Oh Hai Princess

This past week was so crazy and so amazing, and to be honest I can't believe it was real. I got the opportunity to participate in an international project where 77 young artists from 7 schools in poland, germany, belgium, france, and ireland came together for week-long workshops in different facets of art leading up to a big exhibition held at the castle of Namedy, Germany. I took the photography workshop, because this was actually the form my photo class was in this semester for Trier. There were also workshops in ceramics, architecture, land art, metal sculpture, visual art and illustration, performance and media. Everyone stayed in hostels in the town over called Andernach, and we took a 5 min train every morning to Namedy to work on our projects at the castle all day, and came back every night to chill. For some reason I was really outgoing all week, and ended up meeting almost all of the 77 student and it was so much fun and some of my french came back to moemory and i also learned a few things in polish!

Communication the whole week was extremely interesting because it played so many good and bad roles. There were a few kids who didn't talk much at all and after a few drinks weren't so afraid to speak in english with me, and then there were kids who were extremely talkative and funny with little mistakes. I didn't really get much feedback for my project at all, which was the worst part of the language barrier, but it was also good to have such a new experience of being so free in what I chose to do and how I did it. I learned that I didn't really care for it and I work the best with rules, but good times anyway! My old roommate Silke was incharge of the whole thing, with another guy Dirk, and I was so impressed with them. It really was an amazing opportunity and I was so happy to get Silkes text offering me a place at the castle!

Here are a few of the photos I had in my final presentation. I hung 7 frames from a tree in the courtyard with my photographs in them, and left one frame open. It was the biggest gold frame, and I set up a small table infront of it with 3 disposable cameras for anyone and everyone to take pictures of themselves through the frame. It went along with the theme of the whole project which was "transforming memories." My concept was based on how the too-good-to-be-true reality of being in a castle and being surrounded by so many artists and creative energy was just so surreal and didn't really feel "real". This was reflected in my photos by taking real things and making them abstract and dreamlike. And I was happy because I didn't have to touch them in photoshop minus the red one where 2 pictures were put together. Here they are, hope you like em!

Berlin and Dresden

"..there are more exceptions to the rule than instances of it.." Mark Twain in The Awful German Language

Oh man, OK so finally there's a little time to give an update on the past few adventures—sars ktd! A couple weeks ago I was in Dresden for 4 days and then to Berlin for 3. It was a very exhausting trip, but really amazing just as well. I really loved Dresden because it felt much more like a small town, even though it's really huge. The old side of Dresden was so impressive in how it was meticulously rebuilt after the bombings. It was mostly women who rebuilt the city because of all the lives lost in the war and such, and they tried to use the useable stones in the same places they came, so some of the buildings are spotted with dark and light stones.

New Dresden was also really hip and wonderful. There was some nice graffiti around, and there were a lot of punk rebels without a cause and lots of colored mohawks. It was a little difficult living all of us squeezed in the one hostel bedroom made for 2, but it was nice to wake up together for a wonderful breakfast made by monique and markus! (We were staying in monique's boyfriends mom's hostel- got it?) I also got to go to a flea market and bought a sweet 50's bathingsuit (yes i bought a bathingsuit at a flea market nbd..) and a really old key that i made into a necklace! At night we got to hang out with some of their friends, but Inis was my favorite because she taught me how to poi and say a lot of things in german! Also one night they took us to this microbrewery that served bier in the liter mugs that you have to hold different so it can rest on your wrist while you drink it. Its crazy to think that monique just grew up in a city like that, jealous.

So then we have Berlin! I got lucky because Jenn's friend Ben from KU actually is studying there right now for a year in the architecture program, and her and I stayed with him for the short time we were in Btown. The day we arrived he took us to a park and the weather was really nice so the park was full of people having fun and relaxing! I love Germany and their leisure! We got some walnut ice cream, and then at the next stand got some beer and walked through the park until we got to an abandoned amusement park, which is slightly hidden with all the overgrown vegetation. Ben had told us about some guards with dogs that were usually around so we walked around most of the park to make look-out and even saw some people on the other side making a cheap movie or something. So like how any good story starts i said "here, hold ma beer" and hoped over the fence. 5 seconds later the 2 guards with 2 big scary german shepherd came over and said some things in german that luckily Ben understood, but they made me delete the pictures I took on my camera and watched us as we climbed back over the fence. bummer. But I took a bunch of pics on the other side of the fence anyway.. The coolest part was the dinosaur park because all the dinos were missing their heads and fallen over, and it felt like a oversized toy graveyard.

The next day Ben had class so Jenn and I ventured off on our own into the city to shop—after we both put our gum on the berlin wall—and I realized just how big city Berlin was. We got lost everywhere we went trying to find the dots on the map that Ben drew to places they though we would like. It was pretty frustrating and everyone was dressed all fancy and hip, and I missed Trier and knowing my way around. That night we went to a really neat outside bar that was on a river, and i felt like i was in Louisiana on the Bayou or something, but it was very chill and we got to meet Ben's friend Anja there who is really cute and is about to go to Australia for a year to follow a boy. how romantic. We had some of the best and cheapest falafels in Berlin. And walked a lot. And had a lot of coffee. And we'll be going back for a trip through our school in Trier that will take us from Weimar, Dessau and Berling on a Bauhaus trail! We got back to trier finally at 1am and had to walk from our obscure drop off point to each of our respective homes. Finally home again... for 2 days! ha- the next adventure picks up from there and I'll write it tomorrow! Thanks bye!

Trier Photo Ketchup

crookshanks lovin on my new flowers from the market. My favorite—gerber daisies!

laundry time!

ice cream time!

anja not approving of me walkin around the city with booze and fallafels for lunch..

the really old basilica- haven't gone inside yet, but it's another really old trier site, and i bought a really cool old postcard of it at the flea market!

there were a bunch of really cool doorknobs that i took pictures of in the old cathedral called the "Dom". It took 300 yrs+ to build so you can see all the big changes in architectural style through the times! So cool.