GRANADA

La Alhambra
una montana

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CORDOBA to GRANADA

La Sinagoga de Cordoba
una casa de Andalucia
train ride
sunset over La Alhambra

MADRID to CORDOBA

Mezquita/Catedral de Cordoba
Plaza de Tiberiades
Hotel Lola
Callejon de las Flores
Puerta del Puente
Los Molinos del Guadalquivir
old city walls
Puerta de Sevilla
Mausoleos Romanos
Iglesia de San Nicolas de la Villa
Junta de Andalucia- Delegacion del Gobierno
Plaza San Ignacio de Loyola (Plaza del Angel)
Compas de San Francisco
Los Sotos de la Albolafia

MADRID to TOLEDO and back

Madrid train station
Toledo train station
La Mezquita del Cristo de la Luz
Alcazar
panoramic views
narrow streets
Hotel Carlos V
Teatro de Rejos
Presidencia de Castilla-La Mancha
Catedral de Toledo
escalators

MADRID for the day

Palacio Real
Mercado de San Miguel
Plaza Mayor
Museo de Reina Sofia

BARCELONA to MADRID

Barcelona Airport
Madrid Airport
Museo del Prado
Jardines del Buen Retiro

uno, dos, tres...

This morning was another cold morning which makes it very difficult to get out of bed. I woke up and shut off my alarm. I then heard Tom turn off his alarm. We both laid in our beds for a while. It was a rough morning and we were in no hurry to get to Spanish. We ended up walking into the classroom 2 minutes late and then had to wait 20 minutes for the teacher to get there. We learned numbers and weather today in Spanish. Surprisingly we were all able to stay awake. I am sure the teacher could tell we have not been sleeping very well this week. The class was very long. We came back to the apartment and had some sandwiches. We then headed off to studio to finish up our boards and go to a store down the street to print them out. (Our printer in studio does not print the right size paper.) We had to wait until 4 to go get them printed because the store closed from 2 until 4 for siesta. Christi gave us an hour extension because of this so they are now due at 5. We are going to spend the rest of studio working on our site model and get as much done as possible. We all want a good night sleep tonight because we have to get up so early tomorrow. We are meeting at the bus stop at 6:30 am to go to the airport. Christi set up a group dinner in each city that we will all go to together. We are also going to a Flamenco show which I am looking forward to.

Gracia

Wednesday was another slow morning. The lack of sleep had really been catching up with us and we moved real slow out of the apartment. It was a very chilly morning and had dropped down into the 30s. (We were getting very spoiled having the temperature in the 60s). We had our sketching class at 9 and met at studio. We took the metro to Gracia which was a town that became part of Barcelona in the 19th century. It was not as active as the part of Barcelona that we are used to. The plazas were also very different than those in the Gothic quarter. The plazas in the gothic quarter were not planned and were formed when a void was created between several buildings. The plazas in Gracia were planned ahead of time and the buildings were built around it. It was a cold morning so we did not do as much sketching. Our pens had turned to ink-cicles. We saw a private home that Gaudi had designed there which was very interesting. The area used to be a lot more open, but became more dense when it became Barcelona. When Gaudi, designed the house, it was in an open area with few neighboring buildings. I did buy postcard stamps at one of the plazas so I can send some postcards to people during our field trip to southern Spain. It was good to get to other parts of the city that we are not used to.

After the sketching class most of us came back to studio to work on our site model. It has not been going the way we were expecting so we had a change in plans. The chipboard we were using just was not very good quality and it was taking a lot longer than we had hoped. We decided to use wood and simplify the model. It made it much simpler this way to build the topography and now all we have to do is build the existing buildings on the site out of chipboard. We are hoping to finish the model before we leave for Madrid. We worked on the site model until we had to go for our firm visit (which is almost every Wednesday). We went to a building that was an old factory and was converted into a gym. The additions and renovations were done by an architect who is friends with our porfessor Eugena. He had won the competition to do the project while he was still a student, which is very impressive. We went back to our apartment afterwards and picked up some frozen pizzas on the way. We relaxed for an hour at our apartment and had some pizza pizza. It felt good to just sit on our couch for a little while. We dragged ourselves back to studio to finish our project due the following day. Monica and I finished at midnight and then I headed home to do my Spanish homework. When I got back to the apartment, I tried to call home twice but I just got the answering machine both times. I called Mike and talked to him for over an hour using Skype. I was able to call his cell phone directly which is pretty cool. We talked about him coming to visit and tried to get that all settled. I was planning on calling home afterwards but I could not keep my eyes open. I was out as soon as my head hit my pillow.

