After a week and a half of HELL, including 4 exams, a paper, and two team projects, we were finally rewarded with what we'd been looking forward to for WEEKS - SKIESE. Since the moment they took 360 euros of our money, we'd been counting the days and stocking up on alcohol. We completed our last 9-question multiple choice final exam for Operational Finance at 10:30am on Friday and hung around Pedrables patiently until 3:30pm when the bus would take us to the magical tax-haven principality of Andorra.
Following the tradition started with our first term midterms, we patiently whittled away the hours at the cafe down the street from school, basking in the sunlight:
Properly inebriated, we boarded buses 70 at a time and a few drunken hours later arrived in our hotel in Andorra. The hotel was nice enough, and we enjoyed a buffet dinner and then took over the hotel's lounge as all 280 of us continued to drink away the stress. I, of course, on day 4 of sleeplessness, didn't drink and tried to sleep, but failed. That didn't stop me however, from going skiing the next day!
What DID serve as an obstacle where the other 120 people in line ahead of me to rent equipment the next day. As rental was included in our price, everyone had to rent from the same place at the base of the mountain and it took us close to two hours to finally get our stuff and get on the slopes. Lisa ditched me pretty quickly for Miguel, and I joined Andri Ian German and Grant. We had an AMAZING day of skiing, but I definitely have never fallen so many times or skiied SO fast in my life. I was exhausted but amazingly happy. We then came back to the hotel for the traditional drink and jacuzzi time. IESE had organized ice skating at some Palau de la Something, but how they could think anyone could ice skate after a day of skiing is beyond me. The problem was that dinner was also at the ice skating rink, and as we missed the buses for the ice skating we missed the buses for dinner. So we decided to take the city bus that apparently ran there every 10 minutes. We thought that it was only 8 of us missing the ice skating but after 20 minutes of waiting at the bus stop, we were soon a crowd of 60. Come on IESE....common sense please. Would it have killed them to arrange for a late bus?
Dinner was disappointing, too, with people scrambling like mad every time a new tray of food came out and most of us leaving hungry, and hence, quite inebriated since the only thing there was plenty of was wine and beer. From the dinner we went back to the resort where there was apparently a bar/club for us to party away the night at....
The next day, we got up and did it allllll all over again, with the most amazing weather on the most amazing mountain. I am definitely completely in love with Andorra and sad that I probably wont have the chance to go back this year, with everything else going on.
The trip home, however, was less than ideal as it took us 2.5 hours to drive the 40 kilometers out of the Andorra mountains, and we all got back annoyed, exhausted, mildly-hung over, sunburnt, and far from fresh. But it was all worth it!
Following the tradition started with our first term midterms, we patiently whittled away the hours at the cafe down the street from school, basking in the sunlight:
Properly inebriated, we boarded buses 70 at a time and a few drunken hours later arrived in our hotel in Andorra. The hotel was nice enough, and we enjoyed a buffet dinner and then took over the hotel's lounge as all 280 of us continued to drink away the stress. I, of course, on day 4 of sleeplessness, didn't drink and tried to sleep, but failed. That didn't stop me however, from going skiing the next day!
Dinner was disappointing, too, with people scrambling like mad every time a new tray of food came out and most of us leaving hungry, and hence, quite inebriated since the only thing there was plenty of was wine and beer. From the dinner we went back to the resort where there was apparently a bar/club for us to party away the night at....
The next day, we got up and did it allllll all over again, with the most amazing weather on the most amazing mountain. I am definitely completely in love with Andorra and sad that I probably wont have the chance to go back this year, with everything else going on.
The trip home, however, was less than ideal as it took us 2.5 hours to drive the 40 kilometers out of the Andorra mountains, and we all got back annoyed, exhausted, mildly-hung over, sunburnt, and far from fresh. But it was all worth it!
