on tour part 6: impersonating a grad student at The Farm

My college tour continues in San Francisco, California! My mom had a meeting at Stanford, so I came along for a college visit.

My mom's meeting was on Friday, so we drove to Stanford together, and then I was on my own to explore the campus. I experienced a typical day as a Stanford student, complete with a morning lecture, lunch at the Union, and visitors asking me for directions! I was on a very tight schedule that required a lot of quick walking. And I mean a lot. I went between three main points that are spread out in a large triangle. On this map, I drew where I walked throughout the day, with the paths in rainbow order from red to blue.

Red: From a morning class to the visitor center for a walking tour.
Orange: The walking tour from the visitor center to the bookstore and dining areas. 
Yellow: From the endpoint of the tour back to the visitor center for a Q&A session with Stanford students.
Green: From the visitor center back toward the dining areas for lunch at Tresidder Union. I got a little lost along the way and accidentally went on the walking tour a second time...
Blue: From Tresidder Union back to my mom's meeting.

I actually used the map scale to measure how far I walked, and I walked more than 5 miles! Strangely, it was much more tiring than running 5 miles, and my legs ached afterwards. Now I understand the appeal of a small, urban campus. No wonder all of the students were biking around. Here is a long row of bikes parked outside one building.

First, I went to a lecture from 9 to 10:50 am, called "BioE222B: Multimodality Molecular Imaging in Living Subjects II." As I was looking for the lecture room in a building of classrooms and offices, I was suddenly surrounded by medical machines and nurses wheeling around patients. I must have looked so strange, wandering through a hospital with a large campus map and confused facial expression. I had to ask a doctor for directions to the classroom. Eventually, I found the classroom entrance in this courtyard, which is where I was before I started looking!

I was really excited for the class because I'm interested in studying bioengineering in college. The professor, Dr. Brian Rutt, was a guest lecturer from the Department of Radiology. When I asked him whether I could sit in on the class, he asked me if I was a prospective grad student! Yes! I can pass for a 21 year old! Most people are excited to look 21 years old so they can get into bars, but I'm excited because I look like I belong in an undergrad/grad class. The lesson was on MR probes and particles, and the professor went through a whopping 81 slides in about 35 minutes! The surprising thing about the class was that all of the students were late. We started class about 10 minutes late, and even then, only one-third of the students had arrived. Some stragglers came in more than an hour late. Maybe they were up late the night before working on the business plans for their start-ups.

After the class, I had 10 minutes to get to the visitor center for the guided walking tour, so I did a combination of speed walking and very slow jogging to get there on time. Obviously, the tour couldn't cover the huge 8,180 acre campus in 60 minutes, so we just walked past some main buildings and landmarks, through the Main Quad, and ended near the bookstore and dining areas. The campus was beautiful, and the sunny California weather definitely didn't hurt.

Here is the Hoover Tower, a major landmark on the campus. I heard that there is a gorgeous view of Palo Alto from the top of the tower!

This is The Oval, a large grassy area in the middle of campus. The grass really is greener in California!

The Main Quad is one of the best places to admire the beautiful architecture at Stanford. In the center of the Quad, you're surrounded by it! The buildings were designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed Central Park. I love the Spanish-style design, with the red tile roofs and sandstone.

In the Quad, you can see the Memorial Church, which has so many amazing details painted on it!

And, of course, it wouldn't be California without the palm trees! Here is one in front of Montag Hall.

After the tour, I did some more speed walking to get back to the starting point of the tour for a Q&A session with current Stanford students. There were four Stanford students and about 10 visiting students at the session (with no parents), so it was very personal and casual. We all sat in a circle, introduced ourselves, and talked about anything we were curious about. The session gave me a really good sense of the people and everyday life at Stanford. The students were so friendly and easy to relate to. Surprisingly, they only had great things to say about Stanford! It was nice to talk directly with students about their experience at Stanford rather than reading a brochure or going to an information session, which eventually starts to sound the same at every college. I asked about the research opportunities on campus, and the Stanford students said all together, as if on cue, that it's really easy to find research.

