Side note: Okay, I'm not gonna lie, I still cannot turn the jazz music off. I discovered the iTunes online radio, and you can choose whatever genre you want. Of course I chose the vocal jazz station, and I seriously cannot turn my own music on anymore. I loooove Jazz! If you have any I can borrow or let me burn to my computer when I get home, I will be more than happy to accept that.
Anyway. I'm back from Spain! What a magnificent trip. Unlike my Berlin trip, where I was getting homesick for Paris, I did NOT want to leave Spain... I luckily wrote notes about each day in my little journal I keep with me so I wouldn't forget what I did each day. I'm just going to give a few sentences of each day so I don't have to publish an essay here on my blog....
Day 1: "checked into hostel, cool interiors, checked out food --> hungry, tapas bar! broken egg + potatoes w/ garlic, huge meal! sangria :)"
haha, my notes are so thorough... basically we checked into our hostel, which was reallly cool inside. very suitable for young students traveling in Barcelona. of course we were all hungry and scoped out some food to eat, and there's nothing like a real Spanish meal like tapas. It was so delicious...I got patatas braves with this excellent garlic sauce, along with something they call a broken egg. It was sooo good. It was really nice too to get such a large portion. I was beginning to starve here in Paris, since you pay so much for such little portions. The waitress literally came out with a giant wok/bowl of egg, chicken, and fries. I really miss the food in Spain... Oh... and yes, the sangria part. Our hostel had the most delicious sangria on tap (yes) and you could get a .75 litre cup of it for cheap. Please, have some sangria when you go to Spain. Definitely worth your while.
our hostel hallway
Day 3: "charette!"
Ah yes. 9 am started the charette at the University of Valencia architecture school. A group of 5 of us (2 from IIT, 3 from Valencia) spent allll day working on a problem assigned to everyone. They gave us an existing site in Valencia to remodel into a restaurant/cafeteria. I left out part of my notes which said my group won 2nd place out of 7 groups! yayy!
Another highlight of my trip was meeting up with an old middle/high school friend, Cat Weitzenfeld. She is studying abroad in Barcelona this semester, so we met up a couple of times, and she tagged along on our awesome Gaudi tour. Her stomach was flipping as much as mine was!
broken egg! tasted better than it looks
Day 2: "check out, crappy breakfast, train station to Valencia, missed 11 am train, hoping to make the beach"
okay, that day was the start of our weekend in Valencia. our hostel so kindly offers a free breakfast, however the cereal tasted like dusty air, the juice was like watered down orange flavoring, and the milk was sitting out on the counter, hotter than the temperature outside. We had to catch an 11 am train to Valencia, which we unfortunately missed, but luckily there was one an hour later. The train ride to Valencia was probably one of the most relaxing commutes I've ever had. It was 3 1/2 hours, but the whole time I either read or stared out the window over the Mediterranean sea. At one point my music synced up to the poles we kept passing in the train. The simple pleasures in life... Yes, we made it to the beach, and had to meet up with the architecture school in Valencia for a tapas dinner (which took about 3 hours), but we got to meet our Spanish partners in our group for the charette/competition we had the next day.
My view most of the way to Valencia on the train
Roomies at the beach in Valencia (Priyanka, Mihee, Me)
Dessert after dinner. Me and my friends devoured this in about 4 minutes.
Day 3: "charette!"
Ah yes. 9 am started the charette at the University of Valencia architecture school. A group of 5 of us (2 from IIT, 3 from Valencia) spent allll day working on a problem assigned to everyone. They gave us an existing site in Valencia to remodel into a restaurant/cafeteria. I left out part of my notes which said my group won 2nd place out of 7 groups! yayy!
Valencia: Jordi (green), Daniel (blue), Eduardo (black)
2nd place winners!
Day 4: "Calatrava, Beach! Train, sunburnt"
This was the day after the Charette, and the wife of the professor in charge of the charette took us on a tour of the Ciudad de las Artes y Las Ciencias, all designed by Santiago Calatrava. It was an interesting stretch of buildings....Architecturally my favorite building ever is the Milwaukee Art Museum by him, so it was good to see some more of his work. I have to say the MAM is still my favorite, but there was a bridge there in Valencia that looked a lot like the suspensions back in Milwaukee =] It made me all giddy and happy. After walking around the Ciudad, a couple of friends and I decided to hit the beach again in Valencia until our train ride back. I got plenty sunburnt, but it was such a great feeling to be at the beach in October while hearing everyone complain about Chicago's wonderful fall weather! We made it back to Barcelona a-okay, had some sangria to celebrate, and went to bed.
Calatrava
reminds me of the Milwaukee Art Museum!!
Side note: as I may have mentioned in my previous post, before we even left for Barcelona, our professor split us into 3 teams to create an itinerary for the 3 days we had tours there. It was our responsibility to create a tour for a Mies/Expo/Old Town day, "Shoreline" day, and "Gaudi" day.
Day 5: "Barcelona Pavilion, so hot, olympic stadium, lunch @ Ramblas, sangria with the Horns, shopping w/ Pri, pass out"
That day was the start of our actual school trip tours through Barcelona. We usually spend 3 days in the actual city with our class and the title was "Mies/Expo/Old Town"...or something like that. We started off at the Barcelona Pavilion, the building the architecture program practically drills into our heads from day one at IIT. I've already been to it about 3.5 years ago, but being in Barcelona again with 3 years of architecture school behind me really made me appreciate my surroundings, especially that building. It was sooo hot that day... We continued up to the Olympic stadium, down to the old part of town, Las Ramblas, and ended with sangria with our professor and his wife at their hotel. Very yummy. That night was my shopping night with my roommate. It's amazing how expensive Paris was. My roommate found a pair of shoes she wanted for 20 euro less in Barcelona...Definitely made me hesitant to shop in Paris the rest of my stay here. I miss the prices of Barcelona!
