digital story

My digital story of my favorite art in the museums of London and Paris:

size: 6.30 MB

Filipič, M. (2008). Stories from Emona II.  On Between two worlds. Location: http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/196221

motion

First and foremost, I must say, Happy Birthday Mommy!!  Today is my mommy's birthday but obviously I am unable to see her and tell her happy birthday in person so I shall say it here.  I will be baking your cake as soon as I get home!

In other news, we went to Oxford today.  Our photography focus was capturing motion.  First, we toured the Bodleian Library.  Some of the tour was quite fascinating but our tour guide was a bit long-winded making for a rather long, drawn-out tour.  It was fun nonetheless; you know me, books + art/architectural history + religion + history = one happy Katy.  After that tour, Elana and I had lunch at a restaurant called The Nosebag.  Sounds appetizing, huh?  Well, chances are we never would have found it, let alone even consider eating there had it not been for the dining suggestion of Elana's friend.  However, it turned out to be delicious.  And huge!  Elana ate one of the salads included in my meal and I was still full at the end of lunch.  We then ventured on down the street for a tour of Christ Church.  Our tour guide James for this tour was marvelous.  I do believe that we have decided that he is one of our favorite tour guides, second only to our beloved Hugh.  I really love the way we tour because we get to go to all kinds of off-limits places at most of the places we see.  It's awesome.  I'm pretty sure that the other visitors hate us.  But anyway, during our tour of the Christ Church gardens, an adorable cat started following us.  Now, we have had a few tag-along tourists when we tour, but this cat is by far our favorite.  But back to the tour itself...  One of the college's most famous (if not the most famous) scholar was Lewis Carroll who wrote Alice in Wonderland.  In fact, Alice in Wonderland is based on the daughter, Alice, of one of the school's deans and her adventures in and around the campus.  James showed us dozens of real-life details of the campus and told us of the stories that inspired Lewis Carroll and his work.  It was pretty cool.

Earlier, I was talking to a friend who asked if I had gotten what I wanted out of this experience.  I told him that I think I have.  One thing that I am particularly proud of is my ability to navigate through an otherwise unfamiliar city with only a map.  Also, I have learned and gained confidence in using the Tube and Metro (and any subway system for that matter).  For this, I must thank Elana who mentored me in the foreign ways of the subway systems.  I have also made some fabulous friends and had some wonderful experiences.  I also want to give a shout out and thank you to all of my friends and family who have been reading my blog regularly.  I never thought that people would care so much or that what I write would be halfway entertaining enough for people to keep reading.  In any case, I love you all and can't wait to see you when I get back!!

statues, paris, and hot chocolate

Friday we went to Paris.  I was a little nervous about Paris because the pickpockets and whatnot are not fun to deal with, but I made it through the weekend.  First, we went to the Louvre.  In case you were unaware, the Nike of Samothrace ("nike" is pronounced knee-kay and means "winged victory" which is why this statue is probably more often referred to as the Winged Victory of Samothrace; and yes, this is where Nike got its name) is at the Louvre.  And should you just so happen to be wondering, I love the Nike of Samothrace.  Love it.  Seriously.  I also love Classical Greek sculpture.  The Louvre has an absolutely amazing collection of Classical Greek sculpture.  It's amazing how much they have.  I'm speechless. 

Ok, so after the Louvre, we took a lunch cruise down the Seine.  It was fancy.  And of course, it wouldn't be a trip to Paris if we hadn't gone to the Eiffel Tower, which is where we headed next.  We then decided to go check into our hotel and meet back later to go to Notre Dame.  Our hotel was perfect.  Nothing particularly fancy, just simple and exactly what a little Paris hotel should be.  And walking distance to Notre Dame and within a block of a Metro stop.

Saturday, we slept til 12:30pm.  It was marvelous.  We needed it too.  When we did eventually get up, Elana and I made a stop at the Arc de Triomphe before walking down the Champes-Élysées.  We then took the Metro up to a flea market is a kinda shady part of town.  Yeah, we were glad to get back to our hotel after that, though we did have some delicious Nutella crêpes.

On to Sunday....  Kaitlin tipped us off to this restaurant that serves hot chocolate similar to the deliciousness I had in Spain a few years ago.  This hot chocolate is so rich, it's more like melted chocolate than your average hot chocolate from a mix.  It was so good.  Elana and I each ordered a cup and it came in a pitcher.  After pouring a cup for each of us, half of the pitcher was still full of hot chocolate.  I could only drink about half of my cup.  So I could only drink about a quarter of what I was served.  I wanted to take it home with me, but that wasn't really an option.  After that lovely experience, we went to a Salvador Dalí museum for which we saw an advertisement in the Metro.  The museum was very close to the Sacré-Cœur Basilica which we stopped in for a look-see.  From there, the train station was only about half a mile or so, so we walked there, stopping on the way at a pâtisserie to blow some of our euros.  When we got to the train station, however, we found that our train was delayed (as were many others) due to a bomb scare a few hours prior.  Yeah, that was fun.  We finally made it back to London an hour and a half after we were scheduled to, but we made it nonetheless.  It was so nice to take the Tube rather than the Metro as we have decided we prefer the Tube.  And coming out of the Tottenham Court Road Tube stop was like coming home.  It was nice.

panoramas

We flew kites today!  And I don't mean to brag or anything, but I totally had the best kite hehe.  Who'da thunk it?  We went to Regent's Park where we visited Queen Mary's Garden and Primrose Hill.  The park had lovely landscaping and millions of flowers, particularly roses.  At Primrose Hill is where we flew our kites, just like in Mary Poppins. 

