happily jet lagged

Woke up at 4am, dreaming of the streets of Paris at the speed of 7 mph on a Velib bike, cafe-hopping with a pocketful of euros, striking up conversations with any person of the moment in fluent French.

güerzi freitag!

One of the things on my to-do list for Zurich was to check out a Freitag store and find a bag that says 'this is me' better and than my non-descript but functional black bag. I very happily ended up at the flagship Freitag store, a structure of stacked shipping containers and I, ben oui*, found a bag. Each Freitag bag is made out of colorful truck tarps, assembled by hand in a swiss factory and each bag is unique.

http://www.freitag.com










*french slang for "of course"
*güerzi = hello in swiss-german

Luzern/Lucerne

KKL Luzern

Cultural Center Lucern

Everything in Lucern was gorgeous, the old hotels, the wooden bridges, the lake, the mountains, the market on the sidewalks. Seeing the architecture of Jean Nouvel in person was an added bonus.

i've left the building...

Tomorrow morning I board a flight for Zurich by way of Portland, Oregon and then Amsterdam. I've contracted with a very special Portland guide to show me the 'hoods during my marathon 6 HOUR LAYOVER (thanks a lot Northwest). My guide, Miss J, will be picking me up curbside where we'll begin our tour. Most of the tour will hopefully involve sitting at a table for 3 hours enjoying some Oregon varietels and maybe a plate of buffalo wings before I descend upon a completely different culinary environment. When I arrive in Zurich and later Paris, if the order doesn't come with butter, cheese, or chocolate, I'm not eating it! If I don't return at least 10 EL BEEz (that's spanish for pounds) heavier than I wasted 30,000 gallons of jet fuel.
I had hoped to watch all 27 french movies on Isa's list so that I would be magically fluent by now, or at least able to communicate using movie phrases but that didn't happen. Oh well, See y'all in two weeks!

Before the peri-orbital cellulitis set in...

seen Saturday evening, after my A.R.E. exam...

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The Best Block Ever!

For those of you who have been paying close attention to your blocks you might think that I'm duplicating the diamond block, like perhaps I've slipped and cannot tell my blocks apart. Diamond Block --->
http://iamonhold.blogspot.com/2007/08/diamond-block.html

Fear not, this is a new block and the best block ever! Because it's in my favorite park and makes up the facade of the Chess and Horseshoe club. So this block is hereby named the Chess Block.

My Archiflash Cards have Chinese on them...

My latest Craigslist purchase...Thanks to Molly C. in New York!
Girrrrrrl, you must be some sort of Super International Intern, scribbling all your notes in perfect Chinese. I'm still working on my first langugage.

For all you intern architects who are feeling flush and want a shiny new set of Archiflash cards here's where you can buy them:
http://www.nalsa.com/our-products/multiple-choice/?param=196