The Community – Sharing Stories

With the start of the course we have explored the suggestion that how we view our environment has an impact on how we treat it. Sustainability in the built environment is as much an action to our surroundings as a reaction to it. Many in the course have already expressed the lack of knowledge surrounding sustainability and its impact on the environment. Your midterm assignment is to explore, through representation, a mapping that will illustrate the inherent forces/flows/metabolisms occurring within your images from assignment 1.

Swyngedouw, from Social Power and the Urbanization of Water, states that urbanization is connected to the transformation of nature and the social relations inscribed within. Your explorations will take a two step process that will attempt to “re-present” the complex relationships of nature and social relations (as well as political and economic) occurring within/around/about the urban condition of your image. By exposing the underlying layers of a site’s perceived urban construct we can better understand the contradictory forces operating. True sustainable design has the capacity to mediate the power struggles that can disengage us from a sites fullest potential. This exercise will prepare us in creating a new process of socio-environmental reconstruction.

Monday, December 21, 2009

bottled water (bassem)


Good thing it only costs 500LL

Good thing it only costs 500LL – you can get a better price if you buy the dozen, because it’s cheaper by the dozen – the 1.5 L costs 750 LL (1.25 x the price, 3 x more water) – the 5 L gallon costs 1500 (3 x the price, 10 x more water) – the 19 L reusable gallon costs 5000LL, we get it for 4500LL, I don’t know how we got that deal though. (9 x the price, 38 x more water) –the last deal is better than the others, 263.14LL/Liter – you can go to the ‘ein (العين), fill up whatever container you have with the fresh cold water, no charge – you could set up your filtering system, get potable water straight out of the tap – you could also | WAIT – WAIT – WAIT | potable water out of the tap?! Why so surprised... Isn’t this how it’s supposed to be? Maybe in a million years –

He is a farmer, he lives in Akkar. Arab, jarab, darab, naatab, khachab, ghadab and yves are his sons who had survived, after the 5 others died. [they were a dozen]. With their father, they grow vegetables, the ones that would grow without water, tomatoes. They actually rely on rain water to get the crops, if it’s a dry season, they harvest the tomatoes after the first rain, no irrigation, they call the tomatoes baal (بعل (, now that they know how to grow crops with very little water, they still need to find out another way for having drinking water. No one mentioned potable water; they just need drinking water. Drinking water for them could come from the rain water they collect, a lake nearby, and sometimes, from the leaking faucet they have attached to the rusty pipe coming from we don’t know where. No ‘ein nearby, no luck for them. No good rain water collecting system neither, no luck for them. Lake dries sooner than they realize no luck for them. Faucet water is why abou arab now only has seven sons. Apparently, Mud, dirt, mire, muck, earth, ooze, sludge, giardia, E. coli, and protozoa did not prevent them from quenching their thirst.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Wastewater Treatment- Dana m



