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.