El Fin De Semana De La Hispanidad

Last Thursday most of IESE left to go on the London Banking Tour, to meet with contacts from various Investment Banks. I had a friend from New Orleans come in on his way back from Norway, so I stayed in Barcelona. I got a ride with Lluis to IESE, a Catalan neighbor of mine. But he’s not rabid Catalan, he still appreciates his Spanish roots. I like that. When we were heading to his car I had the privilege of meeting his dad, who lived in the same building. “Encantada” I said. It was so sweet. Both guys are terribly nice, terribly nice guys.

Between classes, I was walking up the stairs and I ran into my Marketing professor, the one I despised because he always yelled that I was wrong whenever I spoke up in class. Well, he had been calm with me lately. And when he passed me on the stairs, he looked me in the eyes and said, “Hello, Ann.” I couldn’t believe it! He knew my name! Which meant he noticed me in class, out of all the people, he took the time to give me some consideration, which is all I really want. (I’m just a simple girl at heart). All my apparent hatred for him seemed to melt away at the moment. And in class that day, he actually called on me twice and wrote what I said on the board.

It was a really good day.

Attendance at Spanish class that day was almost abysmal. It was just me and 2 other students, and we were discussing in Spanish the Banking industry. I was with 2 others who wanted to go into Industry and this implied that they thought all Bankers cared about was money. That was true, but I felt I had to defend my industry just a little. Before we knew it, we all were in a passionate debate, not paying attention much to how horrible our Spanish was sounding.

Little did we know our Spanish teacher was quietly recording what we said aloud and then after the conversation displayed the broken fragments of our discussion on the projector, in order to correct them later. Whether you are familiar with Spanish or not, the results are quite hilarious:

“Quien dice eso? Mi.”

“…like…uh….”

“Okey.. I mean ‘vale.’”

"Tu no necessitas estar en banca."

“Soy una persona muy debil.”

“Banking es un droga.”

“Solo necesito dame un CV y en un anno tiene un trabajo.”

You can just guess which were my statements: something about banking being a drug???

That following night was equally strange. Nathan and I go out for some tapas, and before long we were drinking, drinking, drinking. So we are wandering down Barceloneta around 2AM when we discover a boat tied to a dock. It was then that we had the brilliant idea that it would be advantageous to us to jump off the dock and swing by the rope, as shown below:



Nate jumped and made it. I wasn’t so lucky. I jumped, completely missed, then fell completely into the water. I was drenched from head to toe. Naturally, we decided to go to some more bars afterwards. Naturalmente.

Friday was La Hispanidad in Spain, a celebration of all those who spoke the Spanish language. Que magnifico. We must have toured all the sights in Barcelona and ate every kind of tapa there was. We visited bars….

Comimos tapas….


Vistitamos Casa Batllo....


Vimos monumentos….


Fuimos a la playa…. Habia barcas de vela.


El mercado en las afueras de la Rambla


A half Thai half Italian American girl drinking German beer in an Irish Pub in Spain...


Had those little fried fish (pescaditos fritos) and some paella and sangria on the beach. It seems like those little fishies on my fork are saying "Noooo... waiiittt...Don't eat me! I'm just a babyyyyy..."



And then I realized something that week…. I love Spain. It feels like home. I love the cobblestone streets, the good food, the wine, motos, scarves, the lifestyle, the holidays, how wonderfully nice the men are… I had envisioned going back to the US, but now I can’t imagine paying for things in anything but Euros. I think I just might stay in Southern Europe.