The *rain* in *Spain* stays *mainly* in the *plain*

I am off to Spain for a few days late next week, to work one day and then with one day being my first vacation day of the year, as well as a Saturday to run around and shop. This time, it's to Barcelona, which will be my third time there.

In the great behemoth of a company that I work for we have offices around the world. For the most part, the offices where I get to go are the ugly step-sister of offices that are located in industrial parks, on the outskirts of fine metropolises such as: Zwickau, Wuppertal, Geel, Valencia, Wednesbury, Telford, and one podunk one two hours away from Prague--do you get the idea? Offices that are located where land, buildings, and labor is cheap since the primary purpose of the site is/was manufacturing and now we have an office there too. (In your dreams of becoming an expat in Europe, I doubt the above appears, Gentle Reader.)

Rarely do I get to go to the sexy Cinderella offices like London, Paris, or Barcelona as these tend to be tiny satellite offices that are used mainly for sales and for only a small part of the client facing part of the business since real estate in the big cities is expensive.

However, someone managed to set up a meeting in Barcelona because we must talk about their systems there, in that Barcelona office. Shot, score!

-->Four glorious days in a country where the majority of the people are not permanently frowning.

-->Four days of being able to function linguistically as a 31 year old, rather than a 7 year old.

-->Four days of seeing people actually wearing clothing with color, beyond orange, brown and black.

-->One day in an office where business casual is something other than cargo pants or blue jeans.

-->Three days of sweet, gentle white wine and a few more bottles to carry home.

This year is off to a good start!