories in the north, near the mouth of the main canal that leads to amsterdam.


first self-portrait of myself in holland.


when the sun got low, i rode my bike back towards the entrance and made some friends. these guys were just chilling, slowly walking up the path munching on acorns. i don't know where they came from but they were majestic. i rode slowly between them and then dismounted to study them for a while. they didn't seem to mind.


i liked the color of this guy. i kept riding and soon came upon a lone beast who wasn't interested in eating. he was intent on walking quickly up the path, leaving his friends who were happily grazing. where was he going?

once out of the park, i swept through downtown again. there were no people around this time. i hesitated on spending 9.50 euro on some aloo matar but ended up having my first mexican food experience in holland, eating some ballpark nachos at taco mundo. they need to work on the sauce to chip ratio, as there was too much cheese. when it was dark i found the train station and waited for my train. i was more tired than i had thought because i ended up falling asleep on the train. i didn't miss my stop because everybody subconsciously knows how to wake up before their stop, and i rode back to my room to make some dinner. nachos aren't a well-balanced meal.