Mazie

The last few days in Barcelona!

Back from dinner and now procrastinating doing homework. It’s funky because I swear I want to do my homework- it sounds fun and I want to learn about the stuff we’re learning about in my classes- but the very notion that I would be “doing homework” is what spoils the idea. Maybe I’ll post some photos on here and then start my readings :)

The thing when you go out clubbing until 4am is that the possibilities for the next day become greatly limited if you want to get any sleep at all. Naturally, I missed the first sunny Barcelona morning in literally a week and woke up at 1pm. After breakfast (if you can even call it that), Natalie, Gracie, and I met at la Plaza Catalunya for some shopping time. Twas very fun, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit sad that we were spending the first sunny day indoors. We visited Bershka, Pull and Bear, and one big box store and the prices at every place were amazing. To add on, skirts, shirts and pants that already were only $20 or $30 often were on sale for 40, 50, 60, or 70 percent. I bought one sequin-ey skirt that I can wear clubbing (when its a lot warmer), but I absolutely hated all the clubbing-quality tops I tried on. Yuck.

Oh yeah, and then I had my first real experience in a McDonald’s. I didn’t eat anything, dare you assume, but I sat perched on the edge of my chair and watched Gracie and Natalie eat cheeseburgers, french fries, and ice cream.

More on the newfangled sunniness here: My host mom told us that unideal weather does not show up very frequently in Barcelona and one day later it started raining and didn’t stop until today. The first day was foreboding clouds warning what was to come, the second and third days were torrential downpours during which I got my new leather jacket very wet (whoops), and the fourth, fifth, and sixth days were general dreariness and cloudiness with some rain sprinkled in (sprinkled- thats a pun). I didn’t realize how much I was craving sun until I stepped outside today and instantly smiled. :)

Gotta go eat dinner- I’m late!

Living in a homestay was a great choice. Just finished a delightful homemade dinner of salad, lentil soup, spring rolls and these fried ham and cheese things with some vanilla pudding afterwords (a Catalan specialty that tastes exactly like the inside of creme brûlée). Great conversation with my host mom Cristina and dear friend and roommate-except-we-don’t-share-rooms Natalie. We talked about everything from recent rail accidents (yikes) to rainfall patterns in Spain to the proportion of cheese in different types of cheesecakes, and now Natalie and I are on a call planning a trip to Switzerland with Gracie and Mya!

1. Everyone has a purse. I have a hiking backpack. Everyone’s purses are black, brown, or maybe maroon. My backpack is blue, green, red, orange, purple, yellow… I do in fact like my backpack better than a purse but it is quite heavy and annoying to carry around all day. Then again, a purse probably would be too.
2. I struck gold today with the Spanish version of Crisp and Green: Honest Greens. The Spicy Feta bowl was really good and there are at least 10 more bowls/dishes I must try. It’s avocado everything here! This place might even be going beyond the fit bit moms and instagram walls so beloved to Crisp and Green- they offer like five different types of water (I went with still room temperature splashed with a bit of the still cold and it didn’t disappoint). The question- and the answer is no- is if this posh salad lunch is worth $60-70 a week.
3. The U Miami kids can be difficult… very difficult… sigh. And they’re practically 2/3 of the students here so I find myself highly disappointed with the chance to meet new people.
4. Never have I ever put so much thought into cellular data, data roaming, and WiFi. The existence of WiFi is becoming a pretty salient reason for going somewhere.
5. I was 1 minute late to my first “Sustainable Development in the Mediterranean” class because I got lost. When you were just rushing to buy shampoo and conditioner in this very odd-smelling corner store and trying to decide if you wanted the “Multi-vitamin” or “Volume” kind and then realize you have exactly 10 minutes until class starts and you’re not sure where you are and your phone doesn’t work cuz now the only place it works is at Cristina’s house, the buildings all start to look the same. But I used my invincible powers of memory, logical deduction (kinda), and quick steps to make it there almost on time.
6. Then I proceeded to flight off sleep for the entire hour and 45 minutes of class. And by fight off sleep, I really mean fight. I physically couldn’t get my eyes to open all the way and about every 4 seconds my body would automatically shut down and I’d start falling to my left side until the shock would wake me up and I’d snap back into position. It was a trying time, and of course now I feel wide awake.
7. I keep wondering if Seville might’ve been a better place to go. Maybe people there would be slightly less obsessed with partying until 5am and getting drunk every night and slightly more nice. I really can’t decide if I want to rebel against the system and go off and have adventures on my own or prioritize actually having friends and succumb myself to four months of dreading the weekends and a wacky messed up sleep schedule, aka no sleep.
8. That was a sad one to end on so I added one more!

