More Montreal Photos

Just got some more photos. Hope the formatting works... trying to figure out why there's this space up here. Scroll down for now! dooooooowwwwwwwnnnnnn

Serena and me in Ferrari clothes	With one of bosses.
Meet Pat. Pat broke the Ferrari! He was funny.	F1 after-party. Looks like we're having fun!
At top of Oratoire St. Joseph	In fron tof the gossip statue. Looks just like us.
Maria and I	Contemplating in Notre Dame
Trying to go up on my knees to the oratoire. Right!	In old-port area of Montreal

Montreal

Well, I had another wonderful F1 trip. This one was crazy for work as well as for partying! Montreal really gets into the F1: streets are decorated and closed off for parties and the town fills with Maria gasolinas and flashy, kitschy cars.

Night 1:
I can't name names, but just try to envision the scene:

After a wonderful dinner at great steak place La Queue de Cheval which Pedrinho would have enjoyed, (Oi Pedrinho meu amor!) the 6 of us head back to Pilot #1's hotel suite. Pilot #1 is indeed a Formula One driver. We are in his suite, hanging out. While the rest of us are drinking a wonderful wine and shooting the shit, one guy-friend is actually wearing the sandals and dress of another girl-friend, and Pilot #1 is leisurely in his pijamas, playing online poker, while joining in our conversation once in a while. It was surreal.

Night 3:
Guy-friend invites us to have desert at restaurant with him and friends. We've already eaten, we're dead tired. We get there, Pilot # 2 (yes another different F1 driver!) is having dinner with us. So is his uncle. After about an hour of nice conversation, the place goes wild! It's a F1 after-party. All I know is that while waitresses in sequins came parading out with silver bowls filled with vodka, pilot #2's "married" Uncle is groping me, pilot # 2 is pouring soda over the head of girl-friend, ice is being spat out of guy-friend's mouth all over us and craziness is all around. At about 3 am, I called it quits. Just couldn't deal anymore with the scene. Pilot # 1 didn't go to this one. Probably at his suite playing online poker!

Was able to fit in a 3-4 - hour tour of the city but the actual work was madness. Lots of running about. I was exhausted.
I did get to pretend I was in a movie though. Picked up one of the guests from his private jet. Got to drive all around the private jets, right up to the stairs of his and then opened the door, with the wind blowing my hair and skirt, while he came down. Then let him in. Got a compliment for being so resourceful. Not easy to find out where the jet was going to land, but we were lucky.

Anyway, some photos:

Serena, Me and Maria getting ready to go out.














The airshow before the race. I didn't actually get to see the race this time. Too many pepinos to fix.










Charlie's Angels get a break and see the town.





























Above is the Catedrale Notre Dame. As our guide reminded us about 5 times, it's where Celine Dion got married. I can't even guess the influences. This place is colourful!



We also went to see the Oratoire St. Joseph, which is this prayer center way up high in a town outside Montreal. There's Maria climbing the hundred or so steps and on the right, the doors to the church. Very modern, reminded me of Brasília.









More photos later as soon as I get them from the girls. Mine sucked.

Another cool graffiti animation

This one was done in Buenos Aires, by blu!
So cool. It must have taken weeks!
My project is no longer just about graffiti art, but I still get tons of stuff about it. One day, I will be able to post about it here. For now, I'm just struggling to get it done in time for next week! Eeeeek!


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

The Berlin Shuffle

Paul Klee

Man are my heels sore!

I just came back from Berlin and I loved it. The cloudless, sunny days must have helped because it wasn't just me -- I had lots of competition sucking up to gallery owners trying to get some summer job there. Its a pretty relaxed city, with an alternative feel and LOTS to do.

We walked all day and sometimes into the night and probably didn't touch a fifth of the museums and galleries there. We were soooo lucky with the weather, which made the trip absolutely wonderful compared to Venice.

It was also better organized and the hotel which was chosen was in a great location, a few blocks from CheckPoint Charlie, which was the crossing point between east and west Berlin for the allied forces.

