The Tree Adventure

Yesterday was a long day of lectures. They were very interesting, but it was a long day. Nothing new and exciting happened...I went to bed early.


Today, we had our first studio class. We’ve had studio, but it was only for the photography project with Diego Ferrari. Now, we’re getting started with the main bulk of our design studio with Juan Carlos Sanchez. He went through the agenda for the semester and then we finished up class by completing the presentations and critiquing that didn’t happen last Friday. So that meant that my group was able to present. Both Juan and Diego liked the project, but of course, they had constructive criticism to give. Basically they told all of us that what we had done was a very good start. I mean, we only had only about a full week to figure out Barcelona, pick a subject, photograph it, and present it in some way. I think we all did a great job in the amount of time given. And, like the profs said...we all now have a good thing that we can expand on if we like. So overall, our project was a success.

After that, we didn’t have any more classes for the day, so Mike, both Scotts, and I went and ate at a Chinese food restaurant for lunch. They had very good portions for little money, so that was great. Then we came back to Marti to drop off some stuff and then headed back out to see some more of Barcelona.

Mike, Scott S. and I went over to another Olympic site that is on the northern part of the city. It was pretty nice, but it wasn’t too exciting. We looked around and saw an opportunity for adventure. We looked up at all of the huge hills on the outskirts of the city and noticed one close to us that had a single tree near the top. We just had to go see it. So we set off on an almost impossible journey trying to figure out how to get to it. We came about a road that was near the base of the hill and spotted a “trail” that led upward. The trail was very bad, but with some hiking around, we made it to another road that had an area for a scenic lookout. We took some pictures of the city since we had a nice view of it from a different angle than what we had when we climbed the hill outside of Park Güell. But we still had a goal and the tree was still farther up.

We managed to climb up some more and found a dirt road that led up in the direction of the tree. But that road stopped near some fenced off area for something. We found a path that led around the fenced area up toward the tree and took that. The path was full of loose dirt and weeds and as we climbed, we wondered how we were going to be able to make it back down without sliding. Somehow, we were able to bushwack up some more and came to where the tree was. Success! Of course, we took some pictures because of the silliness of the whole adventure. It was nice and windy and we hung out for a little bit. But what we noticed, was that where the tree was...that was only a small part of the hill. It went up and out even more! So, of course, we hiked on. After we went a little farther, we decided that we should start heading down before it got any later. I found a bigger trail that led farther away, but I had a good feeling that it would lead us out. Mike and Scott didn’t want to follow me, but after some convincing, they did. The bushes and thorny weeds were higher than normal, but we made it. It had been part of an actual trail that leads all over the tops of the hills in the area. We even noticed some people on another hill nearby on the same trail. We then followed it down the hill that we were on and made it back to a certain place that we had been before. It turns out that we went up the hardest way possible, and that if we had turned right instead of left at one point...it would have saved a lot of time an effort. But what fun is that?

After that excursion, we came back to the apartment. I immediately crashed for a few hours. I woke up, made some dinner and then Ryan and I went up to Mike and Scott’s room and watched the movie Airplane.

Now I’m waiting for my undershirts to finish washing so that I can hang them up to dry. For some reason, when I had set them to wash earlier, the washing machine didn’t use any of the soap. It somehow got clogged. I unclogged it, and here I am waiting...