One day, Karim was wandering around the AUB campus while considering the idea of becoming a visiting student for the spring semester. That way he could spend some time with his relatives in Beirut. Wanting to take a look at the campus he started his journey to take in the sites that AUB has to offer. While he was walking around one of the departments, he almost tripped over a large bucket filled with some sort of bubbly water and white foam on the surface. Looking around for the reason of the ill placed bucket, he noticed one of the janitors mopping the floor inside one of the rooms. After a while, as Karim was going to the toilets, he noticed a little room on the side before the entrance of the restroom, where the janitor was disposing of what was now dirty “gray” cleaning water in a weird looking sink. It was the first time he had seen such a fixture. To his knowledge, the cleaning water is usually disposed in the WC. He couldn’t help but ask the janitor about that weird looking sink, to which the janitor smiled and answered Karim that it was called a mop sink. It is a fixture equipped especially for public buildings for cleaning water to be disposed of and he then pointed out at three metal rods coming out of the mop sink like ribs and said that those are used to hang the mops after they are cleaned. Happy by the discovery he had just made he then went down to Aain El Mreisseh, waiting for his cousin to be done with his classes. He had an hour to waste, and since he hadn’t been to Lebanon in four years, he decided to go to the Corniche and enjoy the sea side on this sunny winter day. As he was enjoying his promenade, he observed all the different user groups of the Corniche around him, the fishermen, the joggers, the couples flirting on a beautiful day and the few people swimming next to the fishermen. He then leaned on the rail and wanted to enjoy the horizon even more. To his misfortune, he decided to settle directly over a large pipe located right across from McDonald’s. To his surprise, when he leaned over, he saw all sorts of untreated wastewater coming out of the pipe to the sea. The pipe was discharging the wastewater without any treatment directly into the sea. He then looked again at the fishermen, the couples, the joggers and the ones swimming and was alarmed by what he saw. Compared to where he comes from, wastewater goes through all sorts of treatments to the point where it gets rehabilitated for irrigation, fertilizing the land etc... These people here are just hanging around this filth and they’re not even aware of it. He then thought back again about the mop sink and said to himself: why have these intricate fixtures if the water is not going to be filtered and end up directly into the sea anyway?!





Monday, November 30, 2009

Water Trajectory (Sources)











I was walking on the sea shore, people ahead of me; some are fishing, some are sitting, and some are jogging. On my right, the sea; the large boats scaling down gradually till my eyes met the horizon: An endless line that aroused my thoughts, this unrealistic line, is it a boundary of Lebanon? Of the sea? Of the earth? Of the sky? Or does it limit the Lebanese’s international water? Accordingly, and since our water and the international one are merged: how much does Lebanon profit from its water? What is the international water’s relationship to the sea water in Lebanon especially that it has a coast of about 225km? My sight shifting while walking, I could see the Jounieh bay now, and next to it the eastern mountains of Lebanon. I started wondering about that special Lebanese landscape where the mountains meet the shore, where my sight of vision goes up to define the undulated outline created by the peaks of those mountains. This is where rain water is filtered, purified and filled up in bottles just like this one I am holding and that I bought minutes ago.
I was walking by the Quaraoun Lake, in the Bekaa Valley, looking at the quiet scenery around me. Some boats for touring are waiting there, other water activities are available too, and few people were there only taking snapshots of the picturesque view. I was standing next to some rocks; a sort of a dry shore. I could see a blue line marked by the pebbles on the ground. This is where last winter the water level got to and in some coming months will hopefully reach it again. Looking at the lake, my eye filters the image to keep my sight into the one dominating element, Water. It is what you can only see at first. Then I start to realize the various tones of that water. The hitting sun is reflecting a shadow of the eastern Mountains in front of me into the lake. The water has a dark opaque color; I couldn’t see what is underneath it at the shore. It is filled with waste, polluted, with no life in it. Beyond the trivial boats at a halt, the flow of my sight following the water river is blocked by a rough concrete horizontal block called dam linking both the eastern and western Lebanese mountains. My eye now can see the delineation of the enclosing towns around the artificial lake: They profit from this water collection and the electricity produced from it. Isn’t this cove created by the natural leveling of the land? Aren’t they too provided by other natural water sources coming from the hills?
In fact, the sources of water originate from various places, yet meet in the same location. The topography of Lebanon allows for certain connections to take place, not just visually but also physically. The horizon appears not only as a boundary but also as the joinery of two different sources of water. The eastern mountains of Lebanon, with their water flowing, meet with the western mountains water in the horizon, in the sea, in the prevalent source of water that constitutes the lowest level in Lebanon.

