estimar els perduts
we worked hard morning to night to finish up all of our work. (we worked, yeah. all the time, i just forgot to mention it most of the time, but it took up most of our time) the team on the last day:
we ended up with some awesome pieces for ITESM, welllll for their european offices. an awesome online map system that is going to be unbelievably helpful for their students wanting to study abroad. courtney and i also designed some sweet informational packets on each country, and all the cities they have partnership programs in, and a promotional poster for the european offices. (which included doing all of the research in about six different languages, graphic designers foreign fact finding in a little office 10-6 everyday for two weeks, needless to say we were a litttttle crazy by the time we actually got to do some design work) we also created email and powerpoint templates, and an email signature to unify the look of the offices. everything ended up working out, and we have created some very useful, and of course visualllly interesting pieces for our client. SUCCESS!
we watched the spain game at our favorite bar in downtown barcelona, cheers. we were regulars now. (i mean we had been there a month) then we were off to mallorca.
mallorca,
an interesting place. this spanish island in the mediterranean has been taken over by german tourists. german tourists like to party, intense partying. every menu was in german, then spanish. we were the only americans on the island. every time we said we were from america, we got calls of WHY ARE YOU NOT IN IBIZA, WHAT, REALLY?, ENGLISH OHHH ENGLISHHH. people were confused by our presence. besides the endless german club promoters, and the pamphlets about porno castings just down the street, mallorca was beautiful. we finally put our snorkels to use in the mediterranean. it was amazing.
we also had an awesome dinner, in which we ALL ate seafood. real shocker. we are all new people. (and we had some cheesecake, emphasis on the cheese, such a weird thing. the texture, the flavor, so strange)
then it was back to barcelona, back to la garriga, back to barcelona, back to philly, back to nashville, back to knoxville. all in about 36 hours.
im back,
mmmm wanderlust. i finally understand the feeling.
side note: spain won the world cup, mainly because we cheered them on while we were there,.
slt.
VENICE, ITALY
everything about this trip was amazing, even though i was cursed the entire time.
30 min before our flight took off, the atm ate my debit card. like seriously. sucked it up in there, no more card for me. while im at the barcelona airport, about to fly to venice, with 6 euro to my name. so i freaked, naturally.
we got to our island, and i went on a 3 km hike to find a western union that no longer existed, after keeping my parents up all night, it was stressful.
but everything had to be alright, i was in one of the most amazing places on earth.
here are some pictures to enjoy:
if you go anywhere, go to venice.
p.s. everyone is so tan, lovin the italian skin tone.
magic
the mediterranean sparkles in the sun like nothing i have ever seen, i am changed.
bilbao
nightlife was was really fun,
weather was not fun, bilbao didn’t feel much like spain. i am not a big fan of it. people are nicer in barcelona.
seeing my favorite artists work IN PERSON, awesome!
real rauschenberg, in person.
at the gugg!
a lil homesick,
(for barcelona and texas and a few people, not necessarily where i actually call home at this time in my life)
i just want to make every minute count, and i feel like i cant, im running out of time.
OH, in bilbao, we saw a random dance show at 3 am in the metro to the sound of music. like 25 people in unison dancing to this song, such a cool thing to experience. it was awesome, courtney has a video.
we are finally designing, thank god. should be fun from here on out !!
well, we go on the semester at sea ship on friday, they have been a client of ours for almost a year, my monotype print is the basis of all of their new promotional material (posters, postcards, twitter, facebook, etc) they have even already implemented the twitter! It will be so cool to see their ship!
and venice this weekend 
spain: the land of mullets and parachute pants.
i was expecting tall dark and handsome, and believe me, there are plenty….but what surprised me was everything else. there are mullets, mullets everywhere… curly mullets, dreaded mullets, extreme mullets, mild mullets, girl mullets, boy mullets, kid mullets, grandma mullets, black mullets, blonde mullets, every kind of mullet imaginable. i need to start documenting these mullets.
the saggy crotch pant is also a HUGE craze, esp for girls. literally skinny jeans with a saggy crotch, its unusual, but very popular. like there is a diaper under there. there is also a large number of mc hammer pants, big hit.
otherwise, people pretty much look the same. they are just communicating in a language i cant understand. the two weirdest things about the language difference: hearing a 2 year old child speak perfect catalan, (i mean come on stephanie, he can do it, and you cant) AND the cats and dogs over here know catalan. courtney and i laughed about this forever. i mean we are taking care of this cat, but it cant understand us, it speaks catalan, we speak english, come on, even the cat can understand the language.
this whole experience had made me really want to learn another language. like really learn it, i can read a lot of spanish and french, even some catalan, i can even speak a few phrases in all those languages…but i want to be able to hold a conversation, i want to speak at the speed they speak. i need to start practicing.
