Hey guys. I'm safe and sound back in Hotlanta. The AAAI conference went well and Vancouver was pretty cool. I've still got a couple of posts left to write. One for Vancouver, and I've still got those couple left to write from my second week long break. I've gotta write it down, so I don't ever forget it! So those should be coming up soon. Headed to the St. Clair Family Reunion right now. Woo woo!! Consistently one of my favorite vacations, and a close second to European travel. ;)
Catch you guys soon,
KRS3
Friday, August 3, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Woo woo! I'm published!
As my semester at Barcelona draws to a close, I'm getting more and more emails about the conference that I'm attending in Vancouver. I'm getting pretty excited about it. Here's the poster that we will be displaying after we give our talk.
AAAI Poster
Its gonna look like mostly gibberish, but the essence of it is that the technology tries to create good stories, given a set of possible plot points in a story. Imagine a choose-your-own-adventure novel, and this technology is trying to pick satisfying stories in the novel.
I should be doing work...
Love you guys!
-Kenny
AAAI Poster
Its gonna look like mostly gibberish, but the essence of it is that the technology tries to create good stories, given a set of possible plot points in a story. Imagine a choose-your-own-adventure novel, and this technology is trying to pick satisfying stories in the novel.
I should be doing work...
Love you guys!
-Kenny
Pamplona - Fesival of San Fermin - Running with the Bulls
SO! I'm still alive. And the running of the bulls was pretty crazy. Here's the scoop:
We hopped on a bus from Barcelona the night before last at 11pm. Slept on the ride and arrived at 6am in Pamplona. The Festival of San Fermin is the festival that the running of the bulls is couched in. It runs for a full week, so we had one guy with us who had gone the weekend before, but ended up not getting to run. He knew the way around, and we wandered towards the track and bought our outfits along the way. White pants, white shirts, red scarf belt, and a red bandana tied around the neck. Only 30€ for the whole getup. Once we were dressed and looked like everyone else in the city, we headed towards the track. There was some question as to where to start, because you want to be able to make it to the arena at the end of the run before they close the gates after the last bull. So we started right after Dead Man's Turn -- so named because it is a sharp right turn where the bulls frequently slip and slam into the far wall of the turn. Hooves apparantly don't get good traction on cobblestone.
Well as it turns out, you have to be at the very beginning while you're waiting, else they shepherd you off the track. So we got kicked off the track about 15 minutes before the start of the run. That made the second time of not getting to run for Dave, and he wasn't going to have any of that. So we ran back around to the front of the track and hopped back in. Turns out they cram everyone together into the very front of the track, then about 5 min before the start, they open the gates and let people migrate down the track a ways to spread out for the actual run. As they started letting us spread out along the track, I was taking pictures. Apparantly you're not allowed to run with anything on your person at all except your clothes. A cop saw me, and quickly threw me off the course, which really sucked, cause now I was by myself and not getting to run.
So I backtracked along the course, trying to find a way back in. I eventually made it almost back to the beginning, and watched the first wave of bulls run by. Everyone was crammed together at a railing that was maybe 6ft above the course. Then I heard some random guy talking to his friend say, "Dude, we just need to jump the rail and get in there." So I turned around and said "Yeah, we do."
Instant friends, we pushed the inactive spectators out of the way and jumped down onto the course. About a minute later the last gunshot went off. Last wave of bulls coming. Unfortunately the last wave is the larger, older bulls. Its the wave that is designed to pick up any stragglers if a bull got separated from its herd. At the sound of the gunshot, my heart leapt and I started sprinting. Then I slowed down, wanting to catch a glimpse of the bulls. I waited for them, then was able to keep pace about 20 ft in front of them for the entire course. It was pretty crazy. We made it to the end of the course, and ran into the stadium, which was already full of people from the first two waves. Luckily, my friends had worn bright green bandanas on their heads, so it was easy for me to find them in the crowd of people in the arena.
The game in the arena is this: release a younger bull, teenage to young adult, with pads covering the tips of his horns, and let him play with the crowd. And by play I mean charge. Let me assure you that young does not mean small in this case. These bulls were big, and scary, and throwing people around. They only let out one at a time, and for the first one me and my friends just hugged the wall the entire time. Then when they let the second one out we decided to get out into the middle of the ring with all of the crowd. Part of the game is to touch the bull -- its supposed to be good luck. But you're not thinking much about touching a bull when the crowd suddenly dives to either side, parting in front of you, and revealing a bulls that is charging in your direction. That's a memory you don't quickly forget. Lol.
The second bull got Kabir and tossed him. Pretty funny. No injuries. Some people did get hit and then fall under the bulls feet, so they got some nasty hoofprints, but no one got seriously injured. One guy got an uppercut from a padded horn, one got flipped completely upside down and fell on his head, and quite a few fell under foot.
With the third bull, I was getting a lot closer, dancing up next to him as people scattered. There was a moment when I ended up about 10 ft away from the bull, and he turned and stared straight at me. We faced off for about 3 seconds before someone else caught his attention and he charged them. Later I was able to get right in front of him. I squared myself up between the horns, waiting for the hit. He got up next to me, and I put both hands on his horns, right where they met his head. Then he just turned around and ran for some other guy. It was pretty sweet.
It was about this time that we realized what people were doing when they brought each bull into the ring. The guys would get right where the entrance hall opened into the ring, and form a tight little mash of people, squatting as low as they could. Then when the bull would run down the corridor and into the ring, he would jump over the small crowd, flying over their heads and into the ring.
So of course I had to go get in that crowd.
It was sometimes as deep as 7 people or more, but I did it twice and managed to be pretty squarely in the middle, so I wouldn't get clipped as the bull came down. It was pretty crazy. I think Kabir has a video of it on his camera. If he posts it, I'll be sure to put a link in here.
Then somewhere around the 4th bull I let him charge me. I squared up in the middle of his horns again, and then he came in and picked me up with his head. I held onto his horns for dear life. He tossed his head a couple of times, then set me back down. For some reason, this wasn't acceptable behavior, and a crowd of 5 guys started yelling at me and hitting me and telling me to get out of the ring. Which I didn't understand at all, cause there were other people trying to climb onto his back, and no one got pissed at them. I think maybe it was the fact that I held on to his horns. Dunno. Either way, it was pretty awesome.
After the ring, we got some food and then passed out on a patch of grass for a couple hours. Then we just wandered around the city, waiting for the bullfight during the late afternoon. The running is at 8am, so you end up having a long day after you run. Pamplona is a really pretty city. I thought it would end up being one of those small towns that didn't have much going for it except its one main event, but I was definitely wrong. What I saw of it was beautiful, and it looked like there's quite a bit going on. And the entire city is dressed in white and red outfits, which is pretty cool to walk through.
So bullfight at 6:30. Bullfights are really just gruesome. I mean, I guess its worth seeing one once in your life, but its certainly not my type of entertainment. I'm not big on watching bulls get speared, then tagged, then stabbed. And apparantly our day was the worst of the week. The way the whole killing is set up is like this: first a guy on a horse uses a spear and stabs the shoulders of the bull. The spear has a perpendicular bar, so that it can't go to deep. He does this twice. Then some other guys come in and run past and stab some kind of something into his shoulders, and they stick onto the bull. I'm guessing its just some kind of hooked blade. It has a long shaft to it though, which is always decorated in three colors. After the bull has about 5 or 6 of these things hanging on to him, then the matador comes out. And of course throughout this whole process the typical wave the blanket thing is going on, making the bull charge over and over again to tire himself out. The matador continues this process for a while, then gets his sword out and goes for a kill. The purpose of this whole process is to loosen up the muscles on the back of the bull, as this is where the matador will stab him, and even a sword won't go through them unless they are first softened up. The matador stabs through the shoulders, aiming for the heart. If he's good, the bull goes down immediately. If he's not, then the sword goes in and three guys make the bull spin in circles, the blad still in him, until he falls over. Then they give him a quick knife to the base of the skull, severing the spinal column and killing him instantly. The whole thing is really just gory. And they do this like 6 times or so.
So after we got our dose of blood and death we just went out into the street of Pamplona, and the Festival of San Fermin was kickin like crazy. The streets were packed, everybody having a great time, and there were constantly little mini parades of bands marching down the streets. They had come from the bullfight. Someone compared the festival to Mardi Gras, but I wouldn't know, cause I ain't never been thar. So we just chilled in a square, drinking, and met some girls from Canada who were living in France working on a vineyard. They had just graduated college from Western, in Ontario, and were taking a year to do manual labor. Lol. Which actually sounds like a great idea. We hung out with them the rest of the night, going bar hopping. Which is ridiculously easy in Pamplona on certain streets. You just walk out the door of one, walk 10 steps, and walk into the next one. And the drinks were all pretty reasonable.
We were supposed to catch a bus back at 1 am, but we decided to miss it in favor of partying. So we're currently still sitting in Pamplona, waiting for the 5pm bus instead. We just slept on the grass, which appears to be what everyone does during the festival. No hotel needed. Lol.
So that pretty much brings me up to date for this little trip. Only one full day, but we packed it full, certainly. Got more homework waiting for me back in Barcelona. I'm booking my trip to Hallstatt soon too. Ok, I'm out for now.
Love you guys. Hope things are going well across the pond.
Oh, and I lost my camera while I was running. It was crammed into the pocket of my white pants, and it must have jostled loose while I was running. Which really sucks, cause if I'm going to Hallstatt, I'm gonna have to have a camera. So I may just have to buy another one. I guess mine was starting to get a little archaic anyways. Still it worked great, so I'm pretty disappointed. Luckily there weren't any pictures from any other trips on there, just a few from earlier that morning. Still, all in all, a great weekend trip.
-K3
We hopped on a bus from Barcelona the night before last at 11pm. Slept on the ride and arrived at 6am in Pamplona. The Festival of San Fermin is the festival that the running of the bulls is couched in. It runs for a full week, so we had one guy with us who had gone the weekend before, but ended up not getting to run. He knew the way around, and we wandered towards the track and bought our outfits along the way. White pants, white shirts, red scarf belt, and a red bandana tied around the neck. Only 30€ for the whole getup. Once we were dressed and looked like everyone else in the city, we headed towards the track. There was some question as to where to start, because you want to be able to make it to the arena at the end of the run before they close the gates after the last bull. So we started right after Dead Man's Turn -- so named because it is a sharp right turn where the bulls frequently slip and slam into the far wall of the turn. Hooves apparantly don't get good traction on cobblestone.
Well as it turns out, you have to be at the very beginning while you're waiting, else they shepherd you off the track. So we got kicked off the track about 15 minutes before the start of the run. That made the second time of not getting to run for Dave, and he wasn't going to have any of that. So we ran back around to the front of the track and hopped back in. Turns out they cram everyone together into the very front of the track, then about 5 min before the start, they open the gates and let people migrate down the track a ways to spread out for the actual run. As they started letting us spread out along the track, I was taking pictures. Apparantly you're not allowed to run with anything on your person at all except your clothes. A cop saw me, and quickly threw me off the course, which really sucked, cause now I was by myself and not getting to run.
So I backtracked along the course, trying to find a way back in. I eventually made it almost back to the beginning, and watched the first wave of bulls run by. Everyone was crammed together at a railing that was maybe 6ft above the course. Then I heard some random guy talking to his friend say, "Dude, we just need to jump the rail and get in there." So I turned around and said "Yeah, we do."
Instant friends, we pushed the inactive spectators out of the way and jumped down onto the course. About a minute later the last gunshot went off. Last wave of bulls coming. Unfortunately the last wave is the larger, older bulls. Its the wave that is designed to pick up any stragglers if a bull got separated from its herd. At the sound of the gunshot, my heart leapt and I started sprinting. Then I slowed down, wanting to catch a glimpse of the bulls. I waited for them, then was able to keep pace about 20 ft in front of them for the entire course. It was pretty crazy. We made it to the end of the course, and ran into the stadium, which was already full of people from the first two waves. Luckily, my friends had worn bright green bandanas on their heads, so it was easy for me to find them in the crowd of people in the arena.
The game in the arena is this: release a younger bull, teenage to young adult, with pads covering the tips of his horns, and let him play with the crowd. And by play I mean charge. Let me assure you that young does not mean small in this case. These bulls were big, and scary, and throwing people around. They only let out one at a time, and for the first one me and my friends just hugged the wall the entire time. Then when they let the second one out we decided to get out into the middle of the ring with all of the crowd. Part of the game is to touch the bull -- its supposed to be good luck. But you're not thinking much about touching a bull when the crowd suddenly dives to either side, parting in front of you, and revealing a bulls that is charging in your direction. That's a memory you don't quickly forget. Lol.
The second bull got Kabir and tossed him. Pretty funny. No injuries. Some people did get hit and then fall under the bulls feet, so they got some nasty hoofprints, but no one got seriously injured. One guy got an uppercut from a padded horn, one got flipped completely upside down and fell on his head, and quite a few fell under foot.
With the third bull, I was getting a lot closer, dancing up next to him as people scattered. There was a moment when I ended up about 10 ft away from the bull, and he turned and stared straight at me. We faced off for about 3 seconds before someone else caught his attention and he charged them. Later I was able to get right in front of him. I squared myself up between the horns, waiting for the hit. He got up next to me, and I put both hands on his horns, right where they met his head. Then he just turned around and ran for some other guy. It was pretty sweet.
It was about this time that we realized what people were doing when they brought each bull into the ring. The guys would get right where the entrance hall opened into the ring, and form a tight little mash of people, squatting as low as they could. Then when the bull would run down the corridor and into the ring, he would jump over the small crowd, flying over their heads and into the ring.
So of course I had to go get in that crowd.
