Paris

My favourite part of Paris was the Pompidou Centre - an epic building, with strange tunnel tubes which lead you from floor to floor - not too dissimilar to a hamster cage. Inside the main lobby was an arty shop, selling contemporary furnishings and such. I was gobsmacked when I came across this lamp (pictured below left), as it was so similar to my second year project that I made in 2008 (pictured below right).

I love these...I want to make some!


Inside the gallery section, there was an exhibition of female artists' work. I love this kind of shit. Here are a few of my favourites...

Niki de Saint Phalle

Annette Messager

Yayoi Kusama

and my one inspiration...Rachel Whiteread

Possibly the best exhibitions I've seen to date. Work by Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois was also on show. So epic.

Here's a unique way to advertise...

Louvre

Eiffel Tower

Brussels

mmmmmmm strawberry chocolate in the form of manneken pis :)

Amsterdam...I'M ON A BOAT!

I hated Amsterdam at first...pure lads on tour, prozzies and tacky neon signs, but once you pass through the touristy shit part, an amazing land of wonky buildings upon the river bank and quirky one-off shops await you...oh yeah, and we stayed on a boat...HOLLER!

Ton de Boer...such an awesome shop. Deserves a spot in the city centre, but epically cool for being out in the sticks a bit. Check out the site...
http://www.tondeboer.nl/sp.html

Epic Berlin

Berlin is the most epic city I've ever visited! If I could speak fluent German, I would seriously consider living there!

We went on a walking tour, and it was like living a history text book. Every corner we turned, a new story unfolded about the terrors and happenings that had taken place over time. So fascinating.



The Holocaust Memorial

Such an epic and overwhelming sculpture, atmosphere intensified by the dull and grey rain clouds above.

The rain falls down the blocks like teardrops...

...unbelievably, the material used to coat and protect these blocks was the same company that produced zyklon b. horrifyingly ironic.

Bebelplatz - Nazi Book Burning Memorial

Besides the epic history that Berlin has to offer, there is an abundance of quirky vintage shops, right up my street...

Blu murals...

Berlin, East Side Gallery

Prague

Cool sculptures:

Romantic Boat Rides:

HUGE (Atsronomical) Clock:

Gothic Buildings:

Gothic Church:

Beautiful Sunsets:

Biblical Sculptures:

Incredible Facing:

Massive Beer:

Delicious Dumplings:

Poland

So this post comes a little late, as it's been tough to hook up my camera to computers in the internet cafes around here, but Krakow is just beautiful and the people are so nice! I didn't expect it to be so commercialised and modern. Having said that, there was still a lot of classical architecture.

The Poles' like circluar bread - no idea of their actual title!

We found an epic bar called Singer. Instead of ordinary tables, they used old Singer sewing machines, which used to be built into the table. Awesome.

We also stayed at the best hostel in life...Greg and Tom's:

http://www.gregtomhostel.com/intro.html

Not only did we recieve a hot breakfast upon our early arrival (6:30am), but we also got a hot tea time meal, AND we had a computer, complete with internet in our room!! That's luxury! ...on the fun side, the hostel organised a drinking tour of Krakow. We sampled various flavoured vodkas (almond was the tastiest mmm) and drank beer from a huge pipe. We ended up in a "rock" club with low celings - it felt just like being a Cockpit again! Epic night.

The following day, we visited Auschswitz and Birkenau concentration camps. The events that took place there aren't worth mentioning. Just terrible. But they should forever be remembered.

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