June 29, 2008

Naked people. Everywhere.

Oh, zee French. Lots of topless people at the beach, there's no false sense of modesty here. We've been saying "speedos for all!" Because, seriously, the bottoms seem to be all that count, if they even do. I had a bank crisis yesterday, they froze my account after I took out some money in Florence. Even though I told them, they said they didn't know and froze my account "for my protection." It was mostly annoying to find out at random that I couldn't access my money, and I had to sit in the hot sun at a pay phone, with the grody receiver to my ear for like an hour, by far most of that time on hold. But now that is fixed, and I can breathe easy. I was concerned my pay check wouldn't get through, but its ok, and came in a surprising amount anyway. I don't know what this means.

Today we went to Monaco/Monte-Carlo, and it was way cool b/c we never even planned on going there. But its only like 20 mintues from Nice (where I am until tomorrow when we head to Venice). We met some Canadian guys the first day we got here and they came with us to Monaco. We saw the palace and the hundreds of really nice yachts, the super expensive cars, the pebble beach and the really fancy casino, which we couldn't get into b/c we weren't dressed nicely enough. I guess they don't want people losing their money there if they don't have very much to lose.

I haven't had a shower yet, and it was soooo hot today. We were dying a little bit for most of the time. I just stuck my feet in the water, but my friends went swimming. I just hate being salty when I dry off. Our hostel here is really nice, and the AC in our room works really well, so its super cold. Works for me. I felt like I had more fun things to tell you.

Oh yes, one more. We walked through this park yesterday on the way to the shore in Nice, and there was a book fair going on. I walked past this booth and there was a cardboard cutout of this author with his book "Mes Amis, Mes Amours." Then, by chance, I look slightly to the left of the cutout, and I'm like, that's totally the same guy. Apparently he was there doing a book signing. And also, I saw another poster today that said this book was now a movie. So this random author guy could actually be kind of famous, particularly on the French scale, and I saw him in the park.

Ok, I have to pack and get ready for a crazy day on the trains tomorrow. Wish us luck, we need it. Booking in advance didn't work for us... little bit stressful.

June 27, 2008

Noice, Nice

Hey guys, I just got to France, we're in Nice now. Its pretty humid here and I'm totally wired and very tired. No, that is not a con tradiction. My hair is in french braided pigtails, which are awesome. I'm using Meghan's special skill while I've got her captive. When did I talk to you last? Rome?

Ok, so sorry if I repeat myself, but you'll figure it out. We went to Pompeii, and don't worry mom, we skipped Naples where the garbage fires and rioting is supposed to be going on . The train station was fine. Pompeii is just this whole ruined city dug up from under the volcano ash. We only saw a couple of plaster casts of the people who were caught in the lava, creepy but insanely cool. There's one of a dog biting at its chain trying to get away. Its crazy how they were all frozen in position, and lots for so many hundreds of years. That day was also mega hot, and I wore jeans which was as ba-ad idea. Then we went to Florence, which is very historical, with a cool marked. We saw the big huge Duomo church, which is 100 times better from the outside than the inside. We went to the Uffizi gallery, and I totally saw stuff by Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Botticelli. Also other famous people like Lipi. I saw the original Spring and Birth of Venus, which is actually really beautiful. It bothered me to see some of these things on postcards after because its so not the same.

We went to Accademia where the David is (Michelangelo, of course), and seriously, it was so worth the 10 euros it cost. Absolutely stellar. The pose, the muscles -- just stunning. There were replicas of David around, but the original is just so much more. Like I said before, these statues have to be seen in person for you to really get the wonder and the art. See it if you ever get the chance.

I remember in high school, at the old OS, there was this joke about "Michelangelo's Dave" , centered around Dave Hamilton. I'm sure my brother knows what I'm talking about. Tehe.

We just came out of Cinque Terre which are these 5 villages on the West Coast of Italy on the Medateranean that you can walk between. Some of the hikes are super easy, and some of them are super hard with mega steps that are not your friend in the glaring sun. I had the best pesto of my life from this little market too, I could have eaten it by the spoonfulls. I got sunburnt at the beach, even though a lot of high spf sunscreen was involved, so I'm going to try and protect my pasty pasty skin better.

