Making Circles

woah. I am beat. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen most of this city in 2 days. After sleeping 11 hours last night, and a couple of cups of excellent coffee with breakfast, I headed outside… I started with a photo exhibit featuring contemporary Indian photographers’ work in a cultural center that was also displaying some of the giants used in parades here.

There was also another photo exhibit with locals’ work, and I couldn’t help but notice people all dressed alike again! I actually think these are groups of “tower builders” who make human towers during the festival that’s going on. I haven’t witnessed it, but I did read about it… Anyway, I got a shot of some of these folks looking at the exhibit

before being reprimanded for taking photos…

Then I headed to the northernmost part of the city to explore the Gràcia neighborhood and the Park Güell, another one of Gaudi’s madcap creations! As soon as I stepped above ground from the Metro, I noticed some more crazy architectural contrast…

After wandering around and climbing many many stairs, I was finally in the park.

Here’s a lookout area in the park:

and a close-up to show the tile work:

Under the lookout:

and the gates to one of the several entrances:

amazing.

After lunch, I headed back south in the city, and took a walk through to the Church of Santa Maria of the Sea, which unfortunately was closed, but was nice to walk around. I then got lost a little bit and ended up in Barceloneta, the area along the sea. There was a crafts market, and then further down, this statue that looked suspiciously like a Lichtenstein:

pretty sure it is…

I then headed out to the gardens of Montjuïc, where after much climbing I ended up at the castle. You can walk all around it for 360 degrees of Barcelona… I especially liked this view of shipping containers on the port:

It was a little hazy so unfortunately the amazing colors don’t show up in the photo…

And now I am off to look for some dinner!

It looks like Barcelona has a rent-a-bike program like Paris’…

I landed in this unbelievable, beautiful, and strange city this morning. After getting off the airport bus at the wrong stop, taking the metro to where I should have stopped, then walking all around Plaza Cataluña (it might be bigger than a football field) I finally found the street I needed to follow to get to my hotel for the next 2 nights. whew!

After settling in (I like to “nest” when I travel, arranging all my things in the room as soon as I get in) I started to explore this city I’ve wanted to see for years… I began walking south on La Rambla, the main shopping thoroughfare (a block from my hotel…dangerous) until I hit the water, and started walking north-east up into Barri Gotic, the old Gothic neighborhood. I stumbled on this sculpture,

some cool architecture,

and a small church, before eventually running into the Cathedral…

These 13 geese are in the cloister! They are said to protect the town from evil-doers.

And I just liked this palm tree also in the cloister.

This sign at the entrance of the cathedral is awesome.

I climbed up to the roof, and wow, Barcelona has one of the coolest skylines ever, with crazy colors and shapes and textures all over the place.

Best of all, this big guy was hanging out (or rather waiting to be fed, unfortunately) on the one of the roof walls

how stately…

Then I had a lunch of Catalan salad (veggies covered in cold cuts), meatballs stewed with squid, and flan, with a nice coffee to finish it all off. YUM! At the table next to me a young father entertained his baby daughter by repeatedly smacking himself in the face with some sort of small bag. She thought it was hilarious.

I saw these folks wearing all the same clothing while searching for a SIM chip for my phone…

I later saw a small group of people wearing matching devil outfits with little bells that rang as they walked. (A big festival is going on all over the city, the Mercè. There are large stages with bands playing all over the place. These people like to party!)

I also saw on the metro a guy wearing blue paint on his face. It was painted and textured to look as if it was a thick crust breaking into pieces (alien-ish, and wierd) Sorry no picture of this one though. People keep blowing whistles (I can hear them outside my hotel window- oh joy).

Anyhow, my goal this afternoon was to finally see some of Gaudi’s work. Ever since I studied his work back in an Art History survey class Freshman year, his buildings have fascinated me. Luckily, Barcelona is the mecca for Modernista work as well as amazing Design in general. I might have to add it to my list of places I could live in…
This is the Casa Battló

Check out the crazy contrast with the building next to it!

and higher up…

a close up so you can see the skull-ish looking balconies…

Then I headed to Gaudi’s masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia. This temple was begun in 1884, and work on the first of three facades was not even completed before his death. The first facade, Nativity, was finished according to his plans.

After anarchists destroyed his drawings and plans for the rest of the church, the Passion facade was done by the sculptor (an atheist) Josep Maria Subirachs:

This thing is crazy! Totally asymmetrical and angular in contrast to the drippy Nativity side. And the Jesus, of course, has caused quite a scandal.

The third facade, the Glory, is underway…

I really liked the contrast of the new statue against the older work:

And this tree being held up near the scaffolding…

On Saturday the 16th, the 3rd annual Kinetic Sculpture Derby and arts Festival took place in Kensington, North Philadelphia. There was live music and good food, and many people were in attendance. The main attraction of the festival is the end of the race when the large moving sculptures have to make it through a mud pit. Here are some photos I took at the event:

Spectators

The winners of the race

One of the many tall bikes

Another tall bike. Riders with their game faces on!

Protesting the casinos

Riding on the “dirty money”

Another tall bike

The flying monkeys leading out…

The mother of all flying monkeys!

