better late than never - barcelona, spain

yay dunkin donuts. boo creepy ad.

all the "chigi girls" on the fat tire bike tour.

i am aware that this blog is a couple weeks belated - but like the title says, better late than never, right???

so lil coco, cyd, nortolf, and i flew into barcelona (via ryanair - easily the shittiest budget airline in all of europe, maybe even the world) late thursday (aka nortold's 22nd birthday night) evening. by the time we landed in the airport an hour outside of barcelona we were beyond exxhausted. i fought to get on a bus (the driver tried to cut off the passengers right before me, and everyone else was already on the bus) and we managed to make it to the train station at 11:00PM we just wanted to sleep. and that was exactly what we did when we go the condo.

friday morning the entire group (all 20 of us were in barcelona for the weekend) planned to go on a bike tour around the city. i was very excited (a majority of the girls were not), because i miss riding bikes. the person who was in charge stressed that we needed to meet the tour guides 15 minutes before. after a 30 minute search we make it to the square. their was another large group of american girls standing around, dressed like they walked out of a nike ad. we looked like a group of hungover albinos. some of the girls had partied a little too hard the night before and most of us had not see the sunlight since last summer. so ultimately the tour guides flipped a coin (this is a true story) to see who got the "hot models" group and who was stuck with the awkwardly dressed albinos. because none of us had on any type of athletic gear...

meg pretending that she is a tory model.

girl scout ready to ride the bike.

the bike ride was a lot of fun, and ultimately i think our guides had more fun with us than those other bimbos. for lunch we went down to the beach and sat in chairs in the sun and enjoyed a few pitchers of sangria - and i had a seafood salad for lunch. then we were back on the bikes headed back to the shop. initally the ride was supposed to take 4ish hours, and i think we set a record by taking close to 6. the whole day was wasted but it was well worth it. hands down the BEST group activity we did.

me, pretending i was the tour guide.
the actual tour guide is the guy on the left in the camel colored shirt.

after a long day in the sun, we all returned back to the condo with a sun burn and got ready for dinner. at MARGARITA BLUE. 15 of us made reservations for this mexican place that received- RAVE - reviews from a friend (thanks macon!). of course i ordered the signature blue margarita.

blue margaritas!

for my first course i ordered this baked spicy potato dish. the potatoes were diced and then baked and this awesome spicy sauce was on them, and then some type of sour cream too. basically the point i am trying to get across was they were gooooooooooood. then for my main meal i ordered this tamale, but was sadly mislead. it was chicken in some type of cornbread (not a corn tortilla) and then baked in the corn husk. thankfully after a few of the famed margaritas anything tasted good.

when we finished eating (and downing the free margarita blue shots) we decided to head down the street to our bike tour guides bar. yes they are innocent tour guides by day and sleazy bartenders by night. after spending a couple hours with some guys on a bachelor party pub crawl and meeting a fellow southerner (from NOLA) we headed back to the condo to watch superbad.

in the morning we went on a "gaudi tour." we walked out the door of the building and stood in line to enter the sagrada familia (you read that correctly - the church was in our BACKYARD). we knew the line would be out of control so we wanted to do this attraction first. i was starving while we were waiting in line and ran across the street to grab some breakfast from mcdonalds. oddly enough this mcdonalds did not serve breakfast, just hamburgers. so i had my european favorite - hamburger with curry sauce.

when we finally purchased our tickets and were inside the gates of the sagrada familia, we waited in another line to ride the elevator (or lift) to the top of one of the towers. the view from the top was out of this world. the fact that this church has been under construction since the late 1800's and STILL isn't completed (projected completion date - 2026) boggled my mind, but when i was in the structure and saw the insane crazy detail i realized why...

some of the construction.

posing with some of gaudi's famous mosaics.

that is a lonnnnnnnnng way down.

hello barcelona!

scariest spiral staircase...EVER.

sagrada familia!

reminds me of a drip sand castle.

inside the church. crazy insane design. can't wait to see the finished product.

after our tour through the church we decided to go check out gaudi's famous apartments.

walking from the metro.

up close and personal.

after seeing the apartments we went to gaudi's park, and to his house. the walk from the metro was interesting. basically we climbed mount everest to reach this park. for the majority of the walk we had the luxury of escalators, but for the worst stretch of hill we did not have a crutch. this hill was literally similar to walking on a 60 degree incline up a treadmill. you would move your little legs and it seemed like you were not moving at all. lil coco and i took this opportunity to work on our kim kardashian ass, so we walked backwards up the hill - working an entirely new set of muscles.

when we finally made it to the top i thought "finally, we will reach the oasis of gaudi's park!" but i quickly realized the green lush park that i was visualizing (aka central park) was quickly shattered. gaudi's park is not the rain forest i was expecting but resembled a desert. but it was still very very beautiful.

cactus was everywhere, and people would carve words into the plant.

