Family-owned

On Monday, May 21, we headed towards 2 more company visits around Lisbon. The first was Groupo  Portucel Soporcel where the CEO spoke to us, which was a wonderful treat.  Portucel is a paper manufacturer, which makes the #1 selling paper in the world, Navigator Universal. They are 1st in Europe and 6th in the world for uncoated wood free paper  and are 1st in Europe and 4th in the world 1st European company for eucalyptus pulp. They have about 2300 employees, of which 22% have PhD, Masters of Science or other degrees. Portucel accounts for 5% of all Portugal exports to US and 3% to Europe. Next we visited the Jose de Mello Group, which is a family-owned company (as many are in Portugal). One of the oldest family members (he shares ownership with his brother and cousins - 12 in total) spoke to us which was fascinating. His great, great grandfather started the company in 1865 but during the revolution in the 70's the government took their business away and his father started a new company, which is thriving today. They have 6 businesses within the group that total around €4B in assets, which range from the chemical industry to nanotechnology to solutions & sustainability. After a group of us decided to walk down to the river and have dinner together...again, a wonderful and memorable experience. We are making friendships that will last a lifetime! On May 22 we woke up early (430 am) to go to Porto and visit 2 more companies. The first was Amorim, a cork producer. Besides touring the factory, which was fascinating because most of it was manual labor (the high end wine producers asked for their cork stoppers to be made by hand so the company obliged)...cork increased 8.7% last year. The marketing director had this to say: "Sustainability is about people, planet and profits - you don't have to sacrifice one of them." A few fun facts about cork:  nothing is wasted in production - it creates renewable energy because they don't cut don the trees;  US is largest consumer of wine; Amorim exports to over 100 countries; 3.5 billion cork stoppers are produced annually and Amorim has 27% market share; cork flooring used in Gaudi's cathedral (which we saw in Barcelona). After we went back to the hotel to change for our evening...the bus took us down to the Douro River to snap a few photos and enjoy the scenery...which was simply breathtaking. Or next stop was Taylor Fladgate, producers of port wine since 1692. We met with one of the family members (8th generation), who gave us a tour of their facility. Then we did a tasting and had an amazing group dinner - the view of the river and Porto was amazing!! On May 23 we had our last company visit to Sonae. The highlight of this visit was the LEEDS gold standard building they had built. It was an interesting tour (except the fact that we were in the employees work space - it was a bit awkward). The lights change throughout the day with the sun and clouds...so they are always saving the indoor lights when the natural sunlight will work. The roof is designed to not only reflect light but also to collect rain water for use in the building. Lastly, we ended the day with a visit to Sandeman, another port wine producer, but since neither of us love port wine the highlight for us was a view of the Douro River Valley - it was beautiful!!

Obrigadu!

On May 19, we packed up, departed Madrid and headed to Lisbon, Portugal around lunch time. When we arrived at the airport we immediately felt the difference in countries. Since a lot of our group spoke Spanish, we felt a bit more comfortable...we had to learn a few key phrases to help us get around. So, we chose, "Thank you" and "I'm sorry" - both seemed to common themes - they are Obrigado or Obrigada (depending if you were speaking to a male or female) and Schupa, respectively. We had a bus tour around the city...stopped for a quick coffee, which has come to mean an espresso or possibly cappuccino (aka not just a cup of coffee). Then we checked into our hotel and all met down in the lobby to walk to a group dinner at a restaurant named Carina. It was a very traditional Portuguese dinner - soup to start, chicken with fries/rice (we appreciate extra carbs) and flan. VERY YUMMY! Oh, and did we mention the free-flowing wine?! Or table had a wonderful time...we spent the whole dinner laughing, telling stories, toasting to our trip thus far and the memories to be made in the coming days! It was one of the more memorable events on the trip. After dinner, we went port wine tasting with our professor, which apparently is a very serious thing because we kept getting shushed...and our group wasn't good at being quiet. We tried a 20, 30, & 40 year port wine...there were 8 of us sipping out of 3 glasses...sounds sanitary, huh?  We decided to check out the Lisbon nightlife...so as is common in a group trip about 20 of us starting walking around looking for a good time and we found this little hole in the wall bar BUT it was playing the best American music (old stuff). We all sang (at the top of our lungs) Bohemian Rhapsody!!! Other songs included Barbara Ann, Ring of Fire and other favorites from 70s and 80s rock bands. We made that little bar our own karaoke/campfire. It was a blast! The next morning (May 20) we took a bus to Peniche and Obidos. It was technically a free day but our professor planned an optional trip to these two cities for anyone who was interested so we took him up on the offer. The first stop was the seaside town of Peniche. We were there long enough to walk around, take some pictures and get rained on. Obidos was amazing...because basically all we did was eat and shop...our favorites! We had one of the best meals of the trip in this hip new restaurant (only been open a week) called Vintage Tapas...day fulfilled!

