Do You Hear What I Hear?

Nothing makes a day quite as grand as getting to interact with modern art. And Nacha, Ivanka, and I did just that last Sunday; which made for a marvelous afternoon.

ZKM is an amazing modern art museum (which I have mentioned before in a previous post) and it has recently put up some new exhibits. It's main exhibit is called Sound Art. As the name simply implies, it's a whole bunch of modern art that has something to do with sound. Now I must admit that I found some of the pieces quite strange, but on the whole there were some pretty amazing things to look at, and many that you could interact with. The girls and I had a field day with the interactive ones, probably breaking all sorts of museum etiquette rules haha. But what's art with out a dash of fun?

I've decided that instead of writing a wordy blog describing my favorite pieces, that I would just show you a majority of the pictures I took (more pictures than I usually post in my blog posts) because you will get a better grasp of the epicness. Of course, you won't really be able to experience it like we did considering I can't provide you with the sounds that accompanied the art. And for that I am truly sorry, and offer an invitation to visit me here in Karlsruhe so we can go to ZKM together. Because art should be seen and experienced and shared by all.

T.V.'s with windup toys moving about, and the background music being the Macarena. No joke. We found this room to be creepy, so Nacha was being all funny and pretending to be the girl from 'The Ring.'

Singing wine glasses (those devices do what the tip of your finger usually would do).

Ivanka, Nacha, and I just chilling out barefoot on a vibrating floor. We were actually required to take off our shoes for this piece, which made me feel all giddy. I mean, when do you get to go barefoot in a museum?! Never. Well, except for this time.

This is Ivanka and I walking about my favorite interactive piece. We walked around with those devices in our hands listening to the sounds that were emitted from each light bulb (each had a different one). The more we turned up the volume on our device, the more the all the sounds meshed together. The lower the volume, the clearer we heard each light bulb singly. So neat.

Couldn't figure this one out. But I think it looks pretty.

Me, horrified, standing next to the creepy beehive of microphones emitting sounds that would be right at home in a horror movie.

I have no idea why Nacha is hugging the creepy microphones haha.

Ivanka listening and watching virtual flies get killed. Art at it's finest.

The sun! Not sure what this had to do with sound...

No idea what this technically is, but I think it looks beautiful.

These little guys would move in different directions due to sound vibrations. Neat, right?

The girls and I having a vanity moment in front of a black sheet of metal. For some reason in the picture it doesn't look like a black surface at all... I didn't even use flash!

This was a pretty epic interactive piece. Ivanka and Nacha are yelling into microphones, and I was making crunching the rocks with my feet (off camera). Why? We were making music of course.

"Ooo this looks so cool! I wonder what it does." *pushes button*...

*WAAA BAMMM* "AHHHH OHMYGOD!!!"

No idea why a map of America was in this exhibit, but this is me pointing to where home is, very, very excitedly.

Ivanka and I listening to some sounds on an old school VHS machine.

The main lobby even has some musical art... music notes made out of metal and old speakers.

Close up of old and new speakers emitting a low buzzing noise.

For each main exhibit ZKM does, they have art out front that is visible from the street. This is what they chose for the Sound Art exhibit: a bunch of old and new speakers piled together making the same exact noise. Amazing? Annoying? Pure Genius? Your choice.

Hope you enjoyed this post and got a little sound bite of our afternoon because of it!

17 Again? Nope.

Last week I had the pleasure of being reminded that I am most definitely getting old. This twenty-year-old body just isn't the sprite youthful thing that it used to be. Kidding... sorta. As much as twenty-somethings have youth and spunk unknown to their elders, we don't have the crazy energy of teenagers. That is zapped out of you quite quickly once you aren't a teenager anymore. This past week Johannes and Christiane's seventeen-year-old niece stayed for a couple days. I absolutely adored hanging out and going on adventures with Lea! It was one heck of a couple days. After which I proceeded to take a nap.

Lea and her family dropped by for a few days before they went on their Fall holiday house boating in France. Everyone in Germany gets a Fall holiday, how fancy is that? But Lea and I had so much fun that she decided to stay for a few days once she was done house boating with her family. This first adventure was before they went house boating, all the rest are once she got back.

On Monday (not this past week, but the week before) we visited was Karlsruher Schloss, which is one of my favorite places to just frolick about. It was a gloomy, cold, and windy day. But I love those kinds of days. Lea and I roamed about the vast castle grounds, including the Hartwald (a forest). I told Lea that one of the things my friends and I love doing is taking pictures when we are on adventures (or when we are bored haha). So I made sure we took a couple pictures while we walked around. My favorites are the ones of us walking on one of the tile spokes that show that the castle is in the middle of the city and most of the streets radiate out from it. After the castle we went to a fancy little cafe and drank absolutely amazing hot chocolate.

