¡Vale! ¡Vale!

When I first arrived in Barcelona, the first person that I interacted with was a taxi driver. However, I would hardly call it an interaction. I was throwing together phrases in broken Spanish hoping that he would understand, but my Spanish was so rusty that we did not even move for almost thirty minutes. Having studied Spanish and priding myself in my Spanish speaking, I soon feared for how I would be able to live in Spain for two months. I was even further discouraged when I first arrived to work at Selftising a week and a half ago. My fellow co-workers, who are mainly software engineers and developers, struggled to understand my Spanish, which in Barcelona is called Castellano. It does not help that most people speak Catalan, as well. Nevertheless, after having worked for a week and a half, I have started to relax and regain my confidence in my Spanish speaking. I would largely attribute this progress to the times where I have gotten lost in this crazy city and have had to speak to the locals to find my way around.

With a month and a half left to go in my internship, I hope to continue this development. The office at work seems to be an area where I can execute this plan. Working in a small and close knit work environment, there is a lot of interaction between co-workers. Moreover, the main workspace consists of six desks pieced together into a square. The full-time employees tend to be quiet and keep to themselves; however, whenever we are collaborating on various work assignments, they are very talkative and especially helpful. Furthermore, similar to other Tech companies, Selftising has a relaxed environment where everybody seems to be treated equally. I came to value this type of atmosphere last summer, when I worked for Adobe, and I am ecstatic that I can continue to work in this environment this summer. Overall, between my new internship, as well as the many adventures that I have taken with my new friends, I love Barcelona and look forward to the next month and a half.

¡Vale! ¡Vale!