A truck propelled by several riders pedaling perpendicular to the road…

The last few sculptures were pretty amazing…
A creepy Amish “buggy”

????

The last one…

This is one of my new favorite fruits… The skin is hard like a shell, bread-like on the inside, with strange tentacles. The edible part looks like fish or frog eggs, is slightly tangy and sweet- delicious!
I had to film this to show you how strange this thing is!

opening the Granadilla from Jessica Singerman on Vimeo.

Happy New Year- After getting to bed at 2am, I woke at 6 this morning to find a strange taught sensation on the left side of my upper lip. Looks like I fell victim to a mosquito again, this time the little jerk got me on the lip, and I look like I have Botox gone really wrong. Other than that, it is good to be at Rancho Margot. My good buddy Drea and I have been exploring since we’ve been here…
On our first afternoon here, we hiked to the Mirador, the lookout point over the valley.

This is the ranch seen from above.

Yesterday, we hiked to a small waterfall

and met some friends along the way
this scary-looking guy

and this little one sitting in the middle of the path

We saved his life and moved him off to the side.

Later while walking in the neighboring village, we saw some really cool looking plants and mushrooms. The ones that caught my eye were all the same crazy reddish-orange color…

and my favorite was this sprouting seed broken in half

There were some lovely cows

and we got a chance to go into the work area and chat with some local guys while they worked

Drea even got to help milk a cow

And we found this huge leaf with “fingers”

In the evening, there were plans to ride up to the Mirador for some fireworks. Drea and I rode in a tractor trailer up the hill, and before we got to the top, we saw that the SUVs following got stuck in the deep mud, so we had to turn around and head back to the ranch… She and I got to sit on the back of the tractor on the way down, and we sang at the top of our lungs in the pitch black all the way home. (the driver of the tractor had just a head lamp to see the way)

There was dancing and fireworks back at the ranch till late into the night… It was a great new year’s eve!

We’ve been in Costa Rica for a few days, celebrating mom and dad’s 30th wedding anniversary. Kinda weird to be in the tropics over Christmas…

Yesterday, we hiked in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve for a few hours, and saw quite a few birds, including the Quetzal! Pretty cool since it is rare, and I hadn’t seen one during my time here last year. We spotted a female, and waited for quite a while for a male since they are more colorful. Apparently the female sat on her branch for so long because she was digesting her avocado (a much smaller variety than the kind we humans eat), and if we waited long enough we might catch a glimpse of her spitting out the pit. Fascinating stuff…

We saw many varieties of hummingbirds, including this little guy in his nest…

This one was feeding

And this little warbler was mooching

Today, we went on a canopy tour, and man, it was awesome! (that’s me above) In addition to the zip lines—which were super long over the valley (some so long that we had to go two at a time to have enough weight to carry us all the way across)—there was a rappelling section, and then a “tarzan swing.”

That’s Adrian, my brother, bravely jumping off first. Then I had to go, and oh my god, I was so freaked out. I’ll pretty much do anything, but I do not like the sensation of falling—I feel my heart drop even in elevators—but the guide told me not to think about it, and that was that.

This is me falling off (I didn’t jump, the guide just let me go).

And this is me swinging back and forth; it was a huge drop the first couple times the rope swung back and forth…

and a close up because my expression is too good

I was happy I did it though! yay me.

I just finished making this little movie…

floss from Jessica Singerman on Vimeo.

Just got back from an awesome birthday out in the Wissahickon. For Nicky and Drew’s birthdays, we met a group of friends this morning, split into 2 teams, and rode for a few hours on a scavenger hunt in the woods. We then had some yummy food and hot toddies at Kristin and Drew’s house. Awesome.

It was back to the cross races for me yesterday as I accompanied Tim to the Fairhill race in Maryland. I grinned as I rode a lap with him, and regretted not racing…
Here are some of the costumes we saw there:
Anne with her prehistoric regalia

Sally with some rockin’ socks

Rob being hot, hot, hot

A gentleman whose name I don’t know

Fatmarc

Kelly X dressing in the women’s race. (He got kicked out.)

Since we were in that neck of the woods, we stopped in at Bike Line Newark to say hi to the guys, notably Howard Brown, best bike shop manager EVER. Dwayne, one of the best bike mechanics in the entire world (I have seen him do amazing things for bikes in serious trouble.), was working on this really cool project.

I got back to Philly on Wednesday night and went to bed early. About a half hour later I heard some screaming up and down my street. The Phillies won the World Series! Very cool especially given the last time that happened was on my birth year, 1980.

So there was a parade in Center City today, and I decided to check it out with Tim. Rode into town and met him at his work, locked up my bike, and we walked toward the madness on Broad Street. I’ve never seen the city so happy! On my way in, a guy and a gal were dressed in chicken suits, I smiled when I passed them, and the guy gave me a huge grin with a thumbs up. I wish the Phillies won every day.

Here are a couple of pics of folks I saw around the parade. The guy in the pony suit above was also taken at this time by the way.

a little scary…

doing what they need to do to see the action

and Evil Knievel making a call outside the Curtis Building.