zatarra. it mean’s ‘driftwood.’

this past weekend, rachel, savannah, geoff and i traveled to the town of marseille, on the southern coast of france. our train was to leave at 3:51pm from düsseldorf hauptbahnhof. at 2:45pm however, we were still on our class excursion nearly an hour or so away from there. the directions on how to get back were flawed and we ended up paying for a taxi to take us the last 30 minutes. we sprinted like mad from the taxi to gate 16 (near the rear of the facility, unfortunately), nearly passing out from the lack of nourishment in our bodies and the weight of luggage on our backs, and made it on th train just in time. that is, three of us did. rachel had apparently almost blacked out from the dash and was nowhere to be seen on the platform. oh merde. we stood at the door of the train car, holding it while being yelled at by officials to kindly get on. finally rachel rushed up the stairs, we shouted her in the right direction, and she lunged on just as the train was about to leave. phew.

thus began our 12ish hour train ride through germany, luxembourg (yay new country!), and france. since we obviously didn’t have time to grab a much anticipated supply of snacks and drinks for the trek, rachel saved the day by pulling out 4 portions of mini-sandwiches which tided us over till our arrival.

this method of signage kind of turned me on.

marseilles was quite a beautiful city. it’s right on the mediterranean, with all the typical things you would find in a harbor town: marinas, fresh seafood,  and seagulls, but also french pastry shops. yum. how i missed thee.

photo courtesy of rachel.

one of the works of le corbusier: unit d’habitation was on the list of things to see. its a modern and unique design for an apartment builidng. each unit is split level and stretches across the entire width of the building for views of each side. the unit is two stories high on one side, one on the other. there are corridors for public access every other floor. it kinda reminds me of langford, but with pizazz.

geoff, being excited about le corbusier.

we took advantage of a mediterranean boat ride at 2pm. 3.5 hours of  beautiful water, exciting rock formations, and knowing that if we really wanted to ‘man-up’, africa was just a short swim away.

we rode near a picturesque beach, about an hour’s ride away from the city in a small cove, and it featured gorgeously clear, snorkeling water and a small, lazy village. just like you would see on a movie.

here you can see the chateâu d’if. the old french fortress and prison. we didn’t have time for a tour, but it would have been fun to spend a few years carving out an escape route with an old philosopher-priest and a spoon.

overall, it was a fantastically relaxing weekend. for most likely a nearly 300 euro trip, we paid only 20.20 euro with the last days of our eurail pass and had a great time.

the rain in spain stays mainly in the plane.

we arrived in barcelona via lufthansa at around 12:30, espana time and nicole (one of the a&m kiddos over there) picked us up and brought us into town.

us guys checked into our hostel (probably the most ghetto hostel you could imagine) and changed into our short sleeve shirts and swimsuits.

look mom: real, live, palm trees!

it was so nice to not wear 40 layers of clothing in this 22 degrees celscius weather. we walked along the beach, stuck our feet in the freezing water (geoff stuck his whole body in, the idiot) and went rock climbing. later that night, we met up with a few of the other students and saw a “show” at the magic fountain, in front of the civil buildings of the city.

today, we met up and checked out gaudi’s “casa mila” and “casa batllo”. gaudi is like a superstar in barcelona. and i don’t really know why. apparently he was a very generous guy, but i was overal unimpressed by his designs. his use of color i appreciated however and his unique forms.

later we went over near the magic fountains again to see the famous, barcelona pavilion by your friend an ours, mies van der rohe.

i confirmed from our studies in ends 250 that it is quite a nice structure. very simple, clean lines, concern for detail. i think mies and i would have been good friends.

yes, those are the “barcelona chairs”

afterwards, we walked around the olympic park which held the games there in 1992. there was a nice view of the city and i saw a work by santiago calatrava for the first time.

for easter sunday, we decided it would bode us best to attend church, so we went out to the most famous in barcelona, the sagrada familia. it has been underconstruction for a long time and will be for the next 40 years. it too is designed by gaudi, surprise, but was pretty neat. yes neat. the stained glass inside was beautiful and colorful.

the service was catholic. and in spanish. the most i got out of it was understanding that they were telling the easter story, and the lord’s prayer. oh well. i sang “lift high the cross” to myself and felt like i had gotten a decent easter experience considering the circumstances.

afterwards, we went to park güell. can you guess who designed it?

it had some amazing views of the city. did i mention the weather was nice? aka. not like düsseldorf.

the famous benches.

later that afternoon, we were excited to take a day trip out to sitges. it was a beautiful coastal town about a 30 minutes ride from bcn and right on the mediterranean.

truly a mediterranean town.

oh yeah. and we got to play on the beach. pretty much the best day ever.

rachel, sierra, berit.

out of the frying pan and into, sleet?

in typical jacobian fasion, i somehow managed to not finish the enevitable, “project-to-be-finished-over-spring-break” project that us design kids always get. so as a result, i pulled my first true all-nighter in düsseldorf monday night. it wasn’t too bad. geoff says that it takes a good 6 weeks for your body to fully get used to the time change, but since we don’t really get a full 8 hours of sleep or go to bed at reasonable hours, we haven’t really made a complete transition. so i think i am in a between state. i was tired on tuesday, but made it through the day without dozing off. i did however sleep 13 hours the next night, but thats after the fact.

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yesterday we went to the nrw-forum exhibit at museum kunstpalast in düsseldorf for an andy warhol exhibit. his work was ok, but all the descriptive text and information was in german, so it was impossible to fully enjoy it. however, afterwards, a few of us stuck around for their other temporary exhibit: vogue fashion photography. i especially enjoyed it.

top to bottom: my house_david lachapelle, hundstage_indlekofer+knoepfel, donna+guy smoking_bob richardson, collapse in a garden_david lachapelle, angelia jolie_david lachapelle, burning down the house_david lachapelle, girls in the window_oromond gigli

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as you can see, germany disregards the first day of spring all together. we just go from bitterly cold winter to quasi-bitterly cold winter. we were hoping for 80 degree weather in barcelona this weekend, but weather.com says it will be in the 50s. oh well. we are still going to the beach!

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as promised long ago, here is a picture of my host family. i asked them to smile and this is what i got, haha. peter, yvonne, and peter’s son, dennis. he is 11.

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on the tram yesterday the sky was dramatically different on either side. on my right, it was a mostly clear, sunny and happy day. on my left, it looked like a real texan hurricane was about to rip lose. fortunately for me, i exited the tram on the right side.

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having nothing to do with this random post; watch this.

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have i talked about swissmiss? i think not. its a blog who’s author updates probably 6 times a day. she is a swiss designer in nyc (meaning she appreciates cool things and helvetica) and has a lot of interesting things to show. its worth a look-see.

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also: a new spin on dixie cups.

-the end