ALHAMBRA – Junio 19

On Saturday we had tickets to visit Alhambra, the 13th century palace of Ibn al-Ahmar, the Sultan of this Iberian region of España. It was awesome to experience the palace with 5 other Architecture students because were able to stop in each room, photograph, sketch and discuss many of the architectural nuances’. We spent the whole day there – it was an architect’s dream! We were in awe of the simplistic architectural form that was able to enhance the strategic views and intricately detailed décor. Because the Muslum religion does not allow iconic décor, all of the engravings were made up of geometric tiling and repetitive engraving. It was so well restored that I felt as though I was experiencing the Palace in its prime!

GRANADA – Junio 18-20

Friday morning we woke up in Murcia and headed to Granada for our three day weekend. After two bus transfers and a mile walk up hill we arrived at our hostel around 2pm and immediately went out exploring!

A pictures from our hostel: White Nest Hostel. It was in a perfect location and it was so nice! All six of us stayed in an 8 person room. Our other two roommates ended up being two girls from California studying in Alicante for the summer, what a small world.

We had a view of Alhambra from our hostel’s courtyard balcony! It was so cool lit up at night.

In the evening we went out to experience the night life…Spanish cities don’t really come to life until after 10pm. Children are out playing in the streets until 2am…its so weird.

The awesome thing about Granada is that throughout the city there are Tapa Bars. Where with any drink purchased you get free Tapas! So basically all our meals were bought buying 1.8€ caña (small beer) and getting a free sandwich! Eating in Granada has been the cheapest out of all the cities we have visited thus far.

Cañas + tapas = happy Jenni : D

MURCIA – Junio 17

Last Thursday we had a class field trip to Murcia to visit Rafael Moneo's Town Hall building. It sits in juxtaposition to the town cathedral and was highly controversial at its opening in 1998. Our professor sent us without him to sketch and observe the plaza for ourselves. In this panorama you can see the two facing one another. I personally love the dichotomy between the two, I think they compliment one another perfectly! A group of six of us (Team Granada as we call ourselves) stayed the night in Murcia in order to get an early start on our trip to Granada while the rest of the class continued on their separate trips or headed back to Guardamar. Observing the city at night provided a whole new perspective. You can really feel the tension in the community’s priority when all of the older buildings are lit up at night and the façade of the City Hall is left dark. I was so glad that we were able to stay.


Cathedral on the Left, City Hall on the Right.

We also stumbled upon a series of Santiago Calitrava’s Rio Bridges which was a pleasant surprise. Now I can check more of his Bridges off my list!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RILEY!! - Junio 15

IT'S A GIRL!!!
I became an Aunt today! to Miss Riley Cathleen Cameron!
I can't wait to meet her when I return home in August. I love you - J, Jud and Riley. I'll keep your new family in my prayers daily. I already want to spoil my new niece with gifts from Spain!

8 lbs 11 oz , 21 1/2 in.

ALICANTE CASTILLO – Juno 12

Alicante is the next big city to the North of us on the Mediterranean. Our big sister city if you will. We took a day trip (45 min, 3 Euro bus ride) to Alicante to visit their Castillo (Castle) in order to learn more about our Castillo in Guardamar. The Alicante Castle is MUCH larger than our site and it is much more preserved. Modern architects have done work to renovate a portion of the entrance to create a welcoming community park space. This was great for us to observe experience and study in gathering information for our eventual design proposal. After we finished our tour of the park we hiked to the top of the castle and could see all the way to Guardamar! It is beautiful here! But since Monday it has been POURING rain which is really random but we are working in Studio all day (and night) so it hasn’t been too much of a hassle. Alex (our Studio Professor) has been giving us nonstop work for class but we have a break this weekend! We have a travel weekend (one of two for the semester). A few friends of mine in the program and I just booked our bus ride and hostel for Granada, Spain to see Alhambra. We wanted to go to Bilboa but so last minute it was going to end up being almost $300 to get there and back! No bueno. Granada will be awesome…we just have to be back in time for class Monday.

PARQUE DE LA ERETA at the foot of the mountain.

You can see why they picked this location for defense, by land and by sea!