Photos!!

We finished out orientation week with more 9am cultural sessions and Spanish classes and some afternoon activities with the program!

On Wednesday we went on a “hike” (more of a leisurely stroll) around Montjuïc; one of my favorite areas of Barcelona so far. It was much calmer and more relaxing than other parts of the city, and a great way to meet other people on the program. The first thing you see when you walk up is a beautiful fountain framing this quaint castle on a hill in the background (I’ll post a picture). Once you walk up to the castle and turn around, you can see the entire city laid out in front of you with another fountain/waterfall thing- breathtaking (I have a picture of that, too). Past the castle is the site where Spain hosted the 1992 Olympics which, as we learned, had a huge effect on the city. Pictures taken of the diving pool that looks out on the city and mountains behind catapulted the city into the public eye. We ended our walk at the base of Montjuïc (Jewish mountain, named for its history as a medieval Jewish cemetery), and I mentally bookmarked it as somewhere to return. Natalie, Luke, Patrick, and I took on the nearly 90min walk back to the Sarría Sant-Gervasi district afterwords.

Thursday was Park Güell day. Commissioned by Catalan industrialist Eusebi Güell and designed by Antoní Gaudí, the original intent was to be a private city and gardens for rich people. The failure of this idea led the space to be turned into the iconic park it is today. It was another hour walk to get to the park from the lunch place we had gone to, and it was pretty mush a straight shot up the mountain. Once we finally arrived, we didn’t see anyone from our program and quickly realized we had gone to the wrong entrance. After much confusion and Google Maps manipulation, we had to hike several flights of stairs and crazy steep roads back down the mountain (no exaggeration at all..), over to the other side of the park, and up again to where everyone else was waiting. I was glad we went to the effort to find the right entrance, because it was truly breathtaking. Surrounded by beautiful forest in front of me, the grand park gates to the right, and brown and blue tiled houses giving off very strong gingerbread house vibes to my left, it felt like a scene out of a fairy tale. We spent over two hours walking around inside the park- there was so much to admire! Views of the city (you could see all the way out to the ocean), wildly cool architecture poking out of the vegetation, and tiled everything everywhere you looked. The sun showed up big time and I was starting to feel more connected to my study abroad mates; it was a fun afternoon!

It seems every day has a theme, for Friday was Tarragona day! This is where my pictures of quieter streets, Roman ruins, and the ocean come in. I slept the entire bus ride there and back, and it took willpower to stand up from my seat when we got there. This day trip was mandatory: everyone in the program chose to visit either Tarragona, the land of the Roman ruins and ocean, or Girona, famous for its Jewish legacy and being the place where Game of Thrones was filmed. I was happy with Tarragona because I was able to touch the ocean (with one finger!) and there were less U Miami kids there. We got a guided tour of some of the ruins and if I remembered any of what our guide told us, I would’ve describe it here. It was cool, though, because I got to take the tour in Spanish with some of my friends (even though our guide kept accidentally switching to English) and we went inside ancient Roman walls and tunnels. Our last stop was the Colosseum, which you can view below, and was stunning. Afterwords we went with a group of almost 15 to a small cafe for lunch (the St. Olaf group plus some new additions from the tour). We had a leisurely Spanish lunch, with the people at my end of the table struggling to hear anything from the other end of the table. Afterwords we walked over to a fish/meat/vegetables market where I got to see more guts than I ever needed to see, countless decapitated fish of every kind, including crabs, jellyfish, and everything in-between, and the most gigantic hunks of meat casually hanging from the ceiling. It was all very Spanish and very fresh. We had just enough time to see the beach before we left. A few other people and I climbed down the rocks to the shore, a process in which I almost lost my phone (it fell out of my pocket into a hole in the rocks, but thankfully it only spent a few terrifying moments there before Luke was able to reach far enough in and grab it).

