Snapshots of the Czech Republic

Sorry about the backlog of posting. This post is pictures of the last random travels in the Czech Republic. I have finally been back and able to breathe for a little over a week. (exhales loudly....) but now the crazy fun starts again... one of my closest friends is visiting from France. Anna goes to school with me in the states and but is studying abroad as well. For her fall break, she is with me in Prague for FIVE DAYS. We are having one adventure after another. It's been an incredible whirlwind. It's so nice to have family in town. I love playing tour guide and showing off all my favorite places. Prague is the best playground. So before I post pictures of the Incredible Adventures of Anna & Julie, here are pictures from the last week in the Czech Republic.

 The photography department took the students on a class retreat to Poněšic, a rural town in CZ where they have cabins. It's beautiful. Here each person (BA, masters, and profs) gave a presentation of their best work from the last year to the entire group. Some where in English, some in Czech. The rest of the time was spent hiking or having classes in the words, boating on the river, and drinking large amounts of Czech liquor at all times (it was basically on the itinerary.) During architecture photography class we traveled to villages built in the 1800s to see the strange houses. That class in itself was the height of my 3 day trip. 2nd was the fuzziest, warmest cat who fell in love with me and wouldn't let me put her down. 


The trip was a chance to know the other photo students better. I won't lie, the language barrier is not a problem in class but it is socially. They speak English when they have to, but its hard to get them to speak English instead of their native language. (I understand that, too. I'm just saying it was hard to be included in the group.) Also, as only three Americans in the group there is a strange separation. It really makes a difference that we aren't European. Another obvious division is smoking. A big part of their socializing is centered around cigarettes. As a non-smoker I'm fine sitting outside with them as they smoked but it was definitely considered odd for me to do so. As the weekend went on we all got more comfortable with each other and I found myself even in some lively debates about everything from  health care, immigration, heritage, to which country has the best alcohol. Success!

The view from the cabins. Lovely! 

The view from a baroque garden. You can see Dan, reading the history of the gardens, his shadow, and then mine as  well. 

Peacocks in the park. This is very genuine Prague. 

Eating delicious truffles at my favorite restaurant CukrKavaLimonada. Yum!

Vienna Night Run: Oct 9, 2011

2 weeks ago I had the incredible opportunity to run a race in Vienna! I hopped a bus to the beautiful city and spent the a 3 day weekend there. I'm fortunate enough to have been there before and knew a few "favorite" places... I adore Café Central, and spent a few lazy mornings reading there and sipping cocoa. But Saturday night rolled around, the night I had been waiting for.... 

...and it was freezing! A storm was passing through and it rained all of Friday and Saturday, with a brief and lucky pause Saturday night. We had clear but cold weather 36 degrees fahrenheit! (only 2 celsius!). 

This is my first official race not with a team and not hosted by my university. It was really exciting! Afterwards there was a huge party by the castle with beer and strudel and a live band. The best part was meeting a Brazilian woman named Aline. She moved to Vienna after marrying a Austrian man, has been here for 5 years and learned German for love. It was great to get to know her!

Vienna is one of the most classically beautiful cities, perfect for a night run. 10,000 people ran past historical plazas and palaces, all gorgeously light up in the moonlight. It was a wonderful sight to see. I was thrilled to be a part of it. 

Me in my Vienna Night Run race shirt... it's bright green and incredibly reflective... cus, hey, it's a night run!

 This race was a sort of "Cookie Monsters Midnight Snack"since in April earlier this year, my boyfriend Mike ran the Saint Louis Marathon sporting a cookie monster hat. I supported him at the marathon wearing the Cookie Monster shirt... and now in October, Cookie Monster was due for some more exercise.

The crowd cues to start the race! Excitement builds!

Aline and me after the 5k! Victory! We met before the race and then had a great run together.

The party afterwards and a lovely Viennese museum or palace (something old and beautiful) in the background.

Simply, this night rocked. 

My Favorite Things: Vienna

Café Central, an historical coffee house frequented by the likes of Freud, Leon Trotsky & Vladmir Lenin, Theodore Herzl, Adolf Loos, and modernist poet Peter Altenberg. Though all mentioned were regulars, Altenberg frequented Café Central to the extent that he gave it as his home address! He is honored to this day by a statue of him in the en, you can see him on the left side of the panorama above. 

Yum! Cafe Central has delicious coffee and pastries. And every day they have live piano playing. It's such a pleasant experience to sit and enjoy the day there. I especially love to read history in such a historical place! 

Dali! My favorite! Kunsthalle Vienna had a fabulous Salvador Dali exhibition! A great collection.  He is one of my favorite artists of all time. They even showed him appearing in videos from his real life, like throwing a party/ fundraiser in the woods and appearing on a game show 

Dali Atomicus, the best portrait I have ever seen. 3 cats, suspended furniture, and countless buckets of water, and 28 takes. Thank you, Philippe Halsman!

(more Dali love.)

