Mr. Acord...

Hi Mr. Acord, I know this is somewhat of a strange way to get in touch, but could you email me your address? Kathryn left quite a few things in the room...
thanks! Marisa

Summer Video!

Rocio made a video of the summer!

A ship...

"Un buque en el puerto es seguro - pero que no es lo que son para los buques. "- John A. SheddSunday after the beach a group headed to Caravaca bright and early to go see the church and the True Cross. Caravaca is apparently one of the holy cities in the Catholic church because of this. In my last post I linked the story of how the fragments of the True Cross came to Caravaca. In any event, we arrived with 3 minutes to spare to make it to mass and trucked up the hill an made it just in time after a little confusion as to where we were going. And then after the mass we were given the opportunity to kiss the True Cross...
Inside the church after mass:
We obviously couldn't take a picture of the cross that contains the fragments, but this is a picture of a picture? Sorry, best I could do: The thing that Caravaca is best known for (besides the True Cross obviously) is their depiction of the cross with two horizontal pieces:
After a really good lunch we headed to Elche to see the gardens. No one quite knows who first planted them, and we saw only a small section of them, but there is somewhere between 200,000-300,000 palm trees in the surrounding area. In the middle of the garden is one which is named The Imperial
which is over 165 years old. I will write some more information later on the gardens if I get the chance. I realize that this has much less than I have written about other places that we've visited. But long and short, it was a very neat side trip.
There was also a peacock!....and peacock babys? peacocklings?As we headed out of Elche we ran into some bus trouble, but ended up getting a few taxis to bring us to Alicante to see the hogueras (explained later). But we went up to the top of the castle and watched the sunset and generally hung out for a while, which was nice.Hogueras are HUGE float-like looking things made out of wood and paper (but don't move, they stay put in different parts of the city) and are built for a Festival of St. George I believe? I'm not quite sure what the full story is. This one is contributed to dance and music...This one was very politcal devoted to politics and the "chess game" that they are...In any event, they're built to tell a story of sorts, many of them have political commentaries. We even saw one that looked familiar to us as well...
Keep in mind these these structures are as large as the buildings that surround them! After looking at a few we headed to a very very good dinner, which turned out to be the treat of Carles Cortès Orts, he is the Secretariat de Cultura at the University of Alicante and then finally headed back to Alcoy after a late night...

"A ship in harbor is safe -- but that is not what ships are for." -John A. Shedd

Always arriving, always departing....

" Si estamos siempre llegando y saliendo, también es cierto que estamos eternamente anclado. El destino nunca es un lugar sino una nueva manera de ver las cosas" -Henry Miller Since it's the last weekend Rocio got reservations at a very fancy restaurant for all of us an was able to figure out a deal so that we had 6 appetizers, dinner, coffee and desert as well as unlimited beverages (until coffee) fro 40 euro, which sounds like a lot of money, but it was a very very good meal :) Starting out with a toast to Rocio, Pau and being in Alcoy:
Mid appetizers:Everyone all dressed up! It was/currently is Kary's birthday so that was a nice way to start out a birthday for him. So after the amazing food, we stopped by a karaoke place in honor of Kary's birthday:

And then headed out to go dancing :)
This morning we got up early and caught a bus to Alicante to spend the day at the beach. It was pretty relaxed, nothing too special besides the fact that Betty decided to buy a tweety bird floatie for some reason...But the weather was absolutely perfect all day. Somehow even with putting sunscreen on 3 times I still managed to get burned though :( Such as life, I suppose I should have expected it.Tonight we're heading to a club named Gaudi because there is this DJ (DJ Josh) who is very famous (he usually works at Ibiza all summer) and is going to play his music for the summer for the first time, which is a big deal. It should be a ton of fun and a LOT of dancing :)
It's crazy to be thinking about trying to pin down what Jack and I will be doing after next week....just because it's hard to believe it's been 6 weeks already! I feel like I've been here a long time, but it's quite strange to think that half of the summer is over already. I have so many more things I'd like to get done!

Tomorrow we will be going to Caravaca, Elche and then back to Alicante. Caravaca is known for having some relics of the True Cross, so tomorow is going to be a pretty big deal. Caravaca is known also for the double armed cross, which some may have seen. And then Elche is famous for it's gardens. We're heading back to Alicante because there is a big festival this weekend and we're hoping to get into the celebration dinner :)
It's going to be a great weekend!


"If we are always arriving and departing it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things" -Henry Miller

Twenty years from now...

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover"- Mark Twain

This is a quote that I've always loved. Not only because of the sailing reference, but also because Mark Twain has a way of speaking to the common man with vivid images. I do not know quite how this one will translate so I'm getting a little help from google...forgive me if it's not the best.

