Nueva Camera y Gran Via: New camera and Gran Via

So...today we had some serious rainstorms in Barcelona. It was almost funny how everyone was running around without umbrellas like it was a major catastrophe. I'm just glad I wore boots so I didn't get all wet. I walked to Pelai and bought a new camera today in the rain. I was the last customer as, just before I entered the store, the pipes backed up from all of the water and it was flooding the store. Above is the first pic with my new camera...mad skills at figuring out the timer, too! Bob and I were with Tom and Ben working in studio.

Bob and I headed over to Gran Via, where some of the other kiddos were working on some studio stuff. When they were done, we just had a chill night hanging around the apartment, with some sangria in the mix.

Dia bonito: Beautiful Day

Today was beautiful and I was in studio. I put on shorts, sweats, and a tshirt, pumped up a soccer ball and told Bob we'd see him over at studio to play outside before the beach. Tom and I walked to studio, and didn't leave until after sunset. Why do we do that to ourselves?!

I spent the whole day planning out spring break-so at least that is done.

After studio, Tom Bob and I went to La Fira at Placa Espanya to see the Font Magica. It's a fountain set to music and lights. I bought new batteries, and my camera wouldn't even turn on. They work in Bob's camera-so I guess I'm going to have to buy a new camera since a week or so without one has been horrendous! Bob took pictures there, though. I liked it, so I will just have to go back another time I suppose. It was definitely a couples atmosphere, but there were plenty of other people milling around so it was good.

Felt like dancing, so after waiting for quite some time, the GV kids showed up, I got ready, and we all (Bob, Bri, Gisela, Billy, Vic, Sean and I) headed over to sunset, where we all got in for free, and then people payed a fortune for drinks--the bartenders were being quite tricky about their 2 for 1 deal, I guess. We had fun until all hours then headed home. I saw Alfredo's friend Alex on the way out, too.

Bob and Bri chatted the whole way home. I stayed pretty quiet-just walking and thinking.

Segundo dia de Carnaval!: Second day of Carnaval!

I neglected to mention that yesterday was the first day of carnaval, which started out as a religious tradition before lent and has since become an all-out weeklong fiesta! The kids were all dressed up yesterday as if it were Halloween. My favorite costume was definitely a zebra. I'm pretty convinced that everyone should have to lighten up a bit and wear costumes to school/work/etc at times like these.

We had graphic design class today. I was sure that I had everything that was asked of us, but I forgot to bring my grid study with me to the cafe where we met, so I got an incomplete. I printed out my layouts and everything, which looked funny even though I put them in CMYK (because printers can only handle these while pictures are taken with the colors of light-RGB). I did them in photoshop, but we are going to start learning In-Design, which will be cool.

Studio was helpful-we got an intro to urban design analysis. I think Christi sensed that we were all a little burnt out. We used trace and maps and markers, and did a ton of analyses really quickly. It seemed so easy when we were all there watching. Hopefully it will be that easy when we continue to do new ones ourselves.

After studio we went to Gran Via for a bit. The night ended weird with the Aldana boys in strange states...the walk home was frustrating. I'm going straight to bed.

El dia de San Valentin: Valentine's Day

Today we had sketching class, whose ACTUAL title is not sketching class, by the way, and our photo assignments from last week were due. I made a sort of montage for each of mine. We were supposed to show the building through 4-6 pictures.

...and it's "that day" again!

Once again, Dad and Gramps are the perfect Valentines! They find me no matter where I am in the world. haha.

After our normal intro, we all walked over to L'Eixample and did a watercolor assignment. I was terrible at it, and I couldn't figure out what my problem was until Eugenia came over to remind me the watercolor techniques that we learned our first day...DUH! I want to re-do it because mine is horrible and lacks any sort of technique higher than the capacity of a 3 year old.

I did some drawings for studio in my sketchbook, tiny chipboard models just werent working out well. I did well on my sketchbook review from the field trip, so that made me happy. Then we did the firm visit, which was good but it went pretty late.

Our Valentine's Day ended fantastically...frozen pizzas in Aldana.

PS-happy bday to Nap and Pat

Sin camera: Without a camera

I neglected to mention that my camera still isn't working. I have to get new batteries and then I can try to figure out what is wrong with it, so if you are sensing a lack of pictures...you're not alone...

Listos para desenar?: Ready to design?

Catalan class rocks my socks. I love the process of learning a new language, and the different techniques and ways to learn and to memorize that only occur in language classes. It's really cool that it's just Gisela and me in the class. We have class from 12:30 to about 1:30, when we have a break and the two of us go to the cafe down the hall to get a snack or cafe con leche, then we head back to class for another hour, before heading down the street to the Urquinaona metro stop which we take to Espanya where we change to the green line and get off at Zona Universitaria for history class with the rest of the group. Tuesdays aren't so bad at all!

History was fine today. Felipe cut out the pieces of the buildings at the school woodshop and Victoria and I spent a good 2 or 3 hours setting them up and glueing them all down to the board, which seemed like a huge waste of time to me, but it looks good so no complaints, I suppose. I don't have much of a design for the block to show tomorrow. Just a basic height pattern. as a means of creating a slow increase/decrease in building heights in order to appease the existing buildings...that Jean Nouvell building is a huge pain.

Regresamos a Barca: We return to Barca

We got a crazy cab ride with no ventilation in the pitch black winding mountain roads at 5 am. Got on the bus at 6 and I passed out, apparently snored, "like a mountain lion" the whole ride home, got back and hit up studio.

We had a group desk crit today, and while our analysis wasn't uniform due to a changed template size over teh weekend and a simple difference in drawing technique/style, the overall idea of "integration" went over well. There are a lot of things that are currently separated across the huge hole in the urban fabric, better known as Placa de les Glories; it is divided in half, literally, into two districts (L'Eixample and Sant Marti), there is a urban design gap between the residential/commercial Eixample and the factory-getting-a-facelift section of Poble Nou. There is also the difference between the Mountain and the sea sides. We are going to look into the population as well, since we have heard that a younger crowd of many artsy people is in the developing area toward Poble Nou and Forum.

After studio today, I went to buy the plane tickets that I had seen last week before going skiing, and due to our hesitance we lost the good prices and everything jumped about 30 euro. I'm pretty pissed. We did decide, though, that we could take the bus to Girona in order to save money on a Ryan Air flight into Dusseldorf/Weeze airport in Germany. So we currently havea means of getting to our spring break destination! Go team.