A Giant Storm and Pre-Mature Nostalgia: Last Week in Rab

Everything was coming to a close with the site, the plants are in, the structures are completely done. We were planning on being finished last Wednesday, the water feature got painted, tested and it works!

A few minor adjustments here and there, but it works, and works beautifully. We somehow have been very lucky with the weather so far, the days have been sunny, and if not really warm, not very cold either. Great for doing construction and getting projects done quickly. By the time we were finished last Wednesday the plan was only to work a half day Thursday to get some of the final cleanup and details done.

Thursday, however, had different plans for us. 

We woke up to rain. Hard rain, and wind as well. Tentatively I dressed in rain gear and headed down with everyone while we started the last projects, cleaned up and moved trash off the site and out of our shop/garage. As the morning went on the rain didn't let up though, lightning and thunder rolled in and parked on top of the island, splitting the sky with light and sound every ten minutes.

By late morning torrential, apocalyptic and dangerous rain started. I've never seen rain and hail like that before. Within minutes the road and gutters were like rivers dumping water into a completely overrun drain at the bottom of the hill. On the site water pooled in the plaza immediately and dirt from the planting beds washed down into the gravel pathways. We took shelter in the garage and under the covered structure and soon the staff called it a day. It would have been dangerous and stupid to attempt to keep working in weather like that.

Through the day the storm never really went away, the rain would let up from time to time but lighting and thunder continued into the night. That evening the power was knocked out at the apartments, and as the official representative of the boonies in the program I went around to each apartment leaving candles and warning about the "1 flush rule". 

The walk down to dinner in the hospital was memorable and terrifying. Straight out of Shutter Island at this point walking between the dark buildings to the dining hall. 

"If lightning lights up figures wandering slowly toward us, I'm turning tail and running" one guy said. 

"I'll be right there with you." I agreed. 

Friday morning I was afraid to go to the site, the damage could have been really bad, and I didn't want to spend the weekend fixing it. Luckily there wasn't much damage, some washout from the planting beds and there was a large puddle at the front of the water feature that we would have to dig a trench and lay a new drainage pipe to fix. Digging the trench stabbed a my heart a little, the area was finished and seeing it completed and checked off the list then ripping it up hurts. Physically hurts. I've had to do it only a few times, but each time a little bit of your soul dies. I pulled out the plants we had put in the day before, under a few inches of water and moved them to higher ground, then we dug out a trench that will house the piping along the side of the water feature and under the boardwalk to the perf pipe on the other side that leads to the main drain.

 Other than that everything seemed to be fine, our structures handled the wind, the water feature was full to the brim with rain that will have to be taken out so the mosaic can be cleaned and a couple other little things like that.

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Most people went away for the weekend, but I wanted to stay and say goodbye to the island. On the free days I hiked a little to a part I'd never been, went back to my favorite coffee shops, and read in the sunshine in Rab for a short time. The island has become home, a temporary home for sure. But home none the less. Preparing emotionally to leave it and probably never come back isn't easy. Rab has a very unique culture to it, one I don't always understand, but it is charming.

I have met some wonderful people here on Rab, not to mention falling in love with the participants in the program. It's hard to think how unlikely it is that we will ever be in the same room again. Never again will I wake up and say good morning to my roommate, or ride into town in Luka's gigantic lime green van aka " The Candy Machine," or walk down to the dining hall arm in arm with Theresa, Patrick, Mark, or Sean.

Right now, everyone is coming up to get their clothes that we just wheeled back up from the laundry room, sorted and organized. The girls usually pick through the clothes first, generally there is an exclamation or two of: "I can't find my leggings!"
I hear Winterbottom coming up the stairwell making Luka and Carl laugh along behind him, figuring out plans for our final goodbye dinner. Even though it's just the workings of laundry day, it makes me sad to think that it will never happen again. I'd better enjoy it while I've got it.

I wonder if it's because back at home in 'real life' big changes like this happen more gradually when they are less formalized. Here, there is a tangible day when it will all be over. This great experiment will be done and I'll only have memories and pictures and a completed park half a world away to prove that it happened.

Every moment is precious.

Especially this one.

The Simple, Yet Mystifying Construction Experience

The class has been in the construction phase of the project for about two weeks. In the way things played out I was one of the first people to be on the site all day, and I've seen the process from the very beginning from laying out strings and measuring to pouring concrete, to where we are today about halfway through. I feel like even in this limited amount of time I have learned a significant amount about what it takes to turn a 2D drawing into a 3D reality. And here is some of that sage wisdom.

1) Having all the measurements of a design before you start building is really helpful. There is a certain amount of fixing in the field that I thing happens on any site, but really having nailed down the first time is a plus.

2) There is going to be a lot of shoveling. Dirt, gravel, crushed rock, sand, different colored gravel etc.

Yay shoveling!

3) Wafer cookies are absolutely necessary for a productive work environment. We buy them in a square foot package.

4) Gloves, wheelbarrows, even shovels cannot be precious. I've already gone through three pairs of gloves. One wheelbarrow popped a tire, the frame of another gave up after about the 1000th load of concrete.

5) Concrete, or at least the type we use is 12 scoops gravel + 6 scoops cement, with a splash of water and a cherry on top.

6) As far as I know the hole that a footing is without concrete is just a hole.

7) Once you put concrete in the hole with the intention of building something above it, it becomes a footing.

8) The metal part that holds the wooden post off the ground, away from the concrete/soil/moisture is called a post anchor.

9) Sawdust is the most heavenly smelling thing on a construction site.

10) Try to keep anything wooden off the ground so it won't come in contact with standing water and rot.

11) If a former patient who is now a maintenance guy invites you to his lair..(ahem) workshop to drink homemade Rakia, just say no. A lot.

12) If you crush a finger under a stone while building a wall, swearing loudly WILL make it feel better. Mythbusters proved it.

13) Wearing a tool belt with tools in it, even if you don't know how to use them all will make you feel like a badass. Knowing how to use them makes you an actual badass.

14) Don't breathe cement.

15) When your professor asks you to figure out the square footage of something, don't give him the linear feet. You will feel like a damn fool.

16) Curved structures, walls, boardwalks, plazas are WAY harder to figure out how to build than rectangular or linear structures. Curves are awesome and look very cool, but man, do they create a lot of issues in the field.

