Good news or bad news first? Let's go with the good news. This past Thursday, the IE Net Impact club held elections... and I was voted Vice President! Yeah! There is another girl, also from the U.S. who will be co-Vice President. I am really excited to get to know the new team - we will be made up of students from the April and November intakes of the IMBA and from other IE programs, for example, there are several students with leadership positions from the Master in International Relations (MIR). I will be sad , however, to see those who we be graduating in less than two weeks go. This is a link to my self-nomination proposal. There will be lots of updates this year on our progress!
On to the bad, bad news - an air traffic controller strike has paralyzed Spanish air space for the last two days! My boyfriend was supposed to arrive Friday night, yesterday we were supposed to have spent a lovely day in Sevilla, and today I should be at an olive farm in Zuheros, outside of Cordoba! My boyfriend, after having waited in the Torino airport 12 hours Friday (including 2 hours sitting in the airplane), went back Saturday morning for a supposed flight, which of course did not take off, and is returning again to the airport at the moment to hopefully, finally, get on an airplane for Madrid! The worst part is that as soon as I knew he would not be arriving Friday, I tried to call and cancel the hotel for Saturday and change the car reservation to the next day, but they are both going to charge me full price for services I won't have used. I understand they have 24-hour cancellation policies, but given the situation, couldn't you just take the deposit I already paid online and spare me the rest? The Spanish/European/world economy really did not need this mess right now. These 300+/- air traffic controllers have ruined the long weekend for many Spaniards and for many others and cost all of us a lot of money. My Facebook page is full of status updates of IE friends who have missed their flights, canceled their vacations, or are also missing the chance to see a significant other or visiting friend. Some spokesman for the Spanish government has been quoted as saying that these workers have "blackmailed" the citizens of their country. For a more sophisticated analysis of this "aerial crisis" as CNN+ is calling it, here's an article from the New York Times.
Hopefully the next blog post will include at least a few pictures from Cordoba if my boyfriend makes it here and we still have a rental car waiting for us!
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