Valencia cont....

Okay, I'm back from the architecture thing that was actually an opening for the World Press 2006 photos and was kind of interesting. A Canadian actually won the contest so if you want to check it out I'm sure you can ask the oracle! Anyway...back to Valencia. Demitri and I spent the day walking around the old city and then made our way back to the hostel to go on a run in the old river bed. The river had been flooding the city and it was decided that they would divert the river around the city and fill it in with a motorway or a park. Thankfully, they opted for the park now there is a huge greenspace that everyone can use. That night we went on a pub crawl with our hostel....nuff said. They next day we scouted out the market. Here I am eyeing up some fresh figs! It is aparently the largest covered market in Europe, but you know how people like to toot their own horn! After that we slept in the park for an hour or so and then made our way down the old river bed and found some climbing holds on one of the bridges and decided to boulder for awhile. Unfortunately running shoes don't keep you on the wall very long!

After we walked to Gulliver's park which is a big playground of slides all over Gulliver's body. I can't really describe it, but it was fun. Maybe the picture will help?!? Please visit it if you find yourself wandering around Valencia.

Next we were off to entertain Demitri with some architecture by Calatrava. He build the science centre, imax, and the art museum, which are all partially visible in this photo. Pretty space age to say the least and absolutely stunning on a brilliant blue day like the one we had. Sunday we just visited museums and such and took the train back to Barcelona.

Valencia

Hola Chicos, Here's a little update from our trip to Valencia...about two weeks ago. We left BCN in the rain and when we got to Valencia it was a beautiful sunny day and we climbed the tower to get a view of the old city. Here is us up on top in the wind. D got a hair cut last week too! Talk to you later cause I'm going to an architecture thing and they're leaving now!

Le fin de semana pasado

Hola, Well the weekend was the best of times and the worst of times. I spent Saturday climbing at a place just south of Barcelona called Garraf. The climbing wall was right on the water and was just a beautiful place to hang out and relax for the day as well as get some great climbs in. It was an interesting place because as you can see in the picture there is a nice flat gravel that we are standing on. Well, that is actually a canopy over the train line which runs along the sea. The train was suprisingly quiet as it rumbled by every half hour or so. We stayed until we basically ran out of light, which happens here at about 5:30. Here is a nice picture of James rappelling in the sunset! (Yes, Carol, he got down alive!!)
Our next adventure of the weekend happened shortly after the climbing trip. I was feeling a little quesy; however, I wasn't sure if it was my crazy spanish friends driving or something else....and it was something else. I made it home and found out Demitri had been sick with some bug all day as well. It was a pretty rough night with both of us sick with the flu. There has been something going around and almost half the arch. class has been sick so far. Anyway, after a long sleep we felt much better and visited Casa Mila, an apartment by Gaudi, in the afternoon. It was neat and it would be very liveable today even though it was built around 1910. There was lots of light in all the rooms, which is very different than most places I have been in here (especially our place, which has no natural light). The roof was awesome..here is a chimney with a water holding tank in the background. I really liked the balconies, which are made out of recycled iron. Adios, Andi

Hi Everyone, it's the worst blogger ever finally coming to update the blog! We have lost our internet connection at our house so that's my excuse for never blogging.

Okay so here is the update....

In the past few weeks we went to Sitges (south of BCN), had a Halloween party, went to an XaiverRudd concert, visited Montserat, got a haircut, went to a futbol game, and probably a lot of other things.

Nothing really new

So I started taking spanish classes four days a week, which is great. Other than that nothing is really new except, well everything I've done in the past week....We went to Park Guell by Gaudi on the weekend and it was pretty cool. I actually haven't done a lot of Gaudi yet so I was pretty impressed. There were a million tourists, which is interesting because it's the end of October and supposed to be deserted compared to the summer. Just a warning to anyone that wants to come to Spain in July or August. Then the next night we went to an Xaiver Rudd concert. It was hilarious because the entire audiance was Aussies or Brits. I'll get some new photos to add pronto! Till then, Hasta luego.

Back to the Coast

We headed back to the Mediterranean to get some sun and a head start on the long drive back to BCN. Cheif navigator, Leisia got us safely to our hostel in Marseille and when we woke up the next morning we decided to make the most of our sunny day and went sea kayaking.
It was pretty beautiful as you can tell. Since the architects were pretty anxious to see some more buildings we also went to the original Unite d'Habitation by Corbusier before we started our drive through the night back to BCN.

Now we're just getting settled into our routine here. I mostly drink wine and D is trying to catch up on some school after the week in France. D's mom, Angela, is also here so we are eating well!

Adios!

Le Corbusier - Firminy, France

Probably the best thing we did in the Lyon area was visit the town of Firminy where there is the highest concentration of Corbusier buildings in the world. We first visited the Unite d'habitation which is an appartment complex. Then we saw the stadium and community centre.

They have only recently finished the church, which was truley incredible. When Corbo died only the foundation of the church had been poured. After much discussion whether or not to finish the church it was restarted and completed only a few days before we got there.



It was a veryinteresting little town where everyone is a huge Corbo fan. We didn't have anything organised when we got there, but people were so excited to talk about it that we even met the currator of the community centre and spoke to him at lenght about the buildings. The architects were in heaven and I thought the buildings were pretty neat too. They look like a bit of a concrete jungle but once I got right up to them I saw how much thought went into the design.

Millau

Here is the bridge that made all the architects really happy en route to Lyon. It's in Millau and it's the highest auto bridge in the world. Looks pretty sexy, eh?

The Pyranees

So, it's been a while since our last entry, but we have been busy travelling throughout France. We rented a car with 10 other students and headed for the Pyranees. Getting out of BCN was something similar to National Lampoon's Eurpean Vacation. After a few minutes trying to get out of the parking lot it was questionable as the whether or not we would even make it to France. The other interesting thing about renting cars in Spain is that you don't have to return it with a full tank, which means that not only were we driving in circles, our E light was on within minutes of getting the car!! We were quite relieved to find a gas station and the autoroute and made it to the Pyranees just south of Andorra in good time once we got out of BCN. Of course in McWicz style, we headed out to bag a peak the next morning. We went to a place up from a village called Lles which I absolutely fell in love with and summitted a near 3000 m peak on the Espana/Andorra boarder. Here's a few pics of the place we went hiking. That pillar in our summit shot is the boarder marker.

Hola, We are both in Barcelona now and I've basically slept the entire time since I arrived 24 hours ago. I guess that's the great thing about staying for a while...you can recover before you have to start sightseeing!

I woke up in the early afternoon and we went to the beach for a cool dip in the sea. It was a chilly day for the locals and the architecture students who've been here for a month now, but for me it was a balmy 25! I've already bought a pair of shoes too. Now, it's off to the market and then out for sangaria. I think I'll like it here!
Adios, Andi