Lyon, France

so as to not give the impression that this is something of a never-ending adventure, i should state that the travels of Dward and i as a collective unit offically ended yesterday. he got into Switzerland earlier this morning. also, he has a blog. it's off to a really good start so it would probabally be in your best intrest to closley follow it. i love my brother.

i'm pretty far behind on this blog but i plan to fill everything out as time permits.

Oh, also! here's my address in Halle, Germany (*corrected on October 20th, 09)

Andru Okun
Dittenberger Str. 6
06114 Halle/Saale
Germany

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hitchiking to Lyon from Grenoble was easy enough. we got there nearly as fast as we would have by train and for 100% less money. the trains in France, while very efficent, are super exspensive. A one hour train ride from Grenoble to Lyon was 20 euro. the highway toll-roads are very exspensive, along with the price of gas, so it is unfortunatley difficult to manuever around France without money. it's sad that the trains are becoming only for rich people. there is basically a monopoly on transportation. however, France has a good reputation for friendly drivers willing to pick up people on the side of the road.

we got dropped off pretty much right in the city-center. we were so hapy because the trip seemed so easy to make. then, we went as far in the wrong direction i think we went the whole trip, taking the bus way the hell outside of the city and then walking a few miles until we called our main dude Julien and realized we totally misunderstood where to go and we could have walked their quite easily from the city-center.

Julien was our host for four days. such a good guy. he's another contact given to me by Ryan. he books shows in Lyon. he was real intelligent and well-spoken and friendly, cooking for us when we got in, providing really good conversation about DIY and politics, and giving us free-reign of his apartment for the duration of our stay. he also had a real good record collection.

the hospitality we have recieved has been kind of unbelievable. i'm really greatful to play a small part in such a network/community. i'm not sure what the right word is but it's something special to show up in all these different cities and find people to connect with, either over punkrock, art, the love of travelling, or just gaining new experiences and meeting new people. really awesome.

hanging out with Julien was a treat. drinking beers in the park at night on the tailend of summer. he also took us to hang out at the radio show he and a bunch of other kids do. they all get together and play records and the broadcast goes throughout the whole city over the airwaves. pretty rad. we also went to a noise show at the DIY spot where Julien books shows. it was really cool to see the space. they pretty much had it made. the building the space was in was real close to the metro and surrounded by buildings so there was noone to get mad at night when things were loud. they also had plenty of room, a bar, and even a ticketbooth.


how cool is this?!

this is probabally one of the best interventions i've seen made in terms of urban navigation. nevermind stairs, build slides.

of course, this was part a childrens playground along the waterfront in the city. but the entrance of the slide was on level with the street and i like to imagine these slides just being another suggestion for movement rather then a recreational implement.


standing in front of part of a Barry Mcgee installation. an important artist to me for a really long time...


Agnes Verda's shack made of film reels...

unbeknownst to me before getting to Lyon, there is a fairly big art biennale going on entitled "spectacle of the everyday". and it was free! well, for students with students id. really awesome that this is available for people in that way. europe seems a lot better about stuff like that and more concerned with culturally orientated programs in general.

i didn't even know Lyon had a biennale for art. it's fairly young, i suppose, this being the tenth so far. i haven't gotten around to writing about the biennale in Venice yet. i plan to do that first before i really address the one in Lyon. so most of images won't make it onto this blog until then. later later later

Grenoble, France

we made it to France!


Grenoble is a really beautiful French city surrounded by the Alps. mountains on all sides.




we were so, so lucky to get hooked up with such kind people in Grenoble. another connection made through Ryan from Delay, a super friendly guy named Guillaume who plays in a band called Chicken's Call took us into his home. everyone that lived at and hung out at this house was super friendly and great to be around. so, so nice. super great to be part of their meals (pizza party) and feel crazy comfortable.



on the last night, we made crepes! first crepes in France.



our outings in Grenoble revolved mostly around hiking. we usually walk a lot, a lot everywhere we go. this was a whole other experience. way up there. super strenous sport.








and you could run down this mountain! ah, so fun! you sort of just slide down on these rocks and they give you all this momentum and you just kind of run/surf down.



in an unprecedented achievement in this blog, we have the first ever video. of course, its terrible quality and sideways but its still awesome. dward filmed it and fell on his ass at the end.


not meant for this world...


big super thumbs up for Grenoble and all the friends we made. really made it a great time for us. France rules. more on that later.


