Sh*tty Beatles

Important Update

2007-06-10T22:07:00.001-07:00

Nothing New....

new post_

2006-01-24T18:05:00.000-08:00

for anyone who has looked at this site in the past 3 months, this one's for you. it is now down to my last semester at design school. i wish i had time to record my thoughts more often to better document the last days of college. i am going to try not to be lazy this last semester, because i have so much i want to do before i go. i have about 10 side projects, all of which are related to design, that i want to do, but will prolly only get around to a couple of them. i would like time to build more temporary walls to shape my apartment with color and light (i have built one "light wall" so far). i am especially interested in home made recycled plastics. not sure what chemicals i might release if i attempt it. it seems as if there is so much unnecessary waste in my own apartment alone, that i wish i could experiment with many of these materials (i.e. cardboards, papers, plastics, even metals) and try to make something beautiful and useful out of them. i also would like to get better with a sewing machine. last summer i learned how to sew, and have since completed a few minor projects with a needle. i am very interested in clothing design, and hope to make much of my own clothes one day. i was thinking i might make some clothes for my friend Evan Weir. He has a terrible fashion sense, so i might try to help him out a bit. last but not least is music. since freshman year knecht, ross, and i have been talking about forming a band, but it always fell through. we all agreed that this semester we would. so far, no dice. i still have hope though. along with that, recently a friend of mine who is a dj, showed me how to use acid pro. this, in conjunction with some other software i have used before could be really fun to come up with some remixes. so in closing, carpe diem, if you really want to accomplish anything in life. hopefully i will take my own advice.

the end of an era_

2005-06-23T09:37:00.000-07:00

so this is it folks, i leave prague tomorrow for good. it is kind of a sad day for adam, aaron, and i. we will all really miss this place. it has treated us well. but on the bright side tomorrow is the beginning of our journey across europe before we come back home. our schedule is as follows:

friday june 24 - morning - prague to munich
sunday june 26 - morning - munich to zurich
monday june 27 - evening - zurich to basel
wednesday june 29 - morning - basel to paris
friday july 1 - overnight - paris to barcelona
tuesday july 5 - morning - barcelona to madrid
wednesday july 6 - morning - flight home

we are pretty excited for the next couple of weeks, i just hope my wallet holds up. i should have periodic internet access, so i can check emails and i might even be able to blog (prolly no pictures, though) once or twice as well.

one final exciting thing was last night when we went to the mars volta concert at the roxy. it was an awesome show. no opening band, but they played about a two hour set. definately glad i went, and i got a few photos as well. i am just a little regretful cause a dj at one of our favorite haunts, nebe, is from el paso and supposedly knows the band. when i texted him after the show to see if he was going to meet up with them later, he said he was going to try. unfortunately, adam and i came home and passed out cause we were so tired so we never got the chance to go back out and see if he met up with the band. we should see him tonight, so he can tell us all about it.

anyways, i have finish up a few more things here. i should say now, that i hope you enjoyed following along with my adventures through this site. i did it for the fans. now seriously, i have to come up with crap to say like twice a week, so show me that i have a remotely creative audience that can come up with comments to post, ok?

stu stu studio_

2005-06-16T08:30:00.000-07:00

on monday i turned in my studio project and today we had our final meeting as a class. following that we had a short individual meeting with the professor to get our grades. if its not too small to see, basically, what i did first is create one big block of mixed use buildings that not only have streetfronts, but also a central courtyard that would have shops fronting it as well. so essentially, the buildings are double loaded with a service corridor in the middle. in turn those buildings are serviced from the underground parking area which is accessible to garbage trucks and what not. next, on the block to the south, i have one group of more traditional buildings next to an existing building that i am preserving. on the waterfront, i expanded on the existing park space and also added, drumroll please, a modern art museum. so thats the design in a nutshell. after talking to him, he wanted to see more renderings in order to see what the project would actually look like, but i didnt want to pollute my presentation with sketch up (the only 3D program i have) any more than i had to, so i didnt feel bad when he gave me a "very good" or B, if you will. I think it turned out alright, though. the printed background color was alot less vibrant than on my color screen (it was less salmon and more bile), so my biggest regret is not being able to pull of a sweet looking pink presentation. oh, well, theres always next year. i also got signed off on urbanism and turned in my ecology paper for him to grade. so i will actually be done when i get that grade on monday. so to celebrate i went and got some sun at some small nearby park this afternoon. ya know, need to work on my base tan before i head to spain, im sure you suckas can relate.

ok, still not quite done, but close_

2005-06-14T03:13:00.000-07:00

disclaimer: this entry is not very funny, just an update of what i have been up to. if you dont feel like reading it, my feelings wont be hurt, but you can leave a comment and pretend like you read it if you want.

i have been working overtime in order get some of these last tasks done, namely studio, which is done and i will show you later, but first i have some catching up to do. well, last week i showed my photography finals works to my professor and got my book signed, so thats done and done. i put two themes together. the first is one point perspectives (above) just cause i am obsessed with one points, all of which were taken around prague. not that mind-blowing, but hey, you can't win em all. the second is the jewish museum in berlin (below) just cause there were a couple shots that i realy liked, the other two are par at best. try to figure out which is which. also, i had my interview with dean slapeta for my history of arch. class. i took it with tiff and nicole and we pretty much just talked about where we travelled to this semester and what architecture we saw. this guys knows his stuff. not like charney, but not too far off. nicole mentioned she was in tampere, finland (to visit don) and he took about 5 seconds to draw a sketch of a building and asked her if she knew it. she had no idea. then he said it was the central train station in tampere. so after all was said and done i looked it up online, and sure enough, his 5 second sketch couldnt have been anymore accurate. i was impressed, but i dont think nicole was. she must have just been bitter cause he stumped her. also he caught tiff slip up and say the wrong architect for a building in vienna, and corrected her promptly. i dont want to make their discussions sound bad, cause they were both on point for everything else, where my portion was just uninteresting. i talked about the things i saw in berlin..... and that was that, so we got our books signed and said goodbye. so now for me i have a final studio meeting on thursday, i finished my ecology paper and i just have to turn it in, then i have to finish and turn in my urbanism paper. then its days in the sun and nights out with friends until i leave prague.

