Christmas 04/05 Summary
This holiday was divided up neatly into two portions neatly truncated by Christmas. The first part of the holiday, from about the 14th of December till the 23rd of December was spent in Spain with Adrian Li, a friend who is studying at the LSE (and my source of temporary housing whenever I am visiting London). We spent the time in Barcelona and Madrid, with a day out at Monserrat, after shelving plans to go to Andalucia and Southern Spain. Among the wonderful things that we did in that holiday were see Barcelona's Gothic quarter, the Sagrada Familia, walk along Las Ramblas the famous Barcelona shopping avenue, visit Park Guell which was also designed by Gaudi, see the Picasso museum and the Foundation Miro, walk up to the old fort atop Montjuic. In Madrid, went to the Santiago Bernabeu the home of Real Madrid, visited the Prado as well as the modern Art gallery where we saw Picasso's Guernica, as well as visit the royal palace among other things.
I greatly enjoyed Barcelona - it was a city with a great mish-mash of architechtural styles, from the cramped streets of its old quarter to the sudden explosion of a random Gaudi or other art nouveau building at a street corner - every bit of it was interesting. In Barcelona you did not find the drab grey concrete blocks that typified so much of 1960s architechture and which is so ever-present in cities with London a prime example. Over the few days there, I fully came to appreciate Gaudi's genius, the crowning glory of which was undoubtedly the Sagrada Familia. That itself was truly one of the most awe-inspiring buildings I have ever seen in my lifetime - the scale of it was immense, but more telling was the scale of the imagination that must have conceived it. Its facade, with its organic pillars, one of the portions completed by Gaudi was truly amazing, something dreamlike bordering on a nightmare. They say that as of now, it is only half completed. As I have said since my visit there, I can only hope and pray that they finish it within my lifetime, and if it were to be the case that I have to be wheeled into the building, aged 80 and to frail to stand, then I would still do so, just for the pleasure of being able to stand in its centre, illuminated by the natural light that will stream in, illuminated by Gaudi's genius.
Another interesting experience, albeit of a much different kind was the Youth Hostel that we stayed in while we were in Madrid which had its own bar, and even had a vending machine that dispensed beer - now that I definitely approve of! This was in sharp contrast to the one we stayed in when we were in Barcelona, which was significantly more dull. Madrid was rather crazy. One night that will definitely stand out involved a bunch of us going out to a club, followed by a trip to a late night bar. At the bar, I met a local Spaniard who was hosting an artist friend from Galway, Ireland. After the late night bar closed (at some ridiculous hour like 5am) the two of them decided to head out to another bar and I went off with them. What followed was that the local guy brought us to what seemed like a blank wall along a street, which in fact contained a peephole - a door was then opened and we were allowed inside and found ourselves in another bar, completele with counter and chock full with late night drinkers, completely illegal of course. Afterwards, we headed back to his flat, as no evening out, or so they claimed, would be complete without Churios and milk. The churios were procured straight out of the oven from a bakery which had not even opened, thanks to my Spanish friend knowing the baker. It was a surreal moment, sitting in his flat, a complete stranger just hours before, dipping churios into hot cocoa, but an unforgettable moment of Spanish hospitality.
I spent Christmas in London with Adrian. It was a rather quiet affair, but there was a party on Christmas day which was a gathering of over 30 Singaporeans, all of whom were 'refugees' in London, having decided to stay for the winter break and not return home. Later on there was another party at Stella's place, a friend of mine from Oxford who was now doing her Master's in London. The 5 days in London also provided a nice break and a chance to go on a movie watching spree. The one good thing about Christmas in the UK is that they show lots of excellent movies on the television, perhaps in anticipation of the fact that the entire public transportation system and indeed everything shuts down for the day. I watched Citiizen Kane (which I have always been meaning to see) on the television, along with the original version of the Manchurian Candidate (with Sinatra in a starring role no less) as well as watching Singin' in the Rain again, and a filmed West End production of Kiss Me Kate. I also saw The Aviator and Garden State at the cinema.
