Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Photos from Vialis

My FAVORITE!!! (above)



Vialis is a brand straight up from Barcelona. All the trendy Barceloneses wear these shoes, but the price one must pay for the handworked Italian leather targets these beauties toward the bourgoisie, making them somewhat unobtainable for little peons like me.

At work today, while I was "working" and jamming to tunes on grooveshark.com, I stumbled upon Vialis' great blog. All the photos are from the blog and it's so fun to just drool over the great photography of pretty shoes.

Anywho, time for bed! I'm ready to get all cozy with my book Entre Amigas by Laura Freixas. I was so happy to encountar a copy of it at my university library after having no luck finding it in Barcelona (even though it's a Catalan author and takes place there). It's incredible the amount of books are in that place...

Okay really, I'm leaving.
I'm getting up early tomorrow morning so I can go out the breakfast with my parents. The restaurant we're going to has Irish coffee so I'll have a nice buzz when I go into work at 9am. I won't be drunk; that's just unprofessional. But it's my ode to being young.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Before Bed Post

Lately my life has been...

Sunny days of swimming with friends,
scattered cooking,
and incrementally increased running. (I've finally gotten to the point where I'm not dying anymore)

Working at my internship every week,
reading excerpts of random Spanish novels without committing myself to any one of them fully, dappling in the Epigrams of Oscar Wilde (which I sadly left in the office over the weekend but will happily reclaim tomorrow at 9am),

Reconnecting with friends and making new ones from old acquaintances.
Going with the new friends to your very first yoga class,
liking it,
and coming home afterward to eat nine-thirty stir fry dinners while listening to Joni Mitchell on vinyl...Repeatedly.
"His eyes were the colors of the sand and the sea, and the more he talked to me the more he reached to me."
Yes, that means flipping the side every 20 minutes and bumping the needle slightly inward to skip over that one place where the record always repeats itself.

Sometimes only a little bump is needed.

Thinking of bringing out the old-school manual Canon cameras that I have. It takes me forever to go through one roll of film, but how I enjoy my Canons so...

Okay, time for bed. I want to hit the trails to run tomorrow by 6:30a before work. But, before I leave I want to share with you these photos that I really love of Picasso and one of his lover Francoise. She is so beautiful and Picasso has the most incredibly piercing eyes I've seen. I bet receiving one look from him is enough to feel violated, like they were probing your soul or something.



Toodles!

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Vignettes worth sharing

Okay so I had been planning to make this post for awhile when I was still in Barcelona but as time was flying by so quickly I didn't want to waste my last precious moments in front of a computer screen in my dark interior room. Anywho, here are some of my favorite images from my 9-month Spanish existence that you may or may not have seen. They are personal images and not necessarily the best photographic work of art you've ever seen, they are all, however, very dear to my heart.

These are three of the older girls that I taught. The family whose house in which we held the lessons (yes they actually had a HOUSE in Barcelona) had this adorable patio outside. On the last day that I taught them, the father of one of the girls moved the table outside so we could enjoy the beautiful day while we were learning English.


And the little ones I taught...


Europeans have stereotypical views of American culture because of all the American movies. Well, sitting in pretty plazas with blooming flowers and motos is basically my idealistic view of all of Europe, or at least Spain. This lovely was taken in Granada.


Taken in Madrid, I love this image because to me it perfectly characterizes what Almodóvar calls the "movimiento madrileño." Madrid, and much of Spain really, is a life of partying and well, just general physical movement--metro, walking, bars, discotecas, one place, another place, acquaintances made for a night until it's time to move on to the next day. The night that I took this photo I was actually leaving a bar with some of my friends and we temporarily stopped to decide on where we should go next. Thus, this photo is a brief pause in that movement, "el movimiento madrileño," stopping only just long enough to ask the question, "Do you want to sleep with me?"


Prof. Losada and his purrón!


In Valencia, we were on our way back to the bus from Las Fallas back in February. The photo was taken by José around 4am when were all so dead tired. Nonetheless, it makes me smile.


Spending time with Ems in Barcelona was priceless. Wouldn't have traded it for anything.



Always liked this picture I took of my friend Anca. We were on an excursion and wandered into this gift shop that sold these little windchime/curtain things. I took one look at that thing and told her, "Oh my gosh, it's a gigantic Anca earring!" Thus, Anca posed with her earring, rightfully so.


FAVE cathedral in Barcelona. Prototypically gothic and beautiful. Santa María del Mar. Definitely would come to this cathedral to just to sit down in the pews for awhile and enjoy the unique smell of the interior.


Alcove in Montserrat.


Picture of my Mama in the gardens behind the University of Barcelona. So beautiful, both the woman and the historic building.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Being a Praire Girl

In honor of my being back in the plains of Illinois, I decided to do a photoshoot on the side of the backyard of my house. It really doesn't get more country than this, especially when we have barbecued steaks, sweet corn and iced tea for dinner al fresco.

My parents have a lovely GIGANTIC backyard filled with flowers, sheds, wicker furniture, picnic tables, pergolas, and lots of grass. Basically they've created an Eden and I love to go outside and sit at the picnic table and read and write amongst the flowers. To my surprise, our WIFI internet even reaches out to the picnic table where these photos were taken, so I can be on blogger AND in nature at the same time. Unfortunately my reintroduction to nature outside of the big city has landed me desparately scatching the 14 bug bites that I have acquired within the past two days.




My attempt at a shoe ad...




I really should just get a tripod for my Digital Canon SLR so I don't have to use my laptop to take photos. That SLR is as heavy as a powerlifter on Thanksgiving, but using it would really make these pictures bangin'. In the meantime I enjoy the rawness that comes with lower quality digital images.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Friday, June 4, 2010

Adéu, Barcelona

Dear Barcelona,

Within a few hours I'll have left you. I don't have time for the long goodbye that I would like to give you in this blog entry, but know that someday I'll be back. Perhaps by the time I return your Sagrada Familia will be finished. But even that's questionable. I would like to say to you that you taught me a lot, but really I came to you looking for something foreign and ended up just seeing myself. Funny how that happens.

Besos,
Jackie