It was sometimes as deep as 7 people or more, but I did it twice and managed to be pretty squarely in the middle, so I wouldn't get clipped as the bull came down. It was pretty crazy. I think Kabir has a video of it on his camera. If he posts it, I'll be sure to put a link in here.
Then somewhere around the 4th bull I let him charge me. I squared up in the middle of his horns again, and then he came in and picked me up with his head. I held onto his horns for dear life. He tossed his head a couple of times, then set me back down. For some reason, this wasn't acceptable behavior, and a crowd of 5 guys started yelling at me and hitting me and telling me to get out of the ring. Which I didn't understand at all, cause there were other people trying to climb onto his back, and no one got pissed at them. I think maybe it was the fact that I held on to his horns. Dunno. Either way, it was pretty awesome.
After the ring, we got some food and then passed out on a patch of grass for a couple hours. Then we just wandered around the city, waiting for the bullfight during the late afternoon. The running is at 8am, so you end up having a long day after you run. Pamplona is a really pretty city. I thought it would end up being one of those small towns that didn't have much going for it except its one main event, but I was definitely wrong. What I saw of it was beautiful, and it looked like there's quite a bit going on. And the entire city is dressed in white and red outfits, which is pretty cool to walk through.
So bullfight at 6:30. Bullfights are really just gruesome. I mean, I guess its worth seeing one once in your life, but its certainly not my type of entertainment. I'm not big on watching bulls get speared, then tagged, then stabbed. And apparantly our day was the worst of the week. The way the whole killing is set up is like this: first a guy on a horse uses a spear and stabs the shoulders of the bull. The spear has a perpendicular bar, so that it can't go to deep. He does this twice. Then some other guys come in and run past and stab some kind of something into his shoulders, and they stick onto the bull. I'm guessing its just some kind of hooked blade. It has a long shaft to it though, which is always decorated in three colors. After the bull has about 5 or 6 of these things hanging on to him, then the matador comes out. And of course throughout this whole process the typical wave the blanket thing is going on, making the bull charge over and over again to tire himself out. The matador continues this process for a while, then gets his sword out and goes for a kill. The purpose of this whole process is to loosen up the muscles on the back of the bull, as this is where the matador will stab him, and even a sword won't go through them unless they are first softened up. The matador stabs through the shoulders, aiming for the heart. If he's good, the bull goes down immediately. If he's not, then the sword goes in and three guys make the bull spin in circles, the blad still in him, until he falls over. Then they give him a quick knife to the base of the skull, severing the spinal column and killing him instantly. The whole thing is really just gory. And they do this like 6 times or so.
So after we got our dose of blood and death we just went out into the street of Pamplona, and the Festival of San Fermin was kickin like crazy. The streets were packed, everybody having a great time, and there were constantly little mini parades of bands marching down the streets. They had come from the bullfight. Someone compared the festival to Mardi Gras, but I wouldn't know, cause I ain't never been thar. So we just chilled in a square, drinking, and met some girls from Canada who were living in France working on a vineyard. They had just graduated college from Western, in Ontario, and were taking a year to do manual labor. Lol. Which actually sounds like a great idea. We hung out with them the rest of the night, going bar hopping. Which is ridiculously easy in Pamplona on certain streets. You just walk out the door of one, walk 10 steps, and walk into the next one. And the drinks were all pretty reasonable.
We were supposed to catch a bus back at 1 am, but we decided to miss it in favor of partying. So we're currently still sitting in Pamplona, waiting for the 5pm bus instead. We just slept on the grass, which appears to be what everyone does during the festival. No hotel needed. Lol.
So that pretty much brings me up to date for this little trip. Only one full day, but we packed it full, certainly. Got more homework waiting for me back in Barcelona. I'm booking my trip to Hallstatt soon too. Ok, I'm out for now.
Love you guys. Hope things are going well across the pond.
Oh, and I lost my camera while I was running. It was crammed into the pocket of my white pants, and it must have jostled loose while I was running. Which really sucks, cause if I'm going to Hallstatt, I'm gonna have to have a camera. So I may just have to buy another one. I guess mine was starting to get a little archaic anyways. Still it worked great, so I'm pretty disappointed. Luckily there weren't any pictures from any other trips on there, just a few from earlier that morning. Still, all in all, a great weekend trip.
-K3
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Running With the Bulls
I know I still haven't gotten up my last trip yet. I need to do that while its still fresh in my mind, but I've been busy finishing up all my projects this week. Quite a lot of work. Almost pulled an allnighter last night. Not so fun, but hey, I'm in Barcelona.
Just bought my ticket to Pamplona. We leave Friday at 11pm, arrive in Pamplona at 4am, run with the bulls, party all day, then get back on the bus to Barcelona at 1am Sat night/Sun morning. Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on the Running of the Bulls.
I promise I'll post soon. I gotta write my paper on the validity of wikipedia right now. lol.
Much love,
K3
Just bought my ticket to Pamplona. We leave Friday at 11pm, arrive in Pamplona at 4am, run with the bulls, party all day, then get back on the bus to Barcelona at 1am Sat night/Sun morning. Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on the Running of the Bulls.
I promise I'll post soon. I gotta write my paper on the validity of wikipedia right now. lol.
Much love,
K3
Monday, July 9, 2007
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Paris
Paris was quite an interesting trip. It started off quite poorly, but all in all, turned out great.
So my flight to Paris was booked for 8:20 am. It left from the Girona airport, which is about an hour bus ride from Barcelona, but the bus station is literally right across the street from our residence, so it's actually pretty convenient. The busses tend to run about every half hour or so. So I figured I needed to leave somewhere around 6:00 am to be in pretty good shape. Well it just so happens that a bus schedule which starts its runs with busses to Girona at 3:00 am, 3:15 am, and 3:30 am, doesn't have ANY busses that go to Girona between 5:45 and 7:00 am. So when I get there at 6:00, I've already missed the last bus that can take me to my destination on time. And this is after staying up most of the night packing. So I get on the 7am anyways just in case I can make it.
No dice.
I get to Girona. It's already 8:20, so I've missed my flight, and when I talk to the ticketing guy, he tries to help me out, but it's a discount airline. They're not gonna refund my ticket or apply it to another ticket when I miss my flight. So that sucked. I had to take the bus back to BCN, which amounted to another hour of bumpy sleep, then immediately booked the cheapest ticket I could find for the next day (Saturday), and passed back out for some stressed out, angry sleep. A pretty intensely frustrating day, all in all.
So the next day we make our respective flights, and I end up in Paris about 4 hours before the other guys, so I proceed to wander semi-aimlessly through the city. I find the Louvre pretty quickly, then wander past it in search of Pont Neuf. Anyone in the immediate family should know the significance of Pont Neuf.
*clears throat* And I quote: "Paris. 5 pm. Pont Neuf. You go alone. You walk to the middle of the bridge, take off your jacket, and face east. I'll call you then."
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
That would be The Borne Identity. Borne talking on the phone to the main bad guy that was the head of the project that "trained" Borne.
So yeah. I wasn't wearing a jacket, just a sweater, but I did walk to the middle of the bridge and check out the view. Pretty sweet.
So after chillin and wanderin for a while, I finally met up with Kevin. Kabir ended up spending the day with his sister who had been living there, so Kevin and I decided to start at the Louvre, walk through the Toulleries gardens and down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomf. I pretty much had no idea what any of this meant at the time, and still pretty much don't, but I have at least a general idea now. The Toulleries are the gardens just outside of the Louvre. Lots of green grass, statues, and some pretty flowers. A good set of trees, and it opens up at the end as a circle with ramps on the sides that lead up to a wall that overlooks a circular plaza/roundabout type deal.
What's cool about the roundabout, is the obelisk standing in the middle of it. It's a frickin 3000 year old obelisk that was given to one of the French kings by one of the Egyptian pharaohs in what I'm sure must have been the biggest brown-nosing political suck-up EVER. The obelisk is 3000 years old, made of pink granite, and was taken from the temple of Ramses. That sounds like bad ju-jus if I've ever heard of them. Taking an ancient, giant sculpture from a temple an giving it as a bs gift? Pbbt.
It was very pretty to look at though, as it was carved with hieroglyphics and the pyramidic point of the top was gilded in gold. Still, taking an obelisk that old, from a temple, and putting it in a traffic roundabout?? Get out of here.
It just so happens that this is also where I tried my first crepe. Quite good, I guess. Kindof like a thin pancake that was wrapped around a lot of hot strawberry jelly.
This was also where we ran into the Segue guys. There were guys in this area that were giving Segue rides of 15 min for 5 euro, so we said heck yeah. It's definitely worth 5 euro to me to play around on a Segue for 15 min. Which, as it turns out, is all the time you really want to spend playing on a Segue. They are pretty much as cool as they are pitched, in the sense that they balance you, read your body movements for directions, and so on, but as a novelty, without a lot of space to play around in, their alloted attention span can get pretty short. Lol. But still definitely worth the 5 euro.
Entry unfinished. Still to come: rainbow, champs elysees, kissing girl, arc de triomf, pictures, bad tourist pictures, meeting dave, good food, Eiffel tower by night, glittering Eiffel tower, random girls, lame, finding a random bar, expensive, cab home. And that's day 1 of paris.
Homework for now. Will try and keep up the posts. I'm starting to think seriously about travel oriented jobs now...
Love and hugs (I'll be doing my "Free Hugs" project tomorrow),
Kenny
So my flight to Paris was booked for 8:20 am. It left from the Girona airport, which is about an hour bus ride from Barcelona, but the bus station is literally right across the street from our residence, so it's actually pretty convenient. The busses tend to run about every half hour or so. So I figured I needed to leave somewhere around 6:00 am to be in pretty good shape. Well it just so happens that a bus schedule which starts its runs with busses to Girona at 3:00 am, 3:15 am, and 3:30 am, doesn't have ANY busses that go to Girona between 5:45 and 7:00 am. So when I get there at 6:00, I've already missed the last bus that can take me to my destination on time. And this is after staying up most of the night packing. So I get on the 7am anyways just in case I can make it.
No dice.
I get to Girona. It's already 8:20, so I've missed my flight, and when I talk to the ticketing guy, he tries to help me out, but it's a discount airline. They're not gonna refund my ticket or apply it to another ticket when I miss my flight. So that sucked. I had to take the bus back to BCN, which amounted to another hour of bumpy sleep, then immediately booked the cheapest ticket I could find for the next day (Saturday), and passed back out for some stressed out, angry sleep. A pretty intensely frustrating day, all in all.
So the next day we make our respective flights, and I end up in Paris about 4 hours before the other guys, so I proceed to wander semi-aimlessly through the city. I find the Louvre pretty quickly, then wander past it in search of Pont Neuf. Anyone in the immediate family should know the significance of Pont Neuf.
*clears throat* And I quote: "Paris. 5 pm. Pont Neuf. You go alone. You walk to the middle of the bridge, take off your jacket, and face east. I'll call you then."
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
That would be The Borne Identity. Borne talking on the phone to the main bad guy that was the head of the project that "trained" Borne.
So yeah. I wasn't wearing a jacket, just a sweater, but I did walk to the middle of the bridge and check out the view. Pretty sweet.
So after chillin and wanderin for a while, I finally met up with Kevin. Kabir ended up spending the day with his sister who had been living there, so Kevin and I decided to start at the Louvre, walk through the Toulleries gardens and down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomf. I pretty much had no idea what any of this meant at the time, and still pretty much don't, but I have at least a general idea now. The Toulleries are the gardens just outside of the Louvre. Lots of green grass, statues, and some pretty flowers. A good set of trees, and it opens up at the end as a circle with ramps on the sides that lead up to a wall that overlooks a circular plaza/roundabout type deal.
What's cool about the roundabout, is the obelisk standing in the middle of it. It's a frickin 3000 year old obelisk that was given to one of the French kings by one of the Egyptian pharaohs in what I'm sure must have been the biggest brown-nosing political suck-up EVER. The obelisk is 3000 years old, made of pink granite, and was taken from the temple of Ramses. That sounds like bad ju-jus if I've ever heard of them. Taking an ancient, giant sculpture from a temple an giving it as a bs gift? Pbbt.
It was very pretty to look at though, as it was carved with hieroglyphics and the pyramidic point of the top was gilded in gold. Still, taking an obelisk that old, from a temple, and putting it in a traffic roundabout?? Get out of here.
It just so happens that this is also where I tried my first crepe. Quite good, I guess. Kindof like a thin pancake that was wrapped around a lot of hot strawberry jelly.
This was also where we ran into the Segue guys. There were guys in this area that were giving Segue rides of 15 min for 5 euro, so we said heck yeah. It's definitely worth 5 euro to me to play around on a Segue for 15 min. Which, as it turns out, is all the time you really want to spend playing on a Segue. They are pretty much as cool as they are pitched, in the sense that they balance you, read your body movements for directions, and so on, but as a novelty, without a lot of space to play around in, their alloted attention span can get pretty short. Lol. But still definitely worth the 5 euro.
Entry unfinished. Still to come: rainbow, champs elysees, kissing girl, arc de triomf, pictures, bad tourist pictures, meeting dave, good food, Eiffel tower by night, glittering Eiffel tower, random girls, lame, finding a random bar, expensive, cab home. And that's day 1 of paris.
Homework for now. Will try and keep up the posts. I'm starting to think seriously about travel oriented jobs now...
Love and hugs (I'll be doing my "Free Hugs" project tomorrow),
Kenny
Monday, July 2, 2007
Short Synopsis
Back safely in Barcelona.
My computer tells me I took 580 pictures in the last 10 days. I believe it. That was probably the craziest 10 day vacation I'll ever go on.