krickitty kracow_

2005-06-07T03:14:00.000-07:00

last week, bec, who just graduated from ksu, came and visited me in prague while she was on her post school/pre work tour of europe. we decided it would be cool to go to krakow, poland, so we did. we took the night train from prague thursday night, which was as usual, intersting. got a few hours of sleep before we arrived in krakow at 5:30 in the morning. that day we went to auschwitz-birkenau which is about an hour and a half from krakow. it was really busy, but still surreal nonetheless. our first stop was auschwitz 1, which was a converted army barracks (above). it was initially used to imprison so called dangerous polish citizens, aka educated people that might not agree with the nazis. they were used for slave labor during the days and brought back to the camp at nights. it was not until a couple years later that the decision was made to bring all of the jews there. that is when the nazis decided to build birkenau or auschwitz 2 essentially from the ground up (above). there are too many other details to mention about these places, but i suggest if you are anywhere near there, go. it is quite a powerful experience.
after returning to krakow, we wandered around the old town and old town square (below). the town is really gorgeous, prices are even a little cheaper than prague for most things, and the people were very nice. much of it was reminiscent of prague, for me, but on a smaller scale. also, we read some statistic that said there were 750,000 residents of the city and almost 100,000 students, so there was a very young and hip vibe about, not to mention lots of cool clubs and bars.
saturday we visited the salt mines outside of the city, which are really famous in poland because of there extroidinary extensiveness. i couldnt tell you how many hundreds of miles of mines there are or how many huge carved out spaces there are, but i can tell you that they have a church about 80 meters underground, that is used regularly for sunday mass and often weddings, as well (below).
we returned to prague on sunday during some rainy weather, and for a couple hours with some creepy guy in our train cabin that was a white chevy astro van short of being a child molester. we made it back just in time for me to work on my studio project some more. speaking of which......

dude_

2005-06-02T11:40:00.000-07:00

not much to blog about, lately. just been trying to finish up some photography stuff that is due on monday and remotely preparing for an oral exam on tuesday. i'll show you my photography stuff and let you know about my exam with dean slapeta early next week. this weekend i will be in krakow, poland taking my last trip before i leave prague. i'll also update you on that. for now, check out this sweet lamborghini i saw in town the other day. brings back old memories of the rad posters i had on my wall 15 years ago that i bought at the book fair. yeah mom, that three dollars didnt go to the newest boxcar children thriller, sorry.

three down, five to go_

2005-05-31T01:59:00.000-07:00

this is my final poster for my computer graphics class that i printed out full size and turned in yesterday. i used a bunch of images that i have taken over the semester (ny skyline i got from internet, though), one of my favorites being the background which is the jewish museum in berlin. the text, if you can't read it, is a mies van der rohe quote, "architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space". i am pretty happy with the way it turned out, i hope you are too. and if you don't like it, then make something better, and then look at that instead. so i am done with czech culture, ornament, and computer graphics. now i only have 5 classes to worry about, two of them that will be ending in the next week, so i will be letting you know how those go.

things, things, and things_

2005-05-26T00:55:00.000-07:00

if some of you get annoyed by checking my blog site only to find that i havent updated it in like 3 or 4 days, well there is a real good reason for that. the stuff that i am not blogging is pretty much not that interesting. since vienna i have, again, been trying to get alot of schoolwork done, key word "trying". also i have gone out a couple nights. most of the friends that i have made from the economics university are gone or leaving this week, so i have made a point to run with that crowd a bit lately. lets see what else, i saw the new star wars. excellent work mr. lucas. besides the fact that your dialogues are often laughable and the graphic transitions look like they were taken from powerpoint, i realize it wouldnt be star wars without it. and for blogs sake, i will tell you and show you about what i did yesterday. i went vysehrad in the afternoon and took a bunch of pictures for my urbanism class because i have chosen to do my final work on this area of the city. it was a beautiful day and although most of my shots are more for documentation, i got a couple decently (and i mean decently) cool shots. so heres one. now comment.

