The Last Cupcakes

It’s been a while, so here’s a brief summary of what’s going on with this “cupcake” business: one of my Class of 2011 classmates at Darden has a husband who did his 1L year at the law school at the same time she and I were doing our FY at Darden.  Said husband always referred to Darden as “Camp Cupcake” and insisted that the FY at Darden was much easier than the 1L year at the Law School.  So I decided to do a week-by-week comparison of the two programs, awarding a cupcake each week to the school that was easier/fluffier/more sugar-coated.  You can see the posts covering the first semester here, here, here, here, and here.  By the end of the semester, the final cupcake tally was Darden: 5, UVa Law: 13 (meaning that I found the first semester at Darden harder than the first semester at the Law School). 

And now, since I’m sure you’ve all been waiting with baited breath for the second semester cupcakes, here they are (I did actually keep a written list last semester, which I just uncovered in a heap of papers/outlines/notes/bills that I apparently just stuck on a shelf in my office…whoops):

The Week 19 Cupcake goes to: Darden

Rationale: We were technically on winter break at both schools, and since my family had started driving me absolutely insane, I was back in Cville both years.  In my FY at Darden, I generally chilled out at home, did some interview prep, and spent several hours sitting in the Admissions lobby talking to prospective students who were visiting for interviews.  On the whole, it was pretty fun.  During my 1L winter break, I drove back and forth to DE to interview with several law firms.  Since I hate driving around DC and since interviews themselves are more stressful than prepping for interviews (and since 1Ls are engaged in cutthroat competition for a tiny, tiny number of firm jobs), it was a lot less fun being a law student.

The Week 20 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law

Rationale: While this week was also theoretically still “winter break,” at Darden, interview prep kicked up to warp speed.  I spent hours doing consulting case interview prep.  During my 1L year at the Law School, I managed to convince the administration to let me take a J-Week class (a one-week course that gives you a quarter’s worth of credit) at Darden.  So, I spent a week taking a course on Crisis Leadership, which involved a visit to the Darden Media Lab, complete with a one-on-one on-camera interview, and a mock press conference (again videotaped) and crisis plan development exercise.  I felt a little bit like Eli Gold from The Good Wife, so it was super fun.  Also, all my classmates at the law school were still chillaxing. 

The Week 21 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law

Rationale: At Darden, we started Q3 classes AND were doing hours of on-grounds interviews (and learning team).  At the law school, we were still on winter break.  I did fly up to Boston for a law firm interview (for the summer job I ended up taking), but I also got to see friends M & D and paid a visit to my former co-workers at The Consulting Firm That Shall Not Be Named, so that was much more fun than class.

The Week 22 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law

Rationale:  The things that kept me fairly busy and stressed out at the law school were all non-law-school activities: the Wine & Cuisine Club Conference/Industry Day (complete will tripping over the carpeting in the PepsiCo Forum and falling flat on my face in front of Dean Bruner), alumni interviews for local applicants to Brown, a trip to Indianapolis in connection with the advising I do for the local chapter of my sorority, and a stress fracture in my foot.  Awesome.  During my first year at Darden, we were also doing interviews, dealing with snow storms, putting together presentations for the Management Communications course, and doing a bunch of other stuff.  At the law school, we were still shopping for classes for the second semester.

The Week 23 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law

Rationale: Plain old class at the law school; class plus learning team plus recruiting at Darden.

The Week 24 Cupcake goes to: Darden

Rationale: Yes, Darden was busy, but it was the routine kind of busy to which I had become accustomed at that point.  On the other hand, at the law school, I was prepping for a trial advocacy tournament, attending info sessions for tryouts for journals and to be a Dillard Fellow, and I think this was the week that a bunch of 1Ls were doing on-grounds recruiting for summer positions.

The Week 25 Cupcake goes to: Darden

Rationale: I, too, am surprised that during the month of Feb Club (there are theme parties every night of the month at the law school), Darden is earning more cupcakes.  But while interviews were still underway at Darden, the stress was broken up by the SHE Auction and Gala.  At the law school, typical stress was compounded by continuing trial advocacy prep and a full weekend spent on my Dillard Fellow tryout.

The Week 26 Cupcake goes to: Darden

Rationale: This week was a close call.  During my first year at Darden, I spent this week in a bunch of interviews, including a trip to DC for a series of second-round interviews with a consulting firm and a branch of the federal government.  However, at the law school, I was still in trial advocacy hell, and I lost the second weekend in a row to a tryout, this time for journals.

The Week 27 Cupcake goes to: Darden

Rationale: It was exam week (always my favorite week of the quarter!) at Darden, and even though that meant it was almost Spring Break at the law school, I spent the first part of the week exhausted from two weekends of tryouts and then spent the first weekend of spring break  at the most mismanaged trial advocacy tournament I’ve ever attended (and this was my ninth year of mock trial competition).

The Week 28 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law

Rationale: Spring Break at both schools.  At the law school, this meant total rest and relaxation.  At Darden, this meant a trip to Barcelona.  Barcelona was great (duh.) but it was a week of “class,” therefore making it less cupcake-y than a week spent vegging out. 

The Week 29 Cupcake goes to: Darden

Rationale: Darden finished up spring break and then started a quarter of mostly elective classes (3 electives plus LO and Ethics, so no learning team any more).  At the law school, our LRW (legal research and writing) briefs were due, and we held our first of two admitted student weekends (which means a lot of running around, especially when one of your closest friends at the law school is one of the ASW chairs). 

The Week 30 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law

Rationale: My law school friends and I had time to go grab breakfast before class and to go on a Friday shooting trip (no animals, only clays, were harmed during this outing).  At Darden, I was still recruiting and attending a bazillion and a half group meetings for deliverables for various classes.

The Week 31 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law

Rationale: Finals panicking hadn’t started yet at the law school (and I had plenty of time to attend various Darden social functions), but during my FY at Darden, I had several more interviews, which meant travel, and I also took on a club leadership role, which meant transition and strategy meetings out the wazoo. 

