New Year's Resolutions (For April)

So as I'm sitting here at my computer, slowly (and painstakingly) knocking out one homework assignment after another, I've come to the realization that my time left here in Barcelona is limited and the open gap of opportunity for exploring things I have yet to see is beginning to narrow. With this in mind, I have made a resolution to be proactive in the coming weeks and knock off things from my "to-do" checklist that I've wanted to see/accomplish here in Barcelona since I arrived about three months ago. Unfortunately the weather has been a little more than unpredictable in the last few days, so I'm hoping for some better luck in the next few. My ambitions were set in motion today when I decided to take a walk through the Botanical Gardens of Barcelona on Montjuic just beyond the Olympic Complex. Having a little background history on the site, it was nice to see it in person. My timing must have been just right because as I was leaving I had the privilege of watching an amazing orchestrated water show at the fountains just up from Placa Espanya.


Leaving my apartment for the garden, however, I had a little taste of Spanish culture up close and personal. Just up the street from my apartment at the procession in front of the Arc de Triomf was a huge market of countless little tents selling just about anything you could imagine, stretching all the way into the Parc de la Ciutadella. It was interesting to wander up and down the rows and rows of tents seeing what the locals had to offer. There was even some musical entertainment, complete with little kids dancing all over the place. Seeing the market in front of the Arc de Triomf was just a little reminder of how interesting the culture is that I've been merged into living here in Barcelona. It also was a little reminder of all the things Barcelona has to offer that I have been missing out on up until this point. My resolution has come at a good time- no building will be left un-criticized or un-sketched, no museum un-visited, no bar un-patronised? Esta bien.

A Valencia Orange a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Given the extreme amount of time spent hopping from one major city to the next during my Spring Break excursion, I decided that for Easter Break I wanted to take it a little bit easier and enjoy some of the finer things Spain has to offer. The decision was made to take a trip down south the visit the great city of Valencia, and it was well worth it. Valencia was almost like a tropical paradise- we were welcomed by warm weather, shining sun, and palm trees about every two feet. The intent was to have a nice relaxing break free of stress and take it as an opportunity to soak up the Spanish culture to the fullest extent. Before arriving in Valencia, however, I had another great opportunity at experiencing the language barrier in full swing. On the train ride into Valencia I sat next to a kind old man (who happened to have a bad case of a hangover) who unfortunately didn’t know a word of English, but decided to start numerous conversations with me. I surprised myself by responding in full Spanish, using everything I had been learning in Spanish class. It seemed like the language barrier, at least for Spanish, was starting to narrow. It was a pretty cool feeling being able to communicate with someone who didn’t know a single word of English.



Our first day in Valencia was spent walking and exploring the city from one edge to the next with no planned agenda. If there is one thing that Valencia succeeds in where Barcelona falls somewhat short, it is in the amount of green/park space it has scattered throughout the city. There were countless fountains everywhere, and combined with the warm weather Valencia seemed to be just what the doctor ordered. A considerable amount of time was spent our first day in Valencia at Santiago Calatrava’s Center of Arts and Sciences. The best description I can give for his complex of unique and gravity-defying buildings is that it was similar to an architectural “fun” land. In any case, it was definitely a must-see. Throughout our time in Valencia we visited Calatrava’s Arts and Sciences Center a total of about three times, including a trip to the aquarium to see a coordinated dolphin dance-show. Our second day in Valencia was spent renting bikes and trekking throughout the city to see how it compared to Barcelona. We were able to visit and spend some time at the beach and waterfront area, which seemed quite a big larger than that of Barcelona. Unfortunately our biking adventure was interrupted by a big thunderstorm that decided to roll in about halfway through the day. Riding through the streets of Valencia in the pouring rain (including about an hour delay to take cover at a gas station) wasn’t exactly the ideal situation, but it was fun nonetheless. For our last night in town we decided to pay a visit to the Valencia cathedral, which was nice to see in comparison to the other cathedrals throughout Europe. My favorite experience of Valencia, however, was surprisingly the train ride back to Barcelona. I sat next to an old man from Cuba by the name of Tony, who decided to start a conversation with me about art and politics. All in all we chatted for about two hours, half in English and half in Spanish. It was an interesting experience to say the least. Overall my trip to Valencia was a total success- I got the good old fashioned R&R that I was looking for, and couldn’t have been happier.