from wien, with clouds_

2005-05-22T04:48:00.000-07:00

Again I must apologize for taking so long to get this post up. The whole blogging process is quite time consuming so you all should be grateful for seeing this. You can show me your appreciation by either showering me with gifts or leaving good comments, so pick one. But now, my mid week trip to Vienna, or Wien, to those crazy Austrians. Also, be aware it’s a long one.
We arrived Wednesday afternoon to a rainy city. Regardless, we had an agenda, so after getting settled with accommodations and had a quick meal, we headed to MUMOK, the modern art museum. I was really impressed with the building. I took plenty of shots, but I chose not to include them because it is still difficult to understand it from just one or two images. The artwork, I must say was a little sub-par. Two floors dedicated to the one American artist form Cali, and most of it was pretty off the wall photos, videos and other weird experiments. One floor dedicated to mostly Russian artists and another floor with a grab bag of pretty famous artists, which was the area I liked best. After that we got some Viennese coffee, because they are so proud of it. Typically it is served on a silver platter and always with a glass of water. Wandered around for a bit, and made our way back to our hostel planning on getting some food and drink at a grocery store, only to find that they all close at 7; All of them. We know cause we walked for miles trying to find one that was open a little later, but it was nowhere to be found. So we just found a restaurant, I had a delicious bratwurst, and we all went to bed happy.
The next day we got up early with hopes of a glorious day. Needless to say, they were soon crushed, but we trudged on. First we went to the gasometers(above). 4 huge, well gasometer buildings, whatever they are. They were shut down many years ago, but renovated and added to by a group of architects, including jean nouvel, to house a mall and residential units. Next we went to Hundertwasserhaus (above), which is this crazy residential building designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who claimed that the straight line was a betrayal of human individuality. The building incorporates a lot of sustainable techniques, and was also just cool, besides the fact that the place was crawling with tourists. Next we went to Schonbrunn palace, which was the summer home of the Hapsbergs. I know who they are because from the 1500s up to the 1800s, they ruled over the Czech Republic as well as many other adjacent territories. We didn’t see inside the palace, because the price was not right, but we did get to see some of the huge and extravagant gardens (below). This is where I was really sad it was not sunny and warm. After that we went and saw St. Stevens cathedral, which to my delight, happened to have an Austrian breakdance group performing outside (below). At this time, late in the afternoon, finally the sun started to show. We walked around the Ringstrasse area for a while until it got dark. Then we topped the evening off by taking a ride on the RiesenRad, a 65m high ferris wheel, built around 1900. It was lovely, but not quite worth the 8 euros for the 20 min. ride.
The next morning we packed up and headed back to prague on a gorgeous day. I guess these things happen though.

we are the champions_

2005-05-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

sorry for such a long period between blogs, but these past few days have been pretty busy for me. on thursday, jonas, ryan and phil came into town as well as a few ia friends who are studying in germany. then on friday, corby came in as well. then the first three left on sunday, the same day that kyle, jeff, jaren and jacob came into town. corby left monday, and monday night kristen and scott came into town. so this morning kyle, jeff, karen, and jacob moved on. not to mention melissa, my roommates g/f is in town, a couple girls from KC visiting adam and aaron, and cali, a flatmate of mine's g/f. on top of that i my workload for school has been increasing alot lately. tomorrow, kristen and scott will move on, and i will also be going o vienna with adam, angela, and leslie. we will be returning on friday, coincidentally the same day that i have a paper due, so i have been working overtime to get that done before i leave tomorrow. now that you know all of that i will be quizing all of you later, so make sure to study these names and dates. ok, but if you havent heard, the czech republic won the national hockey championship sunday night when they defeated canada 3-0, breaking their 2 yr winning streak. we went to old town square where it was being shown on huge screens to a packed house (above). after the victory everyone was celebrating, cars honking, and people waving czech flags, so we decided to go to a couple of pubs before tiring out and heading home. it was a really cool experience to be here for that and i know our guests felt the same way. as you can see, kyle and corby show their enthusiasm for the home team victory (below).

reading, writing, rithmatic_

2005-05-12T13:10:00.000-07:00

after updating my beautiful audience on my trip, i have to update you people on what i have been doing in prague since i got back. well, there isnt a whole lot of interesting things to say. i have been much more dilligent with my schoolwork mostly, but i will go over a few highlights. went to a boat party for the economics university where we cruised on a boat up and down the vltava while listening to music and dancing. good times, except the fact that it was really cold. went on a field trip for my history of urbanism class where we visited many of the housing blocks built in the communist era on the outskirts of prague (above). i snapped a few photos. i think this one is funny cause it looks like the sun is shining on everything but the building, even though its just the sun angle. but to be fair, the master plans for most of these developments are actually quite generous with green space, something you wont see much of anymore. other than that, today starts a week of ksu visitors. a total of about 20 ksu friends who have been studying in other places will be through prague in this time. so hopefully i will have some intersting experiences to blog about in the near future.

back from the future_

2005-05-09T12:20:00.000-07:00

we arrived at our hostel in berlin, late thursday night (apr. 28th), and pretty much went straight to bed. the next morning we went to the pergamon museum which houses numerous huge transported and reconstructed artifacts from ancient times. examples are the pergamon altar from ancient greece-170 BC, the market gate of miletus from ancient rome-120 AD, and the ishtar gate from bablyon-6th cen. BC (above). pretty incredible to have these artifacts inside in a museum. we also stopped in to the altes museum, just cause it was designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, a legend in german architecture. after that we checked out the jewish museum by daniel libeskind. some spaces of the building were impressive,but the awkward nooks and crannies, lovingly called dead dog spaces, were not. the museum content seemed interesting for a range of ages, but unfortunately, i didnt examine too much of it. it prolly would have been enjoyable if i had more time or was actually jewish. i had dinner at an authentic german restaurant and ordered schnitzel. it was pretty good. especially the two fried eggs that were served on top of it. thats what i call home cooking. that night we went to the reichstag (german parliament) with the dome roof addition by norman foster, to catch some night views of the city (below). on the way back to our hostel from there, i happened to see something out of the corner of my eye. it looked like a lit up word, but when i looked over, all that was there was a single vertical light. after some scientific reasoning, i determined that it was blinking in a specific pattern very quickly so when the viewers eyes were in motion across it, it "stretched" these blinks out to form words. i was able to capture one of the words with my camera by panning it very quickly. if this concept is still over your head, either go to germany and see it for yourself, or just accept that germany is far more advanced than us. the next day i went to a museum which housed over 85 works of picasso as well as a couple other artists works. it was interesting especially cause with entry their was a free audio tour reciever thingie and the owner of the museum told some stories about how he acquired some of the works and had personal connections with the artists themselves. also had some haagen daas to try to fill the void of a gelato free world. it was delicious, but not the same. the rest of the day was just walking around and enjoying this modern city. because of all of the destruction here in the past century, the city has so much new construction and most of it is pretty sweet. everything is so efficient and calculated, a flatmate of mine thought it was like living in the future. oh, and they have the best gummies in the world (haribo, of course). finally that evening we boarded a train back to prague and back to school. i hope you enjoyed my trip, now leave a comment.

