Merry Christmas!

Home

Join me on my pictorial journey back home and revel in my excitement of heading back to normal sized food and American. No, not America. American. Everything related to America. USA USA USA!!!. Haha jk. I'm not that patriotic. I was the American who joined Canadian thanksgiving. Call me Benedict Arnold. My loyalty lies with any country that feeds me.

Starting the day off with a European breakfast at the airport. These breakfasts are only filling if you have a cigarette to kill the hunger. Would you like some cancer with your croissant? Europe says yes.

The BCN airport is honestly one of the best airports I've been in. They have a full shopping arcade and the building/design is beautiful. Glass windows everywhere. The only person who would not enjoy all the glass would be this guy. Yippee ki-yay.

Today's form of transportation. AA #151.

Notice the blue skies because that's the last you're gonna see of that for the rest of this post.

Okay I lied. This is the last blue sky post.  If memory serves me correctly this was over the French Pyrenees. Don't worry I took this picture once the flight attendant gave the okay for electronic device usage. I question the concerns of these electric devices causing mechanical failure or communication interference. You'd think that if that really was the case some terrorist would load himself up with Ipods and cellphones and just turn them on. Oh great I think I'm now on some FBI watch list.

Snow makes it festive. Snow makes it festive. The more I repeat it the more I believe it. By the way it was 28 degrees when we landed with a forecast of heavy snow for 24 hours.

20 hours of travelling and finally home. Officially relaxation time. 

After spending some time away from my family the weirdness of Duke astounds me. He's a St. Bernard that doesn't enjoy cold weather. He literally fails at being a St. Bernard. I still love him though. I think my mom loves him more than she loves me. Number of times she calls me Duke in a given day: 10. Number of times Duke is called my name: 0.

Quick profile of Duke:

Sex: Male minus certain male parts

Age: 13

Likes: Sleeping, napping and snacking

Dislikes: Metal grates, cold weather, puddles and loud noises.

Interested in: Friends only

I love my parents' refrigerator. Food everywhere. I swear it's like a supermarket in there but it's all free. Well free for me at least. Not free for my parents. I think this is why they are always asking me how long I'm staying with them. 

Wrapping up a long day of travelling, it was nice to sit back and just stare outside. Didn't have to move. Didn't have to think. For two weeks I'm gonna be away from the MBA and I'm gonna make the most of it. When I say make the most of it it really means I'm going to eat a lot. NYC restaurants, cafes, halal carts and pepto bismol suppliers you have been warned.

So long, and thanks for all the ish

Yesterday marked the end of Term 1 of our ESADE MBA. Looking back over the past four months so much has happened.

I arrived in Barcelona on August 21st. I arrived knowing no one and with nary an idea as to what I would face over the coming months. The past four months taught me so many new things that its almost unbelievable. Couple of things just off the top of my head:

1. You can subsist on ham and cheese sandwiches and beer for a considerable amount of time before your body starts wanting more than salted pork and dairy.
2. Spanish food can get boring after the first month or so.
3. Unread copies of the Wall Street Journal/Financial Times can act as kindle, table or chair levelers or a reminder that you really should start reading these things.
4. The 22 bus on Monday mornings is a sure fire way to be late to class. 
5. 1.20 euro beers at the cafeteria are the perfect way to end a day of classes.
6. Moral hassa, think about it and que hora es will forever live as the ESADE inside joke
7. No matter what Spain+efficiency will NEVER be mentioned in the same sentence unless lack precedes efficiency.
8.  Blackberries and BBM are the greatest thing ever invented. 
9. Groupwork is a major pain but absolutely necessary. It is also a great source of gossip. 
10. You can never stop learning from your classmates.

The term is over now and for 2.5 weeks I don't have to worry about lectures, case studies, homework, groupwork, exams and everything else related to school. It will be a weird sensation not being at school though. I spent pretty much every day with my classmates on and off campus. We had class, ate together, studied together and partied together. Seeing everyone say their goodbyes last night really made me realize how tight-knit our group had gotten over the past four months and it's really no surprise considering the amount of time we all spent together living the ESADE MBA life and going through the ups and downs of a B-school student.

Anyways, our class definitely lives up to the work hard play hard mentality and we kicked off our End of Term 1 celebration with a Xmas group dinner at El Rodizio Grill. Five words. All you can eat BBQ. Three words. Wine and Cava. One word. Awesome. We essentially took over the entire restaurant as about 100 ESADE students converged upon the place. I'm pretty sure the other customers were thoroughly annoyed by us but whatever its our party and we'll be loud if we want to.