I have to head out to class soon, but here's the quick breakdown:
Paris-
Zagat rated restaurant
Eiffel Tower by night
Champs Elysees
Arc de Triomf
Palace and Gardens at Versailles
attempt at the Louvre
Interlaken-
Awesome couple in Geneva ("Tourist information?" lol)
scooters into the alps
canyoning half day
bungy jumping
canyoning full day
club metro
TONS of cool people
great environment
Amsterdam-
Wandering the canals -- beautiful city
Mike. lol
Red Light District
Heineken Experience
John Legend concert
attempt at the Van Gogh Museum
Love and miss you all. I'm still doing well. In good health and sound mind. Ready to pick the pace back up for all the projects that are going to be due in the next three weeks. Then maybe... Haldstat!!
Love,
Kenny
My computer tells me I took 580 pictures in the last 10 days. I believe it. That was probably the craziest 10 day vacation I'll ever go on.
I have to head out to class soon, but here's the quick breakdown:
Paris-
Zagat rated restaurant
Eiffel Tower by night
Champs Elysees
Arc de Triomf
Palace and Gardens at Versailles
attempt at the Louvre
Interlaken-
Awesome couple in Geneva ("Tourist information?" lol)
scooters into the alps
canyoning half day
bungy jumping
canyoning full day
club metro
TONS of cool people
great environment
Amsterdam-
Wandering the canals -- beautiful city
Mike. lol
Red Light District
Heineken Experience
John Legend concert
attempt at the Van Gogh Museum
Love and miss you all. I'm still doing well. In good health and sound mind. Ready to pick the pace back up for all the projects that are going to be due in the next three weeks. Then maybe... Haldstat!!
Love,
Kenny
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Quick Update
In Interlaken. The weather is pretty windy, so all the airborn activities keep getting cancelled. Luckily the booking agency is amazing helpful, so we keep rearranging our schedule trying to accomodate the bad weather, and still get skydiving in. Still, yesterday was awesome cause we rented scooters and drove around through the valleys of the alps, then took a gondola up to the top of one of the mountains.
Paris was beautiful. So much gold everywhere, and everything quite grand. The Champs Elysee reminded me a lot of Las Ramblas. Rode on Segues for a little bit. Missed the Louvre by 15 minutes. Got some amazing pictures though. Saw lots of cool stuff. Will get it all down when I get some more time. It's gonna be another set of really long posts.
Ok, off to canyoning!
Saw a great quote today: If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.
Au revoir!
-K3
Paris was beautiful. So much gold everywhere, and everything quite grand. The Champs Elysee reminded me a lot of Las Ramblas. Rode on Segues for a little bit. Missed the Louvre by 15 minutes. Got some amazing pictures though. Saw lots of cool stuff. Will get it all down when I get some more time. It's gonna be another set of really long posts.
Ok, off to canyoning!
Saw a great quote today: If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.
Au revoir!
-K3
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Links to Pictures
Barcelona Graffiti:
http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079538&l=eb71a&id=12806034
BCN Pictures:
http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079540&l=0ff2c&id=12806034
Works of Igor Mitoraj:
http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079541&l=0ba5f&id=12806034
Figueres and the Dali Museum:
http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079544&l=e4f50&id=12806034
Site Visit: Poble Nou and Port Forum:
http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2080544&l=00ac0&id=12806034
Site Visit: Poble Nou and Port Forum (2):
http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2080557&l=92284&id=12806034
http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079538&l=eb71a&id=12806034
BCN Pictures:
http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079540&l=0ff2c&id=12806034
Works of Igor Mitoraj:
http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079541&l=0ba5f&id=12806034
Figueres and the Dali Museum:
http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079544&l=e4f50&id=12806034
Site Visit: Poble Nou and Port Forum:
http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2080544&l=00ac0&id=12806034
Site Visit: Poble Nou and Port Forum (2):
http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2080557&l=92284&id=12806034
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
My Projects
Figured I'd give you guys a little taste of the class projects that I'm working on as well, since this is a STUDY abroad program. Hah.
For my Computing and Society class, we have to write a position paper on some topic that sounds relevant to the class. This just means we have to pick a side and argue it. My topic is going to be argueing for the accuracy and validity of Wikipedia. For those of you that have never used or heard of it, Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia with a catch: it is editable by anyone. While this sounds like it would be a horrible concept just asking for trouble, so far it has enjoyed enormous success. It has articles on nearly everything you can think of, and the vast majority of the time they are very accurate. It also enjoys some perks that normal encyclopedias don't, like for example the rapidity with which a new article will be put up when a new topic comes out. You can read about anything from political issues to marine biology to artificial intelligence. In fact, I frequent just type in topics from my textbooks and read them on Wikipedia instead of from the textbook because they are much more well-written and enjoyable. And they also usually have links to other webpages with verifying or extra data.
And the reason I picked this topic is because typically academic-types (read professors) hate it. This is slowly changing, and as everyone begins to see how well it's done over the last few years, more and more people are using it more often. In fact, I think that recently someone said that the New York Times actually quoted it as a source in one of their articles. So this is one of those volatile issues in the academic world, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Plus, before I picked it, and actually what made me think of it, was the fact that the professors here with us are split down the middle on whether they like it or not. So this should be fun.
I start my research on that today, with an outline due thursday, and the final paper due probably around finals week (2 1/2 weeks).
Then there's our corners project, for architecture, which I've talked about before. And there's also this project that the professor calls "From the Formal to the Social." In this we have to pick a process or an object, and fully document it and its uses around the city. He wants to make sure we focus on everything about our topic, from XS to XL. So for example, on project might be the trash removal system here, called BCNeta. Or some people are doing graffiti. We're doing public sitting places. So you have to look at everything, including construction material, measurements, ease of use, placement within the city, how it affects traffic flow, how it affects views and monuments, yadda yadda yadda. Everything from the smallest material thing about it to the largest most general way it affects the city or patterns within the city. That one just started today, so that should be interesting to see how that one goes.
Then there's the public spaces project. Each group of 3 people gets a district of the city, and has to come up with a categorization of the public spaces within that region, then pick on category and fully document it within the region. It's an interesting thing to focus on, because Barcelona has so many public spaces everywhere. It draws attention to the differences between how cities and societies function. In the late afternoon, everyone in Barcelona comes out into their local square or park, and it just becomes this amazing transformation. Some squares turn into psuedo daycares/playgrounds, where kids just take over the square and the parents completely let them go and pay attention to whatever else it is. Sabir was sitting and watching and he said he saw one woman come and just drop her kid off in the square, leave for 2 hours doing shopping, then come back with arm fulls of stuff, grab her kid and head home. In other squares all the surrounding shops and cafe's push chairs outside and form a perimeter of outside dining. And in all of them the age range goes from 2 months to 100 years. It's pretty cool. Sabir sometimes calls the parks and squares things like outdoor living rooms. It's an interesting concept.
We also have what's called a "Passages" project. The concept here is that throughout the day, each person in a city traces a passage through the city. Each of these passages may have their lulls and peaks of activity, and they all cross each other thousands of times a day. It is the aggregate of all of these passages that makes up city life. Which is a pretty cool way to think about it. So we have to create, document, and re-present our own passage of the city. It is a four hour long cut into the city life, a kind of cross-section of the Barcelona hustle and bustle. And the idea is that on the way we create some form of little "disturbance" and then observe the ripples. And the ripples should be made in possibly more than one way, so that we have multiple tracks through which to observe what is going on. It's got more of an artistic focus than a scientific or research one. And it's really cool.
Past projects have included things like asking directions to a specific place, then having the person draw the directions for you. That creates a set of drawings that show how people's mental maps of the city differ. Or another past project included sitting on the metro from the beginning of one line to its end, and taking a picture of the seat opposite you (they face each other) at every stop, then lining all the pictures up with the inner monologue of the picture taker.
I think mine is going to be standing in Plaza Catalunya, the biggest and busiest plaza right at the heart of the city, holding a sign that says "Free Hugs." I'll have someone else taking pictures of everyone that comes up to get a hug. Definitely gonna be interesting to see how that goes.
Then I think there might also be papers in each of the architecture classes, but the rumor is that he has always cancelled one project every year. So we'll see how those go.
Ok, well that's about it. I just picked up my backpack from Kylie. Looks like a winner. Can't wait to get to Interlaken.
Catch up with you guys soon!
-K3
For my Computing and Society class, we have to write a position paper on some topic that sounds relevant to the class. This just means we have to pick a side and argue it. My topic is going to be argueing for the accuracy and validity of Wikipedia. For those of you that have never used or heard of it, Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia with a catch: it is editable by anyone. While this sounds like it would be a horrible concept just asking for trouble, so far it has enjoyed enormous success. It has articles on nearly everything you can think of, and the vast majority of the time they are very accurate. It also enjoys some perks that normal encyclopedias don't, like for example the rapidity with which a new article will be put up when a new topic comes out. You can read about anything from political issues to marine biology to artificial intelligence. In fact, I frequent just type in topics from my textbooks and read them on Wikipedia instead of from the textbook because they are much more well-written and enjoyable. And they also usually have links to other webpages with verifying or extra data.
And the reason I picked this topic is because typically academic-types (read professors) hate it. This is slowly changing, and as everyone begins to see how well it's done over the last few years, more and more people are using it more often. In fact, I think that recently someone said that the New York Times actually quoted it as a source in one of their articles. So this is one of those volatile issues in the academic world, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Plus, before I picked it, and actually what made me think of it, was the fact that the professors here with us are split down the middle on whether they like it or not. So this should be fun.
I start my research on that today, with an outline due thursday, and the final paper due probably around finals week (2 1/2 weeks).
Then there's our corners project, for architecture, which I've talked about before. And there's also this project that the professor calls "From the Formal to the Social." In this we have to pick a process or an object, and fully document it and its uses around the city. He wants to make sure we focus on everything about our topic, from XS to XL. So for example, on project might be the trash removal system here, called BCNeta. Or some people are doing graffiti. We're doing public sitting places. So you have to look at everything, including construction material, measurements, ease of use, placement within the city, how it affects traffic flow, how it affects views and monuments, yadda yadda yadda. Everything from the smallest material thing about it to the largest most general way it affects the city or patterns within the city. That one just started today, so that should be interesting to see how that one goes.
Then there's the public spaces project. Each group of 3 people gets a district of the city, and has to come up with a categorization of the public spaces within that region, then pick on category and fully document it within the region. It's an interesting thing to focus on, because Barcelona has so many public spaces everywhere. It draws attention to the differences between how cities and societies function. In the late afternoon, everyone in Barcelona comes out into their local square or park, and it just becomes this amazing transformation. Some squares turn into psuedo daycares/playgrounds, where kids just take over the square and the parents completely let them go and pay attention to whatever else it is. Sabir was sitting and watching and he said he saw one woman come and just drop her kid off in the square, leave for 2 hours doing shopping, then come back with arm fulls of stuff, grab her kid and head home. In other squares all the surrounding shops and cafe's push chairs outside and form a perimeter of outside dining. And in all of them the age range goes from 2 months to 100 years. It's pretty cool. Sabir sometimes calls the parks and squares things like outdoor living rooms. It's an interesting concept.
We also have what's called a "Passages" project. The concept here is that throughout the day, each person in a city traces a passage through the city. Each of these passages may have their lulls and peaks of activity, and they all cross each other thousands of times a day. It is the aggregate of all of these passages that makes up city life. Which is a pretty cool way to think about it. So we have to create, document, and re-present our own passage of the city. It is a four hour long cut into the city life, a kind of cross-section of the Barcelona hustle and bustle. And the idea is that on the way we create some form of little "disturbance" and then observe the ripples. And the ripples should be made in possibly more than one way, so that we have multiple tracks through which to observe what is going on. It's got more of an artistic focus than a scientific or research one. And it's really cool.
Past projects have included things like asking directions to a specific place, then having the person draw the directions for you. That creates a set of drawings that show how people's mental maps of the city differ. Or another past project included sitting on the metro from the beginning of one line to its end, and taking a picture of the seat opposite you (they face each other) at every stop, then lining all the pictures up with the inner monologue of the picture taker.
I think mine is going to be standing in Plaza Catalunya, the biggest and busiest plaza right at the heart of the city, holding a sign that says "Free Hugs." I'll have someone else taking pictures of everyone that comes up to get a hug. Definitely gonna be interesting to see how that goes.
Then I think there might also be papers in each of the architecture classes, but the rumor is that he has always cancelled one project every year. So we'll see how those go.
Ok, well that's about it. I just picked up my backpack from Kylie. Looks like a winner. Can't wait to get to Interlaken.
Catch up with you guys soon!
-K3
Monday, June 18, 2007
Ramping up for the next trip ...and studying.
So! Been back in Barcelona for just over a week now. Things have been pretty chill here--focusing mostly on schoolwork, planning the next week of travel. But we still go out on the weekends, of course. ;)
My flights for my next week of travel are officially booked. I leave Friday morning for Paris, Tuesday morning for Interlaken, and Thursday night for Amsterdam. Hostels still aren't booked, and we need to buy a tent for camping in Interlaken. Just got word from a friend that she'll sell me her hiking backpack for 35€, which is awesome. That is going to save me a lot of time and money, since I won't have to go out searching for one. And a new one would probably have been 50€ min. But I really need to get one. I borrowed Zach's duffle bag for the last week of travel, and carrying that thing around between all the train stops and bus stops and hostels got old reallllly fast. Plus we'll be camping out at Interlaken, instead of getting a hostel. We'd rather be spending our money on all the extreme sports they have there.
I am SO excited about Interlaken. I definitely feel that it is going to be the main highlight of this next week of travel, much the same way that Cinque Terre was the highlight of the last trip. Except this time we're spending 3 full days there instead of just 1. For just a general idea of all the sporting and adventure they have at Interlaken, take a glance at this website:
Interlaken--Sport and Adventure
I know the main agenda for some people is skydiving, bungee jumping, and hang gliding. But since I've already done skydiving, and it is the most expensive activity, I might skip it this time. Though the thought of skydiving over the Swiss Alps is kind of enticing, to say the least. Lol.
