Don't cry for me Barcelona

It's over. The first year of our MBA has come to an end and we have just gone through a week that has been the last one in so many ways... And it did not feel particularly good. To say the truth, I was actually pretty bummed.

It still started out in a rather positive way. We started our last week with the awareness that we would be reading our last cases this year - which we thought was okay since we knew there would be many more coming our way after September.

We had our last handball training followed by a maybe-last BBQ on Kati's and Matthias' rooftop terrace down in the Barrio Gotico - a fun night with great company and loads of yummy food.

We did a lot of work for the Student Council preparing our next year's activities, thus laying the foundations for a hopefully quiet summer - at least on the Student Council side.

I went to the first Stammtisch organized by the school's German Business Club, and it turned out to not only be a refreshing break from all the last things but also a highly enjoyable dinner at a great tapas restaurant in Gracia.

But after that things went steeply downhill... Professors held their last lectures and saw us off with moving speeches. We emptied our pigeon holes where we had stored our belongings during the year. People spoke about how they were packing boxes as many will leave next week already to start their summer internships and then go on exchange. We had our very last Section B dinner down by the beach and a huge wave of nostalgia set in, rising to a peak on the last day of class when we realized that we would actually never be together again as a section. Next year, all classes will be electives, everyone choses their own classes and we will be with different groups for each subject. As a matter of fact, some of us will have so diverging schedules that we probably won't even meet on campus... We said goodbye to our seat neighbors and took in a last sight of OUR classroom. It was with quite a lump in my throat that I left campus yesterday.

Fortunately we headed to Raval later for our last team dinner with B7 - and ironically this really cheered me up. The entire team was there except for Giovanni, we enjoyed yummy pizza and good conversations, we took plenty of pictures and shared many laughs. On that occasion, I also realized that only two of us will go on exchange to the US - Naresh and Alec - and everyone else will come back to Barcelona after summer! So even if we won't be together every day and as a team any more, we will still be able to meet... Maybe this last week isn't that sad after all and just a transition to something even better? Let's see...