and we watched spain lose, not so fun.
this week we had a visitor from paris, who helped clarify our projects for us. (and took us to an awesome lunch)
otherwise, work is work, research and research…i just wish we would start designinggggg.
p.s. i am becoming a better cook over here, maybe there are better ingredients, or maybe covering everything in olive oil and vinegar guarantees success? whatever it is, i have made some prettttty good dinners over here.
much love, slt.
first weekend in barca
the work week is done,
the exploration begins.
friday night we explored the night life in la garriga,
through all the sign language and broken spanglish/catalan,
we learned there was no nightlife.
we can always create our own fun. we found a group of guys wanting to practice their english, and intrigued by americans. (apparently this town doesn’t see many) we tried out two bars, and had our first experience with the european double kiss on the cheeks.
saturday we headed to the center of barcelona. we rode into plaza catalunya, and walked down las ramblas. it was an experience. craziness everywhere. i loved it. kind of like a european bourbon street. but on a larger scale, with more variety, a different language, and the mediterranean sea at one end. but really it cannot be compared to anything, anywhere.
sidenote: a man tried to bite courtney, like actually bite her, like a vampire.
after all that walking, and blister making, we reached the sea. so many people, so many vendors of everything you could ever want. empanadas, chunks of coconuts, cans of beer, wraps, weed, massages. seriously, you could lay on this beach and never have to get up as long as you had a few euro to give to the vendors.
i touched the mediterranean, and i never wanna go back. the port at barcelona is beautiful, the beaches are crazy, and the water is blue, REAL blue. i could get used to this.
then we had dinner and watched the usa game at a place along the beach. sangria de cava, yes please. paella, yes please. we ran most of the way to the train station to barely catch the last train to la garriga.
sunday we woke to about 45 constant bells, it’s sunday in a small town in spain. your supposed to get yourself out of bed and into church. we got out of bed, but we headed back to barcelona. our first stop was the fc barcelona stadium, even though we had no idea where it was. we found camp nou, took a few pics, and headed to montjuic. without having any clue what we were doing, we found some amazing sights. we somehow got ourselves to the greatest view in barcelona. we found the diving area for the ’92 olympics, which had breathtaking views of the entire city and port of barcelona. i have never seen anything like it. it really was unreal, we didn’t even know what to say, we jus stared. then we went on a hunt for the castle. all i really wanted to see all day was the castle. too bad we are bus-retarded. we got on the wrong bus, twice. but it took us to the olympic stadium and an awesome little part of town on the mountain. beautiful mistake. you can’t make a mistake here, it all turns out alright.
now it’s back to work….bilbao on saturday
first week!
it’s friday!!!!!
the world cup starts today, and our first work week in barcelona ends.
wednesday night courtney and i cooked dinner for the house. then it was chicken pesto pasta night & boxed sangria on the roof…
thursday we visited an agency in badalona. badalona is a beach town just a train ride north and kind of east of barcelona. the agency was bgmedia, an awesome little shop with a specialty in web work. after the visit we explored a little of badalona. it was raining and the water was freezing, but we stuck our toes in the mediterranean for the first time. it would have been absolutely unreal in the sunshine, but the weather kind of dampened the view. we also ate at a local cafe, where i finally tried crema catalana. the catalan version of creme brulee.
once we got back in barcelona, the sun was out in full force. nothing like the views from our roof on a sunny day.
can’t wait for what our first weekend in barcelona holds…
acabo d’arribar de l’aeroport
we made it to spain, as a big greasy tired mess.
then we had to tackle the trains and metro from the airport in barcelona to la garriga, taking in mind we had all of our luggage, and the main track is under construction. so after a lot of catalan/spanish/french/sign language…… a nice stranger saved us. a man that had spent some time at a university in dallas, my brother basically, who knows if we would have ever made it without him. em pot donar el numero de telefon sisplau…
we finally made it to la garriga, a beautiful little european town. full of tiny cars, windy streets, amazing detailed architecture, graffiti, tanned spanish soccer player types, tapas, sangria in a box, and a crazy cat.
they are making me do all the speaking to locals…..we are all doomed.
here we go
i leave for spain tomorrow. i fly overseas for the first time tomorrow. it all starts tomorrow.
i hope im ready…..
i am really impressed by the small size of my luggage pile, esp since usually i pack my life, and everything i could ever want, for a two day trip. so in packing semi-light, i have succeeded. now lets just hope that is a good sign for the rest of the trip? maybe? that could that be related, right?
so while im in spain i have the same phone number i have had for about eight years now, and i can receive texts for free, sooooo text away, just don’t expect a response :] or get skype and video chat with me.
later america, t’estimo barcelona.