I think my top three activities will probably bungee jumping, canyoning, and something else... maybe zorbing? How awesome would that be? Being rolled down a hill in a giant ball. And then of course the best part is that you get the title of Zorbanaut. And who wouldn't want to be a Zorbanaut?? So we'll see how that goes.
Applied for another student loan, to cover the cost of the rest of this trip and the fall. And it's going to be worth every penny of interest. Travelling like this has been absolutely amazing. And it sounds like we might get a little bit of time during finals week to travel as well. Our flight leaves on the 22nd, which is a Sunday, and most of our finals should be done by the previous Tuesday. So if that works out then I'm definitely going to Haldstat, and maybe Prague.
It's difficult to get people onboard for Haldstat, cause no one has ever heard of it, but now that a few of them have been to Cinque Terre, I'm pitching it as the other place that came as highly recommended as Cinque Terre. So that's getting their attention. Lol. I think I'll have at least one other person to go with me. Which will be fine.
Schoolwork is going pretty good as well. I'm definitely glad I dropped the User Interface class. Just 9 hours is plenty of work. On Saturday me and my two group mates spent 6 hours each taking pictures of intersections for our corners project in architecture. By the end of the project, the entire class will have photographically documented and then analyzed EVERY chamfered corner in the entire city of Barcelona. Everyone suspects that Sabir (the professor) is then going to use this for further research, either of his own or for his grad students. Which is probably true, but that's still cool. It's actually a project of really impressive scope. And Barcelona is, I think, the only city in the world with this style of cut off corner, so it's significant to architecture people to analyze exactly how that worked out for them. So I mean that's cool. I'm always up for some good research.
And speaking of which--my flight to Vancouver is now booked! Vancouver is where the AAAI conference is being held. Last semester, I had a severe case of right place right time. I happened to be sitting in the lab when one of the phd students went in to tell Charles (my research professor) that he didn't think they were going to be able to finish their research in time for the AAAI deadline. As a sidenote, AAAI is now pretty much THE premier conference on Artificial Intelligence. So he's telling Charles that they need help meeting the deadline, but all the other students in that lab are trying to meet deadlines of their own. And I'm literally sitting right outside of Charles' office. So he goes, "Just get Kenny to help you." Bam. Done. So I sit down with them, talk over what they're doing and what needs to get done, and I end up coding a bunch of the distance metrics for them.
And here's the deal with distance metrics. The AI that they are working on is about generating good stories (for things like video games). The author would create what is called a "story space," which is a web of story plot points. Each plot point can lead you to some number of other plot points, and a path through this space ends up being a story. Imagine it kind of like the choose your own adventure novels. So their technology involves finding a way to get the computer to choose good stories every time, but different stories every time. This way you could play a game, and get a good, but unique story every time you play it. Cool eh?
So my part in this was coding the distance metrics. And what these are, is a way to compare stories. Because stories are a series of plot points (or something analogous), how do you say when two stories are alike? Is it if they have the same ending? Or is it if they have all the same story up until the very end? Or is it something subtler, like how many plot points they have that are the same? So I wrote up a series of different distance metrics, and these were used to analyze in different ways how similar the generated stories were.
AND *drumroll please* the paper got accepted! Not only did it get accepted, but of our three reviewers, one gave us a recommendation for best paper. And we got a poster session. Poster sessions are where you print up a big poster of all your info, then stand beside it while everyone walks around. At this conference they are only given to highly technically difficult papers, or outstanding papers. And we got one!
So now I'm published. Third author on a paper at an AI conference. As an undergrad. Woo woo!
The flight from Vancouver leaves about 3 hours after I land in ATL, so I'll just stay in the airport, keep my luggage and turn right back around and get on a plane. Gonna be a long day of travel, but worth it.
Ok, well class is about to start, so I gotta run. Will post again soon. Always so much to say.
Love you guys!
My flights for my next week of travel are officially booked. I leave Friday morning for Paris, Tuesday morning for Interlaken, and Thursday night for Amsterdam. Hostels still aren't booked, and we need to buy a tent for camping in Interlaken. Just got word from a friend that she'll sell me her hiking backpack for 35€, which is awesome. That is going to save me a lot of time and money, since I won't have to go out searching for one. And a new one would probably have been 50€ min. But I really need to get one. I borrowed Zach's duffle bag for the last week of travel, and carrying that thing around between all the train stops and bus stops and hostels got old reallllly fast. Plus we'll be camping out at Interlaken, instead of getting a hostel. We'd rather be spending our money on all the extreme sports they have there.
I am SO excited about Interlaken. I definitely feel that it is going to be the main highlight of this next week of travel, much the same way that Cinque Terre was the highlight of the last trip. Except this time we're spending 3 full days there instead of just 1. For just a general idea of all the sporting and adventure they have at Interlaken, take a glance at this website:
Interlaken--Sport and Adventure
I know the main agenda for some people is skydiving, bungee jumping, and hang gliding. But since I've already done skydiving, and it is the most expensive activity, I might skip it this time. Though the thought of skydiving over the Swiss Alps is kind of enticing, to say the least. Lol.
I think my top three activities will probably bungee jumping, canyoning, and something else... maybe zorbing? How awesome would that be? Being rolled down a hill in a giant ball. And then of course the best part is that you get the title of Zorbanaut. And who wouldn't want to be a Zorbanaut?? So we'll see how that goes.
Applied for another student loan, to cover the cost of the rest of this trip and the fall. And it's going to be worth every penny of interest. Travelling like this has been absolutely amazing. And it sounds like we might get a little bit of time during finals week to travel as well. Our flight leaves on the 22nd, which is a Sunday, and most of our finals should be done by the previous Tuesday. So if that works out then I'm definitely going to Haldstat, and maybe Prague.
It's difficult to get people onboard for Haldstat, cause no one has ever heard of it, but now that a few of them have been to Cinque Terre, I'm pitching it as the other place that came as highly recommended as Cinque Terre. So that's getting their attention. Lol. I think I'll have at least one other person to go with me. Which will be fine.
Schoolwork is going pretty good as well. I'm definitely glad I dropped the User Interface class. Just 9 hours is plenty of work. On Saturday me and my two group mates spent 6 hours each taking pictures of intersections for our corners project in architecture. By the end of the project, the entire class will have photographically documented and then analyzed EVERY chamfered corner in the entire city of Barcelona. Everyone suspects that Sabir (the professor) is then going to use this for further research, either of his own or for his grad students. Which is probably true, but that's still cool. It's actually a project of really impressive scope. And Barcelona is, I think, the only city in the world with this style of cut off corner, so it's significant to architecture people to analyze exactly how that worked out for them. So I mean that's cool. I'm always up for some good research.
And speaking of which--my flight to Vancouver is now booked! Vancouver is where the AAAI conference is being held. Last semester, I had a severe case of right place right time. I happened to be sitting in the lab when one of the phd students went in to tell Charles (my research professor) that he didn't think they were going to be able to finish their research in time for the AAAI deadline. As a sidenote, AAAI is now pretty much THE premier conference on Artificial Intelligence. So he's telling Charles that they need help meeting the deadline, but all the other students in that lab are trying to meet deadlines of their own. And I'm literally sitting right outside of Charles' office. So he goes, "Just get Kenny to help you." Bam. Done. So I sit down with them, talk over what they're doing and what needs to get done, and I end up coding a bunch of the distance metrics for them.
And here's the deal with distance metrics. The AI that they are working on is about generating good stories (for things like video games). The author would create what is called a "story space," which is a web of story plot points. Each plot point can lead you to some number of other plot points, and a path through this space ends up being a story. Imagine it kind of like the choose your own adventure novels. So their technology involves finding a way to get the computer to choose good stories every time, but different stories every time. This way you could play a game, and get a good, but unique story every time you play it. Cool eh?
So my part in this was coding the distance metrics. And what these are, is a way to compare stories. Because stories are a series of plot points (or something analogous), how do you say when two stories are alike? Is it if they have the same ending? Or is it if they have all the same story up until the very end? Or is it something subtler, like how many plot points they have that are the same? So I wrote up a series of different distance metrics, and these were used to analyze in different ways how similar the generated stories were.
AND *drumroll please* the paper got accepted! Not only did it get accepted, but of our three reviewers, one gave us a recommendation for best paper. And we got a poster session. Poster sessions are where you print up a big poster of all your info, then stand beside it while everyone walks around. At this conference they are only given to highly technically difficult papers, or outstanding papers. And we got one!
So now I'm published. Third author on a paper at an AI conference. As an undergrad. Woo woo!
The flight from Vancouver leaves about 3 hours after I land in ATL, so I'll just stay in the airport, keep my luggage and turn right back around and get on a plane. Gonna be a long day of travel, but worth it.
Ok, well class is about to start, so I gotta run. Will post again soon. Always so much to say.
Love you guys!
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Back In Barcelona
Whoo! So I got back into Barcelona last night around 11:30. I was exhausted, and just took a shower and fell asleep.
So the second day in Florence was pretty light. Mainly just chilled out and tried to recuperate a little, and the train left that night for Venice. We get into Venice at about 11:30pm, and it appears that no one really checked to see where our hostel was that we were staying at. So 12 people are all bumbling around trying to figure out what's going on, and it's just a mess. Luckily we at least know that we have to take a bus there, so we're only bumbling around the bus station, instead of the entire city (which is a complete maze, btw). We finally find a native who speaks english and knows where it is we are trying to go. The place was called Camp Fusina, and was an entire camping village. Pretty cool, except that you could only get there by bus or ferry, which really ended up messing with our nightlife in Venice. Or provided us with really good stories about how we got back, depending on how you look at it. Lol.
But Venice was beautiful. The architectural influences there seemed to be a mix of the standard ancient Roman style, and Arabic. You got all of your arches and columns and field repetition on the building facades, but then you had things like the gondolas, which have really cool curves and looked very Arabic (as far as I could tell anyways). The street of Venice make absolutely no sense at all, but are still very pretty to walk down. It tends to be kind of a tight feeling with all the buildings around you and the small streets, so you constantly feel almost cradled by the city, like its kind of hugging you (or looming over you, if it's night).
We did less of the standard fare tourist sites in Venice, cause we were starting to get worn out on them by this time. But we did have to see the giant plaza with the Basillica. For those of you who have seen the movie, "The Italian Job," this is the square at the beginning of the movie where Frank calls his daughter from when he wakes her up. Also the place where he's talking to Charlie and uses the line: "See those pillars over there? That's where they used to string up thieves who felt fine." Saw those pillars. They're pretty cool actually. And Venice looks exactly like it did in the Italian Job, too. That was pretty cool to see.
So we got to the square and just chilled out for a little bit. A couple of guys in the group had a thing for Cuban cigars, and there was a place selling them on the edge of the square, so we all got Romeo and Juliets and sat on the steps of the Piazza San Marco and just enjoyed the view.
Then we played with the pigeons.
In Piazza San Marco, there are pigeons everywhere. And they're not shy, either. There are little vendors in the square that sell corn to feed the pigeons with, and if you hold out a handful of corn, they will fly right up to your arm and fight each other on your hand for the corn. Definitely pretty entertaining. So of course we did things like put pigeons on people's heads, catch a pigeon, make them stick their heads way down into the bag to get the corn, etc etc.
Then we had to take the obligatory gondola ride. Luckily we had a pretty talkative gondolier, so we completely grilled him with questions about what it's like being a gondolier. He was a very cool guy. It turns out that the gondoliers (at least the ones we went through), work for a single company, but they own their gondolas. And how much does it cost to buy a new gondola, you ask? Just take a random guess. Turns out that a new gondola costs about 50,000 euro, which is somewhere in the range of $70,000. Whoa. He had been a gondolier for 22 years, starting when he was 23.
And what does it take to drive a gondola? Well if you're in the Grand Canal, where there's plenty of space, you can learn it in about 6 months or so. He made the analogy to driving a car. But to be a gondolier for this company, it takes years of work to get that good. His analogy was that anyone can drive a car, but not many people can drive Formula 1. So they're the Formula 1 of gondoliers. And it was pretty apparant. At the beginning of our tour, he was on his cell phone with one hand, and steering the gondola with the other. And I'm not talking down a nice straight canal. It was a tight fit and he made the turns with no problems at all. At other points, there were turns where the front of the gondola was inches from a wall, while the side of the gondola was inches from a corner. It was definitely some impressive manuevering.
At one point one of the girls asked him to sing for us, but he said he only sings in the shower and while making love. So her retort was, "So you've never made love in your gondola?" Lol. It didn't phase him a bit. He said that he had, and that it's very romantic being on the water in a gondola. Lol. He was a great guide. Also turns out he spoke 4 languages, had biceps about the size of my head, and looked maybe 30 when he was 45.
So after gondola-ing, we just kinda shopped around Venice. Or window shopped, at least. The two things that are everywhere in Venice are masks, and blown glass. I'm not sure what the deal is with the masks. I'm talking like super-ornate, masquerade ball type of masks. All amazingly beautiful. I kinda wish I had bought one now, but travelling with it would have been very difficult.
