To recap, I work for BBVA Compass a company newer to the United States whose parent company BBVA is headquartered out of Spain. Every year, they take the top performers and a guest to an all expense paid trip. To date, nothing has been as extravagant as this trip which is why they took the top 5% as opposed to the top 10%. They are by far one of the most generous companies I have ever worked for and for the record are able to lavish their employees with such cool rewards because they never took any TARP or other government money during the banking crisis.
Our trip started at the Hotel Arts Ritz Carlton right on the Mediterranean Sea in Barcelona. Our hotel was hands down the nicest place I have ever stayed and the view was insane! Our first night we had an amazing dinner with tons of performances by local groups like flamenco dancers, mariachi like musicians and other dancers doing traditional dances. They also had beautiful women walking around the room and then freezing like statues. It was SO cool! I realized right away that this may be the first vacation I have ever taken where I lose weight (which turned out to be true) because every dish has seafood which I dislike or meat and I have been a vegetarian for about 3 months. I didn't complain though, it all looked beautiful and there were plenty of side dishes for me to chow down on not to mention plenty of good wine and champagne. :)
Surprisingly the jet lag wasn't too bad and I think taking a red eye over and then jumping right into a schedule helped a lot. The company made sure that we were busy with paid tours, meals, etc pretty much at all times. Daniel and I literally spent less than $400 of our own money! There were 200 hundred winners plus their guests so you would assume getting around was chaos but it was anything but. The people who coordinated did an amazing job! There was never one second where we didn't know where we were supposed to be or that if felt crazy. Absolute smooth sailing the entire trip.We were able to chose from different activities in each city so Daniel and I chose to go to the town of Sitges on our second day and go to the winery Pares Balta. Each tour bus we got on from a tour to just going to the airport was staffed with a tour guide giving us cool tidbits of information about the surrounding area as we drove along. The tour guide on our way to the winery explained to us that Barcelona used to refer to different areas of the city as pre or post Jesus and now they say pre or post Olympics. Apparently, the Olympics added a lot to the city of Barcelona by way of infrastructure. I had never realized how much having an Olympics did for a city. Also, one thing that I found interesting was that the locals say "Barthelona" instead of Barcelona.
A very cool fact about Barcelona is that it is in the region of Catalonia and they speak Spanish and Catalon. I was under the wrong impression that it was a dialect when in fact its a language....one the people of the region are very proud of. Its a combo of French and Italian so it's very interesting sounding and very pretty. All of the signs are in Catalon although for tourist reasons most people in the service sector speak Spanish or English.So we went to the winery which was beautiful and got a very personal tour of the facility including a tour of the underground caves where the wine is aged. The wine and champagne was amazing but I personally loved the olive oil tasting...delicious! The whole country has the BEST olive oil and I loved that everywhere we ate including the high speed train to Madrid, when you are given bread you get mini bottles of olive oil...genius and yummy!
After touring the winery we headed to Sitges which was so breathtakingly beautiful. The streets were lined with the cutest little buildings with apartments on top and little verandas. The streets were uneven and narrow and so quaint. And the Mediterranean is SO blue! The beaches were beautiful minus the topless old ladies. :) We also learned that the maker of Bacardi Rum is from Sitges and he had a cool little tasting room/museum. 
That night, we had the privilege of going to the winery Cordineu just outside Barcelona, the premiere Cava (Champagne) maker in Spain. The winery was huge with beautiful buildings and landscaping everywhere. BBVA rented out the whole place out for us for dinner. Before we went in for dinner we sipped sangria and listened to jazz and hopped on little trains to tour the expansive underground caves that were miles long where they aged all of the wine. I have been to a lot of wineries and this was by far the coolest thing I had ever seen. I decided that if the world was coming to an end and we needed to take refuge underground I would chose to bunker down in the underground caves of Cordineu. :)
That night, we had the privilege of going to the winery Cordineu just outside Barcelona, the premiere Cava (Champagne) maker in Spain. The winery was huge with beautiful buildings and landscaping everywhere. BBVA rented out the whole place out for us for dinner. Before we went in for dinner we sipped sangria and listened to jazz and hopped on little trains to tour the expansive underground caves that were miles long where they aged all of the wine. I have been to a lot of wineries and this was by far the coolest thing I had ever seen. I decided that if the world was coming to an end and we needed to take refuge underground I would chose to bunker down in the underground caves of Cordineu. :)
When we moved inside for dinner all you could hear were the oohs and aahs from the group as we were led into the dining area. It was lined with candle lit wine barrels, trees and beautiful centerpieces and flamenco dancers and Spanish guitar players. The ambiance was amazing! After a huge dinner they passed around some sort of glass genie lamp looking thing filled with yummy pink/red liquor that we all took swigs from. When we asked the server what it was she laughed and we realized she didn't speak English well so we never did find out what it was called. Needless to say everyone left very happy!That night we hit the town and found....an Irish Pub! The group of people that we spent most of our time with were so fun and we were all down to just drink and chill and what better place than an Irish Pub!? They had the best cover band singing American songs and there were people from literally all over the world. We had a blast! The thing about going out in Spain is that the bars don't open until 1am so we were out until 4:30am. This makes sense since the Spanish generally go to work at 10am then siesta from 2 to 5, dinner at 8:30 then out to the bars. Sigh...my kinda schedule!