By Nadine Al Harakeh and Massa Ammouri








Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Domestic Water Syastem - Roula Gholmieh, Maissa Naim




I wake up, go to bathroom and open the water faucet. I wash my face, brush my teeth. I use the wc and flush. I open the water faucet again,
wash my hands. I go to the kitchen, fill a glass of water from the water distributer, drink half of it, and put it back on the table. I go take a
shower. In the afternoon, I fill up the watering‐can and go out to water the plants. Later, I call my friends and invite them over for dinner. I go
to the kitchen take a cloth with some water and detergent and start cleaning up the counters. I go to the freezer and fill the ice cube trays. I get
some vegetables and wash them using the filtered tap water. Meanwhile, I start boiling some water for the pasta. 2 hours later, dinner was
ready and my friends were here. I accidentally spilled some wine on my pants. So I went up the stairs to the bathroom, clogged the sink put in
my pants, added some detergent and opened the faucet. I went back down, to check on the grill and serve the main course. We sat down and
started eating. Minutes later, water started dripping slowly from the ceiling, my brother started yelling. I realized I had left the water faucet
open upstairs. Oops.
But where did this water come from? Is it different according to the different uses?
It’s raining. The water goes down the rivers along Beirut. It is collected by the municipality, but most of this water isn’t used for domestic use, it
is wasted in the sea. Another water source comes from the ground, from the water tables. Today due to the insufficiency of the river water, the
municipality mixes both river and ground water. Before sending it to our houses, it is treated with chlorine in order to kill the living organisms,
and prevent their reproduction. This water is then piped to our houses. When the water gets to the reservoirs of our buildings, it is filtered from
the excess of sodium and magnesium by a softener device. Then it is distributed to the different water supplies of the house. Domestic water
use is separated into two user categories: kitchen use and bathroom use. Water used for the kitchen must be cleaner and therefore needs
more developed filters. Depending on how bad the quality of water is one gets to choose between a UV sterilizer that kills the microorganisms,
and the reverse osmosis device which can be plugged underneath the sink which is a recent technology consisting of a very fine filter therefore
giving very clean water. The water arriving from the municipality is supposed to be potable water but due to the big amount of chlorine used to
kill microorganisms an external filter is usually added on an individual water pipe to use it for potable water. On the other hand, bathroom
water used for body wash doesn’t need to be that clean, therefore it can use just the normal solid filter of the water pipe or if water isn’t of
good quality a softener device.
In Beirut, people usually get their water from the municipality but other chose to use individually ground water. Therefore the water in Beirut is
of bad quality and usually needs high quality filtering as the reverse osmosis technique, and therefore apply it for the entire water use.



Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Bottled Water Vs. Tap Water. Sara Abu Saleh & Ola Hariri

Hafiza wakes up in her bed, turning from side to side, irritated by the heat of a hot summery August morning in Beirut. The Air Conditioning in her bedroom is out of order. A drop of sweat is running down her forehead. Her throat is dry from the heat. Her body is dehydrated due to the alcohol she consumed in the neighbor’s house party last night.
Aching for a drop of water she sits up straight, looks around for a bottle of water. Unable to find one, she gets out of bed, drowsy, thirsty, and walks towards the bathroom to wash her face. She opens the water in the sink to wash her face. Seeing the water run down the sink, Hafiza feels as if she found an oasis in the desert. She was so tempted to stick her head under the sink and drink the water but all the while she was held back from doing so by the fear of getting sick from the tap water. So she sticks to washing her face and brushing her teeth. After having done so, her thirst grew stronger; and when she found herself out of bottled water, Hafiza rushed out of the house and started walking down the stairs towards the entrance of the building. The dryness of her throat was unbearable, it made her weak and drowsy, it made every step seem slower and endless..
She finally opened the gate to the street, rushed outside expecting to breath some fresh air, instead she felt the humidity in her nostrils and the heat on her skin. Her throat was getting torn from the dryness. She reach the mini market next to her house, ran towards the fridge and got herself a bottle of water as f it was the key to heaven’s door. Paid for it and drank it like it was the last drop of water she will ever taste.