On the 28th of December, I flew off to Berlin, where I was to spend the New Year's with Natascha Braumann, a friend from St Catherine's College in Oxford and someone I knew from the time we spent together doing Model United Nations stuff. Along for the ride were Matthew and Marc, two of Holger's ex-house mates who were also from Catz, as well as Mathilde Piard, from St Andrews University, whom I had first met at World MUN in Sharm El Sheik Egypt and who was co-chair with me and Natascha on the Crisis Committee at OxiMUN in October. All in all it was really wonderful. Natascha had a lovely three story house outside of Berlin (in fact closer to Potsdam) with the entire top floor given over to a guest room, and her family were the most wonderful hosts. Her mom in particular seemed determined to feed the lot of us endlessly, something that I personally had no objection to! I arrived earlier than the rest and went to see the Pergammon museum which had many Egyptian and Near-Eastern antiquities including the Ishtar Gate of Babylon. We also went to see the Museum of Photography which had an interesting exhibition of the work of Helmut Newton, as well as a modern Art museum. The next few days were spent exploring Berlin, including the uber-modern Sony centre, strolling down the Unter-der-Linden, visiting the Reichstag, the Berlin museum, the Checkpoint Charlie museum, the Brandenburg Gate as well as spending a day going round Frederick the Great's palaces in Potsdam. The highlight must definitely have been spending New Year's Eve out in Berlin at the area near the Brandenburg Gate, along with about 150,000 other revellers, and singing Auld Lang Syne at midnight, much to the bemusement of the Berliners around us.
On the 3rd of January, we all packed into Natascha's van and she drove us all down to stay with Holger Wilms, who lived in a small town near Dusseldorf. Over the next few days we got to visit Cologne and Dusseldorf, with the highlight undoubtedly being Cologne's magnificent Gothic cathedral. Once again, I stayed slightly longer than the rest and I managed to use that time to meet up with Jason, a friend from college who stayed in Cologne. I also went to two art museums in Cologne, and managed to catch an Edward Hopper exhibition which included all his most famous works, in paricular "Nightwings" and "Gas" which was supposed to have been an inspiration for Hitchcock in making the movie Psycho. I greatly enjoyed Hopper's art - his realist style appealed to me - so it was a fine coincidence that I was there at the time having missed the exhibition when I was in London.
050105 - It seems odd to add this comment now, but there is a memory that has stayed with me and that is sitting in Adrian's flat watching Singin' in the Rain. It came to that classic scene where he is dancing through the rain, full of complete happiness because he is in love, a moment that cannot but bring a smile to the face of anyone who sees it. That scene made me think of KS and my family back home in Singapore and almost brought a tear to my eye - surely the only occasion that I know of that someone felt sad seeing that scene in the movie!
I greatly enjoyed Barcelona - it was a city with a great mish-mash of architechtural styles, from the cramped streets of its old quarter to the sudden explosion of a random Gaudi or other art nouveau building at a street corner - every bit of it was interesting. In Barcelona you did not find the drab grey concrete blocks that typified so much of 1960s architechture and which is so ever-present in cities with London a prime example. Over the few days there, I fully came to appreciate Gaudi's genius, the crowning glory of which was undoubtedly the Sagrada Familia. That itself was truly one of the most awe-inspiring buildings I have ever seen in my lifetime - the scale of it was immense, but more telling was the scale of the imagination that must have conceived it. Its facade, with its organic pillars, one of the portions completed by Gaudi was truly amazing, something dreamlike bordering on a nightmare. They say that as of now, it is only half completed. As I have said since my visit there, I can only hope and pray that they finish it within my lifetime, and if it were to be the case that I have to be wheeled into the building, aged 80 and to frail to stand, then I would still do so, just for the pleasure of being able to stand in its centre, illuminated by the natural light that will stream in, illuminated by Gaudi's genius.
