By this point, I'd all but finished the project my department had given me at work. I was keen to stay busy, and so as well as asking for more work from my original department, I also asked if it would be possible to spend some time helping out with Marketing. I'd worked with Marketing in Paris, and absolutely loved it. I was therefore keen to get more experience, and also thought there would be more to keep me busy if I was splitting my time between the two departments. After sending a few e-mails, my boss got back to me and said that as they had expected this project to take me a lot longer, they couldn't give me anything else at the moment and so from tomorrow I would be spending my morning with the Emissions department, and my afternoons with Marketing. This was an absolute result, as I was only expecting to get one or two days a week with Marketing, and not half my time, so I was very very happy!
In the evening I went to meet up with another tandem partner at 9pm. We went to the Irish pub near my house but I'd forgotten that they do live music every Monday, and so it actually ended up being a bit of a strain to hear each other. As the conversation didn't flow quite as smoothly as with the other tandem partner, and he was only free on weekends, it seemed unlikely that we would continue to meet, but still good to get out there and meeting more people off my own back.
On Tuesday evening I had arranged another tandem meet up, this time with a girl. We went to a cafe about 15 minute walk away and stayed chatting for a good hour. As Tuesday suited us both and we got on well, we decided to make it a weekly thing. As well as the one-on-ones, a couple of Wednesdays previously, I had tried to go along to a 'Languages Exchange Group' that I had seen advertised on facebook. They told me that it was usually on but just cancelled today. This happened twice in a row and so after giving up on this avenue, was happy to have sorted 2 permanent tandems of my own.
On Wednesday, one of Raul's friends from Mexico, Jasmin, arrived. She was doing a tour of Europe, and would be staying with us for about 10 days. That evening was the Barcelona vs. Paris match, and so Jasmin, Cecilia and I went to meet some of Cecilia's friends from Barcelona to watch it. We went to a really local place nearby. From the outside, you wouldn't have given it a second glance, but they did some amazing tapas, and it was only €1 for tapas and a beer. They surprised you with what they gave you, but it was all homemade and all delicious. The owner was such a character as well and so we ended up spending more time talking to him than we did watching the match!
After meeting up with my 'Thursday' tandem partner, I went with Raul and Jasmin for tapas. We went to Gracia, which I've spoken about before in another blog post so will just recap briefly. It's an area more north in the city, and again has a very local feel, with lots of little, windy streets and Catalonia flags hanging from the balconies. We sat outside in the square as it was quite a mild evening, and shared some tapas over a couple of drinks, whilst soaking in the very 'chilled atmosphere'.
In terms of the rest of the week at work, I got to meet the Marketing department properly, went to a video conference with them, was given access to all of their files and briefed on all of the upcoming events as well. It also transpired that instead of working with Emissions, I would be working with Underwriting and helping them with a new project. As well as meeting their department, I had to do lots of the e-learning to train for their systems before I could get going properly. It was a great opportunity to meet lots more people in the office, a double bonus that the departments spoke Castellano instead of Catalan like my original department, and I knew that I would be learning a lot from both departments.
I'll leave it there for this week and continue with the weekend in another post as otherwise it will turn into a bit of an essay!
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