After that, I got lunch at the Union and then met up with my mom after her meeting! We were planning on seeing the Rodin Sculpture Garden since apparently Rodin is kind of famous or something. But then, someone suggested the Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden, which wasn't listed anywhere. It was a hidden gem! The back-story was that the New Guinean artists were visiting campus and said they could do a better job than Rodin, so they made a bunch of pieces for this little park.

Here's one of the sculptures with geckos and fish on it! I love the intricate scales carved on the gecko.

Most of the sculptures were carved, but here's a painted one!

Ironically, I look pretty stupid in my thinking pose.

Posing for a picture with my new New Guinean friends!

detour to radiator springs

Just got back from California at 2 am this morning, Maryland time! I spent awhile having a reunion with my cat, Violet. I think she missed me because I'm the only one who pets her daily.

We left for California on the Thursday before last to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousins, Allison and Adam. Maryland seems to be plagued by badly timed thunderstorms this season. First, the derecho during the heat wave, and then a thunderstorm right before our flight! It was supposed to leave around 8 pm, but was delayed until after midnight! Luckily, we were able to switch flights and leave an hour earlier, which got us into California at around 2 am.

On Friday, we rested up and went to the beach with my cousins! We played in the water, which was ice cold, and then laid on the warm sand. We found a bunch of sand crabs, including two gigantic ones that were really frightening. Then, we played some volleyball. I was much better than I remembered being in middle school, but it still left a bunch of small marks on my forearms for a few days.

On Saturday, we went to the local farmer's market to buy groceries and eat lunch. It's one of my favorite places in California! Fruit is my favorite food, aside from desserts of course, and they have so much fresh fruit that you can't find in Maryland. One stand had 15 types of nectarines, plums, and pluots, and you could try samples of each one!

In the afternoon, we went to Sky Zone, an indoor trampoline park, for the first time. It was so much fun! I hadn't realized how tiring one hour of trampoline jumping could be! It was definitely a workout.

There were a bunch of trampoline pads, even on the walls (which I am bouncing off of in this first picture)...

 And a foam pit! It took me a while, but I mustered up the courage to do a flip!

On Sunday, we had a huge Chinese lunch with my extended family in San Gabriel, and then we all went to my great grandmother's house to hang out. At the end, we had a family photo shoot. 

Later that day, we went to a complex with some Japanese stores. First, we decided to check out a Japanese $1.50 store called Daiso Japan. Cute Japanese things for only $1.50!? It doesn't get much better than that. It was way cooler than any dollar store I've been to! They sell almost everything you could ever want and things you never knew you needed. I had to try really hard to control myself.

I got some bento boxes and grapefruit lip balm. Ella got bento boxes, silicon cupcake molds shaped like hearts and stars, origami paper, and many erasers (including food shaped erasers and an electric eraser, which I didn't even know existed). Now my mom's worried that we're expecting adorable bento lunches, like the ones below. I can't believe that moms put so much time and effort into lunches! I would feel bad eating it...

Totoro... (http://www.annathered.com/)

... pandas... (http://www.susanyuen.wordpress.com/)

... and piggies! (http://dailycuteness.com/)

We also went to a Japanese grocery store next-door to Daiso, called Mitsuwa. My mom spotted this delicious looking drink... Yummy. Who wouldn't buy that? Maybe something's lost in the translation.

There were also some very large beer bottles and Pocky boxes in the drink section...

We spent all of Monday at Disney's California Adventure! I saw the new Cars Land for the first time. They had cool rock structures that you probably recognize from the Cars movie, or the southwest.

In Cars Land, we went on Luigi's Flying Tires, which was like bumper cars steered with your body! There were huge beach balls to throw around, so after we threw our first one, we spent most of the ride chasing them down and unsuccessfully trying to reach them...

