Vigo-Hamburg exchange 2019 by Loretta

VIGO - HAMBURG EXCHANGE 2019 

One of my favourite activities, we did all together, was our trip to las Islas Cíes on our second day in Vigo. 

Las Islas Cíes are three islands in front of Vigo’s bay. We took the boat and it was maybe a one or one-and-a-half-hour ferry ride. The archipelago is made up of the northern island (Monteagudo), the middle island (Do Faro) and San Martiño,the southern island, where the ferry stops twice a day to collect the visitors.                                                            The islands areconservationareas for wildlife, sea animals and plants. 

We visited the Islands Do Faro and Monteagudo. Our tour guide explained us that sometimes people get confused because they only see two islands instead of three. It’s because of the tide. Every six hours and twelve minutes the water goes back and the beach between Do Faro and Monteagudo is visible.                                (In the picture you can see the dark blue sea in the background; the beach and the lagoon – because it’s saltwater- in the foreground).                                                                                              

When the water comes back the beach is flooded and only a bridge made of stones links the two islands together. I am not quiet sure but I think the romans build the bridge and also lived on the islands for a while.                                                                                                               

( In the background you can see the island Monteagudo and the bridge leads to the island Do Faro)                                           

   

We walked to the lighthouse of Do Faro        (Faro means lighthouse in spanish) with many stops to take pictures, because the whole island is really beautiful and stunning. 

The little tower in the picture is the lighthouse the first time we saw it and after we had walked for two hours. We took a break there on the top of the tower and enjoyed the view, because we could look over the whole archipelago and the ocean. In the distance there was the bay of Vigo and the mountains in the background.                                                                             Around us the seagulls were flying, waiting and watching if we would drop something of our food. Some of them were gliding on the wind, higher and higher into the blue sky and the wind cooled us down a little bit.                                                          

After the break we could choose if we would want to race back down to the beach of Monteagudo to go swimming in the water, if we would stay in the tower or if we would go down to the beach slowly. 

The important thing was that everyone had to be on the boat at five o’clock, because otherwise  had to wait for the next ferry on the next day. We nearly missed it because we were still on the beach when the boat arrived and we had to run as fast as we could to catch it. But we made it!

          (This is the view on San Martiño, the southern island, from the lighthouse of Do Faro)

(When we were heading back to the beach the water came back and the only way to cross over to Monteagudo was over the bridge, because everything else was covered with water.                                                Also appareantly squids live in the water around the archipelago, but sadly I did not see one, only a lot of algue and some fish.)

In Vigo we sprayed the logo of the ERASMUS – program on the wall of the school yard. First we had to cover the whole arena in plastic sheets to protect it and to find a good place on the white painted wall to spray. It wasn’t clear if the tape would actually hold the templet or if it was too heavy, but we were lucky. It didn’t fell off the wall and down onto the ground, smearing the colour all over the wall.  

Then we all could spray, one person after the other. Because only three or four people did already graffiti before, the teacher explained us that we had to shake the bottle well and then watch the distance between the spray can and the wall. With little to no space the paint would run down behind the templet; if the distance was too wide the colour could not blend in properly and the white of the wall behind would still shimmer through. Everyone could spray if they wanted, but only a little part since we were so many people. I did a part on the blue wing of the bird without the monuments. 

 

(This is the finished graffiti, completly dried and without the templet.)

The left and the right wall next to the logo were for our own graffiti. Someone had the idea we could all make templets with our hands, and spray that onto the wall. There was a short discussion if we should do the negativ or the positiv of our hands, but we had a day to think about what we wanted to do, where on the wall and what motive we wanted to spray.                                                                                                        It was fun to experiment with the different colours, but on the same time really difficult because it’s not possible to erase anything. If it’s sprayed on the wall it’s there and you can’t really change it anymore. 

(This is my graffitti, we had for some reasons a bottle of white paint standing around on the yard, and so nearly all of the students wrote something down with a little stick and the paint.)

(Sadly, I only have pictures of one of the two walls, but the other hands/graffitis were also really pretty!)

