Saludos desde Madrid!
This is week 4 of working in a wine company abroad as a Puerto Rican student from Pitt in Madrid, Spain. Last week I went to Cuenca, experienced the Champions League soccer final in Madrid, explored museums, and much more. If you have not yet read my previous blog posts I encourage you to do so!
This week was full of surprises in the workplace. I was asked to do some tasks I was not assured of when I got them assigned. The liquor industry, especially the wine industry, is a very complicated one, if not the most complicated one in the industry. Learning the different types of denominations from each bottle, its alcohol level, its diverse selections of grapes, its fermentation, its aging in different types of barrels, what wood the grape juices fermentated on, and so on. Along with my two co-workers, we were assigned to organize the wine-tasting room, which has wine shelves and storage in the room too. We were puzzled about how to do this, where each wine bottle will align with the others in the corresponding shelve. We had limited help since our supervisor left early that day because she had an appointment she needed to attend. We used the magic tool of Google to help us classify each wine to where it belongs. Firstly we divided the wines into red and white wines which were fairly easy to identify. After that, we separated the international wines from the Spanish wines and in that moment was where we had to read each label of each wine to determine its D.O. or Denomination of Origin. This process took us hours to complete since there were over 200 bottles of wine in that room. With the help of Google and work collaboration, we were able to eliminate that unclearness we had on completing the task.
Apart from the workplace, last weekend I went to the beautiful city of Valencia! With two full days of exploring Valencia, we made sure to enjoy each minute of our stay. We arrived Saturday morning and the first thing we did was go to the beautiful beach of Patacona. This beach was something different from what I see in Puerto Rico. The coast was wider and there were many activities that any person could use free of cost right on the sand. As a soccer fan, I wanted to play soccer with some locals there and that is exactly the first thing I did when we got to the beach and got situated in a good spot. The people whom I played with were from Valencia others were from Argentina and others were Germans. We played in teams of 4 and it was an unreal experience playing soccer with that much diversity in language and culture; thankfully they all spoke English. After the game, we told our stories of how everyone ended up in Valencia and it was surprising and slightly emotional how these people did not have a good lifestyle in the place they were living and decided to go to Valencia where things are cheap and it has a good way of living for their kids.
After the beach, we went to the place that we were staying for the night and the accommodation was slightly impressive for such a cheap price. Later that day, we went on a boat ride close to the beach we went to and the views were magnificent. Unfortunately, we were supposed to dive in the sea and snorkel but the particular reason for this circumstance was because the sea was not in stable conditions to swim. We still had a good time, met more Germans, and took nice pictures.
Sunday arrived and I was excited to jump into the top tourist spots in Valencia. I started my day with freshly squeezed orange juice and used public transportation to get to the City of Arts and Sciences. This place has 3 museums, one of Natural Sciences, one an Oceanographic, and the other one a Hemispheric which is an IMAX Theater. The most impressive thing about this place was the modern architecture and the combination of styles used to make this design. One could not go to any museum and still be as impressed. In the City of Arts and Sciences, they also host concerts for famous artists.
Later that day, I met up with the group and went to the Valencia Cathedral and also explored its area. The Cathedral is even more spectacular than the City of Arts and Sciences. There is something about past architecture that is so eye-catching compared to modern architecture. The materials used and the golden-colored curves with statues and other archaic Spanish designs just make this place unique. Not only that but the area in general is filled with rock-smooth floors with statues and other artists showing their work on the streets making the place entertaining. After exploring the area we went to a sports bar to watch the Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz, win his first-ever Rolland Garros tennis tournament. The bar was filled with not only natives cheering for Carlos but Irishmen and Irishwomen were also there to cheer up their Hurling final.
Valencia was a great experience and definitely will miss it. I encourage the public to travel and explore the world because there are many things one does not know about or things that are seen only on television that should be seen in person. Thank you to all my readers and see you in week 5!
Chao!