I hope you're all having a nice Wednesday stateside!

I couldn't stay focused in class today because I was distracted by this rare sight outside of the window - a blue sky!  And, much to everyone's surprise (and perpetual discussion), we saw this is the forecast:

Now that is nothing short of a sign of the apocalypse for Northern Europe at this time of year!  I exaggerate, but this really is a wonderful blessing that I plan to take full advantage of!

Anyway, for my afternoon class on pop culture (yes, hopefully I will come back home knowing a bit about that subject!) we made a visit to a photography exhibit by Gundula Schulze Eldowy.  She's a German photographer who dedicated a lot of time towards shooting people and places that would no longer exist after the fall of the Berlin Wall.  This is such a great concept, because through her we are able to intimately experience life in the socialist East.  She also captured many sites which, at that time (so between ~1960 and 1989) looked like 1945 in that they were still completely leveled from the intense bombing of Berlin at the end of the war (this city was almost completely demolished).  It was interesting to see/learn that decades later, these buildings were still empty, shattered, wastes of space around the city. Photography wasn't allowed in the exhibit (but when have I ever followed that rule?), so here are some quotations from her that I snapped some shots of, which I thought embodied her work quite well.

"At that time Berlin was like an extinct city, it had the feeling of an archeological site"

"The rigid contrasts of this city simultaneously fascinated and repulsed me"

I could keep learning about the infinite contrasts between the two Berlins forever.  

If any of you are interested, there's an excellent, historically accurate, and funny German film (yes, a funny German film does exist!) called Goodbye Lenin! which I highly suggest checking out if you want to learn a little over a good laugh.  I had my parents watch it and they enjoyed it, too! 

Tomorrow Devon, Elizabeth, and I will be booking our flights for spring break - I'm so excited!  We will be going to Barcelona, Spain for the first half, and Lisbon, Portugal for the second half.  I've dreamt of going to Barcelona since Señora Coleman's class in 10th grade when I did an art project on Antoni Gauduí, who did a ton of famous architectural work throughout the city, including the Sagrada Familia.  Plus, who can argue with enjoying the sunshine and beaches of the Iberian Peninsula after spending a frigid week in Russia?!  




I've been really missing Keuka lake lately.  All I needed was a little C.S. Lewis to pick me up. 

"The virtue of courage is a prerequisite for the practice of all other virtues, otherwise one is virtuous only when virtue has no cost" - C.S. Lewis