The following day Daniel and I headed up to the 43rd floor (the top) of the hotel to the spa and had massages. It was just what the doctor ordered since the flight over had my back a little out of whack. It was SO relaxing and afterwards we lounged in the sauna and out on the patio overlooking the sea. The weather was perfect around 75 to 80 the whole time we were there with blue skies and the view from the top of the hotel was indescribable.That day we decided against a tour and just cruised around Barcelona on our own which was a lot of fun. We had a cab driver take us to the top of La Rambla which is kind of the main drag and we made our way back down walking about 6 miles. We hit up The Hard Rock Cafe and checked out all the cool sites including their giant market where everyone goes to buy their fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats. It was the biggest market I have ever seen! That night we cruised down to the water and had pizza which I was excited that it was very authentic Italian style. Delish!
The next day we packed up and headed to the high speed train to go to Madrid. I was sad to leave Barcelona but very excited to see Madrid. By this point I was really missing Gigi. My mom had said that every time Gigi saw an airplane in the sky she waived and said, "Hi mom! Hi dad!" She thought we were just cruising around in an airplane for a week. :) It was the longest I had ever been away from her and calling her every night was getting harder but as I said I had plenty to distract me!
The train was awesome! So smooth and the Spanish countryside was so beautiful! It was very much like an airplane with full service food and drinks. The trip only took two hours and we were there. Before even going to the hotel, the tour buses took us on a tour of beautiful Madrid. It very quickly became one of my favorite cities. The architecture, the weather, the history, the people, everything about it I LOVED! Madrid was much more of typical European city as far as architecture and what not so I was very grateful that we were able to see both Barcelona and Madrid. The look and feel of each city was completely different.
Our hotel, again was amazing! The Palace Westin was smack dab in the middle of Madrid in walking distance to everything especially the "Time Square" of Spain, Puerta del Sol. Our hotel had literally been a small palace at one point so it was beyond luxurious with marble and chandeliers galore! The food was a little less fishy in Madrid since we were no longer on the water and for that I was grateful. We ate dinner the first night family style at a place built in the 1600's called Posada de la Villa. Later we went out to a small bar where we met some British tourists and closed down the place...so much fun! 
Monday morning we went to BBVA headquarters where the CEO addressed the direction of the company and our accomplishments for the year. By this point people were pretty partied out so it was quite funny to watch people try and maintain their professional composure. Nonetheless, it was an honor to go to the facility and here from the head honchos of the company.
Monday morning we went to BBVA headquarters where the CEO addressed the direction of the company and our accomplishments for the year. By this point people were pretty partied out so it was quite funny to watch people try and maintain their professional composure. Nonetheless, it was an honor to go to the facility and here from the head honchos of the company.Unfortunately, Daniel along with most of the rest of our group, didn't make it to the tour of the original capital city of Spain, Toledo. So me and my managers date Debby made the hour long journey to the amazing city of Toledo. Most everything in the original part of the city is as it was in the late 1400's including some buildings fully intact from the 1100's! It was so cool and literally like stepping back in time. My favorite was The Primary Cathedral of Spain one of the 5 largest cathedrals in Europe. (Now I have seen 4 of the 5...The Primary, Notre Dame, Westminster Abby and St. Peters) I couldn't stop taking pictures while I was there as everything was so surreal. I loved Toledo!
Our last day in Madrid, Daniel and I went sight seeing on our own and I recalled my days in London to teach Daniel how to use the Metro. We had SO much fun just getting lost in this beautiful city and checking out all the cool monuments and buildings. We met up with our friends for some lunch and shopping and then it was off to get ready for the Pinnacle Awards Dinner at the beautiful (sorry...I know I have over used the word beautiful but there just aren't words to describe all we saw) Circulo de Bellas Artes.
We got all dressed up and went to an amazing theatre inside the Circulo de Bellas Artes where we were individually presented with our Pinnacle Award from the CEO and head of banking for the US. Then onto the stunning ballroom with a great view of downtown Madrid and the best dinner we had the whole time. After, we all made the trek to yet another Irish Pub where we spent the night drinking and enjoying our last night Spain.
We got all dressed up and went to an amazing theatre inside the Circulo de Bellas Artes where we were individually presented with our Pinnacle Award from the CEO and head of banking for the US. Then onto the stunning ballroom with a great view of downtown Madrid and the best dinner we had the whole time. After, we all made the trek to yet another Irish Pub where we spent the night drinking and enjoying our last night Spain.I have tried to give you a good recap of everything we did but there is no way I could do it justice. It was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity and even if we went back we could never do it the same way because we were SO pampered it was ridiculous! What an amazing opportunity and I feel so blessed to have been able to go, share the trip with Daniel and be surrounded by such great people while we were there. I can't believe I almost didn't go for fear of leaving Gianna. I now realize how great it was for me and Daniel and how cool it will be to share this experience with her someday. I am SO grateful to our families for taking such good care of her while we were gone. It made leaving her at home so much easier knowing she was in such loving hands.
Adios!
Busy B
We have a trip to Stiges right outside of Barcelona planned for Friday for wine and olive oil tasting at a winery thats been around since 1790!
We are doing a tour of the headquarters Monday morning so I guess a little work is required. :) The we are then taking a tour of the neighboring town of Toledo that is, from what I can see, a cool little mideval style town.