Catching the 7am train yesterday morning was tough, but it was nice to get to Granada late in the morning, and spend a more relaxed day there. After checking into our hotel, the group went to one of the more prominent lookouts (carmen) across from la Alhambra to sketch. While we were there sketching, our Spain profs Lynn and Damien held exit interviews, talking to each of us about our experiences on the study trip so far. Today we woke up and hiked the steep h...

A lovely, medieval Spanish town with narrow, labyrinthian streets, our introduction to Sevilla was an assignment to observe and document a public space as well as explore the city. We were given a choice of four plazas, and told to choose one and observe not only its layout, but also how it was used by people at different times of the day. I chose plaza San Francisco, a small plaza used largely as a meeting point and pedestrian traffic intersection, but also ho...

Today, we went to see a bullfight. Having talked to people who have previously been to one, I knew it was probably going to be an experience that would bother or even upset me, but it is a part of the culture, and something to see, and never see again. We saw a total of 6 fights, two each for 3 fighters. The first fighter up was older than the second two, but a much worse fighter. He drug his first fight out way too long, and didn't stab the bull correctly wi...

Today was a free day for the group in Madrid, we could do a day trip or stay in the city. Becky and I chose to go see the famous Mosque Cathedral in Cordoba. The day started out okay, we had our train reservations and were all set to leave at 10 am. However, when we arrived at the station, we found that the reservations had been made for sunday, not saturday, so we had to run downstairs in the station to switch our reservations, and literally made our train wi...

Today was a group day trip to the small town of El Escorial. We went to see a monastery/palace, but on the way from the train station, happened across an office of the architectural magazine, El Croquis, which was housed in a very nice piece of architecture. The group split up for lunch, and then met back up to present our final projects for our design charette and tour the palace if we wanted to.