Natural art with man made art.

Barcelona may not have been my personal favorite, but it still had a lot to offer. Spain as whole has such beautiful architecture, and its all wonderful especially the Parque Guell done by Antonio Gaudi.


Antonio Gaudi was a brilliant artist who combined natural art with man made art. Normally you visit a park thinking you see some pretty flowers, some trees, maybe a pond or a river. You would never walk in and expect to see arches, pillars, domes, and mosaics. At Parque Guell that is exactly what you get. When I saw how he incorporated his art to blend so well with nature I was astonished. I had never seen anything like that before. It felt as if we were in a different world. It was like something out of a fantasy. Technically we were in a fantasy, his fantasy.


Another place we visited was Sagrada Familia. This church is amazing. It was started in 1882, and it is still in progress. The 330 ft. towers are considered local landmarks. Gaudi was considered different and unique because of how he would combine different styles to create one. The church was a mixture of medieval and modern elements. The fact that that it is still unfinished will make that much more unique, because now there will be more modern feel that still follows his pattern.

After seeing these two great pieces by Gaudi, me and some other students decided to go look for a lucky turtle. This turtle was shown in the Disney Channels Cheetah Girls. It is said that if you rub the turtle you will have good luck for a year. So the whole time we are looking for the turtle I’m thinking that its pretty big statue of a turtle. Well it turned out to be a medium size sculpted turtle that was on a wall. It was pretty funny all of us were rubbing the heck out of that turtle. So far nothing really lucky has happened to me so we’ll see if the turtle really works.

Mellow atmosphere.

Right now I´m in Valencia. We´re having lunch on a patio of a cafe. This is just how I imagined it. Sitting down and just watching th world go by me. It feels so hot you can literally feel your skin toasting. I was in the sun no onger than five minutes and I already have tan lines. Its worth it though.
Valencia is so relaxing. It reminds me of the beach back home for an exception of the water. The Gulf of Mexico is more like river water, and here the water is more like a saphire blue. I didn´t get a close up of the beach but what I saw was more than enough to get me to come back.
Lunch was great. Being from Texas I´m used to eating fried fish, and i normally don´t eat fish any other way. This fish that we had at the restraunt was so juicy and full of flavor I just couldn´t resist. It was baked and smothered with butter sauce that had some lemon in it. After that we had baked apples. I had never had baked apples, and I´m gladI tried them. It was a whole green apple, like the granny smiths, covered with carmel baked to perfection. The apple itself was still crunchy on the outside becuase of the skin, but it was nice and soft on the inside. Most of the juice from the apple came out and blended with the carmel.
What made the meal even better was the entertainment. A man just sat off to the side playing his guitar and singing. You could tell that he took his art very seriously becuase he showed up with an amp and a microphone. Normally the street performers show up with just an instrument and box for money.
Valencia has a mellow atmosphere. The people are friendly, the weather is comfortable and the experience is one of kind. Well I´m off to see another one of a kind article...the Holy Grail.

Finally real fresh air!

Well we are here in Barcelona. It is a nice city but its not my favorite. I do like how it does have a big city feel to it. There are many shops here alot of them name brands such as H&M and Louie Vaton. In way it reminds me of a spanish version of New York. We did take a guided tour that had alot of information to offer. We went to park that was just so alive. What I mean is that there was so much green and flowers that I, for the first time ever, saw, smelled, and felt what real nature feels like. All of spain is like that in a sense. There is no trash, and hardly any pollution. Everything is so clean. When you breath you don´t smell the gas fumes, trash, or sewage. It smells fresh, like when after it rains, you can get hints of water and grass mixed when you breath in.
The tours are fun but what i like most is walking around and exploring the city. I like to just walk and watch a listen to everything that is goin on around me. I understand spainish but not that greatly. I noticed that when I´m trying to listen to conversations the ones in english are then ones that pop out, becuase I understand them better. Alot of the Americans I´ve overheard seem to agree with me in the sense that Spain is alot more clean than the States. One couple was talking about how they didn´t want to go back home. They were on a cruise of some sort and they decided to stay an a couple of more days. As they walked away I believe I heard the female say they were headed back to California. California has the worst air in the US, so its understandable as to why they prefer this air. I find it amazing how you can just tell the difference.
Another thing I´ve noticed is that when we would walk into a gift shop they owners would always ask if we were mexicans. Naturally we would say being that we are of mexican origin. After saying yes, one of the men turned to the others as if to make the announcement that we were indeed mexicans. I´m not sure if there is any significance to that but I did find it interesting. In away I´m afraid to say I´m American. I´m not sure why its not like I´m ashamed of it or anything.
Well either way I am having fun. This is a once in a lifetime experience and I´m glad i was able to take advantage of it. I strongly encourage anyone who has the opportunity to take it. Well unitl next time...

