Around the World

Dear friends,
Please excuse me for taking 5 months to make a new post, I don't have any other excuse than just being busy and not making time for it.

My last post was on September 9th, when I just started my internship in Barcelona. Now looking back I realise I really had an amazing time in which I learnt a lot, not only business wise but also personally. Life in Barcelona was hectic & fast as a roller coaster and super easygoing & spontaneous at the same time, full of surprises, (dinner) parties, work, Star Wars, friends, drinks, beach life, sun, and some cultural and architectural experience.

I had a really good experience working at BME Global, and I think I did a really good job there.
I got hired to do marketing research, but as their events coordinator left the day I arrived I automatically got assigned for that job. This meant that I had to organise a conference in Prague within 3 weeks. It took me many hours trying to figure out what actually I had to do because everybody was too busy with their own jobs to help me, but went surprisingly well. Me and 4 other colleagues went to Prague for 6 days while the conference only took 2 days, so we got to see a lot of the city, too! I also organised another conference in Barcelona, which was a success as well. I really enjoyed what I had to do, and I learnt a lot in these 5 months, sometimes especially how not to do business.

Because I was working at an international company my Spanish isn't that well as I hoped it would be after 7 months, (was mainly speaking Spanish when going out with the influence of alcohol, somehow it would always be easier then :) ) but I can understand it really well, and can have easy conversations.

But seriously, my time in Barcelona was better than I could ever have hoped for, this also because of all the great people I met there, and especially Carlos & Robbert, my dear roommates and friends who always treated me as a princess :D they were the reason that I felt home in BCN, may the force be with you! Navana, a very successful woman and my sweet, luvly girl, I’m glad I met you! Jordi, my Dutch companion at BME, he’s fun, but a bit fat ;) see you February next year with carnival!

Currently I’m studying in Canberra, the capital of Australia, so far I’m having so much fun here living on campus. I promise this week there will be a new post on my life in Ozzie!

Take care,

Janneke

Alive!

Son, she said, have I got a little story for you
What you thought was your daddy was nothin' but a...
While you were sittin' home alone @ age thirteen
Your real daddy was dyin', sorry you didn't see him, but I'm glad we talked...
Oh I, oh, I'm still alive
Hey, I, I, oh, I'm still alive
Hey I, oh, I'm still alive….. “Pearl Jam, Alive”

Pavello Olimpic de Badalona, Friday September 1^st, 22:00h (10:00pm), Pearl Jam starts playing after a great warm up by Wolfmother, and the crowd goes crazy! At that moment the crowd included Carlos, Robbert and me, jumping, screaming and enjoying the perfect moment!

We booked the tickets about 2 months ago, and since I paid them with my credit card, only I was able to pick them up with my ID the night of the concert. This was a great opportunity to blackmail Robbert and Carlos, (since they wouldn’t be going if I wasn’t going) making them to do the dishes, cook for me, getting me drinks, etc! :D

We were very scared that we would be too late so they would sell our tickets, that’s why we decided on meeting 2 and a half hours before the concert would start. I’m off at 16:30h every Friday, but usually all the office people (15 to be exact) go for team spirit building drinks then, so unfortunately I already had to leave after one drink, to go home, change, get my stuff and meet the guys. Pavello Olimpic is a bit outside Barcelona, a metro ride of about 30 minutes. When we got there the diehard fans were already waiting to go in (2hours before the doors would open), and it was rather crowded already. Anyway of course we had plenty of time to get our tickets, and there was even time for some food and drinks at a bar.

We had standing tickets and when Wolfmother started playing it was not very busy yet, so we had perfect view on the stage (also that the Spanish people are usually small played a role in having that great view on the stage). I never heard anything of Wolfmother before, Robbert already knew them and kept telling us that they are really good, so it was very exciting. When they started playing it became clear that Robbert didn’t say anything too much, Wolfmother was amazing!!! Really, they had a great sound, good interaction, and as a bonus the singer said after a couple of songs something like “the next song needs some help, I’m afraid we can’t do it alone” and then Eddie Vedder came up and they were singing together!!! How cool is that???

While Wolfmother was playing people kept on coming so it got more crowded by the minute. And it was sooo hot in there, goss. By the time Pearl Jam started playing it was packed!! As soon as they started playing we lost Robbert, he wanted to go a bit more to the back because it was too warm and full. During the first songs it was really cool, Carlos and I were jumping around, but after a couple of songs I also had this feeling of, ok, I just want to enjoy the music with out getting annoyed with all those people hitting me. So I went a bit more to the side, and over there it was perfect, I had a great view, the people were still jumping around me, but just without getting bounced around.

Pearl Jam was fantastic!!!!! They had such a great interaction with the crowd, at one point we all started singing like “oleeee ole ole oleeee, oleeee, oleeee”… You know that one? Anyway, and they just like improvised something on that and started singing and playing with us! It was so cool! At another point the singer of Wolfmother came on the stage and they sang and went totally mad together again! They played really long as well, like about 2 hours!!

Like I said, it was very warm and crowded so by the end a lot of people went a bit to the back or side already, so about half an hour before they ended I decided to get back in the middle again! Like right about were I left Carlos, but I couldn’t see him anywhere.. After the concert when the lights went on and people were leaving I was moving towards the stage to look for my friends, and right at that moment I saw Carlos, totally exhausted, bruised, scratched, broken, sweaty, but soooo satisfied! He had been jumping like right in front of the stage the whole 2hours! That moment was like a perfect ending of a perfect concert!!!