Then it was off to Opium Cinema. This is where everyone stepped it up a notch. The past month really took a toll on everyone and walking the hallways of ESADE you could see it. But, last night was different. It was just great seeing everyone with a huge smile on their faces. It was kinda like before we started when we were just reveling in the moment surrounded by our new friends in a new city but now we were surrounded by old friends in a familiar city. Once again, because there were about 150 of us there we essentially took over the club, which led to my favorite moment of the night; a group karaoke of Last Christmas. Similar to Bon Jovi, Wham songs are known worldwide. The power of George Michael.

So I leave for NYC tomorrow and am heading back home. It'll be nice to be home but honestly I will miss ESADE and my friends. You guys really are the best and I thank everyone for making these past four months so memorable. I couldn't ask for a better group of people.

So next post will be from the comfort of my parent's place. I bid you all adios and to everyone travelling during the next couple of days safe travels.
ESADE MBA365.com

Yikes

Well well well. It's December 15th and time has definitely flown by. Looking over my posts it's amazing to think that I arrived in Barcelona just about four months ago. So much has happened its almost mind bottling. (Blades of Glory reference in case everyone thinks I've gone native and have forgotten the good 'ole American language)

In any case, I still have an accounting exam, a finance exam and a marketing take home essay to finish up so I won't be doing my big 2009:A Year in Review aka Get Engaged Say Goodbye to Los Angeles Say Hello to New York Say Goodbye to New York Bienvenidos a Barcelona OMG MBA WTF.

Oh. Also, my blog is now featured as one of the unofficial student blogs on our ESADE MBA website.

http://www.esade.edu/mba/eng. Future ESADE MBA candidates I welcome you to my blog. Is my blog a useful tool for you, the future candidate? Let's be honest. Probably not. Really I have provided no deep insight or resources to help in your selection of B-schools. What I do want to provide you and everyone else who utilizes this blog as a way to pass time while they're at work (Yes, I know who you all are) is an opportunity to just see life through my eyes. Nothing more nothing less. So if you want a sanitized version of ESADE student life, read our official ESADE student blog. If you want more of a personal introspective view, read Morgan Witkin's. I believe she was also featured in BusinessWeek. If you want a good general MBA blog read Tobias'. Read mine so that you can feed my constant need for attention. And with that I retreat to my warm cocoon of accounting and finance. A=L+OE and NPV=CF/(1+r)^n. and my personal favorite Financial Leverage of Me= null can't divide by zero.

mmmm....mcd's craving

I would club a baby seal for this. Okay maybe not club but a vicious poke.

60% of the time it works every time.

Surfing through Digg and found another example of Fox News as the bastion of accurate news and hard hitting journalistic insight.

Not really

Upside down and leftside right

Usually..well, more like all the time I'm talking about myself in my blog posts. It's really a way to feed my self-centered nature. But, today, I'm going to talk a bit about my fiancée. She's the best thing that's ever happened to me and I love her more than anything in this entire world. Don't worry I'll wait for you to stop vomiting before I continue.

Okay. Done?

Anyways, she's not what you'd call a typical girl and I don't always play the typical male role within our relationship. Thus, we have conversations such as the following, which happened earlier today on Blackberry Messenger.

Her: Morning
Me: Morning my love.
Her: 3 more weeks ugh
Me: When are you taking vacation
Her: The 25th
Her: Haha
Her: Yes I made the [fantasy football] playoffs in both leagues
Me: Nice. Still not out of the race yet
Her: Nope but Turner being out is going to hurt me
Me: Oh right. Don't have any good backups?
Her: Picked up a few good guys
Her: Laurence maroney on ne
Me: I have no idea who these people are

Not only is she an active fantasy football player but she's in TWO leagues. We Skype every Sunday so our conversations are intermittently disrupted by her cheering on her players. I'm never quite sure how to approach this. Some people tell me, "Hey that's awesome that your fiancée loves sports" to which I agree but at the same time it is slightly emasculating when your own SO knows more about football than you. Maybe I should pick up something super feminine just to balance things out. I hear Lamaze isn't just for women anymore.

Jay-Z had it right. I got 99 problems but....

*Credit to AC for the infographic.

Re-Bienvenidos a Barcelona

It's a funny thing to have writer's block for a blog. This blog has been a series of Holden Caufield-esque streams of consciousness but I try to put some thought into what I wanted to write. So today's blog post will be about one of three things.