Another interesting experience, albeit of a much different kind was the Youth Hostel that we stayed in while we were in Madrid which had its own bar, and even had a vending machine that dispensed beer - now that I definitely approve of! This was in sharp contrast to the one we stayed in when we were in Barcelona, which was significantly more dull. Madrid was rather crazy. One night that will definitely stand out involved a bunch of us going out to a club, followed by a trip to a late night bar. At the bar, I met a local Spaniard who was hosting an artist friend from Galway, Ireland. After the late night bar closed (at some ridiculous hour like 5am) the two of them decided to head out to another bar and I went off with them. What followed was that the local guy brought us to what seemed like a blank wall along a street, which in fact contained a peephole - a door was then opened and we were allowed inside and found ourselves in another bar, completele with counter and chock full with late night drinkers, completely illegal of course. Afterwards, we headed back to his flat, as no evening out, or so they claimed, would be complete without Churios and milk. The churios were procured straight out of the oven from a bakery which had not even opened, thanks to my Spanish friend knowing the baker. It was a surreal moment, sitting in his flat, a complete stranger just hours before, dipping churios into hot cocoa, but an unforgettable moment of Spanish hospitality.
I spent Christmas in London with Adrian. It was a rather quiet affair, but there was a party on Christmas day which was a gathering of over 30 Singaporeans, all of whom were 'refugees' in London, having decided to stay for the winter break and not return home. Later on there was another party at Stella's place, a friend of mine from Oxford who was now doing her Master's in London. The 5 days in London also provided a nice break and a chance to go on a movie watching spree. The one good thing about Christmas in the UK is that they show lots of excellent movies on the television, perhaps in anticipation of the fact that the entire public transportation system and indeed everything shuts down for the day. I watched Citiizen Kane (which I have always been meaning to see) on the television, along with the original version of the Manchurian Candidate (with Sinatra in a starring role no less) as well as watching Singin' in the Rain again, and a filmed West End production of Kiss Me Kate. I also saw The Aviator and Garden State at the cinema.
On the 28th of December, I flew off to Berlin, where I was to spend the New Year's with Natascha Braumann, a friend from St Catherine's College in Oxford and someone I knew from the time we spent together doing Model United Nations stuff. Along for the ride were Matthew and Marc, two of Holger's ex-house mates who were also from Catz, as well as Mathilde Piard, from St Andrews University, whom I had first met at World MUN in Sharm El Sheik Egypt and who was co-chair with me and Natascha on the Crisis Committee at OxiMUN in October. All in all it was really wonderful. Natascha had a lovely three story house outside of Berlin (in fact closer to Potsdam) with the entire top floor given over to a guest room, and her family were the most wonderful hosts. Her mom in particular seemed determined to feed the lot of us endlessly, something that I personally had no objection to! I arrived earlier than the rest and went to see the Pergammon museum which had many Egyptian and Near-Eastern antiquities including the Ishtar Gate of Babylon. We also went to see the Museum of Photography which had an interesting exhibition of the work of Helmut Newton, as well as a modern Art museum. The next few days were spent exploring Berlin, including the uber-modern Sony centre, strolling down the Unter-der-Linden, visiting the Reichstag, the Berlin museum, the Checkpoint Charlie museum, the Brandenburg Gate as well as spending a day going round Frederick the Great's palaces in Potsdam. The highlight must definitely have been spending New Year's Eve out in Berlin at the area near the Brandenburg Gate, along with about 150,000 other revellers, and singing Auld Lang Syne at midnight, much to the bemusement of the Berliners around us.
On the 3rd of January, we all packed into Natascha's van and she drove us all down to stay with Holger Wilms, who lived in a small town near Dusseldorf. Over the next few days we got to visit Cologne and Dusseldorf, with the highlight undoubtedly being Cologne's magnificent Gothic cathedral. Once again, I stayed slightly longer than the rest and I managed to use that time to meet up with Jason, a friend from college who stayed in Cologne. I also went to two art museums in Cologne, and managed to catch an Edward Hopper exhibition which included all his most famous works, in paricular "Nightwings" and "Gas" which was supposed to have been an inspiration for Hitchcock in making the movie Psycho. I greatly enjoyed Hopper's art - his realist style appealed to me - so it was a fine coincidence that I was there at the time having missed the exhibition when I was in London.
050105 - It seems odd to add this comment now, but there is a memory that has stayed with me and that is sitting in Adrian's flat watching Singin' in the Rain. It came to that classic scene where he is dancing through the rain, full of complete happiness because he is in love, a moment that cannot but bring a smile to the face of anyone who sees it. That scene made me think of KS and my family back home in Singapore and almost brought a tear to my eye - surely the only occasion that I know of that someone felt sad seeing that scene in the movie!
posted by Caleb Liu | 11:01 PM
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