Madrid, April 5

So for many crazy reasons, I went to Madrid. The main reason being that I wanted to do a Skype session with Yoojin and my parents so that I would feel a lot more relaxed when they ask about her and so they would also have a person to envision when they think of my roommate.
I also wanted to go and visit the city. I mean who doesn't want to, right? I didn't really know what to expect not only from the city but also from Yoojin and Jenny because I have known them both for quite a while, but not well enough to live with them for a few days. I know that something like this could probably have happened in NY but I know that it would not have felt as natural as it did here. It's strange what a foreign place does to people. I was so happy to see another familiar face in this foreign country and I know they were too. I have also realized how lucky Moe and I  were to have found familiar faces and people to guide us when we arrived. I don't know if I fully appreciated that while it was happening.
Well long story short these three days were amazing and so much more than I expected. Yoojin and Jenny are both amazing hosts and I felt immediately at home with them. They came with me to strange neighborhoods just to look at libraries, they showed me around their favorite neighborhoods and even went shopping with me. I know I wouldn't have had as good a time by myself at all.
The city itself is a city of many faces. I say that because it's obviously a Spanish city but doesn't show it's Spanish side in the older land marked buildings. In fact, those are rather typical European post renaissance buildings with columns and orders of window proportions, glorious sculpture reliefs and the like. Then comes another personality which belongs to the more recently developed neighborhoods with interesting clusters of apartment buildings and little parks where children and grandparents spend their time. This is also a non-American, but not specifically Spanish trait. It reminds me of Albania in many ways. The youth (and my youth I mean people between the ages of 15 and 40) of Madrid take over the older part of the city at night, where plazas that may seem very grand an somewhat austere during the day transform into a playground for teenagers and college students both Spaniard and foreign alike. The whole city comes alive with a completely different personality at night, as if the city has become young again.The stereotypically  Spanish part is really the art that lives in museums and the occasional Toledo gift shop with real swords and medieval Crusader uniforms, as well as a few restaurants that claim to have preserved the traditional Spanish cuisine: Spanish tortillas (yum!), Iberian ham (wouldn't know), and the coffee (mmm, coffee!).
But what makes this all particular to this part of the world is the lifestyle or better yet, the common outlook that Spaniards have on life. It's all about this idea of living such a relaxed life where you have time for a nap in the middle of your day and there is time to go out after dinner (at 10PM) and get a cup of coffee. It's a life where your diet consists of food that your mother makes without having to think about how processed something is, even if you buy it at the store.

So thank you Yoojin and Jenny!

To be or not to be American, February 28

I think this will be the first of a series of rants regarding my ethnic, cultural and national identity. Feel free to draw conclusions and tell me what they are based on what you read below.

As most, if not all of you know, I was Albanian until the age of 13, then I moved to the US and nobody really cared what I was because everyone else is from somewhere that is not the US anyway. So in the 10 years I lived in New York, there was a mutual understanding between me and the people i talked to about this, meaning they knew that even though I said I was Albanian, i wasn't fully Albanian and even when i pretended to be American, they knew that i wasn't fully American because all of my friends were either born outside of the US or have parents who were born outside of the US. I'm sure that in the past ten years, I became more American or more of a New Yorker (we all know there's a difference). But until now, I have never had to choose between being American and being Albanian. In fact until I came to Spain, I never really had to say "I am from the United States" or "I am from New York". Whenever I have said those words in the past, it has been in the kind of environment where I thought people assumed me to be just another immigrant.

Now, when people ask me where I'm from, I tell them I'm from NY, only because that's where I'm going to school and to tell them that I'm Albanian sounds weird and is misleading. That may all sound dandy to you guys but when i get stupid remarks about American stereotypes thrown at me, that's when it gets really confusing, i get offended and I'm stuck in a situation that i haven't yet figured out how to resolve.

The theory that I had come up with over time to justify my lack of real identity went something like this: I am a citizen of the world, I hate political borders and cultural divides and I do not want to side with any one culture or country because I think all cultures of the world are great. In my dream world, the world would be like this and people would get along marvelously, but I think that this kind of theory is not only unrealistic, but also the easy way out for me - so that I wouldn't have to actually define myself. I don't think that picking is fair and I realistically can't say that I am only Albanian or only American, but I don't know how to explain myself in just a few words. I'm Albanian-American? the Spaniards would be scratching their heads for 24 hours and I'd start laughing so hard before I even finished saying the words.

