Salt Flats

While I'm in Utah, I'm trying to see more of the American west. I don't have a car (the irony of nature being more available to people who own polluting machines is not lost on me) so I'm dependent on other people for transit to the national parks, etc. Last Saturday we went to the Salt Flats. We woke up early to make bread and fill the thermoses and then we drove a few hours to arrive at sunrise. These photos were taken by me, Rachel Hludzinski, and Mariana Castro.

When I was in Spain, people often told me that the US didn't have any cultural patrimony. But I feel like American patrimony is built into the landscape. It's doesn't necessarily belong to us but we can assume the role of preserving it; we can treat it like patrimony.

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Mientras vivo en Utah, intento experimentar la naturaleza que hay aquí. Pero no tengo coche (para los que contaminan con el coche, es más fácil llegar a la naturaleza). Después de que Mariana me buscó en coche el sábado pasado, conducimos para los Salt Flats (al borde del Lago Salado). Nos madrugamos a las 4 para hacer un pan (en Utah no hay panaderías) y llenar el termo. Llegamos sobre las 7 para ver el amanecer. Hicimos estas photos Mari, Rachel, y yo.

En España pensaban que casi hubiera patrimonio en EEUU. Pero en EEUU la tierra es el patrimonio nuestro: aunque no nos pertenezca, la podemos conservar. La debemos de tratar como si fuera patrimonio.

Film photo!

This is a bilingual post. If you notice a mistake, please correct my grammar (in either language!)

Publico esta entrada en castellano e inglés. Al notar faltas de ortografía y gramática, hacedme el favor de corregirme (¡el inglés tanto como el español!)

Arches / arcos

Moab, Utah, 2014

Segovia, Spain, 2009

Spiral Jetty / el Muelle espiral

What I miss most about Barna is how visually rich it is. I love going to school in Utah, but my daily surroundings too often narrow to campus, my apartment, and the sidewalk in between.

Going to see the Spiral Jetty yesterday yanked me out of my everyday. It's a piece of art that could only be possible in Utah -- a reason to savor being here.
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Barcelona tiene una enorme riqueza visual. Me encanta estudiar en Utah ... pero ni el piso, ni el campus ni el camino que los relaciona porta tal riqueza visual.

Ir al Spiral Jetty [el muelle espiral] ayer me arrancó del entorno cotidiano y me hizo recordar la riqueza de la naturaleza que hay aquí.

I keep finding great photos of Barcelona as I sort through everything. For your viewing pleasure:

My school's old building.

The Basilica in the rain. Beautiful even then.

Pl. Catalunya

Modernisme street lighting + seating

Pl. Espanya

A block east of Pl. Cataluyna

PORTO

In Porto ...

I saw the sun!

I remembered that the small city is a beautiful thing ... goodbye, endless hours on the metro.

Students dressed up (finals week tradition):

I ate a giant meat-stuffed sandwich (chorizo, ham, a fried egg, tomato sauce, roast beef, and fries). Yup.

I climbed to the top:

I swam in this!!

There were a lot of things about Portugal that were charming but slow.

I got my fill of printing museums:

The colors were all so intense ... such orange rooftops in the rain. Porto in the rain made me thing of what Margarit said about another place: "una ciutat grisa amb un gran port."

The city isn't all clean and shiny, but does it sound terrible to say that it's pretty clean for the Iberian Peninsula?

I went to an antique book dealer

And they let me go look at their basement stash. People there were friendly, patient. A little old man forced a pastel de nata on me while I waited for the bus to the airport home. 

All the shops had old fashioned facades and antique furniture (counters, cabinets). It was like stepping back in time.

The market was full of olives, seafood, sausage, fruit, and homemade jam.

There were traditional bookbinding, leatherworking, and woodworking shops. (I dig this).

They apparently don't have rules like in Barcelona about where you can hang your laundry. (In the part of the city where I live we can't hang it outside). I guess sometimes I feel like rules in BCN are made more for tourists than locals, but Porto felt pretty lived in.

I really liked seeing some baroque churches; Portuguese baroque is over the top (I mean that in the best of ways). The guide I had referred to this one as "Golden Cave #2."

 I saw a fellow Minnesotan (how was it that we didn't take any photos together???). But it was SO GREAT. MINNESOOOOOTA. So soon! 

More than anything I loved how being there felt like being in another time, not just another place. I seriously googled "expat in Portugal" when I got home. But you know what? MINNESOTA. That is all. 

Parallel Lives

I hung out at the Picasso Museum today. Guess what? Picasso and I have parallel lives.

The museum, whose collection is mostly Picasso's early drawings and works on paper, arranges all the pieces chronologically.

So you can see Picasso coming to Barcelona, studying at my school, carrying around a sketchbook, making little paintings of the sea and the city ... discovering Madrid and Paris ...

What does this all boil down to? I'm probably about to make it big as a Cubist painter. Basically I'm waiting for that to happen any minute now.

Here were some of my favorites:

Sant Pau del Camp, with its distinctive mozarab cloister.

The Liceu

La Barceloneta

     
 Near the Prado in Madrid

A café in Barcelona

Barcelona cityscape

The beach at Barceloneta

Images pulled from the Museum's online catalog.

Read what they have to say about Picasso's relationship with Barcelona ... the modernization of the city and the construction of the Eixample began while he lived here.

Although Picasso spent far more time in Paris, Barcelona is "where it all began ... where I understood how far I could go."

10 photos of Paris

Holy week in Spain is wonderful and not to be missed. But this year I spent the week of vacation with my MOM in PARIS. 

Yep, doesn't get better than that. Besides seeing her, here were some of my favorite things from our trip:

The river. 

The Rodin museum. 

Free admission to it. (!!!) Not paying for museums as a student is wonderful, I recommend never getting older than 26.

I think the Louvre is maybe my idea of paradise. I knew it was an art capital, but after visiting I'm blown away by the amount of art making, patronage and appreciation that goes on in Paris. It's so great to see museums packed full of people looking at art.

Paris is also full of architecture from the middle ages. 

Like the conciergerie. 

And in case you're wondering where all the old printing/flying equipment is, check out the museum of Arts et Metiers.

I didn't expect to be blown away by the Eiffel Tower. I was blown away. I also really loved the architecture at the train stations, which reminded me of it.

So many public gardens. All this beauty is good for the soul, don't you think?