bilbao

I am writing this blog post on a train back from Bilbao, Spain. I have just experienced my first conference in Spain and it was definitely interesting. But let’s start at the beginning…

On the 19th, I arrived in Barajas airport to find Cynthia (Mexico) in the baggage area as our flights arrived around the same time. Kimmie (Australia), Angel and Cris waiting to pick us up. The metro ride back to the flat in Madrid was long and interesting. I am going to blame the long flight for what happened… what happened you ask? Well! We had to take about 10 escalators in the airport and in the metro station while changing trains 2 times…and at one point, I may or may not have dropped my suitcase down the escalator and it landed on an old man. Again, I am going to blame the long journey through the US for that.

Instead of eating or sleeping when we got back to the flat in Madrid, Kimmie, Gabryel and I went to an open-air market (El Rastro) in the same neighborhood as the flat. It is only opened on Sundays and was packed with people. You can buy everything from bags and clothes to souvenirs and flags. Gabryel then took us on a mini tour to Plaza Mayor and through one of the barrios that has a lot of ethnic people. The highlight of that walk was the Indian restaurant with pictures of the Taj Mahal on it... apparently I just can't get away from Indians!

The Plaza Mayor was beautiful but the most random part about it was the array of people dressed like cartoon characters, including a fat Spiderman. There were also transvestites and fat Winnie the Poohs. A little creepy.

That night, Sylvia (Costa Rica) and Stella (Italy) arrived. Since we all had so much work to do, we stayed up and did sessions for the conference and so began the theme of no sleep for the week. In total, I think we had about 20-25 hours of sleep for the ENTIRE week (Sunday – Sunday). That probably can’t be a good thing, but I can sleep when I’m dead ☺

The next morning (the 20th) was off to Bilbao. This involved getting up super early (or just one hour of sleep for some of us), walking to one type of train station (called Circenias) to get to the main train station that was going to take us to Bilbao. On the way, there was a delay for around 60 minutes. A cable wire had broken and smashed into the windows of a train nearby and all the passengers were moved onto our train. This meant that we got free drinks, chocolate, chips and in the end, they fully refunded our tickets. Not a bad way to go!

Sebas (Chile) finally arrived that evening (after missing his train) and the new team was complete. But the 20th and 21st were filled with pre-meeting (which means work, work and more work).

The conference went from the 23rd – 26th and was a culture shock for me in terms of AIESEC culture (if you are not in AIESEC, the next section may not make any sense, so just skip it).

The opening plenary was completely different than in Canada. There was one dance, no cheers and it was straight to business. That is the culture of AIESEC in Spain. I think us Canadians are a little crazy about our spirit, but the AIESEC culture shock at the conference was interesting as well. Coming into this position, and experiencing this conference, I have realized that I won’t just have culture shock in terms of Spain, but also in terms of AIESEC. Especially with AIESEC and the fact that the organization fundamentally exists all around the world, we don’t realize that there are factors that affect how the organization is run and what the organizational culture is in each country. These factors are everything from language to level of intrinsic communication as well as relevance in the community.

During the conference, we had some logistical issues (and by some I mean a lot). The hotel cancelled our room bookings one day and we had to move the physical location of all of our sessions at the last minute. That is just one example of the issues we had.

The delegates were simply amazing. I was really worried about the language barrier as my Spanish is really rusty and there were many delegates that don’t speak English or struggle with it. But I was so happy with the acceptance from the delegates. With many of them, I made a deal where they had to talk in English and I had to talk in Spanish – establishing a very mutually beneficial relationship. It was really good for making personal connections with delegates, but difficult when attending to official business.

A frustrating situation I had was when I had a meeting with members about projects (a portfolio of AIESEC). In the beginning, two people were translating for me and the delegates were speaking slowly so I could understand. But everyone got a little worked up and excited, and I received no translations, couldn’t understand what was going on because everyone was speaking so fast and couldn’t contribute to the discussion. I felt helpless and irrelevant. These are people I was going to be working with and I couldn’t even effectively communicate with them – how was I going to be able to do my job? That was when I realized that I was a little naïve in thinking that my Spanish would just come over time and that I could get through. I have to make a concentrated effort to remember that frustration and use it to actively improve my Spanish in order to do my job and create the change that I want in the organization.

On the other hand, I was so touched by the gestures of some of the delegates. At breakfast on the last day of the conference, Jose and Laura from Granada were sitting at a table for 2. Jose knows little to no English and Laura knows a little. We all know how my Spanish is :S I put my stuff down at the table next to them but they didn’t want me to sit alone. So they pulled up a chair and moved all the cutlery and we had breakfast together. It was so simple and we talked in broken Spanish and English, but it made me feel like I could actually live and work in the country and in the organization here. It helped me realize that the members were willing to help me with my challenges and in turn, me help them with theirs.

Now that I am done with the mushy stuff, I have to talk about the parties. I only got to go to two of them, but they were awesome! I love that people here actually know how to dance! No more of the “white boy shuffle” (you know what I mean, when the guy just moves from side to side on the dance floor, not knowing what to do with his hands, awkwardly looking around). The club (I mean discotheque) we went to for the two parties was cool because they played all types of music – merengue, salsa, rock, pop, hip-hop and even a little bit of samba. We eventually forced all of the non-AIESEC people out, so it was just our group and so much fun.

Bilbao as a city is really cool because it has an interesting mix of history and contemporary. The building, some bridges and architecture are beautiful and have a historic feeling, but then there is the Guggenheim museum and the funky bridges around it that added a different feeling to everything. Look at the pictures: http://www.guggenheim-bilbao.es/secciones/el_museo/el_edificio.php?idioma=en really funky building.

More stories about the tour of Bilbao and Madrid to come! Pictures on facebook soon!