1. The ESADE Consulting Club trip to London
2. General thoughts about the internship process
   
3. My career, life and future

Via a completely random computerized selection process i.e. going into Microsoft Excel and typing =rand()*3 the winner is topic 1.  The real winner is you, the reader, since I'm sure you wanted to hear me ramble about my life and future.

So the ESADE Consulting Trip was quite interesting. Our schedule was as follows:

Thursday - Bain & Co. and Navigant Consulting

Friday - Solon, KPMG, BearingPoint, Analysys Mason and Oliver Wyman

Mixture of presentations and Q&A at each company. The presentations were great and I felt that by meeting the company representatives I got to skip ahead of the recruiting line by foregoing the typical "Please submit your CV and Cover Letter via our Career site".

But really all this is quite pedantic. What was most awesome for me was finally being in a land where I could understand everyone and eating food that wasn't goddamn tapas. Oh, and normal sized coffee.

You don't realize how happy I was to get a large coffee in London. Granted it cost me something like 3.50 pounds, which is like $8,513 USD but still it was nice. One of these days I'll take a picture of what we get here in Barcelona but just imagine that cup and then shrinking it to about 1/410th of that size. Honey I Shrunk the Coffee Cup! (I'm somewhat torn as to how much I liked that last joke. In a way it's corny and  really dorky, which basically epitomizes yours truly but at the same time I can't help but shake my head in disdain as to the level of dorkiness that spews from my brain).

Anyways, back to the food. While I was there I also sampled some of Britain's favorite artery clogger, fish and chips, at a pub called The Larrick.

Britain's obesity rates are climbing as steadily as America's and it's really no surprise why, but God bless the Queen for that.

I got back from London on Saturday and then had a 1st round phone interview on Monday for a summer internship position within the biz dev and M&A group at a large entertainment company. I felt that the constant networking while in London helped keep my mind fresh in terms of verbal communication but now that the interview is done it's out of my hands and out of my control as to what happens next. I feel that the position and the job description is a good fit with my background but it's a tough market and the competition is really high. I'll stay optimistic but there's a part of me that thinks I have a snowball's chance in Venus (surface temperature of 460C=hot)

You know, reading over this post it's not a very interesting one. I'm somewhat disappointed that after 7 days without a blog post and a trip to London this was the best I could come up with. Feel free to leave me comments about how much it sucked so I can put coal in your stockings.

FinanceFinanceFinanceFinanceFinanceFinance.....Thanksgiving..FinanceFinance

Hope everyone from back home enjoyed their Thanksgiving break. Reading the various Facebook status messages that were typed out as everyone gorged on turkey, stuffing and gravy it appears many achieved the goal of Thanksgiving; To stuff yourself so full of food that you question why you aren't wearing pants with an elastic waist. To those who actually wore pants with elastic waists to maximize food intake, I salute your gluttony and pity your coronary.

Anyways, it should be no surprise that they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here in Spain. It should also be no surprise that as Americans we will never let that stop us from celebrating it in style. Because of our Finance project, which I'm sure most of you are sick of reading about it, Thanksgiving (observed) was Saturday and not Thursday. I pretty much spent the entire Saturday afternoon making my Mac and Cheese.

I was quite impressed by my own creation. It was four cheese Mac and Cheese with Mozzarella, Gouda and Cheddar, chopped bacon and grilled onions and topped with parmesan cheese. All placed inside the oven prior to serving to get the parmesan cheese nice and toasted.

Total food and drink tally for Thanksgiving:

• 2x  4.2kg turkeys
• Mac and Cheese
• Stuffing
• 2x bowls of salad
• Mashed potato and gravy
• 2 sweet potato pies
• 1 apple pie
• 18 bottles of wine
• 1 cheese and cracker platter

All eaten while watching some college football.

The moment I heard Al Michaels voice on the ESPN broadcast, I felt as though something tickled my brain. While I sat there stuffing my face with turkey and gravy and talking to my classmates about random stuff with the noise of the college football game in the background all I could think of was America F@!& Yeah.
 
Oh and Monday was the culmination of the countless hours spent on this cockamamie Finance project. Wow, I actually spelled cockamamie right on the first try. To be honest I screwed it up on the second one but anyways....Monday was our Finance presentation and it's a load off everyone's backs. I actually enjoyed the Finance class and felt that I learned a lot from it but really during some parts of this project I felt....

