Nando!

It has been a busy week with all the travel and touring different companies for our class...sorry for the lack of posting...but get ready because we are catching up!!! We apologize in advance but we don't have that exciting a day to tell you about for May 17...honestly the highlight was our lunch (as it mostly is with us)...it was outdoors and wonderful and yes, Italian food. The weather was beautiful and the company was fantastic! We've had a wonderful time getting to know all the students outside our cohort. For those of you who don't know, we are on a study abroad trip with the University of Texas at Arlington. We are both getting our MBAs. The focus of this class is sustainability. We've been learning some interesting tactics of how different companies around the world handle corporate social responsibility. It seems as if while all companies have their own culture but we all face common economic, environmental and social issues. We got up on Thursday and had 2 company visits planned - first we went to the Santander "compound" - Santander is the largest bank in Spain and the #1 bank in the Euro zone. Their facility was amazing - they literally kept calling it "the city". A little cult-ish but that's ok.  It had everything - restaurants, dry cleaners, dentist, hospital, day care, gym, tennis/basketball/volleyball courts, 1000+ year-old olive trees and even their own art gallery, which was very impressive! Second visit was to Telefonica. This company also had a beautiful cluster of buildings and amenities for its employees and even it's own metro stop due to lack of parking!  On May 18, we started the day with a company visit to Acciona, which is a successful construction company. A while ago they invested in renewable energy, wind specifically, which would help them with a longer term profit.  The executive director of sustainability made a few good points (we listed below) about sustainability being such a big part of their business model... There is no life ahead for business as usual. Need to get buy-in from organization for change. Must say "things" publicly so you'll follow through. After our company visit, we headed towards Toledo - another beautiful ancient walled city. Our tour guide, Fernando, was the hit of the visit - we were told to call him "Nando", which we all gladly obliged. In fact, our fellow cohort-er, Marcus, has since done frequent imitations just to help us relive the memories...he'll probably be thankful to not be constantly asked  by all of us to do the imitation so we can laugh..."and to be...closer to.........God!" (inside joke) That night we got a little flare of culture...we had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant weirdly named Puerto Rico (Rick Steve's recommendation). We went to see a show of Flamenco dancers. It was amazing...those dancers were so serious about their jobs (their faces were serious) but so wonderful! We were all intrigued - even the boys loved it - we know this because they all were trying to imitate the male dancer (minus the tight pants and panty line)!! The guitarist and singers (just acoustic music) were awesome...also when one was dancing and the others were sitting out, they clapped to help the one dancing keep the beat making percussion sounds with their hands...literally handmade maracas. Impressive!

When in Spanish...

First of all, sorry for the delay in our post...yesterday was sort of a whirlwind of a day...we got up in Valencia and drove the 3.5 hours to Madrid...which was uneventful until we had to figure out where to drop off the rental car...it definitely felt like we were driving in a foreign country at that point! What is it with e 800 roundabouts in a row...is that really the most efficient use of the roads?! Annnnnywaaay...we met up with the study aborad group in Madrid. We did a walking tour for a few hours and had a fabulous dinner! Today, we had our first company visit - Groupo Siro - which is one of the largest food producers in Spain (they make pasta, cereal, cakes, cookies). We did tastes tests and toured their R&D facility...it was fascinating and they were wonderful hosts, which means we got free food ;) After we drove to the ancient city of Segovia...I wish we could figure out the uploading of photos because it was so beautiful and breathtaking!! I'll figure something out before the trip ends...promise. We ate lunch and walked around the cobble stone streets...with one amazing scene after another. For dinner we had...wait for it...Hard Rock Cafe. Sorry but we needed a good burger...it happens! PS: the title was a direct quote of our friend Kristen Ciba...she obviously meant to say when in Spain, but this stuck.

The Scenic Route

We slept in late our first day in Valencia - it was wonderful but we were starving. We realized that we were becoming Spainards...dinner at 11 pm, breakfast at 11 am! Our breakfast was at an outdoor/sidewalk cafe (which is customary and the best way to eat a meal). We decided to explore the city and explore we did and in this case explore means read the map wrong or get lost! We made our way to The City of Arts & Sciences...it was an amazing collection of modern buildings, which houses the opera house, a science museum and other museums that we didn't go to. We took a heck of a lot of photos (sorry we can't post them...check back in...we will). After our marathon walk we did some marathon shopping - don't worry family members we thought about you while shopping ;) That night we decided to explore the nightlife...however we didn't have much luck figuring out the map...again! We would walk a few blocks thinking we didn't need to consult the map HOWEVER we went 6 inches on the map...we went in circles and ended up in the "happening" area...except there were no restaurants just bars and discos. So we walked back to find some food and we did...eventually...we had another amazing meal (because it was Italian food)! At the end of dinner (almost midnight), we decided the nightlight wasn't happening...so we went to bed. Another successful day in Spain!