menu del dia

Tuesday we had Spanish in the morning. We went to the university cafeteria for lunch and then had a lecture from our history professor at 2 pm. We got on the metro and came back to studio. I stopped at the supermarket down the street and bought a box of cereal for a snack in studio. I almost finished the box before dinner but I knew I would need some later that night. We all took a break for dinner and went to a cheap restaurant down the street. For 7.50 E, we got a starter, an entree, desert, and a drink. The starters were the size of a whole meal and I had trouble finishing the huge plate of paella. The flan was almost as good as my brother's (chiste). After dinner, we all went back to studio and worked some until some time early in the morning.

fireworks

So Sunday night we took a break for dinner and went to a bar that plays the NFL playoff games. On our way there we heard all this noise that sounded like gunshots. We realized that they were shooting off fireworks, but we had no idea why. We got a good view from a small plaza that we came upon and watched the fireworks behind trees and over buildings. I don't think anyone knew what was going on since everyone on the streets was just as startled and surprised as us. A woman came out onto her balcony in her bathrobe looking around trying to see where the noise was coming from. We then continued on to the bar but only stayed for the second quarter and left at half time. We then returned to studio and stayed there until well after midnight.

I slept in on Monday and went to studio after I fixed myself some eggs. We all worked in studio... took a short break fro dinner at a cheap restaurant down the street... and returned to studio until we stayed until who knows when.

futbol americano

Today, Tom, Ben, and I went to 11:00 clock mass at one of the Churches by studio. We met Monica and Victoria there. We went to studio afterwards and ate sandwiches that we made this morning. Over 8 hours later I am still in studio. The other apartment left, but Team Aldana is still here working. We are getting restless and are getting ready to go eat. I didn't realize how hungry I was because I have been thinking abouot plazas all day. We are planning on having a quick dinner and then going to a sports bar that is playing the NFL playoffs. I think it would be fun to watch a football game here and see how some people here like American football. I might be coming back to studio later tonight, but I will probably just go to bed after the game and wake up early. We dod not have studio until 4 pm tomorrow so we will all be working all day tomorrow. We really have to pick up the pace with our site model becuase it is due on Thursday along with our partner projects analyzing the plazas. We have to do everything in the metric system so we have been slowed down trying to measure, calculate, and scale things using the metric system. Our site model is huge (1.5 meters x 1.3 meters) but it shouldn't be too bad when all 12 of us sit down and work on it at the same time. It's coming along well though.

Quiero comer ahora.

hot dog and cheese omelette

Saturday I got up and made myself a hot dog and cheese omelette. It was pretty good. I did a little bit of work and then went off to studio. I worked on our plaza analysis project a while. Not fun. We then headed back to the apartment and had dinner. Fun. After dinner we played some cards while we waited for the other apartment to come over. It's great not to have a working TV. We have a tablecloth covering our TV that has an image of Valencia's waterfront on it. It is better to look at that then a television. We then all walked down to the waterfront. We met some people from England and talked with them for a while. We also ran into a guy from Minsk, Russia, who was hilarious. He didn't speak English very well and didn't know any Spanish (I have no idea why he was in Barcelona). He was tall and goofy and made us all laugh.

Casa Batllo

Friday was fun. We all slept in a little bit and then all met at the City Musuem at noon in the Gothic Quarter. It was so incredible inside. The museum is built on top of the Roman ruins of 2,000 years ago. When you go into the museum there is a hall way with a basic history that takes you from prehistory to modern day of the city. You then go into an elevator and go down. As you go down, the "floor number" 2007 AD decreases until it reads 12 AD. When you step out of the elevator, you walk right into the depths of the Roman ruins that began the city of Barcelona. I was told it is the largest excavation of Roman ruins in the world. The rest of the group walked through, but Meg and I walked a little slower and just took in everything. We spent and hour and a half walking around and learning about everything we saw. They had reconstructive drawings of what the site looked like 2,000 years ago. There were descriptions about all the walls and columns. It was amazing. There were platforms raised a foot above the ruins that we walked on and the path weaved through the ruins. It felt incredible to be walking along side walls that were built so long ago. We could not grasp the idea that these structures were so old and pretty well intact. When I would touch a stone I would get a chill thinking about the person who put that stone there or who lived in that house. I cannot explain what it was like. We were not able to take photographs unfortunately, but photos would not have done this space justice. We then walked up to the two levels above which told the history of the city from the end of Roman rule to modern day. There were some incredible models of the city along the way, showing the development and growth of the area. It ended by showing us the church where Christopher Columbus was supposed to be recieved upon his return from the Americas. He was not received there because of a change in plans by the king and queen.
We then walked to Casa Batllo by Gaudi. It is a privately owned apartment complex that does not have a single straight line in the entire building. There were no construction documents for the project. Instead, Gaudi oversaw the construction and based everything off of a plaster model that he built himself. You could tell that he was inspired by nature. The curves and forms. He completely allowed his imagination to do the designing. I took a lot of pictures and took a few videos of it as well. We had these cell phone-like radios that we held to our ears during the tour that told us about Gaudi and the building. It was very imformative and took about an hour and a half to walk through. Gaudi was ahead of his time and truly laid the foundation for digital fabrication. Frank Ghery is the Father of digital architecture, but Gaudi had the ideas before the technology was available for the projects (hence why Sagrada Familia is taking so long). Barcelona is very obsessed with Gaudi and Picasso. These two have a lot of things named after them.