The Week 32 Cupcake goes to: Darden

Rationale: At Darden, I still had 3-4 interviews and my classmates were trying to pick their classes for the whole next year, but at the law school, I was prepping for my oral argument for LRW, doing my oral argument (on a Saturday morning), and outlining season had started. 

The Week 33 Cupcake goes to: Darden

Rationale: Outlining stinks. 

The Week 34 Cupcake goes to: Darden

Rationale: Outlining really, really, really stinks, even more than group meetings for LO, marketing intelligence, and data analysis and optimization.

The Week 35 Cupcake goes to: Darden

Rationale: The Landels' (my awesome operations professor and his awesome wife) annual Southern Dessert Buffet will make any week great.  Darden Days, including the annual BBQ at King Family Vineyards, was just icing on the cake.  Even though I also got to participate in these activities while I was doing my 1L year, outlining really does take all the joy out of everything.

The Week 36 Cupcake goes to: Darden

Rationale: Exams at Darden are so much more pleasant than at the law school.

The Week 37 Cupcake goes to: Darden

Rationale: Darden was done, so I got to go to my cousin’s wedding in CT and then fly to Cannes for the Cannes Film Festival (another GBE).  While Cannes drove me nuts in many respects, it was definitely better than a second week of exams at the law school.

SECOND SEMESTER CUPCAKE SCORE:

Darden, 12; UVa Law, 7

FINAL CUPCAKE SCORE:

Darden, 17; UVa Law 20

Final Thoughts: Darden is definitely not Camp Cupcake.  While the final scores were actually pretty close, the FY at Darden is generally much more consistently demanding than the 1L year at the law school.  However, the month leading up to exams and the two weeks of exams themselves each semester at the law school are pretty darn miserable (and accounted for most of the cupcakes Darden earned). 

The Riviera

or those of you who know me, you know that a I drive what is officially an "old man" car - a 1995 Buick Riviera that was, in fact, previously owned by an old man (my grandfather).   I refer to it the same way Pop always referred to it, as "The Riviera" (not to be confused with the Pop-dubbed "The Park Avenue" or "The Lucerne," his other recent Buick models; my old Subaru Legacy aka "The Subaru;" or my mom's minivan, which my grandparents still call "The Truck").   Since I'm so used to driving The Riviera, it was odd for me to start talking about how I was going to visit The Real Riviera: the French Riviera.  

During my trip to Cannes (see the post here for details of GBE Cannes 2010), several of my friends and I took day trips to explore other Rivieria attractions beyond the annual Film Festival.  Those trips included taking a ferry to the Ile St. Honorat, which is one of two (along with Ile Ste. Marguerite) cute little islands about a 20-minute board ride from Cannes.  We took the bus from Cannes la Bocca, walked down the pier, bought our tickets, and voila!  We were ready to sail! 

After a 20 minute ferry ride on which we saw "pirate ships"...

...and fancy carbon-masted racing sail boats... 

...we made it to St. Honorat, which is the site of the Abbey des Lerins, an actual abbey inhabited by monks.  You're supposed to be quiet on the island, so we took a lovely peaceful walk around the place.  We saw their fancy vineyards (they do make their own wines and liquors, available for sale in the abbey gift shop)... 

 ....and we saw some cute little chapels on the shoreline....

...we found a little pirate cove...

...and a big fort that looked straight out of Robin Hood...

...and then we visited the actual abbey before grabbing lunch and heading home....

It was a lovely day!

The next day, the same group of lovely ladies decided to take the train from Cannes to Monaco.  We did our own tour of basically the whole principality, starting with the beautiful church outside the train station...

...then we walked up the hill to the royal palace....

...saw the royal guard....

...and some other beautiful scenery and gorgeous parks in Monaco Ville. 

Then we trekked down the mountain, hopped on a bus, and went to see the Montecarlo casino before heading back to Cannes.

And thus ended my trip to the Riviera.  Now all I have is some photos...and the Buick. 

Cannes GBE, or what should have been the greatest-ever course credit coup

View of Cannes from the fort at the top of the hill

At the beginning of May, two days after exams ended and one day after I jaunted up to Hartford for my cousin's wedding (lovely, lovely but completely gratuitous-to-this-post pic below - it was a beautiful and very fun wedding!), I hopped on a plane to Nice, France to attend the 63rd Festival de Cannes (i.e., the Cannes Film Festival).  For two weeks, I was supposed to hob-nob with entertainment insiders and walk the red carpet...all while earning the equivalent credit for a one-quarter Darden class.  This sounds like the best plan ever (a veritable academic coup, if you will), right?

Um...wrong!  While there were certainly parts of the trip that I enjoyed, I spent much of the two week period completely frustrated and counting the days until I got to fly home.  Now, before you stop reading here and write this off as a crazy rant by a grumpy person, let me say this: what follows below is a fairly "fair and balanced" (no, not in the Fox News kind of way....in a truly "fair and balanced" kind of way) summary of the trip.  I'll cover the good, the bad, and the ugly in the spirit of being entirely honest.  What follows is my opinion, yes, so you can feel free to wholly disregard it, but there's also a lot that I'll say below that I really, really wish someone had told me before I signed up for this trip.  Some of my Cannes-mates may have different views (Sierra's more up-beat accounts are here and here and here), but the following is mine (and you'll note that I've taken six weeks to write this post, in part because I was so irritated before that I didn't think I could provide any sort of objective report on the whole thing until now.  I've mellowed with time.  Honest.). 

So...in the style of my Barcelona GBE post, here goes...

