New Digs and New Ideas

After Yara and Martin told me they wanted me to leave, the very next day right after class i started scouring the internet and making phone calls - mostly in Spanish! I called and called and lots of people were like, yeah, you can come see tomorrow; or we have people looking, we'll call you if that doesn't work out... etc. And then i called Raul. "Can i come see the apartment now?" Yes!

So i went, only one metro stop from school, met Raul and saw the apartment. It was beautiful! High ceilings, a balcony in the front and a porch in the back, and bedroom 3 times the size of the one i was currently occupying (no window, though), a large kitchen... "I'd love to move in," I said almost right away. It was well within my budget, and i wanted to move as fast as possible. He said he had three more people to show the apartment to but that he would call me at 7:30 and tell me. So i waited nervously, and finally i got the word - you can move in tonight! I hopped on the train, went back to Yara's, packed my stuff in half an hour and got the heck out of there.

Now i live near Plaza Espana, and it's a 15 minute walk from here to school. There's a tiny tiny grocery store on the corner, and the metro is fifty steps from my front door. I live with Raul and Luis, a cute Spanish couple, and Clemens, an Austrian student. It's not what i expected, moving to Barcelona, but i think it's actually an infinitely better situation. As Angie said, "Yara is just doing the work of the goddess."

Here's my building:



Right now i only have pictures of the lobby and stairwell:





Oh, and this is my front door.



School is still going well, i'm conceptualizing a massive project based around the idea of disconnection from the body. I'm planning on incorporating lots of different elements, sculpture and photography as well as painting and drawing. It's like nothing i've ever done before, and i'm really really excited about it. I have the time and the space and the support to do something like this for the first time. It's ambitious, and it may not fly, or may turn out like something entirely different than what i have in my head - it's morphed a few times already.

Here are some pictures of school!



There's a beautiful courtyard in the middle of the building:





My tiny (but mine!) studio:



This is the mural i'm working on, Saraswati. It looks a lot better now!



A hallway with bees:





European toilets are always an adventure. What do i do to make it flush? This one at school has a pull chain, and the whole things is mounted on the wall near the ceiling:



This is the student kitchen, adjacent to the courtyard and the darkroom. The sign on the open door says, Please Keep This Door Closed at All Times.



And me in the window :)