Tour de España

Quick little recap on what I have been up to for the last two weekends:

Weekend in Sevilla & Cordoba: our program took us to Sevilla, which is in Andalucia, which is southern Spain. The two cities were beautiful, meshing historic Arab influence in the infrastructure with the Spanish culture we see there today. Our program provided us with guides for the cathedrals and Jewish quarters in both cities. We also got to see a flamenco show...and let me tell you...there are no words to describe it. It was amazing-the passion and flow of the movement had us all mesmerized. I had some bomb paella & tapas and we had a blast exploring the night life in Sevilla. For all of you that eventually visit Spain: Sevilla is a must :)

Weekend in Madrid & Toledo: Last weekend, I went to Madrid with, the one and only Mel Zoerb, and spend the day/night with my friend Abby that lives in Madrid. Abby showed us around town and took us to an awesome club where we danced the night away. Bonus: they were playing music in Spanish! Just my style. Because we left for Toledo the next day, we didn't get to see much of Madrid...but we did get to see Retiro Park where we met people studying in Ireland and hung out with them as we took in the sun and watched the mass of row boats on the lake. Beautiful day! Mel and I headed to Toledo, via autobus, and met up with my friends that are studying abroad there. The rest of the stay in Toledo was amazing, its an incredibly beautiful little city with a medieval vibe that travels through the streets. Mel left Saturday, and I spontaneously decided to stay that night and leave Sunday.

My trek home was a littttle interesting...so I apparently have a little problem with abstaining from shopping, especially when I see sales (which last like two months in Spain...you can imagine why this is a problem now?). I couldn't help myself, and I bought a couple shirts on super sale and a pair of shoes. The problemo with this? You can only bring one bag (I brought my school backpack) and I arrived with it full. Oh, forgot to mention, that I randomly decided to buy a huge ceramic plate. Couldn't help myself. Sooo, Saturday night I realize I have nowhere to put all this stuff. My options were leave the plate and stuff I bought or....

layer.

So I wore like 6 shirts, leggings and jeans, a jacket, hat and scarf. Needless to say, I was roasting. My trek home was quite long, just to add to the adventure. I took a taxi to the Toledo bus station, then took the bus to Madrid (about an hourish), then flew to Girona, then took another bus to Barcelona, then walked home.

Well, at least I got my plate home :)

 Exhibit A

 Sevilla view from the bell tower

Toledo with my girls!

2 Euro 'verano tinto' (yummy wine) with free plate of tapas! Spain treats us foodies well :)

 Madrid: Retiro Park with Mel!

 Sevilla palace...really its Spain!

The bell tower...the only piece of the former mosque that they kept when they tore down the mosque to build the cathedral (Muslims were here for a period of time)

Daily Dose of España...Estoy Aquí

Estoy Aquí (I am here).

I see this on the sidewalk every morning that I walk to Spanish class. It never really meant anything to me and I always wondered what its purpose is or what the person who did it intended by it. Last week a sad event presented itself in my life and that of my family. I lost one of the most important people in my life, my Opa. At first it was a mixture of denial and anger with myself for being away and not being there with my family. I went through a mixture of emotions and am blessed to have a lot of my great friends and family supporting me through this all.

I wouldn't normally write about this in my blog, but today when I walked to class and saw the sidewalk, something hit me. Life is full of amazing people, experiences and single moments. These are what constitute the beautiful memories that we carry forth with us. At the same time, life is fragile and things that we never want or expect to experience occur. It's a part of our process to grow in our own shoes and in the world around us. Like the sidewalk says, "Estoy Aquí (I am here)," in this moment and in this place, and that's how life goes. Often times, like I did last week, I question why things happened and fail to understand that everything happens in its own time, and for a certain reason. Seeing the sidewalk reminded me that life is full of joys as well as bumps in the road, but the joys and memories we have created from relationships with people and experiences outweigh the challenging moments. It also reminded me that we can't control everything, and that sometimes we have to let life present itself in its true form because that's just what is meant to happen.

