Shuttercal - andytuba's Calendar

A Photo a Day, eh?

andytuba

<em>andytuba - A wandering Delawarean</em><p style='clear: right'>Having finished a Project 365, I'm shooting for even more fun and the occasional theme week when things are less fun. Also, I swear that this year I'll program some functional apps to use with ShutterCal!</p><p>Find me on Twitter at <a href='http://twitter.com/andytuba'>@andytuba</a></p>

Name:

Andy Tuba

Location:

Arizona, USA

Gear:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28
Nikon CoolPix S210
LG enV3 Cameraphone

Started On:

1/1/09 (Day 443)

About Me:

andytuba - A wandering Delawarean

Having finished a Project 365, I'm shooting for even more fun and the occasional theme week when things are less fun. Also, I swear that this year I'll program some functional apps to use with ShutterCal!

Find me on Twitter at @andytuba

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Looks like this is my very last basketball game in pep band as an undergraduate. It only took 10 years of my sister playing and four years in me playing in pep band. (Lumix FZ28)

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Around the house. A question on The Question Club asked us to describe the sight out the nearest window. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

2

The apartment complex behind the Center For the Arts, where most of the music majors live because you can see the music building from your apartment (or at least, you could until they built the garage five years ago), gets a lot of shiny, shiny sun. Also, plenty of icy snow. (Lumix FZ28)

3

Bill makes lots of funny little moues when he's dissatisfied with his work. This particular piece in his hand is a head piece for the bird that eats people from Hieronymous Bosch's 'Garden of Earthly Delights.' (Lumix FZ28)

4

Featured here the wrappers for some pieces of our new shelving unit at the music building. Engrish FTW! We actually built this shelf unit last week, but since I've been so busy getting everything done before I leave for Spain, I didn't bother to take my camera out in the cold and take photos of more wintry mix in north Delaware. (Lumix FZ-28)

5

My girls at Delazure are fierce! Phil, the weapons line instructor, is playing assistant today while the designers are teching the show before Saturday's competition. Laura (down left) waits for the next run. Amy (up right) is so over it. Must be the end of the day. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

6

Young CTHULHU! This younger Elder God is my final mask for our Mask-Making class and I managed to take 20 minutes and do his paint job. I would say he turned out fairly well for someone who doesn't arts-and-craft much besides macrame. So, having yesterday finished Todd, my fox mask, and last week Munchie, my The Scream mask, I'm finally done my coursework for the winter! Now it's time to finish up everything else -- and pack for tomorrow's flight to Spain. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

7

Time to go, kids! Yes, we're here en route to Granada (via Madrid, the capital of Spain) and playing Banangrams in the JFK airport in New York while awaiting our plane. Bananagrams, if you don't know it, must be some version of Scrabble that a game-maker thought up when he broke his Scrabble board: it's merely a collection of letters from which you compose (and re-composed) crosswords, calling out 'peel!' at intervals to make everyone draw a letter until somebody completes their crossword and the group runs out of letters. It's good fun, good fun, and we were even joined by another guy who wasn't in our group, A'dam, an American-Israeli who was going back to Israel by way of Madrid. (Coolpix S210)

8

Welcome, welcome to Granada! Here you find my new roommate Akin, el morenito, being greeted by Carmen Prieto, our host mother for the next few months, a warm and humorous lady (a.k.a., she calls us nice names and teases us now and then). What a nice way to meet Granada, as soon as we got off the bus! Even better -- we live not even a block away from the meeting point for excursions, en el calle Las Flores off of the main road las Rondas, not far from el calle Recogidas, which runs up into the center of town. (Nikon S210)

9

I'll be living here with Akin through May, in a room about as large as a dorm room back home, but slightly more accomodating: our host mother here in Granada, Carmen, makes us breakfast (toast with marmalade before clas), lunch (just before siesta, at 2pm), and dinner (around 9, 9:30pm). Thus, all we really need is our beds, the armoire, and some desks to work on and store our things. The art scattered all about the apartment sure classes it up, though.

10

Our little apartment (surprisingly extensive -- it can house nigh on ten people) is on el calle Las Flores, a little side-street which connects las Rondas and another medium-sized street. On it are mostly apartment buildings, a few stores, and a ciber-locutorio (netcafe/call center). The double doors with the iron grate you can see on the left is the entrance to our apartment complex, which has five or six floors including the entresuelo, the entrance floor. (They typically count floors G-1-2-... around here.)

