June 25 and 26- Decided To Lump These Two Days Together

As the title suggests, I decided to lump these two days together because really it feels like just one big looooong day. We left Portugal on the 24th, and we'll be in Spain on the 27th. That only gives us two days between the two countires, which means we had a LOT of work to cram into 48 hours. I had three assignments due, a movie to watch, and countless pages to read. Now, the papers are finished, but the movie and the reading? Not so much. Oh well...

Right now, it's the night of the 26th and I'm absolutely exhausted. With our crazy schedule, I haven't been keeping track of what day of the week it is. It's either what day we are in the country (like Portugal: Day 2) or what class day it is (like class day 6 or C6). We moved into a new time-zone last night, so we lost an hour. That also means that I am now eight hours ahead of all of you in Montana and nine hours ahead of all of you on the West Coast.

Basically all I've done the past two days is work at the store, eat, do homework, go to class, and sleep (not enough). The only thing worth mentioning is that we learned some interesting stuff about Bilbao today in my architectural history class. everyone keeps talking about the Guggenheim. Guggenheim this. Guggenheim that. When I was researching Bilbao a couple of months ago, I kept seeing pictures of this massive, coolly designed museum. Turns out that museum is the Guggenheim!

In a nutshell, Bilbao used to be an industrial city. After Spain became a part of the European Union, Bilbao's economy decreased dramatically because Spain no longer needed Bilbao for it's resources. The city was dying, so some urban planners got together to see what they could do to help restore the city. Their solution? The famous "starchitect" Frank Gehry designed a 228.3 million dollar museum right in the center of town. The Guggenheim alone attracts 1,000,000 visitors to Bilbao a year, and it has brought in over $100,000,000 in tax revenues. This museum single-handedly saved the city. The only reason Bilbao is even on the map is because of the Guggenheim which is arguably one of the most beautiful buildings created in modern history.

All of this fuss about the Guggenheim is called the "Bilbao Effect." Essentially, this happens when a city culturally invests in arts or museums to attract tourists to their city. I couldn't help but think of our very own Lincoln, Montana when Professor Chunko was explaining all of this to us. For those of you who don't know, some locals in town are currently working with several artists from around the world to build a sculpture park in Lincoln. The idea is the same as in we all hope that the sculptures will help draw tourists into Lincoln to help boost our economy. I think it's a fantastic idea, and I hope the sculptures will help make Lincoln a destination place in Montana.

Check out the facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sculpture-in-the-Wild/443462522429266

So tomorrow some friends and I plan to go out into the city and visit this architectural wonder. Now the Guggenheim is still a museum, so it probably has some cool stuff inside that nobody knows about because they all can't shut up about the building itself. It should be fun, and I'm very excited. Wish me luck!