Bianchi Bike Collage Art Project- Finished!

Done and done! This little project took about 6 months when I initially thought it would only take 1-2 weeks. Approximately 3,000 postage stamps later (mostly vintage from about 30 different countries)  the great bike collage project of 2011 is finally done.  Admittedly, it's a bit overly pink, but I love it anyway.  I've been wanting to do some larger projects and this fit the bill perfectly.

I'm ready to do another bike (or a car!) except that I don't have room for any more bikes so until we live in a house with more bike or car storage this will have to be it for now unless I take on a temporary job and do one for someone else.  I'd love to do one with maps.

Last weekend I rode it to Jazz in the Park and went through a bout of heavy rain & hail.  She seemed to survive just fine and it was great to be on a faster ride than my cruiser finally.

Happy weekend riding everyone!
Andrea

Lights of Spain...

While in Spain & Morocco I shot a lot of the old ornate street lamp posts, outdoor wall lamps and a few of the intricate lamps found in the buildings of Morocco.  I love to shoot street lamps so it was a pleasant surprise to find some many on our trip.


Have a great weekend!
Andrea

Civilized Protest

In keeping with my Spain theme for the week...  These are photos I took in Madrid a couple of weeks ago. The protests were (and are) still going on when we arrived with the main square in Madrid being full of tents and daily speeches.  It was all very civilized.  At the first speech that we heard everyone was waving flowers in lieu of clapping and at some of the other speeches we saw the crowds would quietly wiggle their hands in the air instead of clapping.  That sort of reserve could never be found in this country with our loud opinions and love of clapping but it was fun to watch.

While traveling throughout Spain we saw similar protests and smaller tent cities in nearly every city that we visited.

Yost- Part of a Lost Art

I spotted this old Yost typewriter on a little bottom-shelf cubby hole in an antique shop while wandering through the old town of Ronda, Spain a couple of weeks ago.  From 1912, this machine speaks to an age of elegance, hand-forged communications and beautiful design.  

Morocco

In the middle of our Spain trip we popped over to Morocco for a couple of days.  We only went to Tangier but it's a fun, colorful, thriving little city by the sea and we were lucky enough to see one of the most incredible rainstorms of my life while we were there.  It prompted us to stay another day.

All of the decor we saw was wildly intricate, spectacularly vibrant and goes far beyond any level of detail that you would ever find in American design.  Our pension was a riot of color inside and I could have stayed there forever.  It felt like a miniature palace with stained glass, domes sun rooms and clear glass floors and I'm quite sure I will never stay anywhere as pretty again.

I wasn't initially keen on going to Morocco as I knew we didn't have enough time to really see anything but I'm glad we went because it's definitely moved up on my list of places to see.

Happy Monday!
Andrea

Home

Home from Spain and already reliving our many days filled with wandering the cobblestone streets of old towns with positively ancient structures and history, imbibing in good coffee, wine and tapas at every turn.

It was a great trip and I'm still quite jet-lagged as well as dealing with the minor medical issue that sent me home earlier than I had planned but I thought I would post a quick update.

Spain was everything I thought it might be and so much more!  These are some photos from one of my favorite buildings that we came across in the Moorish quarter of Granada last week.  With its picturesque white-washed brick walls and red-tiled roof it embodies what I thought all the buildings would look like prior to going to Spain.  As a bonus, it had a huge variety of plants growing on it.  There are few places I like to see plants making a little life for themselves more than on the tops of buildings.  This particular building was sprouting an enormous amount of vegetation and I wish I could have taken a stroll across the rooftop to get a closer look.

More photos to come later...

Cheers,
Andrea