finally, the beach_

2005-05-06T08:07:00.000-07:00

thursday morning (apr 28th) we got up early, determined to go to the beach. our castiglion buddies recommended cinque terra, a beautiful area with 5 small towns perched above a gorgeous bay about 1 hr north of pisa. we arrived at monterosso (one of the 5 towns) in the early afternoon and scoped out a place on the sandy/rocky beach ( below). it was a beautiful and, from what we heard, abnormally hot day, so we definately lucked out. the water was pretty cold, but crystal clear, so it made up for it (above). we splashed around some, laid out some, had a picnic of sorts, and left with a couple bottles of nice wine to take home. practically flawless afternoon. but this when things became more complicated. we had planned to catch the train back to pisa and have about 1 hr and 45 min to get from the train station to the airport. plenty of course. well, we got back to the train station where we had our bags put in storage. unfortunately, no one was at the office to get them out. our train was scheduled to be there in a few minutes, where are they? finally someone came and we quickly got our things and headed to our scheduled platform. phew, that was close......waiting for the train.....waiting...hmmm, whats going on. ok, so we waited there for almost an hour. for some really weird reason, our train was almost an hour late. we are getting a little nervous on the way to pisa as we watch the seconds tick by. we get to pisa about 40 minutes before our flight was scheduled to leave. mind you, according to easyjet, check in stops 30 min. prior to departure. if they are strict on that we only have 10 min. we more or less sprinted with all of our stuff out front of the train station and go to a taxi. airport please, and step on it. but he says he can only take 4 people, not 5. what do we do. i am not exactly sure how to get to the airport from here, but i was gonna leave my bag with them, and sprint in the general direction. ok, he says, i guess i can take 5 people. well lets go then. so in this country of mario andretti's all ove the streets, we have to get the least aggressive driver around. regardless, he gets us there, where we tip him well and run stright to the check in counter right at 30 min. before departure (good thing i didnt run. it was further than i thought). so we caught our plane to berlin that night, along with an exciting story to tell.

your reputation precedes you_

2005-05-04T11:47:00.000-07:00

we left florence tuesday morning (apr 26th) and arrived in rome about lunchtime. first thing we went to see the colosseum (above), arch of constantine, and roman forum. didnt go inside the colosseum cause we are students and didnt want to spend the 10 euros to get in, but it was still pretty cool from the outside. from there we went to see the trevi fountain (below), the pantheon (above), and the spanish steps. that evening we watched the sunset over the piazza del popolo, which wasnt as good as our sunsets in florence, but still a cool place. the next morning we went to the vatican first thing (below). what do you know, we were there in the crowd for the new pope's first ever wednesday blessing. the place was packed with catholic pilgrims wanting to see their new papa. i would compare the atmoshpere there to a sporting event with only one team. people were chanting all sorts of cheers and what not, in support of their leader. then he came rolling out on the pope-mobile waving to the crowd. he went through the crowd on a predetermined path and actually came about 15 ft away from us. im not catholic, but it was still pretty incredible to be there for that. after sitting 2 hrs in the sun, we made out way to the vatican museums. saw the classics, ie raphael's school of athens, and of course, the sistine chapel and what can i say, michelangelo is amazing. later in the afternoon, we were able to get into st. peters. it is huge. the baldachino over the altar is almost 100ft tall. it also houses another michelangelo masterpiece, the pieta. breathtaking, thats about all i can say. the rest of the day we just wandered around and shopped a little. i bought a pair of pumas. you know what they say, when in rome, spend alot of money on fashion. amazing city, and the weather was amazing as well, some would say too hot, but i liked it compared to the weather in prague the past couple of months. and no one is leaving me comments, so i am going to have a survey for everyone who reads this blog to respond to: which civilization was greater, ancient greece or ancient rome? submit your answers along with a brief explanantion by clicking on "comments".

it means "rebirth"_

2005-05-03T08:48:00.000-07:00

sunday morning (apr 24) we rolled out of castiglion fiorentino headed for florence. first thing we did was get in line for the accademia to see the david. it was well worth the 45 min wait and the 8 euro cover charge. it is so perfect, it made me weak in the knees. after that we went a block over to see the founding hospital by brunelleschi. it hasnt been preserved as well as it should have been, being that it is the first renaissance building ever. kinda worth keeping nice, in my book. moving on, we also saw palazzo pitti (from the outside), palazzo vecchio (from the outside), and the uffizi gallery (very unfortunately, only from the outside). that evening, as well as the next, we watched the sunset over the city, with a bottle of wine, at piazza michelangelo (below). on the way back to our hostel i snapped a photo of the ponte vecchio at night (above). for those of you who don't know, it is a bridge that the powerful medeci family used to build their own private escape route over the river from their palazzo, in case shit started to hit the fan. also, at one point the bridge was used as a busy market street for butchers and the like, but the medeci's didn't like that so much, so they gave those filthy peasants the boot, and replaced their shops with nice jewelry stores, which still dominate the bridge today. the next morning we went up to the top of the dome of santa maria del fiore, which was for many years, unrivaled in size anywhere in europe (above). we also saw santa croce, which houses the tomb of michelangelo himself. also, off of the church's courtyard is the famous pazzi chapel, another of brunelleschi's creations. that afternoon i went to see santa maria novella which made a beautiful renaissance backdrop to the busy open space in front of it (below). this is a beautiful city with too much to see in 2 days, but if you are in italy, it is a must see.