The design has a central circular paved plaza, to the right set into the hill is terraced stone seating with a larger upper paved area that will be under one a covered structure we have yet to start. A boardwalk will curve around the other side of the plaza meeting the seating area, also between the boardwalk and the plaza is a water feature. That's the simple version.
 We dug out pretty much everything with a backhoe, shoveled crushed rock into it and stomped it down. Then built the stone walls, poured concrete for the plaza, water feature and upper covered area. Then got most of the paving done in the plaza and and upper covered area.

We have a few volunteers that are very high functioning patients from the hospital. They are helping us as part of their occupational therapy so most of them have backgrounds in masonry and construction. For the most part they have been extremely helpful; they have built almost all of the stone steps in the seating area, a feat better left to professionals for sure. They show up in the morning, around the time we finish setting up, work hard and diligently all day and produce beautiful results. The work, they say (and I'm paraphrasing) gives them something singular to focus on, the only thing to worry about is exactly where to put the rock to make it fit. I'm pretty sure all of these guys are here for PTSD from the war but they don't like to talk about it much. They are mostly very friendly and excited to teach us how to do the work better.

We end each day about when it starts to get dark at 5:00pm, clean up, pack up, make sure all the sharp things are put away. But I've noticed that the further we get into the project, the more dangerous the site becomes. We keep it as safe as we can but still, at this phase in the project it's not exactly a safe place to be. So another thing I've learned is that construction, by nature is just plain dangerous. No one has gotten seriously hurt beyond a few squished fingers and some hauling soreness, focus is so incredibly important a second's inattention could have disastrous results.

With the stone and concrete more or less finished we have started moving into carpentry. The part I may be the most excited about, and I'm not going to lie, it's mostly because we get to use hammers. Now just hear me out about this. Hammers are one of the required tools we had to bring with us. Most people didn't bring them and bought them here instead. I however packed, schlepped on an airplane, hauled and lovingly carried my entire tool belt to the site every day since construction started. I need to use this freaking heavy piece of equipment.

We started building the forms for the concrete walls in the water feature this week; they are built out of plywood and boards and will act as a mold when we pour the concrete over the rebar. At the end we should have a beautiful set of walls. And I got to use my hammer, so I'm happy.

Aside from the forms, the boardwalk is starting to take shape, though it's held together with gigantic screws instead of nails. We have the vertical posts in, on top of which will go the horizontal beams, then the I guess z direction joists that connect the beams, with the boards on top of that. (woot vocabulary).

All in all, it's coming together, slowly but surely. We passed the halfway point this week and have five weeks left of construction, with one at the end for travel. I'm getting a little nervous though, the famous winds we've been hearing about started last week and have only gotten stronger. We took one morning off and Daniel gave lectures instead; but we can't substitute for construction every time there is a strong wind or we'll never finish the project. We might just be braving it in the end though.

This weekend we head on our longest road trip thus far to Osijek and Vukovar, and the weekend after is a wonderful surprise!

Magic in the Park: Plitvice Lakes

This last week had very full days with almost all of us out in the field. We got a ton of work done, the stone walls are almost finished but are proving to be more persnickety than I had thought they would be, we poured two concrete slabs and a third for the water feature on Friday. The deal was we wouldn't be able to leave for Plitvice Lakes until we got the whole piece done, so we worked extra fast on it.

We were finished by 11:00, ran up to the apartments, changed, finished packing and met Marco, the same driver who drove us to Zadar and his father-in-law Marino. Back on the ferry we made the short crossing to the mainland and took off again down the devil road, this time in the opposite direction. Luckily we didn't stay on it very long, but climbed up the cliffs and foothills by the sea and straight into the heart of the country.

The landscape changed abruptly once we were further away from the coast. On the island very little of the vegetation has changed through October, a lot of it is conifers, palms and other plants that mostly stay green; a lot of the surrounding islands and mountains are bare with white rock and no vegetation. But once we up into the mountains with the coast behind us the scenery blasted into fall color. Croatia has many beech forests and the beech trees are in full colors of oranges and yellows with the occasional red mixed in the bunch.

I was ecstatic to see all the colors and the forests. I hadn't seen anything like it in Croatia so far and I'm sorely missing all the fun fall things going on at home. This weekend everyone is celebrating Halloween and I'm loving all the pictures of the costumes and parties! I miss driving up Highway 2 for a tour of the color in the mountains with a bison burger in Marblemount at the end, picking pumpkins and apples, making pies and cider and watching scary movies when it storms. I miss all of it, and driving up through the mountains here gave me a taste of home that was very needed.

We stopped at a little village outpost about two hours into the journey to a makeshift shop by the road selling honey, cheese wheels and homemade Rakia.  I finally found a Rakia I like, most of it tasting more or less like fingernail polish remover to me. But this one is honey flavored, a little thicker and very sweet; too sweet for mostly everyone else but perfect for sipping. Between the 20 of us we bought a large chunk of their stock and continued on our way.

When straight roads changed again into twisting and switch-backing mountain roads we were almost to our destination. Plitvice is mountainous with deep ravines, and all the mountains are covered in fall brightness. Our homes for the weekend were three apartment houses that reminded me of the chalets I stayed in in the Alps. Small, comfortable, and terribly cute. We were thrilled to see that we not only could stand up straight in the large bathroom but the shower head was actually attached to the wall!

After settling in we went for a walk and spent a long time taking pictures of the scenery. We came to an outlook that overlooked what we found out later was the largest waterfall in the park, falling hundreds of feet to the river below. It was the first taste of Plitvice and what was to come.

Saturday morning we were up early and at the gates of Plitvice National Park by 8:30am bundled and ready for our day of adventure and discovery.

Plitvice is just like all the pictures, a natural phenomenon of rock, water and plants I'm amazed that a place so magical still exists in the world. The water system is essentially a river in a twisting canyon with beech forests on either side. In certain places the river widens creating slower moving lakes. Then cascades down into another lake below. Through the entire park miles and miles of boardwalk lead people through, around and over the water to caves, higher walkways and the upper lakes. The way the boardwalks were built one can see the water below, and often times a stairway will go over a small waterfall so you can experience the water as you move over it. You are engaged in your surroundings by default.

