We're not in Kansas Anymore

What's New:

- Megan has arrived!! (Hurrah!)

- The class, Studio Civic Friche, has ended. (Boo! It was a fantastic class... I will miss it.)

- Megan and I have gone to and returned from Normandy (photos to be posted soon...)

- Megan and I have gone to Budapest... and we're there (here) right now. We've just arrived, and are sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for the staff to finish preparing our room. Sorry, no photos just yet (the computer here in the lobby doesn't have an SD card reader... oh well). So the next post will probably have a collection of photos from various locations (don't worry, we'll caption them so it's clear what's what). Ok, I think our room is ready now, so it's time to get settled in, strategically plan our sightseeing missions (we only have 72 hours!!), and teach ourselves to speak Hungarian... maybe we'll skip that last one...

Vacation from Vacation

I may be living it up in Paris for two months, but it's not all fun and games. This trip is, in reality, a course for credit, and we're doing real work here. All the trips we take outside of Paris are organized around visits to specific architecture projects that we are documenting and analyzing. But don't worry, we do set aside some time to relax and have fun, such as this past weekend, when we were in Marseille. While the reason for traveling to Marseille was to visit the Belle de Mai Friche project, we had plenty of extra time to wander the city, hike around the Calanques, and scamper around the Iles du Frioul:


Homer Simpson!


Is it just me, or is this motorcycle a wee bit too small?


Gorgeous.


You can't camp, smoke, or barbecue in the Calanques, but you can fall off a cliff, get hit by a falling tree branch, or get caught in a rock slide.


Do you see the little bay at the bottom of the "V" formed by the Mediterranean and the hillsides? The one waaaaayyy far away from where this picture was taken? We hiked down to that.


...We're getting closer to the water...


...But first we have to repel down this 15' face...


... And we're there!












The Iles du Frioul.


Our swimming spot here was MUCH easier to get to than the one in the Calanques.


The seagulls on the island were VERY protective of their babies. A couple of us got dive-bombed when we got too close, but fortunately none of us came under this kind of attack.


A popular spot.

The Whole Gang

It's only taken a month, but we finally got a photo of (almost) the entire civic-friche team. If you want to read our individual bios, they can be found on the official civic-friche website. This photos was taken at Le Channel in Calais.


Back row, from left: Devon Stonebrook, Ivan Adelson, Tyler Willis, Brittany Roy, Mo Harmon, Matt Nickel, Lauren Bebry, Catherine Baldwin, Jordan Buckner, Steven Christensen (instructor).
Middle row: Lauren Vasey, Talia Pinto-Handler, Kayla Lim, Noureen Lakhani, Lena Pasqualini (secrétaire générale for Le Channel), Anya Sirota (instructor).
Front row: Nathan Doud (me!), Erika Lindsay, Bruce Findling, Jacqueline Kow.
Not pictured: Jean Louis Farges (instructor), Marie Combes (photographer extraordinaire), Patrick Renaud (photographer extraordinaire).


This group can't stay still for more than 30 seconds. It's always, "So what's next?" and everyone is off in search of the next adventure or great photo opportunity.