Fishermen VS Towers






This photo was taken last summer 2009. I was completing my internship at an architecture office based in Ain el Mraysseh - Beirut. The office had a main view that gave on the sea. One day something weird was happening; it was impossible not to notice how the sea color was changing. It turned from blue to a greenish white, an unusual color that stirred feelings of disgust. This weird color faded away and the sea turned back to blue in an interval of 1 hour or so. But the color of dirt came back again just a few later, so I took a photo of it with my mobile because at that time I was working with friends of mine in an environmentalist party on an exhibition to raise awareness about ecological problems, so I was documenting every case I found to be alarming. Another hour and the color was gone again… The sea shore kept changing in color all day long it made us in the office wonder about it, we were a bit busy to go out and check what was happening. But we guessed it right. When I left the office that day, heading to my car, I noticed the construction site just next to the building where I work. Waste material was disposed off right on the shore!! And then waves would carry the entire waste deep in the sea… and the worst is that no one cared to stop this crime because the next day same thing happened again. The most striking is that I used to see people fishing around the same spot where waste was disposed off, and it’s at a proximity to where AUB beach is located!! Whoever was responsible of that construction site either had no clue about the harming effects of their acts on recreational spaces and aquatic life, or simply were they careless and selfish!

Mohammad A. Ramadan- Drinking Water Flows




I leave AUB and walk back home. On my way I feel thirsty, so I buy a bottle of water for 500 LL. When I arrive home, I open the drinking water tap and water flows from the tap. I feel lucky, as the municipality only provides drinking water two or three days per week. However, when I drink the tap water, I taste chlorine in it. As tap water is not pleasant to drink, and as I am not willing to pay a lot of money to buy “Nestle Pure Life”, I visit a water shop, and get a 20 litre plastic container filled with drinking water for 3000 LL. This is a typical story. The irony is that during the same day I drink expensive water, cheap water, and free water. The fact that the municipality provides free water only three days per week makes me obliged to rely on cheap water from water shops. Even when free water is available I might consider cheap water as free water has a “chlorine” taste. As for expensive bottled water, I am obliged to buy it when there is no other source of drinking water. This happens when I am in a public space. Now besides the cost, there’s a question of quality. In Lebanon, local brands of bottled water are supposedly of high quality, as they are bottled directly from the source, which is a natural spring that is not exposed at all to any contamination. As for the municipal water, it is controversial whether it is healthy to drink or not, but it’s for sure that it has an unpleasant taste that makes me reluctant to drink it. As for the cheap water, nobody can evaluate its quality! Its more or less pleasant taste and its very low price make it the most popular, but nobody is quite sure whether or not it is treated properly to become potable, especially that it comes from a groundwater well and it for sure needs treatment, as groundwater in Beirut is contaminated with nitrates.

BACKYARDS by Firas



BACKYARDS
by Firas Abou Fakher


CHAPTER 1

“Son, bring the hose closer!”

Shifting, a boy of 12 or 13 looks towards the far end of the field. Dragging the hose seemed worthless, he knew the water would dry up in a hour or so, but he says nothing.

“Where have you been this morning? you know its watering day.”

Nothing.

“Nothing!”

The son, shifting, drags the hose to the far end of the field, looks up at the houses around the field and sees a window begin to open in the landowner’s kitchen, no doubt to get a hint of a breeze.

CHAPTER 2

The window took too much energy, not worth what little breeze it let in. No matter, he pours another glass of cold water and sits by the window, watching the farmers tilling his land. Its a wonder they’re still able to make it, ever since the well dried up they’ve had to buy water from the neighbors and their farmers. No matter, he has no reason to trouble his mind, he gets the rent, all else is anecdote, it is a wonder. Where does the harvest go? it is a wonder. How has a group of Bangladeshi made it to these suburbs, taken control of pretty much all the agricultural fields, and managing to make a living? it is a wonder. He should just sell the land.

CHAPTER 3

“We’re not going to sell this month. The water’s out father.”