These past two days we've been busy working on our notebooks for our Ethics class like crazy so we've had to skip out on a few things that Rocio and Pau suggested, but hopefully we'll be able to make up for that later. Also I've been trying to figure out how to add links to the sidebar, but for those who have asked here is:

Professor Schmid's blog
The University's website in English and Spanish
Jack's Blog

On a more exciting note, beginning yesterday and lasting until tomorrow afternoon, the University has been playing host to The 3rd Manufacturing Engineering Society International Conference. See! It's official!But this is a pretty neat thing to be having while we're here. Here are links to a general description of the conference and the conference's website if you'd like to learn more about it. Professor Schmid was the opening lecture, which many of us attended;

Unfortunately I didn't make it into the picture, I was sitting to the left in the picture (I swear!) but Miguel said that once things are only slight less insane (considering the number of things that he seems to do here, I guess I can forgive him!) he'll send along a few pictures that I can put up later. The reason that we are wearing headphones is to translate the opening speeches by the mayor and other prominent citizens of Alcoy.
Another plus to having "the author of the second most famous author of a manufacturing textbook" as professor is that he is that he has lots of friends at this conference. So long story short, we had the opportunity to have a lecture from Professor Jack Jeswiet from Queens University this morning on basically the information that he is going to present at the conference (although probably somewhat dumbed down for us considering we don't have nearly comparable technical knowledge as the people attending the conference) on calculating carbon footprints and implications of energy use.

For those who know of my interests, I'm sure that you can image how neat that was for me. For those who do not, I have two main interests that I would like to pursue in engineering:
1) The viability of taking existing technology in terms of energy and making it more viable for economically developing countries (and therefore, also renewable/alternative/implications of existing energy technologies. That was one of the reasons that coming to Spain was so attractive to me: wind technology! Speaking of which this is more information on the wind farm we visited and the company that runs it (I meant to put the info up last week, sorry) and
2) The aerospace aspect of engineering in the expression of fluid dynamics, in particular air flow (anything from cars to NASA...I was a wannabe astronaut as a kid and went to Space Camp three times), although we'll see if I'm so intrigued with this after taking fluid dynamics next semester.

So long story short, I was pretty excited to have had the opportunity to hear a lecture from someone who is so prominent in his field. The other lecture that I went to this afternoon was by Professor Thomas R. Kurfess from Clemson University (there is a link to his website from the school site I linked to). He is the Chair in Manufacturing for BMW and I believe he said he was based in Greensboro, NC although I believe the the manufacturing plant is in Spartanburg, SC so I probably misunderstood. Long and short, I'm sure Dad is intrigued by this point :). He gave a lecture on the Direction of Inspection (he does a lot inspection for companies), which presented a lot of information on the everything from the wear on manufacturing parts to methods of testing at the BMW plant.
So that was a pretty neat thing to have the opportunity to see as break on working on the notebook.
Sounds like from the brief emails that I've gotten from mom, things are really starting to pull together as far as planning for our travels in June, which is pretty exciting! Juan and Rosa came to Alcoy yesterday to go over some documentation and have me sign some papers for the bank, but I hope that we do get the chance to spend some time in Alicante this weekend, it sounds like the festival if going to be great!

"Veinte años a partir de ahora le será más decepcionado por las cosas que no hiciste que por las que no hacer. Así que fuera de la bowlines. Navega lejos del puerto seguro. Captura los vientos alisios en sus velas. Explorar. Soñar. Descubre" -Mark Twain

"Todo lo que no es oro brillo no todos los que vagan están perdidos." J.R.R. Tolkien

Qué bonito es no hacer nada y luego descansar después. -Spanish Proverb.

Ok, sorry sorry! I know that I haven't written anything for about a week, but I have good reason, it's been ridiculously busy!

Thursday we had class in the morning and then caught a bus at 3:30 to Valencia. We meant to take a train shortly thereafter to get to Barcelona, but since it takes about three 3x the amount of time it should for our group to go anywhere (because there are so many of us) we skipped the stress and decided to take a break in Valencia and grab some food. Joe, Kathryn, Priscilla, Bill, Betty and I walked all the way to the square in front of the Cathedral because I really wanted to get some chocolate and churros a few other people had been raging about how ridiculously good they were there. And I was completely satisfied, they were great! Definitely worth the walk over :)

After that we caught a 8:20 train to Barcelona and were able to find the hostal with only about 10 minutes of walking in the wrong direction (which actually truly is not that bad for us!). We checked in and it turned out that we had to all pay up front for the 4 days in cash, and that we were going to be in two different buildings, which was frustratings, but it worked out alright. The hostals weren't that terrible, but after the last one that we had stayed in I think there certainly were some unreasonably high expectations for this one. Ah well, such as life. We all survived just fine :) And we made some friends with the neighbors staying in the same flat. The night was saved by finding a decently priced dinner, which turned out to be pretty good with some fantastic sangria.

The next day we started out early after some breakfast at the hostal. First we headed to the Picasso Museum since we figured that it would be a good way to ease into things after a day of travel. We weren't able to take pictures, but we were able to negotiate a group price. To see some pictures from the museum visit here. One of the things that is neat about Barcelona is the artistic history. It is most famous for the work that Picasso and Gaudi did throughout the city, as both spent much time there.

After the visit at the Picasso museum we walked to the Church of Santa Maria which was known for being constructed by ship builders. Ship captains would put models of their ships at the feet of Mary at the high altar to ask for a safe travel. The other thing that is remarkable about this church is the columnns shown below. Gaudi used to visit here and the columns, which almost have almost a nature-like aspect to them, inspired Gaudi in later works.