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these pictures are for Paul Callahan

Cinque Terre, Italy

dward has formed a mild addiction to Nutella.

Cinque Terre is one of the most beatiful places on earth. seriouslly.



comprised of five small villages built into the mountainside along the Ligurian Sea, Cinque Terre is one of these insanley precious, idyllic pieces of the world that would feel like absolute paradise if it weren't for all the tourists, pickpockets, and inevitable fact that it really is only a place you can visit and not stay forever in.

the first day there off the train we got rained out. however, that didn't stop us from walking around up a mountain in a thunder and lightning storm, driking wine and even seeing a mini landslide!


the view was really amazing at twilight.



the next day was beatiful and we woke up to this...


we went to the beach, took glamour shots, and napped. maybe one of the best swimming spots ever.





all the villages are connected by footpaths going alongside the mountain. the nature is one of the real big pleasures of this place. this is the view walking into one of the towns. i swam here while the sun was setting.



the trains in italy suck. so does their customer service. we ended up spending a very long extra-day in Cinque Terre. not the worst place to get stuck but it's never fun to wait at a train station from 11 at night til 4 in the morning. this is a story for another time.

the last day was yet another swimming spot. we woke up early because i thought we were catching the train out and i was determined to go to the ocean one last time. the rest of the day was overcast so i'm really glad i went it when i did. probabally the last time i get to swim in the ocean for awhile. sort of like a bittersweet sendoff to summer. it always makes me a little sad and sentimental. fall officaly began September 22nd.

this was a good way to spend the last few days

Rome, Italy

there were no plans to stop in Rome when originally deciding upon where to go when travelling through Europe. our stint in the countryside, also unmeditated prior to actually being overseas, put us only about an hour or two away from the city. out of the neccesity to not regret it later and the compulsion to visit such a grandiose hub of architecture and history, we spent two very busy days in the urban bustle that is Italy's capital city.






one of the really brilliant aspects of exploring this city is how one can just seem to run into some of the most stunning, sought-after sights in the world while simply walking down the street. ancient ruins, epic churches, and huge government buildings are intermingled in the fast paced heart of Rome with shopping districts and resturants. the streets are filled with buses, cars, fleets of businessmen and women on scotters, and the seemingly constant whine of ambulances and police cars. it's a very modern city with a lot of old history, mostly all crammed together so that most major sight-seeing spots are nearly around the corner from one another.

S. Maria Basilica




Coliseum


Vittoriano E Piazza Veneiza



Castel Sant'Angelo



The Pantheon





The Trevi Fountain


this was one the hardest places to find, the fountain being tucked into an intersection of small, windy streets. really beatiful, though. this is the place in Rome to visit to throw your coins.



St. Peter's Square in the Vatican City


Vaitcan City is it's own soverign city-state within Rome. it even has it's own postal service.

the most impressive, quintesentially awe-inspiring Roman attraction was our visit to the Vatican museum, a huge collection built up by the church for hundreds of years. really, really amazing and exspansive, a testement to the power and wealth of the church.

pope-mobile












to be more specific, what was really amazing about the Vatican was the oppurtunity to visit the Sistine Chapel, Michelangos masterpiece. the walk towards the chapel is amazing in itself.



and the chapel itself packs a big pay-off. really hard to capture why this place is so incredible. it doesn't come close in size to many of the mega-churches throughout Europe, but it's probabally one of the most famous and, in my opionion, the most captivating. pictures weren't allowed but i managed to take a few while the security was busy "shush"ing all the people inside, trying to maintain a practically impossible silence amongst the crowd.




a pretty damn remarkable place, i'm glad to have visited Rome.