He knew this would happen, he knew his son knew this would happen, he knew this would happen again. Thoughts of rumors that farmers farther north are having similar problems, and that they were watering with sewage, had reached his ears and surfaced in these very moments.

“The water’s out father.”

CHAPTER 4

That was the second time today that his father was lost in thought.

“Father, the water’s out!”

“I know son.”

CHAPTER 5

The landowner closes the window and watches, he remembers when the town was a town, he remembers also when people started coming, quickly, and in large numbers, to live, affordably close to the center. He does not remember what it was like to be then, he reasons that that is part of human reason. He remembers, from pictures, what the mountain behind his house looked like before the migration. He glances again at the farmers, he wonders how long they will stay, if they will leave like the ones before them.

Karine + Rana

I am walking down the street
I am walking down the mountain…
I feel a drop of water falling on my head
I step on a puddle of mud…
I see a cut off translucent gallon by the wall, on the sidewalk. It is half filled with water
I see a yellow opaque gallon sitting on the ground, by the rocks
I hear – plop –the sound of a drop falling into the container water overlying the echo of cars honking
I hear – plur- the sound of a smooth water flow meeting the water on the ground complementing the sound of the wind and leaves
Stains of water are unevenly marked on the sidewalk… it is infiltrating through the joints of the squared tiles…moisture is taking over the white wall… It seems like water has been going outside the bucket. Did it overflow? Did it miss the target? Is there a leak?
A deep puddle of water surrounds the gallon. It is created due to the flat void in the ground…greenery is taking over the edge… It is spreading between the rocks. Where is all this water coming from? What happens to it?
I look up; I see where the water is coming from: a thin tube coming out from an AC unit. It is deviating the natural free fall of water to be collected
I take a step forward; I notice the tip of a bottle sticking out of a higher level of earth. It is diverging from the natural flow of water without touching the ground to reach it and drink it
Can I drink it? Is it collected to be used or, not to be stepped or dropped on? Can I use it rather than waste it?
I am drinking it. It is tasty and fresh. I use my hands to collect the water. It is dripping down my arms. I take an empty bottle and fill it with this natural water
I am walking away… I feel a drop of water falling on my head
I am stepping over the source….I am walking down the mountain….I am thirsty…I can’t find another source of water… it is good I have my bottle























Anthony+Dina: The Ibrahim River



The Ibrahim River, or ‘Nahr Ibrahim’ starts off in the mountains of Afqa in northern Lebanon with strong, dynamic waterfalls. It pools into small lakes and basins forming little paradises where people gather to swim and enjoy the untouched waters. From there, it is split into two separate streams by an electric dam. The waters continue into the villages of Chouwen and Janné, relatively clean, and still seem unharmed to the many campers that enjoy the cool of the riverbanks on hot summer days. They bathe in the cold freshly melted ice, and go back to the city with a rested mind and clear conscience, oblivious to the amounts of trash they are leaving behind to be carried downstream and caught in the rocks and trees growing in the river.
From here it is used modestly to irrigate the small agricultural plots that dot the mountain landscape, feeding the villages along the river. It goes through its first industrial processing through a second dam into an electric power plant in Yahshoush, significantly reducing the power of its flow. It can hardly be called natural at this point; as it approaches its final destination, concrete channels siphon the water off into numerous industrial stone and marble factories. The chalky, dusty residues and factory waste are dumped back into the now weakening river. Large banana plantations spread out on its banks, feeding off of its waters. By this point it has neared the highway and the urban population, the two separate streams are reunited. This is the only part of the river the city dwellers get to see. Restaurants line the sides of the river, and offer meals along the ‘natural’ and ‘pure’ waters. It is finally set free, allowed to flow passively and defeated under the highway into the Mediterranean Sea.