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Just a few blocks from our apartment in Granada is a park celebrating the famous Spanish poet, Francesco Garcia Lorca. It's apparently beautiful in spring, when all the flowers are blooming and the greenery is .. er .. green. Since it's getting warmer, the plants are growing, and the water is always flowing, but the greenest thing right now seems to be the streetlamps lighting the park for lovers and joggers.

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Granada seems to be full of apartment complexes, banks, food stores, boutiques, travel centers -- and hotels. Our program director told us that Granada is the cultural center of Andalusía (the southernmost region of Spain) and so suffers an awful lot of tourism. This is a sweet hotel which you can find just down the hill from my apartment building, next to the Centro Comercial Neptuno. It has a great overlook on ... the highway. (Lumix FZ-28)

14

An homage to [top left pixel]

There are so many Vespas here in Granada. Now I understand why they're called 'wasps' in Italian. This one was parked at the base of the Palacio de Exhibiciones de something or other. Donno, it was closed anyway.

15

Twice I've been to Plaza Trinidad, south of the cathedral in the center of Granada, and I've seen this old man just sitting and smoking his cigar. What else is there to do when you're a jubilador, then pasar el tiempo with the other retirees in a day center? The plaza is a bit more lively, I should think; also, it has a nice fountain (which I might show you sometime). Unfortunately, it has the noisest birds in all of Granada! (Lumix FZ28)

16

In addition to the typical spray-painted scrawls you'll find on any city walls, Granada also plays host to hundreds of beautiful pieces of street art. I'll feature some in the months to come, as there's plenty of it, but here's a taste: this little guy has popped up here and there, sprung from what looks like the tip of a Sharpie, to share his heartfelt sentiments with the denizens of my facultad (college) who pass every day en route to class. (Nikon S210)

17

Walking up Sacromonte in North Granada is quite a hike, but worth it -- and not just for the cardiovascular exercise. The area is older, with skinny, winding streets, and just lots of families living up here. If you get up to the top, then you get the chance to look at the Alhambra from the Mirador de San Cristobal (as popularized by Bill Clinton). Tomorrow's photo will have a good view from when we came back down the hill! (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

18

Walking up Sacromonte to the Mirador de San Cristobal, a church and mozque whence you can look out to the Alhambra and all over the city of Granada, is a real workout for the thighs. Coming back down works the calves, so it was definitely worth stopping to massage my legs and take this night shot of the Alhambra, which is all lit up. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

19

Sacromonte, the Sacred Hill that forms the uphill side of Granada, has amazing views of the city. Also, many gypsies: one woman invited us in to her cueva de flamenco, which is basically just a little flamenco dance hall / performance area that's also very, um, cave-like. She told us we could take pictures for free, but immediately opened up a beer and offered to us. No thanks -- I don't want to be under any obligations to a gypsy! Awwwwwwkward. We quickly went up the hill to this point, where I realized I could actually take a panorama shot. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

20

Rondas was our itinerary for today, a small, traditional town (that reads 'tourist trip') in the region of Málaga. It's actually quite a pretty town with lovely vistas and a yawning chasm of a river running through it, which you can see one of my travelling mates admiring here. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

21

We went to see Bodas de Sangre by Garcia Lorca at the Teatro Santa Isabel in the center of Granada. Interesting play, but I couldn't understand a word of it! Fortunately, they typically perform it as a dance; so, since it's old, the director took plenty of license with the performance, which rendered the choreography both engaging and communicative! Karen wanted a few photos of the theatre itself, but I'll try to come back with my nice camera (and a steadier hand) sometime. (Nikon S210)

22

After morning class in the CLM (Centro de Lenguas Modernas, the Granada version of the English Language Institute back at UD), we typically sit around for a bit at the facultad (school department building) and use the wifi there to hit the internets. Unfortunately, it's pretty slow there, but it's good enough for my friend Laura to talk to her boyfriend Scott on Skype. (Nikon S210)

23

There are two girls who sit on Calle de Los Reyes Catolicos and wear a silver dress and silver makeup and one of them holds a red flower and waves at people. I caught them taking off their makeup late-night, around 10pm, the other night. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

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Tilting at windmills in Castille in La Mancha (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

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Overlooking a river running through Toledo, Spain (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

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Inside the basilica hosting Frederico Franco's remains. I wasn't supposed to take this picture =P (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

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In front of the Royal Palace in Madrid, Spain (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

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