9 minute update

Okay, I only have nine minutes to update. I´m pretty sure I can do it.

I´m in an internet cafe right now. Andrea and I just tried to go see Harry Potter in spanish but missed the 7 o´clock showing. The 10 o´clock is the only other one that they are playing. Andrea was bummed, and we came to the cafe in hopes that there was another theater in Barcelona playing an earlier showing. Nope. Just 7 or 10. We think its because the movie is three hours that the theaters are sticking to the same schedule. We don´t want to see the 10 oclock because the metro closes midnight. No Harry Potter in spanish. Oh well.

Tomorrow, Leslie Aaron and I are off to Prague. Andrea is leaving us to see her uncle in Madrid. I can´t believe we´re already on to our next city. Barcelona has been so wonderful. We lucked out too with two great hostels, even though my room is literally the size of a closet. My suitcase doesn´t have enough space to open! But, its fine though, I don´t mind, at least the bed is comfortable.

Anyway, so here is a recap of the past two days.

Yesterday, we went to one of the most beautiful places I´ve ever seen called Montserrat. Its a monastery located about an hour and twenty minutes away from Barcelona. Its built really high in the mountains. We took something like a ski lift to get there. We were shocked to see that there was a little town up there because we expecated a desolate monastery perched high up away from everyone. We were wrong. It was packed, as if we were at the base of the eiffel tower. I couldn´t believe the amount of people. Anyway, the monastery was nice. It was large. Amazing to think they built something so beautiful so high up. After a lousy cafeteria lunch, we took a funicular to one part of the mountain to go on a three hour hike. The hike was marvelous. About an hour and twenty minutes in, we reached the summit of the highest point of the range. The view was spectular. We had a panaromic view of the whole city, its something I won´t forget. I have plenty of pictures.

Ahh my time is running out.

Not much else happened after the hike. We just took it easy. ill be on later to update about today.

ok i'm back.

So we attempted to go to another viewing of Harry Potter but to our dismay, we were unable to find anything. Although, I did manage to get both McDonalds and Starbucks on our trek. It was just too good to be true!

Anyway, so to continue on my update Montserrat was amazing. The rock formation of the mountains is unlike anything I have seen. It reminded me of the red rocks in Arizona. They also look liked large phalic objects. One was very realistic. We also compared them too short, fat men or chubby fingers. They were pretty freaking cool.

As I said before, we hiked to the top of one of the summits and the view was amazing. We met some other travellers from the US and Mexico at the top. I had to hide my panting to not appear so out of shape. I was dying. To my credit, it was a steep climb for the last twenty minutes and I decided to run it. Regardless of my panting, it was the most climatic end to a run that I have ever had. It was a great reward. The rest of the group followed behind and we had some group shots. I'll post them on facebook once I figure out how to get access to a computer with a USB to upload photos. The descend was just as amazing as the climb up. We had a few guys from Seattle join us on our way back. We cut through the forest that had little clearing that framed amazing views of the rocks. There also were steep cliffs that also looked cool. The hike back took about an hour. Wasn't too bad. It was just hot when we were directly in the sun.

Our timing with trains was serendipidous. Both times we thought we were going to be late but we arrived at the same time that the train did. Andrea and I sat next to a woman who lived about twenty minutes away from the monastery and talked with us the whole way back. At first, I did not have the energy to talk in spanish for the whole ride but the lady was just too nice. It was also a great opportunity to practice speaking spanish.

I can say that I am really going to miss speaking spanish. I have had so many great opportunties to practice here that I think something clicked with me. I don't have to translate anymore, I can just speak. Its a bizarre feeling that I've heard other people talk about but never felt before. After talking with Andrea earlier, I realized that I want to take another spanish class before I graduate. I am considering dropping my american studies class for a spanish class. As long as I fulfill an upper level non architecture course I can do it. And I won't be too bummed about American Studies because I am taking a humanities english class so I still will be exposed to that type of material. I also was thinking about possibly picking up my minor. A part of me doesn't think England is going to work with problems concerning the University based on the past few conversations with Du Puy, which is a whole other conversation, but if it doesn't work out, I want to try to take a winter abroad with the spanish department. If that works, then I will only needc to more classes which I can do in my final semester. I'm happy to know if England doesn't work I'll have a back up plan.

Let's see so that recaps yesterday. Today was similar to Sunday in that we were busy from morning til night. We started off at Park Guell which Allison told me I was going to love. She was right. I drew quite a bit there. While I was waiting for Leslie, I started to draw people and I was hooked. I have about ten pages full of people. I am fascinated with how people work. Its really interesting and difficult. From the super cool gaudi playground, we ventured to Sagrada Familia, which is another fantastical creation from Gaudi. We ate lunch before going in and stayed there for about an hour. I liked both the exterior and interior, although I liked it a little less than I expected. The exterior was highly decorated and used an interesting canterary system to derive the parabolic shapes, but it didn't connect with too much. I liked it but not as much as the symbolism in Casa Mila. The interior was built in reference to a tree so the columns were tree trunks and at each level there was a knot where branches came off from. The trunks were cool but I didn't like the knots. They were too bulky. It was interesting to see the church while it was under construction. The pamphlet they gaves us said that they are going to have services in one of the chapels by 2010 and complete the church by 2030. I can't believe that they are going to spend another twenty years on it. Construction began in 1898! I didn't find out exactly why it has taken so long but I speculate that with the level of ornamentation plus the size of the church that it must have taken a while for them just to build it. But, I also think that there must have been some type of buracracy to hold it in abeyance. (GRE word, thank you)

We went below the church to a musuem that explained Gaudi's philosophy. They repeatedly showed the connection his work has to nature. Its odd that we don't analyze nature more often in studio. When I met the professor at Pratt in Ecuador, he told me that their studio focuses on the connection between architecture and nature. One project they analyzed trees and had to design a type of structure based on their anaylsis. It seemed interesting enough that I'm inspired to try it in studio. I don't know exactly how to approach it but I'm sure with some practice, some type of analysis will inspire me somehow.