Bottled Volume, Bottled Value - Yasmina + Zeina





One day Gregor was walking in Beirut. He was thirsty, and decided to buy a bottle of water. He went inside a small shop and asked for a small Sohat bottle. The shop vendor gave him a blue plastic transparent bottle, in exchange, Gregor gave him 500 Lebanese Liras. On the Bottle, Gregor saw that it contained 500 ml.
What exactly is 500 ml? Gregor wondered... While he was walking, he passed by an old lady carrying big bottles of water. Those were the 2 liter ones. He had a thought.
"Excuse me, dear lady, how much did one of your bottles cost?"
"One thousand Lebanese Liras, my son."
That was stupid, thought Gregor, my bottle should be worth half its price!
The water in my bottle is a quarter of her bottle in Volume, yet it costs half.
What am I paying for then?
A big truck passes in front of him, carrying many empty plastic water gallons.
He remembers discovering that one of those contains 19 Liters. And only 5,000 Liras for it. How many small bottles could you buy with that? But how many could you fill, instead?
He decides to search for the value of his neighborhood in water.
On his right, he sees a roof terrace, and an old man watering his plants. The plants are grown in big blue plastic barrels. Some are empty though...
"Excuse me, sir, How much water can this barrel contain?"
"About 50 Liters, son"
"Wow! So if you caught the water from the rain in this barrel, you could probably fill hundreds of Sohat Bottles."
"True. This big tank here can contain 1000 liters, son, it is piped from the municipality, and I bet it would fill thousands of small Sohat bottles" the old man says.
"And how much do you pay for all this water then?"
"250,000 Liras a year"
"That's nothing! Has water no value?"
"Well, what you pay for when you buy a bottle is the process, the materials, the container that is holding your water, the journey your container goes through, to reach you. What if your rooftop became a container, or the ground, or the whole city?"
"Then the value of the volume of thousands of small bottles will disappear" Gregor said.
"The city can be worth millions of small water bottles, but we don't have to pay their price."


Monday, November 23, 2009

Dima Atchan - Revealing the Underground




The Earth has been running through the planetarium system for millions of years now, and since its formation it has been tightly related to nature. In fact, in any graphical representation, mother earth, the land, is represented as green, natural. Since then, the ecological/environmental system has been found on a universal equilibrium where any creature is in total harmony with nature which founded the balance of our planet. However, our appearance as a more complex specie, complicated the natural global process.

Our articulate specie defeated the natural and broke all the rules of the universe and instead of our gradual extinction like most of the early creatures, we were able to overcome the environment and to surprisingly adapt it to our needs. And thus we grew bigger as proved in all demographic researches and our population increased rapidly especially after the radical ‘evolutive’ era that is still till nowadays thriving.

Our humanity and articulate character permitted us, since the Greek Empire, to appreciate the ‘logos’- logic- over the ‘mythos’- ideologies and values. Logical thinking permitted us to observe, think, predict and find solutions to problems accordingly; in other words to build properly. This is how we enhanced the quality of our lifestyles and avoided the natural disasters, although we were the main reason behind other more dangerous catastrophes especially after the invention of weapons. We were our own savors and our own destructors- Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s nuclear bombs. Our misconception and misinterpretation of the flow of our actions not only caused our premature fatality but also accelerated the environmental resources’ extinction illustrated by the climatic changes, pollution and the planet global warming.

As a way to relieve our human consciousness, international protocols for the environment took place and many actors have taken upon themselves the responsibility to raise people’s awareness all over the world. Designers/architects as well contributed to this issue by creating the sustainable movement. The latter, which is a built system that uses the natural resources and recycles it to re-use it again, is being applied largely in all kinds building’s typomorphologies.

Residential buildings have taken the lead in the application of sustainability through the green construction movement where resources are being managed and especially the water resources and solid wastes that are being reworked and recycled as gas for domestic use.

