The last week

Well, school has started and things have kinda ramped up into full gear fairly quickly. Lots of work to be done, but we're still finding some time to get out and explore the city, the surrounding area, and participate in the local culture. Friday we have studio in the mornings, so as soon as it was over, Cerny and I ran to the market to get some supplies for the dish we were going to cook for the pot-luck happy hour. As soon as we dropped that off, we went down to the beach, which was my first time to actually sit on the beach and relax. We stayed at the beach til about 5 or so when it started to feel like it was about to rain. Since we had a 15 minute walk back to our place, I figured it was time to go. It was a good thing too because about 2 minutes after we got back, the downpour began!

That evening we went to Happy Hour at Katie, Christina, Christina, and Andrea's place. It was nice to just be able to sit outsite on their porch and relax after the week. After that, I went to meet up with Sam and Neil, Bloom, and Leslie to continue relaxing outside. We grabbed a fishbowl beer and just sat in the plaza.

Woke up Saturday morning not exactly looking forward to the bike tour of the area that we were going to take. We all met at 10AM and were going to bike the day away...and bike we did! For a kid who hasn't been on a bike since I have been able to drive, I did alright. My legs don't hurt except for the sunburn! I did a good job on burning though! We rode from Barcelona's old city center up the beach through the Olympic village and up to a small town called Badalona. From here we looked at a project that one of our professors here did with her partner. It was a library renovation and expansion. It was interesting, but nothing too impressive. Before we headed back, we stopped and got lunch on the beach. A handful of us tried a small place on the beach where we were able to get some real spanish food. seafood, noodles...it was really good! On the way back, we stopped at a few places such as FOA's new building "Forum" which is like their convention center. It had a really cool 1:1000 scale of the entire city of Barcelona that went along with a video and light show that explanded the history of the city and it's expansion. From there we went to a park done by famous spanish architect Enric Miralles. Next Saturday, we'll be heading off to Igualada to see another one of his projects, a Cemetery in that area which is about 30 miles north east of the Barcelona. Should be interesting.

Anyways, that's been my week. Thanks for all the comments, emails, and messages. I'll upload some more pictures when I head back to my apartment and get my camera that I took on the trip yesterday.

Enjoy!