Boo, Classes Come with Work

The second week in Barcelona started to actually feel like classes again. We have a few assignments due along with pin-ups (which means a lack of sleep). That was on Tuesday, the rest of the week went by quickly as usual. It's great not having classes on Fridays!


We've gotten into a routine. It goes: Mon-Thurs: classes; Thurs. night: club; Fri: explore the city (this week went to the olympic stadium and Barcelona Pavillion!!!); Fri. night: bars (we found a bar near our apartment that we love--L'Ovella Negra, which means Black Sheep). It's a good routine! We like it. So far we've gone to two clubs, Sutton and Catwalk. Both were pretty cool. Catwalk is on the beach with a few other clubs around. Last weekend our big adventure was to Park Guell, a park designed by Antoni Gaudi. It was pretty amazing! It overlooks the city and we could see La Segrada Familia, another Gaudi project, and a few other places.





We have some work to get done this weekend though, so
Saturday and Sunday might not be as fun ): BUT! Our first studio project is due on Thursday and then we leave on Saturday for Madrid and southern Spain! Yay, our first field trip! We're ready to explore some more cities, and other coutries!!! We're thinking of visiting the other half of the CUArch study abroad program in Rome the following weekend! Then who knows what will follow!

Basically I've fallen in love with this city and we've only been here for a week--and we have four months left! We just got the keys to our studio so we can get into it whenever we want and use the internet since we don't have it in our apartments. Hence why I'm finally sitting down and figuring out how to do this blog thing!


So from the beginning--our flight went well, it was a little bumpy, but not too bad. Six of us flew out of Newark International Airport and had a layover in Heathrow in London where we met up with the eight people who flew out of Dulles in DC and we all flew to "Barthelona" (yeah they say it like that) together. When we got to Spain, we flew in along the coast of Barcelona over the Mediterranean and were able to see a lot of the port, including the Olympics stadium and telecommunication tower by Santiago Calatrava who is one of my favorite architects. The airport was about ten minutes from our studio, but the street our studio on was too small for the cars to go down, so we all pilled out of our vans (there were three people per van) and carried all our luggage down the street. We met up with our studio teachers etc. who gave us our keys and directed us to our apartment. The apartment I'm living in with five other girls is just down the street, so we didn't have a long walk, but the guy’s apartment was about a 20 minute walk! Our apartment is gorgeous with an amazing view. I love EVERYTHING here so far!

We spent the weekend walking around the city. We saw some of Antoni Gaudi's buildings, another great architect! It's hard to believe that we can walk out on the street and actually see so many of the buildings we've learned about. We went down to the water front and saw Frank Gehry's fish. That was pretty exciting! We spent about five hours walking around and taking pictures by the water. It was amazing to be on the Mediterranean! Everything about this city is exciting!

Our classes started on Monday, but it doesn’t feel like class! We’re taking 18 credits, but our theory, history, and studio are combined into a four hour class which would be solely studio back at home! We have that on Monday and Wednesday, and only studio on Thursday. On Tuesday, we have a fieldtrip/sketching class where we go out to different places in the city. Yesterday, our assignment was Christi, our teacher who we love, took us on the metro and dropped us off where we broke up in to partners. Then we had to wander the streets following our senses to dictate the paths we took. We weren’t allowed to use a map until each partner took their “journey” for an hour. That was a lot of fun! From pictures we took and whatever else we want, we have to make a collage of our trip and make our own map! Our other class on Tuesday is Spanish. It’s pretty intense. Our teacher won’t talk English at all! He is able to, but doesn’t. That class ends in March though, so for the last month we’re here, we will only have one class on Tuesdays.

Oh, and I'm sure everyone's concerned with how we're eating over here. And the answer is that we would starve if it wasn't for our personal chef, Josh. Who is actually just one of our friends who cooks really well and makes us whatever we want! It's glorious. And we go through bagguettes like it's our job. The bakery below our apartment doesn't help with this obsession.

We leave in two weeks to go on our first group trip. We will be going to Seville, Granada, Cordoba, Toledo, and Madrid. We’ll spend a week and two days going to these places. We’re excited!!!

So that’s about the jist of what’s happened since we’ve been here!

XoXo