A day in Barcelona

My boss sent me off to Barcelona yesterday—I must say, a business trip to Barcelona is WAY cooler than my typical travels at my old gig (Springfield, Missouri anyone? Overland Park, Kansas?) so I guess there are some perks.

Basically, I’m coordinating our company’s 1st annual sales meeting for our European partners and I had to do a site check (meet with the hotel’s marketing person, check out the conference room, confirm the audio equipment etc). My boss just happens to be in love with Barcelona so he’s scheduled the event to take place there (as opposed to Paris or London, where we have offices) from Wednesday through Friday afternoon, so we can spend the rest of the weekend enjoying the city… I think I’m going to like him ;o)

One thing I must grudgingly admit about Seventeen, they were cheap bastards but they hardly skimped on business trips—chauffeured car service to and from the airport, lenient hotel and meal budget, and they conveniently looked away when you added a few personal items to your expense report (magazines, shampoo, jewellery, dinner at 5-star restaurants)—it was no Condé Nast, but it was tolerable.

This trip on the other hand proved to be a different matter entirely. First of all, as I was fated to fly Ryan “Budget” Air, it meant that I would be leaving from Beauvais airport way out in the suburbs. Would I get a car service or at least a taxi to take me there? Oh no! I had to take public transportation, which in Paris at 5AM means an hour on the “Night Bus” (the metro only operates from 5:30AM – 1:00AM, ridiculous, I know) full of drunken partygoers, night workers and gypsies (the dregs of Parisian society) to reach the outskirts of town, followed by an 1.5 hour shuttle bus ride to the airport. And naturally, I flew into the furthest airport in Barcelona so I took another 1.5 hour bus ride into the city. And on top of all this, my flight was delayed two hours due to bad weather. Sweet.

So I finally arrived in Barcelona around 3PM on Wednesday, surprisingly in high spirits. I had just enough time to take a cab to the hotel, meet with my contact, race out to grab a quick lunch of paella and Spanish beer at this cute little restaurant in the most charming neighborhood (the Gothic district, see pics below) and have an interesting convo about Spain with the Pakistani owner, get lost down a few streets, then cab it back to the terminal to catch the bus back to the airport—all within about 2 hours. The funny thing was I had about 6 languages running through my mind so every time I asked for directions or anything, I kept saying grazie instead of gracias and parles instead of habla—it was a mess.

But Barcelona is gorgeous… I definitely have to do an extended trip out there to take in the city properly (which I’ll do during our sales meeting next month!). As rich and touristy as this city is, it’s still relatively cheap and has this really quaint, small-town feel. I was pretty surprised at that. I was expecting a city kind of like New York or Paris because all I ever hear about Barcelona is that it’s an amazing place to party, but it felt more like Philly or D.C. Clean, wide streets, historical, artsy, slightly subdued pulse but with lots of life. The interesting thing is that Barcelona is surrounded by these slums, for lack of a better word. Like the shantytowns that you’d find in some 3rd world country… very bizarre. You’ll get an idea from this picture I took from the rooftop pool of the hotel. The hotel is in the center of the city and the most breathtaking view in the place looks over the entire city... it just looks like a ghetto.

Of course, my trip wouldn’t be complete without the requisite male correspondence. I had about an hour to kill at the airport before my flight back to Paris so I was walking around the terminal trying to decide where to eat. I went into a restaurant, ordered my food and carried my tray to the seating area to find a table. I passed a group of guys as they were leaving the restaurant to walk to their gate and one guy turned, looked back at me and smiled. I was like “hmm, cute” but just sat down and started eating without really thinking about it. Next thing I know, the cute boy comes back, sits at the table next to me and says, “So, where are you from?” We start chatting and it turns out he’s from a small town in the north of Italy, just graduated with an economics degree and is looking for a job in the finance department of a fashion company in Barcelona but if not, Milan. Fashion Boy is decidedly obsessed with fashion and after about 20 minutes of quizzing me about my experiences at fashion week, New York, trends and my favorite designers, he notices that his plane has boarded and asks me for my email address because he would like to “talk to me about fashion for hours”. He begs me not to judge him by what he’s wearing because, he says, he just likes to travel comfortably (he was wearing a white button down, jeans and sneakers) but promised that his suitcase contained lots of great suits, Italian designer clothes, and namely pieces from Dior and Gucci. Uh, ok… anyway, his one saving grace was that he was really adorable and potentially gay... and at least I'll have another European fashion contact! Anyway, that was Barcelona :o)