There's an old guard house there with murals showing the history if the wall and fake guards who will talk to you through a megaphone as you pass by. There is very little of the wall left but through-out the city you can see a line on the ground made of little cobble stones showing you where it once stood.


The school organized a bus tour on our first day which gave us an idea of the city. From then on, it was just visiting museum after museum, gallery after gallery. We made the most of the Berlin Biennale and saw some great classics at the Neue Nationalgalerie which had some icons of modern art. Since it was warm, I got to wear sandals most of the time and thank goodness I took them because most people's feet were cooked by the end of each day.


We also tried to go out to some different parts of Berlin, but didn't have that much time. I did visit places like Kreutzberg, which has an alternative history and Hackischer Markt, which is a bit like Covent Garden, but somehow more relaxed and sleeker. There are even restaurants there with tiki-lights and those swinging cradle chairs... everything very relaxed.

One afternoon after a long day went to have a coffee and cake at famous chocolatiers Fassbinder and Rausch. It was sooooo good. But we were all in a little of a chocolate daze for the rest of the night. This is me enjoying my hot CHOCOLATE and CHOCOLATE and orange cake thingy. The water is just for show.

One part of the Biennale was this Sculpture Garden, which was supposed to be sort of experimental and edgy. They placed a few sculptures all over what was an overgrown wilderness of vacant lots and called it a sculpture garden. To get to some of these sculptures you needed a map and had to wade through some high grass, garbage and left over construction material. Most of the time it was difficult to see what was art and was what was garbage. Which was actually kind of cool. So cool, I decided to make my own art!

This is Artist Sandy with her piece in the 2008 Berlin Biennale Scupture Garden See the suffering on my face!!!
My piece was relating to the fertility of the biennale (thus phallic stick coming from Biennale map) leading to the understanding and flow of sweetness (thus broken water bottle with discarded sweetener packet). It all makes sense man!
We also got to interact with other important art. Yes these are holes in the ground there on the right.



We did also get to see some wonderful art. Paul Klee, Picasso, Anselm Kiefers, all of the Neuenationalgallerie... there was some great stuff.
I'll just leave you with some photos or else I'll take another few days to write the rest of this!
I have so much work to do in the next 2 weeks! My final project is due and next week we have an exam. Plus I'm going out on dates, going to see Seu Jorge with friends and several B-day parties! Argh!
So write more next time!

Anselm Kiefer - one of my favorites apart from Klee

Florence, me and Richi at another crazy sculpture garden installation
More ummm... art that was difficult to understand. Those chairs were part of it. You can tell everyone looks very confused.

Trying to imitate Victoria driving her horses on top of the Brandenburg Gate, but my friend just didn't catch on and cut her out so now it just looks like I'm doing the hula-hula or something. Completely retarded. Nice sun flare though.

In the back alleys of Berlin going to underground bars that had aliens in aquariums!


Lots of standing around... but at least the sun was delicious.

Ich bin eine Berliner!

Something's wrong with the concordância of that title, but can't think of it now. Will have plenty of reminders of how much I've forgotten my German for the next week, since I'm off to Berlin tomorrow for almost a week.
Hope to be able to post pics from there. If not, see you all when I get back!

Beijos!
Love you all!
XXX

Clo's Visit

Wow. It's been a while.
Well Clo came to visit over the past week and it was wonderful to have her.
I tried spending the weeks before she came getting ahead with my final project but didn't get very far. Will have to catch up over the next few weeks.

Clo and I had a great time just hanging out, really. Sad that the weather didn't help. It's been kind of cold and just blah. She was happy to be able to wear her winter hat, coat and even gloves! Brrrr.