Later, Lynn and I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum to see the special Grace Kelly exhibition.  It was all her dresses and accessories.  One thing that was really cool was that the last time I was in Europe, I went to Monaco and saw the church where Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier got married, which is also where she is buried.

My flatmates are now dragging me out to a pub so I shall go out with them despite my better judgment and need for sleep.

london in motion

<-- East and West -->

Today we traveled by boat to Greenwich to see the Prime Meridian.  And, of course, we all got a picture of each of us straddling it.  The Prime Meridian, or at least the Royal Observatory through which the Prime Meridian falls, is located at the top of a very tall and steep hill.  Thus, we had to walk all way up this steep hill in order to see this landmark.  Luckily, my flatmates and I have been training for this day for about a week now due to the fact that we are living on the 5th floor of the building and must climb some rather steep stairs each time we make the trek up to our apartment.  We then returned to London to capture traffic in motion from Trafalgar Square.  I learned a bit about how to tweak the settings on my camera so that it will take pictures that give the effect that the subject is in motion.

I later ventured into the National Gallery with Lynn to see some really great art.  That museum is huge!  I didn't even have time to see half of it.  We did however make a point to see the special exhibit, Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries which was really, really interesting.  That exhibit was totally worth going to see.  


In other news, I am a bit stressed about all of our projects that we have to do and turn in in the coming days.  I don't feel like my ideas are as awesome and clever as other people's ideas.  I have always had a hard time being creative on demand.  I know that for either my digital story or my photo book I want to do something about all the art I have seen and enjoyed while here.  And this weekend, Fran is taking me to the beach in Brighton and I was thinking about doing one of my projects comparing that beach to the beaches in Florida.  Something to think on....

black & white

On this Wednesday, the twenty-first day of July, in the year of our lord 2010 we ventured to Stonehenge and the Salisbury Cathedral in the English countryside.  Our assignment for the day was to capture black and white photos.  I took all color photos and later transformed a few of them into black and white pictures.  Tomorrow, we will learn how to create a photo that is mostly black and white but has touches of color.  It was really neat to see Stonehenge and hear the history and various theories about its mysterious existence.  I must say, I am quite fascinated by curiosities throughout history.  After seeing Stonehenge, we drove to the nearby town of Salisbury where we had lunch and toured the Salisbury Cathedral.  Our favorite tour guide Hugh was unable to officially give us a tour of the cathedral because there were volunteer tour guides eager to show us around the building.  However, Elana and I were rather bored by the volunteer tour guide so we caught up with Hugh and asked him to give us the tour anyway.  Hugh is the best.  Everything is better when he says it.  And he is quite funny as well.  He has also toured us around Bloomsbury and Westminster Abbey and he had definitely become our favorite tour guide.

Another person we have come to love is Elvis who works in the reception area at the FSU Study Centre.  Tara, Elana, and I hung out with Elvis for quite a bit last night just talking about how certain terms and customs vary between the UK and the States.  It was quite insightful.  We also found out that Elvis is apparently a Kool-Aid lover, so we might have to send some to him a few packs of it when we return home.

replicas

The day's task involved finding a photo on Flickr taken from British Museum and attempting to replicate it as best we could.  This is the photo I chose to mimic; below is photo I took:

Pretty close, huh?  The subject is a portion of the Elgin Marbles, a topic of much discussion for many people.  I used the lines and angles of the walls, corners, ceiling, and base to find the best position in which to imitate the original photo.  I absolutely love Classical Greek/Roman sculpture.  I cannot even begin articulate the excitement I experience when walking through the museum today.  I was also taken with much of the Asian art, specifically those pieces depicting the Buddha and bodhisattvas.  Here, I am imitating the mudras used by the Buddha to my left:  

After touring the museum, we all had high tea at the restaurant in the museum.  Tara and I felt so fancy, holding our pinkies high in the air while drinking our tea.  I then proceeded to go down to the museum gift shop and buy two lovely books: Symbols and Their Hidden Meanings and London's Strangest Tales: Extraordinary But True Stories.  Those will be a couple of good reads for the plane ride home. 

buildings

Our itinerary today consisted of riding the London Eye, lunch in St. James' Park, a tour of Westminster Abbey, and going to the theatre to see Billy Elliot.  The focus of our photography today was buildings.  Our task was to photograph buildings in a creative and provocative way.  Luckily, there are lots and lots of marvelous buildings here in London to photograph in interesting ways.  Similarly, we had great views of the city in which to capture impressive architectural feats.  Of all the pictures I took today, I chose the picture on the right as my best of the day.  The subject is Westminster Abbey which I was utterly entranced by.  All of the history and culture and art and religion...it was so exciting.

As I said previously, we also rode the London Eye which gave us very exciting views of London for miles.  I'm a little afraid of heights though, so I was a bit nervous on the London eye - especially since the capsules don't stop for passengers to get on and off.  In any case, here's the proof that was on the London Eye, you know, in case anyone needed it:

Our final stop of the day was the theatre for a showing of the musical Billy Elliot.  I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't really too terribly excited to go see it because I was really tired and needed to work on this but I went with an open mind nonetheless.  I liked it but I didn't understand a decent portion of it because the actors had very thick accents and I had no background for the time period of the story.  At least I can say I tried it.