Derive........

So for class we had to do a Derive, its when you basically wonder around a city based off your perceptual senses; it can be geared towards sights, noises, smells, feeling, anything that has an interest to you. Well Ive realized that what I do basically, I just walk around without aimlessly without any agenda, and thats probably how I end up getting lost. I can be distracted so easily by something that fascinating to look at. Just the other day Joe and myself were trying to get to studio from Plaza Catalunya, there are two way both relatively easy to navigate. We decided to take the way via the Rambla, now the Rambla is a main corridor for Barcelona and there are about a thousand side streets, and studio was off one of these sides streets. We thought we knew where we were but we didnt. We ended up walking like a mile further then we needed to walk, it turns out the street we needed to take was the first on the right but when your walking down the Rambla with entertainers and kioskis on both sides it can get a little distracting plus we didnt really know which one it was, we thought we would recognize it but apparently we had no clue where it was. We finally knew we were in the right area so we took a turn and we ended up in this plaza that we had no idea where it was, but there was a map near it, we thought we were saved but Plaza Universitat, where studio is, wasnt even on the map that how far we wondered. The worst part about it was that studio started in 10 minutes and we had a paper or something due at the beginning, we got a little worried when we couldnt studio from the map. But in the end we got to studio, and it turns out that we went back to that plaza the next day to eat and was happy that I was able to say I know where we are, which is a first cause I never do. I guess getting lost is the only way to know the city.

Our Roadtrip

Well, I've decided to dedicate my blog to my lost adventures; no matter what the situation is I always find myself getting lost. I'm not so good with direction in an unknown city, but I'm hoping by the end of these four months this blog will change from the lost adventures to just my adventures.
Anyways, Adam, Chris and myself decided to take a road trip, yea I know how can we get lost with three capable people in the car, well when I'm giving directions to Adam from a map when I basically have no idea where I am except somewhere near Barcelona's Airport, its quite easy. European maps are alot more different then American maps, they are alot less precise and more vague; theres like fifty thousand major roads that lead you all over the place [well thats the way it looked like to me] so we just decided to take the road the looked the best. Oh yea, theres not just one name for the roads there's like three, so it can kind of get confusing.
Our goal was to drive along the coast while we still had light but like I said the roads were a little confusing, so we ended up going in reverse - taking the moutains there and the coast line during the night. Driving there we only made a couple wrong turns, but ended up taking some unique backroads, which was fun. We wanted to drive as far south as we could in a couple hours, our orginial destination was Valencia or something but we settle for Zaragottha; it ended up taking us about an hour and half to get to the airport when it should of taken us twenty or thirty minutes [ we went the wrong way and missed a few trains a couple of times, but whose counting].
We ended up arriving at Zaragottha around three. It was one unique city, it was much more remote and quite then Barcelona. Since we didnt have alot of time to explore the city we just settled on eating at a restaurant on the water. After we ate we took the way we wanted to see during the day. To our luck it started to rain a little, and these roads were not the roads you wanted to be going downhill and forty kilometers an hour; these roads were on the edge of a cliff with a very long drop to the bottom and it turned every three seconds. Driving these roads was an adventure, thank god that I wasnt driving, we would of probably of died. This turned out to be the highlight of the trip, it was really beautiful.
Anyways we got back to Barcelona safely, but the fun didnt end there. Driving in the city is a little harder then thought to be; there are alot of one way streets and drivers who cant stand American drivers. We manged to make some illegal turns and got quite a few horns blown at us while driving, but ended up making it out alive and it was a great experience with the boys.