McWicz

My new knitting project

2007-10-20T07:56:00.000-07:00

Inspired by smoothie hats that JKBN was knitting, I want to get starting on my next knitting project, Dawn. Only problem is that if I start now I will be done in about July. I really wanted to finish Anouk, but now that the baby I was knitting it for is about a year....(I think I have a problem).

An evening with AG...for $150

2007-04-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

So I spent last night listening to Al Gore present his "inconvenient truth" about global warming live at the Jack Singer Concert Hall in Calgary. It was essentially exactly like the film with a few more Canadian twists. I was pretty pissed off that I spent $150 to see what I had already watched on a free movie pass, then I remembered I got the ticket for the live show free too...phew, thanks U of C. Fortunately, there are enough people in Calgary that will only listen to the Climate Change debate if it costs them $150. The show was sold out. It must be important if it's that expensive...right? Well, the anti-global warming protesters outside didn't think so....(I couldn't find actual Calgary protesters but you get the idea!). Please read the book or see the film if you haven't already http://www.climatecrisis.net/ I think it's worth it:)

Spring has sprung

2007-03-23T16:05:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly three weeks since I last posted. Wow, time flies after day light savings time starts. I just never seem to be home anymore. Spring has sprung in Calgary... complete with a good snowfall on the first day of Spring! Environment Canada http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2007/03/22/weather-office.html#skip300x250 is still hearing about it as they forcasted "cloudy with sunny periods" at 5:00 am when over 5 cm's had come down since midnight when it started snowing and continued to snow nearly 10cm's more!

The perils of change

2007-03-05T16:20:00.000-08:00

No, I don't mean something different, but actually $$ in coin form. Yesterday I rolled over $80.00 in pennies, nickles, dimes, and quarters (no loonies or toonies). So anyone want to go for a coffee?

2007-03-02T19:38:00.000-08:00

Vancouver is sinking?

The 2010 Olympics may have to use this logo if we don't curb carbon emissions.

Hopefully it won't come to that. Good design Demi you should sell this to AD BUSTERS!!

Sustainability Eh?

2007-02-20T18:22:00.000-08:00

So "sustainability" seems like the biggest thing to hit Canada since, well I'm not sure what. Anyway, I'm trying to come to terms with my distaste of the word "sustainability". It's a shame that politicians start using a word and all of a sudden I hate it. The fact is that one word does a pretty good job at getting the point across. Today Demitri was at a International tele-conference with other Architecture schools to get some momentum behind sustainable design. Apparently, architecture is one of the biggest sources of global warming because of poorly designed buildings. Think about it. Here's a link for all you keeners, http://www.2010imperative.org/onboard.html

In other news, Demitri beat me at scrabble last night 283 to 234. He took a commanding lead when he put down "cleaved" and used all his letters for a bonus 50 points. I on the other hand had 5 'i's', an 'o' and a 'y', which was obviously pretty sweet. Still it was better than being cloistered like last time he put down all his letters! If you loved the movie "Word Wars", you'll be interested to know that this guy (left) just took over number one spot as the US scrabble champ! Click on the pic for more info.

What gets me hot...

2007-02-13T16:57:00.000-08:00

under the collar that is. So I'm riding home from work, it's minus 23 degrees outside and I'm crossing the 14th St. bridge on the Bow river BIKE PATHWAYS. There is a man and his dog walking towards me and I think I'll say hello because it's very Canadian to say hello to other people out in the cold suffering like you are. As I approach this guy he yells out to me "Get of the sidewalk please". I am taken aback by his comment as I think to myself that 1)I'm on a bike path 2)It has been snowing for the past 10 days 3)The streets don't get plowed in Calgary so it's too dangerous to bike on the street 4) I'm on a bike path 5) They do clear the bike paths in winter (probably to encourage bike communters not to ride on the street where they will likely be killed in minutes). 6) This guy is an asshole and 7) Did Imention I am on a bike path. Anyway, I thought I'd see what's up and what did I find out... 14th Street is a BIKE/Pedestrian Bridge as noted on the river pathways map no matter what the season, all pathways are shared use during the winter months, and that generally people who yell at cyclists are assholes. I really hope I get to see this guy again tomorrow..... (ps, yes, I even had to grow a beard like this guy to stay warm this winter and I don't have any arms either and I still got yelled at)

2007-02-05T11:57:00.000-08:00

This is my friend Jeremy. It is his birthday today. He was born sometime in the late 1970's, as I'm sure you can tell by the sweet van he is posing beside. He is good at things like skiing, biking, scrambling, and making lunch. He's also very good at wiring dryers and electrical stuff like that. We all think Jer is pretty cool. Happy Birthday Jeremy!