I miss my Opa dearly and think of him constantly, and even though it still pains me to know he is no longer with us in physical form, I know he will always be with me in spirit and in my memories. I was fortunate enough to be very close with him and to enjoy many wonderful moments with him. He is part of why I am who I am today. And, I thank whoever painted that saying on the sidewalk because with those two simple words I realized that we often waste away precious moments in life by being mad and upset about unexpected & challenging occurrences. Instead we should focus on living in the moment, knowing that you are there in that second  and in that place for a reason...and that everything that is important to you (including memories of those that you love) are there with you as well, in that very spot where you are standing.

Daily Dose of España...shows how little I know about world history...

This weekend we went on a program trip to Sevilla and Córdoba...more on that tmrw probably. But here's my daily dose for the weekend. I now realize how little knowledge I have in the arena of world history. Time to hit the books.


We had guides for both days...and here's a fact that I learned and had no idea about.


Andalusia (souther Spain) was invaded by the Muslims in the Middle Ages and therefore has a very heavy Muslim influence in some of the architecture that remains and in some cultural practices. 


Here's my juicy I'd like to share....some of you might know this, but pretend its a great educational discovery on my part ;)


Over 3,000 words in the Spanish language are founded on Arabic...for example, most words beginning with al- are based on Arabic.


Alfombra, almacén, etc...


I looked it up afterwards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_influence_on_the_Spanish_language


My new POA (plan of action) is to learn a lot of random facts and become a walking encyclopedia. 


Here's another: 1,000 yrs ago, Córdoba, which now has about 300,000 inhabitants, was the largest city in Europe...

Daily Dose of España..Yahoo! :guess I gotta learn how to yodel.

Just got back from interning at Yahoo! where I work on the Direct Response Advertising team. I've alwayyyys wanted to do the "agency thing" and finally my dream came true! The atmosphere there is awesome and I'm learning a lot about search engine marketing and all that good stuff. This program is through my program and is for credit...8 hrs a week, pretty legit, I'd say.

The agency is really modern and everyone there is really tight. About 60 ppl are in the office. They have a huge "hang-out" room where they have a kitchen, coffee machines (free hot cocoa too!), foosball, a Wii, etc. I'm a fan.
 *Funny story: first day I came in, my boss introduced me to every single person. ANDDD...here everyone says hi by kissing on both cheeks. So I had to kiss 60 cheeks twice ha. I'm used to it because in Mexico you do the same thing, but it still made me laugh a little.

Here is a picture of my building which is pretty new...

PS in case you were wondering, the Agbar isn't anything special on the inside, its the office for the water company of Barcelona. I mean, yea that's important, but its no museum or anything.

Daily Dose of España...New Places, New Obsessions

Yesterday...I finally gave up on my long and weary search for Special K Fruit and Yogurt cereal in Spain. It was a tough moment but I finally realized I have to be more open minded with my cereal selection, especially because my cereal hasn't expanded globally quite yet.

So...I went to Carrefour (aka the Walmart of Spain) and pondered for a good 15 minutes as to what cereal I wanted. Went with the Carrefour Cereales Rellenos de Leche (=cereal filled with milk). I needed to be adventurous with my new selection, plus it was cheap...bonus.

Let me just say that it's my new love. It's like I reverted back to my childhood Captain Crunch obsession. Really, it's that good. I pretty much ate half the box in one sitting and plan on bringing some home to the US. Some of you will be lucky enough to try it :)

Exhibit A

I guess it really does pay off to be open minded...

The Daily Dose of España: Classes in Foreign Lands

FIRST EVEER Daily Dose of España! What it is...I'll post something random about living in Spain/Europe so you can all get some insight into what life is like here as a pseudo Barcelona resident. These are the little things that are building this entire experience to be one that allows me to reflect upon the little things we do on a daily basis that make our day as grand as we intend it to be. These little occurrences or sights have led me to appreciate moments we might skip out on at home, others allow me to appreciate home a lot more, and other just let me see life in a new light and they help me learn something new about myself and the world around me. That's what this whole experience is about anyway, right?

Now...let's be real, I probably won't write one everyday, but I liked the name...so it's sticking :) I'll do my best to update these...

Here's todays!

One of the classes I'm taking is International Strategic Management. Even though everything we are seeing in the class I've kind of seen before in another Mgmt class, its a completely new class...and I'll tell you why. It's not from the US perspective. I think this factor is what makes learning in a new country so awesome! Not because the US view is right or wrong, but because we are never allowed the opprotunity to see things from these different angles.

