Thursday, April 10, 2014

1-0, 75%, 25%, 40.50€, 3:1


What in the heck do all those numbers mean in the title? Well, don't worry, I will get to them as I tell you about my weekend this past week. Starting with Saturday.

Saturday, April 5th

I honestly don't remember what I did in the morning. I know I relaxed. I may have blogged some. I think I just enjoyed sleeping in and being home for a weekend, since it has been awhile. I also talked to my sister on the phone and then got ready to go meet Karin and her friend, Drew, so that we could go to a football match aka a soccer game. We went and saw Atlético Madrid play against Villarreal. Villarreal is a town that is a little north of Valencia on the eastern coast. Obviously, we rooted for "Atleti" because they are the Madrid team and because we live close to the stadium (not that that really is anything special). But really, we were rooting for the better team because as of right now, Atleti is first in the league (La Liga BBVA), even above Spain's more popular teams, Barcelona and Real Madrid. Speaking of..tonight I could hear the roars of the crowds and people in their apartments yelling at the T.V. because Atleti played Barcelona tonight. They won 1-0, just like they did against Villarreal (the game I went to). Anyway, here are some pictures from the game on Saturday. :) There is also a video where you can here the fans yelling "Atleti, Atleti, Atleti!" and you can hear them singing the Atleti song.

Getting ready for the game in the streets




After the game, I went home real quick and changed and then left to go to the center to meet up with some teachers at my school and with Julia, the other assistant at my school. We went out to dinner and then went to see a comedian, Dani de la Cámara. He was pretty funny, from what I could understand and by the laughing crowd, but I only understood about 75% of what he said and 25% of the jokes. I don't know if you know this, but comedians speak SUPER DUPER fast! I understood all of the topics that he talked about though, which is good and kind of helped me follow the rest of it. He talked about the economic crisis in Spain, Spaniards learning English, school food, his generation vs. the generation now (you know the whole "I walked to school uphill both ways" thing). It really was fun and I would probably go again, but I do wish that I could keep up more. I still have a lot of learning to do. I guess I should start watching Spanish comedians on YouTube. After the show, I went home and went to bed.
Julia, Dani de la Cámara, and I

Sunday, April 6th

Street art that we saw when walking to the Rastro
 On Sunday, I went to the Rastro with Karin, Drew, and Stephanie and I would say that it was a successful trip. I went specifically for souvenirs that I have been wanting to buy and I finally got them. I still have quite a few gifts to buy for people, but I was happy with my buys on Sunday. I spent 40.50 euros, which is quite a lot for the Rastro, but like I said, I'm pretty happy with all of the things I bought and I think that the people who will be receiving these gifts will like them (I hope so anyway).

After the Rastro, I went home for a little bit and tried getting a few things done and then in the late afternoon I met back up with the gang and we went to La CaixaForum. La CaixaForum is not only a cool building (complete with old and new architecture and a wall garden), but it is a hall where they have different exhibitions. The exhibit that we were interested in seeing was one about PIXAR. It was celebrating 25 years of animation.
La CaixaForum building
The exhibit started with, of course, the lamp and the ball and with a quote from John Lasseter, the Chief Creative Officer of PIXAR. I don't have a picture of the quote and I can't find it online, but it had to do with the fact that three things are important for every PIXAR movie (or any movie for that matter): the characters, the world, and the story. So the whole exhibit was broken down by these three categories in each movie and it went in chronological order starting with Toy Story. It was so cool to see original sketches of the characters, world, and original footage of storyboarding, etc. For example, one of the models of an earlier version of Buzz Lightyear was kind of wimpy looking. He did not look like the cool new toy that Andy fell in love with in the movie. Also, there was this cool spinning thing (I forget the name of it) but it had characters all around it and when it spun really fast with a strobe light on it, the characters were in motion. Also, they had these sweet digital paintings and I really wanted one! They had posters like them in the gift shop, but only of the incredibles. If they had one of all of the PIXAR movies, I so would have gotten it. It was so cool to see how my childhood movies were created right before my eyes. Also, it reminded me of the time I went to DisneyQuest in Chicago with my family, which is a good memory. I loved drawing movie characters and when we were at DisneyQuest, I think I remember drawing some on a cool interactive computer they had. But yea, it reminded me that I used to want to work with movies. When I think about it, I still know I would like that. I love movies, they create such magic, and just seeing the process of movie making at the PIXAR exhibit reminded me of that. It was a good feeling. Too bad it's too late to become an animator. :) At the end of the exhibit they also had a section on the PIXAR short films, which are just brillant and we got to watch four of them. So, I have decided to put one here. :) See below.

So much happiness and sadness in this picture
Original sketches of Sulley and Boo from Monsters, Inc.
Anyway, the people had to kick us out because we were there when they closed. I completely breezed through the other exhibit they had at La CaixaForum, which was all black and white photography that made you think about how your actions effect nature: deforestation, pollution, etc. Like I said, I was in and out in less than five minutes so I really can't elaborate on it. On Sunday night, I relaxed and probably blogged, I don't remember. Ha, but I had a great weekend overall and the weather was fantastic both days. I hope you are all doing well and I hope you enjoyed the blog. :)


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