Concerning the water system in building, two drainage systems are employed, one known as black water; it carries human excrements through special pipes to be discharged in the sewage system. The other system is constituted by the pipes carrying the grey water; it includes both lavatory and bath water. This second water system is usually either treated within the building so the water will be reused in the fixtures or it will be treated elsewhere to be discharged in the sea. This cycle is known as a primary level of treatment; it is somehow practiced in Lebanon on a small and limited scale at Al-Ghadir Sewage Water plant. When the second level is attained, the grey water can actually be used for irrigation or for fixtures (flushing the WC). And finally, if the last level is reached, grey water could eventually become tap water.

Unfortunately, none of the two last cycles exist in Lebanon or in Metropolitan Beirut, or even within the limits of Ras el Nabeh where the picture has been shot. In fact, most of the grey water drained from the residential buildings in Ras el Nabeh circulates through the sewage system to be directly projected in our Mediterranean sea, at the shore’s level which does not only result in undesirable odors but also results in the spread of bacteria and diseases in the polluted air. Nevertheless, the leftover residential buildings within the area drain its grey water in the manhole to reach Al-Ghadir’s river that transports the water to Al-Ghadir’s plant and accomplish the primary level of treatment but not to be reused, but to be discharged in the sea.

The abuse of our water does not rotate around its treatment and discharge but also about the mixing of both the grey and the black unrecyclable water within the same water receptible system. Moreover, our lack of coordination and underground planning resulted in a mischarge of our rainwater that is directly shed in the grey and black water sewage system instead of assigning an independent water receptible system.

Our unconscious environmental abuse is extending to generate greater calamities that are one more time added in the human’s record, especially in developing countries such as ours. Our unaware actions, although unintentionally, are severely afflicting our natural ecological system and profoundly altering our water system that is rapidly proceeding into wreckage.

Perhaps, the first step to begin with of the healing process should be at least the installation of a sewage system (manholes) in some forgotten area. This is not to mention that the usage and exploitation of the underground water resource should directly clogged and future plans should be put under study in order to utilize our abundant rainwater and to store for future usage and distribution within the built systems and the different city usages.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Dara Dajani - Cruising Seawater












































STORY

Last summer I joined my friends on a trip to Europe as their graduation gift. On July 3rd, we left to Barcelona and spent four amazing days there. On July 7th we had a plane to catch to Rome, which we forgot to confirm, so we lost our seats. Instead of waiting to catch the next flight out, we decided to get on board of a cruise that was leaving the port of Barcelona heading to Rome; I consider it to be the most rewarding experience.

On the boat trip, what was fascinating was the way the ship dealt with the water all around; water was not only used for transportation but for recreation as well.

As you can see the picture was taken on a ferry ride set out to sea from Barcelona to Rome, the sea water was used as means of transportation on which the ferry travels, carrying on board 2200 passengers of all nationalities, as well as garage capacity for 215 cars.

As for the recreation part, we spent our time relaxing around the ship and swimming in the pools that are located on the upper most level of the ship; the pool, around which, everyone hangs out during the day before they hit the casino and the bars in the late evenings. There are two pools on board, one big, rather deep pool for adults and another small shallow one for kids; the picture illustrates the friendly and enjoyable atmosphere provided by those pools, generating a public bathing area on board gathering all the people and providing a meeting spot. We sat around the pools hoping to get a nice tan, and checking the Italians out.


In the pool, competition arose between us foreigners and the Italians, as we split into two teams playing volleyball and chicken fight, a game in which one carries the other on his shoulders, since the weight is reduced by the presence of the water, and the people on top try to push each other down, until one falls. After a long afternoon of sports, we were so hungry that we got out of the pool, hit the bar adjacent to it, and enjoyed a great meal of burger and fries taking pleasure in the view of the sea.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Posting Instructions

Post your story and images here - select "New Post" from above tool bar.

1. Enter your name(s) and brief title of your mapping.

2. Paste the text into the writing field

3. Attach your images by selecting the "add image" icon (small photo with blue sky) in the "new post" tool bar. Include your original photo from Assignment 1.

4. select "publish post"