¡Un Viaje Increíble a España!

While I am not back in Copenhagen, I am currently on a small island in Denmark with my parents, I have made it back from Spain. It was an amazing trip that we packed with about everything we had time for. We flew into Madrid, but took the train down to Toledo, where we spent a couple days. Saw their amazing cathedral, synagogue, another smaller church, and one of El Greco's most famous paintings: The Ascension of Sr. Orgaz, which was pretty awesome. Then we took the train back to Madrid and spent a couple days there. I did some shopping, we went to the Prado Museum, which is one of the best museums in the world! I got to see one of my favorite paintings, Descension of Christ from the Cross by Roger van Der Weyden, which I took a picture of even though I wasn't supposed to. Then we went to the Reina Sofia museum and I saw another one of my favorite paintings, Guernica by Picasso. It's so amazing to have studied all this art and seen the images of these pieces in books and read about their meaning and how you can see different elements, but it's a completely different thing to go and see them in real life. Especially for Guernica, you wouldn't ever get a feel for how large and powerful the painting actually is, without seeing it in real life.

After Madrid we rented a car and drove through what are called the White Cities, because all their walls are whitewashed and so the stick out of the environment. The first stop was in El Escorial, where we saw El Escorial, which used to be a Spanish palace, which had lots of art and a fair amount of information on the architecture of the building including hand-drafted drawings of the plans and details. We then spent the night in Jaen, where I lost my new scarf that I got in Amsterdam the week before, which sad and the next day we drove down to Granada. In Granada we spent 7 hours at La Alhambra, which was pretty cool but exhausting. We spent the night in another White City called Ronda, which a cute little place. The next day we went to Los Arcos de la Frontera, which was another quaint little town where I lay out on the roof top of our hotel in the beautiful sunny weather and got sunburned in less than hour. Ooops, oh well. Finally we stopped in the last White City called Merida where we saw a parade for the beginning of Holy Week, which is a HUGE DEAL in Spain and they were dressed in white robes with large pointy headresses, so that was kind of weird, but totally unrelated to the KKK. You can see the pictures on Picasa and understand what I'm saying. Anyway, we then drove back to Madrid and got a plane to Barcelona where we spent the last three days, most of which were raining so that kind of sucked, but it was cool to see all of Gaudí's work there, including Sagrada Familia and Parque Güell.

I made it back to Copenhagen on Thursday afternoon just in time to do some very much needed laundry and eat dinner and sleep before heading out to Aeroskøbing the next day, where my parents I rented bikes and toured part of the island yesterday.

Sorry this is so incredibly long, but there is just so much to say! Keep an eye out for Spain and Aeroskøbing pictures because they'll be up soon on Picasa!

Well it's been a long freaking time since I have posted. And quite a bit has happened so I'm sorry for being so lax. Anyway. I spent the month of March finalizing my project. I actually designed my own building! Who would have thought? What we had to do for my studio was a gallery infill space. Where we had an empty lot in Copenhagen and we had to create a gallery to hold six specific pieces of art. My project was created through a long process and I really liked it in the end. Pictures should be up soon on Picasa as soon as I download them. My building was two stories with five of the six art pieces being displayed upstairs and the last piece, a cafe, and bathrooms on the lower floor. There was a lot of thought and detail in my building and it's hard to describe in words without being able to point to the particular parts.

The weather is also getting increasingly nicer, which is wonderful and makes me excited because now I can run outside. I decided early this year that I wanted to compete in the first annual Stillwater Marathon, running only the half marathon so I have training for that and so far have gotten up to running 9 continuous miles. But running them outside makes that much better. So that's exciting.

Also, this past week I was in Germany and Holland for my study tour. It was 40 architecture and design students on a bus for a week. But it was AWESOME!! I met some really cool people and saw some of the most amazing things. I think took about 400+ pictures most of which are buildings, but some people. We went to three cities/towns in Germany, and ate a really good steak at a brewery in Düsseldorf. Then we headed for Utrecht in Holland where we stayed at this sweet hotel, that was rated at four stars and we ate another fancy meal, which was delicious. We saw a concert and did a bike tour of Amsterdam and got the afternoon free there. The red light district is totally sketchy and while we were there, there appeared to be some sort of kilt convention because everywhere there were men in kilts. I finally made it back to Copenhagen Saturday morning after an all night bus ride. Only to fly out the next morning to Spain!

So now I'm in Spain, with my parents and my aunt. It has been very busy, but good so far. I think I'll leave the details until I get back to Copenhagen in about a week, seeing as I've already written a short novel!

Miss you all!!