The water is absolutely perfectly clear except for where it is a turquoise or in the deepest places a rich royal blue. Spotted fish are within arm's reach and you can see all the vegetation in the shallower pools.

 Reeds, grasses and Lilly pads the jut up out of the water create barriers and borders for the walkways. If Rivendell were to be built, it would be here.

We spent the day wandering through, taking pictures and being amazed. The upper lakes area isn't so much in a ravine and has more forest along side. The walk along those leaf covered paths was magical, there is no other word to describe it.

The trees and water feel alive, not just in a "it's a tree, it's alive" kind of way but in a "It's a tree, it's moving and it's going to get up and dance any second now." I felt like I could really breathe there and take it all in, but there is also a vibrancy to every element involved. The constant rippling, dripping and cascading of the water to the quaking leaves in the trees and at this time of year the occasional rain of yellow leaves falling to the ground to be swept up again by a gust of wind through the canyon. The life of the place moves about, around and through you as a connected part of it. One of our number couldn't resist the waterfalls and hopped off the boardwalk to briefly bathe in one. An action we found out later was extremely illegal but I have a feeling it was worth it.

At the end of the day Marino drove us home to a lovely home cooked dinner by our hostess. The meal was festive to say the least, at the end of it no one was ready to go to bed. Marco knew of a bowling alley nearby and without any hesitation we were off, back on the bus.

We arrived fifteen minutes later to the abandoned except for two employees, four lane alley, but we definitely brought the party. The game itself wasn't normal bowling, it was done with smaller orange balls with no finger holes, rolled down the lane to hit 10 pins in a diamond shape that had strings like puppets to pull them back up. The counters on the lanes kept track of how many had been knocked down and how many turns had been taken, but none of us knew the rules and the owner didn't feel like explaining. We just did our best and had as much fun as possible, which was a lot.

The Wolf Team and one photo-bomber

This morning I woke up an hour early because of the daylight savings time switch but had time to take a long walk in the snow. Yes snow. It turned from a beautiful crisp fall day to the dead of winter in 12 hours flat. At the beginning of my walk the snow was mostly just freezing rain that I thought would let up, but no, by breakfast time big fluffy flakes flitted to the ground and began piling up fast.

After breakfast a few people took it upon themselves to be snowball mercenaries and pelt anyone emerging from breakfast. This lead to a fairly intense retaliation and with red cheeks and cold hands we got back into the vans to drive home.

Hell Week: Starting Construction plus Adventures in Trespassing

Dead week, hell week, the week of eternal doom. This is an event of many names. The frustrations and sleeplessness are legendary among students and those working on deadlines everywhere. And it seems it has also followed us to Croatia.

After our review on Friday, Vesna and her team looked over all the designs, weighed pros and cons and picked the base design to build the final from - and it was my group's! There were a few parts she didn't like, and parts from other designs that she wanted added but it was nice to know we had been on the right track in our vision for the site.

After our lovely weekend dancing and hiking in Zadar, the groups were re-configured for the next part of the process - details. There is a group for stonework, the water feature, boardwalk, shelter structure and design synthesis which is my group. Our job was to re-design the area that will be built to better match what Vesna wants  in the final, work everyone else's designs into the final and eventually produce a master plan.

The first day or so the some of the other groups didn't all have a lot to do while we were figuring out the final, while we were designing and problem solving as fast as possible. Now that we were down to detail level decisions seemed so much more important and impacting that we really had to do it right. EXACTLY where the entrance will be, how the boardwalk curves into the plaza and how the water feature works into all of that without having awkward dead space. Then the other groups got into full swing and had to furiously get the detail work down on paper or CAD so we can transcribe them into the real world.

But because of the nature of the time limit of design/ build projects we were under a crazy time crunch. For example the arborist came on Tuesday and we had to know exactly which trees needed to go so the maintenance guys could cut them on Wednesday. Then Thursday the excavator started cutting the foundations and leveling our seating area. We had to get the footings for the structure poured and the crushed rock ready for the rock walls on Friday because the stone masons were coming to teach us to do walls on Saturday.

We had to work as fast as we could to even have measurements to have locations to tell the guy with the machine where to put the dirt. In some cases we were still designing the next area while the excavator finished up the previous area. It was, in a word, exhausting. Fun, challenging, certainly enlightening and also extremely exhausting.

I really enjoyed being out working on the site trying to pick up as much knowledge about actual construction as possible. Luka, our amazing artist, consultant, landscape architect and translator let me come along when he met with the arborist so I could learn to tell which trees should be taken down and why. Then the next day I was there to see how they took the trees down while damaging the standing ones as little as possible. When the trunks were crashing down to the earth it struck me that this is real, this design is no longer theoretical and it's coming true one way or another. We are severely altering the landscape for our design because the hospital believes in us. And it's a little intimidating.

Friday and Saturday I was out at the site all day, first moving dirt from point A to point B then setting in the casings for the footings and putting a lot of the dirt from point B back to point A. A lot of the construction process as far I as I can tell seems to be moving material around and changing the form. Turn a pile of rocks into a stone wall, a hole into a casing into a hole full of concrete. More than anything its a lot of shoveling, shoveling a wide variety of things, dirt, crushed rock, gravel, in a variety of different combinations.

Friday evening the stonemasons came, had dinner with us and we had an impromptu party out on the decks of one of the apartments. Most of them were really nice and excited to talk about their art but one who managed to keep pulling me into his conversation only wanted to talk about how the US has ruined the world, how all of our systems are f-ed up, our people are lazy and medicated and expected us to explain or try to defend things that the U.S. did before we were even born. And he also managed to casually explain to me that I'm fat and should work out more. He considered himself an intellectual. I considered him a sociopath.
I was torn here, because I should have told him to go to hell and push him off the balcony. But the greater us needed him and his friends for the good of the program. If they left angry because I beat up/screamed at/murdered their friend everyone would suffer and the consequences probably would have been worse than I wanted to deal with.
So, anticlimactically I kept more or less a cool head, said "Fuck you. I'm beautiful." and left.

The next day I of course was put in a group with him to build a wall and I did my best to ignore him and only say something when I absolutely had to. In this manner most of the day passed focusing intently on the slow-mo tetris, and with 26 people building we got a lot of the walls almost finished by four or so.

