Home, Sweet Home
The internship as it was ended last night, and I've written enough things about it to reiterate again. Right now it's home, sweet home for a month and then back to books for another year.
Vacation time, finally!

Countdown

Starting Monday will be the last 2 weeks of what has felt like an unusually long internship. The workload's still a lot, but then at least I don't work weekends like the Investment Banking guys, so it's always good to spend the weekend in Barcelona where the weather rocks and the beach awaits, right?

Wrong. For starters, my flight back to Barça on Thursday night was possibly the most disturbing ever. Right behind me was a child (I could swear he had a mark of the devil on him somewhere) who screamed at the top of his lungs at the airport in Madrid, during the entire hour of the flight, and after landing, as his parents even stood next to me as I was picking up my luggage at the conveyer belt, seemingly oblivious of the nervous breakdown their child was causing their fellow passengers.

Now let's get this in perspective - I have a nephew who, if let loose, leaves the house looking like Katrina has struck - not to mention he does have his fits of yelling and screaming and crying. So I'm pretty immune to what I consider "normal" child behaviour. The kid that was in the plane, on the other hand, took "normal" to a whole new level. I think 2 more hours of yelling like that and they would have had to make an emergency landing because the screaming would've loosened the screws from the wings or something. It was that bad.

Plus after I finally got into the taxi, hoping finally for some peace and quiet, I have to meet the only cabbie in all of Barcelona who would not stop talking about the advantages of putting on a seat-belt, because its mandatory since 1991, and because the sky would fall apart if I didn't. And I was on the back seat, on a ride that takes 15 minutes to reach my apartment. It was the longest 15 minutes ever. (And before you branch off into the advantages of using a seat-belt : I know.)

Not to mention the weather this weekend *sucks*, despite my sun-dance, which according to some people, was not the right sun-dance. So no beach.

However, all's not bad. I had a satisfying week at work, met friends for dinner, and intend to get some beauty sleep, now that the weather's prompting me to.

All's well that ends well.

Summertime

Last night those in Barcelona celebrated the official beginning of the summer with La fiesta de San Juan, when everyone comes out on the streets and lights firecrackers. So at Barceloneta, Barcelona's (in)famous beach stretch, were 3 generations of IESE students - two from class of 2007, a dozen from 2008 and representing class of 2009 was one brave soul.

It turned out to be almost like a picnic, people bringing food, blankets, cava & wine flowing freely, with a free spectacle (the fireworks!). It's almost exactly one year ago that we were right there, meeting everyone for the very first time, all starry eyed, not knowing what lay before us. Yesterday, with the exception of knowing people around us, the rest was pretty much the same. I can't believe it's been ONE WHOLE YEAR already. Pics have been clicked, will post them as soon as someone emails them around.

The job front has been fairly tranquilo so far. I've been told that on the coming friday we have the monthly (or is it quarterly?) Office Day where everyone from the Madrid office comes over to the Barcelona office (or vice versa) to meet and talk about projects, evaluations, presentations and some general banter. Another occasion to test my Spanish, which I must admit, atleast feels like it's getting better.

First Day

I doubt if the title requires any explanation - I officially inaugurated my summer internship today... and boy, what a day! I knew that some of the people at the firm spoke spanish so I was ready for just that - some spanish. What I didnt expect was to spend the last 11 hours talking to everyone single person - even the non-spaniards - in spanish.

Alright, it's not a fair complaint. I know I'm gonna look back at this with a smile, but for the moment though, I yet have to come to terms with my present situation.

But let's go to the bright side - the people were nice. I've been placed on a business strategy / market launch project(which I exactly what I wanted). I'll be based out of Barcelona and might have to occasionally fly to the client location. There's free food and drinks in the cafeteria.

I have a feeling this might go well. Fingers crossed!

Summer in Barcelona!

No, it's still firmly springtime here in Barcelona (which only means one thing - lots of rain!) but I'm talking about me spending my summer in Barcelona.

I finally heard from my number 1 choice for internship and they said Yes! Which means I get to do what I wanted so bad, and I get to spend summer in Barcelona. And hopefully pick up some more Spanish on the way. I can't believe my internship search is finally over.

In other news, this blog has been apparently nominated for the Best of Blogging awards. Gee, I must've done something right.