last weekend i went to aix-en-provence, france where my friend john is studying. it sucked at first because i was sick for the first 3 days, but i still enjoyed being there. it´s a nice town, and i got to use my french!!

one of my favorite things was meeting people in the hostel where i stayed. i met a girl from england and a boy from sweden who came to study french. i also met a girl from taiwan who is travelling on her own after studying in england for a year. ¡qué bueno! i got to practice my french and chinese (and english, haha) all in one trip.

one day we went to cassis, where there is a pebbly beach.

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john mimicking a really weird mannequin.

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nosheen, the girl i met from england, is from Nottingham (i.e. robin hood!). she told me about the town and how sherwood forest is there and the big tree and the castle and other old stuff from robin hood times, and i really want to go there. i also want to go to paris. i also want to go back to france after i graduate from college and become fluent in french...

i also want to do a lot of things.

this past weekend, i went on a cava trip with my program. cava is spanish champagne. we went to a big manufacturer (cordoniu) and a small private one where they do everything by hand. it was cool because we took tours and learned how cava is made.

anywho, it´s midterms week here (a concept i´m very unfamiliar with back at sarah lawrence), so that means i have to study!

smell ya later!

creo que necesito escribir en español porque es bueno a praticarlo. PERO yo sé que mi español está muy mal y la mayor de gentes no van a poder entender mi escritura horrible.

all that to say, i´m going to write in english now.

it´s been fun and funny attempting to communicate with people here in spanish. for the most part, the only times i´m forced to use it is when i go into a store or maybe in a taxi. i´m around a lot of americans all the time. on wednesday, my program will start our "intercambio de conversación," which is when they´ll bring in spanish college students to do language exchange. they can practice their english with us, and we can practice our spanish with them. i´m glad that they´re arranging this for us because it´s very easy to speak english all the time and never challenge ourselves in the language.

i´ve been thinking about/working on my photography, although i haven´t printed/enlarged anything yet. i´ve been shooting both in color as well as black & white, so it´s all seeming new and experimental and exciting because i´m playing with color film. the other night i was even taking pictures in my dream...i had all these particularly great shots, and when i realized i was dreaming i was disappointed that they weren´t real. whenever i´m able to make some products, i´ll see if i can scan some images and post them on here.

tomorrow night i´m participating in a photography workshop (critique-night type thing) at Obra Vista, the Ágape art studio/gallery/café. it will all be in spanish, so i´m sure i´ll have trouble keeping up. however, i think it will be good for me to get thrown in the mix. in case you don´t know, Ágape is the european division of Campus Crusade for Christ, and Obra Vista is an amazing space in Barcelona where artists gather to dialogue and share their art and hold events. it´s sort of like transFORM in nyc, but i think it´s also a community that´s more integrated with students and professional artists and staff members and people who support the arts. i don´t know a whole lot about it yet, though, so i may not have that completely right. anyway, i´m looking forward to being involved there throughout the year.

All my classes are very interesting. My art history class is a survey of spanish art, but so far we are moving through the medieval period which covers a lot of architecture and arts having to do with the Church. we went to a museum on friday that has many frescos from romanesque churches in catalunya that are displayed in their original positions-- they built apses and walls and arches and stuff in the museum so that we see the paintings as they were once created. what is most interesting (and also a bit disheartening) is coming to understand the cultural/political/social/religious context from which the art was created. i won´t go on about it in full detail here.

today we were given choices of what to write our final paper on for art history, and mine is going to be about Gaudí´s Sagrada Familia, which i´m really excited about! i can´t wait to learn more in-depth about it.

i think i´ll end this entry here, but i´ll probably be back with another update in a few days or so. thanks for reading!