Midterm Review

I cannot believe my internship experience is already halfway over. I feel as though I am finally getting the hang of things here. I don't get lost every time I leave my apartment anymore, although the other day Jenna and I did spend a good hour and a half wandering around Plaça Catalunya, literally around the block from our destination. I have even gotten used to the metro system. Last week we figured out a way to avoid the terribly long, underground hallway we have to walk down when we change lines to go to the beach (which we suitably nicknamed Hell Hallway).

The view of the city from a park near my apartment (a great place to go running)

Sitges, one of our favorite beaches, is a short 30-40 minute train ride from Barcelona.

I could spend all of my time here.

Although living overseas is not without its complications, and I have been frustrated at times, I honestly do love it in Barcelona. The city, despite the jorts, has grown on me. This weekend, when everyone else in our group was off traveling to Madrid, Rome, and Ireland, four of us stayed back and embraced the chance to do some more exploring. We went to an awesome park - Parc del Labyrinth, which had fountains and amazing buildings, and a maze made out of bushes (think Harry Potter, only not as scary). Then we saw Arc de Triomf, walked through Parc de Ciutadella, and ended at the beach. Definitely a successful day.

Parc del Labyrinth is limited to only 750 people at a time, in order to preserve the garden's beautiful and delicate structures.

Because the park is off the normal tourist path, it was really peaceful and cool to explore.

Arc de Triomf

Barcelona has some of the most beautiful parks and fountains in the world. This was taken at Parc de Ciutadella.

A typical Spanish afternoon.

While my life outside of work could not be better, at this point I am still struggling to accept the differences between the Spanish office in which I am working and my previous internship experiences. My main project for the summer, "La plantilla ideal", or ideal staffing, entails analyzing productivity, sales, and hours worked in all Desigual stores, to develop a model for the number of full-time employees, part-time employees, and managers each store needs based on size. It is really interesting to learn more about retail and how success is measured by using the actual figures. I would never gain such an authentic learning experience in a classroom. However, the language difference does slightly complicate things for me, as I have never studied words such as "productivity", "customer service", etc. in any Spanish class I have taken. I have made a list of the business vocabulary I have learned, and hopefully soon I will have to refer back to wordreference.com less times each day.

Other than working on my project, my current work load is pretty light, which is something that is hard for me to get used to. I need to be busy to be productive, and the down time at the office frustrates me. However, I realize Spaniards have a different mindset than we do in America. Rather than dumping lots of assignments and projects on interns, they allow us to create our own experience. We can work at whatever pace we choose, as they have not given us very strict deadlines. Moving forward, I need to be more proactive in initiating communication with my boss and the other people in my department, and take the initiative to ask for more work when I feel that I need something to do.

This quote is on the door to the office Cantina. Translated, it means "This is the best moment, of the best day, of the best week, of the best month, of the best month, in the best year, of the best decade."