So our first night in Venice we stayed at the hostel, which has it's own bar, that was an absolute crazy mess. Imagine a bunch of young people travelling around, and all of them have a bar just to themselves. That's pretty much what it was like. So we figured we weren't drunk enough to be bumped into every 5 seconds, so we got our drinks and headed out to the playground. We definitely found the swings and had the swing-long-jump contest, like you used to in 3rd grade. I won (and the crowd goes wild). Lol. Then someone ran us off cause we were being too loud, and just before we went back to our rooms, we saw all the bartenders hanging out, cause the bar had closed a little bit before. And these bartenders don't just hang out. One of the girls was spinning fire on chains. You may have seen something like this with silk ropes with weights on the end of them, where they dance around and spin them in really cool patterns. Except these were metal chains, with kerosene soaked sponges on the ends of them. So she was dancing around with two fireballs flying around her. It definitely goes on the list of coolest things I've seen a person do.
So of course I had to try it. :-O
I only did it with one fireball instead of both of them, and that worked out pretty well. I think I managed to only hit myself once. But that really does no damage to you at all, cause the thing just hits you and bounces right off. You still have to be pretty careful with them, but it was damn fun. I did one for about 5 min, then tried two with both of them not lit, and managed to hit myself about 3 times in 1 min. Lol. Guess it's a good thing I didn't try two lit.
The next night we stayed with people in the Oxford study abroad program, which was out in Padova (Padua), a suburb of Venice. Then our last night was the night we decided we were going to go out in Venice. Apparantly Venice only has one dance club. I'm not sure if there were some kind of syntactic stipulations that made that only half-true, but everyone was saying that yes, this is Venice's only dance club. So the ferry stopped running before midnight, and the busses were a mess, so we definitely had to like get a taxi or something to get back. Everyone left the club at different times, and no one got back to the hostel before dawn, cause no one could figure out how to get there. It was pretty hysterical. I definitely didn't get any sleep that night. So the next day was our last in Venice. A lot of people had a train back to Rome, and then flew back from there, but I flew out that day from Venice, so I just hopped a bus to the airport (which I fell asleep in), chilled at the airport for a few hours (where I fell asleep about 5 times), and then chilled in my terminal, once they would let me (where I fell asleep and was awoken by a stewardess after everyone else had already boarded the plane). The plane took off, I fell asleep, I woke up, and the plane was landing in Barcelona. So it was a great flight. Lol.
Now I'm back here, cleaned up the room, did some laundry, and am ready for classes tomorrow. Woo woo! I can't believe I get to do this again in two weeks. I'm already looking forward to it. I'm probably going to do Interlaken, Oslo, and Amsterdam. Interlaken is a city that is home to many extreme sports, and a bunch of the guys are going there on the second trip. They've got sky-diving, bungee jumping, caving, rafting, hang-gliding, para-gliding, and maybe some other stuff. I'll probably be there for 3 days, and do bungee jumping, caving, rafting, and maybe hang gliding. I don't think I can afford the sky diving, since I've done it once already and it's the most expensive thing. Though sky diving over the Alps would be pretty awesome. So we'll see. Oslo has a music festival that is going on during our second week, and Amsterdam is Amsterdam. Plans are definitely open to interpretation, but this is the rough draft so far.
Talk to you guys soon. Love ya!
So the second day in Florence was pretty light. Mainly just chilled out and tried to recuperate a little, and the train left that night for Venice. We get into Venice at about 11:30pm, and it appears that no one really checked to see where our hostel was that we were staying at. So 12 people are all bumbling around trying to figure out what's going on, and it's just a mess. Luckily we at least know that we have to take a bus there, so we're only bumbling around the bus station, instead of the entire city (which is a complete maze, btw). We finally find a native who speaks english and knows where it is we are trying to go. The place was called Camp Fusina, and was an entire camping village. Pretty cool, except that you could only get there by bus or ferry, which really ended up messing with our nightlife in Venice. Or provided us with really good stories about how we got back, depending on how you look at it. Lol.
But Venice was beautiful. The architectural influences there seemed to be a mix of the standard ancient Roman style, and Arabic. You got all of your arches and columns and field repetition on the building facades, but then you had things like the gondolas, which have really cool curves and looked very Arabic (as far as I could tell anyways). The street of Venice make absolutely no sense at all, but are still very pretty to walk down. It tends to be kind of a tight feeling with all the buildings around you and the small streets, so you constantly feel almost cradled by the city, like its kind of hugging you (or looming over you, if it's night).
We did less of the standard fare tourist sites in Venice, cause we were starting to get worn out on them by this time. But we did have to see the giant plaza with the Basillica. For those of you who have seen the movie, "The Italian Job," this is the square at the beginning of the movie where Frank calls his daughter from when he wakes her up. Also the place where he's talking to Charlie and uses the line: "See those pillars over there? That's where they used to string up thieves who felt fine." Saw those pillars. They're pretty cool actually. And Venice looks exactly like it did in the Italian Job, too. That was pretty cool to see.
So we got to the square and just chilled out for a little bit. A couple of guys in the group had a thing for Cuban cigars, and there was a place selling them on the edge of the square, so we all got Romeo and Juliets and sat on the steps of the Piazza San Marco and just enjoyed the view.
Then we played with the pigeons.
In Piazza San Marco, there are pigeons everywhere. And they're not shy, either. There are little vendors in the square that sell corn to feed the pigeons with, and if you hold out a handful of corn, they will fly right up to your arm and fight each other on your hand for the corn. Definitely pretty entertaining. So of course we did things like put pigeons on people's heads, catch a pigeon, make them stick their heads way down into the bag to get the corn, etc etc.
Then we had to take the obligatory gondola ride. Luckily we had a pretty talkative gondolier, so we completely grilled him with questions about what it's like being a gondolier. He was a very cool guy. It turns out that the gondoliers (at least the ones we went through), work for a single company, but they own their gondolas. And how much does it cost to buy a new gondola, you ask? Just take a random guess. Turns out that a new gondola costs about 50,000 euro, which is somewhere in the range of $70,000. Whoa. He had been a gondolier for 22 years, starting when he was 23.
And what does it take to drive a gondola? Well if you're in the Grand Canal, where there's plenty of space, you can learn it in about 6 months or so. He made the analogy to driving a car. But to be a gondolier for this company, it takes years of work to get that good. His analogy was that anyone can drive a car, but not many people can drive Formula 1. So they're the Formula 1 of gondoliers. And it was pretty apparant. At the beginning of our tour, he was on his cell phone with one hand, and steering the gondola with the other. And I'm not talking down a nice straight canal. It was a tight fit and he made the turns with no problems at all. At other points, there were turns where the front of the gondola was inches from a wall, while the side of the gondola was inches from a corner. It was definitely some impressive manuevering.
At one point one of the girls asked him to sing for us, but he said he only sings in the shower and while making love. So her retort was, "So you've never made love in your gondola?" Lol. It didn't phase him a bit. He said that he had, and that it's very romantic being on the water in a gondola. Lol. He was a great guide. Also turns out he spoke 4 languages, had biceps about the size of my head, and looked maybe 30 when he was 45.
So after gondola-ing, we just kinda shopped around Venice. Or window shopped, at least. The two things that are everywhere in Venice are masks, and blown glass. I'm not sure what the deal is with the masks. I'm talking like super-ornate, masquerade ball type of masks. All amazingly beautiful. I kinda wish I had bought one now, but travelling with it would have been very difficult.
So our first night in Venice we stayed at the hostel, which has it's own bar, that was an absolute crazy mess. Imagine a bunch of young people travelling around, and all of them have a bar just to themselves. That's pretty much what it was like. So we figured we weren't drunk enough to be bumped into every 5 seconds, so we got our drinks and headed out to the playground. We definitely found the swings and had the swing-long-jump contest, like you used to in 3rd grade. I won (and the crowd goes wild). Lol. Then someone ran us off cause we were being too loud, and just before we went back to our rooms, we saw all the bartenders hanging out, cause the bar had closed a little bit before. And these bartenders don't just hang out. One of the girls was spinning fire on chains. You may have seen something like this with silk ropes with weights on the end of them, where they dance around and spin them in really cool patterns. Except these were metal chains, with kerosene soaked sponges on the ends of them. So she was dancing around with two fireballs flying around her. It definitely goes on the list of coolest things I've seen a person do.
So of course I had to try it. :-O
I only did it with one fireball instead of both of them, and that worked out pretty well. I think I managed to only hit myself once. But that really does no damage to you at all, cause the thing just hits you and bounces right off. You still have to be pretty careful with them, but it was damn fun. I did one for about 5 min, then tried two with both of them not lit, and managed to hit myself about 3 times in 1 min. Lol. Guess it's a good thing I didn't try two lit.
The next night we stayed with people in the Oxford study abroad program, which was out in Padova (Padua), a suburb of Venice. Then our last night was the night we decided we were going to go out in Venice. Apparantly Venice only has one dance club. I'm not sure if there were some kind of syntactic stipulations that made that only half-true, but everyone was saying that yes, this is Venice's only dance club. So the ferry stopped running before midnight, and the busses were a mess, so we definitely had to like get a taxi or something to get back. Everyone left the club at different times, and no one got back to the hostel before dawn, cause no one could figure out how to get there. It was pretty hysterical. I definitely didn't get any sleep that night. So the next day was our last in Venice. A lot of people had a train back to Rome, and then flew back from there, but I flew out that day from Venice, so I just hopped a bus to the airport (which I fell asleep in), chilled at the airport for a few hours (where I fell asleep about 5 times), and then chilled in my terminal, once they would let me (where I fell asleep and was awoken by a stewardess after everyone else had already boarded the plane). The plane took off, I fell asleep, I woke up, and the plane was landing in Barcelona. So it was a great flight. Lol.
Now I'm back here, cleaned up the room, did some laundry, and am ready for classes tomorrow. Woo woo! I can't believe I get to do this again in two weeks. I'm already looking forward to it. I'm probably going to do Interlaken, Oslo, and Amsterdam. Interlaken is a city that is home to many extreme sports, and a bunch of the guys are going there on the second trip. They've got sky-diving, bungee jumping, caving, rafting, hang-gliding, para-gliding, and maybe some other stuff. I'll probably be there for 3 days, and do bungee jumping, caving, rafting, and maybe hang gliding. I don't think I can afford the sky diving, since I've done it once already and it's the most expensive thing. Though sky diving over the Alps would be pretty awesome. So we'll see. Oslo has a music festival that is going on during our second week, and Amsterdam is Amsterdam. Plans are definitely open to interpretation, but this is the rough draft so far.
Talk to you guys soon. Love ya!
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Italy -- Warning: Long Post
Sooo much has happened in the last few days. I am worn out, and my 10 days of break still aren't up yet. So here's the breakdown:
Spent a couple of days in Rome. I randomly ran into someone I knew from Tech in some small restaurant, and he invited me to go to the Vatican with them at 8am the next morning. So I figured I'd spend the day with him and his friends, since I hadn't seen him in a while. So we do the Vatican Museum, and at one point I'm looking at something and he tells me he will wait for me in the next room. Well he picked a next room that I didn't see, and I apparantly fast-tracked myself into the Sistene Chapel.
So I couldn't find him, finished up the museum by myself, then tried to back-track a couple of times to see if I could find any of the group. I ran into one of the girls that he was travelling with, so we went outside to wait for the rest of the group. 45 minutes, still no one comes out. So we move on to St. Peter's Basilica. Little did we know that while we were waiting outside for them, they were waiting just inside the exit for us. And they were worried about the one girl who got separated from the group, cause they thought she didn't have the address for the hostel they were in.
But we don't know any of this, and after we get out of St. Peter's and still haven't found them, we decide to just toodle around Rome for the day. We checked out a castle, scoped out Rome from the top and found all the landmarks on our map, then wandered back down, bought some stuff from street vendors, went and sat at the Vittorio Emanuel II monument, which is gorgeous, ate some gelato, and just had a generally awesome day. Then we eventually find out that the group has been waiting/looking for her for the last 5 hours. Didn't really mess up the day too much though, cause we found them and everything worked out. Went and got some really good dinner afterwards.
So that was my day with Casner. The next day the Tech group was all supposed to get up early and catch an early train to Cinque Terre. I'm the only one that gets up and moving on time (despite having been out late), and I wake everyone up, and we get to the station about an hour after we'd planned. Not too bad, I guess, considering it was a group of like 12 people trying to get ready in half an hour. So we start figuring out how the train rides are going to work out and how much time we'll have and so forth, and people start to get unruly. We had only wanted to spend one day in Cinque Terre (which is not enough by the way--I think you could spend forever there), but it turned out to be 8 hours round trip of travel, for what was looking like only 4-6 hours of time in Cinque Terre.
So most of the group is starting to punk out, but Kabir has been standing in line, just to save a place in case we want the tickets. So I turn around to find him and he's made it all the way up to the ticket counter, so I just hold up two fingers, and he gets us two tickets to CT. We decide that we'll just go, stay overnight, and come back in the morning. We enlist two more guys to join us, and the trip starts.
It was definitely the best trip so far. We go to CT, which is one of the most beautiful places ever, hike around for a little bit to see some of the views, then climb down the rocks and go swimming in the Mediterranean.
Then we decide we want to see the sun setting over the water. It's probably about 7p when we decide this, and sunset was probably around 9p. So we catch a train to the western-most town of the bunch, Monterosso. But it turns out that the beautiful view we had from every other town doesn't exist in the same way from Monterosso. It just so happens that there's a big mountain in the way of the sunset.
By this point we're at about T-90 minutes and counting to sunset. So we decide that since there are trails, we are going to hike up the mountain and watch our sunset anyways. We head out on what we think is the right trail, and after about 15 minutes run into an Italian guy (in Italy, go figure). We talk to him, and all point at the map and speak in our respective languages and after a few minutes of no one knowing what's going on, we figure out that we're pretty much hiking through his back yard. Whoops! Lol. So he kindly points us in the right direction, and we head back down to find the real trail-head. We find it, and its about 60 minutes to sunset. There's no way we're going to make it up that mountain before sunset, but we go at it anyways.
