Last Post!

Phrase of the week: “We have to do the blog.”
Observation of the week: We don’t have enough time to do the blog. Although it was a great idea, we unfortunately ran out of time and let the blog slip. Sorry!

Our last 3-4 weeks here have been busy, but fantastic. We spent a long weekend in Paris in early March, and Tim liked it just as much as I hoped he would. Even though it was cold and raining the majority of the time, it was perfect weather exactly when we needed it to be. Tim got the speed tour of Paris – Musee d’Orsay, Eifel Tower, Rodin Museum, Luxembourg Gardens, the Louvre and Versailles. We stayed on the left bank on Rue Dauphine, perfect location. We ate street crepes everyday because everything else was so expensive, but a lot of great food as well.

After Paris, we flew back to Barcelona for Tim’s final week of class. Here are Tim’s final impressions of his classes:

• Creative Problem Solving: Our teacher must have liked our ideas, because we got an A on our final presentation. I had the opportunity to role play the part of a 20 year old heroin addict in front of the class – maybe I should be an actor…


• Sports Marketing: The class did turn out to be pretty interesting and I can confirm that I will use nothing that I learned for my job at Dell.


• Consumer Behavior: This class was taught by a great professor. I think I was the first person that completed the final. Although I haven’t received the grade back yet, I will be surprised if it’s less than an A+.


• Management of Cultural and Creative Industries: I still don’t know the point of this class, but our final presentation was pretty good given the fact that I missed our 2 team meetings, attended a wine conference with Alicia and our friend, Myles, the morning of the presentation, and presented my section after 2 hours of drinking. Actually, I think I did better than usual given the impressed grin on my teacher’s face while I was discussing innovative advertising techniques to the class.


• The Impact of Culture on Business: I ended up enjoying this class. I didn’t enjoy the 2500 word final paper, but I couldn’t think of a reasonable excuse why I deserved to be exempt. Oh well, it’s finished.

One of the things that Tim really wanted to do while in Barcelona was see a famous DJ. While walking around the city, a promotional poster said that Erick Morillo would be performing at Pacha that weekend. After a couple emails were sent out, Bart and his friend, Richard F, came through and got us on the VIP list. The music was great and it turned out to be fun night on the town, especially because we had a table and didn’t have to deal with the massive “general admission” crowds . . .

Karen, Alicia’s step-mother, arrived around March 15 for a week. We took it easy and enjoyed the city with her – she discovered her new favorite restaurant, El Quatre Gats (4 cats), the first place to sell Picasso’s work when he was a teenager. We were also able to finally visit Sitges with her, a little beach town about 30 minutes south of Barcelona. Loved, loved, loved it – had great paella at a restaurant on the beach and walked around the town. Hotel Romantic is a fantastic hotel to get a drink at and/or stay if anyone ever goes.

Our friends Kristin and Jen arrived around March 21. We had so much fun with them, did a few repeat trips including Sitges, played lots of Uno in our favorite wine bar, and walked probably every street in the city at least 3 times.

We leave on March 31 for Thailand for 2 weeks, one overnight stay in London for our connecting flight back to NY, and finally back to the states on April 17. We hope everyone enjoyed reading the blog as much as we’ve enjoyed writing it. Can’t wait to see everyone in a few weeks!

Alicia & Tim

Karole's Visit

Phrase of the week: Sorry, we're behind on our postings and can't think of anything clever to say . . .
Observation of the week: See above. However, it is worth noting that we love, love, love Southern Spain vs. Northern Spain - people are generally nicer and the weather is warmer!

Tim’s friends Brian and Jenny came to visit a few weeks ago – weather was great on Saturday, so we hung out at a paella restaurant near the ports for the majority of the day. Before they arrived on Friday, we took a day trip to Figueres to see the Theatre that Salvador Dali designed and is now his museum. Building was amazing, the artwork inside was a bit disappointing because none of his major works were there. The town had a cute square off their “Rambla”, so we sat outside and had sangria and lunch before heading back to Barcelona.

Alicia’s mom got into town on Feb. 27 and hit the ground running (ok just walking A LOT) from day one. The first day we introduced mom to the menu del dia, then walked around the La Rambla area and down by the ports. Tried to have a glass of wine at one of the paella restaurants outside but they wouldn’t let us because we weren’t eating, regardless of the fact that they were all completely empty. Spaniards and their rules. Visited Gaudi’s Casa Batllo, which was amazing. He was so ahead of his time and literally designed every aspect of the homes he built, down to the ventilation. We went to dinner at our favorite place, Cerveceria Catalana, which is now one mom’s favorite places too! The next day we went to Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, the work for which he is best known for and spent the majority of career working on, even though it is yet to be completed. We discovered a great place for dinner in the Mercat Santa Caterina in the Borne called Cuines Santa Caterina – so good. Great mix of different types of food and not a tapa in sight. The next day before leaving for Granada, we continued our Gaudi tour of the city and went to Casa Mila. I think we all thought Casa Batllo was more impressive, but this one had some of the furniture from the decade it was built to give a sense of what it looked like when people lived there. In the temporary exhibition space downstairs, a retrospective of the artist Zoran Music was on view – amazing exhibition.

Ok, so off to Granada to see the Alhambra. Alicia has wanted to go here since she was backpacking in Europe 10 years ago, so it was a bit like Christmas. We stayed at a charming place on the hill near the Alhambra, Carmen de la Alcubilla del Caracol. Manuel, the owner, was the perfect host and helped us plan our time while we were there. Granada is a fantastic town, completely different from other areas of Spain we’ve visited. There is obviously a large Moorish influence on the architecture, especially in the old town. The best thing about Granada – free tapas! Every night restaurants and bars have one or two tapas that they serve when you order something to drink. Again, the tapas are regional and completely different from the Catalan and Basque regions. After tapas bar hoping, we went to a great place for dinner, Puerta del Carmen. So good! We spent the majority of the next day at the Alhambra – pictures can’t really do it justice, but we tried. Had a great lunch near the river – finally Spanish food that we’ve been waiting for, gazpacho and good paella. We only made it to a few tapas places that night and headed back to the hotel for an early night.

The next day, off to Sevilla via a 3 hour bus ride through olive country. It was an absolutely perfect day, so we had a long lunch outside at Modesto's near our hotel, Hotel Alcantara, and then walked around the city for the rest of the day. Sevilla is what most people envision when they think about Spain – flamenco music and dancing, lots of orange trees, bull fights, sangria, Spanish-style homes, etc. We saw a flamenco show at Los Gallos, which we highly recommend. The performance was absolutely mesmerizing – again, pictures don’t do it justice but we tried.

The next morning we headed back to Barcelona and went up to Parc Guell (see previous posting) and toured the Palau de la Musica, had mom’s last dinner at Cerveceria Catalana, and called it a night. We had a great time while she was here, but it went by too quickly, she was just starting to get used to the time change! I think we all slept for the next two days straight.