Out of Class, analyzing a space with a partner

My partner, Tessa Del Grande, and I went to Mi Cocina to analyze the space. We went during happy hour at 5:30 so the restaurant was very busy. There was a long wait, but after a few minutes there was a table ready for us. The hostess seated us upstairs. Sitting upstairs gave us the advantage to be able to observe everything that was going on downstairs in the restaurant. The bottom floor of the restaurant is much larger than the upstairs so we had a great view of the entire restaurant. We wrote our field notes throughout the entire dinner, from when we first sat down until we finished eating and paid the check. As we sat at our table and looked downstairs, we observed the space of the restaurant below. We watched all the people downstairs eating their dinner or snacking on their chips. We also noticed the restaurant was very bright and the decorations on the walls were minimal.

This out of class assignment helped me understand exactly how I am supposed to write this first paper. This exercise helped me realize what I will need to observe for my paper. The concept of field notes is really helpful in analyzing spaces and writing a paper. When I observe and analyze a space for my paper, I am going to write down several more field notes about the place than I wrote down for Mi Cocina. I learned that the more field notes I have, the more I will have to write about.