...some photos of Munich
Saturday, May 30, 2009
...Some photos of Ingolstadt, the Gothic Church and also the Baroque Church with the beautiful fresco.
Yesterday I went to Munich for the afternoon, it was so beautiful! I wish I had a whole week or weekend there, but if the weather is good on Monday I'll go back with my hostfamily. I went to the Brandhorst Museum, the newest modern art museum in Munich showing works from the 20th and 21st centuries only. Of course no photography was allowed, but the collection was fantastic! Warhol self-portraits, an Elvis, a Marylin, and some other very famous pieces. Also some great Damien Hirst installations, a fantastic collection of Cy Twombly paintings and sculptures(perhaps my new favorite artist?) and a lot of other really fascinating work.
In the bookstore there I bought a book called The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie all about the booming lingerie trade in an otherwise extremely conservative muslim country. There are some HILARIOUS photos, as well as some really interesting essays about the dichotomy of religion and sexuality, exploitation and empowerment of women's bodies, and what life is like beneath the veil and beyond stereotypes.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Audi
Yesterday we went to the Audi factory and museum which was both interesting and surreal. The "Audi Forum" here has 4 restaurants, including an after work "Jazz Lounge" where people can wait to pick up their specially modified luxury cars straight from the factory. The factory itself is run almost entirely be giant, graceful robots and german men with beer-bellies in gray jumpsuits. It was incredibly loud and large and made me both impressed but also sad at the amount of power and energy being spent on...making fancy cars. It reminded me a lot of the documentary "Manufactured Landscape."
This year Audi is celebrating its 100th anniversary so they had a large display in the museum of the oldest existing Audi cars. The cars themselves were beautiful, like works of art. I wasn't expecting to be impressed or even interested considering that I don't drive, but I was pleasantly surprised. Hopefully I'll be able to post pictures here soon, since I just found a nice little cafe with great espresso and free wireless. Our tourguide in the Audi Museum interspersed his tour with really interesting political, historical, and economic facts which was nice--considering that the auto industry played a large part both in manufacturing during both World Wars and also during the reconstruction after WWII. It's interesting to note that Audi survived while many other german auto brands didn't because Ingolstadt is located in what was American-controlled territory and there was therefore greater leeway and also greater ability to export to other Western nations.
Anyways, all for now as I'm off to German Class.
Bis Spater!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Ich komme und ich gehe...
So. Here is the first post for my new blog devoted entirely to travelling and all the cool things I happen to see or do; I hope you enjoy. I'm currently blogging from my guestsister, Lena's, computer, however hopefully once I get to a place where I can hook my laptop up to the internet I'll be posting pictures so you can see a little bit of the beautiful places where I'm going.
Today was my first full day in Ingolstadt, Germany where I'll be staying until the end of June. This morning the other students and professors in my group met together and each of us students found out the community service program to which we've been assigned. Starting tuesday I'll be working at a center devoted to helping immigrants and foreign-language speaker´s-- so exciting! In July when I go to Trier I'll be interning at the Multicultural Center there, working with immigrants as well, so this is good practice and also a fascinating topic to me.
Later Leif, Michaela, Hunter, Ben, Dan and I all went out for lunch. We grabbed some Döner Kebap--the best fast food that has yet to make it across the pond to America. Döner is a special type of grilled meat--usually lamb or pork or a mixture of the two-- that is grilled on a huge spit. They take a warm flatbread and fill it with Döner, lettuce, onions, red cabbage, tomatoes and a sauce that's very similar to tzatziki--Döner coming from Turkey which shares similar tastes with Greece. Afterwards we wandered around for awhile, grabbed some icecream, and then sat at a BierGarten and had a drink. We then met up with our professors and took a walking tour of Ingolstadt to begin getting our barings.
Did you know the Illuminati first began in Ingolstadt? yeah. exciting. Also, Ingolstadt is where Frankenstein comes to study and eventually creates his monster in Mary Shelley's novel. pretty sweet.
During the tour we went to an amazing rococco church. Inside on the ceiling is the largest single fresco on a flat surface in the entire world. The artist painted it so that at only one point in the whole church can you see everything in the fresco in their correct positions and proportions. Otherwise, at different points around the room, images look as if they are looking at you, pointing at you or somehow larger. It was absolutely spectacular, moreso when the tourguide told us that modern mathematicians still are unable to figure out exactly how the artist knew the correct angles and proportions in order to make such a complex illusion painting.
After the tour we all split up and went back to our guesthouses. I ate dinner with my guestfamily and watched a rainstorm outside blow their picnic pavilion across the backyard. Tomorrow we're going to the Audi factory and museum(Ingolstadt is the home of Audi and nearly 30% of the population are employed there). Thursday we go to the City Museum which apparently contains the stuffed horse of the Swedish general who attempted to take Ingolstadt during the 30 Years War. His horse was shot from beneath him, brought into the city and stuffed as a sort of "fuck you" to the Swedes, considering they had at first assumed Ingolstadt would be an easy conquest on their way to Munich. Germans have an odd sense of humor, to be sure.
Today was my first full day in Ingolstadt, Germany where I'll be staying until the end of June. This morning the other students and professors in my group met together and each of us students found out the community service program to which we've been assigned. Starting tuesday I'll be working at a center devoted to helping immigrants and foreign-language speaker´s-- so exciting! In July when I go to Trier I'll be interning at the Multicultural Center there, working with immigrants as well, so this is good practice and also a fascinating topic to me.
Later Leif, Michaela, Hunter, Ben, Dan and I all went out for lunch. We grabbed some Döner Kebap--the best fast food that has yet to make it across the pond to America. Döner is a special type of grilled meat--usually lamb or pork or a mixture of the two-- that is grilled on a huge spit. They take a warm flatbread and fill it with Döner, lettuce, onions, red cabbage, tomatoes and a sauce that's very similar to tzatziki--Döner coming from Turkey which shares similar tastes with Greece. Afterwards we wandered around for awhile, grabbed some icecream, and then sat at a BierGarten and had a drink. We then met up with our professors and took a walking tour of Ingolstadt to begin getting our barings.
Did you know the Illuminati first began in Ingolstadt? yeah. exciting. Also, Ingolstadt is where Frankenstein comes to study and eventually creates his monster in Mary Shelley's novel. pretty sweet.
During the tour we went to an amazing rococco church. Inside on the ceiling is the largest single fresco on a flat surface in the entire world. The artist painted it so that at only one point in the whole church can you see everything in the fresco in their correct positions and proportions. Otherwise, at different points around the room, images look as if they are looking at you, pointing at you or somehow larger. It was absolutely spectacular, moreso when the tourguide told us that modern mathematicians still are unable to figure out exactly how the artist knew the correct angles and proportions in order to make such a complex illusion painting.
After the tour we all split up and went back to our guesthouses. I ate dinner with my guestfamily and watched a rainstorm outside blow their picnic pavilion across the backyard. Tomorrow we're going to the Audi factory and museum(Ingolstadt is the home of Audi and nearly 30% of the population are employed there). Thursday we go to the City Museum which apparently contains the stuffed horse of the Swedish general who attempted to take Ingolstadt during the 30 Years War. His horse was shot from beneath him, brought into the city and stuffed as a sort of "fuck you" to the Swedes, considering they had at first assumed Ingolstadt would be an easy conquest on their way to Munich. Germans have an odd sense of humor, to be sure.
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