Overview
1.) Course name: The Business of Film at the Cannes Film Festival
2.) Professor: Yael Grushka-Cockayne, a member of the Decision Analysis faculty (she did not attend the Festival with us but will be reading our papers, viewing our presentations, and giving us grades)
3.) Credits: 1.5 credits that count toward the Second Year elective requirement (or equal to a one-quarter long regular class)
4.) Academic requirements/work load: Working a 6+ hour daily internship shift with a company doing business at the Festival for about 10 days; attending screenings at the Festival (mostly for fun); writing a 5-6 page marketing and distribution plan for a film screened at the Festival (either in competition, out of competition, or screened to buyers) (70% of grade, due July 1); putting together and delivering a 10-15 minute presentation about one of the films and our marketing/distribution plan in a group of 3-4 students (30% of grade, will be done in September when school resumes).
5.) Done in affiliation with: The American Pavilion, a communications and hospitality center at the festival, which matches students with companies for internships and ostensibly provides a variety of other services and perks to student participants (more on this below)
6.) Cost: Around $5000, including the program fee ($3000), airfare ($800-900), and food/beverage/sundry purchases for the two weeks. Darden approved loans for up to $4500, which was not really quite enough to cover everything (food is ridiculously expensive during the Festival....I think they just prey on tourists, which is probably a genius business strategy). 

Travel:
The plan was for everyone to depart on May 8 and arrive in Cannes on May 9.  I was planning to go late (arrive very early on the morning of May 10) due to the aforementioned wedding.  However, thanks to the Icelandic ash cloud, I ended up arriving about 10 hours after I was supposed to and before about 30% of the program participants (and before about 50% of people's luggage). 

Days 1-2:
May 9 was supposed to be a "get over your jet lag" kind of day for everyone in the program.  For future reference, there were about 150 or so students participating in the American Pavilion's program, the vast majority of whom were undergrads.  There were 16 or so Darden students and one girl from NYU-Stern.  Since the ash cloud was wreaking havoc on travel plans, May 10, which was supposed to be a day for getting the lay of the land and attending panels, ended up being a "get over your jet lag and hunt down your luggage" kind of day for most people.  My classmates who attended the actual scheduled programming of the day unanimously said that I didn't miss anything by not being there.

Day 3:
This was the day when we got our internship assignments.  There were also several panel discussions and a tour of the Palais de Festivals, or the main building where the festival screenings and the Marche du Film (film market) are held.

Outside the Palais, with the official festival picture of Juliette Binoche

 
I was actually pretty excited about my internship assignment - 5 other Darden students, one NYU undergrad, and I were assigned to work for a pretty major American studio (in my ongoing spirit of protecting the innocent, let's just call it "The Studio That Shall Not Be Named").  What I wasn't excited about during this day was the constant "hurry up and wait" routine (we literally spent over an hour just sitting on the steps of the Palais waiting for someone to fetch our festival accreditation badges), the panelists who spoke interminably on random topics that had nothing to do with their advertised theme (we got some guy's random musings on life during the talk entitled "Navigating the Cannes Film Festival" and absolutely no useful information about the Festival), and the relatively patronizing tone of the American Pavilion staff members.  Yes, I know wrangling 150+ students is difficult.  Yes, I know students often act obnoxious and entitled.  But hello, you're maybe five years older than me (which makes you younger than many of my classmates), so please don't talk to me like I'm a child.  And definitely don't just yell at all of us.  Grrrrr.....

Days 4-12:
From May 12-20, we were basically on our own to do as we pleased, so long as we showed up to our assigned internship shifts.  I ended up on the afternoon shift, which meant that from about 2 pm -8 pm I occupied the penthouse offices of The Studio That Shall Not Be Named and made myself available for whatever they needed me to do.  This included straightening up the office, organizing RSVPs and guest lists for parties, and running errands. We had been told in advance that we would be doing menial things like running errands, so I really didn't have a problem with that, at least in theory. I was more than OK with fetching office supplies and snacks and whatnot....it was when I got sent out to buy (and then return) a French MacBook (european outlet plug, French keyboard) for somebody who spoke no French and lived in Hong Kong or to track down Tampax and Midol for the executive's personal assistant or to go get the heel fixed on the Studio's VP of Corporate Affairs' shoe that I got a little frustrated.  It was like living in "The Devil Wears Prada," but I didn't get to meet Meryl Streep.  I also wish that we had had a little more opportunity to actually learn  about the film business, but we were basically under orders to stay out of the way of the executive (who apparently doesn't love interns), and there frankly wasn't enough to keep us all busy, so we spent a lot of time watching trailers and reading scripts (there are some really cool films coming out towards the end of this year, just FYI).  Several of the more senior Studio employees did periodically take the time to talk to us and answer any questions we had about the business, but it would have been cool to see a distribution negotiation or something like that. Still, all that aside, the internship wasn't too bad.  I have some suggestions for how it could be improved, but we'll get to that later.

Literally rolling out the red carpet...

Days 13-15:
Here's a key festival secret: most of the actual "business" is done the first week during the major market session. Then all the important Hollywood-types fly home, leaving the minions....er, I mean interns....free to jaunt off on day trips (read all about those here).

Day 16:
Most of us flew home on May 24, though a couple of my very lucky classmates had planned other European excursions before their internships started.

So, that's the trip in a nut-shell.  As described above, it probably doesn't sound too shabby, right?  Well, here are my other thoughts on the trip that I really think anyone considering going should know (and don't worry, I have some constructive suggestions for improvement, too, not just complaints).  These probably don't sound like major issues, but they could get awfully, awfully annoying when they were all happening at once.