Lea in front of the castle.

Me walking on the blue tile "spoke".

Lea came back on Sunday with her family, and then they left that evening to go back home. Monday morning we found ourselves trying to figure out what to do. The museums aren't open on Mondays, so we couldn't go there. And other things would take too long (I had slept in a little too late). So we decided to watch the movie 'Bride Wars'. We laughed so much! But for the afternoon we did go on an adventure. Lea and I took Martha to the Karlsruhe Zoo. Now, when I think of a zoo, my mind goes directly to all the trips I have made to the San Diego Zoo and the LA Zoo. Both are huge and have a certain fancy California feel to them. The Karlsruhe Zoo is pretty much the complete opposite. It's really quaint, sprawling but not huge, and has a fanciful quality to it. It is almost like a park. I would say the main focus of this zoo is its botanical gardens (which are gorgeous) and then amongst the gardens, lakes, and rivers are the little exhibits. Another thing that surprised me was that they have animals I would never expect in a zoo because I don't consider bunnies, goats, sheep, Shetland ponies, and ducks to be exotic. There is even a petting zoo within the main zoo. This is where we spent most of our time. Martha was totally enthralled by all the goats. She spent the better part of a half an hour "training" them. It was so adorable; and Lea and I couldn't stop giggling.

See! I wasn't joking about the Shetland Ponies!

On Tuesday we once again found ourselves not being able to go to a museum because they were closed for some reason. But that morning we had more time, and were able to go sort of far. So we chose to take a train to Durlach (a suburb of Karlsruhe) and ride the Turmbergbahn. What is that? Well it's the oldest train in Germany! And it goes up the side of a mountain (more like a hill) where at the top you get an amazing view of Karlsruhe and the surrounding areas. You can even technically see France. The Turmbergbahn was really neat! But when we got to the top of the "mountain", I stopped thinking about trains. We climbed up a old watch tower from like the 1200's or 1300's to get the best view of it all. I was totally floored. The view was so amazing! The pictures I took just don't capture the vast beauty. Lea had packed us a snack (gummy bears and cookies) and we ate those as we basked in the view. It was really windy, but I like to think that it made it all much more epic.

Lea and I in the Turmbergbahn.

Just one of the epic views from the top of the tower.

Once Lea and I left the Turmbergbahn, we realized that we still had time to kill before we went to pick up Frieda from Kindergarten. Lea suggested we go and see Gottesaue Schloss, which was actually about a five minute walk from Frieda's school. The castle isn't really a castle. Nor has it ever been, so I'm not quite sure why it is called one. For a really long time it was a monastery. And then at some point it became a music college. Unlike a lot of old historical buildings, this one is not a museum. This meant we could only look at the outside. Which was fine; it was neat just strolling around the grounds  listening to all the students practicing their music.

Me in front of Gottesaue Schloss.

Lea in front of Gottesaue Schloss.

On Wednesday we finally got to go to a museum! And what a museum it was. I was super impressed by it all; I have never been to a museum like ZKM. I was really excited to go because ZKM is a modern art museum. And I do love a good art museum. But, unlike all our previous adventures we couldn't take the train (because the workers were on strike that day). So it was about a twenty minute walk from the house, in the rain. Great day for the train workers to be on strike right? Ha. The museum is in the same building as an art school, which I thought was pretty darn smart. Lea and I spent the morning nice and warm (as opposed to our walk in the cold, cold rain) looking at and interacting with the exhibits. The main exhibit at the moment is all about crazy modified cars. But the mini exhibits were all about technology. There were iPads, classic arcade games, karaoke, futuristic virtual reality games... the list goes on. It was the most amazing thing to see stuff that I am familiar with, in a museum already. I can already tell I am going to be one of those grannies that takes her grandkids to the museums and says, "When I was your age the iPad was a new fangled idea..." Nothing wrong with that right? Oh geez.

Me playing with bubbles that react to my shadow.

One of the cars from the main exhibit. It was an art piece all about the environment.

All these morning adventures combined with watching my girlies in the afternoon really made me one tired girl. When Lea left I was super bummed that I was losing my adventure buddy; but man, was I stoked to spend the next morning at home in my pajamas. Lea still has that teenage vivaciousness that I can't quite keep up with anymore (though I am pretty sure I talked her ear off). And I adore her all the more with dealing with me: the tuckered out twenty-year-old.