1/15/11 "Sitges on My Mind"

We got on the train bound for Sitges around 11:00am. I love taking trains and watching the scenery whiz by. There was a strange player on our train, this town always surprises me.

Getting to Sitges was no big deal and we made straight for the coast. It was a beautiful sunny Saturday and it seemed like most of the town's families were out and about riding scooters or playing soccer.

The ocean was incredible and we made our way through the city throughout the day.

We ended our day by watching the sunset, eating bread and drinking wine.

1/14/11 "Saying Goodbye"

We had to say goodbye to Carlos and gave a presentation of what we learned while we were in Barcelona.

Two things I learned from School:
1. You are only profitable (in every sense of the word) when you are ethical.
2. It is hard to acknowledge your mistakes, but more costly to act like they didn't happen.

Two things I learned from Spain:
1. The importance of observation; picking up social cues. The same can be said of business.
2. How much we use nonverbal communication.

After we wrapped up our final class we had this exquisite lunch on campus- the last time we would be gathered at IQS. It was really great.

We later went to another on of Gaudi's houses.
It is like straight out of Dr. Seuss.

Then called it an early night.

1/12/11 "Car-Plane vs. Jumbo XL Jet"

Today we had a study of international marketing by Marsel Gifico. He is an absolute genius and oa true entrepreneur in every sense of the word. He made his first fortune created the Spanish version of Yahoo, known as Ole. Ole was very popular throughout Spain and Central/South America because of its name which evokes the very spanish tradition of bull fighting. After it was bought by a larger internet company, he did not like being stifled by the bureaucracy and left.

His next project was to use SMS to relay information, in 2000. Waaayyy before texting was even a thing. He said that when he came up with the idea only .01% of people who had cell phones used SMS texting. Using the technology he relayed information like jokes, stock quotes, and even toyed with a twitter like application. You send your text message to the company with numbers and then depending on the numbers it would be sent to your friends.

He spoke often about finding trends in markets. That it is a marketer's job understand where technology is going and how to best get people excited about it. He argued it is marketers, not consumers, which create trends. He had us do a small project in which we tried to predict which market would be most accepting of a Spanish red wine. Mexico, Australia, and China look to be the best markets.

After school we walked to the Science Center of Barcelona. It took way too long and the tourism maps are just not precise enough. But we found it and it was pretty cool. That's about it for today. And for some reason I didn't take any pictures so...

Here's a church.

And a bird.

1/13/11 "Sex, drugs and R n' R"

Today we had class and our field trip at Synthon. It is a generic pharmaceutical drug maker so we couldn't bring out cameras in. We could only take pictures of the classroom we were in.
Their motto is Seek EXcellence, by creating DRUGS, and want to Remain iN the Race. (Or something like that, I forget how RnR went.)

Today we learned about what it takes to be a leader, about implementing your ideas and knowing we too & how to make tough decisions. The best advise that I took out of this was to never be afraid the scenario in which you train someone, put in alot of time, and then they decide to leave for another company. He said that it was bad to think this wasy because it leads to you half heartedly training them, if you do that then they will leave. If you train them properly and show them that you care then your employees will want to stay. He was a font of such advise.

We then took a tour of the facilities. It's really cool because this tour also played into my current job. I have basically seen the entire cycle of pharmaceuticals.
From prescribing, to insurance claim, to the making of the drug, and then dispensing. We had to put on basically hazmat suits, in case of contamination, going so far as having to put on two layers of protective material.

After we were finished I decided to go off exploring the city on my own.

I first went to Arc de Triumf

The only green patch in Barcelona

The Catalonian Parliament

Picasso Museum

Esglesia de Santa Maria del pi
(Eglesia- "church")

St. Joseph Oriol is buried there.

Esglesia de Santa Maria del mar
St. Eulalia (co-patron of Barcelona) is buried there.

1/11/11 "01000111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01001010 01101111 01100010 00100001"

Tuesday

We learned about Fighting Poverty and Social Exclusion. This is exemplified by Fundacion Engrunes estabilished in 1982.

The idea behind this is give work to people who are on the fringe of society. This means getting the dregs of society to work. People who have been and are currently in the program include domestic violence perpetrators, incarcerated, homeless, drug addicts, alcoholics, etc. etc.

