The end of an era..

I find it such a shame that my time in Barcelona is going to come to end. I have experienced so many things and seen so many places and really do feel like I have been able to become a part of the Spanish way of living. Thankfully so many of my friends and family were able to come out to visit, and I am so glad that I was able to share this part of my life with them. I don't honestly think I can chose a favourite part to my time spent here. I think an evening I will never forgot will be a meal out, followed by a cocktail in the W Hotel overlooking the sea on the 28th floor, followed by a spa session until two o'clock in the morning with all of the girls. One of the best things about doing this exchange has been the people that I met, the friends I have made and also the person I have now become. I would recommend an experience like this to anyone as you grow so much as a person, as well as being able to experience another culture. I have fallen in love with this city, and would absolutely love to come back one day. However it has opened up my eyes to the other cultures I am missing out on in the world and I truly believe that one day you will find me doing the same thing some where else! 

I believe my course director once said to me before leaving, “go away and have an f*****ng awesome time – drink lots of beer”. I might not have drunk ANY beer but I have drunk enough cocktails to make up for my lack of Barcelona's finest - Estrella, and I can most definitely say I have had a f*****ng awesome time. This is an experience that will be with me for the rest of my life and I am so lucky to have been able to be here, (Thank you Daddy). Barcelona will always be a home of mine and even if I never get to live here again, this time of living here will never change, it will be something I will always be able to say I have done. The friends I have made here will always be my friends and I will not forget a single day with any of them. I have made a best friend too – one I know will be around for a lifetime, and that in itself is enough to say how amazing this experience really has been. 

Hasta Luego - Until Next time.

 

Girly Cocktails

I think when I first arrived at IED, I found it quite difficult to fit in, as everybody had already been there for a year and got to know each other and got settled. I think the fact that Emily and I came in together every day and were very much a unit together, prevented it from being quite so easy to get to know everyone. This is probably my biggest regret of doing a year abroad - not doing one for long enough. I don't feel that I really got to know everyone properly, or even the university properly. As many of my peers from home will know from being at Chelsea, it takes you at least a term and a bit to actually get used to the people you are with, the way of working, and the way your tutor likes you to work. It takes time to build relationships within design and I feel that the second we built our relationships with our new peers and our new tutors we had to leave. This is something that worries me slightly about coming back. It is so far into the year, that I will never really get to speak to my tutor on a personal level, or to see how my tutor likes to work before the year is over. 
I have made friends in Barcelona that I can honestly say I would always want to keep in contact with, which made it very sad to leave them so soon, as it feels like we have only just become really good friends! 
Thankfully we had actually had the opportunity to make the most of the time with our friends and on one night we went out with one of the girls for cocktails to really loosen up and get to know each other properly. She was looking at coming to Chelsea next year and I actually think that this would be a brilliant experience for her to notice why our work was so different from everyone else's. I would also like to be able to give her the same amazing opportunity that I was allowed to have. 
Hopefully we will be able to keep friendships alive - despite the distance between us all. 

What to do what to do.

The minute we got back, I started to make a list of things that we hadn’t done and things that I wanted to do again. When I looked down my list, there wasn’t actually a lot left that I hadn’t done already. I can safely say (as I am writing this at the airport on my journey home – rubbish I know but I was too busy for laptops!!!) that I have done most things that I wanted to do during my stay in Barcelona. There is only one thing that I wasn’t able to complete, and that was not because I didn’t try, it was simply because it was too expensive. All my friends suggested a visit to Camp Nou to watch a game whilst being over there and also by my dad.  The only remaining home game within the month was the one against Real Madrid (THE BIGGEST AND MOST EXPENSIVE GAME OF THE WHOLE YEAR!!!!) The tickets for right up at the top, according to my friend Bal are rubbish seats, were going to cost us no less than 100€ per ticket. If I had managed to not spend quite so much money on dresses and cocktails, then I definitely could have gone, but with the week I had planned ahead, it just wasn’t going to happen. I have been a very lucky girly to be able to go on this trip, and have been entirely funded by the used to be unlimited bank account of dad that is now very much bankrupt and I have almost run the river dry! I didn’t think it would be very appropriate of me to ask for another amount of money for a football game! However, at least if I come again, I can do something that I haven’t already done. If I had done everything it wouldn’t be fun to come back! That’s my excuse anyway! 