After a quick lunch we headed to the Sagrada Familia which was/is Gaudi's most famous work. It is a church that Gaudi designed but died while still working on it. There is some controversy over continued construction of the church since most of Gaudi's designs were destroyed in the Spanish Civil War, but Barcelona has decided that it is something that needs to be done. I personally have to agree though I know that the building has come on and off, but though unfinished it had some of the most interesting and intriguing architecture that we've seen on the trip so far. Below is the Passion facade which was completed recently (and was not designed by Gaudi). If you follow the progression of pictures in a reverse "Z" starting at the bottom left of the picture it shows Jesus's life ending in the figure perched on the bridge that is meant to portray Jesus's spirt ascending into heaven.The next two pictures are from the interior of the church (or the Nave), the most unfinished section of the church. Most of this was covered in scaffolding so we couldn't see that much, but the size was still impressive. All the white windows have plans to be changed to stained glass in the future.The ceiling:The nativity facade on the opposite side of the church from the passion facade. This side was completely designed and finished by Gaudi first. Part of the purpose of it was to inspire investors to continue funding since Gaudi knew that it would be a challenge to have consistant funds for the building of such an extravagant church.
More work that was finished on the church. We had to pay 2.50 euro to go to the top of the tower, but I think it was worth it, we got to see many other parts of the church that we otherwise would not have noticed.Look how high up we are! Notice the shadow on the ground :) After the Sagrada Familia we headed over to Parc Guell which is a park which was originally designed to be a residential housing district for the upper classs. Designed by Gaudi it is quite extravagant and intriguing. It didn't end up being sucessful as an elite neighborhood because it was so far away for the inner social circles. Main entrance:
Part of one of the side walks:On the ceiling in an area with many columns, shown below:The girls! We're sitting on the famous bench that Gaudi designed. It wraps all the way around a large open area and is completely covered in mosaics.The boys as well:The view:After Parc Guell everyone was pretty tired. We headed back towards the hostal after getting some information for the traveler's center and walked part of Las Ramblas. The building that I stayed in was right on Las Ramblas (one of the main streets of Barcelona. The best shopping is at one end, the port at the other), which made for a nice view, though it was somewhat loud at times. We grabbed some food and then ended up going out for a bit. I actually left early and headed to bed after our first stop, I was tired!
Saturday we woke up and headed out on a Barri Gotic walk, which is an area of the city. After seeing a few churches we stopped by the Cathedral, which was very neat. It has an enclosed courtyard attached to the church, and is home to 13 geese. The geese were once used a cheap "burgler alarm" for the monks, and as tradition, still live there today. I didn't get great pictures, but to see some more, and for more information visit here.
The outer courtyard:
The inner CathedralThe geese! After seeing the Cathedral we headed to Camp Nou,
which is the stadium that FCBarcelona plays at. Unfortunately there will be a U2 concert there on July 4th so they were building the stage on the field while we were there, but it was still pretty neat. I went into it excited, but not expecting much, but the tour was fantastic. We got to walk almost right up the the field
and see everything from the chapel, the press box to the presidential seats. The tour ended in the museum.
After spending some time in the museum, and a thorough inspection of the store, we headed back towards the inner city to see some more of Gaudi's work. Casa Mila is one of his most famous, but we also go to see a few other's on a guided tour by Rick Steve's.After a short nap and dinner we ended up having a mini-fiesta in our room with our new-found neighbors (there were Americans, a few English and some Italians) and basically just had a good time all-around, and headed to a dance club.
The next morning we went to church at the Cathedral and while some spent some time sleeping and shopping, the rest headed to see Montjuic. We walked to the port (yay!) and then took a Gondola up to the Montuic area. While we didn't go see the castle, we did go see the Olympic Stadium
and the Catalan Art Museum. We made good use of the grass nearby and took a 20 minute nap since it was so ridiculously hot out. After that, and a short metro ride, we went to see a bull fight!
The bull fight was intense....fascinating...and a little confusing. Long story short, 3 matadors fight two bulls each, which ends up in the bull getting killed. If you'd like to know more about bull fights, this is the wiki opinion. By the time the bull fight was over we were starving, but managed to find a Dominoes and so were quite pleased with ourselves. We were going to take the metro to a club that we had heard about, but found out the metro was closed. So after a short night we all crashed and caught up on a bit of sleep.
Monday morning we all slept in a bit and spent some time trinket shopping before spending the rest of the day taking the train back to Alcoy. (We even did some homework on the way :p) Rocio and Pau were nice enough to delay dinner for us, so we were lucky enough to have food to greet us so we were all happy.

Today class was moved until the afternoon so we all (for the most part) caught up on some sleep and worked on our Notebooks all day until class. After some dinner, El Internado and some intense catchup on email, SLEEP!

"All that is gold does not glitter not all those who wander are lost." J.R.R. Tolkien
How beautiful it is to do nothing and then rest afterwards. -Spanish Proverb