We then walked back to our apartment fro lunch and then headed to studio. We all out went for a group dinner with Christi and celebrated Meg's birthday. It was a good night. Barcelona seems to never sleep. But we all cherish sleep whenever we have the chance.

clase de espanol

We had Spanish in the morning. It was a pretty good class. We were able to get the teacher to laugh a little bit. We talked about nationalities and when she asked us ours, we all rattled off a long list. I am pretty sure that we named just about every nationality between the 7. She was probably thinking to herself "these American mutts..." She asked us what activities we wanted to do this semester so we told her 1) learn how to cook Spanish dishes, 2) watch Spanish movies, and 3) play games to learn the language. I am hoping it ends up being a fun class. It is a 2 and a half hour class but she is able to keep things moving by keeping us all engaged. She has us do a lot of partner activities and group activities which is good for speaking and listening. We are all impressed that none of us have fallen asleep yet in class. Hopefully it stays that way.

After class I went to visit two of our plazas for our first project. It is due next Thursday so time is running out. I observed the people (or lack there of at this one plaza) and took some photographs. We had studio in the evening and then went back to the apartment for dinner. I stayed there and worked for a while and then the other apartment came over and hung out for a little bit.

up on the roof of la Catedral

Today was an alright day. I got up an hour early so I could take a shower, but I never made it in. With 6 people in the apartment and all on the same schedule, bathroom time is not easy to come by. Once we get the hang of it though we will work it out better. We usually don't all get ready at the same time (some shower at night, some in the morning, some during the day) but once in a while we all seem to want to shower at the same time. Hopefully it won't happen too often.
This morning for our sketching class we visited 3 plazas in the gothic quarter (Placa del Rei, Placa de Sant Felip Neri, and Placa del Pi). They are about a 15 minute walk fom studio and each is only a few minutes apart. We had to sketch our journey through the 3 plazas and our experience on the journey. I think this class may help me improve my drawing simply because what I am drawing is so incredible and is so easy to stare at for a long time. At the end of the class, Eugena took us to the Catedral de Barcelona and we took the elevator to the top of the tower. When we got of elevator (it sounded like the Predator roller coaster as we were going up) we found ourselves on the roof of the Cathedral. There was a lot of construction materials up on the roof (the Cathedral has been under renovation for decades and the locals complain because they never see any work being done on it) but the view was not ruined. I took several pictures and a couple videos looking out onto the city. We were up there at noon when all the bells of the churches went off to announce the changing hour. It was amazing.

On the way back to studio, I stopped by Corte Ingles to see if I could find a backpack for my lap top. I found a couple, but none that really caught my eye. I also stopped at a couple places to see if I could pick up a few Tshirts. The only Tshirts I can find are either very strange or say "New York City" or "Rocky Mountain" or some other English word. I did find a shirt that said "Rochester, NY." I was going to buy it because it was right next to a rack that was 3.50 E but the rack this shirt was on was 30.00 E! There are a lot of sales going on still so I am hoping to go shopping this weekend and buy some Tshirts. I then stopped at McDonalds real quick for a fast lunch. The burgers basically taste the same. Ben and Rob found a cheap bocadilla bar right by studio so we are going to start going there when we don't have time to go back to the apartment. They said the sandwiches are twice the size of the ones we usually see and are only 2 E, which is a pretty fair price.

During studio, Monica and I worked on laying out our boards for our plaza analysis. We got some good feedback from Christi and Professor Vidal.

After studio we had our first firm visit. We visited a firm in the gothic quarter, about a 20 minute walk away. It is a pretty famous firm. They have worked all over the world and have done some very impressive projects. It is a fairly big firm so the owner of the firm did not give us the tour. Instead the public relation lady gave us the tour and told us about the firm. She told us how so many people try to intern in Barcelona that no one in the city pays their interns. It would be a great city to intern in, but they don't treat the interns very well, since there is such a high demand and interns are easily replacable.

