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 :(

The first real day...finishing up

...and you thought we couldn't possibly have done anything else our first day?!

We had our first "Let's flip a Euro for it..." moment...which had to be captured on camera!

Well, Christi informed us that due to the holiday we HAD to buy groceries in case everything was closed. We made the mistake of sending Billy, who, lacking spanish, brought home "Mano de Cerdo"....which, as you may not know, translates into "Pig Feet." I literally picked up the package and could see the little hoofs and hair on the knuckles! This is clearly a moment that will never be forgotten!

Due to this little Faux Pa we ended up with a schmorgasboard (spelling?) of random foods...including, but not limited to, hotdogs (with cheese in the middle) 50 centima (the Euro cent) bread, and cheese, as well as chicken that Mr. Perez bought for us!

We did a great job of eating all of the food put in front of us, and then, for entertainment (due to a lack thereof), Monica pulled out a sheet of paper and we all played charades! It was pretty much hilarious. The alcohol, seeing as how we are all of age here in Spain, clearly played a role in the humor of the night and we have a list of quotes from Sean and Rob to prove it! They are probably inappropriate for the wide range of audiences viewing, so I'll leave them out minus one:

Sean, one of the members of our group trying to do a charade about Bob, another member, points to Billy...

Me: "Billy!"
Ben: "James?"

Tom: "William!?"

Sean: "No...what ELSE do you call him?!"

Rob:"...ummm...Don Quixote?"
Sean (looks at me trying to ask for help): "Wait...who's Bob?!"

A classic moment in which 11 people forced to live together without tvs or internet found out how much they really had left to learn about each other...starting with names!

The first day...continued

We hit up the Port area and saw the statue of Columbus...supposedly pointing towards America?!

Then we trekked up Las Ramblas towards Christi's place in search of food, but to no avail. We got sick of searching for good prices and went back to Gran Via.

There is a ton of graffitti all over the city. It seems like some places have contracted walls for public art. I think it's a great idea. I'm always impressed with the abilities of graffiti artists, I just wish they would be more productive instead of using their skills to tag peoples' property. Here is one of the murals done along the port area.

Tom

Bobby

Bri

Sean

...chilling out at the craft/antiques/random "stuff" tents at the end of Las Ramblas before we head home for lunch/dinner (in the process of acclimating ourselves to the (literally) foreign eating times of Spain.

La primera dia verdadera: The first real day

So CUArch Barca 07 started today!

We basically did a session of exploration 101 on our own and discovered a little bit of the city we will learn to call "home."

After checking out apartment 3 (Calle Pique) we decided it's time to nix it and to save some serious Euros!

Then it was time to explore, and explore we did!

How many college kids do you know who can wander upon a playground and be amused for nearly an hour with a simple swing?? Count 'em up...I think there were 10 of us!

Bob on the fun swing!-->

Little did most of us know (I happened to, due some extensive Xmas break reading!) that we were at the base of Montjuic. We hiked up the mountainside to the Miramar hotel where we could view the city from above!

<------La Ciudad de Montjuic

We spent a while up there and, before we headed back down to search for food, Billy informed us that we had only covered "1/128th" of Montjuic...but we were hungry, so we had to save the rest for another day!

Accomodations Take 2

FELIZ 2007: 3 King's Day Parade

Immediately after visiting both my assigned apartment (Gran Via), and Bob's (Aldana), we realized that there were enough beds between just these two so that a third apartment wasn't even needed and could be rented to someone else to save all of us money if everyone wanted to live together in 2 apartments instead of the original 3.

We went back to studio to keep Christi company and to look out for people as they straggled in. It was a good time. We missed the arrivals of both Victoria and Gisela. We were present for Ben's frantic phonecall telling us he had slept through the boarding of his flight from Munich to Barcelona, and we panicked right along with him when we realized that Billy would be waiting for Ben to no avail and with only one semester of Spanish under his belt, hoping that he could get to studio on his own. We also wondered "where on earth is rob?" (literally) as the schedule showed him coming in today, but his actual arrival was for the following day. So much for organization, no?

We managed to get Brian to Aldana without having him get caught in a brawl that broke out on St. Bernat (the alley where studio is located) as he walked up. Billy finally made it, after waiting 3 hours at the airport for Ben, then deciding to try pointing to studio on a map and hoping the taxi driver knew where he was going. (There is always a certain amount of relief when you finally see someone you know after a long amount of traveling through lots of foreign countries, people, and systems). Ben finally made it (lugging all of his suitcases, including his guitar through the crowds headed to the 3 King's Day Parade) and we were told Sean would meet up with us later because his flight wasn't coming in until around 5 or 6. (He ended up at the tuberculosis hospital two doors down from studio, having them look up the address for 20 minutes only to realize how close he actually was!)

Finally, we were all (minus Rob) accounted for, so we got packed up and headed to la Plaza de Catalunya for the parade, then on to Christi's for dinner (pics of that are on the main blog page, so I'll leave those out of here).

Brian

Tom

Victoria

Gisela

...all ready for the parade and waiting to leave Gran Via!

Bri

Tom

Gisela

Ben

Monica

Mr. Perez

...walking down Gran Via to Plaza de Catalunya