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If we were a spectacle before when we were just walking around and taking notes we certainly are more of one now. The site is completely ripped up, mostly dirt with a dump truck arriving a few times a day leaving us giant piles of stone, gravel, and crushed rock. Some of us are making walls, others are shoveling, and still others who are getting their details finished are moving around us finding tangents of curves to figure out where their team's features go.

A lot of patients are coming to check out the construction, they usually just stand at the nearby road in their pajamas and stare. Every so often one will wander into the site and we awkwardly wheelbarrow around them. Sometimes they try to help and shovel a few scoops then go away. They are harmless, at least none of them have caused any problems. The only continually annoying thing is at least once a day a guy will wander over to where I'm shoveling or hauling or digging and tell me to "-Stop. That is a job for a man." Again, ignoring is the best way to deal with it, most of them don't know enough English to understand a half hour long rant on why I'm capable of work, and can do it just as well or as fast as most men. There is also the whole cultural difference of gender roles argument blah blah blah. It doesn't make me feel any better about it.

Sunday was our first completely free day, several people rented bikes to explore the island, others went to an optional drawing class in town. I took the opportunity to sleep in (8:00 yay!) and try to go for a hike. A friend came with me to explore where our road goes. Turns out it's through a valley with a mansion on the hill then into an oak forest up to a house with olive terraces. Apparently the road goes further but it looked like it just ended so we went back. Along the way we followed what was either a path or a drainage ditch along a terrace field until it got too grown over and we hopped up the wall into the field. I think it was a vineyard at one time, tiny grape plants were losing against stronger bushes and grasses taking back the land. We hopped another ditch, then a stone fence then a barbed wire fence into a narrow valley until our path truly ended at a wall with forest on the other side.

Our adventure was fun, in part because we were probably not supposed to be there, but we kept our ears perked and eyes up in case any angry farmers showed up. None did, but in one field without much cover I smelled cigarette smoke on the breeze. With no one else in sight that was enough to make me high-tail it back to the road before we disappeared into the Croatian wilderness never to be heard from again.

The rest of the day we spent in Rab, intending on doing some errands, but everything closes on Sunday except for one gelato place and the tourist shops. So I walked around and stumbled across most romantic spot in Rab.

Panorama views of the city and several islands was a nice way to end a stressful week. Now another few days of construction and it's off to Plitvice Lakes we go!

Pushing the Design, Croatia Ball, and the Big Review.

Life is getting to normal here. We have hit the ground running with a regular albeit fast paced schedule. Most of us get up between 6:00 - 7:00, eat, shower, skype with loved ones and gather up all of our materials for the day. Then we head down to the gate of the Lavender Palace to meet Carl at 8:00 to start the work day.

The Palace is in a separate part of the hospital from the main campus, it's to the south and blocked off by a gate that needs to be kept locked at all times even when people are there.

View to the Lavender Palace from the lavender fields.

We design, get critiques, design some more, visit the site, make more changes, decide the new thing sucks, change it, love it, find out it won't work either, change it again, find a stronger concept, get a critique, have the concept change - all before lunch. Lunch time is questionable but it happens some time in the early afternoon. Then we design, edit change, critique, problem solve, and problem cause our way to dinner. Most days so far we've been able to finish working before 9:00pm or so.

laying out flour to understand the scale of our structures

We presented our concept designs on Tuesday to our fellow students, advisers, some of the staff and to our surprise Vesna! Suddenly our big ideas seemed small and unworthy in front of our client and it added an extra layer of nervousness, but we got through it. All the comments we received were useful for our final plans and we have been incorporating them since.

After the review the advisers went around critiquing our projects and we were excused to go outside while they made notes. Someone brought down one of the orange stress balls given to us at orientation and started throwing it around to play catch. More people wanted to join, someone else found a branch on the ground and voila! Croatia Ball!

A much more fun version of baseball, two teams of dubious loyalty and unsure numbers get on the field that is partially gravel and the rest is lavender.. Anyone can get up to bat and try to make it to the bases marked by things found in studio like a coffee cup or a sketchbook. And an extra challenge added because the stray cats wandering on and off the field. When the batter hits the ball they run in the general direction of first base; stopping wherever they feel like it, sometimes skipping third all together and running across the diamond home.
This game is very fun. I suggest you try it out next time you're stressed or feel like being particularly cool.

Firmly in the grasp of the big push, on Wednesday my team worked into the night until we could barely function enough to draw out boardwalks, stages and gardens anymore. At 11:30pm we packed up and left the Lavender Palace for home. But you see, walking through a psychiatric hospital in the dead of night with a thunder and lightning storm rolling in from the east isn't as soothing as you would expect.
On edge, my group stayed close together and marched as quietly as possible the length of the grounds up to the main gate.
Of course nothing happened except for getting a bit wet when the heavens opened and a warm rain fell down on  us.

Thursday was the same story, we got up early worked out the kinks in our final design, got one last critique and started producing. 
Producing is the part of the process where you're not designing anymore, all of the important decisions are made with very little room for change, here you produce a large plan, sections, section elevations, vignettes and explanatory diagrams. Everything with titles, north arrows etc. Producing always seems like it should go quickly but is some of the most intensive work in the process, somehow pen just can't go to paper as fast as it should. Unless you're Winterbottom who can create a gorgeous plan in about 8.6 seconds.

Our cat at the Lavender Palace, she has 4 adorable babies that she sometimes brings around.

Thursday night we were at the Palace till 2:30am producing producing producing. 

Friday morning started off wet and hasn't let up since. My group slogged down to the Palace and rendered till the very last minute. Drinking copious amounts of caffeine as fast as possible and trying not to let our hands shake too much while drawing out fine ink lines and thick marker washes. Carl called us at 11:30 to ask where we were, then again at 11:33 and again at 11:36. At 11:38 we rolled up our drawings and covered them as best we could to protect them from the rain, ready to present at noon.

The work space just before the presentation

The review went well. At the last minute I had to sprint back down to the Lavender Palace to look for a base map that had disappeared and sprint back up to the presentation space. When it comes to public speaking I have a nervousness cycle that's exhausting. I feel fine up until I walk into the space where I have to talk, then get extremely nervous to the point of feeling faint. Then see my cue, stumble up, am scared about starting to talk then once words come out I'm usually fine. It's a ridiculous and unnecessary emotional roller coaster. 