Accomodations

My issue: space concerns and roommate matching
The situation:  We were housed in "European efficiency apartments." This didn't sound too bad at the beginning. I have friends who have lived abroad for a protracted period of time in accomodations that are billed exactly the same way, and they were perfectly fine. However, when you cram four people into an apartment that is smaller than my master suite in Charlottesville (which, trust me, is not palatial), you will have problems.  There literally was nowhere to lay down our suitcases, and there was not a single drawer (and only limited closet space).  I was in a bunk bed with a mattress that was flimsier than my sofa cushions at home.  The bathtub had a flexible shower head but no curtain.  We didn't get keys to the apartments; instead, there was a lockbox with a combination hooked to the bars over the window outside, and you had to open the lock-box, get out the key, unlock the door, replace the key in the lockbox, enter the apartment, and use the second key inside to lock the door again each and every time anyone entered the apartment.  If you were unfortunate enough to be sleeping in the bunkbeds in the front alcove, this meant that any time anyone came or went, you knew about it.  However, this all would probably have been bearable if I hadn't had The Roommate From Hell.  There were four of us in this apartment - me, my friend Amy, a cool undergrad from Bentley, and The Roommate From Hell.  Our first day there, before Amy's luggage and the cool undergrad had even shown up, TRFH comes up to us and asks if she can have friends who are in town for the festival sleep on our floor.  Ummmm....hi, there isn't enough room for four people, let alone their luggage, in this apartment.  We certainly aren't adding any more. AND, we paid for this, your friends didn't, and the AmPav rules prohibit rommates.  Amy and I articulated our concerns to her pretty nicely, though, which earned us a grumpy "Fine, I was just asking your opinion."  We thought that issue was over.  Wrong.  Instead, we ended up with a "squatter" who TRFH periodically snuck into the apartment while Amy and I weren't looking.  Super, super annoying.  TRFH also regularly flooded the bathroom while showering, and she was also in the annoying habit of handwashing her stockings and undergarments and hanging them in the bathroom each day to dry.  Oh, yeah, and she CONSTANTLY turned on the heat to the maximum temperature.  It was 70+ degrees outside and there weren't any windows to open.  Now, I am not usually a passive agressive person; if you've really ticked me off, I will usually go straight to blatantly aggressive.  But something about this girl really drove me up the wall.  Maybe it was that she pretended to be unable to speak English and refused to communicate with me and Amy.  Maybe it was that she kept trying to stealthily sneak her friend into our apartment.  Maybe I just didn't like her.  Either way, I started passive aggressively turning off the heat every time I walked into the apartment.  I started ignoring her the same way she ignored me.  I avoided the apartment basically at all costs.  Childish, yes.  But I know I wasn't the only one annoyed by her (the remaining roommates really enjoyed commiserating).  Oh...and I should also mention that we paid $3000 for the privilege of coming to Cannes, and the weekly rate for each apartment was 400 euro.  So that means that per person housing costs were 200 euro for the week.  Just keep that in mind for later...
My proposed solution/recommendations for the future:  Don't cram four people into those apartments.  2 or 3 MAX would be much better and the cost really shouldn't be a huge issue.  Also, don't have undergrads rooming with grad students.  We are at different stages in our lives and have different priorities (in other words, I am a grandma and would like to go to bed before 3 am at least sometimes).  If I'm going to be crammed into a room with 3 other people, I'd be much happier if they were Darden people. 

OK, at least the view from our apartment wasn't too bad...

Tickets to screenings
My issue: handled inefficiently, inequitably, and unprofessionally by AmPav
The situation:  When we weren't at work, we were free to do whatever we wanted, including attend screenings.  Now, here is the secret to the Festival: if you have a festival badge and an inside ticket connection, you can go see some really cool stuff that is being screened as part of the film market (the Cannes market is one of the biggest film markets each year, which basically means that it is where studios and filmmakers and distributors all get together to buy and sell films and distribution rights, so there are tons and tons and tons of market screenings for buyers, to which you can frequently get invitations or tickets if you know or can figure out whom to ask).  Unfortunately, I think it took some of us a really long time to realize that you could go to tons of screenings for cool US films this way.  Nobody really told us, and unlike every other Festival-goer with a badge, the American Pavilion kids didn't each get our own book of market screenings.  I don't know why this is, but I really wish I'd had it.  That being said, the American Pavilion did *try* to get us red carpet tickets to the films in competition and to some of the market films (but again, you had to specifically know which films where showing and where and when in order to even ask them to try).  They kept a book where you could sign up for the films you were interested in seeing.  While I did get to see a good number of competition films, there were a variety of very frustrating things about this ticket system:
1.) You could sign up at breakfast each morning, and you had three "stars" that you could put down next to the screenings that you *really* wanted to see.    Doesn't sound bad, right?  Well, the problem with this was that you could theoretically sign up for everything, so there were some people who did this...and then went back through and changed their minds and hemmed and hawed every morning, so it was often a slow, tedious process to wait and sign up.  Also, some people had variable work schedules, so you weren't always sure whether or not you should sign up for something because you didn't know if your work schedule would conflict.  Aaaaannnnddd.... what we didn't realize at the time was that you were basically rewarded for signing up first, because there were a limited number of tickets for each screening (if the AmPav even got tickets), and while there was a "raffle," that basically meant that if there were five tickets available, the first five people who had written down their names got the tickets.  Also, if you "used" one of your stars for a screening for which the AmPav couldn't get tickets, you didn't get that star "back" to use again, you just lost it. 
2.) Halfway through the festival, when we'd all wised up about the stupidity of the system and realized that the key was to just sign up for everything really far in advance and then swap a work shift with someone if you had to, they....LOST THE BOOK.  And didn't tell anyone.  Um, yeah, that was really super and really professional.  We all started wondering why we weren't getting tickets to anything any more.  Yeah. 
3.) They did the daily "raffle" and ticket-awarding at 6 pm.  If you worked an evening shift, too bad for you.  The Darden crew tried to always have a representative who went and tried to pick up tickets for those people who "won" them, but the AmPav staff was sort of snooty about this whole thing.  You needed a signed note authorizing you to pick up someone else's ticket, and half the time, they didn't even do the drawing on time, so somebody had to be willing to go sit around, wait for the drawing, fight to collect tickets, and then hunt you down before the screening.  Again, "systems" like this are infuriating for an MBA student. 
My proposed solution/recommendations for the future: AmPav should really publish (or otherwise communicate) concrete, helpful information about the ticketing process.  They should also provide us all with the copy of the market screening guide that I believe we are entitled to as credentialed attendees.  The AmPav ticketing system should be electronic.  Run a Google spreadsheet or something so it can be accessed continually, can't get lost, and so that you can actually run a "drawing."  Hold the tickets at the actual American Pavilion for pick-up by the recipient (stick a post-it with the person's name on the thing and hold it at the front desk, for crying out loud).  Seriously, put an MBA student on your ticketing "operations" problem for 20 minutes and let them fix the thing for you.  Sheesh. 