We also went on the Radiator Springs Racers. It's one of my favorite rides in California Adventure now! It starts with a nice, peaceful drive around the plateaus, and then you enter a mechanics shop where the other cars prepare you for a race. The best part is the end, where you race another car to the finish! Sadly, we lost the race. But, we were still going really fast, as you can see from my flying hair in the picture below.

My other favorite ride in California Adventure is Soarin'! We waited a little longer so we could sit smack front and center. That way, we didn't see other people's feet dangling above us. I love the pine smell when you're flying over the forest. It reminds me of Christmas time. :) 

We also went on California Screamin' for the first time. I used to be too scared to ride it, because of the loop, but both Ella and I were brave enough to try it. They launch you from 0 to 60 mph! Allison and I determined that they have very loud prerecorded screaming during the launch...

This is me, Allison, and Ella on the Ferris wheel. Allison and Ella wanted to go on the swinging gondola, so I tried it... It was much scarier than California Screamin'! The gondola swings almost completely horizontal, and it feels like you're about to fly off and plummet to the ground! Afterwards I felt pretty sick to my stomach.

You can see Ella holding a cute Dumbo stuffed animal. I won it for her at the water shooting carnival game! Yes, I was actually playing against other people. It doesn't matter that they were all younger than me... Anyways, I somehow managed to aim it perfectly from the very beginning. I was so excited! Nothing like the thrill of victory in carnival games.

We went to dinner at Flo's V8 Cafe. It looked so cool, just like the old style diner from the Cars movie! Ella was disappointed that the waiters weren't in roller-skates.

(http://www.pixarcarsworld.wikia.com/)

Tuesday was our tour of Caltech, which you can read about here!

On Wednesday, after a day to rest our feet, we went to Disneyland! It was a very productive day. We went on all of the rides we wanted to! I love them all... especially Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, Indiana Jones, Big Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, and Splash Mountain (three "Mountains" in a row)! I was also happily surprised by Star Tours. I remember riding it a really long time ago with my dad and feeling really sick, but this time it was great!

Dumbo the Flying Elephant! It's always the first ride of the day. There's Allison and Ella in the first Dumbo and my mom and me in the second.

Here we are entering the mouth of a whale at Storybook Land! All the mini plants and houses are so cute.

 Here's me and Ella looking focused and determined on Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.

 In Toontown, Ella and Allison took a nap on Minnie's rock-hard bed. How does she sleep on that?

 Also in Toontown, we took a ride on the Jolly Trolley!

As always, our trip to California included some excellent restaurants and snacks. Shout outs for Souplantation (aka Sweet Tomatoes in the south because maybe plantations conjure up some unpleasant memories) which I absolutely love! Musha which is a cool Japanese fusion restaurant with dishes like cheesy brown rice in a big slab of parmesan. And the always special Yogurtland!

Our trip to California was magical as always!

on tour part 2: pranks and shared bathrooms

My dad, aunt and uncle all went to Caltech in the '80s and lived in the same house, which I hear is the best house. Last time I visited Caltech, I was only 12 years old and was mainly focused on playing in the fountains with my sister and cousins.

This time around, it was all business. First, we went on a tour of the campus. My dad and aunt came on the tour too, so it was interesting hearing the perspectives of some alumni. Unfortunately, I don't have my own pictures of the campus because our camera broke at the beach. :(

The tour guide talked a lot about Caltech pranks. Two of the most famous pranks were the changing of the Hollywood sign to read "Caltech" in 1987 and the rewiring of the scoreboard during the 1984 Rose Bowl game to show that Caltech was leading MIT 38 to 9 when, actually, UCLA was playing the University of Illinois. My aunt commented that she must have been at Caltech during the Golden Age of pranks because both of these pranks happened when she was there.