Now it's all stressed memory haze but I think it went ok.

Now we rest and recoup, but get going again soon. We head to Zadar in the morning!

The Adriatic and the Lavender Palace.

The view from our balcony

Thursday we got down to business. My group met in the morning and talked about our site analysis so far, where we are and where we want to get to by the end of the day. There is a major conference happening at the hospital and we were invited to come to as many of the talks as we wanted. Only a few said they would be in English so we went to those in the morning.
Unfortunately I am really running low on clean clothes, the only unsoiled pieces I could wear to this conference of very respectable psychiatrists were my work Carhartts and my last clean tank top. Luckily a nice scarf can dress up almost any outfit enough to sit in the back of an auditorium. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get much out of the talks, they were all in Croatian, some with English powerpoints going on in the background, and once they got into cognitive connections I got pretty lost.

After the talks my group walked through the site again, trying to pick up on anything we'd missed the last time. It's amazing how much one can miss the first time through. After we had a day to process and come back we saw twice as much as the first time, made more notes and corrections and figured out the direction we want to go in for the site analysis

Kisses from the neighbors

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That afternoon we decided to take advantage of the beautiful afternoon and took a break for swimming. We walked in the opposite direction from Rab down to the other bay nearby. It's a big sandy beach, with boats tied to docks on one side. We walked around to the docks so we could jump in the water. 

we went swimming off that dock in the distance.

The water is amazing, all the locals stopped swimming in early September and thought we were crazy for getting in this late in the year, but it was still at least 75 degrees in most places. It's crystal clear and we could see little schools of fish swimming around us. Luckily no sharks. The water is also very salty and I could float without having to try at all, just lay back in the water and drift under the sunshine.

I spent about a half hour in the water but then the breeze picked up and the sun started to get low over the hills so we got out, dried off and went to a cafe in Kampor. There I discovered the magnificence that is cappachino. At the cafe there were a few salty old Austrian vacationer/sailors, already deep into a few glasses of beer that kept us laughing until we got too cold and walked back to the apartments. 

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The next few days were much the same. Site analysis is hard work but there is only so much useful information you can glean from observation alone. We don't have blueprints or utility maps of the hospital. We created maps for sun/shade, wind, weather, soil quality, views into and out of the site, elevation change, emotive mapping and behavioral mapping of what people do in different parts of the site etc. 
But really, that doesn't usually take that long so until Saturday we were able to work and play quite a lot. Going to the beach, walking into Kampor and Rab, and hiking a bit. This part of the project was just as much about meeting our classmates as meeting the site. 

Sunday though the conference ended, which means that we have a space in the hospital to use for our studio. A place called the Lavender Palace.

This hospital is well known not only for its progressive and humane conditions, but also for how much lavender they grow here in fields on the south side of the campus. Primarily it is used for occupational therapy for the patients but everyone here is very proud of it. In the middle of the lavender fields is a building usually used for guests called the Lavender Palace. Painted a lovely light purple, the palace has a ground floor kitchen/bathrooms/ living room and an upstairs bedroom loft with about 9 beds for guests. I have a sneaking suspicion that if we hadn't been able to get our apartments we would have been residents of the Lavender Palace for the duration of our stay. 

We moved on from site analysis to conceptual designs. Where we figure out the big ideas that are the most important for informing the rest of the design. The concept is the spine or the bones of the project upon which everything else rests. It's a pretty important part and we all take it seriously. We worked through the afternoon till dinner, then most of us worked after dinner into the night. 

Now it's early the next morning and back to the Lavender Palace we go!

Starting the Project in Paradise: Rab, Croatia

When the boat pulled into the marina it was raining in Rab. Hard. We schlepped our luggage off the boat and into our awaiting...ambulances. The hospital sent them as the only cars big enough to carry all 17 of us. Because of the rain and exhaustion my scope of sensory input was pretty small. I paid attention to getting as little water on my clothing as possible as we got into the vans. The marina was misty and I didn't see much out of the foggy windows, but there were palm trees and many boats tied up to the dock. 

Even during the ride to the apartments I didn't notice much of the landscape because I was too busy being scared for my life. I was sitting in the front seat and was able to bear witness to our driver speeding the cumbersome van around blind corners on a tiny two lane road. He barely stayed in his own lane and passed other cars at every opportunity even around corners. Luckily our apartments are only three miles from the town and we arrived in a matter of minutes. With the rain still drizzling down we heafted our luggage out one last time, the boys were sent to their apartment, a random decision was made for which two girls would get the 1 bedroom apartment, and the rest of us hauled our luggage up three flights of stairs around the back of the building to the main apartment. 

The apartment is the entire top floor of a small three story apartment building, the central hallway has the highest ceiling and the bedrooms on either side have sloping ceilings which are cute and kind of fun but many of us have hit our heads already. There are three bedrooms, one with a queen and a cot, one with a queen and three twin beds and the last with just a queen bed. Without much drama we picked bedrooms, I ended up in the room with just the queen and a bathroom attached. For those of you counting we've got 9 girls using 2 bathrooms and one kitchen. Surprisingly thus far it's working out though and we're all getting along and figuring out the bumps along the way.

After we got our bedrooms and freshened up a bit we went out to visit the hospital for the first time. The rain had stopped and without my pack on my back I took the time to look around and figure out my surroundings. Our apartments are in two buildings that share a courtyard and driveway. They also have a little weird looking dog that we always give a pet when we go out. Also, there are cats absolutely everywhere, no one gets the feral cats neutered or spade so they all just have more and more kittens they wander around looking for places where people will feed them. We have one that sticks close to the apartments who will practically dance with happiness when you pet her. But I don't want to buy her food because what will she do when we leave and is used to getting fed? The people here certainly won't feed her and it will attract more stray cats to their home. For now I can only give her short pets on the head then wash my hands thoroughly. It's pretty heartbreaking.

