10 Things about Nicole Hatjioannou

Hey Everyone! Nicole here -

1.  Feelings on coffee

I am not a fan of coffee.  I don’t plan on being a fan either. I know I know, how can an architecture student survive without coffee??? I don’t need coffee’s caffeine to keep me awake and going, I’ve got my own energy!

2.  Favorite color

Blue. It’s the kind of blue that makes you smile when you see it.  It’s the blue color you always reach for. You wish all food could be that color blue. That’s my favorite color.

3.  I'm from

Charlotte, North Carolina. I’ve lived there my whole life and don’t feel comfortable driving around downtown. I would like to live in downtown Charlotte for a while, just to say “I’m from Charlotte” and to have experienced it all. Great museums downtown, by the way.

4.  Previous life before architecture

I can’t remember my life without architecture. Ha. Kidding. I spent most of my time tying ribbons on my pointe shoes. But, I’ve been exposed to architecture my whole life, so even though I wasn’t studying it at school, I knew I loved it and was interested in it.

5.  Favorite road trip foods

Granola bars - Chocolate chip. Trail mix. Wheat thins. Cheez-its. You know, unhealthy food.

6.  I'm looking forward to

Everything!  You should always look forward to something, right???

7.  At Forum, I'm looking forward to

Working on my sketching ability. I don’t want to depend on my camera so much this trip. I even want other people to draw in my sketchbook – if you haven’t done this with me, you should. It’s fun. I’m pretty excited to see the Phoenix Science Center too.

8.  My preferred mode of road trip documentation

I take notes. I draw, not for perfection or to show off, but to help me remember certain things. For example, today on the airplane the guy sitting near me had a funky hair cut, so I sketched it out. If you asked me to explain it, I could in a heartbeat, pretty accurately too. (I’ll show you the sketch sometime).  The baby sitting next to me smiled at me when I smiled at him. I made a note of that in my sketchbook. 

I also like writing down what people say – funny quotes, serious ones, questions I have or thoughts that I have. And don’t get me wrong, sketching and photography are wonderful too, but I think the tiny details you remember make a road trip  (and just life!) memorable. Combining all of these things together makes a great documentation!

9.  Books I brought on the trip

The AIAS CRIT magazine, and The Hunger Games (everyone says it’s good).

10.  What would I do other than architecture

I’d like to be a comedian. If that doesn’t work out,, I would just travel around and read jokes to people.  A lot of people could use a good joke, dontcha think?

The Petrified Forest in 60 Minutes or Less

When Shawna, Kelly, Jimmy and I arrived at the Petrified Forest National Park we needed fuel. It was out first stop since lunch, four hours earlier, so we took our time roaming in the gift shops, there were three. Maybe the kitschy gifts and toys brought out the children in us because Jimmy and Kelly had a snow ball fight and I felt compelled to imitate a desert lizard sculpture.

"We need to get going guys," said Shawna. We pilled into the SUV and headed to the gate.

"The park closes at five, so you have 50 minutes." The gatekeeper said.

"How long is the road?" someone asked.

"28 miles" Shawna said, "so we got to be quick."

We had been driving through the desert all day but as soon as we approached the overlook the landscape opened to expose a rippling velvet pink valley and we all gasped. Then we jumped out of the car to take pictures. After snapping picture like paparazzi we sprinted back to the SUV and hurled down the two lane road at 50 miles per hour. We stopped at as many places as we could: Pintado point, Nizhimo point, Newspaper rock, the Tepees, Jasper Forest and finally Crystal Forest.

With each new turn we became more giddy and louder as we screamed, "look at that," and "no, over there."

The vastness and texture of the painted forest proved more profound than photographs could hope to express. Instead of processing the landscape to a point of astute analyzation, the visual stimulation of purple and magenta banded limestone mounds and orange, gold and red crystalized logs came at us with a constant assault.

We rolled out of the park a few minutes after five feeling satisfied and humbled by the painted desert and the petrified forest.

Day 3 | Wednesday | December 28

Need for speed

The gate keeper told us we had to be out of the park by 5pm and, oh by the way, it's 28 miles to the end. I looked at the clocked - 4:15pm - I've got this... So with a bit of fancy maneuvering we made it out just in the knick of time and we didn't miss a thing.

The Great American Petrified Forest Road Race

28 miles. 50 minutes.

And then Jimmy started running... And we all followed suit. With Shawna driving only a mere 40 miles over the posted speed limit we managed to make it through the whole park, making executive decisions about where to stop.

Once stopped it was a free-for-all of picture taking and then a race back to the car.

And it was beautiful... Most was fairly typical of the southwest, but the petrified wood was really unexpected, a plethora of colors and textures. And by petrified wood, I mean huge fallen trees, but where did they come from? There certainly aren't any trees of that scale there now. And they said not to take any of the wood with you, but with all the mystery how can you resist just one souvenir?

Toms... Not made for ice

Snow? In the desert? Really? I am clearly just not prepared.

Amarillo was where we first saw snow and that continued through most of New Mexico.

Stop one of the day was Cadillac Ranch, a recommendation from our friends, Jacob and Liz.

On this particular plot of land an art group, Ant Farm, chose to plant cars, right in the ground, nose first.

And the deal is.. You spray paint them, leaving your mark , asserting your presence to all other travelers. So in fluorescent orange vertical lettering I wrote KellyMo, for all the world to see. I wonder how long it will last?

Seriously, who gets married in December on a Tuesday afternoon, a few days before new year's eve? Really...

Thorn Crown Chapel was a bust, apparently someone had scheduled a wedding the same day we were passing through. We snapped a few pictures from the outside but a woman (either the brides mother, the wedding planner, or the head person of the chapel) ordered us off of the property. We tried to to tell her we had driven all the way from North Carolina but she said she didn't care and it wasn't her problem. It didn't look that good anyway. It took me a few hours to get over this occurrence but what can you do?

We stopped at Crystal Bridges Museum (which was also closed but we knew that). The place was beautiful, we got to walk the grounds and I had a conversation with one of the workers testing the ponds. The cedar set into the concrete had already faded to grey within the first year it had been put up (the contrast between the wood shaded from the sun and the exposed wood was stark to say the least). Too bad we couldn't get inside, the glulam beams looked amazing from what we could see on the outside. There were also two smaller pavilions on the grounds that looked like they could have been student design build projects.

Somehow we ended up in Tulsa on the way to Oklahoma City and got to see the BOK Center which is a sports/concert arena. We ate at Braums which was a burger/shake joint for dinner there. We arrived at Oklahoma City around midnight and walked around the memorial to the bombing back in 1995. I'm glad we were there during the night, it was an amazing experience.

After that we drove (I should say Kelly, she drove most of today, mvp award) to Amarillo, Texas which took about 4-5 hours and got to our hotel around 4am. We have to hit the road at 8am to see Cadillac Ranch. We stopped at a Hobby Lobby randomly somewhere at some point today when we were getting gas and I picked up some orange and blue (they said I could pick the colors, haha).

Everyone is asleep right now.