MontJuic and Barcelona Pavilion

Friday was probably one of the best days that I've had in Barcelona so far,

We woke up and took a cable car up to Mont Juic (The mountain of the Jews) apparently in 1988 an entire cable car fell and the tourists in it died, but we didn't find that out till after so, we just had a great time looking down at the city as we went up the mountain.
There is a beautiful old castle on top of the mountain where we wondered around and just enjoyed the sun, the view, the stray cats and all the couples who were making out everywhere. You could also see all the major Landmarks from the mountain, including the building where our apartment is.

We hiked down the mountain (which i strongly recomend instead of hiking up) and saw Calatrava's Communication Tower, where the olympics were a few years back, the botanical gardens and the art museum.

The final thing we saw was the Barcelona Pavilion which was awesome, because we've learned about it for years, but we finally got to go inside. From the outside it was a disappointment, all the grass in the yard in front is dead because people play with their dogs and hang out on the lawn, but the inside was everything I expected. The marble patterns are intricate and stunning and even though we didn't get to sit in Mies's original chairs, it was pretty cool to see them, since so many replicas have been made. I'm sure I'll return more than once by the time the trip is over.

Some people stole rocks from the reflecting pool, but I didn't because I remember learning how the remains of the Acropolis are shrinking because so many tourists steel rocks from it and even though I'm positive that they have since replaced the original rocks, I didn't want future visitors to have a lesser experience because of me.

We took the metro home after seeing the Pavilion and the rest of the night was realy good too.

After a snack we went shopping. I'm on a search for skinny jeans and boots, because every female I see here rocks that style, but I was unable to find them. When we got back from shopping we heard a ton of noise that sounded like drumming from our plaza, at first we thought there was a protest, but then we realized that it was some sort of school spirit activity for the University across the plaza from us. Everyone was dressed in black and red and there was a band drumming, people dressed up as witches, a dragon and people spitting fire on stilts. They even lit fireworks like right in our plaza that exploded in front of our apartment, they were awesome. Another thing that would never be allowed in the states.

We have Fridays off and we try to do something touristy and fun every week, but this upcoming weekend we are traveling to Madrid, so we shall see.

Last weekend we finally got to experience the night life of Barcelona.

Thursday I got to meet up with Brendan, my friend from home and he came over to the apartment for dinner with Lindsay, Lauren and Josh, we went to the tapas restaurant underneath our apartment in plaza universitat. The food was awesome and we ate for like to hours, the bill was a little more than i would normally like, but it was the first time we ate out on our own and it was worth it.
That night all the Catholic kids went over to meet Brendan's friends and we went out to a club called Suton, it was a lot of fun.

Jessey's dad came in from the states this weekend, he had business in Europe. He took us out for an awesome dinner at this small, ritzy restaurant called Re Pal, right near the Picasso Museum. I got steak and this tiny appetizer that came with it. The food was tiny, but really good, so we got gellato on the way back to our flat and ran into some Americans who were traveling but who are living in Madrid for the semester. They wanted us to come with them to a bar called The Black Sheep (Ovella Negra) that is only a few blocks from our house and everyone in the world seams to know about. It's like a Barcelona staple. Jessey and I went in to check it out, but left to go home and see what everyone wanted to do. Maybe we'll see them when we go to Madrid in a week. We decided to just hang out over at the Grand Villa appartment with friends instead.

Saturday Lindsay and I we were woken up by a parade for Sant Antoni traveling right under our apartment so we went out on our balcony and watched the parade, it's weird because everyone plays American music here, even in the parades. The rest of the day was mostly spent in studio figuring out our first couple of studio projects, Mateusz and I had to figure out a group project and I had to paint a city planning assignment. Both came out pretty decent, but they were our first attempts at architecture on a Macro scale, and since then we've already improved.


Saturday night we tried out the Ovella Negra, it's a really cool place and almost everyone in our class went and hung out in this ancient feeling underground hole.

We've been cooking dinner practically every night in an attempt to save money and it's some of the best food I've ever eaten (no offense mom), definitely better than Pryz food. All the roommates have recipes from home that we've been trying out and almost everyone can cook, but it works out because whoever doesn't cook, does the dishes.

Classe

We had to start CLASSES this week, which you would think is a bummer, but actually they've been pretty sweet.

Our teachers are amazing, Christy, Eric, CeCe and Xabi are the Bomb. I think being in Barcelona has made them let their hair down and chill. This week has pretty much been what Eric and Christy always wanted to teach to a class but were never able to in DC. Smoking Hash is legal in Spain and it's funny because I guess that the building that our studio is in is usuallt vacant so people are used to just chilling outside and smoking and they think no one can see them because the curtains let views out but not in.

In studio this week we've been working on black paper with white paint and painting figure grounds of plazas and Barcelona. I accidentally spilt paint in the plaza, but it looks like bird poop, so it's cool. Oh yeah, there are massive amounts of Parakeets here in the trees squawking, they are my new favorite birds.

For Christy's class we had to do a "Derive Exercise" where me and Mateusz had to get lost in an area of Barcelona that we didn't know and see where our senses brought us. Our senses brought us to Santa Maria Del Mar, an awesome park where we picked an orange, and La Sagrada Familia.

The interior of Santa Maria Del Mar

Me and La Sagrada Familia

This blog is part of my homework, and the rest of my home work is not to shabby either, it's mostly exploring and painting.

So school is all good.

Barcelona: The Begining

Hello All,

This is my first Entry, and I know it's coming late, But there were some problems with the internet and computer access, I'll have to start you from the begining.

Leaving Newark to get here to Barcelona was probably one of the scariest times I've had on a plane, not because I was afraid of flying or leaving America, but because I thought we were sitting next to terrorists. They were Hacidic Jews, so normaly I wouldn't mark them as terrorists, but the one sitting next to me was being realy sketchy and nervous and ducking in his seat to call people and playing with his phone until we were actually taking off, the stewadesses had to yell at them several times, but after take off all was good.

We got to Barcelona just fine and met at the studio which is like two blocks away from our appartment, which is pretty sweet. I love our appartment! It's on Plaza Universitat, which is on the Northern tip of the old city. The Roomies are realy sweet too.

This is a bad picture because we took it right after dragging our luggage to the appartment, but it's on our balcony and shows the view out of the appartment. (The one on the right is Lauren)

Our appartment is between the palm trees in this picture, this is the plaza that we have a view of.

The first night in Barcelona we had a huge dinner with our teachers and all the students at a nearby restaurant and did it up Barcelona style with Paella and Sangria and Sausages and lots of bread. (The bread here is the best ever) But I was falling asleap at dinner from the jetlag and my teachers got a kick out of me falling asleap at the dinner table. Luckily I woke up in time for desert and got coconut Icecream it was delicious. I never knew Barcelona had palm trees, i guess they're all over in Europe.


The second day we were in Barcelona we went on a getting aquanted with Barcelona Tour and most of us walked down to the shore and saw the beach, which I am looking forward to swimming at. We went to Port Olympica, which is where Frank Gehry's Fish is (and a ton of popular bars and clubs) I can't wait for it to get warmer, even thogh compared to home (where it is snowing) it is gorgeous here, it's pretty much early spring weather.

Me and the Gehry Fish at Port Olympica


We've already seen a ton of realy sweet architecture here, From Gaudi to Gehry to Enrique Morrales, I think this is my favorite city. There realy aren't sky scrapers, and the old city streets where you feel closed in are beautiful in their own way.


Barcelona is Beautiful!