Ups and downs

So much can happen in such a short amount of time. In the last few weeks I enjoyed the chaos of Marrakech, the history of Portugal, and the warmth of north east Spain on the Costa Brava. My friends Jeff, Tim and Jeff´s sister Aimee are visiting right now for a week and my friend Kristin just left after spending two weeks in Spain. My summer plans have become more solid as I locked up an internship where I will research and write about social entrepreneurship. And with only two weeks left of school, I´m looking forward to take a break from this full-time job that is the MBA to spend more time enjoying life and working.

Despite professional, academic and world travel progress, my relationship with Tessa has rapidly diminished. Our ability to talk is hindered by a 9 hour time difference which means I can only speak with her at 8am, 9pm or 2am. And during these times, one of us is either heading to bed or on a lunch/dinner break which means many days we do not talk. The lack of communication is causing an expanding rift and I´m not sure what where things will go. I feel very sad about what is happening and the way it is happening but I am hopeful that everything will work out.

Although my thoughts are clouded with relationship concerns, I am looking forward to my 5 day trip to Istanbul in June, the three week stint in Kenya for the internship and the exchange to London Business School in September. I´ll try to post some pictures of recent adventures as they are starting to mount up.

Where to next?

Whereas the vast majority of IESE students are on their way to France right now for the MBA Olympics I am about to leave for Marrakech in Morocco with 12 others who have decided for a cultural experience rather than competing against a bunch of other MBA programs to see which school has the best soccer, rugby, table tennis, chess players, etc.

We will spend four days down there and as its my first trip to Africa, I am very excited to see how the Muslim world compares. It should prove to be very different from Spain and a huge contrast to Amsterdam where I was for the 3 day weekend that just passed.

Amsterdam was a gorgeous city. I went with my classmate Charles who is/was an architect and his wife Laura who is also an architect. Did we look at architecture you may wonder? Why yes we did and it was great to hear about buildings from experts. Maybe you know this already but the modern architecture in the Netherlands is some of the most advanced in the world. Its amazing what they have been building there.

Just noticed I have to head for my plane. To be continued...after Morocco.

Last weekend was a