I do feel like I am more of a New Yorker, but first of all that's not really a nationality. It is a culture, but a very broad one and it implies a lot more than what I want to be. Secondly, New York has an unfair advantage just because I am used to living there. Then again, I am getting used to living in Barcelona and there are so many things that I love about this place, but I'm not about to start calling myself Catalonian.
See my dilemma?

I don't have a place I call home (home is where my family is, but not a physical place). I don't feel Albanian even though technically I am, I don't feel American even though technically I'm half.
Is that bad? Should I try to decide between the two or a combination of the two or should I disregard the rest of the world and keep saying that i am a bit of everything and at the same time nothing at all?
All I know for sure is that I am a better, smarter, more knowledgeable person because of both cultures. Actually, not even Albanian-American fully describes me. And I know that I don't need to let the whole world know who I am and what I am, I'm just not ready to let them define me.

Paris, Febuary 16

 Paris.
What else can I say? Paris has been one of those lifelong dreams that has now become a reality of the past. I went to Paris. I was in Paris. In fact right now I'm still flying over French soil. Still, for some reason this whole trip seems so surreal, like a dream when you're half awake. It might have something to do with the fact that these have been among the most exhausting days of my life considering that we walked from the Pompidou to the tour Eiffel and then back on the first day, about the same distance walking around the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay and the Opera House the second day and then today from le Grand Arch de la Defense to the Arch de Triomphe. We saw so many amazing things, buildings and streets and bridges like fairy tales come to life. Time and time again I enacted in my head the grand entrances of French royalty into the Tuileries and their strolls among the labyrinth gardens, the half time break at the opera with the characteristic gossip and the luxurious clothing and jewels to show off, the romantic scenes along the Seine that Monet painted, much like the paintings I saw at Orsay and the awesomely terrifying and beautiful Notre Dame. And I could see it all: the royalty, the slums, the bourgeoisie, the new and the old, what was and what wants to be.
I did notice a few things in the city that i did not expect. There is a huge contrast between the old Paris and the new one.  It is a new city: Paris II. instead of evolving out of the old one, this one has grown right next to the old one. It is everything globalized and commercialized separately from the old. I'm glad of this because there are not many places in the world where one can picture what life would have been like 300 years ago so vividly. Still I can't help but feel a bit like this old city doesn't want me in it. It is so grande and royal that I am not good enough for it. Maybe I am wrong to feel this way or maybe I just needed to spend more time in order to fully acquaint myself with it.
I am not complaining! I am so happy and grateful to Moe and my parents for making this happen. I really feel like the luckiest person on Earth to have the chance to see the world of books and stories and paintings in real life.
The only thing that was missing from this trip was actual time travel. Is it too much to ask for? Well if Steve Jobs can open an Apple store inside the Louvre, I think I can ask for time travel so that I can live a piece of my life in 19th century Paris as a rich society woman (with Internet?)

School in Spain and other things!

I've been in Spain for four months now!

It's been an amazing experience so far and I've been really terrible about putting up posts, but I do have emails I have sent on a regular basis to friends and family that I will be posting up little by little.

January 30th:

Barcelona really does feel like a long lost home to me. It's a mix between Albania and New York in the best way. It's laid back, clean, organized, beautiful. It's beautiful in a very specific Spanish way. The buildings are decorated in a mixture of middle eastern and European tile and sculpted stone. The city itself is a work of architecture with cut corners on every block (Gaudi's work) to bring more sunlight into the streets. No buildings are too tall (the average height is about 10 floors) and there are plazas and squares everywhere, with fountains that work all year round, flowers blooming in January and palm trees (the oddly pleasant surprise).

The old city is, well, old. It has tiny streets, really old buildings among which are old preserved houses with open courtyards (with very obvious traces of the Moore and Jewish influence) that you can just walk into, and sit down and experience blissful quietness. Then there are the secret stores. They are secret because they exist inside other stores. This would defy about a zillion building codes in NY, but that's part of the reason they are so awesome. And so you wouldn't know you'd be able to stumble over the most amazing hot chocolate of all time unless you knew that there is a pastry shop downstairs from a soap shop which looks like a hole in the wall to begin with. After you have found this little treasure, the problem is finding it again. Because the old city has countless little streets and alleyways and it's way too easy to get lost.

The Sagrada Familia is far away from the old city, but I have to go and see it another dozen times at least. It is hands down the most beautiful church i have seen, even though all the stained glass is not all in place yet and there are cranes working on the towers all day. The east facade is covered in relief sculptures of the scenes from the Nativity story, beautiful, intricate and old. On the west facade, sculptures tell the story of the resurrection of Christ. It's easy to follow and beautiful and new. In a way, I'm happy they haven't finished it yet. This is the last of the great cathedrals to be constructed and as beautiful as all other churches are, it's nice to know what they would have looked like when they were new, before time added to the experience.