Andrea and I broke off from Leslie and Aaron to Richard Meiers Institute of Contemporary Art. I wasn't too excited to go but Leslie paid to go to the top of the cathedral and Aaron went to find a kosher deli, so I didn't have too many other options. I mainly didn't want to go because I'm not a big fan of his work, especially the ministry of justice (or something like that) in Paris. But, I was still curious to see what it looked like. On our walk there, we passed Las Ramblas again, which I really like, and wound up in a chunk of medieval fabric. We found a really nice cafe called Buenas Migas, I think it means good friends, and had an iced espresso. It was well-needed. We continued down the street, turned the corner, and bam, a huge, white paneled, mass was directly in front of us. A nice plaza rested in front of the museum that was full of bikers and skateboarders that warmed me up to the idea of entering. There is a slight, very slight, similarity to the Pompidou Center. Just downscale it about twenty times in both the scale of the building and the scale of the site and it could be considered to be a little more similar. We entered the foyer, which was about forty feet high, the height of the occupiable space, and paid about four euros. Wasn't too bad, and I got to speak in spanish AND they spoke back to me in spanish, that is the best compliment to be responded to in spanish. I'm not going to go too deep into an architectural analysis of the place, but there were a few things that I thought of while I was there. I noticed a direct connection to Villa Savoye, at least I speculate a direct connection, to the adjacency of the ramp to the spiral staircase. The space also had a good range of light to dark. I didn't like the circulation. You had to retrace the same path to leave. The heat in certain parts were unbearable due to the glass facade. His stupid, square, planar openings took up space on the facade. The cafe was nice. The lady working at it was nice too. She also responded to me in spanish. And don't get me started on the art. If there is one strong opinion that I developed on this trip, it is my disdain for contemporary art. There was one exhibit that I liked in the entire museum. I just don't have the tolerance for contemporary art. It seems way too forced to be effective to me. The exhibit that I liked was about a really nicely design playground that was eclectic, full of ridiculous things in it that was shut down by the fire chief after a week it opened, despite the 10,000 children that played in it. They considered it political discrimination. Or something like that. The actual art piece wasn't that great, but the subject was interesting. Next the exhibit was another exhibit that was a slideshow of playgrounds around the world that were completely empty and sterile. The contrast was very effective. During the one art show, I attempted to redesign playgrounds in my head, but had to give up after a while. I was spending more time trying to redesign one than actually observe the playground they redesign. I struggle with appreciating things that other people do. Unfortunately, my instinct is to think that I can do a better job at whatever the objective is than anyone else. It is on my list of things I want to mature in my life.

After the musuem, we took the advice of the woman on the train to go to the beach. She told us which stop to get off at so that we could see the buildings that were built during the Olympics. They were okay. Some were cooler than others. What I really liked was the boardwalk and the restaurants underneath it. It activated the edge of the beach really well. Another interesting sight we saw were the plethora of topless women. Apparently, it is fine for women to be topless on a very public beach. I knew that topless beaches were common in Europe, but I thought they were segregated from the other beaches. Or at least, a little further away from the main entrance. Well, they aren't. We were actually greeted with a topless woman walking with her naked baby on the ramp down to the beach. It was an eyeful. At least the guys weren't wearing the little speedos. I expected that more than the topless women.

We spent about twenty minutes there. We didn't have our bathing suits with us so we didn't want to stay too long. It was too much of a tease. The water looked so nice and blue. Again, I have pictures. I actually got a topless woman in one of the pictures when I was taking one of the ocean. You can barely see her. I probably shouldn't admit that.

Anyway, after the beach, that is when we decided to go to Harry Potter. We called the hostel to ask the girl Joanna to help us find a movie theater. She laughed at us, but was super nice and gave us directions. After we checked out what she recommended, we ended up in the internet cafe that I began this marathon long of an entry in.

I enjoyed writing today. I hope it was enjoyable to read. Its theraputic to write it more than anything else. It helps me reflect on my days well. I wish that I wrote during the Paris trip especially because we did so much each day.

Okay, the title is a lie. This was more like a 45 minute update. And the computer I'm in the hostel is way too expensive so I keep putting coins in like its a slot machine in a casino. I feel like an internet junkie. Well I sort of am. I kind of freak out when I see an internet cafe. There is just way too much to do when I'm online. And I always need at least another twenty minutes after whenever my minutes run up. So I hoard the minutes that I have. I catch up on the news when I can. Email a lot. Blog.

Okay this I'm rambling. We have to book a hostel for Santorini. Somehow the one we were looking at fell through. I'm not too concerned.

Time to get some sleep! Ah my last night in Barcelona. I'm sure I will return.