This past week myself and eight others took a plane to Barcelona for a two night stay. On friday afternoon we boarded our plane from Malpensa airport and took an hour and half flight into Barcelona where we checked into our first ever hostel stay! The hostel surprised me as we had a private room, bathroom, and air conditioning! After settling in we ventured to a five-star tapas restaurant for dinner. The five stars were well deserved as all of our dishes were amazing and paired perfectly with our sangria pitchers. After about 20 tapas plates we sat stuffed, yet somehow were convinced to order all of the desserts to wrap up our night.  Everything was delicious and we ended up enjoying ourselves in the restaurant until 1am. The next morning we woke up and went to brunch at a restaurant which was highly recommended by everyone we knew who studied abroad in Barcelona.  All of our dishes were delicious while having a very unique presentation. After brunch we walked to La Rambla where we shopped and saw La Sagrada Familia and Casa Batllo. After a long day of walking in the heat we went home to get ready for the night. Nearly all of us knew someone abroad in Barcelona this summer as there is a similar program from Lehigh. Everyone we knew overlapped and had joined together to plan a perfect night out for us. We began our night meeting up with everyone at Dow Jones Bar which was stock market theme. The concept was very fun as it had hundreds of drinks on screens where the price of the ‘stock’ for the drink was constantly changing, if more people bought the drink, the price of the drink, or ‘stock’, would increase. However, every fifteen minutes there was a market failure and all drinks dropped to three dollars. After the bar we headed to a club where famous American EDM artist John Summit was performing. We somehow scored VIP wristbands and spent the night dancing together next to John Summit. Sunday morning we enjoyed another delicious brunch before boarding a large 20 person boat. The boat had an indoor area which included food and drink along with nets over the water to lay in. We were taken about 45 minutes away from the shore and jumped off the boat and swam in the deep blue water. After boating we enjoyed dinner on the water and headed to the airport where we took a flight that got us home at 5 am for our Monday morning work day. 

This past week at SuiteFood, Tiffany and I were brought in as guests to a class at The Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, also known as NABA, an international university with the world title of the Best Italian Academy of Fine Arts. When we arrived we were brought in front of a class to introduce ourselves and explain what we were doing in Italy for the summer. After our introductions we watched groups present their final semester projects which were for a new SuiteFood line. Emmanuela had paired with the NABA teacher to create a project for the students to help her design and launch her new product coming out in september. There was a presentation on packaging, digital media, event planning and sustainability. The presentations were extremely well done and I was highly impressed in the quality, professionalism and that they did it all in perfect english!  

This week in class we watched a movie called,  A Civil Action . The film was based on a true story regarding a personal injury lawyer, also known as an ambulance chaser. The movie was based on lawyer Jan Schlichtmann as he decided to take on a case against major corporations accused of polluting a small town’s water supply. The town had numerous sudden deaths of children without any reason along with many members being sick or disabled. Throughout the pursuit Schlightmann faced numerous challenges in regards to CSB. He ended up settling and going broke. The corporations eventually were shut down in the town they polluted yet never were truly exposed or apologized for the damage they had done and lives lost. This was a very interesting movie as we have been debating corporate social responsibility in class and saw how these companies didn’t care about the harm they caused as they were making profit despite their wrongdoings and could afford to pay off any amount to not be exposed.