easter break nerd-fest

so we go to istanbul, come back leave for paris, come back for a week and then have five days off for easter. yea, its been a rough semester here in italy. so for easter break a few friends and i decided to take a trip. we decided that amsterdam would make a good destination. so away we

went! off to amsterdam. just outside of amsterdam in Utrecht, which just so happens to be the name of the art/architecture supply store where we all buy our goodies from at home. if i told you how much money i pay to utrecht a semester, you wouldnt believe me. but anyway, it also happens to be the home of one of the most significant architectural buildings in the last 100 years or so, the Gerrit Rietveld - Schroder House. and we got to take a tour of it for cheaper than usual because we told the lady how poor we were haha but they were all reallly nice and being inside of this house was a one in a lifetime opportunity and it was wellll worth it.

Amsterdam is one of the prettiest cities i have EVER seen. all the canals and bridges, and again the dutch are the nicest people i have ever met. people on bikes would ride by and just say hi! it was great! and speaking of the bikes, they we everywhere!! they dont just have bike lanes, they

have bike highways! ok not quite... but they do have a three story bike parking garage at the train station! it was so cool haha but with all these bikes around we decided to take an

architectural bike tour around the city. people dont generally think this, but amsterdam is an architectural hub. so we rented our bikes and were on our way. about 20 minutes into said bike ride, it started to rain. we biked on!! then it started to rain harder, and we biked on! and then it turned into a torrential down pour! and we biked on!! until it was just too unbearable and we biked back to return the bikes. but biking through the rain without anybody else around and checking out all these awesome buildings, was one of my favorite times here in Europe. so our time in Amsterdam was coming to and end and we had class we had to get to, but we werent quite ready to go home. so on our way home we took some detours through Frankfurt

(germany), into Belfort (france), and finally into Ronchamp (france) all of which have some really cool architecture, Ronchamp especially.

Ronchamp is a quiet little farm town in the middle of nowhere france. but up on top of this one not so little hill, is another one of the most important buildings so have ever been built. Le Corbusier's Notre-Dame du Haut. i was speechless when we walked in. and i still cant believe we were there. so our awesome trip of five guys going to amsterdam turned into an architectural nerd-fest haha it just goes to prove that you cant take us anywhere.

us guys in the Alps!