(http://blog.allanellenberger.com/wp-content/uploads/hollwyoodsigncaltech2.jpg)

Then, the tour guide showed us his dorm room in Dabney House, which was nice to see since most tours don't show housing. It was a single with a loft bed, desk, sink and closet, and looked like a reasonable size for a single. In the hallways, there were shared bathrooms for men and women which seemed a little too progressive.

We also went into the lobby of the GALCIT lab, which is where my dad did his graduate research! The tour guide said that it's really easy for undergrads to find research opportunities, which is awesome! He said that the SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship) program was just like real research in that the students write proposals that get reviewed, and that 99.9% of them get funded. At that point, my mom whispered to me, "Yeah, except that 99.9% of grants don't get funded in the real world."

After the tour, we went to the information session. It was interesting, the admissions officer said that as long as your test scores are between their 25th and 75th percentile you should stop trying. What he didn't explicitly say is that their 25th percentile numbers are already insanely high.

Afterwards, we had lunch with my grandma at Green Street, which is near Caltech. I loved it! The zucchini bread was so good, and the dishes we had were fresh and delicious. I thought the flavor combinations were interesting, like papaya in chicken quesadillas.

freshie no longer

long time no blog! it has been six whole months, and i have been feeling pretty guilty. i'll try to blog more regularly once school ends...

... and that is in just six days! just six more days, which will be stuffed with more projects and exams than we have had for the entire semester. plus a ton of yearbook signing. eeks!

on the bright side, i'll be out of school three days earlier than ella! teehee. one day for senior graduation, one day for my lunch and gym exams (which are nonexistent, as you can probably imagine), and one day for make-up exams.

so, last weekend was memorial day weekend and future shock DC danced at world of dance in brooklyn! here is our performance from saturday. i am to the far left for the first piece. :)



WOD 2011 was definitely one of my favorite shows. all the acts were awesome! on the RhythmAddictsTV youtube channel, you can watch videos of other groups that performed.

i got a red, retro-looking, t-shirt that says "5, 6, 7, 8." i guess it is sort of an inside joke for dancers... maybe? my family got dinner at an african festival near the venue, like last year.

sunday was our NYC tourist day. we took a ferry to liberty island and ellis island. it was packed on the liberty island ferry, but on the ellis island ferry, not so much. for some reason, tourists seem much more interested in a green 151-foot-tall statue than an immigration museum... strange people...

we also saw the off-broadway show, jump! the show was set in the home a family of martial arts experts. the cast was mainly professional korean gymnasts, so the stunts were awesome.

my favorite character was the son-in-law. not only did he have awesome abs... every time he took off his glasses, he would spasm strangely and become a crazy martial arts ninja!

i didn't come to dance

the words of this blog are coming straight from barcelona!

my dance group was invited to perform at the grand prix in barcelona. of course, i wanted to go! the whole family decided to go, too. once we bought our plane tickets, we realized that we had to buy some package for me to perform. we didn't want the whole package though, so, since we already had our plane tickets, we just turned it into a spring break vacation!

monday, march 29, 2010:
our flight to barcelona started at 4:40 pm, east coast time. first, we flew to paris, and then to barcelona. on the first flight, we got really lucky with an upgrade, and were super cozy in our business lite seats. i loved the leg space, and the footrest too! the seat was like a transformer... in one armrest was a desktop, and in one armrest was a TV. here is the pop out TV screen.

it was very time consuming... because from washington to barcelona, i managed to watch two whole movies: new moon and love actually. after watching both of them, back to back, my eyes were watering like crazy! new moon was excruciatingly boring, but my expectations weren't too high anyway. oh man. now to love actually. i have to say, that movie was really embarrassing to watch on an airplane. i even ended up blocking the screen with a pillow (from the other people on the plane). let me just say... i was surprised it was only rated r.