A few of us with our Professor out front of the castle.

Some of the cityscape leading up the entrance. It is so picturesque!

TORREVIEJA - Junio 8

On Tuesday we took a city tour to the adjacent cities of Torrevieja (South) and Santa Pola (North) to get a taste of the region’s culture. In Torrevieja we stopped at a look out point to enjoy the beautiful scenery. God’s beauty takes my breath away!

We learned of the region’s dependence on Salt mining and what an old tradition it is. Just the pure image of the huge salt piles fascinated the artistic eye of us architecture students. We spend 30 min. photographing the area, the local’s must have thought we were crazy! Our professor confessed that he always thought they were beautiful but could never quite get others to agree…he was so relieved to know we felt the same way. Traveling with other designers is such a different experience. When a moment catches your eye on the street that you feel compelled to photograph you stop and 4 other students have already spotted the same moments and then you begin to discuss it. I fell like I am in a whole new world where everybody gets me!

GUARDAMAR DEL SEGURA – home sweet home

We are finally getting settled here in Guardamar where I will be living for the next 7 weeks. This is the view from the balcony of our apartment…life could be worse!

Some pictures of our place. This is the Studio space rented for us by our professor. At fist it didn’t seem like much, but within a few day we made it our own.

Or first pin-up of work was on Friday. Our assignment was to study and diagram the city of Guardamar and to become familiar with its culture. What we learned is that the town shuts down for a siesta between 2pm and 5pm and that wine is culturally mandatory with lunch.

This is the site given for our studio project. It is a vacant lot at the top of Guardamar’s Castle ruins. I am so excited to be working with a historic piece of architecture. By the end of the semester my diagrams with inform my design of the urban renewal project I propose for the site.

The city of Guardamar

As a party of the City’s weekly ritual we had to study the Marcadio! It sets up every Wednesday and completely takes over the central streets of town. It was so lively and great to see tourists and locals intermixing with the venders.

The Beach!

ALICANTE - Junio 7

Metro at 6:00 am Monday morning to catch our train at 7:12 from Atoche, Madrid to the Alicante Terminal to meet up with the rest of our class flying in from SFO. We became very familiar and comfortable with the metro, its only 1€ / $1.30 to go anywhere in Madrid!

Atoche Train Station

Our first train ride! 4 hours from Madrid to Alicante

MADRID - Junio 5-7

Las Musas Residence was the Hostel we stayed at near Plaza Mayor in Madrid. Madrid was surprisingly safer than we had anticipated. The nights were refreshingly warm and the streets became populated with the community hustle bustle just after sunset (10pm). Most restaurants were open until Midnight or later and the courtyard became filled with grandmas, grandpas, teens and parents as if it were five in the afternoon. Tourists stick out like a sore thumb because they are the only one stupid enough to walk around site seeing in the blazing hot noon sun. The locals are the smart ones enjoying the city in the coolest part of the day.

View from the Hostel Dinning area. Tina, Christine and I stayed there 3 days and 3 nights. On the second day we ran into Annie, another girl in our program that coincidentally happened to travel to Madrid and book the exact same hostel as us!

ANNIE ME TINA CHRISTINE

MADRID - Junio 5-7

FRANKFURT - Junio 4

How did I end up in Germany, you ask? The story begins the morning of June 4th when all of United Airline’s kiosks decided to break down leaving me stuck in a quarter mile long line wrapping the entire international terminal of SFO. I arrived 2 hours before my flight as instructed. After two hours had passed I was still in line to check in my bags and receive my boarding pass and had consequently missed my flight. Sleep deprived and anxious to get to Madrid I broke down at the Customer Service desk as the United representative informed me that there was no other flight to New Jersey that would allow me to catch my group flight in their layover to Madrid. I had no other choice than to change my ticket to a 10 hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany followed by a 2 hour flight to Madrid scheduled to land 4 hours after my flight with my friends landed. My Germany flight ended up being delayed another hour and a half stranding Tina and Christine in the Madrid airport for 5.5 hours! But we made it safely 36 hours later and thank God none of our baggage was lost in the mix up.

My first look at Spain