Just when you think one Emily is enough…you have two!

We hadn’t been back five minutes and the first week had already flown by. With our furniture and our house project being handed in, we were able to be slightly relaxed again as we were just starting a new set of projects. The first Monday was quite an experience, and despite being very embarrassing, a massive ego boost too. This class was the first class that we had taken whilst being in Barcelona where we actually felt as if we were still at Chelsea. The tutor, Elena, a main architect for the Market in Barcelona with the “Wavy roof of fruit” as she called it, was really there to whip everyone into shape. The Project was and still is called PDP, and it’s for personal development. The aim of the game is to learn to think outside of the box, something that Chelsea has already taught us to do. The first exercise was to go to a hotel and have a sandwich and then go to a concert and write about it. There was no specific brief. She didn’t tell us in what way to write, or how to write or why were writing about it. We had so many other things on that week we didn’t actually go to the concert, however we had already visited the Harlem Jazz Club just before Christmas and could remember what it was like. I chose to sit and write with my eyes closed, playing the clip of music I had recorded from the evening I went. What I had written didn’t actually make sense, and it wouldn’t have necessarily been classified as ‘A piece of Writing’, but it was my writing from that day from listening to that music. Most other people the following week brought in a mini short story of the opinions of the building and didn’t actually consider the music. When presenting, they all stood up at the front of the class and just read their piece, rather than actually trying to act it. We got a lot of praise for the work that we did, but not because it was necessarily a fabulous piece of writing, but because we thought for ourselves and did something different. Both myself and Emily didn’t want to leave this class, because not only does it boost your ego every time you get told that you can think for yourself and you have done well, but it was also developing my ability to think for myself even more.  

The week flew quickly, and on the Friday Emily’s friend from home, Emily arrived. We didn’t actually do that many touristy things, but I think she got to know the city from our point of view instead of from a guidebook. My parents visited me very early within my stay in Barcelona, and I feel that I didn’t quite know the city as well as I now do. I was still showing them things I found exciting, or going to places I hadn’t yet been to, and I don’t think they got to see how I have experienced the city in the same way that I actually have now that the time is coming to an end. Emily and Emily were lovely to be around , even though the names were slightly confusing, we had a lovely time and a great start to our final three weekends of being here. 

Holiday Festivities

Going homing literally felt like a fly in fly out visit. I was out of Barcelona for a total of two weeks and four days. The first time I stepped through my front door, I felt like I had never left. I loved Barcelona, loved living there and everything else that I got to experience, but I then realised I really was ready to come home! The first part of being home flew by. For the day after I arrived home, my grandparents had sorted out being able to go and visit a house that was currently on the market. The house was an absolutely incredible design. Split over ten small levels, the interior design and architecture was very inspiring to visit. The guy who owned the house, a fabric designer, took us round and explained how everything had been made and produced and why they had done it in the way they had. I asked him why he was moving, as he seemed so inspired when talking about where he lived. His answer - "I'm ready for the next project, and I want that to be even more beautiful than this". 

The part of being home before christmas went very very quickly. Seeing as it was only actually three days before christmas day, that wasn't much of a surprise!! Santa was very good to our house this year - which set us all in a good mood for what was about to come. Within a space of five days, I had travelled from Barcelona to Luton to Nottingham to Birmingham to Switzerland to France! For the next week - skiing was the only thing I was going to think about! 

Before I knew it, I had travelled back in reverse and was sitting back in my room in Barcelona with a winter of snow, skiing and family just a distant memory. The saddest thing about leaving home to come back to BCN was realising that I was only coming back for three weeks, and after that, this whole experience is going to be over - an experience that I am just not ready to let go of yet. I feel like living in Barcelona has become a part of my life, something that I have enjoyed more than I ever thought I could enjoy! Coming back to Chelsea now seems very scary, and I never thought I would say this, but I'm just not ready!!!