After finally being done with jet lag, I think the weekend just undid all my progress. But it was worth it because I got to experience what everyone is so hyped about, especially here in Barcelona: Going out. Friday night was a fail turned fun, and Saturday night was the classic clubbing experience to make up for Friday. I knew I would feel really lame if I didn’t go, and I stand by that because it was an overall fun experience both nights.

On Friday a group of 8 of us spent $20 each on tickets to a club that was 23+. Somehow no one saw that when buying their ticket, so we showed up and immediately showed out. Just to make the situation even better, it started raining pretty hard after we got turned away. We ran down the block to a McDonald’s that was still open, where we regrouped and waited out the rain. We decided to walk around and see if we happened to run into a different club or bar. We didn’t, but we did run into a supermarket where everyone except me bought a bottle of some type of drink and drank it (illegally, it turns out) as we continued wandering around. Eventually we caught wind of an Irish bar called George Payless (George Pains, its an inside joke) and made it our goal to get there. 30 minutes on the Nit Bus (Night Bus) later, and we had accomplished that goal only to run into another roadblock: The bouncers didn’t believe that me and this other girl Peyton were 18 and they wanted us to show them our IDs. It seemed like the only thing they were going to accept was our physical passports which neither of us was carrying around (smartly), so we had traveled all that way for nothing. Until… the people we were trying to meet up with came running out of the bar! Our two groups merged for a short while and convened at the second fast food restaurant of the night, Popeyes (at this point it was around 2am). However, we realized this new group of mainly U Miami kids kinda sucked and were very full of themselves and rude (we all agreed), so we split off again in search of a nearby speakeasy. We were so so tired but we needed one success before the night was over! And it really was a success.

I kinda thought speakeasies were a relic of the 1920s. I also kinda thought they were dirty and gross. And I surely thought I would never go into one. But I was wrong on all counts! This place was disguised as a barbershop, so the guy let us in only after we requested haircuts. He sat Luke down and actually began shaving his hair before asking us for the secret passcode. We needed a few hints, but eventually he pushed open the mirror behind the barber’s chair to reveal the actual bar: Clean, aestetic, and slightly quirky. There were many upsides to my experience at the speakeasy, and only two downsides: (1) Everyone had to order something (the cheapest drinks they had were 13 Euros, and I really didn’t feel like ingesting anything more), and (2) They closed a half hour after we got there so we didn’t get to soak up the vibe for too long. Nevertheless I ordered a passion fruit Moscow Mule which was tastier than it could have been and we enjoyed a happy ending to a rainy night.

So, although I was incredibly tired the entire night, you can see why I ended up having a good time on Friday night. It was all the community and adventure of clubbing without actually going to the club! As far as my twenty dollars… tragic. Saturday was the real clubbing experience - pregaming at a cheap shots place (we shared a pitcher of some drink that was surprisingly good… until we mixed the alcohol in) and hitting the Twenties club afterwords around 12:45. The group tonight was me, Natalie, Gracie, Araba, Luke, Patrick, Miguel, and Max, and it was raining and cold again because that is just what Spain has become. Natalie worked some instagram magic that allowed us to get in for free, and we circled up directly in front of the DJs on the dance floor. Instead of trying to describe my experience, I am just going to include some of my thoughts on clubbing below:

1. It’s not terrible but its not that fun either
2. Can be very expensive
3. I’m surprised regular clubbers aren’t deaf already
4. The floor was disgusting and covered in spilled drinks and broken glass.
5. It would be so greatly improved if I knew like any of the songs at all.