A Penny For Your Thoughts, A Dirham For Your Insight

If there was ever a time in my life where I was forced to step way outside of my comfort zone, our third field trip to Africa was definitely that time. Aside from not being able to communicate with the people whatsoever, I had no idea what kind of cultural boundaries I was going to cross visiting Morocco. The first realization that I was stepping into an entirely different cultural zone came when I stepped off the plane at the airport in Fes, and found myself standing in the middle of nowhere surrounded only by wide open plains and one other plane on the runway. I knew then that it was going to be a pretty exciting experience and definitely an eye-opener.

In Fes I had the chance to stay at the Riad Dar Al-Andalus, which in and of itself was more or less a palace, complete with interior mosaic ornamentation and flowing fountains accented by rose petals. It was one of the nicest hotels I had ever stayed in, and the people were some of the friendliest I had ever met before. Fortunately for me some spoke English, but for the other French-speaking people of Fes I was able to use some of the leftover French terms and phrases I had picked up while in Paris. The majority of my time in Fes was spent wandering the narrow passageways and streets lined by rows and rows of monochromatic plaster structures that make the city so unique, all with the help of our friendly guide Momo and his nephew. I had the opportunity to visit and sketch numerous religious structures and mosques, in addition to getting the insider’s view and knowledge on everything from our guide. Along the way we also had the chance to step into numerous small shops to see the workings of textile and leather production, to name a couple. We even had a private demonstration from a practicing “medicine man,” which was interesting to say the least. Some of my time in Morocco was also spent in the neighboring city of Meknes, visiting the grounds of fairly well preserved Roman ruins on the way. Although it was similar to Fes in many respects, there was a lot to be learned in Meknes culturally.

One of my favorite parts of our excursion to Morocco was the food. Without a doubt it was some of the best food I’ve ever tried. I took the opportunity to branch out a little with my taste in food while I was there, and tried an interesting dish made of pastry, cinnamon, and pigeon meat. Different, but really good nonetheless. Although Morocco was probably one of the most exotic places I’ve ever visited in my entire life, it remains as one of my favorite. There’s a lot to be said of the cultural bridge between the people of Morocco to the people of Spain and even to those of the United States. Spending time in places such as Fes and Meknes and having the opportunity to experience such different people and cultures is a pretty maturing experience, one that draws to mind how different we all are but how similar at the same time. As Momo’s nephew said on the street corner as we were sharing a chocolate bar I had just purchased, “We are the same people- you and I, we are brothers.”

Tasty Wine, Tasty Culture

For our second field trip, I had the chance to explore the northern Spanish city of Bilbao. Coming from Barcelona, which as a city is a lot more populated with a very metropolitan feel, Bilbao seemed like a tiny little village. Although it had the same Spanish feel, it was a much more relaxing place to visit. Compared to my previous Spring Break expedition, it was also nice to visit a city where I could speak in Spanish, which as a language is becoming much more familiar to me every day that goes by. The highlight of Bilbao was without a doubt our visit to Canadian architect Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Art Museum. I had heard a lot about Gehry’s interesting and sometimes non-rational (depending on who you ask) structures before, but I had never witnessed one personally until the Guggenheim. I was almost speechless at first, but as I explored the galleries and display areas I grew a pretty fond appreciation of his design. While in Bilbao, I also had the chance to walk yet another of Santiago Calatrava’s bridges. Although it was at a much smaller scale of the pedestrian, as a functioning structure it remained just as impressive.


Our trip to Bilbao was in some respects a two-part journey. Our second day there we embarked on an hour-long bus ride to an area of northern Spain infamous for its wine making- La Rioja. The scenery was amazing, probably some of the nicest I’ve seen in all of Europe so far. The intent was to visit three different wineries notable for not only the wine they produce, but also for a building contributed to each by notable architects. On our first stop, we were able to sit and relax in a wine-tasting pavilion designed by Zaha Hadid. Although it was a much smaller scale in comparison to her other structures, it was the first Zaha project I had ever seen in person and as such was just as impressive. Our second stop landed us on winery grounds containing a hotel designed by Frank Gehry, which was almost as impressive as his design for the Guggenheim but a lot harder to admire given the extreme amount of glare it was giving off from the sun. Our third and final stop found us at a winery designed by none other than Spanish architect Santiago
Calatrava. As one of the first actual built structures I had ever seen by Calatrava (sans his numerous bridges scattered throughout Spain), I was very impressed.





Seeing Bilbao and the surround region gave me a pretty different perspective on Spain, both geographically and culturally. The trip was a great success, and fortunately I was able to take a newfound knowledge on wine with me back to good old Barcelona. Como mola.