anyway, to more pleasant things. the plane dinner was really amazing! mmm... baguette with cheese (it is air france), tabbouleh with salmon, pasta with tomato sauce, rice pudding, a piece of cake, and apple juice! sounds really good right? i only managed to eat half of that! i felt bad too... i was still eating a few hours after they served it and they kept asking if they could take it away...

tuesday, march 30, 2010
we arrived at the airport in barcelona at around 11 am, and took a taxi to our apartment. i love staying in an apartment instead of a hotel. it feels a lot like we are living here. we have a refrigerator and washing machine in here!

then, we basically took a 6 hour nap. even when i woke up, my sleepiness was as evident as ever.

after that, we got to know the neighborhood. there are many alleys everywhere... in fact, our apartment was in one!

right when you turn out of our alley... you see this, next to the palau de musica. these bikes are everywhere in barcelona.

there is an awesome, little baklava and samosa shop just around the corner. there is a grocery store, called dia, a few streets down. and, next to that, a small farmer's market. wow! a whole town in a few blocks. this is what i love about city life.

we then went to dinner at taller de tapas. i. love. tapas. i could even say that tapas are my favorite food (excluding sweets). but, what is even better are tapas from spain!! it was amazing. at the beginning, they serve deliciously crisp bread with tomato juice squeezed on top... then our tapas! my favorite dish was the lamb with pomegranate. fue delicioso! i was surprised that i liked it though. before, i had been completely traumatized (for a few years actually) by my dad singing this song as we ate lamb for dinner: "mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb..." i pledged that i would never eat lamb again. after a while, though, i was only persistent in my hatred for lamb to guilt trip my dad. i guess i'll have to let that one go now (one, because i had obviously fallen in love with the lamb at taller de tapas. two, because my dad will most likely read that).


wednesday, march 31, 2010
the first day of sightseeing in a new place is always fascinating (no, that was not sarcastic... you may have thought it was since i usually use "fascinating" when in my sarcastic mood). we have some gaudi books at home, with amazing pictures. so, i had always wanted to see gaudi's work in person and was most excited about the architecture (plus the food). in that case, it was lucky that the first thing we saw were the three famous buildings. the detail on the buildings was so beautiful... that i ended up taking a million pictures. well, here's one of them.

the buildings, from closest to farthest, are the casa batllo (designed by gaudi), the casa amatller (designed by cadafalch), and the casa lleo morera (designed by montaner).

you'll be excited by this... more architecture!! :) next, we visited gaudi's sagrada familia. it was cool to see all the cranes and builders working on the church. the towers were pretty complex and super colossal. according to one of our gaudi books, the highest tower in the middle is nearly 560 feel tall!


after that, we headed back towards our apartment and then decided to check out the boqueria (which means market in spanish). it was a ginormous boqueria. there were so many vibrant colors, and tons of fruit.

this is how the market looks as soon as you walk in.

but don't be mistaken, it's not all fruits and veggies... there are sweets too!! that was the best part. here is the candy stand where we got our $1 pieces of chocolate.

now, there are a few things you just have to see:

four strawberries in one

metallic chocolates

you have to admit, that is just not natural... i can't imagine someone wanting to eat that. my mom said that tin man would! haha

thursday, april 1, 2010
in the morning, we took a quick trip to the local market, called the santa caterina market, to get some tissues and a snack. the roof on that place is just awesome! here is a picture from off the web.

but what i really need to show you are these eggs...

well, those are some ginormous eggs. an emu egg for 15€ and an ostrich egg for 28€. check out the regular eggs to their right, for comparison. can you believe that that was a major highlight of my day?

after our amazing egg sighting, we took the tram to montjuic, a part of barcelona. in montjuic, we went to the miro museum. apparently, joan miro is one of my dads favorite artists... who knew? being at the miro museum showed how much miro liked birds, stars, and women. just about every painting there had the word "bird" or "women" (or both) in the title. well, disregarding that, it was a very cool museum.

there were some sculptures on the patio outside. here are a few of them...

