CITY HALL Teatro y Restaurante: CITY HALL Theater and Restaurant

Not too much to speak of in the past 24 hours or so.

We went to studio, as per usual, to get some work done, then went to another great group dinner at Gran Via before heading back to Aldana to get ready for a night out on the town at a club, for which the title of this entry is named.

TEAM GRAN VIA-in the kitchen after the group meal

(Sean-Victoria-Billy-Gisela-Monica)

We booked our place on the guest list through Barcelona-Home, our rental agency, and showed up around 1:30...all 12 of us...only to find that, while in the US no one goes out until midnight, in Barca...the party doesn't begin until 2 or 3 am! We had a good time entertaining ourselves until more people showed up. We attempted to branch out by spreading ourselves between the main downstairs dancefloor and the downstairs patio, but once we were seen as a group it was difficult to remove the "big sign." It is also harder to spread out at clubs as a group because almost everyone has a b/f or g/f back home, so none of them really want to leave the group in this type of situation anyhow.

Needless to say, however, I danced my way into the path of a guy from Colombia. His name is (don't laugh) Alfredo, a 23-year-old mastering in Cinematography here in Barca, and he's a killer dancer. No worries, all, my big brothers kept an eye out for me and I was completely aware of my surroundings, etc.

So...6 am comes really fast when you are dancing the night away in Barcelona! Here's hoping we've officially managed to make a friend here in la ciudad!

Habia enfermedad y Absenta: There was sickness and absynthe

Woke up this morning feeling really sick again. It's Friday, and we didn't have class, but we decided to visit the remaining studio placas to allow us a free day Monday. SO we all got ready, myself included, and got on the metro toward the Forum. Half-way there I had to get off to avoid throwing up--I know you wanted to hear this, right? Bri and Rob stayed with me until we could get onto the next one. I managed to hold my own until Christi noticed I wasn't feeling well and sent me home in a taxi, where I attempted to speak spanish with the driver and then gave up.

I got back to the apartment and used Aunt Donna's bubble bath stuff to take my first bath in...years?! Then climbed into bed for a few hours and woke up feeling MUCH better.

After the boys got back, they told me we were all going to dinner at a pizza place called Veronica's in the Old City near Christi's Aptmt.

Bob and Tom were ready to go...

Ben and Bri had their game faces on...

Then we headed to Placa Reial to meet the group.

We got a ton of different types of pizza, which were all really good, then headed down the street to a bar Christi knew of. The following is an excerpt from my journal: "Our huge group walking anywhere is like a "DO NOT APPROACH" sign, not to mention walking into the bars here with 12 people is like putting an elephant in the refridgerator."

Absenta was the alcoholic-hallucinogenic drink of the night...so Monica Tom and I had a funny time walking all of our little participants home through the back alleys, Las Ramblas, then along Gran Via! We were safe, no worries--and we have yet to get eggs, or pee thrown at us from windows...I guess we'll save that for a big outing!?! haha.

Sangre y Plazas: Blood and Plazas

I got up today at 7:15 to meet Christi at the metro so that we could go to the Hospital where Teresa Vidal works. My liver function tests from vacation were 10 times higher than the norm, so I had to get blood drawn. Teresa had everything set up for us. We went right in, got to see the lab area where they actually do the tests, and then we only waited about 3 minutes before I walked in, layed down and had Teresa's friend (and sister-in-law) take about 5 viles of blood. YAY!?

I was really thankful that I didn't have to wait along with the mounds of other patients in the hospital! It was packed, even for 8 am! Medical care here is free, which I think is cool and allows everyone to be taken care of and healthy!

Afterwards, Christi and I got breakfast, then we went to MBM to get a package, then on to studio where Christi and I spent a few hours trying to be translators to get the wireless set up in studio with one of the guys from MBM (who just so happens to remind me a ton of Kevin Krueger [hi kev!])!

I went to meet everyone at the university to get supplies for model-building. Chipboard here comes in small, expensive pieces! Our normal sized, 1mm thick chipboard is 2 Euro here! That is almost 3 times as expensive as in DC! Luckily, the funds we gave the school are footing the bill...at least for now!

After the supplies, we returned to the apartment for a ton of food such as pizza, grilled cheese on baguettes and fresh pineapple! Then, we headed to studio where we toured some more plazas for our projects!

PLACA ST. JAUME-This is a statue of St. George, the Patron Saint of Barcelona

CATEDRAL-Nighttime shot

VIEW FROM PLACA DE LA CATEDRAL-Notice how the towers of the old city wall are now filled in by a modern facade. The tents at the bottom are an evening market.

PALAU DE LA MUSICA CATALANA-Undoubtedly my favorite of the night...this building is stock-piled full of candy for the eyes! The decoration through color, sculpture and detail is just awesome; and this view is only ONE aspect of the whole building!

Miercoles...lo mas larga: Wednesday...the longest one

Today we had to get up early for our 9am sketching class. We started out in studio watching a slideshow presented by Eugenia. Then she presented us each with a watercolor set! We spent the rest of the class practicing our mad watercoloring skills! I am terrible--but I'm really excited to get better at it as a different medium to convey architecture!

We started out with simple exercises, but by the end of class we had each painted something of substance...I painted a soap dispenser...THAT's RIGHT: A soap dispenser! I was so proud that I told everyone I was going to send it home to mom to put on the refrigerator! haha.

