The Spanish Bird

The display above the door says ‘Velocidad 301 km/h, Temperatura 28C’. We are onboard the AVE – Alta Velocidad Espanola – the Spanish high speed train. AVE is also the Spanish for ‘bird’. We are on our way back to Barcelona from Madrid, where we have paid a quick visit to Susana’s family and friends.

The AVE is a show of brutal force and extreme elegance at the same time. Stick your head close to the window and you get an immediate feel for the speed and the power of this machine. Lean back and have a quiet conversation, watch the James Bond movie on the screens or walk down to the canteen car for a Bocadillo (a Spanish sandwich) or cup of coffee. I know Kornelius, the BMW engineer in our class, would have loved this ride. Technology at its edge!

The train does the 621km in 2 hours and 43 minutes. We fly by the major cities of Zaragoza and Tarragona – no time to stop, we have a schedule to meet. And it will be met. If we are as much as a second delayed we will get 30% of our ticket refunded, if we are more than 5 minutes late we will get all of it back. How is that for reliability? Not even the Swiss can beat that!

It brings thoughts of the Danish rail system to my mind. Many of the tracks are more than 50 years old and as soon as the temperature creeps above 25C they have to reduce the speed to 40km/h in some places because the tracks expand too much in the heat. In comparison, the AVE still runs at 300+ when the temperature is 45C. Obama came for a ride not long ago and concluded that the US needed something similar. May I should ask Danish Prime Minister – Mister Rasmussen – to do the same. We could definitely learn a thing or two.

It will be the last night in Spain. Tomorrow morning we are off to Denmark to visit my friends and family. We will also be meeting up with my Indian classmate Ajay Lakhwani and his wife Kanika, who are touring Scandinavia these days. They have just arrived in Copenhagen after taking the beautiful overnight ferry trip from Oslo.

It is 21.30 and we are rolling into Barcelona. It does not look like we will get any money back this time either.

Hasta luego!


The AVE upon arrival i Madrid. A mean machine!

Sun, Sombrilla and Sun Screen

Todays was the first day I really felt fresh when I got up. I had slept eight hours and got out of bed without the alarm. Until now I have been sleeping at least 10 hours everynight plus a couple of hours for siesta. I hope this means that I now have caught up and can return to a normal sleeping pattern.

Wednesday my girlfriend Susana and I met with classmate Juan Benitez [Columbia] and his girlfriend Tatiana. Tatiana is also Columbian, but is studying in Barcelona. We met in the nearby town of Sitges, which is renowned for its fine beaches. The heat wave that is covering the rest of Europe is also felt here, so it quickly became too warm for the 'Giri' (Spanish slang for a foreigner, in this case referring to me) on the beach. We strolled around the beautiful old town before we sat down and enjoyed a real Catalonian paella in one of the street restaurants.

Juan and Tatiana by the old church in Sitges.


Paella Marinera, the way it is done in its home country.
Heave stuff on a warm day, but very 'deliciosa' as they say around here.

Yesterday Susana and I went to the beach again. This time the 'giri' (still me) covered himself in a thick layer of factor 50+ sun screen (others would probably call it sun BLOCK) and hid in the shade under the 'Sombrilla' (beach umbrella) that we had brought along. Being on the beach and under the sun this far south (compared to Denmark, of course) is a somewhat delicate matter for me. I turn red like a boiled lobster in a matter of minutes, then I spend several nights sleeping on my stomach because my back is all sore. Then it all peals off and I am more pale than when I started. So better to overdo it a bit with the protection.

Siestas, not power naps

To be honest I have not done much over the past couple of days. I have just been enjoying the warm humid Mediterranean air that encourages you to just hang around in shorts and flip-flops and keep yourself in a vertical position to the extent possible. I have swapped power naps with siestas. Same concept, but very different execution! I am trying to fall into the rhythm of my little pueblo here. As they say in Spain, there are more people on the streets at 3 in the morning than at 3 in the afternoon. All the shops close during the middle of the day, so why not siesta your way through those hours. Great concept.

