Pictures, 1st 2 Wks

I'm just gonna throw up a good handy selection of pictures from the last two weeks.

Enjoi.

rock on.

for someone special

i was walking down the street and "picked" some flowers for that special girl in my life. ;D love you.

la de da

so, hump day, figured i'd update.

this week, has been alright, so far still havent managed to figure out htat whole thing call sleeping in a foreign country. the problem is not that i don't like sleeping, or that i have trouble sleeping, because i actually sleep super hard and still have dreams, which i used to never have, so awesome. i just dont get enough sleep. it kinda stinks.

monday, was alright. we went to the park, which is literally across the street, to the local school's b ball court and played some basketball. it was a good time, we all agreed it was awesome to get some decent excercise. it was a little sketch, with all these sketch ganster kats watching us, but we weren't bothered at all, so it was fun. then studio from 4-8, in which we proceeded to tour the site for our massive project for this semester... basically there's this roadway, and the city govt is basically saying, nope, want it to be cooler. go. haha. its kinda slummy area, stuff just deteriorating, but its cool. we're completely rennovating that stuff into nice big green open spaces, and then designing some of the surrounding buildings in relation to the new ideas and concepts. its cool.

tuesday, yesterday, i joined the other kids in the composition/publication/experience class... basically an independent study in which we are supposed to both document all the student work, document our own experience, and document and glorify the barcelona program. its a bit unclear because each person involved has a different idea, the professor, our director, and the coordinator back in the states all have different ideas and approaches to the final product, which is either a book, publication or magazine of some kind. i think it could be an awesome mix of all the ideas, but we'll see what happens.

then went to history class, learned more about the history of barcelona, again the class was taught in spanish, with a translator, but i'm able to practice my spanish by listening to the actual professor too. still having trouble staying awake during afternoon classes when i sit down.... its warm and i get tired after lunch. oh well.

went home, did something, cooked dinner... oh yeah, so rob had bought this random big cheap frozen fish, literally, just caught and frozen... well it's called rohu and its a bangladeshan fish, apparently. it had a million bones, but i helped him cook that up for a big group dinner... he did the fish and i did everthing else. good team work, and for a while we were worried that the fish wouldnt work out, but in the end everybody liked it (we mixed with some mustard sauces and stuff) and there was even leftovers. then i went into studio for a bit.

today, we had our sketching class in the morning. alot of fun. we went to 3 plazas , and sketched things as they came to us on our own personal journey from each plaza. it was really cool. the plazas are pretty sweet. it's in the old gothic quarter, with these tall 4-5 story buildings, very narrow streets, dark, dank, gritty, and then you literally look up and walk into these plazas, brightly lit, full of people, orange trees, cafes, or a fountain and trees... its breath taking. i was literally in deep conversation with my teacher and then i stopped breath taken away as i enter the first plaza. it was pretty cool. a good time. we ended up going to the top of the catherdal of barcelona, on the top. pretty cool view.

rob and i then did some work on our plaza project, ate lunch at this cheap place near studio, which was awesome. then studio, did some layout work, got to critiques, then went out to the plazas to take more pictures, get afeel for everything, etc. then we had our field trip to firm class, where went to this apparently prominent architecture firm, toured their facilities. they had alot of cool models, alot of people. nice place, a bit too dreary at night... lit by single bulbs plugged into the ceiling, all ghetto and eery almost. but during the day i bet the huge windows let in a ton of light. cool place i guess. the student interns dont get paid for interning.... so no. haha. apparently most places here that allow interns don't pay them... which stinks.

walked home, went with bob to the grocery store, stocked up on food, ate a quick dinner, here i am in studio. wooh! more later this weekend.