representation of the desert.

mosaic outside of the museum.

gaudi house museum, although he didn't live here.

in gaudi's park. bye bye barcelona.

after a few hours walking about gaudi's park we had a WONDERFUL late lunch/early dinner at this restaurant recommended by our tour guides. after we were full from our meal we headed to the picasso museum. even thought we were all exhausted - we had been going, going, going all day - the museum was very enjoyable. it had the perfect amount of work and the galleries were not too big or too small. it was a great final excursion and definitely worth the trip. barcelona as a whole was awesome and i want to go back, and maybe stay at the new W hotel? (check out the website - http://www.starwoodhotels.com/whotels/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=3183 - i think it considered a 6 star.)

going out with a bang - positano, italy

check out this movie set. sooo beautiful.

last weekend in italy was spent frolicking around in the south of italy - positano. we arrived thursday afternoon, earlier than expected because we boycotted walking around nasty naples through the rain. that afternoon i walked around positano with my roommates (ali and olivia) - and i purchased a ceramic decanter of limoncello. the south of italy is known for their limoncello production, so i have been waiting all semester to buy some.

down by the coast.

how cute are these streets.

when we were done shopping we met the rest of the girls back at the hotel for a program sponsored dinner. because positano is on the coast i made the popular vow to 'only eat seafood.' so for my first course i ordered salmon and bowtie pasta and then for my main course i ordered some Italian white fish - that was fried and had no taste. for dessert they brought out this weird grainy orange cake. the night was going great until olivia, our GTA, had an allergic reaction to a cat. this little cat kept running in the dining room from the patio when the doors would open and we kept having to take it back outside. towards the end of the main course olivia began grasping for breath - it was like something out of a movie. thankfully an austrialian paramedic saved the day and calmed her down while some of the other girls ran back to her room to get her medicine. after the commotion had calmed down everyone went to back to their rooms to go to bed, it had been an exhausting day/evening.

norold and the cat that got olivia sick.

in the morning it was unanimously decided that we should take the 25 minute ferry ride to amalfi. this historical gem located in southern italy is famed for it's limoncello and pottery. the weather was overcast and chances of rain throughout the morning so we thought we could get some shopping done and then enjoy the nicer weather on the beach alllll dayyyyy saturday. we caught the 11:00AM ferry and arrived to the picturesque coast of amalfi under the clouds.

ferry ride. check out that overcast sky in the background.

we walked around for a while, did some damage to finances and then headed back to the shore to grab some lunch and then lounge on the beach. true to form i was able to find seafood risotto. yum.damage in action.

first experience with risotto
seafood risotto = love at first bite ;)

after we ate we hung out on the beach for a couple hours - because we had a good couple hours to kill before the ferry came back to pick us up. a personal goal to accomplish for the weekend was swimming in the mediterranean. we were laying out and i finally got the courage to attempt to get in the water. i got in to about calf deep and the water was freezing. and my body was never able to acclimate to the frigid temperature, so i abandoned the attempt.

how beautiful does this water look.

the beach we sunbathed on in amalfi.

during the next couple of hours we occupied our time with people watching - a naked baby playing in the water, a creepy indian man watching us sun bathe, and a 12 year old girl with the shortest shorts...EVER. before we knew it, it was time to catch the ferry back.

farewell almalfi!

beautiful positano from the ferry.

dinner the group went to this local place and i had VODKA & orange juice and shrimp spaghetti. my dad's shrimp spaghetti is better...

'coco' the explorer leading the way to dinner.

vodka, how i have missed you.

shitshow saturday began relatively early, we had our chairs reserved and the first drink ordered by 11:30AM. my obvious drink of choice was vodka orange juice. and after we learned they were 6E, we made the executive decision to buy a bottle of wine (for relatively the same price) and drink that instead. the initial idea was splitting the bottles with another girl - but soon we had all had 'two halves' of a bottle. the good news is that i finally had the courage to jump in the water, and i am sure my sunburned legs were happy to be cooled in the sea today.

norold playing with 'carlos' our furry friend of the day.

we didn't know what his name was so we pulled out our 'alan,'
from the hangover card and named him carlos.

after buying some sandals and another impulse buy of a bottle of wine we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. a while later and finally clean of the volcanic sand from the beach we were headed to dinner. i ordered some tuna and caper pizza and they made the pizza in the shape of a heart.

my delicious heart pizza.

how cute. by this point i was starving and managed to chug a bottle of water (1.5L to be exact) on the walk back to the hotel. this morning we woke to more news on lack of air travel throughout europe. thank you icelandic volcano. i just want to come home and eat mexican at bone garden - is that too much to ask?!

my favorite mexican place in ATL.

milan design...day.

the time has come.