So I'm off to London on Wednesday for a couple of days to visit some consulting firms with the Consulting Club. It'll be a chance to network and get a personal feel for the companies. Pip pip cheerio guv'nor.

They still talk like that right?   

Where do you stand?

*Looks out from under the pile of work for Finance*

We've been getting slaughtered here at ESADE due to a wonderfully unstructured Finance project we've been assigned to do. When the Project guidelines states, "Structure of the project: open to interpretation from the groups" you know you're in for a good time. Good actually meaning absolute crap. When a classmate of mine described the project as a "fun" project to the assistant professor it caused quite the uproar to those who overheard the conversation. Whether the uproar was due to everyone's disagreement or amazement that fun and finance project could be uttered within the same stratosphere I'm not quite sure. I imagine fun and finance being like Pluto and the Sun. Just chilling out in the far reaches of our galaxy.

Fear my awesome MS Paint skills. Clowns are even further outside the orbital pattern of Finance because I mean really who ever thinks they're fun.

Anyways, Monday is our presentation and then we'll be over the first big obstacle. Yes we can!

For the sake of charity?

So you just spent 3 seconds scanning the picture above. Notice anything? The t-shirt? Gift from the SO. I definitely am not huge in Japan. I'm very average-sized. The color brown doesn't suit my skin tone? Sorry Isaac Mizrahi. That moustache? Well thank you for noticing.

The month of November has been combined with moustaches to birth Movember. What is Movember you ask? From Movember.com  It's an actual charity event.

"Movember (the month formerly known as November) is a moustache growing charity event held during November each year that raises funds and awareness for men's health." In the US donations will be split between the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

In the spirit of Movember a group of us at ESADE have donated money to the event and have been growing out the 'staches since November 1st. Some have had to clean up due to interviews or meetings but the spirit lives on.

While it is fun to participate in an event like this there are some huge major drawbacks to rocking a 'stache. In no particular order:

1. It is itchy as hell. Damn hairs tickle my nose and I can feel the extra weight of the hairs. I have no idea how those Neanderthals did it but I'm sure they had more things to worry about like killing Mastodons or avoiding death via tar pits. 
2. Public perception is significantly altered. Have you ever been walking behind someone and then had that someone stop, clutch their bag and then let you walk past. Ah yes, the power of the 'stache. 
3. I have to be extra careful in the morning when shaving. I'm already bleary-eyed and half awake so to have to concentrate on the shaving has been annoying. I've almost shaved the thing off because I wasn't paying attention. At this point if I cut it shorter I'd just look like Hitler or Chaplin so I'd have to shave the whole thing off if I mess up. 

The end of Movember looms and I hope we've done our part to raise awareness. I've raised awarness in myself in that me+facial hair results in a stalker/molester/70s kung-fu/generally shady man look that should never be replicated. Ever.

Adventures in Spanish IT

We've been having problems with our wireless internet here at ESADE. One of my classmates went down to visit them to inquire about the problem. Unfortunately they were not able to fix the problem but they had this suggestion.

"The next time the internet is down just send us an e-mail."

As our econ professor loves to say...Think about it.

I went to Gastrofest and all I got was this.....

awesome opportunity to try the home cooking of my classmates' countries. Great food all around. Because I was busy manning the USA table I wasn't able to try all the different cuisines but those I did eat were spectacular.

Gastrofest winners with my commentary as follows:

Judge's choice: Japanese Traditional (sushi)

Honestly I didn't think they deserved to win. It was just sushi. I hate to go against my people but sushi isn't that difficult to make and it's not really cooking. A trained monkey can cook some rice and put some toppings on it. A trained monkey cannot bake a meatloaf or make Korean bbq or Indian curry. Although it can ride a Segway.

 

People's choice: Indian.

No complaints with this choice. I personally love Indian food and the amazing colon cleansing affect it has at times.

Best presentation: Mexico

Mexico decided to pull out all the stereotypes of Mexico and busted out the panchos, moustaches and sombreros. Their portrayal of the stereotypical Mexican was impressive and most likely only allowed because they were Mexicans. Viva Mexico.

Bestdrink: Peru (Pisco Sour)

The last time I drank Pisco Sour I was in Cuzco with major altitude sickness. Don't mix alcohol with 3,300 m (11,000 ft) elevation. I may have thrown up on a llama or it may have been a shag carpet.  Don't quite remember. Good times.