Saturday

First of week of school was over on thursday, but it takes me two days later to get around to writing about it. jeez.


school is alright. spanish, hopefully, i can drop, as it is way too basic for me and some others, and they aren't offering an advanced class for us as of right now. so i'm hoping to create and do an independent study in photography of experience and or architecture.

history so far has been all in spanish, translated by felipe, which isn't so bad, and i'm able to understand most of what the professors are saying. the schoool it's in, the poli tech school's architecture building is cool. this arch program alone has 2000 undergrad students, aka practically CUA's entire undergraduate school. crazy. and they're all very trendy and artsy and left field in their dress, peircings and haircuts. cool, its a different flair. we dont have any classes with them, however.

we didnt have our office vist class yet. that starts next week.

our field trip class started out this week with us playing around with watercolor paint.... haha, 3 year of college and we're learning watercolor. apparently we're going to be doing some sketching in that class using watercolor, which would be very artsy, pretty cool too.

studio is cool, we're going to be doing this massive urban design and building plaza complex project, and will eventually present it all to the city council, nuts! so we'll see what happens. right now we're doing basically a precedence study, looking at existing plazas and how they function, etc. pretty cool.

anyway, i made the new pics and stuff today. you dig? POST A COMMENT!

we went out last night to this hip pizzeria with our teacher. pretty nice place, good food.
tonight we're going over to the other apartment to eat some food, bc our apartment did group dinner last. then we might go out walking aorund the city.... we'll see. then work tomorrow i suppose.

Summary of the Weekend

Dear fans, so i'm going to try to get this thing up to date. that previous entry was on friday. its now monday, so i have two days to tell you about.

Saturday, in the park.... think it must have been the fourth of july...

just kidding, that's oldies music, for those avid music 100.3 fans. Saturday, we slept in i think? then all the students got together and we went and checked out the third apartment. we have collectively decided that it would be in the best interest of all members to drop that third appartment, as there are enough beds between the two appartments for all of us. So we did. This would make rent cheaper, once we are able to get ourselves out of the contract for the third apartment, (which means, we pay until it gets rented out.... we hope it will be in less than a month, hopefully sooner....) So cheaper rent, better community aspect, and also, last but certainly not least, the third appartment feels and is in a shadier part of town, which would not be conducive to studio architecture life. And as it is the furthest apartment away, a long walk home into a shady neighborhood is not ideal for any student, regardless.

As it is, i am in the spacious six man apartment, in which we have Meg in single, Brian in a single, Bob and Tom doubling, and Rob and i doubling. In my opinion, this apartment is alot better than the Gran Via apartment because ours feels alot bigger and our common area is really far away from the sleeping rooms. we ran into problems on sat night because a bunch of us stayed up drinking and talking, till the wee hours of the morning, as the culture prescribes, but we are bit loud and there is no acoustic protection, so we may have kept up some kids who wanted to sleep. but our place is better for that. boo yah gran via.

so saturday, went over checked out the third apartment, then we headed towards the shore, and in the process, emptied out near montijunc, the beginning of hte more mountainous parts to the west of the city. we explored, played on kiddie jungle gyms and got to the summit of the first part of the mountain, only to look at the map and realize we had only covered about 1/16 of the whole mountain, there being so many more buildings and places to go. we were in the part near the beautiful and modern mirimar hotel, which was very cool, there being this big english garden and such there too. it was just an awesome place.

we then went down to the sea, and near the statue of Columbus looked at some little tiendas that were selling all legitimate, at least 50 year old vintage european items, or really cool stuff. it was amazing. you almost wanted to come back here and buy it all up right after you bought a house some where and then ship all the old signs, helmets, badges, books, paintings back and make a crazy place. anyway.....

then we walked back home i think, using la rambla as our way of getting back.... la rambla,as my explanation, is close to the typical picturesesque european street, but in barcelona and on crack. in the stereotypical, ideal and romanticized european street, there's these beautiful buildings, lots of people, many different tiendas, street performers, and crowds of people. that's how la rambla is, with about 4-8 different robot.statue people peforming, plus some very talented drawing artists, and then other stores that sell rabbits, mice and chinchillas as pets, etc... and there are lots and lost of people.

so we went to gran via, figured out the room arrangements, split up and went to aldano apt. we showered, reorganized the furniture, then went back to gran via for dinner. BILL, our FOUR STAR CHEF, didnt realize that the sausage he had bought at the market was actually pig hands, as it translates from spanish, and so we didn't eat those. dinner was just a bit weird, but it's all good. then we busted out the sangria, wine and, no lie, absynth, and we played chirades. it was alot of fun.