Day 6: "shoreline, beach"
This was a really good tour put on a group of our students. It was focused on architecture down the shoreline of Barcelona. It was a really beautiful day, and the group gave us an extra couple of hours during our break, so of course, myself and two others headed straight to the beach. The tour continued a few hours later; we hit the Gehry fish, a really interesting hotel that was completely cantilevered on one side, the park designed by Jean Nouvel, and eventually we ended up at this giant solar panel right at the shore. It was a long day of walking, especially back to the hostel, but probably one of my favorite days of my trip. (I apologize for the lack of knowledge of the names of any of these buildings, but you can definitely check out my pictures of the entire day.)
Gehry fish
friends at Jean Nouvel park
Day 7: "Gaudi day!"
Ah yes, saving the best for last. This was my group's tour! You can't go to Barcelona without visiting any of Gaudi's buildings... I seriously want to skip to the best part... Okay, well we walked down the main street with a lot of Gaudi's buildings, like Casa Battlo, Casa Mila, Casa Vicens, made our way up to Park Guell (amazing)...
THEN. At 4 we had a tour of Sagrada Familia thanks to a couple of students who know just the right contact. This was not your ordinary Sagrada tour...None of us really had any idea how in depth we would get to see this spectacular building by Gaudi. We were handed construction hats at the very beginning, were let into a gated construction area while other tourists were watching us, with extreme envy in their eyes. We got to see windows which were still in need of work while they contrasted with its neighboring windows who had the most beautiful patterns of stain glass already inserted in them. Of course we continued to a very, very tall elevator. This is when my stomach flipped; I realized we were going up this very tall elevator... then I remembered how terrified of heights I am...
Up we went, close and personal to some of the towers that were already built on the Sagrada Familia. It was so breathtaking and unreal to be up there. I looked at the girl who booked us this tour and just smiled, I couldn't believe it. Of course I was completely freaking out too, but that's beside the point. You could look over the narrow railings over Barcelona and what has been completed so far of this very complex cathedral.
Yeah, we kept going up, (it took me some convincing by peers to keep climbing the see through stairs and scaffolding, but we made it to the highest point of construction, where the last tower is to be built. It was really cool, because about 20 feet from the ceiling was a wooden floor for construction workers to walk around. After the last tower is to be built, the floor is going to be removed, and no one else will be able to get as high as we were. You'll be able to look up at the star/flower patterned ceiling, but unless you know how to fly, good luck getting up at that point! I couldn't believe where I was at that moment, I took about 100 pictures in 30 minutes. That was my favorite part of the whole trip, and I'm so glad I didn't chicken out and stay down lower while everyone else explored. I know now my goal is to be alive when the Sagrada is finished (along with seeing the Cubs win the world series....) but who knows when either of those will happen.
Casa Mila
Parc Guell
beautiful stained glass at Sagrada
construction hats!
very tall elevator
view from the very tall elevator
this is my "I'm on top of the Sagrada Familia but I'm not going to look down" look
Group photo!
some friends and I at the center of the building, 20 feet from the ceiling. this is the floor that will be removed once the tower is finished and no one will be up there again!
Another highlight of my trip was meeting up with an old middle/high school friend, Cat Weitzenfeld. She is studying abroad in Barcelona this semester, so we met up a couple of times, and she tagged along on our awesome Gaudi tour. Her stomach was flipping as much as mine was!
That Friday was our last day of the 3 day class tour, but a lot of us stayed until Monday morning. We basically just chilled around Barcelona, went to the beach, went shopping, got some pretty jewelry from this sterling silver jewelry store =] I got a ring from there last time I was in Barcelona, and I wear it every day still. I had to get something else! It was hard leaving Barcelona, because of the weather (80's and sunny), the prices that were much cheaper than Paris, and knowing Spanish. That was so relieving to remotely understand people around me and be able to converse.
A scary part of Barcelona though were the massive amount of pick pocketers. We unfortunately witnessed so many, which made me really paranoid everywhere I went. I actually felt safer coming back to Paris, although of course still just as cautious.
We came back to 60 degree, perfect fall weather, and unfortunately I caught a cold and had it for 2 days, which is why I have been so behind on updating this blog.
Anyway, my next trip next weekend for our fall break is to London! I am going with Priyanka and I am SOOO excited! I hope to visit Abbey Road, the Waterloo metro stop, Stonehenge, your basic site seeing, and of course, Chipotle. Someone told me they opened a Chipotle in London, and when I hear that word, I'm on the prowl. I am meeting a friend of a friend there who I've never met but will be with us the whole weekend, so it will be fun to meet someone new and have a fellow tourist by my side too. That reminds me... I still have to book my ticket...
So much for not posting an essay... Au revoir, and I will be back soon, hopefully, but for now it's time to work on my midterms for next Wednesday!
OH! I updated my photo website. You can see all my Barcelona/Valencia pictures. They're sorted in different albums so its easy for you to figure out. Take care!
-Becca
what a great opportunity to go atop gaudi's
ReplyDeletestructure. i was getting dizzy with you!
i loved the photo of the feet! great pattern.
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