Ben, Rob, and I went grocery shopping afterwards and then came back to the apartment. We had some bocadillas and then started some work. I did not go to studio because the work I need to do is on my computer and in my sketchbook so I got to stay in tonight. I do need to find a backpack for my lap top here though quick because it is not fun to walk back and forth with the strap over my shouler. It's about a 10 minute walk to studio and the computer gets heavy and uncomfortable in that time.

nuestra clase de espanol

This morning we got up and went to Spanish. Ben and Monica were able to get out of the class and are taking an independent study class instead. Tom and I decided to stay in the class because I think the independent study will be a lot of work and will take up a lot more time than Spanish. We would learn a new computer program but I don't think I will benefit a whole lot from it. So we decided to stick with the easy A. I am frustrated because I do want to learn more Spanish but a higher level Spanish isn't offered. It is only this or no Spanish. I haven't learned anything new really. It is all the same stuff I learned my first couple years of Spanish. It is good I guess because I never had a strong foundation in Spanish from the beginning. I learned the alphabet last week and that actually was new material for me. We have just been going over greeting people and occupations and basic conversation stuff. I will learn because she only speaks Spanish to us. Which is what I don't understand. She only speaks Spanish and we understand what she is saying, but she is still teaching us the alphabet and how to count up to 100. I will cover all the basics in the class so I guess I shouldn't complain since I never learned all the basics. It is just the metro money and travel time that gets to me, but it would be the same money and time if I were to do the independent study. We went to lunch in the school cafeteria after class, which was a lot better than our school's cafeteria food. We were planning on bringing lunches but we didn't have time to go shopping for lunch the night before because we got out of studio so late.

After lunch Brian and I walked around the University and then too the architecture building. We went to an empty classroom, laid down on the tables, and closed our eyes for like an hour so we could get through history. I woke up to a Spanish lady laughing at us in the doorway. She walked away when I lifted up my head. Class started 20 minutes late (no one is ever in a hurry over here). The same PhD Architect professor who was our guest lecturer last week came back to finish his lecture from last week about the development of the city. We all came back to the apartment after class and are now getting ready for our group dinner. We are having the other apartment over tonight for our weekly group dinner. Rob and Ben are making fish (2 nights in a row...we like fish). Rob bought a whole fish yesterday at the supermarket and the guy caught the head off it and sliced it up using a ban saw. It was pretty funny. He brought home a cut up fish in a plastic bag. I am sure it will be good.

After dinner tonight Monica and I are going to work on the analysis of our 3 plazas for Phase 1 of the project (she is my partner for Phase 1). We will probably have to go to studio to do it, but we'll see.

Placa de les Glories

Well, we all slept in today and then we went across the street and played basketball. It felt so good to get out and move around a little bit. There were a lot of people walking their dogs while we were playing and one of the dogs only had three legs, but it was still able to keep up with the other dogs.

At one point the ball went out of bounds and I went to go get it. I heard footsteps running up behind me and when i turned around, it was a big german shepherd. It went straight for the basketball and I saw that it was the 3 legged dog. I started playing with the dog, rolling the ball around on the ground. It was pretty funny because it was just a random dog that wanted to play, so I played. We played for like 5 minutes and then the owner called the dog over. The ball got a little slobbery, but it was covered in our sweat anyways, right? Monica was grossed out by it.
After basketball we had lunch and then walked to Plaza de los Glories which is our site for this semester's project. We walked around there from 4-6:30. We went back to studio by 7 for desk crits to talk about our Plaza Analysis project (which is the first phase of this semester's project). It is due next week so we have a lot of work to do for it in a short amount of time. Around 8:30 or so Ben, Rob, and I went to the grocery store down the street from studio to get food for dinner and Christi told us that we had to come back afterwards. I didn't know why and just wanted to go home and eat (since studio is supposed to end at 8). We came back to studio at 9 and when we walked in everyone started singing "Happy Birthday." I was really surprised, since no one had mentioned it all day. They went to the bakery across the street while I was gone and bought donuts instead of a cake. They were good donuts. We didn't leave studio until 10 which is way past our bedtime. Brian and I cooked dinner. We were planning on doing a fish fry (I had to explain to Brian what a "fish fry" is, its called "fish and chips" everywhere else apparently. He had never heard of fish fries on Fridays). They didn't have any fish at the store other than the ones with eyes and scales, so we bought fish sticks. We sliced up potatoes and put them on the stove and made potato chips, which I actually liked more than store boughten chips (I think because we didn't put a whole lot of salt on them). We heated up some corn, sliced up some apples, and thus was our makeshift fish fry.