after our field trip to anzio, to walk through sicily-rome american cemetery and memorial. the bus driver took the interior design girls to the airport for the world's shortest trip to a design show. design week in milan spans over the course of a few days, and we had the opportunity to visit on opening day - april 13th. we arrived late tuesday night and all eight of us had a one track mind - FOOD. a reliable source had told me that the milanese are all about asian invasion, meaning that they are fans of asian food. after we checked into our four star hotel (that was supposed to ranked a negative four, they just forgot to put the "-" symbol in front of the 4 stars...but that is a completely new story) we headed down the street to the sushi bar that they recommended. after a meal with infinite let downs and staring at the un-edible 'chicken' teriyaki - chicken is used loosely in this description because i am 99.9% sure what they served was NOT chicken - we walked back to the hotel.

the morning arrived too quickly and we met our tour guide, max (he is the friend of our program coordinator in ariccia and teaches modern design history classes at a local university), for a day full of 'stimulation overload.'

the overall theme of the exposition was to promote full-circle green design (or at least that is what i got out of it), which i LOVED. GO ORGANIC (like the sticker on the back of my car)! many of the pieces of furniture and showcased works of art were obviously made out of reused materials. like this amazing piece of art...compact disks and random knick-knacks that were all painted black and then placed on top of the layer of CD's to create a face. genius.

it was love at first sight.

after last semester's introduction to kitchen and bath design, the aspect of residential design that i mocked the most ended up being my favorite (i truly hate to admit it). kitchen aid and a few other popular kitchen brands came together to form "heather's dream kitchen," minus the green accent. it was modern and clean and could almost make a visitor wonder if you were even in a kitchen. i am big fan of deceptive design...it makes you think.

IN LOVE!

one aspect of milan's design week that was DRASTICALLY different from neocon was that the showrooms and exhibits are not centrally located. neocon is hosted by the windy city of chicago and located within the merchandise mart. milan's show is allllllll over the city. which i wasn't complaining until the end of the day - when i was beyond exhausted. when we were walking to the next showroom we found and OUTDOOR showroom.

patio in the outdoor showroom. thank goodness it was such a beautiful day.

when we made it to our next scheduled destination we found environment furniture. a manufacturer that we were too familiar with after our LEED home project (shout out to 727 flood street, NOLA baby). after only seeing their products through an internet database, it was cool to see the designs in person.

the couch i used in my 'flood street' project

found these along the street of showrooms. love the way they are displayed.

the next stop on the wild and crazy day of stimulation overload was the temporary museum for new design. this had a TON of cool exhibitions and I wanted to post them all but i decided to post the favorites.

molo is one of my faves, faves, faves. the fact that they create with thin little stripes of paper boggles the mind. can you believe that these floating cloud-like light fixtures are made out of paper?! they also make a seat that can withstand a human to sit OR stand on it. once again this is made out of paper.

molo - lighting fixtures that i am beyond obsessed with

everything was made out of cardboard. make think about the spring 'chair project'

some bad ass lights i saw somewhere.

lil coco likes this.

max took us to observe the design of the store (reminded me of a nicer TAD - store in rome), but we were too preoccupied with the beautiful things. this one stop shopping for designers in milan - manolos, feragammo, and louboutin shoes. and even some other brands of beautiful clothing. i found this super cute leather crossbody bag that was shaped like a rhino - and was soooooo cute. if it had been a cat it would have been a done deal for an immediate purchase.

go here if you are in milan!

one of our last showrooms stops was established and sons, a british furniture manufacturer. at this point i only wanted to sit - we had been walking FOREVER and my feet were past the point of being tired, so i just enjoyed the exhibited merchandise from afar until one piece interested me.

this crazy storage piece.

you could pull all the drawers out from two different ways. CRAZZZZZY. it comes in a bunch of different colors too. i really want one. before we left for the party we stopped by one more exhibition.

these bowls were made out of a gel like resin, and had dried grasses in them.

these pieces had mirror on the outside of the upholstered furniture.

these are vegetables made out of fabric! but they look real...

finally it was the evening and time to go see max's friend. his friend was having some exhibition in an art gallery. all i was concerend about was the fact that we could get snacks.

the gang. nortold, LB, MAX, becca, krystle, lil coco, cydney, mikus, and mshap

to the airport! which was kind of stressful trying to get there. we accumulated so much free crap at all the showrooms/exhibits so we could barely fit it in out miniature bags that we brought as our carry ons. i wore 3 shirts and my jeans and a sweatshirt, and i was going to try to pull the biggest faux pas - bring TWO carry-ons. ryanair (the worst budget airline in europe...and probably the world) has a strict policy that if you do not pay to check a bag you can only bring one tiny bag on the plane. my carry on was already too full, so i planned on chancing it and bringing them both on. i managed to get them to both past security - whoop whoop! right by our gate we had a lindtt chocolate store and being girls we all decided to buy some chocolate.

the left over easter bunnies getting ready on the flight.

ready for take off!