The Volvo Express

2007-02-04T17:09:00.000-08:00

That's right. The McWicz's bought a new car! Just as the Canadian Gov't seems like they may be doing something to get rid of old cars we bought a 12 year old swedish tank! It runs well and is "eggplant" aka "aubergine" aka "purple-ish" in colour. Better yet, it has now made it back and forth to the mountains twice! Mission accomplished. It seems I have a "Barcelona style" internet connection so I'll add pic later. By the way Julie, I've made two February resolutions 1) Blog more (not hard because I only blogged once in Jan) and 2) Not to talk on my cell while driving (started that one when I bought the car!). ~A

black velvet..if you please

2007-01-10T19:55:00.000-08:00

Yikes! I've been home for about 72 hours and Calgary and the rest of western Canada has been hit hard with winter and all the fun things that go along with it like; -30, a freezing cold wind from the NW, and snow blowing across the prairie faster than it's falling from the sky. Anyway, I tried to warm up by going for a pint. Since I was recently in Ireland I ordered a "Crown Float" , which for those of you who don't know it's a cider topped with a Guinness crown. I must say that it was an utter failure in Ireland (but really who would ruin a Guinness in Ireland?) and at Ceili's Pub in Calgary this evening. So, in my efforts to find out why it was so hard to get a good crown float, I thought I'd ask all knowing Google. To my surprise it the first hit was and article from the U of C campus newspaper the Gauntlet. Here's the link to my beloved drink! http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/8036 and a recipe for those that want to try it at home or give a bar tender a rundown of the spoon technique!! http://www.extratasty.com/recipe/675/black_velvet_aka_crown_float

Heading Home

2007-01-08T03:21:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone,

D and I are on the last leg of our trip, well actually D got to go home on an earlier flight yesterday and I am just living large in a hotel in Dallas, Texas. Everything really is large here. I have two giant TV's in my room, a king sized bed, and a huge bathroom and this is just the budget hotel for a person on the "Distressed Passenger Rate" (it's sweet if you can pull it off). We spent the previous night in the Gatwick airport, which was actually okay using a handy tip from sleepinginairports.com We hit up the chapel and got some shut eye. We even turned off the light for a while, but some airport employees who also use the area for napping on their breaks came and told us it had to be on. Anyway, my big beef was not the light, but actually someone that came in around 2am and snored the entire night. I couldn't believe that they didn't wake themselves up with the noise. D and I are getting quite good at living in airports....maybe I'll start a website. We even washed our hair in the bathroom in the morning!

See ya north of the 49th!

Andi

ps - we found this doll in Granada, Spain. Nice, eh?

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T13:55:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone, I guess it's catch up time on the old Blog! Demitri and I are now in Belfast visiting Julie and Stu, and almost finished our trip. Where to start...in summary, we left Barcelona on the 7th of December and headed for Lisbon. Spent a week in and around Lisbon and along the south coast of Portugal. The next week we travelled in southern Spain from Seville to Granada and into the Sierra Nevada mountain range where we climbed the highest mountain on the Iberian Peninsula (one of my highlights). Tried to get some snow in the Alps for Christmas, but there is some sort of drought that did not foster skiing. We managed to get some turns in regardless (or at least we skidded around on the icy, windswept slopes for a week). We'll be headed down to Dublin in a few days and then it is back to Canada where I will likely blog more regularly; however, possibly about less exciting things than I've been doing for the past 3 months! I'll add some pictures from our travels as a New Year's resolution.

Happy New Year

Valencia cont....

2006-11-28T12:45:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-28T09:52:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-07T07:40:00.000-08:00

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

2006-10-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-18T09:35:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-18T08:56:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-10-04T10:41:00.000-07:00

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