On Valentine's Day, we went for an amazing hike in the hills above Barcelona. A couple of months ago, I joined a group called "
InterNations" that brings together expats from around the world for events and meetups (it's an international organization with chapters everywhere). We took the funicular up to the meeting point, and it turned out that John and I were the only two signed up for this outing, so off we went with our guide to hike the hills. The
views were gorgeous, but it was super windy, and being mid-February, it got dark early. John can see these hills from his office, so it was fun to be on the hill and see the BSC building below. In this photo, BSC is the wide white building in the center (to the left of the yellow crane) and
Spotify Camp Nou -- the Barcelona futbol stadium -- is up to the right. But walking for 2 1/2 hours was A LOT. Especially in the dark. We took the funicular back down the hill, and the train back into town, and picked up doner kebab for dinner. We were wiped!
The following week, I changed jobs (within BSC) to work for the EU-funded AI Factory. (Although my official start date was March 2, they let me 'straddle' the two groups for a while to get my feet wet.) My new job is called 'Stakeholder Liaison', which is another name for the same thing I had been doing for the past 18 years at TACC. My new job entails coordinating with organizations in the Spanish supercomputing network (Red Española de Supercomputo) and helping to shepherd their SMEs and startups into the AI Factory ecosystem. This also meant I changed locations, so now, instead of riding the metro with John for a 35-minute commute, I walk 15 minutes across the old part of town (and pass the Cathedral) every day. It's lovely... except for the "hot-desk" situation, which means I have to carry my stuff with me all the time. But the view from my window is nice. :)
We haven't gone traveling since we came home from
New Year's in Dublin, but the nice thing is, people keep coming to visit.
(Another benefit of living in Barcelona...) The third week in February, the TACC EPIC (education) crew came for a conference, and we took them to our favorite tapas place, Fragments, then out for ice cream on the Rambla -- which is basically in our neighborhood. It was fun to see some familiar faces and hear the latest news about TACC.
Lucky me, I still get to spend time with the BSC Education & Training team sometimes, and they were nice enough to make me an adorable birthday card with some of our group photos and cute notes -- in five different languages! (English, Spanish, Catalan, French, and Farsi). While I like my new gig so far, I'll miss spending time with those amazing ladies.
[Eagle eyes may discover that one of those pictures is AI-edited and it changed ALL of our faces, including turning one person into a guy! Oops!] Speaking of my birthday, my sweet hubby bought me a wonderful gift: new pots and pans! (Yes, I'm that old... New pots and pans are super exciting!) We've been using the basic ones that came with the apartment, but after burning rice more than once (honestly, I have never been good at making rice), we thought it might be time for a replacement. Surprise! He picked them based on the logo (W M F ) -- for Wonder Woman and me! -- and the color of the silicone in the lids (RED), so of course I love them.
And then my awesome brother took the W M F theme and made me my own version of the Wonder Woman logo, which I just LOVE. 😍
Then it was March. My first "official" week of work at the new gig was spent representing BSC and the AI Factory at Mobile World Congress (MWC26), or, as my co-workers call it, "el mobile". I'm used to the crowds at SC, where we've gotten up to 18,000 people, but this was next level. MWC brings in over 110,000 people, and uses the entire 'Fira' conference center - that's over 2.5 million sq feet of exhibit space! It was mind-boggling. We were in the smaller section of the exhibits, called "4YFN" (Four Years From Now), which was basically AI-everything. I wandered around and talked to people at booths from other Spanish cities and regions, but I quickly realized I was much happier sitting at the BSC booth and explaining who we are and what we do. (I even talked to some folks from the US Consulate in Barcelona, and when they asked about similar centers in the US, I may have gushed a little about TACC...) But even then, after three days of intensive Spanish (and some Catalan), I couldn't even get my brain to function. Words would not form.
Through the magic of LinkedIn, I noticed that my friend Nate would be in town for the MWC conference, working the Qualcomm booth. We took Nate to our other favorite restaurant, Goig. And in true Spanish fashion, we sat there and chatted for almost 3 hours! The food was wonderful, but not as great as catching up and sharing stories. Nate even got to meet the King of Spain at his booth earlier in the week! I was jealous.
In January and February, a lot of my free time was spent planning for the Democrats Abroad Global Women's Committee 'Hackathon,' which took place on March 8, aka International Women's Day. I ran a "STEMinist Trivia" session, like a pub quiz, with questions about politics, entertainment, science, and sports. It was super fun! We also had guest speakers, watched a documentary about "Crisis Pregnancy Centers", and did yoga. It was a full and exhausting day, but also empowering. Democrats Abroad is a huge community, and we are doing our best to engage and encourage everyone -- especially women -- to vote in the midterms. (Are YOU registered to vote yet?)
Last Sunday, we went up to Port Forum to see an
old Spanish Galleon. On the long hike over to it from the metro, we passed the Natural History Museum, so after we took some pictures of the ship, instead of actually going aboard, we went back and wandered through the museum. I've never seen so many
taxidermied things of all shapes and sizes! Not my favorite kind of museum display. Interesting, but creepy. However, I did like reading about the different kinds of prehistoric animals that lived on the Iberian Peninsula! There are some amazing archaeological sites around Spain where they have found dinosaur bones, eggs, and tons of other fossils.
One more fun little thing - on our way home last Friday, we stopped at the L'illa mall for an architecture exhibit -
"Arquitectura en Paper" -- a journey through the history of architecture through hand-built paper models. I was surprised at how small they were! Sagrada Familia was about 24" tall. It was a little crowded
(end of the day on a Friday in a mall, I should've known...) but we were able to see all of the little models, and then we took the express bus home.
Here are some other pics I took of the models.
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