We run up the mountain for a little ways before completely wearing ourselves out with that, and then set a fast pace for the rest of the hike up. We stop twice, but keep the pace pretty quick. As it turns out, we managed to make it up the mountain in something like 45 minutes, dripping sweat and exhausted, just as the sun is beginning to touch the horizon. And to make it even more rewarding, there was some random building up on top of the mountain, as well as the ruins of an old Roman church. So we climb up the building, and have one of the most amazing views ever, above the trees, on top of a mountain above Cinque Terre. We watch the sun go down over the water, then turn around to find all the lights turning on in all of the 5 towns along the coast. It was absolutely beautiful. We hung out there for a little while enjoying the view, then headed back down in the quickly waning light. But not before climbing the ruins as well, of course. And getting pictures of it all.
So we get back down into Monterosso, and seek out food. Absolutely amazing meal. Then we go chill out right above the beach for a bit, and after a few minutes I look up and see a bright glowing dome. It looks like the gilded top of some building, but its just a little bit too far to the right, which means it would have had to have been over the water. And its a bright ruddy orange color. After looking at it for a minute, I realize it's rising, and it's the moon. So we watch a beautiful orange moon rise up over the water, after having watched a beautiful sunset that we worked so hard for, and then having a great meal. After the moon rises, we go find a bar, stay there till it closes around 1, and then get bottles of wine and just go chill on the beach. We fall asleep against the wall next to the beach, and that ends our day in Cinque Terre. We hadn't planned on getting any lodging anyways, since it was only one night and we were already paying for that night for a hotel in Rome.
The next day I'm alone in CT, cause the other guys went back early in order to have time to go see the Vatican. I hop a train back to Spezia, where I'll buy my ticket back to Rome, but I fall asleep on the way. I wake up to one of the ticket checkers on the train. I show him my CT pass (which allows unlimited between the cities for two days) and he asks where I'm going. I say Spezia, and he points backwards. I slept through the stop. He tells me to just get off at the next one and head back to Spezia. So I get off at the next stop, then decide it will work just as well to buy a ticket from there to Rome.
So I go into the station and buy my ticket, but since it's a smaller town, it has a one hour layover. In Pisa! Sweet! Leaning tower here I come! I get to Pisa, find a map, and power-walk across the city to go see the tower. Its pretty much a straight shot, and I get across the city, take a left, and within about 200 yards, the tower comes into view. It's a beautiful tower, and its right in front of a beautiful palace. But it's really just comical, because its such a beautiful structure, but totally tilted at a hysterical angle. I check it out for about 90 seconds, then head back across the city. I timed my walk over, and I'll just barely have enough time to get back and catch my train.
I'm checking my watch the entire way back, and I think I'm doing ok, till I realize the landmark I was marking for my destination was actually a piazza some ways still from the station. So I start running. I fly into the station and push my way to my platform, through I bunch of people that just got off a different train. Luckily my train is still on the platform. I literally get onto my train, stop to breathe, and after about 30 seconds my train starts pulling out of the station. I cut it that close. But I got to see Pisa! The rest of the train ride back to Rome was uneventful, except that I was dead tired and couldn't sleep cause it was uncomfortable.
We go to a Bengali festival that night, have some good Indian food, then decide to go out to this cool bar we heard about called Ice Bar. There's some arguing about what it's going to be and whether it's worth it, cause its a 15€ cover. Turns out it was totally worth it. The entire bar was made out of ice. You entered from the front door into the normal temperature, normal material foyer. Then they give everyone gloves and these heavy metallic looking ponchos that make everyone look like characters from Star Wars. Then you go through a climitization chamber, and bam, you're in an igloo. The temperature inside was 23F. And everything is ice. The walls, the benches, the bar top, the glasses. Everything. Was pretty much one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And they can only serve drinks with strong liquor, as beer and wine will freeze. LOL.
The next day we all set off for Florence, which is where I am now. We wander around a little bit, and end up walking down the most expensive street I think I've ever been on. It had stores from every high end designer name I think I've ever heard of, and then some. Gucci, Prada, Pucci, Tiffany's, etc etc etc. And all of the stores have their intimidatingly well-dressed doormen. In excellent Italian suits, of course. The Italian suit rocks, by the way. I don't think I'll ever get tired of pinstripes.
So we wander through that, then head off for the Duomo, which is the main cathedral of the town. It's absolutely amazing. Huge, with a facade that's completely made of marble. Absolutely ridiculous. We climb up to the top of the dome, 463 steps, and get an amazing view of the city. Everything is just insanely pretty. Mountains in the background, terra cotta roofs on everything, the occasional church dome sticking out above the other buildings. Awesome.
After the Duomo, we head to the Uffizzi, the museum with one of the largest and most famous collections of well-known Rennaissance art. Tons of marble sculptures and paintings. Got to see the "Birth of Venus" as well as another really famous one thats titled something about Venus laying nude. Leave there and skip going to see the statue of David, cause the line is over 4 hours long, just for that one statue, and we're only here for a day and a half. Get dinner, go out, have a generally excellent time.
And now it's today. Whoo! Holy cow, I definitely have not slept enough in the past few days, and we have been going non-stop. I know this is a ridiculously long post, but it's the best I could do.
I miss seeing familiar faces, but I guess its a tradeoff for seeing some of the craziest sites in the world. Getting kind of tired of this clique that I'm travelling with, since I've been around them 24 hours a day for the past few days. But I most certainly can't complain.
Miss you all and love you! I head to Venice tonight. Talk to you later! Carli, let me know if you're gonna be able to make it out for my next week break.
Ciao!!
Spent a couple of days in Rome. I randomly ran into someone I knew from Tech in some small restaurant, and he invited me to go to the Vatican with them at 8am the next morning. So I figured I'd spend the day with him and his friends, since I hadn't seen him in a while. So we do the Vatican Museum, and at one point I'm looking at something and he tells me he will wait for me in the next room. Well he picked a next room that I didn't see, and I apparantly fast-tracked myself into the Sistene Chapel.
So I couldn't find him, finished up the museum by myself, then tried to back-track a couple of times to see if I could find any of the group. I ran into one of the girls that he was travelling with, so we went outside to wait for the rest of the group. 45 minutes, still no one comes out. So we move on to St. Peter's Basilica. Little did we know that while we were waiting outside for them, they were waiting just inside the exit for us. And they were worried about the one girl who got separated from the group, cause they thought she didn't have the address for the hostel they were in.
But we don't know any of this, and after we get out of St. Peter's and still haven't found them, we decide to just toodle around Rome for the day. We checked out a castle, scoped out Rome from the top and found all the landmarks on our map, then wandered back down, bought some stuff from street vendors, went and sat at the Vittorio Emanuel II monument, which is gorgeous, ate some gelato, and just had a generally awesome day. Then we eventually find out that the group has been waiting/looking for her for the last 5 hours. Didn't really mess up the day too much though, cause we found them and everything worked out. Went and got some really good dinner afterwards.
So that was my day with Casner. The next day the Tech group was all supposed to get up early and catch an early train to Cinque Terre. I'm the only one that gets up and moving on time (despite having been out late), and I wake everyone up, and we get to the station about an hour after we'd planned. Not too bad, I guess, considering it was a group of like 12 people trying to get ready in half an hour. So we start figuring out how the train rides are going to work out and how much time we'll have and so forth, and people start to get unruly. We had only wanted to spend one day in Cinque Terre (which is not enough by the way--I think you could spend forever there), but it turned out to be 8 hours round trip of travel, for what was looking like only 4-6 hours of time in Cinque Terre.
So most of the group is starting to punk out, but Kabir has been standing in line, just to save a place in case we want the tickets. So I turn around to find him and he's made it all the way up to the ticket counter, so I just hold up two fingers, and he gets us two tickets to CT. We decide that we'll just go, stay overnight, and come back in the morning. We enlist two more guys to join us, and the trip starts.
It was definitely the best trip so far. We go to CT, which is one of the most beautiful places ever, hike around for a little bit to see some of the views, then climb down the rocks and go swimming in the Mediterranean.
Then we decide we want to see the sun setting over the water. It's probably about 7p when we decide this, and sunset was probably around 9p. So we catch a train to the western-most town of the bunch, Monterosso. But it turns out that the beautiful view we had from every other town doesn't exist in the same way from Monterosso. It just so happens that there's a big mountain in the way of the sunset.
By this point we're at about T-90 minutes and counting to sunset. So we decide that since there are trails, we are going to hike up the mountain and watch our sunset anyways. We head out on what we think is the right trail, and after about 15 minutes run into an Italian guy (in Italy, go figure). We talk to him, and all point at the map and speak in our respective languages and after a few minutes of no one knowing what's going on, we figure out that we're pretty much hiking through his back yard. Whoops! Lol. So he kindly points us in the right direction, and we head back down to find the real trail-head. We find it, and its about 60 minutes to sunset. There's no way we're going to make it up that mountain before sunset, but we go at it anyways.
We run up the mountain for a little ways before completely wearing ourselves out with that, and then set a fast pace for the rest of the hike up. We stop twice, but keep the pace pretty quick. As it turns out, we managed to make it up the mountain in something like 45 minutes, dripping sweat and exhausted, just as the sun is beginning to touch the horizon. And to make it even more rewarding, there was some random building up on top of the mountain, as well as the ruins of an old Roman church. So we climb up the building, and have one of the most amazing views ever, above the trees, on top of a mountain above Cinque Terre. We watch the sun go down over the water, then turn around to find all the lights turning on in all of the 5 towns along the coast. It was absolutely beautiful. We hung out there for a little while enjoying the view, then headed back down in the quickly waning light. But not before climbing the ruins as well, of course. And getting pictures of it all.
So we get back down into Monterosso, and seek out food. Absolutely amazing meal. Then we go chill out right above the beach for a bit, and after a few minutes I look up and see a bright glowing dome. It looks like the gilded top of some building, but its just a little bit too far to the right, which means it would have had to have been over the water. And its a bright ruddy orange color. After looking at it for a minute, I realize it's rising, and it's the moon. So we watch a beautiful orange moon rise up over the water, after having watched a beautiful sunset that we worked so hard for, and then having a great meal. After the moon rises, we go find a bar, stay there till it closes around 1, and then get bottles of wine and just go chill on the beach. We fall asleep against the wall next to the beach, and that ends our day in Cinque Terre. We hadn't planned on getting any lodging anyways, since it was only one night and we were already paying for that night for a hotel in Rome.
The next day I'm alone in CT, cause the other guys went back early in order to have time to go see the Vatican. I hop a train back to Spezia, where I'll buy my ticket back to Rome, but I fall asleep on the way. I wake up to one of the ticket checkers on the train. I show him my CT pass (which allows unlimited between the cities for two days) and he asks where I'm going. I say Spezia, and he points backwards. I slept through the stop. He tells me to just get off at the next one and head back to Spezia. So I get off at the next stop, then decide it will work just as well to buy a ticket from there to Rome.
So I go into the station and buy my ticket, but since it's a smaller town, it has a one hour layover. In Pisa! Sweet! Leaning tower here I come! I get to Pisa, find a map, and power-walk across the city to go see the tower. Its pretty much a straight shot, and I get across the city, take a left, and within about 200 yards, the tower comes into view. It's a beautiful tower, and its right in front of a beautiful palace. But it's really just comical, because its such a beautiful structure, but totally tilted at a hysterical angle. I check it out for about 90 seconds, then head back across the city. I timed my walk over, and I'll just barely have enough time to get back and catch my train.
I'm checking my watch the entire way back, and I think I'm doing ok, till I realize the landmark I was marking for my destination was actually a piazza some ways still from the station. So I start running. I fly into the station and push my way to my platform, through I bunch of people that just got off a different train. Luckily my train is still on the platform. I literally get onto my train, stop to breathe, and after about 30 seconds my train starts pulling out of the station. I cut it that close. But I got to see Pisa! The rest of the train ride back to Rome was uneventful, except that I was dead tired and couldn't sleep cause it was uncomfortable.
We go to a Bengali festival that night, have some good Indian food, then decide to go out to this cool bar we heard about called Ice Bar. There's some arguing about what it's going to be and whether it's worth it, cause its a 15€ cover. Turns out it was totally worth it. The entire bar was made out of ice. You entered from the front door into the normal temperature, normal material foyer. Then they give everyone gloves and these heavy metallic looking ponchos that make everyone look like characters from Star Wars. Then you go through a climitization chamber, and bam, you're in an igloo. The temperature inside was 23F. And everything is ice. The walls, the benches, the bar top, the glasses. Everything. Was pretty much one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And they can only serve drinks with strong liquor, as beer and wine will freeze. LOL.
The next day we all set off for Florence, which is where I am now. We wander around a little bit, and end up walking down the most expensive street I think I've ever been on. It had stores from every high end designer name I think I've ever heard of, and then some. Gucci, Prada, Pucci, Tiffany's, etc etc etc. And all of the stores have their intimidatingly well-dressed doormen. In excellent Italian suits, of course. The Italian suit rocks, by the way. I don't think I'll ever get tired of pinstripes.
So we wander through that, then head off for the Duomo, which is the main cathedral of the town. It's absolutely amazing. Huge, with a facade that's completely made of marble. Absolutely ridiculous. We climb up to the top of the dome, 463 steps, and get an amazing view of the city. Everything is just insanely pretty. Mountains in the background, terra cotta roofs on everything, the occasional church dome sticking out above the other buildings. Awesome.
After the Duomo, we head to the Uffizzi, the museum with one of the largest and most famous collections of well-known Rennaissance art. Tons of marble sculptures and paintings. Got to see the "Birth of Venus" as well as another really famous one thats titled something about Venus laying nude. Leave there and skip going to see the statue of David, cause the line is over 4 hours long, just for that one statue, and we're only here for a day and a half. Get dinner, go out, have a generally excellent time.