All in all a great time. It was Gastrotastic! I'm saddened that I can't use these Gastro terms for another year. 

An explosion of culinary delight on your tastebuds

This Friday is ESADE's Gastrofest 2009.

A gargantuan gastronomic gala guaranteeing gluttony. Alliterate that! Sentences like that are why my SO thinks I'm a major dork and why she shakes her head in shame when I proudly say stuff like that in public.

Anyways, as a testament to the school's diversity the following countries will be represented at Gastrofest.

1. Brazil
2. Canada
3. France
4. UK
5. Venezuela
6. Middle East
7. Peru
8. Northern India
9. Southern India
10. USA
11. Japan
12. Korea
13. Guatemala
14. Catalunya
15. Spain
16. Switzerland
17. Germany
18. Mexico
19. Russia

Team America, which I am proudly part of, will be serving a smorgasbord of American fine dining. It's our way of showing the world why Americans are so fat. Fat people say it's because of genes or a thyroid problem but it's really because we eat double patty chiliburgers with onion rings and a diet coke. I can say this because I used to be a fatty. All throughout my childhood I got to wear the "husky" size clothing. Whoever decided that husky was a nicer way of saying fat really needs to be drowned in lard.

I've hit my self imposed two tangent limit. The next post will either be a celebration of America's victory at Gastrofest or a plea for help in overcoming food poisoning. It's going to be GASTRONOMICAL!

(I won't say how long it took to come up with that.)  

Montserrat Part Mountain Deux

So that I can procrastinate further the rest of my trip from Montserrat.

Perfect spot to get ambushed by enemy who have positioned themselves on high ground. I think I've played too many videogames and watched too many movies.

After about an hour and a half of walking I'm thinking I must be fairly close to the summit and my body is hoping we're close to the summit. 

YES! Finally the summit. My legs are thanking this view.

Wait. I get to that wall and see this path ahead of me. What the hell? Who builds a lookout point like that? The guy who built that must relish the fact that he's crushing the hopes and dreams of the hikers. Sick bastard.

 

Still hating that guy who built that wall.

Finally made it to the summit. 1236 meters is about 4000 feet so it's not that high of a summit but apparently Sant Jerona is the highest peak in the Catalonian lowland.

Awesome views from the top. Somehow Barcelona keeps reminding me of LA. Like I could be looking at parts of the Valley with less porn and more trees.

Thinking about heading back now after enjoying the panaroma but before I do that....

Celebratory Japanese snack.

Am I the only one that looks at stained glass and just wants to throw a rock at it? Was that lightning that just struck outside? How odd. 

It's hard not to be impressed by the beauty of a church. A perfect place to remind the peasants the power of religion and the omnipotence of G-O-D. Oops my religious beliefs just showed.

Anyways, that was my Montserrat trip. Totally recommend everyone going out there. It's the perfect day trip from Barcelona and there's enough to fill a day of sightseeing. You can get your rocks off at Montserrat. Thank you I'll be here all week. Please tip your waitress.

Domino's

Domino's?

I say DomiYES!!!

*Back to your regularly scheduled programming*

Ugh

Back on the upward slope of the MBA course load. All of our presentations, research papers and normal HW is piling on top of each other and it's been a struggle to keep up let alone write my usual musings for the blog.

Being a lover of quality reality TV such as The Hills I am loving the side effect of all this coursework on my fellow classmates. Most of our work is done in groups. At the beginning of the term we were pre-assigned to teams of 6. Each team is typically broken down into 4 guys 2 girls and everyone from a different country and industry. Well that was what they tried for, at least. So for example my group consists of

1 French guy with an IT background

1 Dutch/American guy with a financial service background

1 Swiss/German with a financial service background

1 German girl with a project management background

1 Indian girl with an IT consulting background

Me

Most of the groups, mine included, have been working well and getting things done but there have been some awesome stories coming out of other groups.

People storming out of team meetings. Cups of water poured on people's heads. Yelling matches. It's just great entertainment overall. I really wish I could tape some of this and sell it to the CW or something. "B-school Blowouts" Okay so the title sucks but I promise great content. I'd follow up the success of that with "B-school Beauties" and "B-school Blend" -a Big Brother style show where MBA students from around the world are forced to live in a house and participate in some awesome challenges like financial modeling or marketing case studies. Man I'm just a goldmine of super awesome TV ideas. I'm just awesome. I'm sure my mom would agree. 
ESADE MBA365.com

Cowboys and Indians

This Indian costume looked pretty decent. It didn't scream YMCA to me when I bought it. If anything, based on the guy in the picture it looked pretty awesome for 10 euros. I even spiced it up with a scalp removing tomahawk to add just a tad bit more awesomeness.