Engrunes brings the people to their company, give them a mentor and begin the rehabilitation process. The process focuses on job orientation. It is often the case that companies won't hire these people, or they simply don't have any skills. What Engrunes does is give them jobs and works with them to instill certain work place qualities which are essential for keeping a job. These include basics like punctuality, subordination, temperament, along with many other things.

This is a company, not a government agency, they are out to make money and through rehabilitation on their employees they do just that. This is however, just a stop along the way to a job. They work at this company for around 2 years and then are sent to look for a job. 3 people from last year's graduating class have jobs, 22 are still working, but this is a 100% success.

We didn't really do anything of importance after going to the company, just walked around and admired the architecture. We tried to go see a bunch of Gaudi's houses, but they were all closed. Bad luck.

1/10/11 "Week's End"

The Mondays.... We went to IQS and were surprised, all of the students are back and they dress really well for going to school. It is refreshing to not see a single student in sweat pants.

Today we learned about supply chain logistics from Mrs. Blasco. Logistics was first thought up by the military in 200 B.C. It is simply the managing of assets, in that time it is making sure that an army has enough food, water, clothing, and shelter to make it to the battles. Now we use logistics on most effectively using our assets, making sure products get to where they need to be on time. Logistics is the science of connecting present production with future demand.

After her presentation we went to the port to learn about logistics in the port of Barcelona. In the past few months the port has broken ground and is underway in building alomst 2 miles of new port area.

What's funny is that until recently Spain wasn't connected by railway to the rest of Europe. During the time of steam engines and the first locamotives Spain was still reeling for the Penisular War, for all you non-history buffs it was a time in which most of Spain was occupied by Napolean. A certain politician wanted to limit the use of locomotives by invading armies, so they created rail lines with a different width and created special engines and cars to ride on the special rail. The problem with this is that in this day and age Spain is at a severe disadvange when trading amongst the EU because they have to switch tracks at the French border (consuming around 3 hours). Barcelona's port has recently been connected with France via a new standard rail line, and the expect port commerce to boom because it is in a prime location and has great facilities to receive shipments.

Today I went off on my own, no one really wanted to get out and I was feeling antsy so I explored the city for the first time.

I went into the public library

Saw the Museu d'Art Contemporani

Walked past a house designed by Gaudi

And Realized that we have been walking past a La Sallian university on our way to class.

1/8-9/11 "The Weekend"

Started off Saturday with a bang going to a winery. The Torres Winery to be more specific. We learned that the company began in the 1870s and has since grown fairly substantial in size, about the 5th largest wine producer in Spain.

We took a tour of the rather large estate, learning how they distilled the wine and brandies and the many different grapes they use to create each wine. They have around 100 different varieties of grapes.

I tried about 3 different wines and to my knowledge my first brandy. They were all great and I can't wait to be classy and go to a winery again.

That night we went to dinner at around 10pm and then headed for a discoteca around 12:30. We got a little mixed up on the metro, but we made it around 1. It was hoppin, techno/house was blaring and I was in the zone. It was so much fun and the house was right up my alley. We are planning on going again later this week.

Saturday morning we boarded a train for Montserrat. It is a monastery an hour outside of Barcelona which is atop a mountain. So we get off the train and had to take a cable car up the mountain. Montserrat has been active since the 9th century.

At the end of the line we found that along with a basilica and a monastery, Montserrat has a school, hotel, eateries, museum, printing press, and hiking trails. We kind of walked around the town a little bit learning about the history of Montserrat.

Montserrat is important for 2 reasons. The first being that it houses the black virgin of Montserrat which was purportedly brought over to Spain by St. Luke in 50 A.D. and was found to be immobile so they built the basilica around it. The black virgin of Monserrat has been connected with many miracles and is one of the most pilgrimaged sites in Spain.

The second reason it is important is because it is the place where St. Ignatius layed down his sword and went on to found the Jesuit order.

After we did all there was to do in Montserrat, we decided to trek up the hill. After first we promised it would only be 15 minutes. But as we got further into our hike, it became apparent that we have come too far to not make it to the top. We did.