Day 1
When I arrive in Barcelona, the first thing that hits me is the humidity. I must confess, after a long Winter in Melbourne where the weather barely rises above 12 degrees, I am starting to find this heat uncomfortable. However, I doubt that in time, I'll notice it at all.
The taxi pulls up outside our hotel. The name, "Praktik Bakery", is painted in large, welcoming letters across the front of the building. I can't help but think how strange it sounds for a hotel. Almost as if it were trying to pull itself off as some sort of...
Bakery!!
My eyes widen in delight as I look around the hotel lobby, filled with coffee tables and people waiting in line for their order. The back wall is lined with baked items, everything from croissants, to baguettes, to sweet-smelling fruit bread and little doughnuts dusted with icing sugar. For a moment, I close my eyes, taking in the warm smell of baked bread. People are calling out behind me in Catalan - a distinctive tongue, neither Spanish nor French, but something in between - and I gather from their tone that they want me to move out of the doorway. But I want to savour this moment.
By the time I open my eyes, Adriana is speaking to the hotel receptionist by the far wall. Gripping my suitcase and handbag tightly, I make my way through the crowd and join her side. Within moment, we are handed keycards and are ushered upstairs to our rooms.
After arriving in a foreign country, the first thing you would probably think about is getting a new set of clothes out of your luggage, or jumping straight into the shower. However, for a uni student who has been unconnected from social media for twenty-eight hours, the first thing I reach for is the wifi password scrawled on a piece of paper.
Success - I'm logged in. My phone starts beeping like crazy as it receives a flood of Facebook, Hotmail and WhatsApp messages. However, one message grabs my attention. Taking a seat on the edge of my bed, I click onto the message and quickly read It. I'm smiling. Our new supervisor, Kirsten, is wondering if Adriana and I would like to catch up for lunch today before meeting our staff team at the office.
An hour later, she meets us in the hotel lobby and takes us to a cafe nearby where she treats us to the most delicious seafood tapas marinaded in olive oil and tomato. Even Gordon Ramsay would find it hard to fault these!!
Here, we spend the next hour going over our new roles and responsibilities at the office. She explains that will be given the opportunity to explore different areas based on our specific skill sets. In lieu of Adriana's strong graphic design skills, she will be responsible for tasks requiring an acute eye for visual detail. Whereas in light of my corporate governance and financial background, I will be given tasks geared more heavily towards ensuring consistency of HR policies, as well as performing strategy data analysis of our social media platforms.
After lunch, we return to the office, where we meet out lovely work team for the first time. Only a few people are in the office today, as most are on Summer holiday at the moment. However, it's probably best we meet them next week, since it's hard enough remembering everyone's names, and I've never been particularly good with this!
Eventually, we finish our introductions, and before I know what's happening, Adriana and I are walking back to our hotel to refresh ourselves before our first day of work tomorrow.
First day completed with success - onto day two tomorrow!!