long lost friends_

2005-05-02T05:47:00.000-07:00

so we left pisa friday afternoon to go meet up with some old archie friends from ksu in castiglion fiorentino. this is a lovely hill town of about 10-15 thousand residents, if i remember correctly. there were some amazing views (above) from almost anywhere in town. that night we were able to catch up on what everyone has done in the past 3 months over a liter, yes a liter (seriously, look at those mugs), of beer at a local pub (maybe those of you who have been can help me out with the name of this place, as i don't recall). the next day a large group of us took a bus to the adjacent town of cortona. apparently this is where "under the tuscan sun" was filmed. i can see why, cause it is very picturesque and perched high above the surrounding areas (below). near the top of the hill that the town rests on is a church (below). it is pretty nice for a town so small, but i still dont know how they actually went through with it after lugging the first stone up the hill. after that hike, i would have settled for a sacred rock at the top of the hill.
overall, it was refreshing to see some old faces and hear funny stories, as well as tell some of our own. i know they would be upset at me if i didnt mention how good the gelatto is in castiglion. they claim it's the best in italy, but i'll let you know after i try them all, which i plan to do.

oh yeah? well we have a leaning tower_

2005-05-01T04:42:00.000-07:00

so my trip began in prague thursday morning (apr 21st) where we caught a train to berlin, hung out in the airport there and played spades all afternoon. and this was not the big, nice airport, it was the small kinda crappy discount airline airport way outside of the city. nonetheless, we got some euros out of the atm, and caught our easyjet flight to pisa that evening. when we arrived in pisa, it was already dark, and after a confusing bus experience, we managed to stumble upon our hostel, where we stayed in a camper, which was surprisingly cool. the next morning we went to the piazza dei miracoli and saw the tower complex (above) which includes, the baptistry, the cathedral and of course, the leaning tower (below). it was truly a sight, though. it is the weirdest feeling in the world to see in person something so historical that you have only seen in books. galileo actually performed gravity experiments there like 400 years ago. who would have thunk that a such an engineering folly would result in this, now so important, entity. and when i say they they have a leaning tower, i am not kidding. the only other thing worth noting in this town is the gelatto. so we high tailed it out of there that afternoon to catch a train to castiglion fiorentino to see some old friends.

berlin fool_

2005-04-29T15:29:00.000-07:00

hey everyone, i am now in berlin, and i will return to prague tomorrow evening. it is quite a change from italy, but every place i have been to on this trip has been amazing in its own way. it has been an amazing trip, and i will be a little sad to see it end, but then its back to my schoolwork for a solid few weeks to give it a final push. i have met some really cool people, seen beautiful sights, and even taken a few photos. of course i´ll tell you all about it in the next few days. sidenote - congrats to my brother trevor and his wife kristen as he e-mailed me to tell me i will have a new nephew at any moment now.

pre-italia preparation_

2005-04-20T05:56:00.000-07:00

tomorrow morning i, along with 5 others, board a train to berlin where we will fly to pisa, italy. we will stop in castiglion fiorentino for a couple days to meet up with some fellow ksu archies (they are studying there for the semester), move to florence for another couple of days, shoot down to rome, again for 2 days, then back to pisa to catch our plane back to berlin, where, you guessed it, we will stay and tour the city for 2 days. so i should return to prague on the 30th. its a long trip, but it's italy. i hope to bring back some good wine, big tacky sunglasses, and maybe if im feeling lucky, a nice italian mullet (pretty much all of the male italian tourists here in prague have it, and it just makes me jealous). the berlin part was pretty much cause we will be in the neighborhood, but should be good as well. if i get internet access along the way, i might be able to tell you a little bit what i am doing while i am there, but no promises. anyways, i havent done much the past few days except classes, homework, and preparing for this trip. nothing really new to show you, so i just included this photo from a window in the city tower at jindr. hradec from last weekend. and people, people....it wouldnt be bad if you left a comment every now and again. in fact, it might be good.

cool group, here i come_

2005-04-18T07:29:00.000-07:00

last night i returned from my weekend trip to cesky krumlov and jindrichuv hradec in southern bohemia. the verdict is now in, and i was cool enough to make friends with the economics students, as opposed to being the nerdy outkast. a total of about 20 exchange students went along for this trip, and i had never met a single one, but on the train ride to our destination, i quickly befriended a german guy and an english guy, who i ended up rooming with at our hotel/hostel. we arrived at this small town called jindrichuv hradec friday evening, got settled in, ate dinner, then our tour leaders brought us to a local bar. the reason why we stayed in this town is because one of the departments of prague's economics university is located here, so there are like 1000 students who live and go to school in this small town. saturday we took a bus to cesky krumlov (above and below), which is a really big tourist town here becuase it is such a well preserved and picturesque little town. it is actually protected by Unesco now, and they are helping to restore more of it. anyways, first we took a graphite mine tour, which i thought was quite boring, especially on the gorgeous day that we had. finally, we got to spend some time in the town, which was nice. we then took the bus back to where we were staying, so we could eat and then we went to another local bar. the next morning, it was dreary and rainy. we toured the castle in jindrichuv hradec and also saw a museum that housed the worlds largest nativity scene (they said it was in the guiness book, so i took their word for it). it was oddly impressive, yet at the same time, kinda sad seeing that two brothers spent nearly every free moment of their lives working on it. i dont have a picture to show you, cause they werent permitted, so if you are really that curious, make the trip when you get a free weekend. we werent scheduled to leave until about 6 pm, so we killed some time in this boring town by hanging out in a cafe for a couple of hours. all in all, the sights werent amazing, but now i have a grab bag of new friends to show for it.