One of the billboards for Robin Hood, which most of my Darden classmates got to see.  Why didn't I?  They ran out of tickets and handed out the last one right under my nose. :-(

Technology
My issue: We were told not to bring computers but they clearly would have been useful.  We should have been told to get ourselves French phones/phone numbers prior to our arrival in Cannes, because our employers certainly expected us to have them.
The situation: AmPav told us not to bring computers, so I didn't (one less thing to tote through airports...).  However, we needed them at work (thank goodness some of my classmates had brought theirs), they were the best way to get information on the films that were screening (again, because AmPav withheld the standard festival attendee information from us), and I think online ticketing (see above) would solve a lot of problems.  Our employers, who were sending us jaunting around town on copious errands, also expected us to have French phones/phone numbers, or at least some way for them to reach us.  I signed up for a temporary international plan on my blackberry (Yes, I am addicted, but at least that way I could stay in touch with family/friends while I was gone), but I didn't want to pay 99 cents a minute for somebody from my unpaid internship to call me.  Also, without phones, you had no way to track down your Darden classmates to figure out who was going to which screening, where everyone was grabbing drinks, etc. 
My proposed solutions/recommendations for the future: Bring a computer.  A bunch of us also ended up buying rechargeable prepaid French phones.  It would have been much cheaper to do this in the States in advance, and I also learned that I could have signed up for a French number that could have rung on my blackberry.  C'est la vie.  Now I know.  And I have an old-school flip phone with a French number.  Aren't I cool. 

Money
My issue: We paid a crap-ton of money to AmPav and did not receive anything approximating the value of that money in return
The situation:  As I mentioned, we paid a $3000 fee to the AmPav program to participate.  In return, they gave us crappy housing (200 euro), shuttles to and from the Nice airport to our crappy housing in Cannes la Bocca (approximately 50 euro value per person), festival badges (rumor is the full festival badges through a company costs around $300; we had apparently watered down versions that didn't come with the free swag or informational materials), access to the American Pavilion tent (whoop-dee-doo!), [semi-stale] breakfast each day (I'll be generous and say they spent $5 per person per day, or about $70 for the whole trip), limited access to tickets [which we could have acquired ourselves if we'd been given the right information], and access to organized panels and speakers that many of us couldn't attend because they conflicted with our work shifts.  So, they spent MAYBE $800 on each of us.  Even throwing in a generous administrative fee, I still don't understand where at least $1000 of my money paid to AmPav actually went.  Plus, I paid for a French phone, bus passes, lunch and dinner, my plane tickets, etc. on top of that.  Now, I know all GBEs are expensive.  Barcelona wasn't cheap.  But at least in Barcelona, I could see where my money was going (very nice hotel, tour guides, admissions fees to museums, etc.)  Maybe if I had been planning that trip myself, I wouldn't have spent the moeny the same way, but at least I know where it went.  Not so with Cannes....and that is INFURIATING to someone who is living on loans.  I feel totally ripped off.
My suggestions/recommendations for the future:  I think going to Cannes and working at the festival is cool and a valuable experience, but I think Darden could organize a better program itself without AmPav for much less money.  Rent a villa, use the connections we've established with US companies to set up real internships where we actually do useful things, and use those internships to get festival badges.  Done and done. 

Lest you all think that this is just me going on a tirade again without doing anything productive about it, be aware that AmPav did give us review forms to fill out after the trip...and I said on that form much of what I've said here.  Oh, and I warned them that I would be blogging about it....

Done, done, and DONE!!

Yes, I know I've been MIA again for a while, but I have a good reason...I've been really busy finishing up my first year at Darden.  Five minutes ago, at 1:35 am, I sent in my last exam/final (a powerpoint presentation about my plan for managing my summer internship).  So, now, I'm DONE!!!  I survived First Year!!!  Yay!!! 

On the sad side, since my next three years will be spent technically "in residence" at the law school, my Darden experience is now basically over.  :-( [Not really, but I felt slightly nostalgic a minute ago upon realizing that I'm leaving all my friends now and going over to the "dark side."]

Tomorrow, I need to do some hard-core cleaning, tons of laundry, pack, and leave for my next adventure: a quick stop in DE, up to CT for my cousin's wedding, and then a Sunday evening flight to Cannes, France for an internship/GBE at the Cannes Film Festival.  Then it's back to Charlottesville in a couple weeks to start my internship.  More details on everything later.  I think I may bust out some champagne for myself, and then it's off to bed to rest up for everything on tap tomorrow. 

Barcelona GBE - a week in one blog post!

Now that I've gotten back to the States and have settled into Q4 (and by "have settled into" I mean "have been hit by the Mack truck that is"....though I think maybe they loaded the Q4 Mack truck just slightly less full than those of the prior quarters), it's time to recap the Barcelona GBE and post some pictures!  Beware, I'm cramming all you ever wanted to know about the Barcelona GBE into this one post, so go grab a cup of coffee, hit up the restroom, and make sure you're in a comfy chair before starting this....

First, to explain the course:
1.) Course name: Design as Strategy
2.) Professor: Jeanne Liedtka (she is amazing!)
3.) Credits: 1.5 credits that count toward the Second Year elective requirement (or equal to a one-quarter long regular class)
4.) Academic requirements/work load: reading a coursepack of articles on Barcelona, strategy, and design; attending about 12 hours of class and participating in reflection/discussion; attending field trips to numerous design and tourist sites; completing a journal of reflections and insights to be handed in upon return to Charlottesville
5.) Cost: Around $3500, including course fee, airfare, and food/beverage/sundry purchases.  You can take out loans to cover these costs.

