Enlightening Experience Every Step of the Way

by Brooke Winebrenner

I find myself taken back by the realization that I only have a little over a week left in one of my new favorite places in the world. The time has been flying by as the IWI team has been working hard to complete the work for the City Council of Villanueva de la Cañada. Currently, the designers are working on new website templates for the City Council website. The account team, which includes me, is working hard on completing a thorough digital marketing plan to strategically implement the digital tools necessary to communicate with the city’s target market. It has been a challenging and all-encompassing learning process, as we have had to grasp that working in Spain is not the same as working in the U.S.

We have faced many setbacks, but we have successfully met our timeline and are overcoming our obstacles by doing the proper research and working overtime. We plan to present and pitch our work to our client next week. Pretty exciting.

While we are working hard during the week, we also have the chance to play equally as hard on the weekends. Spain is like no other place I have been too. I love it here because you can find and stumble upon things you hadn’t even planned on seeing or doing. For instance, Maggie and I decided to head into Madrid in an area called Chueka one evening. As we stepped out of the metro we were surprised to see that there was a gay pride celebration-taking place. This event attracts hundreds of thousands of people for a weeklong celebration that ends with a huge parade every year. The area was set up with multiple open-air concerts and everyone was allowed to walk around enjoying food, alcoholic beverages, music and dance. This is not what we were expecting, but we had a blast.

IWI recently went to Valencia for a beach vacation over the weekend in celebration of the United States’ Independence. We had the chance to sunbathe under the “muy caliente sol” and enjoy the Mediterranean Sea. At night is when we roamed the town and interacted with the people. I have learned that Spain is the country that never sleeps and on the weekends neither do I. In essence, it is almost as if time is not of importance here. Everyone seems to live in the moment and you can enjoy nightclubs into the early morning.

I think it is interesting to have the opportunity to meet with people from all over the world and learn where they have come from and where they have been. It is fascinating to find out that the people I have met constantly travel and are intellectually knowledgeable about many topics, as well as international politics. Everyone I have met knows multiple languages, and luckily at least one of them is English so that way I can communicate with them. This has brought me to the realization that I, along with many other Americans alike, live culturally self-centered lives and we do not always open our eyes to the entire world. It is good to know that most people from other countries don’t hold this against us. It seems as if it is expected and they conveniently cater to our incompetence. I hope I can enlighten myself in the future and become more cultured as I grow into adulthood. I also hope in some way I can reflect this when I come back from this amazing adventure.