Our area is pretty rural, we are in a small collection of buildings and houses with big gardens outside the little town of Kampor. The landscape is mostly fields with tall grasses and scrubby bushes or olive, pomegranate, persimmon or fig orchards in the back yards of the houses. Nicer houses have designated front yards and usually a big veranda with Roman columns and grape arbors above. Nearby also are a few sheep pastures, and the sheep will come right up to the fence asking for treats. And in the distance the fields slope up into the big wooded hills of the island. Some people would call them mountains. 

The hospital is literally across the street from our apartment building, the commute is less than three minutes from the door of our apartment. We got extremely lucky with this, we were almost going to live in the psychiatric hospital in 8 person dorm rooms. Not fun. Our nearby accommodations are much better.

My first impression of the hospital is that it is definitely not "Shutter Island" the first thing everyone sites once they heard I was going to a psychiatric hospital on an island in eastern Europe. The landscaping and grounds are nice, modern, well maintained and clean. Patients walk around and talk, smoke, and joke with one another. 

There we met Vesna, the director of the hospital and our host for the project. She told us a bit about the history of the hospital, when she took it over and started making improvements and some of the demographics of the hospital. Most of the patients are here for addiction rehab, there is also a hospice for the very elderly who need care. A smaller percentage have social disorders and there are smaller numbers of other problems. Most of the people there are there voluntarily and as such there are fences but not huge stone walls with watch towers.

After the orientation she walked us around the campus. By the entrance is the game area, they have a large size chess board, boccie ball, ping pong etc. the Main square where all the main buildings face in on is the primary social space for patients. They sit on the veranda, smoke, talk, and take walks around the garden. Our site for the design/build is at what I would call the back of the campus. It's the entire length of one side and includes a wooded grove area, an open meadow with wildflowers, then terracing left over from when the site was a vineyard who knows how many years ago. that part is now just a dirt mound with trees on it.

We ate dinner at the hospital and it was very pleasant besides my almost getting hit by a car while we were waiting for the building to open. It was coming down the main way and sped around the corner into the alley we were standing in, nearly hit us with squealing breaks then backed up and sped away. I do NOT like the way people drive here.

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Wednesday morning the sun was shining through the skylight and I was welcomed to a lovely view off the balcony of our apartment. It was deliciously warm out and not too hot and it felt wonderful to be comfortable. I met with my group for site analysis. The part of the landscape design process that is just figuring out what's there, who uses the site when, what goes on there. What are the sun patterns, where does the water go, what plants are there etc. Getting to know the site as well as we can before we start proposing how to massively change it.

My group and I walked around the site, up to the top of the mound, down the terraces through the woods and the meadow and into the grove taking notes and making sketches. When we thought we had enough information for now we walked through the grounds of the hospital to get a better sense for it. We are a bit of a spectacle an were approached several times by patients. I realized that I didn't know a single word of Croatian and quickly picked up "good afternoon" (dobar dan) "good evening" (dobra vecer) and "thank you"  (hvala). 

Vesna had told us that all of the patients who approach us would probably be friendly. They are just curious and interested in something new in their worlds. She said if they ask us for cigarettes to just say sorry, no. A very friendly older guy tried to tell us about every experience he'd ever had involving the U.S. Before we started to insistently say "ciao!" and ended the conversation. The most common question we got was "Where are you from?"



That afternoon a group of us decided to walk into town. The clouds and rain of the night before were a distant memory and a hot, sunny day beamed down on us. Unfortunately about half the way to town we had to walk on the road (that has no shoulder and certainly no sidewalk), but with a big group we were more visible and didn't have any close calls, but people still went around us at 70mph or so. 

After a mile and half we reached the beach trail. It thankfully turned away off the road and straight to the water, which is as the Adriatic tends to be, perfectly blue and clear. The walk first took us through fields of grass sparsely populated by the occasional bird yard or sheep pasture. 

The section along the water is the best part, it becomes a formal walk, with places for boats to pull up, little marinas, and stairs down into the water for bathers. In the distance we could see a tower and the gleaming white buildings of the little seaside city. I'm pretty sure Rab must have been the inspiration for "The Little Mermaid"'s seaside kingdom for all it's picturesqueness and perfection.

The walk ended at a sheer wall with a staircase up to the city. At the top was a stone courtyard overlooking the water with live tree growing in the center. The city is almost entirely stone, and since it is so small and on a hill cars can't drive up most of the tiny, twisting streets so the whole city is pedestrian friendly, most of the streets connecting by steep alleyways or small staircases lit by wrought iron lamps on sconces. The houses are behind walls with metal gates and in most cases their plants and flowers spill over the walls, draping vines and colorful star bursts of color down into the streets and alleys. 

Everywhere I looked there was evidence of some kind of loving detail, in the door knockers and hinges, to the flagstones set in the streets, to the window panes and gardens. 

Ann and I walked around together, looking into the shops remaining open after the exodus of the tourists at the end of the season. We got a gelato, walked around a bit, bought a few things, got another gelato, found more people, shopped around and generally enjoyed the day.

Rab is definitely a tourist destination, practically becoming a ghost town by this time of year. Which means we almost had the place to ourselves. Running up and down the steps to different levels and views of the city, each one a little different and special. Discovering new nooks, crannies, stairwells and courtyards at every turn made for a wonderful afternoon of exploration until the sun set. So far I'm very, very happy with our study abroad destination.

Politics and Ice Cream: Zagreb

Saturday morning I took a long shower, ate a big breakfast and prepared myself for the next few days of travel. My flight to Frankfurt wasn’t until the evening, so I spent the morning and afternoon working on the computer and figuring out school arrangements.

I left the hotel at little after three, took a bus to a bus to the airport and was sitting at my gate by 5:30. The plane was late, but other than that the whole experience was as pleasant as it could be with the exception of getting frisked at security because I forgot to take my sunglasses off my head when I went through the metal detector. Sunglasses = terrorist obviously.

I flew Lufthansa to Frankfurt, and the flight attendant giving the safety protocol speech had a serious case of the giggles over the speaker which set the mood for the whole flight. Everyone was giggling the whole time (especially after the cart came around with free alcohol.) I had a glass of wine, my first drink of alcohol this trip hoping it might relax me enough to get to sleep.

We landed in Frankfurt, into possibly the largest airport I’ve ever seen. The signs said “Frankfurt AirCity” and they were not lying.