On our first day in Vigo we took a bus to see some of the citys artworks – statues, wall graffiti, etc – and heard their stories, why they were painted or who the artist was.                                                                                                                                  At first I didn’t realize how many there where, but everywhere you looked there was a painting on the wall or a statue on the sidewalk. And all of them were made with a crazy amount of detail and time. It’s impressing to see, because most times I saw artworks like those I never really apreciated or noticed them.

(This is one of the many graffiti art works in Vigo and I really like this one because - look at it - it’s amazing. I am not quite sure but I think it was the winning design of an art contest a few years ago.                                                 Further down the street is the school, so we often walked past this flower.)

                                                                                                                                                

On our first day together in Germany, our teachers prepared a rallye for us through the different parts of the port of Hamburg. 

We formed groups of four and each group was given a sheet of paper with questions, as well as a group ticket for the train and the bus. 

Our first stop was the old museum port where old and not longer used ships and boats were on display. We had to find three interesting ones, write down their names, building years, use and history.

Through the whole rallye we were supposed to record the background noises of the areas we were in. Those would be played as background music in the exhibition. At the end of the day we had the start of a harbour trip ship as well as its stop, people talking in the little tourist shops at Landungsbrücken, the traffic noises of the trains and cars and the sound of the waves crashing into the passing ships.

From the museums port we took the harbour trip boat to Landungs-brücken, where we asked different people about their opinion of artworks in Hamburg. The most popular responds were that the Elbphilharmonie would be the prettiest building of Hamburg. 

 

At the Elbphilharmonie (or short Elphi) we got a ticket for the plaza and took a break there. 

We also had to sketch the places we went to, all for the upcoming exhibition two days later. 

One technic, that our teacher showed us, was to find an interesting structure, for example a wall or a special ground structure, and cover it with the extra thin paper we were given for this task. Then a pencil is rubbed over the paper and the colour of the pencil shows and captures the structure really well. Those papers were also pinned to a wall in our exhibition room. 

At the Speicherstadt, one of the oldest parts of Hamburg, we brought a postcard with a container ship and cranes on it in a little tourist shop near the bridge on the picture. We wrote down a little text and sent it to the school adress, where, the next day, the spanish exchange partners were supposed to draw a typical stamp on the cards from Hamburg and from Vigo as well. Their teacher brought the cards with her. 

The art project in our school was divided into different kind of arts. 

First, we all were given a white        T-shirt in our size and a roll of cords. Our art teacher explained that we now would batic T-shirts.                                                                                                                                         Batic is a kind of clothes dyeing technique, were the clothes are tied into knots, spirals or other motives with strings and then rest into a water bath. The water is mixed with whatever colour you want the clothes to be. In our case it was a sea like blue.                                                                                             This looked pretty cool because when we could cut the strings, there where middle blue, light blue or white patters in our T-shirts. Depending on how strong we tied our strings together the colour was lighter, because the dye in the water couldn’t reach those parts of the shirts. The parts without motives where in a dark blue colour.                                                                                                                               Some students had only a few patters on their shirts, others had a spiral across their backs. I don’t think there was any    T-shirt which looked the same as another. 

During the time the T – Shirt where resting in the water baths, we did our artworks for the exhibition VIGO-HAMBURG the next day. 

The day before we did a rally through Hamburg and printed our best pictures of the harbour. Now we sketched our favourite picture on a DNA-3 paper.    Then we cut the different elements of our motive out of colourful carton paper and glue them together on the paper.                                                                                                                            In the end we had the Speicherstadt, the Elmphilamonie, different ships, cranes and the Lovelocks on the railing of a bright. 

Other students pinned photos and sketches on a movable wand as well as the outline of Hamburg’s waterline and the contour of the Rickmer Rickmers – a famous museum ship in Hamburg. 

                                                                                                             At the exhibition itself we displayed the artwork we collected on Monday, during the rally. The T-shirts, pictures, movable walls with photos, sketches and outlines of monuments on them