Western European Adventure

So Barcelona has gotten the best of me, and it has been a pretty good amount of time since my last post. I’m going to do my best in a game of catch up to cover everything exciting that has been going on in the past weeks, starting with Spring Break. As far as a ten day trip is concerned, Spring Break was a very ambitious traveling endeavor. My aim was to visit three of the biggest cities in the world – Paris, London, and Rome. Although my choices were probably some of the most typical tourist hot-spots, they had been places I wanted to see with my own two eyes ever since I was a kid. I figured it would be a good opportunity to culturally test out some new waters in comparison to both the United States and Spain as well. I also thought it would be pretty interesting to see the whole “language barrier” put in play, considering going into the trip I only knew about a total of three French and Italian words combined. Lucky for me London was thrown in the middle of the two, and as far as I know my English is still holding up pretty well.

Paris was everything I expected it to be and more right from the start. As my first taste of European life outside of Spain, it took a little while to get adjusted. The hardest part was trying to communicate in any verbal form, considering I knew little to no French (sans the French “key phrases” I had quickly memorized from a Paris travel guide on my flight over). My first taste of Parisian hospitality came as I was checking into my hotel, and the receptionist kindly asked (and by kindly, I mean not so kindly) why most French people know the English language fairly well but hardly any Americans know a word of French. It was a very whole-hearted welcome. In any case, Paris was definitely an architect/tourist heaven. I had the opportunity of visiting and photo-documenting numerous global icons and architectural wonders. First on the list was of course the Eiffel Tower, which I had always dreamed of visiting since about age 5. I even had the opportunity of going to the very top to get a bird’s eye view of the city of Paris, which for me personally was a pretty big feat given my fear of heights. Next on the list was Notre Dame Cathedral, which was just as amazing in person as it was in all my architecture text books, followed by the underground catacombs of Paris. Aside from all the traditional tourist icons, I also decided to visit a few non-traditional spots that for an architecture student held some particular relevance. I spent some time at Renzo Piano’s Pompidou Center, which love it or hate it, was amazing to see in person. I even had the opportunity to take about an hour train ride outside of Paris to Poissy to visit Le Corbusier’s infamous Villa Savoye. Given the fact that I had studied Villa Savoye for numerous projects throughout the past few years of my architectural career, it was almost surreal to be able to see it up close and personal. Perhaps my favorite tourist hot-spot in all of Paris was the Louvre art museum, which I visited (both during the day and at night) a total of about three or four times. All in all Paris was a great success, and I walked away with about 700 pictures.

The city of London was, for all intents and purposes, a breath of fresh air. It was the first time since I had been in Europe that I was able to freely speak in English in public, which was a nice change of pace. Strangely enough, of all the cities I had visited up to that point in Europe, London was the place I felt most at home. Although the weather was a little spotty, the people were friendly and the food was great. I started off my tour of London with a big red bus tour around the city and saw numerous global landmarks like the Tower Bridge and Big Ben, which up until that point never knew was the name of only the bell, not the tower. I also had the chance to stop into the Tower of London (which isn’t actually a tower, but more like a fortress), walk through St. Paul’s Cathedral, look at the Houses of Parliament through huge iron and gold gates, and take a nice boat ride up the Thames River. My favorite architectural spot on my trip to London, however, was the recently restored (by architects Herzog & de Mueron) Tate Modern museum. In the two or three times I visited Tate Modern during my time in London, it quickly became one of my favorite modern art museums in all of Europe. Overall London was a huge success.

The third city on my tour of Western Europe was the historically and architecturally rich city of Rome. It was unfortunately back to little to no public communication due to my lack of knowledge of foreign language, although many people surprisingly spoke English throughout the city. My tour of Rome started with a walk through the Roman Forum, a visit to the Arch of Constantine, and a considerable amount of time spent wandering the Roman Colosseum. I also had the chance to spend some time wandering other notable tourist hot-spots such as the Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, and the Vatican interior and exterior grounds including the Sistine Chapel. Of the three cities visited during my Spring Break, it was in Rome that I felt the most like a tourist. However, it was really interesting to see how Rome compared to the city of Barcelona both architecturally and culturally, given the Roman Empire’s previous occupation of Barcelona hundreds of years ago.

Following the ambitious excursion of Spring Break, it was nice to return to Barcelona where all the sites and sounds were much more familiar. It seems like Barcelona is starting to feel more and more like home every day. Muy bien.