thirsty "for watercolor" thursday_

2005-04-15T05:32:00.000-07:00

yesterday was such a beautiful day, aaron and i decided to go to vysehrad to sketch and maybe even watercolor. we stayed for a few hours in the afternoon, where i was able to come up with this little ditty. i know its not very good, but the photo makes it look even worse, o well. i got to get back into the watercolor thing sooner or later. also, the paper in the moleskin doesnt like water that much, but i dont have much watercolor paper, so i just decided to practice on it. anyways, this afternoon i am going on a trip to southern bohemia. the international student club organized this trip at my university, but i was too late in signing up. so i am actually going with one of the other universities that has that trip this weekend, but no one else that i know of is going. i'll update you when i get back if i met all sorts of cool people or if i was the nerdy outcast with no friends.

buda vs. pest - round 4

2005-04-14T08:11:00.000-07:00

so on sunday, our last day in budapest, i got up at 8:00 from gabor's and went back to our hostel to pack up and get ready to do a little more sightseeing. we went to heroes square (above) but it was pretty dead on account of the crummy weather, im sure. we also saw a small castle very near to the square, but it wasn't very impressive. after that, we had to head back to our hostel to grab our things and get something to eat as well. all the others really wanted to go pizza hut, so it was either that or on my own. i decided the hut wouldn't be so bad, even though i never eat it at home. hey i never eat mcdonalds back home either, but here its like a treat from another world. so back to the pizza hut..terrible. at least as bad as back home. waste of time and money, but you live and you learn. so a word to the wise, whenever you are in budapest, steer clear of the pizza hut. so after that we headed to the train station for our 7 hr ride home, which was fun, but packed like crazy so we were forced to have guests in our cabin. this time we werent quite as rowdy, but there were definately traces of mischeif. so there you have it folks, that was my first big trip. look for more recaps of trips in the future as we are planning our italy/berlin trip for the 21st - 30th and i am also going to cesky krumlov this weekend with a trip organized by the economics university in prague. should be interesting.

buda vs. pest - round 3

2005-04-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

saturday we got up in the morning ready to do some sighsteeing. we went to st. stephen's basilica first (above). it is the largest church in budapest, seating over 8,000. it was begun in the mid 19th century, but because of numerous problems wasn't finished until 1905. in front of it is a huge square which was an awesome place to sit and sketch the church. later we crossed the chain bridge, which is somewhat famous, and the climbed to the top of castle hill. this is when we went to the labyrinth as well (see "weary return_"). after walking around for awhile there, someone in our group thought it would be a good idea to go see this statue park of old hungarian communist sculptures. the ads for it make it sound amazing, so they must be right. wrong. we had to take a tram to the end of the line, then buy a bus ticket and go another 6 or 7 miles. the only thing that could have made it worse was bad weather, and you guessed right, it started raining. also, catching the bus home proved to be a little more difficult than it sounded originally. so after that 3 hr. waste of 10 bucks we went back to the river and had dinner on a boat restaurant, which was actually good, and again, spicy, even though i only had pasta. the rain had let up so a few of us decided to go to the top of the citadel to take some night pics (below). the view was incredible, but on the way down, it started raining again, but harder than before. once back to the hostel and after alot of legwork, i was able to get ahold of gabor, a foreign exchange student at my high school who was from hungary and studying in budapest. i met up with him and we went to this student bar near his university. there he bought me many shots of hungarian liquor. it was rough. after the bar closed, i just went back to his place to crash cause it was much closer to where we were than my hostel was.

this just turned out pretty funny, so i had to include it.

buda vs. pest - round 2

2005-04-13T01:56:00.000-07:00

indoor market. the first floor was fruit and vegetable venders, butchers, and bakers, mostly. the second floor had shops and hungarian fast food places. i think the building used to be a train station or something.

ok, so day 2 now. the first thing we did was go to a thermal bath. it was super relaxing, despite the fact that most of the patrons were large old naked hungarian men (the courtesy loincloth wasn't very effective for many of them). of course the mens and womens baths are separate. and as you might expect, i heard the womens side was an equally graphic sight. who would have thought the one place i felt a little overdressed was when i was wearing nothing but a typical swimming suit. we quickly adjusted, though, and i actually sprung for a massage (about $12). i had to be nude laying face down while some large pot bellied hungarian man performed the massage. and what can i say, he was wonderful. after the baths, we went to an indoor market to look at a few shops and get some "hungarian fast food." well most of our group decided on burger king across the street, but another guy and i actually ate there, and it was better than it looked. the lady from the train was right, good, but spicy. later that afternoon, we headed to the buda side to see mathias church, followed by a visit to the hungarian house of wines. a friend who had been to budapest a few weeks ago told us about this place. for about $17 you get a tasting glass and "two hours" in their cellar, which has displays of every wine producing region in hungary, and you can sample as much as you want. needless to say, it was well worth the money. especially because all but one of us stayed for about 3 hrs. aaron, unfortunately made the mistake of asking one of the men working to open another bottle of wine he wanted to taste. then the man countered with a polite request for aaron to leave because he had been there for longer than 2 hrs. no matter, we were all making great conversation with all sorts of random people. once we left there, i lost the rest of my group so i spent the remainder of the evening with 2 guys who graduated from harvard last year and a mother and daughter from england. strange. but i made it back to my hostel eventually, even though it took twice as long as it should have.