Going clubbing in Spain is also incredibly time-consuming. Because dinner can be at 10 or 11pm, people don’t start getting to the clubs until after midnight. This also means that if you eat dinner at 8 like us, you have time to get cozy reading a book or writing a blog post before leaving for the bar, which will make you tired and make the idea of going out into the cold, wet, dark night very unappealing. Clubs start to get busy around 1 or 1:30am, and the party continues until 4, 5, or 6am. All this to say, you probably won’t be going to sleep before 6am which makes doing anything before noon the next day hard. And you feel really weird sneaking back into the apartment and going to bed when your host mom is less than an hour away from waking up.

We stayed out until 3:45 on Saturday night which means we spent about 4 hours “dancing”. Dancing comes naturally to me when its a song I know and like and have plenty of space to jump around and make large, sweeping movements. It’s a different story when I have people shoving and bumping into me every three seconds as I’m trying to maintain a circle formation with seven other people. Dancing in this case is extremely awkward and difficult. Your options, or at least what I could think of, were to: step side to side with the beat, move your shoulders to the beat, nod your head to the beat, or jump (more like bop up and down) with your hands in the air. By the end of the night I was so tired that my definition of dancing had become: Stand there and at least try to smile.

You know something else that is time-consuming? Blogging! I intend for my blog posts to be short summaries as I think that’s better both for me and for my loyal readers, kudos to you, but I just don’t have it in me to write concisely sometimes. Who knows, hopefully the next blog post you see is a fun little tidbit I wrote over a 15 minute coffee break, but don’t be surprised if its a full-blown book.

I just realized I forgot to post pictures with my super long blog post! They may not be the greatest pictures ever, but they give you a sense for the city!

Why shouldn’t I be writing a blog post? I can enumerate multiple reasons. For starters its 10pm and I haven’t actually slept a full 8 hours since I got to Barcelona; I think the tiredness is just going to compound until I fall down one day in the middle of the street (or fall asleep during class, which has already almost happened multiple times during orientation). Reason number two would just be the amount of other things I have to do, like applying for summer jobs and figuring out my class schedule. More important than blogging? Debatable, but probably yes.

The reason I decided it would be a good idea to write one, however, is because I just spent at least 45 minutes writing long texts to friends and family describing how things are here in Barcelona, and I thought gee this would be fun as a blog post. I’m not going to read through my old texts later to remember my experience, and I haven’t been journaling at all, so this blog might be the best way to remember my time abroad! So… aquí tenemos un poco información sobre mis primeras días en la ciudad!

The City Is so much bigger than I expected! I don’t know why, but I visualized Barcelona as more of a mid-sized city with plenty of open space and parks, and the beach right next door. While there are technically parks, the biggest one I’ve seen hasn’t been larger than a building and was stuffed inbetween a bunch more buildings. It was more of a concrete path with a wide strip of half-dead grass on either side. You’d never know the beach was right there because the buildings are too tall and completely block any chance you might have of glimpsing the water. And as far as the size, you could walk for hours in any direction and still feel like you’re in the city. I was asking people today where they thought the main city center was, and someone responded “It’s kinda just everywhere”, which I think is pretty accurate. The neighborhood that I’m staying in, Sarría Sant-Gervasi, is an hour’s walk away from what one could deem the center of the city, and it is slightly more calm. Although it’s annoying to have to commute at least 30 minutes via metro/bus/walking to get anywhere, its really nice to be able to return to somewhere more chill and relaxed at the end of the day. It sounds nice, but I don’t think I’d want an apartment that’s a 5 or 10 minute walk away from our school because you’d never escape the business.