AS A WORD OF WARNING: all though i am only speculating on behalf of my friends, making a generalization on their behalf based on my judgement of their character, we here in barcelona, the ones of us who actually drink a fair amount when we intend to drink, do not get more than tipsy at best. i would say a good almost half of the people here do not have alot to drink when we have our social gatherings and so this is not your typical american college kids in a group setting with hard alcohol in a different country. We are responsible and safe, and know our limits. i guess it's better to realize that we are in barcelona, where alot of time is spent SOCIALIZING and CASUALLY DRINKING, and that's what we've been doing in our own student group. so please, to all my american readers, family and friends, we are not belligerent drunkards, please drop the american stereotype/assumption that we are. thanks again.

sunday, we went woke up and went to this beautiful, gorgeous old church a block away from where our studio is. it was wonderful. we then met back as a group with christie, our director, who also got her atm card stolen, and we as a student group decided to go exploring by walking around. Bill gave us another scare when,after we had stopped to look at the map and decide where to go and then proceeded to go in the next direction, he was nowhere to be found. he literally disappeared. there was about 8 of us, and we split into twos and went in diffferent directions. not being able to do much more, we went over towards this magnificient arch that led the the grand park plaza area in the south east part of town. gorgeous. everywhere i walk feels like a part of a movie. i have yet to walk around with my camera, i'm waiting to get everything situated with myself, but will probably do that today, as we are going on a tour later this afternoon.

anyways, i have to go. hasta luego

the Trip Over

ah yes, the trip over.... it was quite an experience. let's see.....

so of course i waited until the last minute to pack up, buy things at last minute, do last minute errands, etc, which drove my family nuts. but we were able to get out to dulles, which was good. hectic, got out on the plane, saw spiro, tumey and eleni at the airport, on their way to rome, bill and i having the same first connecting flight into munich, germany.

so we get the munich aiport, which, by the way, is slick, metallic, modern, white, cool, nice, stylish, etc.... and for breakfast, we have beer and criossants.... oh yeah, we started europe off right!

anyways, so then the fun part comes. my flight is later than bills, and so he takes off and i have another hour and a half to wait before mine even boards.... so i'm chillin', watchin' some soccer, having a decent time. now i've been up all night pretty much, and so i decide, hey, i'll just lie down, it will feel good, i only have about 2o mins probably till the flight boards..... well.... i look up after like 10 mins, and there's no one at the gate counter, and i'm like, what is this about, we have got to be boarding soon. it's crazy. but no one is there. i lie back down. i am lying down 3 rows over from the gate counter, in the proper waiting area, underneath the intercom and right by the clock. so like back down, its 10:15. i sit back up, its 10:57. my flight was supposed to depart at 10:55. there's no on in the gate, but now there's a lady at the counter.

i said, hey, i think i'm supposed to be on this flight.

she said, yes i know, i called your name five times....

and then i said are you kidding me. and nearly died. i was so scared and pissed and distraught.
i was eventually able to get a new flight, at no added cost, but it was another 3 hours in the airport, which was terribly long. but it all worked out.

then i get my bags, finally get into a taxi, hey i'm in barcelona, its awesome. the location for our studio, is pretty crazy. and my cab driver couldn't drive all the way in on the side streets that are one way. so he dropped me off on this main street. and i'm walking around aimlessly trying to find where this place is at to meet my instructor to get my keys. and she's not in front of the studio.... i was so scared. sigh. but it all worked out and we got up with the others, and went and saw the three kings party and then went back to one of the apt.s and hung out, etc.

so that was the first day. i will write more later. i am really tired.

Night before

welcome, bienvenidos, howdy, hi.
so it's the night before the flight over,
just wanted to test this thingy out.
there. done. wooh. more to come later.