Knowledge overload...

We are here in San Sebastian, it is a beautiful city I haven’t left and I want to come back already. Yesterday we were in Bilboa and we went to the Guggenheim museum. I only liked two exhibits there, the dress exhibit and the maze. The dress exhibit was about the goddesses. It was dresses coated in led and for their heads the artist used something to signify what they represented. Like the goddess of war he used tall spiked branches for the head. The maze exhibit was just fun. When walking through it you would feel as if you are twisting and turning because depending on the angle of the wall it would get closer or farther away from you. I felt like a rat in a maze. I never got my cheese at the end of the mazes though. If I had to choose between all the museums I would go back to the Prado. The Prado is so much better in my opinion. At the prado they have a painting by Goya titled “The third of May” which depicted Napoleons invasion.

Test of time....

It’s my fourth day here in Spain. In this little amount of time that I’ve been here I’ve been able to see so much. Yesterday we went to the Prado and saw so many great pieces of art. To be honest I was not completely thrilled about going to the museum, but once I got there and took a look at the religious based art I was intrigued. The way so many of the artists portrayed their version of heaven and hell was interesting. I find that what I like most about Spain is the art and architecture. The buildings and paintings and dance ect... are things that you don’t see back home in the states. We are so into the modern and technical. Its more common to find archaic pieces of art here then it is over there. Every corner you turn there’s something that has somehow manage to survive the test of time and still looks just as beautiful as it did so many years ago. Today, June 14, 2007, we are in Burgos. We will be visiting the Burgos Cathedral which took about 300 years to build. The fact that people here are so proud of these things that they dedicate their time, effort, and money into up keeping it so people like me and the rest of the group can come and enjoy it. Last night some of the group went to a flamenco performance. It was held in the back of small restaurant, so the setting was very intimate. I was so blown away by every second of that performance. The music was intense, the singers’ voice was phenomenal, and the dancers were so passionate. The singer took my breath away his voice literally took me to another world where nothing existed but his voice, his music, and his story. The male dancer danced as if though not only his life but everyone else’s in that room depended on it. A show like this could have probably been seen back home in San Antonio, Texas, but it would not have the same effect. The intimate setting, the fact that we were in Madrid added so much more to the moment itself. Although it may not be apart of our history it is still apart of our ancestors and where we came from.

Hit the ground running....

Well we’re in for one heck of a ride. After two very long fights we finally reached our destination...Madrid, Spain. It is so beautiful. The fact that I’m here hasn’t really hit me yet. Today when we got to the hotel my roommates and I decided to take a nap before meeting up in the lobby to start our tour. Well that didn’t work out quite the way we had planned. We had to get a call from Denise to wake us up. After I answered I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I’m more than certain I scared my roommates. It was embarrassing as well as rude and I do more than apologize for our tardiness. However bad it was though I must say that at dinner when me and one of my other roommates were talking about it...it was kind of funny the way we ran down 7 flights of stairs. None the less it won’t happen again that’s for sure. After that incident we went on the Palacio De Madrid. It was absolutely breath taking. I loved the rooms and the paintings up on the ceiling. There was just so much to take it...it was hard. After we took the tour we went outside and took several group pictures. That was so fun because, everybody wanted a picture with their camera. So one person would be taking several pictures with so many different cameras. We would stay in the same place for like five minutes but it’s worth it. Dinner was good although, it was not quite what I expected. I did however enjoy the dessert. After this we will go back to the hotel and shower and rest because at 2 a.m. some of us are getting up and going to a bar to watch the Spurs game!!! I’m really looking forward to that. Even though I just got here and I love it...I miss home so much already. As much as I argue with my family I can’t wait till I get to see them again. Go Spurs Go!!!!!!!!!!

Culture influences on Spain

Spain is called the Iberian Peninsula because the Iberians were the first group to enter Spain. They brought with them their knowledge of metalwork, including bronze, and agriculture. The typical Iberian was quarrelsome, suspicious of strangers and superstitious in religion amongst other things. The Spaniards throughout history have pretty much kept these characteristics alive. The Greeks, Phoenicians, and Romans are three other groups that influenced Spain. The Greeks developed olive and vine cultures. They are also credited with striking the first coin. The most notable legacy is the classic influence on Iberian sculpture. Because of the Phoenicians alphabet the Iberians were able to put their language into written form. Roman impact on Spain was a great one. Though the Romans did not have an easy time with invading Spain once they did they left quite a mark. The Romans built roads, bridges, aqueducts, towns, an advanced legal system, their language is the base of most peninsular tongues, but most of all they brought Christianity.