I don't know what else to tell you right now. Other than I feel guilty for not doing research, but its too late for all that. I might post again soon b/c this hostel has free internet, you're just supposed to use it in small doses.

Ciao!

June 18, 2008

ROMA!

First off, Bernini is amazing.

Ok, so I'm desperately trying to upload pictures to show you guys, but this computer will not register my USB thingy with my camera card in it. I already have like 200 pictures, I'm not sure if I will ever be in Rome again so I have to record when I can.

We went to the Vatican a couple days ago, saw the museums and the Sistene chapel. It was waaay smaller than I thought it would be, but the ceiling was cool, saw the super famous God reaching out to man one. Much smaller than you would expect, its just one block in a whole bunch of them. And before you get to the chapel you see a bunch of painted ceilings, which took some of the umph out of it, but still cool. We went to St. Peter's Basillica, which I'm pretty sure is my favourite thing in the world. Its so insanely huge, bigger than I ever thought it would be. And its beautiful, many sculptures, beautiful ceilings, you need to go.

Yesterday was the Colleseum, Palantion and the Roman Forum. Its weird being in a gigantic structure that's impossibly old, and that you've heard about forever. Of course everything is not is pristine condition, but its amazing the scale of it and the precision of construction. You can actually see the basilica from the ruins in the forum. Its a paradox, really. From the place where they killed early Christians you can see the centre of Roman Catholic Christendom. What an odd history Rome seems to have.

Today we went to this park and the Galleria Borghese. The galleria was way cool, many sculptures, busts, paintings. I was walking around and there were a few sculptures that really caught my attention, and this one that I stared at forever. And later I was like, who did those? Because, being the blonde that I am, I didn't actually check the first time around. They were all Bernini, who is apparently super amazing. The most amazing one was "The Rape or Presepione" (I think that's the Latin one for Persephone, Hades is the guy in it). Now, its a disturbing title, but really the emotion and the pashion and the art of it was incredible. I have a post card, but its something you need to see in person, to get the perfection of how it was crafted and see it in 3D.

We also went to the Pantheon today, which is also amazing. The oldest too, its from 31 AD, I believe. The columns are great, the perfect half sphere is also great. I appreciate geometry.

Since I have no pictures for you now, I leave you here. Hopefully the next place I get on a computer will enable my USB dealy.

Comment!

June 06, 2008

Onatrio, BC, and back to Quebec

Correction: So apparently I already posted pictures from the Cape.


Hey dudes. I'm still in almost exclusive photo sharing mode. I've been to Ontario where I did field work on Ojibwe with a colleague (hehe, colleague sounds all "professional" and stuff), which was cool. This means going back to the Sound and staying at home. So I saw my family and some friends who also happened to be at home. I tried to go see Prince Caspian with my brother, but the stupid small town movie theater decided to relegate an epic and symbolic chronicle of Narnia to the drive in, only on the weekend, later than the general release date. I guess I should have taken him for ice cream instead. Anyway, here's a few pictures from the Cape:





And then I went to Vancouver Island to hang with my best friend. We went canoeing on a river that connected into the ocean and saw eagles, sea lions, little bitty jelly fish and sand-dollars.






And we also went surfing, or tried to, in Tofino. I couldn't stand up on the board for the life of me, but by the end I was getting half decent at the body boarding, which is way fun.



I love this picture.

Bear claw! And not the tasty treat...

We saw some waterfalls, did a couple of little hikes, and went horseback riding! I hadn't been on a horse since I was like 12, but I had a really nice, well-trained horse so it was all good.


Apparently I didn't get the horseback riding pictures from my friend. Oh yeah, goats on the roof!


Then I went to Vancouver (UBC) for a conference.




I have a bunch more pictures, but I'm sure you can only take so many. A week from today I'm leaving for Europe for 6 weeks. I think this will be the 2nd best summer ever! Hooray!