The trip:
Travel
Most of us flew out Friday from DC, connecting through London.  Some of us attempted to do some of our required course readings on the plane or during the connection. 

Darden students at Heathrow

We arrived Saturday afternoon, checked in to the hotel (which was very nice and which is located just down the hill from IESE, in the Pedralbes area of the city), and then went in search of paella and sangria at a nearby restaurant.  We were apparently super excited by the fact that there were orange trees, so that merited some pictures (which will not be posted here).  After eating and a quick trip back to the hotel for cat naps and showers, we rounded up the rest of our classmates and then split into two large groups for dinner and other festivities.  I ended up in a group at the Porto Olimpico, or the port area that was built for the 1992 Summer Olympics and that now features a whole bunch of restaurants, bars, and clubs.  We had a tasty dinner (paella, pictured below, for those who hadn't been with us earlier in the afternoon and tapas or other tasty morsels for the rest of us), and then ended the night at a couple bars in the area (including one that was doctor/nurse themed.  Take note, as this bar will make a repeat appearance in this post).    The other group headed to Las Ramblas, where they enjoyed tapas and sangria and other fun stuff.

Paella - yum!

Day 1
On Sunday, we battled jet lag and got up early to head to class.  We walked up the hill to IESE together and then basically had the entirety of the school to ourselves (there were a couple learning team-type groups of IESE students meeting together, though - so it's not just a Darden thing!).  We talked about design for a couple hours, and then we met up with our first tour guide and boarded a bus to Colonia Guell.  Colonia Guell was a textile mill "colony" established by Eusebi Guell, who was a fairly progressive, wealthy Barcelona resident and a patron of architect Antoni Gaudi.  The Colonia included not only the mill but also houses for the workers, a school, cooperative shops, and a church.  Guell hired Gaudi to design the church for the Colonia, though Gaudi only completed the crypt portion of the church before Guell died and his sons cut off funding.  Pictures of the crypt are below. 

Gaudi's crypt at Colonia Guell

For those unfamiliar with Gaudi, he is known for several things:
1.) Mosaics (example from the exterior of the crypt below).

Mosaic

2.) "Natural" structures - for instance, the Colonia crypt is built of brick, which has been left exposed rather than being hidden behind stucco or the moral equivalent of sheet rock or anything like that. 
3.) Catenary arches - Gaudi actually modelled many of his buildings using inverted chain models, like the replica shown below.  When inverted (as reflected in a mirror and shown below), the arches are self-supporting.  There's a bunch of physics behind the whole concept that I can't articulate well, but our tour guides and the engineers in our class explained it a bunch of times - basically, the forces exerted by gravity when the chain is upside down are equivalent to the forces exerted by the materials when the arch is standing up.

Hanging model of the planned whole church (only the crypt was built)

"Upright" reflected model

Interior arches in the crypt

Following the trip to Colonia Guell, we took the bus to Park Guell.  This was another site where Eusebi Guell hired Gaudi to do the architectural work.  The whole property was intended to be a self-contained residential development of sorts, complete with a market square, a park area, and houses.  However, now it is basically just a park, as again Gaudi was foiled by the issue of funding and the development was stopped mid-process.   At the part, Gaudi focused on tailoring his work to the landscape, rather than terracing the hill and forcing nature to do as he wished. 

Viaduct at Park Guell

Plants along the viaduct at Park Guell

GBE'ers walking down alongside the viaduct

Gaudi also briefly lived at Park Guell in this house:

Part of the plan for the development at Park Guell included a main square on top of an open market of sorts: 

The ceiling of the marketplace, under the square, includes more of Gaudi's trademark mosaics:

At the front entrance to the Park, Gaudi built two houses that I believe were originally intended to hold either shops or community services (like phones, etc.).  I think they look like gingerbread houses:

After we left the Park, folks again rallied to go out, while I succumbed to jet lag and got a nice full night of sleep.

Day 2

On Day 2, we again started with a couple of hours of class at IESE.  By the time we were done with class and walked outside to get on the bus, we were stunned to see that it was SNOWING.  Seriously, the snow seemed to follow us from Charlottesville to Barcelona.  But, it wasn't sticking yet, so we weren't too concerned.  We drove to La Sagrada Familia, another incomplete Gaudi work (are you sensing a theme?).  He had planned the Sagrada Familia to be the "People's Cathedral" of Barcelona.  It is entirely funded by donations; if you pay to go inside and see the museum and the interior, your admission fee funds the construction.  Apparently, if you contribute, you are also being forgiven for your sins.  While, as a business student, I recognize how ingenious that PR campaign may have been in a nominally catholic country, it still smacks slightly of the days of indulgences to me (go brush up on your European history...).  Here's a shot of the front of the cathedral:

Now, the cathedral is still under construction, and they don't intend to have it finished until 2025 (although some estimates extend to 2030 or later).  Allegedly, the Pope will consecrate it in November of this year.  Gaudi started the construction in 1882, and when he designed it, he planned towers that it would have been physically impossible to build given the state of technology at the time.  But, he trusted others to do it.  In fact, only one of the four facades of the church was completed during Gaudi's time (the Nativity facade, shown above).  The Passion facade, pictured below, was completed by Josep M. Subirachs (starting in 1952, well after Gaudi's death).  You can see that it appears dramatically different from the style of the Nativity Facade.

 

Just take a look at the faces:

Since it was freezing and snowy outside, we were in a rush to get inside, where there is a museum with information about Gaudi, the construction process, and the plans for the cathedral.  During the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, many of the plans/models were destroyed, so the folks working on the cathedral have had to do a lot of re-creating. 