All that being said, I really do love the city: The architecture is beautiful, the shops are all adorable and unique, there’s so much to do and explore, and the (scarce and sometimes human-made) nature is lovely. Its been two of more than one hundred days and I’m already anxious that I’m not going to have enough time to explore it all (and honestly I probably won’t!). I’m so excited to get into a routine hopping on the metro to get to my classes and internship, finding the best coffee/pastry shops to stop into for breakfast or studying, and scouting out areas to hike and explore after class/work.

The People Have been super cool… for the most part. To begin with the negative, there are about 250 U Miami kids on the program (I’m guessing they make up 50-70% of the entire program) who all know each other and think they’re all that because they go to school in Miami. They’ve gone out drinking and clubbing every. Single. Night we’ve been here and have no interest whatsoever in meeting any of the rest of us. I was sitting next to a crowd of U Miami people during orientation on the first full day, and there were people leaving to go throw up their drinks from the previous night. The worst part was that they were talking and laughing at full volume while someone was trying to present- SO, SO RUDE! I was getting really annoyed. The bright side is that whenever I meet someone who’s NOT a U Miami kid, its a little instant bond.

Onto the cool people! I didn’t expect that I’d be seeing much of the St. Olaf kids once we actually got to Barcelona, but they’re actually the people I’ve been hanging out with the most and, including my roommate, the people I get along with the best. There are roughly 10 of us on the program, and most days we wander around together after orientation and go get lunch somewhere. My roommate Natalie and her friend Sara have been joining us, which is great! They both go to the University of Illinois and are really fun and easy to get along with. I am so, so glad that I have a roommate and that we’re becoming friends because it truly makes the morning metro rides, walks back, homestay dinners, and everything inbetween all that much better. Even better, she’s someone I can text anytime to see what she’s up to! If only she knew she’s slowly filling a hole in my heart from my freshman year….

Cristina, my host mom, has also been super amazing. She’s in her mid 70s but has so much energy, goes to the gym, and works a full time job on top of preparing us meals and cleaning! It was love at first sight from the second I met her, seriously. She’s so incredibly sweet and caring and has opened her home to us without a doubt. I have already learned tons about Spain in general, Barcelona, Catalan, her family, and her opinions on dogs vs cats, all while practicing my Spanish (as she doesn’t speak English). I was really curious and somewhat worried about my homestay family because it can really make or break the experience, but its turned out amazing these first few days! Just know that if you ask Cristina a question you could get a five minute answer :).

The Food Has been… interesting! Not necessarily bad but just not my style exactly. I have walked by so many enticing coffee shops and adorable bakeries but have yet to try any. Its hard to just walk by without stopping to admire their creations! The two meals I’ve eaten out (both with the St. Olaf group plus my roommate and her friend!) have truly not been my favorite. I got a chicken caesar salad from this one place, and the chicken was edible but each lettuce leaf was covered in a thick layer of dressing. I ate one and couldn’t stomach another. The Chinese food I had today was passable, but I got a little scared after reading “fried chicken feet” and “Pig intestine” on the menu.

Cristina has been making us breakfast and dinner every day, which is so, so sweet of her and a great way to save money! Common breakfast items include: individually wrapped tiny muffins, chocolate granola, cookies, and fruit. Perfect to grab on our way out and eat on the metro. Dinner, which has been around 8pm- quite early for Spain- has been good, but has forced me a little outside my comfort zone. The first night I was convinced I was eating raw chicken and was going to get sick, and last night I ate non-scrambled eggs with uncooked yolks for the first time in my life. She always serves us bread, salad, and sometimes soup as well, and is pretty adamant that we not help with anything except clean-up. Dinner is a fun time because Natalie, Cristina and I have great conversations. Granted, Cristina is usually the one talking for most of the time (she is skilled at that) but its really cool to hear directly from a Spaniard about the country and its such a great way to practice my Spanish. I can generally understand what she’s saying even when she’s on a roll at 110 mph, even if I can’t always articulate exactly what I want to say.