In the terminal I wandered around a bit, by now it was a little after 10pm but with no windows or glass doors to the outside everything was in a perpetual noon light. The only indicators that it was nighttime were the lack of people and the fact that Starbucks was closed.

I pumped Euros into a free-standing computer long enough to get a frantic facebook message to my family to tell them I had made it to Frankfurt, everything was ok, and that I wouldn’t have much internet access. Then I found a set of three seats in a quieter corner of the terminal looped my hand through the strap in my bag and tried to go to sleep; beginning the long wait to my next flight in the morning.

As you can imagine sleep was less than restful. I woke up every half hour or so because my arm was numb or the intercom was particularly loud, or the guy with the ride-around floor waxer drove past my head. But it was better than nothing. At about 3:00am I gave up and read until I could go to my terminal at 8:00.

There I found John and Ann, two people from my program and very welcome familiar faces. They had just flown over from Seattle and we were on the same flight to Zagreb.

The temperature and the way the air felt were the first things that struck me about Zagreb as soon as we got off the plane. It was comfortably warm, and the air very humid. I started sweating immediately in my long underwear left over from Scotland. Not quite tropical flowers scented the air, creating a complex, spicy smell I really liked.

We took a bus from the airport to the tram station, and after a little confusion boarded the correct tram into the city center. Got off at the main square and after a bit more confusion found our hostel and our fellows.

Zagreb is definitely a town built for warm days and nights. All the shopping and café streets have large, comfortable outdoor seating areas. The alleys and streets are narrower than Edinburgh and the style is more varied. Almost all of Edinburgh that I saw was Georgian surrounding medieval with a little bit of modern thrown in here and there, it’s almost all the same color palette. Zagreb on the other hand has a multitude of colors and styles all pushed into a tight space. But you can tell that neighborhoods were built together because of the similar architectural styles.

The hostel is in a small alley on a hill that is predominantly a café through the middle. At the top of the alley is the beginning of a major market that happens every day. I was in a room with three other people in my program in a room that overlooked the alleyway. Wandering in through the front door and up the narrow steps we were greeted by Winterbottom, and finally I relaxed to know we were in the right place. Our room had a window facing the alley and with it open we could hear all the sounds of the restaurant below, clinking glasses, the ever constant American top 40, laugher, a multitude of languages and the ever present smell of cigarette smoke.

After dropping of our luggage and freshening up we went off in search of Croatian SIM cards. Since I bought my phone in Europe it will work here but needs a new SIM to not be roaming. In the oddly long line at the cellphone store I started talking with a girl wearing American flag jeans who lives in Zagreb and wanted to practice her English. By the end of the long wait in line she asked if we wanted to go to dessert with her later and we set up a time to meet.

People in Zagreb, or at least in our district seem to move a bit slower than those in Edinburgh, taking more of their time, and they also seem to put more effort into how they dress. Perhaps it’s because it’s so warm that one is less likely to have to wear a coat over their whole outfit? I’m not sure, but I felt decidedly shabby in my cargo pants and bandanna as we explored up the cobblestone streets.

Ena met us with her friends at a local dessert place with enough seating for our fairly large group that came along. They explained how the Croatian school system works and that they are 16 and have two years left of school. They are all working on getting their French, German and especially English as good as possible so they can leave Croatia as soon as possible. They weren’t sure why we would even come to visit if we didn’t have to. This kind of threw us for a loop,

“Zagreb is beautiful!” We said, “The architecture is lovely, and it’s so warm here.” They begrudgingly agreed. I’m not sure if it was just them being teenagers and wanting to leave home or if their desperation to immigrate has to do with the government and what’s going on with the economy.

“Men are lucky to have jobs here.” They said, “Any job, any one they can get. And it’s actually a pretty conservative country. We don’t like that.”

“But we will be in the EU” One interjected.

“Yeah, someday.” Said another. “I don’t want to wait for it to get good. I want to go somewhere where it is good already.”

I’m not an expert on the Croatian economy at all, but whatever is going on here certainly makes it an affordable place to visit. The currency is Kuna, and $1 is about 5 kuna. I arrived not knowing this, went to an ATM and just got 300 kuna, roughly $50. But my ice cream, a decent amount of good quality stuff was only 6 kuna. About a $1.20. A full meal later was 25 kuna, about $5, A glass of wine for 10 kuna, two dollars. One can get by pretty dang cheaply in Croatia assuming you don’t get screwed over by bus drivers and stall vendors: which happens a lot, especially to young traveling Americans.

This morning we woke up early, my bunkmates are dealing with the jetlag I’m only starting to get over, the kind that wakes you up at 4:30am. But we were the first ones into the showers this morning and even though the water was usually either scalding hot or arctic cold, it still felt marvelous to wash off all the travel I had done.

I popped up to the market to get some breakfast and found out that if you motion to a stack of carrots and say “Two?” and put up two fingers a very nice old lady will give you two kilos of carrots. Then pretend not to understand what you mean when you try to correct it and still demand two kilos worth of money. In the end, I have a lot of carrots.

I was smarter after that and was able to get exactly two nectarines, a small basket of raspberries, a pear, two buns (savory and sweet) and a sandwich for later.

At 10:00 we readied ourselves, and hefted our luggage back into the street off to the tram. The tram took us to a bus and despite the bus driver being kind of an ass and “forgetting” to give everyone their change we started off across the country to Rijeka.

Most people slept all the way but I stayed up and got to enjoy the scenery. We headed out of Zagreb and into the mountains. The woodland turning into deep forest as far as the eye could see over the rolling peaks. This is my favorite kind of view; I like to be able to imagine that the forest land goes on forever and to be reminded that some great swaths of it still exist despite our ministrations.

An hour and a half into the bus ride we started to come down out of the mountains and into the town of Rijeka. It’s smaller than Zagreb but still feels like a city, it also smelled different; less cigarette smoke, more food smells, and a briny saltiness that gained purchase the closer we walked to the marina.

Now on the ferry I have watched island after island go by for the better part of two hours. The two televisions at the front of the cabin are playing MacGyver and something with Chuck Norris in English with Croatian subtitles.

We should be on Rab soon! I’m looking forward to not carrying this pack around for a while, clean clothes and a bed I don’t have to move out of in a few days is also going to be great. I think we start sight analysis of our site for the quarter tomorrow. No easing into this project!