One of the workrooms with some models

We also got to go inside the actual cathedral (the museum is in the basement).  It was a really odd experience for me, as I don't think I've ever been in an unfinished cathedral before.  Thought we arrived during the workers' lunch hour, before we left, we could hear saws and jackhammers and goodness knows what else as they worked.  But it was still pretty cool looking:

 

Then, when we went to leave, this is what greeted us outside:

Yup, a lot more snow, which was accompanied periodically by wind gusting at gale-force speeds.  Sideways snow is so much fun (especially when you've planned and packed and dressed for 55-degree temperatures)!  When we finally got back onto the bus, we had a couple hours to kill before our scheduled entrance to Casa Mila (La Pedrera), so we decided to drive up a mountain to a cafe where there were allegedly great views of the city.  I bet you're thinking, "It's snowing and you are going to drive UP a MOUNTAIN to see VIEWS through the SNOW?"  Aren't you?  I certainly was.  But I was also just along for the ride.  So we started the trek up the mountain.  About halfway to the top, this is what were were looking at through the bus windows:

Yeah.....about that.  We got to the top only to realize that we no longer had time to get off the bus.  So we started back down the snowy, icy mountain.  Right.  Almost 2 hours later, we arrived at Casa Mila (La Pedrera - meaning "the quarry"), which is an apartment building that Gaudi was commissioned to design by Pere Mila i Camps, a really rich developer married to a really rich widow.  Mila wanted an obnoxiously extravagant showpiece of a building right on the Passeig de Gracia, so he hired Gaudi. 

In 1996, the building was restored, and it now includes an apartment that is set up in the style of the time in which Gaudi lived and a Gaudi museum in the attic.  By this point, I was frankly kinda grumpy after being cooped up on the bus, I was over the snow (see below view from a window at Casa Mila - clearly things were worse on the mountain), and I was virtually incensed by the fact that there was a courtyard in Casa Mila that allowed the blustery cold snow to get "inside."  Go figure. 

The museum in the attic was both cool/creepy.   Apparently, there was some "mood" lighting and some equally odd music being piped in.  But we can again see Gaudi's trademark arches:

There was also a model of the building, including the really cool stuff Gaudi had put on the roof, which we didn't get to see because of the weather:

I'm sure there was a lot more I could have gotten out of the Casa Mila experience, but as I said, I was grumpy.  By the time we'd trekked through traffic to get back to the hotel, I was exhausted, wet, and grumpy, so Julie and I did dinner at the hotel and did some reading for class and fell asleep early.  Yup, I'm lame.

Day 3

The next morning, five of us decided to climb up the icy hill to IESE while the rest of the group took cabs.  Let's just say that climbing was not a brilliant idea, but we made it.  On time, nonetheless.  You can read more about the snow escapades and consequences for Barcelona in my post here.  After another couple hours of class, which included watching part of the movie Picasso: Magic, Sex & Death (it was for school....so magic is as far as we got....), we got back on the dreaded bus to head to the Picasso Museum (our bus driver was amazing, but we managed to scare off our second tour guide (the first had lost her voice after the first day with us)).  The Picasso Museum is located in the Gothic/old city section of Barcelona and features mostly Picasso's early works as opposed to his Cubist masterpieces, which are at places like the Louvre and the Met.  I actually have never been a huge Picasso fan, but it was really neat to see his earlier stuff; he was so incredibly talented at such a young age. 

After that, we walked through the Gothic area (think quintessential narrow European streets and buildings, which I love) back to our bus for a tour of the city. 

Picture from the street outside the Picasso Museum

We visited the Porto Olimpico and the Olympic Stadium on Montjuic....

 

...we saw the "Face of Barcelona" statue by Roy Lichtenstein...

...and the German Pavilion built by Mies van der Rohe for the International Exposition of 1929.

Apparently, this building was revolutionary for its time, but I think we all just sort of considered it "standard-issue contemporary."  :-)

During our city tour, we also had the chance to take in some views of the city from Montjuic...

...and then we returned to the Gothic area of the city to visit the Catedral de Barcelona and some other landmarks. 

Cloister in the cathedral

One of the cathedral's residents

A shot of the interior.

Following the city tour, a big group of us grabbed excellent tapas at one of the nearby restaurants.

Day 4

Wednesday was a "class-free" day, and we set out on a all-day field trip to the Dali Museum in Figueras.  That was an experience!  I am convinced that Dali was on super terrific mind-altering substances.  He actually designed this museum himself, which means it is completely absurd.  Unlike most museums, there seems to be little rhyme or reason to the layout.  Even the exterior is ridiculous:

Yup, those are eggs on the roof, little Oscar figurines over the entrance, traditional "breads" on the exterior, and sinks on the walls of the courtyard.  Craaazzzzyyy.

I don't know how many of you like Dali's work, but I personally have never really "gotten" surrealism (which is part of the point, right?).  I did think the picture below was cool:

It's a picture of his wife (Gala, who appears in many of his pictures) looking in the mirror.  But it's also Abraham Lincoln.  Do you see both?  How about now:

Dali is also buried in the museum:

After the museum, we wandered around Figueres for a little while, bought really tasty pastries, and then headed to the town of Girona to see the Jewish Quarter and eat lunch.

Outside a church in Figueres

Check out the cows!

Bridge and cathedral in Girona

View down the canal in Girona

After Girona, we drove the Besalu, which is an adorable Gothic fort/city, to see the Jewish baths before heading home. 

Besalu - totally beautiful

Some of the girls in front of a church in Besalu - yes, there were an outrageous number of green coats

Part of the bridge in Besalu

When we got back to Barcelona, we went out with Professor Lipson (who had joined us on Monday and was departing on Thursday) to dinner to celebrate SS's 30th bday.  We had a delicious Basque meal (we had the restaurant to ourselves), drank delicious wine, and then went out to a disco and then a club at the Porto Olimpico.  I think we all ended up getting back to the hotel sometime between 4 am and 6 am. 

Day 5

The next day was our "free day" to explore the city on our own (which partially explains why we were all so willing to stay out partying the night before).  Julie and I headed to Casa Batllo, another Gaudi building.  This was by far my favorite of his works. 

Casa Batllo from across the street

 He did a lot of cool things there, including this cool bit of the ceiling: 

....some cool mosaic work on the exterior:

...and a really neat blue tile effect on the interior courtyard walls that was designed to look like water and also help lighten the inside the of the building:

He also did a lot of work on the top of the building, including mosaic-ing the chimneys and constructing this dragon-like detail and cross:

Don't see the dragon?  How about now:

Do you see the dragon's back and scales?

After the leaving the whimsical Casa Batllyo, we walked a couple miles to La Sagrada Familia to see it again without the snow whipping into our faces.  On the walk there, we realized that Barcelona doesn't really have "street corners" in the typical sense of the work.  Instead of streets intersection at 90-degree angles, there are sort of blunt edges at the "corner" of each block, which means that you get to see cool architecture like this:

I think it really helps brighten the intersections, though it is a little inconvenient if you're a pedestrian trying to cross the street.  I guess I'm too used to marching through cities; the extra steps involved in detouring to the crosswalk started to irritate me by the end of our hike.

We didn't pay to go into the Sagrada Familia again, but here are some exterior shots in snow-free daylight:

Detail on one of the towers

Detail of the Nativity Facade

Tree with doves

See, look!  A palm tree!  In sunshine!  This is what Barcelona should look like!

The towers above the Passion Facade

After La Sagrada Familia, we took the Metro to the Gothic area and walked around doing some shopping.  We also stopped by the Mercat de Boqueria, a huge market.  I wish I had access to a kitchen, because I would have bought a ton of fresh produce and meat to cook!

By the end of the day, I was exhausted (probably from all the fresh air and walking, not to mention the previous night's activities), so I grabbed a sandwich for dinner and fell asleep almost embarassingly early. 

Day 6

Friday was the last official day of the GBE.  Unfortunately, it was also the day that the Barcelona plague really began to take down members of our group, including my roommate Julie.  After a wrap-up session in class, we headed out to explore design through food (think el Bulli and molecular gastronomy...or Marcel on Top Chef).  We went to Restaurant Coure, a Barcelona restaurant known for deconstructing food and other inventive stuff (and where the brother-in-law of our tour guide is the chef/proprietor).  As an aspiring foodie, I loved it, though some of my less adventuresome classmates were put off by some of the dishes, I think.

We started with a demonstration and talk with the chef about his creative process.  Unfortunately, he only spoke Catalan and Spanish, so LW became our default translator (it's always helpful to have a native Spanish speaker on a trip to Spain...).   

 

Above, the chef is making a "deconstructed pizza," the final result of which is here:

 

He also demonstrated a deconstructed "onion soup," which was the first course that we got to eat:

We also ate (pictured, in order, below) razor clams with some some sort of tasty pesto, ox tail and potatoes, and a passion fruit mousse topped with coconut foam and crystalized mint. 

TK, who trained at Le Cordon Bleu in London last year, and I really enjoyed it!

After lunch, the GBE was officially over.  :-(  RH and I did some shopping on the walk back to the hotel (Zara and H&M are still much cooler in Europe), I took a brief nap, checked on my poor sickly roommate, and then a bunch of us headed out to an opera and flamenco performance.  It made me really wish I had dancing skills!  Then we headed over the the Placa Espana and the Spanish Palace, where they light up the fountains on Friday and Saturday nights and do a Bellagio-style fountain show (though clearly it was done in Barcelona first).  It was absolutely beautiful!

RH, me, TK, and TB in front of the fountains

View of the city from the Spanish Palace

We then grabbed tapas and sangria on Las Ramblas (where some of our classmates had befriended a waiter the prior Saturday), hit up a bar (called Cheers, I think, which I recall offended me as a prior Boston resident) and headed back to the Porto Olimpico and the doctor/nurse themed bar (and some others) before calling it a night.  All in all, a great day!

Day 7

While the official scheduled events were over, several of us had planned to spend an extra day or two in Barcelona before flying home (Q4 classes didn't start until Tuesday).  Although a few more people came down with the plague, Julie seemed largely recovered, and we had planned to stay at a hotel with AM and AA.  We quickly discovered that the nice cheap hotel we had booked was actually located way far away in the 'burbs (yeah...Q3 didn't really leave a lot of time for great research!), but we found a computer and located a hotel downtown.  After dragging our luggage over there on the Metro (it was a workout!), we grabbed lunch and then headed to Montjuic to go to the Miro museum.  If I thought I didn't "get" Dali, I certainly don't "get" Miro...but I'm glad I went to the Museum, because if I hadn't, I always would have felt that I should have.  Since we had already taken the funicular up the mountain, we figured, hey, let's take the gondola the rest of the way up!  On the way, we ran into three huge Barca fans buying gondola tickets:

AA and the Barca fans

But the views on the ride up the mountain were beautiful, and it was a great ride.

Me, AA and JB (AM was the designated photographer for this shot) with Barcelona in the background

At the top of the mountain is the Castell de Montjuic (a fortress/castle dating to 1640).  The castle itself was really cool, and the views were absolutely amazing!

Castell de Montjuic

Next to the courtyard at the center of the castle...I was feeling "artsy"

Me in front of the fortress

Afterward, we took the gondola and funicular back down the mountain and split off from the boys.  Julie and I grabbed dinner, walked around the Gothic section of the city again, saw some Barcelonians dancing the sardana outside the Catedral de Barcelona (pictures below), and then headed back to the hotel to rest up for the journey home on Sunday (which took forever but included a nice layover at Heathrow, where we were able to window shop at Tiffany & Co. and actually shop at Harrods; that is one dangerous airport!). 

 

Folks dancing the sardana

Outside the Catedral at night

And now all of you should feel like you've visited Barcelona, too!