studio

Today is going to be all work. We are all paired up and had to chose 3 plazas to observe and analyze. Sketching them and documenting these plazas will take up all day, and we are all meeting at 4 in studio to work on our site model. Nothing special is happening today, just sketching, studio, back to the apartment for dinner, and then probably more plaza analysis, followed by bed. Tomorrow we can all work on the plazas some more because we don't have studio until 4 pm.

group dinner

Today we all just relaxed and walked around our neighborhood a little bit. Meg, Brian, Rob and I went shopping down the main shopping strip. There were some unbelievable sales going on and the streets were crowded with people. I didn't buy anything, but I am still looking for a couple of Tshirts. We then all went to the Gran Via apartment and had a group dinner there. We then went out to a club (not exactly my cup of tea) and stayed there for a little bit. Tom, Rob, and I left early and came back to the apartment.

Placa Forum

Today was our first day off from school. Since it was our first three day weekend, we decided to get up at 8 am. We went on a tour to the Forum Plaza which was designed by the firm that Cecilia works at. We pretty much all decided that the plaza was a failure. It was not designed correctly at all. No one liked it. It was too big and didn't function the way it is supposed to (as a gathering place). We were there for a couple hours and saw one person at the plaza riding his bike through it. They did have an outdoor ice rink set up. I was amazed so I went over and checked it out. It had like 3 foot high boards and was maybe 25' wide x 50' long. I walked on it and was confused. They were like tiles that you lay down on the pavement I think. It wasn't cold but there were skate marks on it. There was a rubber path that was laid down on the pavement leading from a shed to the rink so that you don't have to walk on the pavement with your skates. I can't imagine that it is very good skating but I am going to look into it and see if I can rent skates and try it out. It was interesting to see to say the least.

We then went to another plaza, which was pretty cool. It was very family orientated with 2 playgrounds, a cazebo in some trees, and a couple of open spaces for futbol. It was an interesting space, no one really liked it a lot except for a few of us. I think it is a good place though. Good location, good size. It was about a half hour metro ride to these 2 places and we took the metro back to Plaza Catalunya. We then went to a museum dedicated to the history of Catalunya. We were there for a little over an hour, which was not enough time. I only got up to the 1600s! It was all very interesting and had a lot of hands on experiences (there was a wooden horse that we could climb on). Christi got us free tickets to go back to it because we told her we would like to spend more time. We then headed back to the apartment but stopped at a falafel place for some lunch. It was pretty good, except for the vegetables. We then came back to the apartment and took naps.

We then went out for a an official group dinner (meaning the school pays for it) to this restaurant called La Veronica. It is like a trendy pizza place and the pizza was not bad. It was good to have some pizza. My stomach needed some. We then walked around a little and stopped at a cafe for a little while on the way home.

plaza visits

I am limiting my money to the best of my ability. We are all trying to be as thrifty as possible with our money. I haven't bought any souvenirs yet. We are all planning on putting more money into the communal food pot each week. The 6 of us were putting in 25 euro a week but we are going to have to put in more. Food goes fast when 5 guys are in the same apartment.

I woke up this morning, as I have grown used to the past two decades of my life... We had Spanish class early this morning at the university. We learned the alphabet and numbers 0 to 100. We are all pretty bored in the class so we are going to talk to the teacher. None of us should be in that level Spanish. Ben, Monica, myself, and Tom definitely want to take a higher level or something else. It is a 2 and a half hour class that meets twice a week. It is a 15 minute subway ride away that costs 1.25 euro each way. The class is not worth our time or money. We will see what happens with that.

After class, we stopped at the architecture building at the university and bought supplies for a model we have to build. It is a group site model so we are going to all share materials and tools and what not.
We came back to the apartment for a quick lunch and then went to studio. During studio we walked around the old part of the city, and visited 4 plazas. We analyzed them in order to prepare for our project. After that everyone went back to the apartments, but Ben and I went to studio. We spent 4 hours setting up and rearranging the studio space to best fit our 12 desks, printing table, and a couple of communal work tables. We did the best we could but left at 11:30pm to come back to the apartment and have dinner.

Meg had made rice and steak for dinner and stuck some in the fridge for us. We had that and a couple of sandwiches. I am now exhausted and need to go to sleep. We are getting up tomorrow at 7 30 to go on a walking tour of the Forum with Ceclia, one of our crits.