We were pretty beat by the end of class (especially Monica!) but we got a break for siesta before returning to studio for our first official studio class. We are still waiting for wireless internet to be set up so that we can email and get our lives in order (what did people do before internet?!).

For studio class, we got an introduction to our overall semester project, where we will be creating a proposal for Placa de los Glories. To get started, we are splitting up into groups of two and analyzing 2 of about 9 plazas that we will be visiting. Today we went to Plaza de la Universitat,

then Placa de Catalunya, at the end of Las Ramblas. Not only was I afraid I was going to be divebombed or pooped on by the millions of pigeons, but Brian and I were practically mortified when we watched one fall out of a tree and be paralized as it tried to fly away but found its legs broken underneath him. I have a picture of Bri attempting to save it, but it was beyond repair. Bob came over and while looking in the bushes nearby, he counted almost 10 others dead on the ground. It was sad...so we cheered ourselves up by walking through the 7 story chain mall called "El Corte Ingles."

La Universitat: The University

The first day at the ETSAB, I went along early while the other students who don't speak much spanish took their placement exams and went to class. I walked around the north campus and sketched the library and some random building. I got hot sitting in the sun in the middle of january in a sweater!?! It was crazy!

Afterwards, we walked around looking for food, split up the group to be less conspicuous (people here do'nt walk in big groups...at all), and my group wandered upon one of the many school cafeterias inside of the chemistry building. We got a pretty decent meal for about 5 euro.

We still had about 2 hours until we had to be at the architecture building for class, so we walked over to the old palace (Palau Pedralbes) which is now an art museum...I think ceramic art, to be more specific. After walking around a bit and taking pictures, we realized that this was right on schedule...time for siesta! So we all took a nap on the grass or sat and watched some kids playing cops and robbers (the world really isn't so big afterall)!

After our siesta, we walked up Avinguda Diagonal to the architecture building where they have the same number of arch students as the entire Catholic U of A undergrad student body! We got a snack in their cafeteria. They have machines where you type in what you want, pay the machine, then get a ticket to take to the counter to pick up your food. I didn't find it very affective seeing as how the machines didn't forward the order to the people working the counter or anything, but I also wasn't there at a super-busy time...I guess this will become some sort of experiment...

We met our Professor, Miguel Vidal, and went to a classroom for our history class. The desks are all just long tables placed side by side. The chairs are stools with big round seats and no backs. The lecture was in Spanish, so Felipe acted as translator. It was really neat, almost a game, for me to listen and try to understand the professor and then to find out if I was right when Felipe explained it in english. I did a pretty good job. There were only a few words I didn't know! :)

Finally we took a tour of the school, got an introduction to the library, the computer labs, the vending machines, and the lecture/concert halls (in the architecture building?! [they have their own chorus!])...By that point we were all pretty tired.

Our last stop was the model-shop which is actually about the same size as the one from school...except with hardly any tools and theirs has a little materials shop, which is nice. Professor Vidal pointed us toward the metro, and day 2 of classes was officially over!

La Ciutat Vella: The Old City

After a rough day at Barcelona-Home trying to get together all of our money for rent at the last minute, we finally got a break and headed to studio to meet one of our professors, Eugenia Vidal. She proceeded to take us on a night walking-tour of the Ciutat Vella ("old city"). One of the first stops was this plaza, outside of the old city. I think that the exterior decoration is fresco--which is pretty awesome! Shortly after this, my camera died, but the night-shots wouldn't have worked out too well anyhow...I guess you'll just have to come visit to get that experience!
Well...we decided that we needed to begin battling for which apartment could cook the best dinner for the other...so this is a view of our candle-lit living room and company. Ben and Tom cooked pizza appetizers, chicken, salad, and fruit...We then proceeded to write a note to update the Rome architecture students on the happenings of our first few days here.



*Please note: The corner at the center of the picture is the ONLY location in the entire apartment that even received internet signals...which we then have to hope are unlocked so that we can steal other peoples' internet!



This ended up being a pretty great day, which may not be portrayed due to a lack of exciting and enthralling pictures. Believe me, every day is as tiring and rewarding as the day before! I can't believe we are in Spain!

Otro dia para explorar!: Another day to explore!

So, after all of the warnings about pickpockets and crafty robbers here, Christi unfortunately got all but $1 of her money stolen in less than 45 minutes after some scam artists stole her credit card from an ATM machine that she was trying to take money out of. Long story, but we ended up having another day of adventure just the same, and everyone is safe--so hooray!

We visited the Arc de Triomph here...

then we wandered into Parc de la Ciutadella, where we happened upon this...a HUGE fountain that is absolutely breathtaking and just plain amazing! I took a bunch of photos of it and presently have one of them as my laptop background because I like it THAT much!

We kept moving toward the Mediterranean through the Parc, and came upon some beautiful buildings and spaces.

We had been looking for the beach and, once again, got sidetracked be a playground with yet ANOTHER cool plaything! We couldn't resist!

Finally we took a rest...and there we were...at the beach! Adventure-day two was fantastic...I can't believe how big this city is or how much fun we have just ambling with no goal in mind. I wish the entire semester could be like this; a strand of wandering and discovering and playing...the real work starts soon :(