And now it's today. Whoo! Holy cow, I definitely have not slept enough in the past few days, and we have been going non-stop. I know this is a ridiculously long post, but it's the best I could do.
I miss seeing familiar faces, but I guess its a tradeoff for seeing some of the craziest sites in the world. Getting kind of tired of this clique that I'm travelling with, since I've been around them 24 hours a day for the past few days. But I most certainly can't complain.
Miss you all and love you! I head to Venice tonight. Talk to you later! Carli, let me know if you're gonna be able to make it out for my next week break.
Ciao!!
Saturday, June 2, 2007
ROME!
Hey guys, Im in Rome now. This city is beautiful. Yesterday I randomly ran into Mike Casner in a restaurant, so I spent the day with him and his friends going around Rome and seeing the sites. Or at least I spent the day with one of his friends. The other ones were looking for us all day. Whoops.
The Vatican Museum is amazing. Saw the Sistene Chapel. Too many guards saying "SHH" the whole time. Prayed in St. Peters Basilica. Pretty awesome.
We are cramped for time right now. Just got done with laundry. Will post later.
Love yall!
The Vatican Museum is amazing. Saw the Sistene Chapel. Too many guards saying "SHH" the whole time. Prayed in St. Peters Basilica. Pretty awesome.
We are cramped for time right now. Just got done with laundry. Will post later.
Love yall!
Monday, May 28, 2007
How many times can I use the title, "General Update?"
Things are still going pretty well here. Classes are starting to hit their stride, and the work load is definitely appreciable, even with only three classes. The amount of readings we are assigned is just a little bit excessive. Hard to actually get them all done and still go out and see the city and do "extra-curriculars" on the weekends. So that's a bit stressful, but whatever. The city is still really cool and we're having a good time.
Fever broke the night before last. I took some acetaminophyn (sp?), put on a zip-up fleece and some flannel pajama-pants, and buried myself in covers and passed out. I woke up about 2 hours later, sitting straight up out of my sleep and throwing off covers. I had broken my fever and was just plain burning up. Still have a little bit of a sore throat, but it's receding slowly.
So one of our arch projects has been to explore the use of the chamfered (pronounced: cham' ferd) corner. This is where, at a street intersection, instead of bringing the corners to a full square, like any normal human being would do, you chop a huge chunk out of the points of the corner. This allows you to put a full building front facing the middle of an intersection. And most of the new parts of the city follow this model. So our job is to document photographically all of the chamfered corners in our assigned sections. It's pretty cool. We focus on what the facades look like, as well as how the pedestrian space is utilized.
The other arch project is the use of public spaces: how they fit into a city, how they allow or encourage people to interact, and how they become a stage to see and be seen. Another cool project. Again split into groups and assigned one of the 10 voting districts of Barcelona. We did a preliminary walk of part of our district today; looks like we got a pretty poor district, at least from the parts we walked so far. Gonna be interesting to see how this plays out.
Other than that, life is pretty much just life. Saw some really cool graffiti during our walk. Need to do laundry again. Went grocery shopping again. Not having a car means having to walk your groceries home, but having a grocery store right underneath you makes it so worth it. Still enjoyin everythin.
Love you guys. Talk to you soon.
-Kenners
Fever broke the night before last. I took some acetaminophyn (sp?), put on a zip-up fleece and some flannel pajama-pants, and buried myself in covers and passed out. I woke up about 2 hours later, sitting straight up out of my sleep and throwing off covers. I had broken my fever and was just plain burning up. Still have a little bit of a sore throat, but it's receding slowly.
So one of our arch projects has been to explore the use of the chamfered (pronounced: cham' ferd) corner. This is where, at a street intersection, instead of bringing the corners to a full square, like any normal human being would do, you chop a huge chunk out of the points of the corner. This allows you to put a full building front facing the middle of an intersection. And most of the new parts of the city follow this model. So our job is to document photographically all of the chamfered corners in our assigned sections. It's pretty cool. We focus on what the facades look like, as well as how the pedestrian space is utilized.The other arch project is the use of public spaces: how they fit into a city, how they allow or encourage people to interact, and how they become a stage to see and be seen. Another cool project. Again split into groups and assigned one of the 10 voting districts of Barcelona. We did a preliminary walk of part of our district today; looks like we got a pretty poor district, at least from the parts we walked so far. Gonna be interesting to see how this plays out.
Other than that, life is pretty much just life. Saw some really cool graffiti during our walk. Need to do laundry again. Went grocery shopping again. Not having a car means having to walk your groceries home, but having a grocery store right underneath you makes it so worth it. Still enjoyin everythin.
Love you guys. Talk to you soon.
-Kenners
Friday, May 25, 2007
Posting Comments
Ok, so couple of people said that they couldn't post comments. I checked all the settings (which are now in spanish, whoops) and it looks like anyone should be able to post a comment. At the bottom of any given entry, there should be a small hyperlink that says "1 comments" or "0 comments" or however many there are. Clicking this should allow you to view the current comments, and on the page where you view the comments, there should be a box to enter a new one. You'll also have to type one of those squiggly words into a box to verify that you're not a bot. Then you can just click anonymous, and you won't have to enter any username or password.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
General Update: Classes, My Life After College, Fever
So I forgot to mention that I dropped HCI last friday. User Interface Design is a really cool topic, but the professor was really dry and slow-speaking, and it had a lot of work, and hell, let's just say it: I'm in Barcelona and I really don't want any extra work. Plus now I can focus more on my other projects, which are all going to be pretty cool.
I talked with Sabir (my architecture professor) today about going to grad school for city planning. We talked for a good 30+ minutes or so, and he seems to think that my interests are well-founded and that I should add a City Planning Master's to my list of things to apply to for after I graduate.
Currently the list of things to apply to as possible places after college include: CS PhD programs, including the one at Tech; MBA, anywhere good; job applications, for positions in CS, sales, management, etc, so long as it doesn't require coding 8 hours a day; and now, applying to City Planning programs. Apparantly you can get a double master's in City Planning and Architecture in about 3 1/2 years. Interesting.
Other than that, I just feel kinda achey and a little feverish. Nothing debilitating, just obnoxious. Looking forward to what the rest of the semester brings, and the crossroads I'll hit in December.
I think I'm going to join in with the group that is spending their first break in Italy. So that will be 10 days in Italian cities. We'll see how that goes. But I guess if you're going to spend 10 days in only one country, Italy's not a bad choice, right?
I'll talk to you guys soon.
Love,
K3
I talked with Sabir (my architecture professor) today about going to grad school for city planning. We talked for a good 30+ minutes or so, and he seems to think that my interests are well-founded and that I should add a City Planning Master's to my list of things to apply to for after I graduate.
Currently the list of things to apply to as possible places after college include: CS PhD programs, including the one at Tech; MBA, anywhere good; job applications, for positions in CS, sales, management, etc, so long as it doesn't require coding 8 hours a day; and now, applying to City Planning programs. Apparantly you can get a double master's in City Planning and Architecture in about 3 1/2 years. Interesting.
Other than that, I just feel kinda achey and a little feverish. Nothing debilitating, just obnoxious. Looking forward to what the rest of the semester brings, and the crossroads I'll hit in December.
I think I'm going to join in with the group that is spending their first break in Italy. So that will be 10 days in Italian cities. We'll see how that goes. But I guess if you're going to spend 10 days in only one country, Italy's not a bad choice, right?
I'll talk to you guys soon.
Love,
K3
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Not gonna lie, I like it here a lot.
So things are pretty much going amazingly. Living in a place is so much different than just visiting it. You don't have time to get over the shock and get into the rhythms of living in the city when you're just vacationing. Actually living here makes a big difference, and I like it a lot.
Barcelona is a city that orients itself towards its citizens, which I think is awesome, coming from Atlanta, which totally orients itself towards its corporations, and more recently, conferences. Things here are actually designed and planned on a city level, taking into consideration a lot more than just the immediate engineering concerns of constructing a building. And the city government actually focuses on reviving poor parts of the city by integrating them and bringing them up as a whole, as opposed to Atlanta, where we just put up walls and ignore them until we knock down all their shit, run them off, and put up high rise condos.
Gentrification.
They actually avoid it here, which is really cool. There is an understanding, at the planning and design level, that a city should both cooperate and coordinate as a whole, while at the same time retaining the individual flavor and idiosyncracies of individual peoples and places.
So for example, the Maria Christina market, which is a really cool market with a crazy wavey roof and some cool architecture on the walls, was actually constructed in one of the poorer parts of town, among gov't housing even. And it was designed by a very famous architect, and was also intended to be a tourist attraction. And all this results in actually improving the quality of life in the these parts of the town, actually revitalizing them. How cool is that? We would never think of doing that in Atlanta.
And the market was built in the skeleton of an old convent, which is another cool thing. The architect manages to reuse the old building, and even blend it into the design in such a way as to pay homage to the past while creating a crazy modern structure that definitely looks towards the future.
Really enjoying these architecture classes (in case you couldn't tell), and am actually seriously considering doing a master's in city planning now. I'm going to go talk to my architecture professor about it soon.
But yeah, so life here is a lot of fun. You walk everywhere, or take the metro and then walk, and its so nice. Granted, plenty of people have cars and mopeds, but it's totally not necessary to get around. And there's so many things to see and do in this city. Even just out on the street, you could wander every street in the city and find something interesting to look at. It's really cool.
Ok, I'm getting distracted. I'm gonna go download the pictures from my camera, which I haven't done yet at all. Will post again later.
Love ya'll!
Barcelona is a city that orients itself towards its citizens, which I think is awesome, coming from Atlanta, which totally orients itself towards its corporations, and more recently, conferences. Things here are actually designed and planned on a city level, taking into consideration a lot more than just the immediate engineering concerns of constructing a building. And the city government actually focuses on reviving poor parts of the city by integrating them and bringing them up as a whole, as opposed to Atlanta, where we just put up walls and ignore them until we knock down all their shit, run them off, and put up high rise condos.
Gentrification.
They actually avoid it here, which is really cool. There is an understanding, at the planning and design level, that a city should both cooperate and coordinate as a whole, while at the same time retaining the individual flavor and idiosyncracies of individual peoples and places.
So for example, the Maria Christina market, which is a really cool market with a crazy wavey roof and some cool architecture on the walls, was actually constructed in one of the poorer parts of town, among gov't housing even. And it was designed by a very famous architect, and was also intended to be a tourist attraction. And all this results in actually improving the quality of life in the these parts of the town, actually revitalizing them. How cool is that? We would never think of doing that in Atlanta.And the market was built in the skeleton of an old convent, which is another cool thing. The architect manages to reuse the old building, and even blend it into the design in such a way as to pay homage to the past while creating a crazy modern structure that definitely looks towards the future.
Really enjoying these architecture classes (in case you couldn't tell), and am actually seriously considering doing a master's in city planning now. I'm going to go talk to my architecture professor about it soon.
But yeah, so life here is a lot of fun. You walk everywhere, or take the metro and then walk, and its so nice. Granted, plenty of people have cars and mopeds, but it's totally not necessary to get around. And there's so many things to see and do in this city. Even just out on the street, you could wander every street in the city and find something interesting to look at. It's really cool.
Ok, I'm getting distracted. I'm gonna go download the pictures from my camera, which I haven't done yet at all. Will post again later.
Love ya'll!
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
First Casting Call Today
So I had my first casting call today. Michelle called me last night and just gave me the address of the place and the times that I could show up, and that was it. So I cut out of architecture 30 min early and hopped a train up there. Architecture was a walking tour today anyways, so not many people noticed I was gone. Got up there and pretty much had no idea what was going on. After watching, figured out I needed to sign in, then pretty much just sat there amongst 6-7 other good looking guys for about 20 min, as the guy came back a couple times to get new guys.
So I finally get in there, and it turns out its a casting for a commercial. Lol. Luckily it didn't depend on my Spanish, just my acting. Well, ok, so maybe not so lucky. Still, the whole point was just to look like it was summer and you were having fun cutting up with your friend. Understandable Language Optional.
It went pretty decently. I have no expectations, and small hope, but it was definitely good as a first time intro into casting calls. Maybe next time I won't look so clueless in the waiting room. If they liked it, they'll call the agency, and then me, though I have no idea what the time frame is for that. I assume within the next couple of days.
So that was my point of interest today. It was a rush. I had so much adrenaline in me when I left. Crazy.
Classes are still going well. Interface design lectures are getting boring, but the subject matter is still interesting. Architecture is going to be a great class, alternating walking tours and in-class lectures. And ethics is going pretty well, though I have a feeling it's going to get me riled up before the summer is over. People apparantly don't know how to put their arguments together and keep them on one line. Oh well. My other option is to just not talk. Psh.
For User Interface Design (UI or HCI [human computer interaction]) we've already been assigned our semester-long project. We're designing a user interface (go figure) for whatever we choose. So I think what we're going to do is design a tool to help backpackers plan their trips around Europe. Right now we're thinking it will be a handheld device, although its possible that we may change it to a website or kiosk. The goal is to create a prototype that will help you find tickets, lodging, and stay in budget. You tell it what cities you'd like to see, thier importance, and then it goes to the web and checks out airline prices, train ticket prices, hostel bookings, and restaurant reviews. It could optionally have a feedback loop where you tell it whether it's doing a good job or not, in which case it would proceed to learn your preferences. Also, since its web enabled, you can allow it to cross examine other people's recommendations about restaurants and hostels, and provide locations that are more suited to you. So it's gonna be a pretty cool project. A lot of work, I'm sure. And we've already got so many readings in all our classes. It's gonna be a full semester, even though we're abroad.
K, well I'm outta here for now. Gotta do laundry. Later!!
