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This week was filled with the exciting architectural landmarks of Barcelona, in short we visited...MACBA, the Forum, the Picasso Museum, Santa Maria Del Mar Church (built around 1328); Gaudi's Casa Batllo, Casa Mila, and Sagrada Familia; Calatrava's famous Communication Tower; the Olympic Complex on Montjuic, FCBarcelona!, and finally Torre Agbar. All of the sites we visited were amazing architecturally and seemed even better in real life as opposed to the photos we would see in a class back at CUA. Gaudi's architecture is unreal and to think that he executed these sturctures successfully without the aid of computers that we have today is remarkable - his architecture is an art. Over 
Christmas break, I picked up a book on Calatrava and was paging through it thinking of how impressive his work was and now to see it in person is truly breathtaking; the Communication Tower is an architectural and engineering work of art. The views from Montjuic overlooked the entire city of Barcelona, it made the city and Europe come alive, as it was everything I had pictured in my head.
Life in Born, my neighborhood in the Old City, really is a symbol of Barcelona's cultural idenity. Not only is it always lively and full of locals passing by, it is also quite calm and relaxing. Its nice to wake up in the morning and hear the sounds of the old European street and smell the fresh air and the small bakery across the street. In this blog I want to bring the culture of Barcelona alive - from its Old City to the new clubs along the ocean, and everything in between. The experience of this city so far has been a life lesson on its own and I hope to learn much more on the life and the cultural traditions of Barcelona and its neighboring countries. Of course architecture plays a role in this, architecture shapes the way people live - it is the living designed environment.
Life in a foreign country is not easy, to say the least. No one really speaks any English, making verbal communication extremely hard; their way of life, in Spain, is much slower and less advanced than that of the US; the food portions are smaller, which is tough for me especially when you're paying the same if not more for a smaller portion than that of the US and you're really hungry, but the food & the Tapas are really amazing; they have no dryers here and you have to hang your clothes outside to dry, weird...however, its not as bad as it sounds. We do a lot of walking...you can get anywhere you want to go on foot and you can see the city from the perspective of the human scale, you do a lot more sight seeing this way. The architecture is amazing, the Old City looks just as it did in the history books. There are a maze of small ally ways and cobble stone streets that are all interconnected, creating an interesting urban fabric and directional movement. As you could imagine, getting lost in such a condition is extremely easy, especially when there are no street signs like you would see in the US. I guess getting lost is just a given and part of the whole "experience." 
When we first arrived in BCN, we of course, got lost after getting off the Areobus from the airport carrying 4 large bags around the main placa, Catalunya, trying to find our studio - no where to be found because it was covered in graffiti, a popular art here in Barcelona. We eventually found the studio, and from here we made our way to find a taxi to our apartment in the pouring rain...not a lot of fun considering our situation, we were not happy. When we arrived at the apartment - Portal Nou, we walked in to find that it was literally half the size of our CUA apartment, and the next morning of course, there was no hot water to take a shower with...yet as our week progressed we started to settle in and work out the "kinks" to say the least. We went sight seeing (Arc de Triomf, Sagrada Familia, the Old City...), and began to realize what an amazing city we are living in. 
A few days later, during the week, we were walking home from studio on a normal night, and as we were just 30 feet away from our door we were approached by 7-8 young males. Before we knew what was happening and could do anything we were violently mugged and had our bags stolen from us, along with Alec's cards and Mike's phone...it was not a good night and really made us scared to even go back out of the apartment as it could happen again anytime. We still have yet to recover any of our stuff...and unfortunately we probably won't; now we carry pepper spray - so don't come near us at night.So that's week 1 in a nutshell, hopefully week 2 will be smoother and we can have some real fun and get into the culture even more. Oh yeah...the bars and the clubs are awesome here, DC doesn't even compare...
This week was filled with the exciting architectural landmarks of Barcelona, in short we visited...MACBA, the Forum, the Picasso Museum, Santa Maria Del Mar Church (built around 1328); Gaudi's Casa Batllo, Casa Mila, and Sagrada Familia; Calatrava's famous Communication Tower; the Olympic Complex on Montjuic, FCBarcelona!, and finally Torre Agbar. All of the sites we visited were amazing architecturally and seemed even better in real life as opposed to the photos we would see in a class back at CUA. Gaudi's architecture is unreal and to think that he executed these sturctures successfully without the aid of computers that we have today is remarkable - his architecture is an art. Over 
Christmas break, I picked up a book on Calatrava and was paging through it thinking of how impressive his work was and now to see it in person is truly breathtaking; the Communication Tower is an architectural and engineering work of art. The views from Montjuic overlooked the entire city of Barcelona, it made the city and Europe come alive, as it was everything I had pictured in my head.
Life in Born, my neighborhood in the Old City, really is a symbol of Barcelona's cultural idenity. Not only is it always lively and full of locals passing by, it is also quite calm and relaxing. Its nice to wake up in the morning and hear the sounds of the old European street and smell the fresh air and the small bakery across the street. In this blog I want to bring the culture of Barcelona alive - from its Old City to the new clubs along the ocean, and everything in between. The experience of this city so far has been a life lesson on its own and I hope to learn much more on the life and the cultural traditions of Barcelona and its neighboring countries. Of course architecture plays a role in this, architecture shapes the way people live - it is the living designed environment.