In today's class we did a case study on EuroDisney and why it initially failed miserably. My prof, who knows his stuff and has an awesome British accent, was pretty much ripping on the US the entire time. The cool thing about it was that he invited all of us students from the US to share our viewpoint and debate his arguments. Some that he pointed out...were incredibly true...and I never would have seen it from that viewpoint had it not been for the opportunity to sit in a class that is outside of our academic comfort zone. AKA I'm learning and expanding my horizons! And...hopefully the insight we shared will help them expand theirs as well.

Tonight's class made me realize how much I'm starting to appreciate this whole experience on an academic level. Didn't know exactly what to expect coming in, but I like.

Kudos to global business and its mission to make us all a little more open minded.

Life as a Euro...

Three weeks into my European adventure...I'd like to think that I no longer stand out as a tourist around town, but I could be really off on my assumption. The city is pretty familiar to me now (after getting lost about a million times you have to be good at directions..even with a reputation such as mine). I officially started the rest of my classes this week (we only had Spanish for the last two weeks)...they seem pretty legit...its History of Barcelona, International Marketing, International Strategic Management, and an Internship class which is to supplement the internship I'm doing at Yahoo! Advertising (this pretty much made my world).

Recap on the last two weekends...one weekend we went on a hike with our program to Tibidabo, which is a small mountain area. At the top we went to a Spanish restaurant that serves Calçots, which are pretty much super long onions that you eat with a special sauce. This is a very traditional Catalan winter meal. It was a very cool experience!! The meal also included a Catalan toast tradition which is toast with garlic, tomato and olive oil...heaven on a plate, and a purron, which is an Aladdin lamp looking thing that has wine...please see pics below for the full effect :)

The view from Tibidabo...helllooo Barcelona

wereee ready wereee ready

Purron

and these would be the Calçots

I'll make this for all of you...sooo good

Lauren demonstrating how to eat a Calçot

Weekend that followed, about 11 of us girls decided to go to Paris!! It was freeeezing but so amazing. PS everyone...Ryan Air is not that bad at all!! Anyway, we toured Montmartre the first night (my favorite part of Paris) and went to a Fondue restaurant. The food was amazing and the experience was fun (they also served wine in baby bottles...too bad we didn't speak enough French to ask why...our vocab was pretty limited to Oui). Only not so bueno part of it was that the owner wasn't so fond of us...yelled at us in French a couple times (I didn't get why he kept doing it if he knew we still didn't understand what he yelled the first time...I guess he got mad because some girls showed up late because their cab got "lost"), and then he kicked us out at the end because there were tons of people waiting hhaha. We just went with it and laughed. The next day we saw The Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, The Arc de Triomphe, etc. It was a great weekend :) Oh and the hostel was nice!! Since there were 11 of us, we got an entire room...we called it the orphanage hah.

The cutest and best bakery I've ever encountered...you gotta check it out if you're in the neighborhood...Angelina

corny I know haha

I love all the little cafes & restaurants!

I thought this was soooo cool. Whoever did this, I'm a fan. 

The fondue restaurant

Our orphanage ;)

So this is basically what living like a Euro has been like...it has definitely been an "experience." I didn't really know what to expect from living in a different country and culture for 3 mths, but I feel like I have already learned a lot...not only about Spain and Europe, but about myself and home as well. I love how people here cherish every moment of the day...coffee to-go doesn't exist...people get coffee with their loved ones on a daily basis, which I think is pretty incredible. But I have also learned that this works for here...and as cool as I think it would be to do this in the US, it doesn't work with the rhythm of life that people have there. This is what makes me embrace the differences in cultures! The Spaniards I have met have been really nice (I mean people you interact with a little more than stranger basis). Sometimes, strangers you meet on the streets don't really know directions but still proceed to give them to you haha, which is all good, because I have time to get lost and explore (plus it has cured me-at least temporarily- from my bad sense of direction). I'll keep posting little Spain-isms on a regular basis so you all can see the day-to-day things that we see as temporary Barcelonians. 

Hasta luego!