hungarian house of wines. from left: adam, aaron, will, clint, veronica, and savannah.

bridge over the danube. on the left you can see the building that housed the thermal baths we went to, gellert spa. on the right you can see the citadel which is a huge statue on a huge hill that is super high above the city. quite breathtaking from up there.

buda vs. pest - round 1

2005-04-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

ok, now that i have my bearings, i will tell you about my trip this past weekend, but i will break it down day by day. that way each blog doesnt get too big and so i have something to blog about for the next couple of days (i gots ta please my audience, especially after recieving some rather vile hatemail). first comes the educational part. budapest is the capital of hungary. it has about 1.9 million residents which is roughly 19% of the hungarian population. it is actually 2 cities, buda and pest, separated by the danube river. hungarian is the language, which if you can believe it, is more difficult than czech, in my opinion, but many people know some english, so its aight. much of the city was destroyed in WWII, so there is alot of diversity among buildings. this was a treat for me after living in monotonous prague for 2 months. ok, moving on, 8 of us arrived by train thursday afternoon. 6 ksu folk, 2 scottish chums. funny story about the 7 hr ride there, aaron, adam, veronica and i had a 6 seat cabin to ourselves when a czech lady of about 50 came and sat with us. she said something in czech, but we didnt understand. im thinkin it was something like, "hey kiddies, im gonna sit here, aight?" somewhere along the line we began to entertain ourselves by saying filthy things. she didn't respond too much, unless we started laughing first. nearing the hungarian border, we all exclaimed how we wanted to try hungarian food. after a short pause, the lady says, "it is good, but spicy." surprise! she knew some english and we all tried so hard not to laugh out of embarrassment. nonetheless, we spoke to her for some time and she was very nice. we even saw her on our return train to prague and she was excited to hear how our weekend went. but back to our arrival, we went and toured the hungarian parliament, which was quite impressive and right on the river. after that we just had dinner and then went to a jazz club for a couple hours that night. the day pic is parliament (pest), the night pic is castle hill (buda).

weary return_

2005-04-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

well, i am back from 4 days in budapest, hungary. it was a great trip, aside from the bad weather the last day and a half. it wore me out, though, and even after a day back in prague, i am still a little weary. i am busy with classes today and tomorrow, but soon, i will catch up and show you all sorts of pictures, so keep checking. for now, i will just show you a an image of a creepy wine fountain, which is located in the labyrinth of budapest. its actually like an underground series of stone halls and rooms. the have decorated it with some strange things and keep it very dimly lit, not too mention pipe some eerie music through hidden speakers. we had fun, though, trying to scare each other. in the end it was prolly worth the five bucks we paid to get in.

no, please, call me st. nicky_

2005-04-06T01:52:00.000-07:00

sorry for not posting the past couple of days. monday and tuesday are my busy class days, so i haven't had much time to post plus i haven't done anything new or exciting. on top of that, alot of my time has been spent on planning for future trips, namely the italy trip set for april 20th, but also the budapest trip this weekend. the semester is just about half over, which means time is running out, so i have to plan well in order to see the things that i want to see, not to mention complete all of my school projects in the meantime. anyways, here are a couple of photos that i took this weekend of the church of st. nicholas which is in the mala strana area of prague. oh, and feel free to leave a comment.

nothing heals better than satire_

2005-04-03T17:03:00.000-07:00

i couldn't resist showing this poster for the museum of communism in prague. i've seen a few different posters for it around, but i think i like this one the best so far. if it is any indication of the museum, i really need to go see it, cause i bet it is hilarious.

happy tower day_

2005-04-01T15:06:00.000-08:00

the sun is starting to show itself more often in prague now, and today is a prime example of that. i went on an afternoon sightseeing trip with a flatmate of mine. we first went to the municipal house, which is a large historical concert building, as well as the powder tower, right next to it. this shot was taken from the powder tower looking towards old town square. you can see the tower of the astonomical clock straight ahead. after this, we went to the wallenstein palace garden near prague castle. it was lovely, although it is still out of season. after that we went to st. nicolas church, which was very ornately baroque, and quite impressive. we also went up to the top of the tower next to it. blah blah blah, it prolly sounds all the same. no matter, two towers in one day is starting to push it, therefore i dub thee tower day. of course there are plenty more towers in prague, so it is possible that this title could be overtaken by another day. all in all, i felt like i did something productive today, and maybe i will post some more pictures from tower day later on.

a tale of two castles_

2005-03-31T06:55:00.000-08:00

there hasn't been too much going on around here the past couple of days. i've just been working on some school work and what not, therefore i havent done anything exciting. so in that case, i'll just show you a picture i took about 2 weeks ago. it is a view of the vltava river and prague castle on the hill in the background, taken from vysehrad, prague's second castle. i really enjoyed this castle, prolly more than prague castle, because: 1. it had incredible views in every direction (such as this one), 2.it had thick stone walls which you can walk on top of, 3. it has a lovely cemetary right next to its beautiful gothic cathedral, 4. the rest of the inside of this castle is just green space, so it's pretty much just a huge park, 5. most of the people there were czechs just enjoying a sunny afternoon, taking the dog for a walk or their child for a stroll and so on, so there were few tourists (by few i mean me and a couple other people taking pictures). im no psychic, but i foresee many sunny days spent there sketching, in my future.