Pocahontas. Yes, when I arrived at the ESADE/IESE Halloween party I ended up being called Pocahontas. Not once. Not twice. But like 20+ times by 20 different people. Somehow the costume lost its awesomeness factor when I wore it. I tried salvaging the name by correcting people by calling myself Pocahont-o but the damage was done. Oh well I thought I looked cool.

*I realized this morning that being known as Pocahontas actually was somewhat beneficial. You see, Pocahontas was an American. Sorry Canada I've regained my American citizenship*

Quickie

Was reading one of my classmate's blogs and was reminded of a quote our Project Management teacher gave regarding the allocation of resources for a project.

What is the difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment'?

In an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was 'involved' -the pig was 'committed.

Oh delicious pork. How I love thee and your other white meat.

*immature snicker*

Pardon the interruption

For those of you anxiously awaiting Part 2 of my trip to Montserrat you'll have to wait till Friday. I got bigger fish to fry today.  (It rhymes)

Beyond the personal and educational development, a big reason people attend B-school is to change careers or accelerate their current trajectory. To facilitate that transition, ESADE has developed weekly seminars to prepare us for recruiting. Some of our Career Services counselors are former I-bank recruiters or Consulting firm recruiters so the previous seminar was to outline the do's and don'ts of recruiting. Given what transpired at ESADE Career Week I'd like to create my own Do's and Don'ts list applicable for the students and company representatives.

Do: Attend the company presentations for those companies you are interested in.

Don't: Get called out by the company representative for doing something other than listening attentively. Happened a couple of times in different presentations. It's like when you're gf catches you looking at the pretty girl across the street. You swear that she just looks familiar and you were trying to pinpoint if you knew her from high school or university but at that point your cover is blown.

Do: Welcome the company on behalf of ESADE.

Don't: Say the company name wrong. This was my boneheaded move. I was the company host for AD Little and introduced the company as "AD Little" at which point the Principal started off his presentation with "I'd like to thank you all for your interest in Arthur D. Little." Like saying to your gf "Remember that time we went to that restaurant" to which she responds "That wasn't with me."

Do: Utilize the networking coffee session to gain personal insight into the company.
Don't: Pull out your CV and go over it point by point with the recruiter or aka how to slowly kill the recruiter.

Do: Realize that as important as getting a job or an internship is, really, in the end it's just a job. A job is just what we do to fill in the time in between all the other things that are more important like family, friends, socializing, etc.
Don't: Forget that I still need an internship/job to pay for stuff.

My materialism and hippie-ism has a conflict of interest.

Being a tourist

A couple of weeks ago we had a long weekend due to a bank holiday falling on a Monday. I had decided to take a one day trip somewhere and decided upon Montserrat. As usual pictorial tour as follows.

The entire train was full for the duration of the 1 hour trip from Plaza Espana to Montserrat. Those red dots that indicate what station you're approaching becomes like a giant middle finger by the 45th minute.

The cremallera (train) that takes you to the Abbey.

Safety in numbers. I don't understand why people congregate like that. Guess what happened when the train came? They had to move down to where I was because that car became full. Bryan 1: Other tourists -2. Why -2? Because it's my blog and I dictate the scoring.

 

 

So as you can see the weather was absolutely beautiful and the monastery very cool looking. The thing was rebuilt in the 18th century due to Mr. French tiny man, Napoloean, razing the building. Take away point here: Never trust tiny French men with grand visions of world domination because they'll even take out your 9th century churches.  

Disney plagiarizes everything. For the longest time I always thought those statue heads in Haunted Mansion were some Disney magic technology but then I realized this trick has been around for centuries.

The summit of Montserrat is 1236m above sea level and is the highest point in the Catalonian low lands. As some of you can attest I am a person of great physical ability so I figured I'd give this "hike" a try. The route I'm about to take is the one that goes from the center of the map to the top right. No biggie.

Jagged rocks. Not to be confused with the popular R&B group of the 90's Jagged Edge. The similarities are uncanny, I know.

View from about the 1/3 point looking down towards the monastery. As I've maxed out my attention span and probably yours, I'll save the rest of the hike for the next post. Don't let the suspense kill you.