The only touristy thing we did was walk around Bankside, the south bank of the Thames area where the Tate Modern is. My now vast knowledge of art history failed to impress her when we came across Cornelia Parker's Thirty Pieces of Silver (1988-89). Copyright: Cornelia Parker
Several "puddles" of silver cutlery and tools are hung with wire just inches from the floor. Very cool, but I wasn't able to tell her if the artist had input on the lighting or not. I tell you, audiences are never satisfied.





We also went on a fun tour of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre which was reconstructed nearby using the materials of the day and as close to the original location as possible. There's a great little museum telling you all about The Globe Theatre and how the performances were held as well as the details of the reconstruction. From end of April (Shakespeare's birthday) to October or so, the produce several of his plays. I got tickets for Midsummer's Nights Dream for late June when my mum should be here. Hopefully the weather will be better.

The theatre was made completely of oak, with wooden nails and thatched roof and colourfully painted inside. The people who stand to watch the play are called the groundlings. Can't wait to watch something there.
The workers were setting the stage for the next production, King Lear, I think.



But most of the time we just walked around, did some shopping and had way too much to eat.
One night we went out with Anna to a Gastro Pub near home. Had 2 bottles of wine between the three of us as well as some lovely deserts:

Later on this night, Clo decides that she should register me on a singles dating site and writes the recommendation while under the influence. A riot! Just what I need. More weirdos looking me up. She really wants some guy called Sean to be her new brother-in-law! hehehe

We also met up with Clo's friend Natasha a couple of times. On Saturday we went to her neighbourhood to meet her and a friend and man it was a trek!
Firstly, we went to Kings Road to do some shopping. The Circle line was closed as it sometimes is on weekends, so we had to complete the trip with a bus. After wandering around there for a while, we had to meet Natasha all the way North-west of the city. The Bakerloo line should have taken us there, but it also stopped at Paddington and so we had to take another bus, which we had no idea where it was going. What a trip that was. Anyway, turns out Natasha lives 2 blocks away from my friend Connor, so he came to lunch too.


Natasha, me and Clo

Conner with bad hair cut by Brazilian Transvestite, me and Clo.


Tomorrow school starts and Clo goes home. So sad. It was great to have her here, since I was very homesick. She brought me more clothes from home which was good and some lovely drawings my Timmy and now I have enough to keep me going till me next visitor.

Who will that be??? Huh? Huh?

Formula One for the boys!

Hi Timmy! Hi Nicki! Hi Matthew!

Kiai-kiai just came back from the Formula One Race, where she saw a really fast Ferrari!
In the Formula One race, the drivers go around a race-track many times. In the race I saw, the drivers went around the race track 56 times. The Ferrari car won the race!
The cars are so fast!

Kiai-Kiai took photos for you to see! CLick on them to make them bigger.

Here is the Ferrari Formula One Race car.:


See how low and skinny it is? That's how it goes so fast!



This is the steering wheel in the Ferrari. It comes off so that the driver can get in and out of the car. That's how small the space is! Look at all the buttons.



This is the Ferrari Garage. The Ferrari doctors! They are putting the car together from all the different parts.

Here is another picture of the Pit, which is just another name for the garage. See how the car hangs up from the ceiling? That's so the mechanics can get underneath it easily to fix it and put it together. The car is very light. Much lighter than daddy's car.



Once everything is put together, the driver can take the car around the track for a test-drive to see if everything is working OK. Here he is leaving the Pit.



As the car races around the track, these are the people who make sure everything is OK with it. They have computers where they can see if its going fast enough and if it isn't why not. The computers tell them if the car needs gas or if the tires need air and even if the pilot is thirsty!



If the guys on the computer see that something is wrong with the car during the race, they tell the pilot to come into the Pit. As soon as the pilot comes into the pit, all these people crowd around the car to put in gas and change the tires and give the pilot some water as fast as they can! It is usually faster than the time you would take to say Ferrari three times. Try it! Say Ferrari 3 times. That's how fast they are!



This is Kimi Raikkonen. He is the Ferrari driver that won the race that kiai-kiai saw.

I love you boys!!
and I miss you!

XXXX Kiai-kiai