it's always better on holiday_

2005-03-29T08:31:00.000-08:00

yesterday was easter monday, and here as well in many other european countries, it is a part of the easter weekend celebration. there were no classes, so again, i went to old town square to see the wooden hut shops and what have you. part of the tradition in the czech republic, or so i am told, is that on this day, everyone drinks all day and just enjoys the company of family and friends. the story is that the young men carry switches around and ask young women for schnapps, and if they don't get any, they give the girls a little whip on their bums. sometimes the girls retaliate and throw water at the men, or so the story goes, but i cannot completely verify the validity of this tradition because the story was told to me by some dude from milwaukee. also, the only people using switches were tourists, just trying to have some fun. but i know there is some truth to this tale because a czech girl said things of that nature do happen in smaller towns in the countryside, just not really in prague. later in the afternoon a group of us went to a small cafe to get champagne and honeycake. it was a delicious afternoon treat weighing in at just under 4 dollars (and that's 2, count 'em, 2 glasses of champagne). and the champagne was not only good, it was good enough, but i was definately not complaining. anyways, here is a shot of old town square on easter monday.

make graffiti, not war_

2005-03-27T09:34:00.000-08:00

on an overcast easter afternoon, a group of us decided to go hang out in old town square for awhile, which was bustling with tourists. every easter, in old town square and numerous other squares around the city, dozens of little wooden shacks appear with vendors trying to sell their worthless crap to the tourists. needless to say, while i was there i bought some of it, and i can't wait to give it to my family back home. anyways, we made our way over charles bridge and into the mala strana area of town. there, for the first time i saw the john lennon wall. it's actually quite a famous landmark in prague, more than you would think. john lennon's face was first painted on this wall by young czechs soon after his death as a monument to him and his pacifist ideals. accompanying his image was the phrase, "give peace a chance." no matter how many times it was painted over by the secret police, a new image of lennon would always reappear. today, light weight graffiti is encouraged, especially if it carries a message of peace and love.

it's a castle thing, you wouldn't understand_

2005-03-26T16:31:00.000-08:00

ok, so today, a few friends and i took the train to karlstejn, a town about 30 km away from prague. its pretty much just a bunch of shops selling the same crap along a winding road up to this castle. but i must say, the castle is impressive. it was built by charles IV and he lived here until he became the holy roman emperor and moved the capital to prague. this was by far the most castle-like castle that i have been to yet. perched on top of a rocky hill overlooking the surrounding areas, helped it defend itself from rival armies. it was attacked twice in it's history, but never taken. the views were incredible from the castle, and we werent even able to get up to the higher towers. it was pretty much just a totally sweet day being a typical tourist, but i was enjoying every second of it.

tunnel vision_

2005-03-25T05:33:00.000-08:00

yesterday was a gorgeous day, so i went exploring for this brick tunnel that i had heard about. it was designed by some hip czech architect, so i had to see it for myself. it is located underneath a land bridge that leads to an entrance of prague castle. pretty much, this tunnel is where the moat would flow through, and actually there is a small stream that still flows through it. as you can see, the left side of the ground plane is stone with lighting integrated within it. what you can't really see is that the right side is steel grates so you can see the water right below your feet. i'd have to say it was prolly worth my toils to find it, prolly.

bones, silly_

2005-03-24T08:10:00.000-08:00

ok, so how creepy is this photo. yesterday, i went to kutna hora, a town about 1 hr. away from prague. there you can find an old chapel dubbed "the bone church". the story behind this uber strange church is that like in the 1200s, a priest from there went to jerusalem on a pilgrimage of sorts. there, he collected a handful of sand to bring back and bless his church with it. because of this action, the church became very well known in the region. people from all over wanted to be buried there. they had to continually expand the cemetary surrounding the church to accomodate the need for graves, especially around the time of the plague. then much later, the cemetary was sized down and thousands of old graves were dug up. no one knew what to do with the bones, until some person decided to "decorate" the crypt area of the church with these bones. and just like that, you have a tourist attraction that is sure to please and/or horrify. also, it was really cold down in the crypt area, colder than outside......i claim it's because of the bones.

winter wonderland_

2005-03-22T14:15:00.000-08:00

view of mala strana area from prague castle. this was taken almost a month ago, but i have some catching up to do. luckily, there is no more snow here.

must be an epidemic_

2005-03-21T09:31:00.000-08:00

after staying up quite late to finish an assignment last night, i woke up pretty early to get ready and make it to my 9:00 computer graphics class this morning. last week it was cancelled, and from the note that was left on the door, the professor was sick all week (3/14-3/18. keep in mind, this is on monday). this doesn't surprise me too much, as i have had a couple other classes cancelled as well. i figure it might be a spot of the flu or maybe even a short vacation. but once i get to class this morning, there is the same note posted on the door. the professor is sick from 3/21-3/25. hmm. that bad, eh? i guess whatever it is, illness or holiday, the stakes have increased quite a bit. so now i have time to come back to my dorm and post a new blog. i guess we all win, kinda.

light and shadow_

2005-03-19T01:27:00.000-08:00

IMGP0109-edit1, originally uploaded by pikopman.

window from svihov castle outside of prague. although i took this photo about a week into my trip here, it is still one of my favorites.

hello all_

2005-03-18T19:30:00.000-08:00

well i have finally decided to set up a blog. i will be posting periodically, so if you care, check back every few days. enjoy!