Today, my coworker Elena asked what kind of image Americans have of Spain. “Do they consider it a lesser developed country and lump it with other Spanish-speaking countries?” she said. Personally, I have always lumped Spain with countries like France and Germany. It is hard to imagine that this democratic country was ruled under the Franco dictatorship only 30+ years ago! Spain has emerged from restricting women from opening their own bank account without a husband’s cosign just 30 years ago to becoming the world’s third nation to legalize gay marriage. Developing at a fast rate, Spain takes much pride in the things it does well. The metro system, for example, is extremely efficient, extensive, and well maintained. I saw a poster showing the Statue of Liberty stooping down, peering curiously into a metro entrance. The catchy phrase said, “The Metro the world wishes they had– is right here in Madrid.”
We always have many interesting discussions at my workplace. I get to enjoy a long lunch with my coworkers in the middle of the day, where I have become familiar with everything from Spanish slang to politics to family life. Through many entertaining conversations, I have learned endless Spanish colloquial phrases and words. Harmless words like “monkey” “horse” and “chocolate” can translate to refer to drugs! As far as politics go, Obama is welcomed with great enthusiasm. Spaniards are hopeful that his presidency will help secure a more solid friendship between our nations. My coworkers enjoy talking about American politics; it sometimes surprises me how well informed they are about the US.
Also during our lunch, my coworkers love when I recount the tales of my home-stay experience with my “señora”. I am currently living with an older woman, single and retired. She is very kind, and happily cooks my meals and does my laundry. In exchange, I live by the interesting rules of the house. No bare feet on the floor, showers no longer than exactly 10 minutes (complimentary reminders given), and I must never share her hand towel. It seems notions of hygiene are different here. It is also bad form to relax with one’s feet on the furniture, as living rooms tend to be much more formal here. I must also make my bed every day and keep my room tidy, since here it is customary to leave doors to rooms open. My coworkers have explained to me that these tendencies are more specific to her Spanish generation, and that the younger generation lives with a more relaxed style.
Though my señora is from an older generation, she (like every other Madrileño) loves to go out at night! Regular bedtime for her is around 2 or 3 am. I am long asleep by then, as I have to wake up early most mornings. In Madrid, going out is a highlight of the culture. The Spanish do not often invite their friends over to their home, because the home serves more for family and relaxation. To meet up with friends or a date, my señora always goes out for tapas (appetizers with drinks) or for a coffee and a pastry, or to the movies, or even to a dance club (for people her own age, she informs me).
I love soaking up the culture around me, and comparing it to the US. I enjoy many things here, like the tendency of staying up so late and sleeping in, and the abundance of small neighborhood shops serving everything you could need. However, I dislike how so many stores inconveniently close from 2-5pm for the siesta, or how service is continuously slow in restaurants. I think if we could somehow fuse the customs of our nations together, I would have the perfect place to live.
For this summer, I am doing work experience (aka an internship) at Academy Music Group (AMG), owner and operator of over a dozen live performance venues all over the United Kingdom. Three of our venues are in London: Carling Academies Brixton and Islington, and the Shepherds Bush Empire. I was fortunate to see Death Cab For Cutie in July at our Brixton venue, then The Dandy Warhols the week after at the Empire. Before each show, I toured the venue with the resident venue manager and chatted about their experiences working at the venue. Many of our managers have been at their respective sites for nearly ten years or more! The majority of my work is not on-site, rather, I operate out of the AMG headquarters above the Brixton venue.
Our marketing department is comprised of myself, the marketing and PR intern; Justine and Lauren, the assistants; and Louise, the marketing manager. Technically, I report directly to Justine, but both Lauren and Lou are very participative in my work experience. Daily tasks which I have taken on over time include: searching for relevant press in regional and national publications, maintaining the digital and hard press archives, locating artist press contacts, and uploading show details on venue websites’ gig listings. Some unique projects I conducted were the research for marketing opportunities and demographic points-of-contact in the Liverpool area for festival outreach and the design of interactive spreadsheets for internal purposes. Learning about the London music scene has been amazing as well! I’m fairly familiar with how my industry works, but there’s always something new to learn when you see how other companies in completely different cultures and geographic areas strive for the same goals and outcomes.
Today is my final full week of work. Next week I have only three days, and then I leave for Cancun for four days (with my dad). It’s so weird that my trip is coming to an end. I feel like I have been here for so long, but at the same time, it all went by so fast. Yesterday we held an event at the President Intercontinental Hotel. An executive from PEMEX (Petróleo Méxicano) presented the effects of the reform that the company will be going through—moving from a fully governmentally owned company to opening for private investments. I can’t help but cringe every time we have a speaker give a presentation. I feel as if the chamber needs to hold a seminar on ‘Successful PowerPoint Presentations.” I am not exaggerating when I say they type every word on each slide and then the graphs they use are super complicated. On top of that, their speech lacks audience engagement. Luckily, it was a lunch conference so my head was in my plate the whole time.
One of my Seattle friends was in town this week, so Saturday we took her to Borough Market, a huge farmer’s market by the Thames. It’s off of Borough High Street and is extremely popular for grocery shopping. They have nearly every produce you could imagine, fresh fruits and veggies, smoothies, bakeries, fish vendors, tea, fish and chips, turkish delights, falafel, beer, wine, BBQ, it goes on for quite a while. Between the three of us, we ate BBQ, fish and chips, and more BBQ!
We stopped into a boulangerie and shared an amazing strawberry tart. The custard was the texture of whipped cream and melted in your mouth, while the strawberries were sweet, and the buttery crust just the right amount of flaky. We also found (we think) the world’s largest pyramid of brownies!
This morning the American Chamber held their monthly trade committee meeting in Hotel Hilton. Since I work in the trade department, I helped put the event on. This month’s topic was JALTRADE and external commerce. Basically, since we are preparing for the trade mission in late September, the meeting served more as a manner to gain interest for companies who would like to be a part of the trade mission in 
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