Hola mis amigos! I have been in Spain since January 10th and I have been at a loss for what to write about in my blog. So this morning when Christy emailed us about how she would like us to blog I was actually quite relieved. So I have decided to dedicate my blog to my sketchbook. It may sound a little weird, but after I explain I think you might get a better sense of what I am talking about. But before I get into that, I need to at least document something of my trip so that my family at home can read something that they might be interested in. Cause although my life might revolve around architecture, I know there's does not! So like I said before I have been in Spain since January 10th. And I guess I will try to take you on a week by week and hopefully post some picture so that you can see where I have been! So I guess I can start off with the day I left Philly, :-( which was a sad day because I realized I will not be able to eat a philly cheesesteak for 4 months. I don't know if I am going to be able to handle that, but I guess I will manage cause I mean Spain couldn't have any food which I was going to like. So anyways, my flight to Paris was nice and easy. I pretty much slept the entire way which was fantastic. My favorite part about the flight was after we landed in Charles DeGual Airport I meet the cutest little Spanish girl ever!!!! ohh yeah and the airport had a pretty interesting structure too.
When I landed in BARCELONA I spent my first hour in Spain was spent waiting in the airport for the rest of the group, so that I didn't have to venture into the city alone... :-) I will venture on a plane ride across the Atlantic, but I am to afraid to get a cab by myself. Oh well, it was cheaper the way I did it anyway. We all meet in studio, and then we got to go back to our apartments to get settled in a get ready for what would be our first and only group dinner since we have been in Spain.
Our apartments in Barcelona are split into three. There is the guys apartment, the girls apartment and then there is mine, Gran Via. They are pretty much self explanatory, and the reason our apartment is not named by sex is because there are both girls and guys. I live with Emma, PJ and Nick and the situation is very nice. We each have our own bedrooms and space to spread out, with a nice sized kitchen and living space. Ohh and there is not dryer!!! They do not exist in Spain, unless you want to pay extra for them. So I have to hang dry my clothes, which you wouldn't think would be that difficult, but when doing laundry you have to allot for dry time, which is something I am not used to. Our apartment is located in one of the major roads in Barcelona, which is really convenient, but it is a few blocks away from the old city, which is where we usually venture for our sketching adventures and general exploration of the city.
We also went to see the Frank Gehry's Barcelona Fish at Port Olympico!!! Which was really cool! On our way to see the fish we saw the Natural Gas Building which was also amazing, talk about really cool cantalever!
As far as school goes we have been pretty busy, although I think it feels like a lot more work than it actually is. In studio we have been working with paint!!! Which is exciting for me because I love painting! Although we have been using them to create a reverse figure ground, so its a little different than painting a picture but still a lot of fun. The painting is what our first project consisted of. We had to design a city plan and a network, with a river that we had to accommodate and a few buildings that were also mandatory in the plan. I will post pictures of the projects soon. As far as the rest of my classes they are going well, Spanish is fun and our professor is the cutest little man ever! History/theory is also a very fun class, our professor Cecila is an architect in Barcelona. Work was pretty easy for the first few weeks as we all tried to figure out this new city that we were living in. Our first field trip took us to Madrid and then to the south of Spain. We ventured though Cordoba, Granada and Sevilla. Posts of our field trips will be up asap!!!
that's all for now folks!
