Graffiti the City

Well, like I said “at least as of right now...” The prof turned out to be better once we met with him as a group (just us Aggies this time). It was just that yesterday he (probably without knowing it) made us look and feel bad. But today was different.

Before I go on about what happened in class today, let me start from the beginning. I woke up a little later than I wanted and my roommate took just long enough in the shower for me to not be able to take one before we had to go. But it’s alright...it was the first thing done when I got back, and I had taken a really late shower the day before. We had to speed walk it wherever we went though. We only had 40 minutes to get to school and that’s about how long it takes...if you really hurry. We flew to the Metro, and I bought a 90 day pass (for 95 Euros I get unlimited use of the city’s transportation services for 90 days...good deal). This was the first time that we weren’t following the whole group on the Metro, so we had to figure out where to go, which one to get on, on our own. Fun times. Learning experience, hehe. We made it to the final stop and walked out up into the middle of this open area called Plaza Cataluña. We had been here the day before, but in this time crunch it looked totally different. We weren’t exactly sure which direction to go. There were cars passing and people walking every which way...it was a busy center. We quickly walked in one direction for a while and I asked someone where this certain street that we were looking for and she pointed behind us, so we high tailed it in that direction. Eventually we found the right street and made our way to class...to arrive just in time.

Our prof, Diego Ferrari, explained our photography project some more and went through the roster and talked to us one on one with the group. He was finding out more about us and what we are trying to do with our major, etc in order to use it towards our project. He also wanted to find out what has interested us about Barcelona since we’ve been here in order to focus the scope of our photography. Dave and I told him about the Visual Studies track that we are in compared to everyonce else that is focusing more on architecture, and he was able to help us figure out how we can sort of incorporate that in as well. When he talked to me and asked me what had intrigued me about Barcelona, I told him that one thing that has really caught my eye is all the graffiti that is around the city. He made some good points that there is good graffiti and bad graffiti and the ones that have more purpose actually add to the urban landscape. So basically I am going to base my photography project on kind of documenting the graffiti and show how it is used in different settings. Something like that...it’s hard to explain. But what was really cool was that when we were talking about it, everyone else thought it was a really neat idea and were jealous that I get to do it. Kind of funny to be jealous that I get to take pictures of graffiti and not really the architecture of the area, but it’s still cool.

We then went out into the immediate areas around the school to begin taking pictures. We spent a good few hours walking around and I took at good 200 pictures. Not surprising, I know. The areas around Barcelona, at least the areas that I have been to so far, are not what people imagine them to be. This is a busy city and there is multiple story housing all around and shops on the bottom and stuff like that. It’s almost like parts of New York City, minus all the skyscrappers. Definately not what I was expecting when I got here, but definately not worth putting down. It is very interesting.

After class, we were starving so some of us went out in search for food. We found this really neat pita place with really good food for about 4 Euros. It definately hit the spot. Then we made our way back to the apartment and I took my much needed shower, downloaded my pictures to the computer, and fell asleep. My roommate took a nap also. Next thing I know, it’s 5 hours later, dark outside and we need to go get groceries before it’s too late. I didn’t want a repeat of yesterday...

So we went to SuperSol and got some food to last the rest of the week for about 5 Euros each. Definately the way to go... It’s 9:30 now and I am going to look through my photos and see which ones I like the most and start organizing them.

I’m not sure what the rest of the night will bring. The night is definately young (not even begun to start) according to the Spaniards, so I am going to see what’s up. I only have Spanish class tomorrow from 12:30-4 tomorrow, so that’s good.

More to come later...