This is an incredible piece of work I stumbled up. It is a photogram, the most simplistic form of photography, of a very modern object to make a abstract form that looks beautiful. To me the abstracted objects nearly resemble flowers. They are graceful and quite lovely in person. This snapshot does no justice. Any guess to what the object it? 

The photograms are of different cellphones receiving calls! This is the brilliant work of Christoph Fuchs and Gregor Hofbauer, 2003. This yellow one is titled "Jakob Calling, Siemens L55" (2003).

One of my favorite parts of traveling is to see different perspectives and approaches, to life, art, everything... Fuchs and Hofbauer took the simplest form of photography, which is often forgotten and disregarded as such, and applied it to modern and relevant subjects to make a beautiful and new way of seeing our everyday objects. That is beautiful art to me. 

This image is lovely but strange. It is unlike any other I've seen because it is not "normal photography" but in fact an X-ray! Cool, right? It's a great reminder that images come from many tools, not just those we deem "artistic" or "fine art." I love that something this delicate and creative came from an imaging machine (a camera) that is usually used only pragmatically. (Anonymous, Untitled, 1930s, X-ray.)

Above is one of the most intense sculptures from antiquity I've ever seen. Look at those faces and fists!

Hundertwasserhaus, Vienna was designed by artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser as an organic living space. For example, the apartment building has 250 trees growing inside the building and the floors and walls undulate like rolling hills. People currently live in all of the apartments.    

East Side Gallery: Berlin's Most Famous Graffiti... Murals on the Berlin Wall

One last "street" find I forgot to post last time :-)

The East Side Gallery is a segment of the Berlin Wall that was preserved and painted by invited artists from countries all over the world after the fall of the Wall on November 9, 1989. Now it serves as a memory to the spirit of the generations who fought against totalitarianism.

It's also a widely visited tourist site. It kills me that these murals were defaced by common graffiti to the extent that every 10 years or so they have to (and will have to) petition the artists for permission to "repair" them. This is not state-of-the-art restoration, they simply repaint them completely. They were repainted very recently and already the work has been defaced. It makes me angry that stupid tourists, who paid thousands of dollars in plane tickets and hotels, hostels, and food, waste it all to come here, to ooooh and ahhh at "the Berlin Wall" which is now devoid of its authenticity at their own hands. FYI if you do visit Berlin, there are still many meters of authentic Berlin Wall intact, as well as a "documentation center" that is worth a visit (its not quite a museum). It's in another part of town but worth the look.

I've told you why you shouldn't go to the East Side Gallery, but everyone (including me) still does. That's okay. The colors are bright, you forget it was only painted last year and revel in the strange and wonderful imaginations of artists from around the world. Some of the designs are quite good, some quite famous, some quite strange... Here are my favorites:

Varda Carmeli/ Israel 

Hey there! 

Also, it is called the East Side Gallery because while under Soviet control the side of the wall facing East Berlin was guarded by soldiers with machine guns. Where the side facing West Berlin frequented graffiti, the East Side of the Berlin Wall remained bare. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, it seemed a novel idea to paint the formerly guarded side with messages of freedom.

Probably the most famous East Side Mural of them all.

Interesting graffiti here... Look closely the quote is actually "He who wants..." but someone added an "S" to make it a "She who the want the world..." 

Addition to my (Running) List of Heroes.

The BBC headline 100 Year Old Man Runs Marathon caught my eye today. Fauja Singh, 100 years old, completed a marathon in Toronto in 8 hours, 25 minutes and 16 seconds. The article goes on to say even more surprising things: he broke the world record for oldest marathoner! He only began running 11 years ago (at age 89? Really??). Singh trains for 10 miles every day... I consider that a marvel and incredible commitment at any age! What an amazing feat (pair of feet?)!

Berlin Street Art

As promised, this post is about the street art of Berlin. To be followed by a post of art on the Berlin Wall, too. (Oh, soooo many pictures.)

To start, this picture is dedicated to my sisters (Kim & Laura). I swear I didn't do it.
(taken behind a street market.) 

The green man here is the "walking man" symbol in Berlin. He is seen everywhere now as a cult image. 

The two above and the two below are taken at Kunsthaus Tacheles, where artists have taken over an entire building for many years and decorated and used it as they please. It's part gallery, part funhouse, part junkyard, and part sculpture garden. The best part is that at any given time you can see the artists at work; my favorite was seeing the sculptors working on a larger than life iron horse.

This strange, over-sexed bunny is an icon of one of the few, well known, female graffiti artists (epic fail-- I forget her name!). She is from Toulouse, France (HI, Anna!) and is known for over-sexualized but unappealing figures. She's very respected in Berlin. 

The STRANGEST performance art combined with sculpture I've ever experienced was at the Dead Chickens Gallery for the Monster Kabinett. It was downright uncomfortable. I'm all for experimenting but, seriously, not all art is good art. 

This is Dan, a local graffiti artist and student, preparing his next project. 

Sculpture behind Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin.