"Hard Work, Hard Fiesta"

Hey you guys again!! 

Nora here again writing about things in BCN. I have been here one month now and gosh it has gone fast, a bit too fast, I think. I have been working a lot and learning

lot's of new things. It's easier now at work, when you start to notice that "Yes, I have improved!" This last week, I have been sending offers, confirmations, requests to our clients. Also been updating our hotel descriptions, actually just send yesterday and today about 200 e-mails to hotels in Barcelona.. I have to update our translations and photos in our database and it's not easy, fast thing to do. But it's a project for me and I love it. I also have been told that I might start to do Meet&Greet- services at BCN Airport. For me it sounds scary but funny:) I have always laughed to those people, who are standing at the airport with that sign "Welcome to..." haha.. First time, someone of course has to come there with me..Otherwise might be that those groups are at the wrong place..hehee. But seriosly, it's fun to try new things. I'm looking forward to it! 

Reetta at the roof of Las Arenas

We have been now 2 times watching football at local bars. So much fun! Peoplee go nuuuts.. We have been lucky, cos' there has been 2 El Classico- games in past weeks. Tomorrow is Valencia-Barca and we're defiently going somewhere to watch it. Go Barca!!

In our freetime, we have been partying a lot. But hey, it's Barcelona! We didn't came here to sleep. We have been meeting a great beautiful people here and having so much fun. We have been doing also some sightseeing. We walked on Sunday to Plaza de España and went the top of the Las Arenas to watch beautiful view. Las Arenas used to be Arena for bullfighting, so you can imagine that it's very interesting place. 

We also went to vote on last Thursday, like good Finns do. Finland's Embassy is just a few blocks away, so we did it fast. Also there was maybe two people on the line..hehee. Not a secret, who I was voting, GO Haavisto!!

Okey, I think this is it now. Let's see what this week brings up, hope everything interesting and lot's of FUN.. PS. Still loving our apartment and my beautiful roomies <3

Love, NORA

Loving Barcelona !!

Hola Hola!!


So this is my blog about me living in Barcelona for the next 5 months. I'm studying tourism in Helmi liiketalousopisto and I came here to do my internship here. First I thought I'm going to start to write this blog in Finnish but then I thought I want to improve my English writing skills and decided to change the language :) 


I have been in BCN about three weeks now and just been loving every minute of it. I'm working here in this Incoming-agency called Scancoming Barcelona. I started there two weeks ago. Scancoming is a unique trade partner for groups and individuals travelling for leisure, business or special interest. Their main strengths are in local knowledge and extensive experience, coupled with efficient personal service. There's 7 Scancoming office's in Europe and two of them are in Spain, in Barcelona and Malaga. 


So Barcelona's office is the one I work in. In our office, there's 4 people working with me, two of them are from Finland and two are from Sweden. The main languages that we use in our office are Swedish, Finnish, English and Spanish. I have been loving my job by far. I have been doing all kinds of office duties, f.e. preparing hotel descriptions and restaurant menus, reservations and offers for hotels and clients, transportation, activities.. I contact by e-mail and phone with our customers (travel agents and suppliers) and use our TourPlan. The actual work is very different that I have been doing before. I have been working 4 and ½ years in a store, where I'm used to stand all the time and talk face-to-face with our customers. So it's quite difference now to sit on your computer all day long and not see your actual customers. 
But like I said, I'm loving it and it's so great to see that I'm improving every day:)

I'm living here with my Finnish friend Reetta. She came to Torrevieja Spain before me to spend her New Year here so we met in Barcelona. I had a little bit of bad luck with my flight when I came here. It was very bad snow storm in Helsinki, so my flight was delayed for many hours..But anyways, I got here! We stayed first two nights in hostel next to La Rambla, cos' we didn't had apartment yet. Well, we actually had one in Badalona but we wanted to move into city center. We went to see couple of places and finally found our own one and it's just perfection. Our place is so big and it's 5 minutes walk from La Rambla, next to Paral-lel and in everyway it just feels like home. We have 3 rooms here and just yesterday got our new roomie, this French guy Hugo. We have already met wonderful people here and I'm just loving the fact, that everybody is so friendly, happy and funny! 

We have already being doing a lot's of things here. Actually, my first day in work was that I got a chance to take this BCNTouristBus and went around BCN with it, haha:) It was fun, even though it would have been nicer to do it with someone else. I went to f.e. Park Guell, Camp Nou, Eixample.. We also went to Sagrada Familia with Reetta in our first week. It's so beautiful and I'm wondering if it will ever be ready (even they say it will).. We also live very close to the beach, so we have been in Barceloneta and Port Vell pretty many times and it's so so beautiful there.. All I can say, I knew this city is gonna be great but it's even better I ever wished. Every day I'm just so happy that I'm here. It's also great that we can walk to our work places every day. Scancoming is next to Placa Catalunya, where you can find great cafeterias and shops etc. I also love shopping and I think I have already being shopping too much..haha. I have to say to my friends and family, who comes to visit me that takes empty suitcases and brings my stuff back to Finland. Haha, good luck with them.. 

I'm very excited that we're going to Spanish lessons in February. I have only went to this one Spanish course and it was in last spring and it was so short.. I tried to learn some basic things before I came here and it has helped so much that Reetta speaks Spanish. Otherwise, we wouldn't even got our apartment, cos' this woman who rented this to us didn't speak English at all. It's the same thing in very many places, f.e. post offices, banks.. So I really want to learn. But of course I'm learning more an' more every day by listening and trying to speak little things. I'll think I get there:) 


Ok, but I think this is everything now!
I try to write this blog as often I can.. Adios :)


Saludos, Nora