A Furry Cow, Discovering Nessie and the Highlands

Saturday morning found me sitting on the steps at the corner of Inverleith Terrace and Inverleith Row at 7:15am. It was a warmer morning, and a bright sunrise was lighting up the top levels of the buildings around me but I still wore my hiking boots, hat and rain coat having learned my lesson the day before. I was tearing into a cheese roll and keeping an eye on the top of the hill at Inverleith Row.

The night before, I was so tired after Iain's talk that I had forgotten to eat dinner, and with only my leftover toast and cheese from breakfast for lunch I woke up Saturday feeling weak, shaky and exhausted. I don't suggest skipping meals, especially if your body is under extra stress from travel or prolonged exercise. With the whole hotel still sleeping at 6:45 I went up the street to the grocery store, waited for them to open at 7:00 and bought enough food to get me through the morning. I was back at the Inverleith at 7:15 waiting for my ride.

At 7:25 on the nose a bus with huge side mirrors that make it look like a caterpillar came around the corner. The driver waved at me and I ran across the street and climbed in.

This was my highland tour bus. I was a little hesitant about doing the most touristy thing possible, taking a bus tour with 46 other tourists, but it was the only way I could get to the highlands this trip. I didn't have the knowledge, time, experience or money to do it on my own, and even if I did I would probably have to stay in the cities where the train and bus stops are. Tour bus was, like it or not the best and most cost efficient way to get to see the highlands.

I was the first one on the bus so I got prime seat-picking rights. I chose the very first aisle seat, with a view through the windshield and ability to stretch my knees into the aisle if needed. Jerry, the driver took me all over central Edinburgh picking up other passengers. The next group on after me were three chattering Spanish ladies. Jerry asked if one of them would sit next to me to make sure all the groups would be able to sit more or less together. The lady sitting next to me spoke barely any English and didn't seem to understand why I wanted to sit on the aisle. But in very broken Spanish I told her I have bad knees and need to be able to stretch them. She was so grateful I had even made an effort to communicate with her she was very nice to me the whole trip. We conversed a little through the day in my minimal Spanish and her minimal English. With both we managed to get our points across.

We were on the road by a little after 8:00 and Jerry did a very good job telling us about major points we were passing by. First was Stirling Castle, and the monument to William Wallace, the great hero and star of Braveheart. Jerry related the story and let's just say Mel Gibson got off easy compared to what actually happened to the guy :(

Pretty soon we got off the freeway and onto narrow twisty highways. The city fell away behind us and soon we were surrounded by pastureland. We entered some of the most fertile land in Scotland with some of the loveliest pastoral scenery. Our first stop was basically a rest stop with a shop and coffee shop. I bought a mocha and followed everyone over to the magnificent highland cows nearby.

Hamish is this stop's pride and joy, a highland bull with horns three feet wide. He has a lovely blonde furry coat and long emo bangs over his eyes. He and his two cows nearby were adorable and a little scary.

The scenery became more dramatic the further north we went. Soon the pastureland fell away and more brushy scrubland took over. The little hills grew into big hills and into extremely steep mountains. We learned that a Glen is the Gaellic word for "valley" and we passed through many Glens on the way north. Including Glencoe, the site of the famous massacre that I won't relate but you can easily Google if interested.

We went on to the lake country where we were constantly driving over or along lovely loch scenery. I don't have many pictures of it though because 1) they wouldn't do it justice and 2) they would be out the window of a tour bus and probably blurry. For the full effect you're just going to have to see it for yourself :)

We stopped for lunch and I got fish and chips with a bunch of older couples from Vancouver. Also, there was a guy on the tour who looked almost exactly like my dad and he really kept throwing me off seeing him out of the corner of my eye.

At 2:00 we pulled into St. Augustus, at the southern tip of Loch Ness. I decided to pay the extra 12 pounds to take the Loch cruise. The cruise itself wasn't a lot to write home about, I'm from western Washington, I've been on my fair share of lakes. But the crew and the captain in particular made it worth it. Assuming they are telling the truth they are all completely assured of Nessie's existence. They have all seen her a multitude of times in person and on their radar screens up all over the boat.
The captain told us how no one really swims in Loch Ness because of the very steep sides, out 20 feet you can be in 200 feet of water. Also, there are fish called Ferox that are not only fully cannibalistic, but they will also nibble on people if given half a chance and they are big. I think he said the biggest one he pulled out was seven feet long.
He said that he has proof including a video of her existence but knows of at least three remaining big game hunters/ poachers who would come out and try to hunt her. So he's not going to release his footage. He showed us a photo he took, that if it's real would be proof. I saw the back, spine and close details of the skin. But again, if it's real, and there is the rub.

just at the end of the tour I took this picture:

Proof? Totally.

Back at the bus we traveled the whole length of Loch Ness north to Inverness, the capital of the highlands where the Stone of Destiny used to be. At Inverness we turned south and started the long drive back home.

Up until this point that one stab of homesickness on Buchanan street had really been the worst of it. Mostly I had managed to be too busy, too tired or too sore to think much of anything. But on the bus back down, without a whole lot to look at that I hadn't seen before and without new and interesting facts from Jerry every ten minutes or so I was left with nothing to think of but home and how much I miss everyone already. And worse, just how long it'll be until I see them again. This adventure is just beginning but I'm tired and want to be with people I love. Also, I think I was the only single traveler on that bus. And answering the question:

"So who are you traveling with?"

"Oh, it's just me."

"Really? Surely you're not by yourself?"

"Yep. Just me."

Is getting a little old. It'll change once I'm in Croatia. I'll be part of a group again with friends and we will be a unit more or less for the next two months. But I'll have to be a grownup for the next day or so, getting from Edinburgh to Frankfurt and a 12 hour layover in Frankfurt then a flight to Zagreb and finding the hostel in downtown Zagreb. 

First day of school on Monday!

Things I have learned:

-Food in Scotland only seems to get expensive once someone else touches it. In Glasgow I bought three days worth of groceries for just under 20 pounds or about 30 bucks. So that's $30 for three days, $10/day at about $3/meal. Not bad. The same applied in Edinburgh.

-Wandering is more fun than pointed destinations if you have the option.

-Edinburgh is beautiful at night.