Descubriendo un castillo

          On Wednesday, September 5, I had my first real day of classes, where I made it to each and every one on time (give or take) and felt successful in each one. My schedule is a bit crazy on Monday and Wednesdays, with 4 classes, but I don't mind. I think the hours are going to fly by. I fell in love with my Modernisme: Architecure Explained and Sketched class. My professor is very kind and intensely passionate about art and expression. A good 50% of the course will be spent in the streets of Barcelona, crudely sketching the architecute around us. He doesn't care about skill. He just said, "Enjoy it, that is the most important thing," in a lovely Catalonian accent. But my favorite moment of the entire class was when he compared Gaudí to Edgar Allen Poe. He said, "It is hard to tell whether they are crazy, or a genuis. But there is something good in them, something that makes people go back to them a hundred years later."

     I adore Edgar Allen Poe. His work is so twisted, morbid, raw and painfully honest that it is impossible to turn away from. You can feel his struggle to understand himself through his horrific stories. I believe the best form of creation comes from when a person is struggling. My best poetry, albeit I am not a poet, emerges when I am confused and angry, sad and lonely. It is in those moments when you need to grasp onto the emotion and put it on paper before it escapes you.
    After classes, I went to the welcome dinner AIFS had. It was at a resturant called Milk, tiny and buried in an alley straight out of history books.

      As we walked home, we stumbled upon a hidden jewel, one of many in Barcelona. It was a castle.  It is mind-boggling to me that enormous pieces of history and beauty are nestled among metro stations, pay phones and parking spots here. Barcelona is an active marriage of the old and the new. Modern buildings surround ancient structures, and history lives in the movement of right now. I love that I am in a place where dark, aged beauty lives harmoniously with modern technology. Oddly enough, the two do not clash.