Futbol

Our day started off with a walk to the FC Barcelona stadium - it was pretty anticlimactic because it was closed - bet its different on game day. Then we took the metro to Sagrada Familia Cathedral - aka Gaudi's work of impressive art! We got In the car and left for Valencia...when we got here we basically checked in and got back in the car to head to our first European soccer game - Villarreal vs. Aletico Madrid! It was a phenomenal experience - so much excitement and enthusiasm the WHOLE game...not a lot of fanfare or distractions...just soccer. Villarreal lost 1-0 but we are so glad we went - we now own authentic soccer scarves! The game was the highlight of our day!!!!

Random cathedral concerts...its what we do!

So, it's 130 a.m. and we are just getting home from dinner...apparently we've acclimated to the Spanish culture! We had an amazingly unexpected day - everything we did was unplanned yet turned out perfectly! We set our alarm for 9 a.m. this morning, which we ignored! We had breakfast at the hotel and set off around noon...where we would end up we didn't know. We knew we wanted to do some sightseeing...and we did! We went toward the Gothic district - we saw the Palau Reial de Pedralbes - which now houses an amazing ceramic museum, Arc de Triomf, ate an amazing lunch (more on this later) and stood outside the cathedral in Barri Gotic square - we're sure it's pretty inside, however we'll never know since we didn't leave the square. When we arrived we had every intention of exploring the inside of the cathedral but we were awestruck by the pageantry outside...there were groups of people in circles dancing serenely yet in lock step to some of the most soothing and beautiful music we've ever heard!!! We learned this dancing was native to Catalonia, the region when Barcelona resides, called Sardana and the soothing music these groups dance to is Cobla! We met a girl for, Team Mare Nostrum who explained the tradition as something the locals had been doing for centuries...this team was the defending champions of their sport and they would begin tomorrow defending their title with the first competition of the season. What an amazing experience we had when we happened upon this square! With FC Barcelona ending their season tonight with their final match, I'm sure the Barcelonians were thankful for this until "football" season started back up ;) By the time we got back to our hotel it was 8 pm and we needed to think about dinner...by the time we got to the metro it was 10 pm and we were headed downtown to a recommended tapas place that we couldn't find so we settled on a pizzeria...yet another brilliant happenstance of the day!!!! We are tired, yet fulfilled...we owned Barcelona - on to Valencia tomorrow! Our highlights: an amazing lunch - a pitcher of sangria, pumpkin with marscapone soup and salmon carpaccio to start, pesto gnocchi for Valerie and spaghetti bolognese for Rachel...um, it was amazing! Good night or good morning (depending on how you look at it)!!!

We bought a zoo!

So, we arrived in Madrid this morning and drove approximately 6 hours to Barcelona with a stop in Zaragoza for lunch. It was a different drive than we expected - quite rural yet beautiful! Rachel's highlights: driving a Mercedes for the first time - even if it is a B class and the fact that we traveled over 17 hours straight and still had a completely enjoyable time during our first day!! Valerie's highlights: the 8 "bulls" we passed (see photo) and my raw hamburger. Our highlights: passing the Greenwich Meridian and our sweets at dinner - which we got charged for without ordering!?! PS: we chose this title because we watched that movie on the plane and we loved it! PPS: we are not able to upload photos at this point...stay tuned...

And We're Off...

Our adventure begins today…we are SO looking forward to what lies ahead. As with any type of travel, you must be flexible. Without consulting Valerie, I believe that will be one of our favorite words over the next 2+ weeks…you always think you are prepared for your trip but THAT is exactly what makes it an adventure…the unknown.

For those of you who don’t know…Valerie and I are a part of a 40-person trip through our MBA program at the University of Texas at Arlington. We will be visiting different companies in Spain and Portugal. We are leaving a few days ahead of the group…

We leave DFW today around 5 pm on a direct flight to Madrid where we’ll rent a car with Barcelona as our first destination.

Since we weren’t very creative in the naming of our blog, we decided we’d try to come up with a new title every day based on the happenings of the day…so, wish us luck with our creativity…

Thank you for following us on our journey…we hope it is as exciting for you to read as it will be for us to experience!

Much love,

The ones who will live the RV Adventures – Rachel & Valerie