Overall its been a great time. I’ve enjoyed each day more than the last, and I think its because they’re getting more and more structured. Our arrival day, Monday, consisted of a 30 minute orientation which I did around 10am (I was in the first batch of students to arrive), and then no other plans other than to get settled in and meet your host family. It was nice that we didn’t have to sit and listen to a bunch of orientation right away, but no amount of reorganizing my stuff in the room or walking around the neighborhood was going to fight off the intense ganas de dormir from our friend jetlag.

Orientation on Tuesday started at 9am, meaning I had to wake up at 7:45 to have enough time to catch the metro to the BSAE offices. Thankfully my roommate (I should say housemate- we don’t share a room) and I were going together and our host mom was making us breakfast, because I slept through my alarm and woke up at 8:10 to Cristina knocking on my door and whispering my name. I put my clothes on as fast as possible and we were on the metro 15 minutes later. However, the metro was only the first piece of the puzzle to get to the offices. We needed to either catch a different metro or a bus to go the last few miles, but we didn’t have WiFi and were really confused about it all. Finally, with 10 minutes until 9, we decided to suck it up and take a taxi, and we were only 2 minutes late! The next day (today) I was the one who had to knock on my roommate’s door to wake her up because it was 8:10 and she was still asleep.

Today was another 9am start, and we finished about noon. Its really weird to have the whole afternoon and evening completely free in a city where it feels like there’s both so much and so little to do. When we’re sitting listening to the orientation, I’m itching to get out there and see it all, but once you start walking the streets it suddenly feels like shopping around is the only option. This afternoon was great because I hung out with my roommate at a cafe after lunch, and then went on a walking tour, given by BSAE, of Mont Juic, which was absolutely beautiful. The sights were amazing, we got to see the site of the 1992 Olympics which apparently made Barcelona famous, and I got to meet some new people! Much to my roommate’s dismay, we spent the hours from 3-8pm walking (to the tour, on the tour, then the 1.5 hours back to our house). My phone logged 25,000 steps!

Tomorrow is our last Orientation day (we might only have 30 minutes again), and then Friday we got to choose between Tarragona and Girona for a fun day trip! All my friends and I chose Tarragona, and I think its going to be awesome- there are Roman ruins and ocean beaches there, and I’m excited to soak it in!

Well now its nearly 11:30 and I really, really need to go to bed. Goodnight to my Europe friends and good afternoon to my Minnesota friends!

I can’t decide if today is one long day that feels like it should be two, or two days that feel like they should’ve been one. Either way, its been long but super cool.

The day began Sunday morning with the whole family crowded around the kitchen counter eating doughnuts together. Despite how excited I was for Barcelona, it was still sad to leave them :(. I had just enough time to stuff (and I mean really stuff) the last of my things into my suitcase and backpack. I managed to zip everything shut and minutes later I had dropped my 44 pound suitcase at bag check and was taking myself and my backpack through security. I felt like I packed a lot, but nearly everyone else I’ve seen brought two suitcases and a carry on.

The flight to JFK was nice and smooth- a good nap opportunity! Immediately upon arriving at the gate for my flight to Barcelona, I spotted growing clusters of college students huddling and hugging and talking about their breaks. Turns out that the initial assumptions I made about them were right: They all knew each other and were all going on the same program as I was (There are apparently over 200 U Miami kids on this trip!). I was getting very clicky vibes…

Of course I ended up sitting directly next to a clump of them on the plane. Nonetheless the flight was incredibly relaxing and enjoyable: I watched thee hours of the Office (which was the intended purpose of the flight, let’s be clear), Delta served us dinner, I slept for maybe an hour, and then I halfheartedly tried to sleep for the rest of the time. I really enjoyed looking out the window near the end: the city views descending into Barcelona were magical.

The line for border control took a record-breaking amount of time but I got to use these cool new fingerprinting and passport scanning machines and an officer stamped my passport so everyone can know I’ve officially been to Spain.