Central Railroad NJ Terminal

A few weeks ago, I went to Liberty Park in New Jersey.  I came across a very intriguing train station.

Its train tracks are home to a forest of plants that grow as high as fifteen feet. It looks as though the concrete and steel that were designed and built in 1889 were just the prelude to this perfect balance between hard and soft, man and nature. The rusted tracks are still visible in certain places while the gray concrete platforms have cracked to allow luscious green to flourish. A couple of old train cars and locomotives still occupy their places on the tracks, but they look like they belong to the earth that is slowly reclaiming the iron they are made out of. The big wheels that used to move across thousands of miles do not give a single hint that they are tools of transportation. It was the first time I saw anything be so still and yet so alive.

 After marveling at the sight of these twenty tracks for a good while, I finally decided to look around me. The building of the old train station, as I discovered later, was built by Stearns and Peabody, a Boston based firm that created this brick structure in response to the transportation needs in the area. This station was also used to accommodate about 80% of immigrants that entered the United States through Ellis Island. In fact, the ferry terminal east of the building is still used today for the visitors of the museum at Ellis Island. The decoration on the outside looks very Victorian while on the inside, the building is decorated with many details of steel to celebrate the American Industrial age. In the 1960s the Railroad company declared bankruptcy and the train station was abandoned in 1975. 

In my opinion, this place is a jewel, not only for its history, but also for the experience of this occurrence that allows people to see nature in an uncommon light: that of reclaiming what was once taken from the Earth.

Prairie Style

It is nearly impossible to accurately summarize all the great things that Frank Lloyd Wright brought to American architecture as well as the lives of American people. The Prairie style was the beginning of a revolution in the way the American middle class lived. Wright opened up the living area in the home. The living room was not a room anymore, but rather a space defined by walls but not confined by them. The same thing happened for the dining room and in most houses the kitchen as well. There is an ease of movement that exists in this type of house which is unseen in the colonial style home which was the standard American home until the beginning of the 20th century. The living room in a colonial home is just that: a room closed off to the rest of the house. The images below are of the Jacobus Vanderveer house in New Jersey and of the Robie House in Chicago. Guess which one is Wright's house.

The Vanderveer house was built in 1776 and it underwent major renovations, the last one occurring in 1910. The Robie house was built in downtown Chicago in 1909. Most houses in the US built since this time period have had at least a bit of influence from the prairie style house in the way that the living space is organized for the inhabitants.

For more information on the Vanderveer House, click here.
For more information on the Robie House, click here.

Taliesin

Frank Lloyd Wright is America's most influential architect. He revolutionized the way the american middle class lived. The homes that have been constructed since then are in many ways reproductions of Wright's designs in the way that space is organized and centered around the hearth.
Wright developed this new type of design over decades making it difficult for one to pinpoint the first house of it's kind. The Prairie Style - as it is commonly referred to today - began with the Wilson house which was one of Wrights early commissions. However, the house that details the evolution of Wright's ideas is Wright's own house, Taliesin.
Taliesin was first built in 1911 in Spring Green, Wisconsin. The house was the victim of two major fires which were the cause for the names Taliesin I (1911), Taliesin II (1914) and Taliesin III (1925). Because of these fires, Wright was forced to rebuild the house and each time, modifications were made where Wright changed and modified the house to suit his family's needs as well as the needs of his practice which underwent drastic changes during these periods. Even through all the fires and renovations, Taliesin is still the symbol of the Prairie Style: a house that is made for the American family and is connected with nature both physically and aesthetically.

The house sits on top of a hill with beautiful landscaping all around it. Steps carved out of natural stone lead the visitor to the house which is concealed by trees and greenery around it. Various horisontal planes of shingled roofs give the impression that the house has not been imposed on this plot of land. Instead, it is an extension of the landscape and it seems as though this house is as big a part of this hill as the grass that covers it and the trees that grow out of it.
The entrance into Taliesin may be compared to the entrance into a cave at the side of a mountain. However, once inside, one has entered a haven of light and warmth. This is all achieved by the numerous windows and wooded floors and trimmings all around. The windows allow light while keeping the harsh rays of the sun from entering which allows for a glow of sorts. The wood adds to the warmth of the space by making this feel a much natural form of shelter.