(notice how there is a bird and a woman, by the way)...

after walking through the whole museum, we went straight to the gift shop. we spent a while in there, looking at prints. there were so many to choose from, and i am very easily overwhelmed. so, you can probably tell how well that went. but, eventually, both me and ella chose prints.

ella got this painting as a small print in a paper frame.

she was very specific about why she wanted this poster. she said, "i like the guitar and the music notes at the top... but i think the cat at the bottom looks weird." but, in the end, she decided that the good outweighed the bad.

i got this print as a big poster!

i love how the colors blend into each other in the background... and how the lines make up the different figures.

anyway, after our gift shop scouting, we headed towards the poble espanyol (meaning spanish village). it is meant to show visitors samples of architecture from around spain. but, the main thing there are artisan shops. so, we took a bus there... but, upon buying tickets, the ticket man told us that all the shops were closing soon!! of course, we couldn't go to the poble espanyol when the shops were closed.

instead, we walked to the placa d'espanya (meaning spain's square). it is one of the most important squares in spain, and right at the foot of montjuic. check out this building in the square...

isn't that architecture amazing? but, my favorite thing in the square, by far, was the humongous fountain. music came from the fountain as the water spurted in different directions, constantly changing shape. the many different shapes put me in complete awe... and i ended up taking 56 pictures. of. a. fountain. didn't you know how easily i am amused? if not, you do now. here are 2/56 of the pictures. it was difficult to choose only two pictures, as all of them looked mostly the same...

but... i chose this picture since there is something especially beautiful about it. you'll see. :)

ahh... that picture always makes me smile. i was lucky to catch that glimpse of a rainbow. but then again, taking a picture every few seconds made it pretty hard to miss.

now, just for a little bit more perspective, the second picture!

i convinced my family to let us stay for a while to admire the fountain, but after a while they got really tired of just staring at a fountain. i mean, i could have stayed there for hours marveling at the waterworks. well, i suppose i'm just weird. so, i reluctantly left my beloved fountain... to go back to the apartment... :(

friday, april 2, 2010
a little bit before our trip, my mom met another scientist at a meeting, who ended up was actually going to barcelona with his family at the same time as us! we decided on a time to meet up and do some stuff together. we met in some central plaza (i have no idea which one... there are so many plazas in spain...) and decided to go to the chocolate museum! it was cool from the start. our tickets were dark chocolate bars! i'm pretty sure that that's the only time where eating your ticket is acceptable (unless you are a goat, that is). anyway, when you walk in, there is a lot of information to read about where chocolate comes from, how chocolate is made, etc. of course, ella didn't like that part, but i actually managed to live with it. now, to the cool part. the gazillions of chocolate sculptures! there was everything from electric guitars, to the house from the movie up.

electric guitar, shred or eat?the house from up

and yes. it's all chocolate! to be honest, those sculptures don't look particularly appetizing. i mean, would you take a bite out of that chocolate guitar? well, i'm just wondering how long those chocolate sculptures can last...

after our venture into the land of chocolate, we went to the gehry goldfish waterfront. why is it called the gehry goldfish waterfront, you ask? well, here is the the goldfish, near the waterfront.

unfortunately, it was too cold to go into the water. i guess it didn't matter though, since we didn't bring swimsuits. but, we enjoyed sitting on the large rocks that went out onto the shore. it was amusing enough letting my hair fly in the wind and helping my sister dip her feet in the water (without getting them sandy).

hair!

this was actually my facebook profile picture for a while. check out my glasses hanging from my scarf! i put on that look a lot in barcelona.

the foot dipping attempt (failed)

well, ella really wanted to dip her feet into the water... yup, it really works the thighs. but, in the end, ella just jumped into the water. so all my hard work was for nothing! sigh. then, she wiped her feet on my moms cotton sweater. can you believe that all that work was so she could dip her feet into some freezing water?