My flight contained the first batch of BSAE students to arrive, and we were taxied to the BSAE center and given a quick 30 minute orientation and chance to meet each other before we split into taxis once more headed for our home stays and apartments. I rode with a pair of roommates and they were clearly perfectly matched with their host mom. I was jealous and nervous as we drove another 20 minutes out of the city for my homestay. It got gradually less busy and more hilly (while still being a gigantic metropolis), and when we came to a stop I didn’t see anything that resembled an apartment or a host mom/grandma standing there to greet me. Three more steps, however, and Cristina flung open an unsuspecting door, kissed me on both cheeks, and whirled me up to her beautiful fourth floor apartment.

Cristina poured me a glass of water and kindly laid out some cookies as we chatted about my flight and got the wifi and keys to the apartment sorted out. I was then given an enthusiastic tour of the apartment and allowed to choose which room I wanted because I arrived before my housemate. Given that one room was dark, facing away from the sun and decorated in neutral tones and the other was bright and cheery and seemed to beckon you in with a door to the sunny porch, I chose the second one. I unpacked and got the room “decorated” (my decorations consist of a crocheted dinosaur called Bean, a tin deck of cards, the game 5 Crowns, a few notebooks, and a bottle of lotion) in little time. It looks like what I imagine Scandinavian minimalism to be.

Cristina had a work meeting at 2pm, and she took the opportunity to help orient me to the Barcelona Metro system. We bought a Metro pass and she gave me a route to sample while she attended her meeting. I felt very professional riding the Metro down to Barcelona’s Central Plaza, walking around a bit, and then heading back.

At this point in the day I still had 5 hours before I could reasonably go to bed, but I was so very tired. I decided I’d go on a run/walk to shake myself awake. It turned into more of a stroll, but I was able to face time miss Tamara and explore the funky streets and adorable tiny shops all around the apartment. I returned about 5, picturing Cristina worrying that I’d gotten lost- which she was not at all- and sorted and organized some more things in my room. Christina began making dinner around 6, and my house mate arrived an hour later (she took a late flight)- earlier than we were expecting so she was able to join for dinner! Objects felt like they were wiggling and shifting in my vision as I battled my eyelids to remain open, waiting for dinner. Any time I stopped concentrating on it, my neck would snap down towards my chest in sleep mode.

We had a very early dinner for Spain- around 7:15. Cristina made vegetable and noodle soup, chicken, salad, and bread, and we had bananas for dessert. Once we cleaned up, Cristina and I both made some nighttime sleeping tea to lull us to bed. Goodnight!

This photowalk began one July night post tennis match with Tyler and surprise evening downpour. It was one of those warm sleepy nights that called to us just because we had nothing better to do. I stepped outside with just my phone camera, finger at the ready on the shutter. I waded through the thick air, whose texture felt similar to the bread pudding we had enjoyed for dessert, to a few spots that had looked inviting earlier on in the day. But as soon as I jabbed the camera close, their subtle beauty faded and I couldn’t seem to coax it back out no matter the angle nor distance I shot from. The weak settings sun was failing to push through the weighted canopy of clouds, and as it was only getting darker and darker, we decided to turn for home. Maybe the walk back took on a quiet peace and grandeur of its own… I’ll let the pictures finish the story.

These photos are a reminder that there is beauty to be found in the everyday- beauty that you might not even notice until you stop looking. Sure, there isn’t much glitz and flanker here to gran your attention from miles away, but does there need to be? I believe that by giving yourself up to these often overlooked midsummer scenes, there is a slow, calm peace to be found. Follow the striking edges of tree branches, notice how the light and the absence of it tease each other across photos, and let your curiosity about the red-shirted protagonist (shout- out to my fabulous model Tyler!) run wild. You get to choose where these pictures begin and end.

Part of Summer Challenges.

Some nice Minnesota winter photographed from the comfort of my shorts and t shirt!!

A dazzling selection of photographs made to capture the essence of its name, life of its daily inhabitants, sparkling nature, and time tested and enriched soul: This is Soglio, Switzerland. Prepare to step 200 years back in time.

My team included my dad, mom, and Tyler: four hardy photographers with foot and mind intent on capturing Life in Soglio.