I went for a run today at 8pm when the temperature had dropped sufficiently for a Scandinavian to venture out. I went down to the river bed that runs at the outskirts of the town. It is completely dried out at this time of the year, so it is a great place to run. It took me out under the highway and into mountains on the other side. 'Mountains' may be a relative word here. The locals would probably just call them 'hills', but being from Denmark I insist that they indeed are mountains. I found a dirt trail that took me up-hill (because you cannot say 'up-mountain') and after about 20 minutes I found myself standing on a ridge looking into the next valley. Here was another little pueblo with white houses and what from the distance appeared to be a church. The sun was setting and it looked so quiet and peaceful. I had not met anyone on my way and there was not a single person to be seen anywhere. It became one of those few quiet moments, where you remind yourself that life is more than the fast lane on the information-superhighway. Next time I will make sure I bring a camera.

My Little Pueblo

It is past midnight and the air is full of drums, music and fire crackers. The streets are packed with people, some are dancing through the streets, others are watching. I am not in doubt that I have left Switzerland. 'My Little Pueblo' (pueblo = village) as I like to call St. Pere de Ribes (located 30km south of Barcelona) is celebrating its 'Fiesta mayor'. Most towns in Spain have a Fiesta Mayor, which is the celebration of the saint of the town. In the case of St. Pere the saint is Saint Peter.

St. Pere de Ribes is technically too large to qualify as a 'pueblo', but to me it is just that. It is like taken out of a movie; narrow streets and mediterranean style houses, a little square in the middle with a catholic church that rings its bells every 15 minutes. Life happens at a pace here that cannot stress anyone. On top of that I am enjoying the local food and a lot of sleep.

Thorsten

'Castellets' - the human castles - is another Catelonian specialty. The castles I saw them build yesterday were 8 'stories' high, the top level manned by two 6-year old kids. You can see one of them on the way up with a red helmet near the top on the left side.


The 'Collas', which are groups of neighbors and friends, prepare dances with drums and firecrackers. The firecrackers - that look like cigars - are placed on the end of a stick and lit. They spin and spread sparks everywhere before they explode with a large bang.


A dragon spraying fire is another of the local traditions.


Giant dolls dancing is a tradition of Eastern Spain.

Swiss Fondue, the Danish way!

I am SO full again. Again I had too much of the Swiss cheese fondue. The only difference is that this time I had it back home at my parents place. It was my Dad's birthday last week and his four kids decided to give him a Swiss fondue set. I brought it home on Friday together with 2kg of good Swiss fondue cheese. I am out of a very cheese loving family, so I am afraid that we have just started a tradition that over time will add many kilos to the combined weight of the family. We don't have any fondue traditions in Denmark, but we have plenty of traditions for good cheese and I am confident we will find great ways of combining the two.

This 4-day break has been very different than the one we had after the exams a couple of weeks ago. First of all, the after-exam break was spent with my girlfriend in Copenhagen, whereas this one has been spent with my girlfriend visiting my family. This largest difference was mental, though. Last time we had just completed the exams and thereby Building Block 1 and we had only a few new assignments. I really felt very relaxed. This time we are in the middle of everything and the assignments are piled up (4 in next week alone), so mentally I have not been able to leave the school like I did last time. I came home with a long list of things that I wanted to get done, but I hardly managed to get anything done. So the usual sense of guilt has been nagging all the time. The only good thing, I guess, is that I have slept a lot, so the batteries are fully charged. This will give me some extra work hours over the coming week.

Tomorrow is the return to reality. My girlfriend and I will take the car back to Copenhagen. We are stopping by an old friend of mine on the way, just to say hi and get a cup of coffee, but otherwise it is straight to the airport and straight back to Lausanne. To be honest, I don't feel very much like it. I could really spent some more time up here. On the other hand there is only two months left of the Building Blocks and with the pace that times passes in Lausanne the summer break will be here before we know it. To me it is not even a matter of making it THROUGH the exams, though, it is just a matter of making it TO the exams. As I have said a couple of times before, the exams are wonderful peaceful times compared to the daily chaos. I may very soon regret saying that, though, because the first thing that awaits us on Tuesday is our exam results!



I took this picture outside the Copenhagen Congress Center, where a giant wind turbine has been raised in the parking lot. We have several times during the Responsible Leadership Summit at IMD and during the Global Political Economy classes discussed the Copenhagen Summit, which will take place in 2009. Business and government leaders from most of the world will meet to discuss climate change and how we proceed beyond the Kyoto targets that will expire in 2012.