So I finally get in there, and it turns out its a casting for a commercial. Lol. Luckily it didn't depend on my Spanish, just my acting. Well, ok, so maybe not so lucky. Still, the whole point was just to look like it was summer and you were having fun cutting up with your friend. Understandable Language Optional.
It went pretty decently. I have no expectations, and small hope, but it was definitely good as a first time intro into casting calls. Maybe next time I won't look so clueless in the waiting room. If they liked it, they'll call the agency, and then me, though I have no idea what the time frame is for that. I assume within the next couple of days.
So that was my point of interest today. It was a rush. I had so much adrenaline in me when I left. Crazy.
Classes are still going well. Interface design lectures are getting boring, but the subject matter is still interesting. Architecture is going to be a great class, alternating walking tours and in-class lectures. And ethics is going pretty well, though I have a feeling it's going to get me riled up before the summer is over. People apparantly don't know how to put their arguments together and keep them on one line. Oh well. My other option is to just not talk. Psh.
For User Interface Design (UI or HCI [human computer interaction]) we've already been assigned our semester-long project. We're designing a user interface (go figure) for whatever we choose. So I think what we're going to do is design a tool to help backpackers plan their trips around Europe. Right now we're thinking it will be a handheld device, although its possible that we may change it to a website or kiosk. The goal is to create a prototype that will help you find tickets, lodging, and stay in budget. You tell it what cities you'd like to see, thier importance, and then it goes to the web and checks out airline prices, train ticket prices, hostel bookings, and restaurant reviews. It could optionally have a feedback loop where you tell it whether it's doing a good job or not, in which case it would proceed to learn your preferences. Also, since its web enabled, you can allow it to cross examine other people's recommendations about restaurants and hostels, and provide locations that are more suited to you. So it's gonna be a pretty cool project. A lot of work, I'm sure. And we've already got so many readings in all our classes. It's gonna be a full semester, even though we're abroad.
K, well I'm outta here for now. Gotta do laundry. Later!!
Friday, May 11, 2007
Tengo Movil!!
Ok, so I got a mobile phone today. I receive free incoming calls and incoming texts, even from international numbers. Plan was 35 for the phone, and it comes with 25 prepaid. Texts are 7.5 cents and outgoing calls are .35/min. International calls are more. So if you feel like spending money on international calls, ;) give me a call. Sorry, there will be no drunk dials or texts to the States, they cost too much. My number is:
671 744 742
I don't know what the country code for Spain is. I mainly just got the phone so I could keep up with the modeling stuff.
Just got done cooking dinner for me and some friends. Pork and noodles. Little bit of garlic, some olive oil, italian spices, salt, pepper. Sabrosa. So I'm fat'n'happy. No clubbing tonight, just hanging out, then going out again tomorrow night. Definitely gonna need a job.... lol.
Lata!
671 744 742
I don't know what the country code for Spain is. I mainly just got the phone so I could keep up with the modeling stuff.
Just got done cooking dinner for me and some friends. Pork and noodles. Little bit of garlic, some olive oil, italian spices, salt, pepper. Sabrosa. So I'm fat'n'happy. No clubbing tonight, just hanging out, then going out again tomorrow night. Definitely gonna need a job.... lol.
Lata!
¿Is this only the second day?
I feel like I've been here forever already. So much to say.
So the room is pretty cool. It's dorm sized, with a couple small beds and desks and a kitchen. Roommate seems like a pretty cool guy. The hotel/residencia/whatever-this-is that we're staying at is pretty awesome. Pool deck on the 6th floor (read roof), internet in the basement. When I get a power adapter I'll have internet in my room as well. Definitely well taken care of as techies. ;) However, this keyboard is totally screwy. The punctuation is in all the wrong spots. lol.
Sharing the block with us is a market, so groceries are only a few steps away, which is perfecto. And of course, they have 1€ bottles of wine. Tried two different varieties so far, one which was barely drinkable, and the other which was pretty good. In the market is also a cafe, with awesome espresso. Aqui se llama "un cortado." They're awesome, and only 1€, as are the mini sandwiches. Que bueno. lol. Most of my meals so far have been tomato sandwiches (thanks Vickie!) with a little bit of cold cuts on them. Still waitin for my Stafford loan to come in, so I'm staying as cheap as I can.
Yesterday I devoted some time to digging up that modelling agency that tried to get me to work for them last summer. I found them, visited, and got a favorable response from the girl that I talked to last time, so I'll be doing work with them while I'm here. Hopefully I'll make some money, so my broke ass can go travelling during our vacation weeks. Working for them means I have to get a cell phone though, so she can get in touch with me. They have prepaid plans around here that are like 0.30€/min so I guess I'll be getting that rolling today when everyone goes back to work after the siesta. It's about 3p here now, so most stuff probably isn't open.
Michelle (the modelling agent) also wants me to do casting calls in Spanish. So I guess I better start kicking that back into gear. I can still get my point across in Spanish, but I definitely need to tune up my listening, cause I get lost frequently.
Found a running buddy. I will definitely be running every day I can with Kabir and anyone else. And I'll be working out with Zach most days as well, so this should be a pretty good summer for gettin in shape. Zach is the other cheerleader that's here on this program.
Running in this city is apparantly not the most common thing in the world, so we'll definitely be keeping to one park or another for our runs. We did our first run just around in the city, and for one it was hard to get a good run, cause you have to stop at all the crosswalks. And then all the people give you strange/dirty looks for running. It's like rudely speeding through traffic or something. So we're done with that. Would have been a nice way to explore the city, but oh well. The parks are beautiful anyways. I haven't taken any pictures yet, but I will.
This computer has 32 megs of ram and is running Windows 2000. I'm totally amused by that. Amazed that it's even running. lol
We went and visited the University today. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. http://www.upc.edu/
You can put the page in English as well. Seems like a pretty cool place. It's hysterical, they start telling you the way around (and this is our official guide), and the first thing they tell you is where the bar is and where to get cigarettes. They have like 3 bar-cafes on campus, and its not a very big campus. Quite the different approach. I'll have to get a gym subscription on campus as well, but its only 20€/month, so it's definitely worth it. 20€ setup fee though. Classes start Monday, all taugh by Tech professors (except for those taking Spanish classes). Here's my schedule:
Monday:
11:30 - 2:30 : User Interface Design
3:00 - 4:30 : Barcelona Architecture
4:30 - 6:00 : City Literacy
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday:
11:30 - 1:30 : Society and Computing
1:30 - 2:30 : User Interface Design
3:00 - 4:30 : Barcelona Architecture
4:30 - 6:00 : City Literacy
Friday: NO CLASSES!!!
So that's gonna be a pretty cool schedule. Probably run and work out in the mornings.
Still have to get my metro pass. Still debating whether to go 45€ for the unlimited/month, or the 30€, 50 rides/month. I can't tell yet how much I'll be using the metro beyond taking it to school and back. I'll probably opt for the unlimited, but we'll see. Walking here is VERY common.
Definitely needed all this time to get set up, especially if alot of the stores aren't open during the weekend.
We out last night with a small group. About 3 small groups went out last night, each to different clubs and bars, so it will be good to exchange our info. The TA (teaching assistant) also said he was thinking about setting up a wiki so all of us could share our tips on what to do and not do. I'll keep you posted. ;)
So that's about it for now. I think our window has a view of the top of the Sagrada Familia, which is pretty dang cool. Again, I'll have to take some pictures.
Ok, well I'm signing off for now. Hope everyone is doing well! The weather is here, wish you were beautiful!!
So the room is pretty cool. It's dorm sized, with a couple small beds and desks and a kitchen. Roommate seems like a pretty cool guy. The hotel/residencia/whatever-this-is that we're staying at is pretty awesome. Pool deck on the 6th floor (read roof), internet in the basement. When I get a power adapter I'll have internet in my room as well. Definitely well taken care of as techies. ;) However, this keyboard is totally screwy. The punctuation is in all the wrong spots. lol.
Sharing the block with us is a market, so groceries are only a few steps away, which is perfecto. And of course, they have 1€ bottles of wine. Tried two different varieties so far, one which was barely drinkable, and the other which was pretty good. In the market is also a cafe, with awesome espresso. Aqui se llama "un cortado." They're awesome, and only 1€, as are the mini sandwiches. Que bueno. lol. Most of my meals so far have been tomato sandwiches (thanks Vickie!) with a little bit of cold cuts on them. Still waitin for my Stafford loan to come in, so I'm staying as cheap as I can.
Yesterday I devoted some time to digging up that modelling agency that tried to get me to work for them last summer. I found them, visited, and got a favorable response from the girl that I talked to last time, so I'll be doing work with them while I'm here. Hopefully I'll make some money, so my broke ass can go travelling during our vacation weeks. Working for them means I have to get a cell phone though, so she can get in touch with me. They have prepaid plans around here that are like 0.30€/min so I guess I'll be getting that rolling today when everyone goes back to work after the siesta. It's about 3p here now, so most stuff probably isn't open.
Michelle (the modelling agent) also wants me to do casting calls in Spanish. So I guess I better start kicking that back into gear. I can still get my point across in Spanish, but I definitely need to tune up my listening, cause I get lost frequently.
Found a running buddy. I will definitely be running every day I can with Kabir and anyone else. And I'll be working out with Zach most days as well, so this should be a pretty good summer for gettin in shape. Zach is the other cheerleader that's here on this program.
Running in this city is apparantly not the most common thing in the world, so we'll definitely be keeping to one park or another for our runs. We did our first run just around in the city, and for one it was hard to get a good run, cause you have to stop at all the crosswalks. And then all the people give you strange/dirty looks for running. It's like rudely speeding through traffic or something. So we're done with that. Would have been a nice way to explore the city, but oh well. The parks are beautiful anyways. I haven't taken any pictures yet, but I will.
This computer has 32 megs of ram and is running Windows 2000. I'm totally amused by that. Amazed that it's even running. lol
We went and visited the University today. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. http://www.upc.edu/
You can put the page in English as well. Seems like a pretty cool place. It's hysterical, they start telling you the way around (and this is our official guide), and the first thing they tell you is where the bar is and where to get cigarettes. They have like 3 bar-cafes on campus, and its not a very big campus. Quite the different approach. I'll have to get a gym subscription on campus as well, but its only 20€/month, so it's definitely worth it. 20€ setup fee though. Classes start Monday, all taugh by Tech professors (except for those taking Spanish classes). Here's my schedule:
Monday:
11:30 - 2:30 : User Interface Design
3:00 - 4:30 : Barcelona Architecture
4:30 - 6:00 : City Literacy
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday:
11:30 - 1:30 : Society and Computing
1:30 - 2:30 : User Interface Design
3:00 - 4:30 : Barcelona Architecture
4:30 - 6:00 : City Literacy
Friday: NO CLASSES!!!
So that's gonna be a pretty cool schedule. Probably run and work out in the mornings.
Still have to get my metro pass. Still debating whether to go 45€ for the unlimited/month, or the 30€, 50 rides/month. I can't tell yet how much I'll be using the metro beyond taking it to school and back. I'll probably opt for the unlimited, but we'll see. Walking here is VERY common.
Definitely needed all this time to get set up, especially if alot of the stores aren't open during the weekend.
We out last night with a small group. About 3 small groups went out last night, each to different clubs and bars, so it will be good to exchange our info. The TA (teaching assistant) also said he was thinking about setting up a wiki so all of us could share our tips on what to do and not do. I'll keep you posted. ;)
So that's about it for now. I think our window has a view of the top of the Sagrada Familia, which is pretty dang cool. Again, I'll have to take some pictures.
Ok, well I'm signing off for now. Hope everyone is doing well! The weather is here, wish you were beautiful!!
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
And he´s........SAFE!!!
Hey guys, I´m here in Barcelona. All in one piece. At least physically.
So I am worrrn out. We flew from Atlanta to Franfurt, where our new flight was an hour late, so we sat in the airport for 3 hours. THEN we got to come over to Barcelona, and I slept the entire way from Frankfurt to Barcelona.
Things on the ground have been good so far. Got a group of people to go out today. Started out small and ended up a decent size. We walked to Las Ramblas and had some Sangria. It´s now a first times tradtiion
Ok, well I´m fallin asleep at the keyboard over here. I´m gonna go grab some winks and get some stuff rollin.
Night!
So I am worrrn out. We flew from Atlanta to Franfurt, where our new flight was an hour late, so we sat in the airport for 3 hours. THEN we got to come over to Barcelona, and I slept the entire way from Frankfurt to Barcelona.
Things on the ground have been good so far. Got a group of people to go out today. Started out small and ended up a decent size. We walked to Las Ramblas and had some Sangria. It´s now a first times tradtiion
Ok, well I´m fallin asleep at the keyboard over here. I´m gonna go grab some winks and get some stuff rollin.
Night!
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Interactive Travel Calendar
Got the travel calendar posted. Should be viewable in the sidebar. Also viewable here.
If you use Google Calendars, then you can subscribe to my calendars and get the pretty color-coded version instead. To do that you'll have to subscribe to each of my calendars that correspond to study abroad stuff. The links for each of those subscriptions follows. Click each button to get all of the stuff added to your calendar.
I'm also going to look at the Google Calendar API and see if I can't get it to display it in all its glory here on this site.
If you use Google Calendars, then you can subscribe to my calendars and get the pretty color-coded version instead. To do that you'll have to subscribe to each of my calendars that correspond to study abroad stuff. The links for each of those subscriptions follows. Click each button to get all of the stuff added to your calendar.
I'm also going to look at the Google Calendar API and see if I can't get it to display it in all its glory here on this site.
Setting Up the Blog
Working on setting up the blog. Let me know if you have any customization suggestions or can't view something properly.
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