for dinner we ate tapas at a restaurant called santa maria. the only downside was that the portions were so small. but the tapas were very unique, and not like traditional tapas. by that, i mean, they were pretty good.

saturday, april 3, 2010

okay. today, we successfully visited the poble espanyol! we spent the whole day there, in mini spain. we stopped by a little (smoke-infested) restaurant for breakfast. we ordered some side dishes and a paella which was really good! even though i was supposed to be admiring the models of architecture from around spain, i was mainly occupied by the artisan shops!

ella and i each got a pair of silk earrings. the colors were vibrant and beautiful, and the idea was unique. the woman there also sold silk scarves and fans, which were, i hate to say, scarily expensive!
we then went to watch a few men making glass. it was amazing to watch them pull the hot glass like bubble gum. we must have watched them for at least 5 minutes. then they cleverly took us straight through the gift shop. there were cute shapes with neat patterns of color inside the glass. ella got an elephant, since she loves both elephants and dragons, and i got a snail!
ella also got something to hang in her room, with a cute stained glass fish.

everything was so tempting. i had to build up my self-control, which is normally quite low, to be in the poble espanol. but, oh well. it was probably good for me anyway! seeing the many different types of art, and even some art in the making, was fascinating and maybe even inspiring (well, maybe not).

sorry that the diary for this day is so short, there is not much more i can write about the spanish village. then again, you may be glad for the shortness, since the other days are colossal!

sunday, april 4, 2010
my mom planned this brilliantly... on one sunday of every month, i believe, the picasso museum is free. luckily, it happened to be while we were here! so, mom planned for us to wake up early, and head to the picasso museum so the wait would not be horrible (but still bad). the line into the museum stretched quite far. it must have taken an hour or so to get inside. it wasn't too bad though, since my dad waited in line while we walked around the stores (p.s. thanks dad). we checked out the postcards at the tourist trap store (as my parents say) and grabbed some pastries to munch on.

soon enough, we were inside. the museum set up is interesting. it is like a timeline... of rooms. in every room, in every time period, you see picasso's art style progress. there is a paragraph or two on the wall in each room, describing the artistic period. it went very quickly from traditional to abstract. there was even a period with completely blue-based paintings, called the blue period. they wrote that picasso felt depressed when one of his close friends committed suicide which inspired the color. wow, i got pretty educational there.

then, of course, there was the gift shop. unfortunately, i don't have a picture of the print that i got. however, as you may have guessed, it is very abstract (and colorful too!)... it is titled "maestri della pittura." don't even bother googling it though, nothing comes up. :( ella got a postcard with the famous dove of peace. here it is:

we decided to close up our trip at gaudi's parc guell. my mom had said it was her favorite place in barcelona. just walking towards parc guell was intriguing, listening to my parents say "i remember this!" or "was that there last time?" upon getting to parc guell, the first thing i realized was that... it was packed. i sort of wished that it was just as empty as in the postcards. but still, the mosaics were beautiful. i shot a bunch of nice photos, but now, cannot find them. distressing, eh? well, here are some internet pictures.

the seats surrounding the center plaza

the columns and intricate ceiling designs

the famous lizard at the park entrance

hopefully, one day, i'll be able to visit parc guell on a non-holiday weekday. or would that be crowded still?

monday, april 5, 2010
we packed all of our things last night so that today, at 4 am, we were ready to go. even after a week in spain, i was still a bit jetlagged... so i only got 3 hours of sleep. after a lot of hard work, we were able to get a cab to the airport (long story: we found a taxi company number, called with a payphone, and the woman hung up because she didn't speak english. we asked a store worker to talk to them for us, and instead she wrote a bunch of jib jab in spanish for us to use. eventually, the apartment owner got us a taxi. phew!).

anyway, i slept for most of the flight and didn't feel too great afterward (i feel queezy just thinking about it!) but on a more positive note, the temperature in maryland increased greatly in only one week... so walking out of the airport was pleasantly surprising :)