My princess is getting married

One of my best friends, bridesmaids, and best people I know, is getting married in less than a month. Last weekend, we held her bachelorette, which was more of a weekend getaway than a true party. Such happy days!

Carolina Perry da Câmara, her name. Extremely catholic, a family person, a pure heart, and a well behaved girl, Carol always dreamt of a bachelorette party in her favourite place: Mondariz. Mondariz is a cute little spa town in Galicia, Spain, where Carolina has always spent her family vacations. It is an old, calm, green place, with thermal waters, a peaceful river, and small stone buildings. I am not sure if it had ever held a bachelorette party but, if it didn't, it should start doing so. We loved it!

We met at her place late in the afternoon on Friday, with decorated cars and take-away sushi - her favourite meal. Excited, we ate our sushi, shared our excitement, and left. We still had a 5-hour drive facing us.

On Saturday, we woke up for a good hotel breakfast. We then left for a 9 km hike by the river, followed by a 30-min workout led by me. The girls entertained the bride for a bit, while the bridesmaids (me included) prepared a cute picnic. We ate (a lot), chatted quite a bit, and then enjoyed the rest of the afternoon. Some girls took a nap, others did makeup sessions. Carolina and I went for another walk through some of her favourite places. Later in the afternoon, we got ready and attempted to do a photo session but then understood that it is not really a Carol's type of thing. She does not love being the center of the world (although she deserves to be so, and she will be so one day). We had dinner at the hotel (YUM!) and then put our bathing suits and swimming caps in order to enjoy two hours of termal treatments. After that, we chilled and slept.

On Sunday, Carol and her bridesmaids woke up earlier than anyone else. Carolina offered us a spa treatment with her. What a nice massage... We then had a big breakfast, went back to the termal treatments, and showered around lunch time. For lunch, we ate the leftovers from the previous picnic, by the pool. After lunch, 5 of Carolina's friends left, and we took one last walk by the river before heading home.

This was by far the most relaxing bachelorette party that I have been to. It was, also, the bachelorette party that better suited this bride. I really hope that she enjoyed it even more than I did.

Carol deserves the world and I am so honoured to be her bridesmaid.

Photo credits to Maria Beatriz Simões

50% down, or is it 90% down?

As you all know, and as all of my INSEAD friends can't help thinking about, our journey together is getting closer and closer to an end. Two weeks of P5 are already down. To me, that means that half of my P5 classes are down as well.

In two weeks, I took two classes summing up to 1.5 credits: Value Creation in Luxury & Fashion, and Your First Hundred Days (YFCD).

Value Creation in Luxury & Fashion aimed at providing us with a better understanding of those two sectors - Luxury and Fashion -, while putting us in contact with one or two relevant players. In fact, this class's big event was an afternoon field trip to the headquarters of Hermès. Our professors gave us one day and a half to prepare, in groups, a presentation on cuteness to be presented to a few managers at Hermès. We had to answer one of three questions:

1. Can one be cute without being girly?
2. Is cute universal?
3. Is cute a product or an experience?

The assignment felt a bit too fluffy and short but, in the end, the field trip was interesting and, somehow, we managed to bring some value to the Hermès leadership team. We got to see two of their  (very manual) production lines, and received a free perfume in the end. Other than that, the course was a bit disappointing in the sense that the topics were a bit vague and I didn't feel I learnt much. On the bright side, it showed me that neither luxury or fashion seem to have the right fit for me. They are mainly intuition driven, are too subjective and too little efficiency driven. Not really my thing... 

YFCD, in turn, was a really cool class. There's not much I can share with the world about it, as all of us had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. If I share too much, future INSEAD classes will not enjoy this course as much as I did. All in all, it is a week-long class in which teams of five manage the first hundred days of a firm after its acquisition. The team of five is composed by a CEO, a CFO, an Operations Manager, a Marketing & Sales Manager and a HR Manager. My team of five was a true bomb - me as the CEO, Zé Viana Baptista as CFO, Tony Feghali as Ops Manager, Helena Mateu as Commercial Manager, and Sid Ram as HR. Hell, we had fun! We had some eventful days as a team, with problems ranging from strikes to accidents in the factory, clients copying our products to suppliers not interested in make business with us anymore, union leaders annoying us to having to manage the relationship with political entities, phone calls in the middle of the night, and more. Our version of YFCD was even more eventful than what it usually is as we had a short version of it (3 days instead of 8), with the INSEAD ball in between. Three of my team members were totally smashed on the last day. We did not win the competition but I would dare to say we had fun and did a reasonably good job.

With this, I finished two classes in two weeks and managed to come home for 10 days, where I have been organising our wedding, recruiting, and enjoying my family and friends.

Why is traveling so special?

Traveling is broadening our perspective, knowledge and culture. Traveling is treating ourselves with an opportunity to be worry-less, to run away from our stressful lives, and to think (or not think at all, as we feel like it). Traveling teaches about other people's habits and history, and it often makes you value home in one way or the other. The dangerous thing about traveling is that it can get quite addictive. The more you travel, the more you wanna keep exploring the world.

Because at INSEAD we are definitely all big addicts, a cool group of us went to Rome last weekend. And what a weekend it was.

Three of my Roman friends (Ale, Stef and Tommaso), supported by a few other Italians, organized three glorious days for us. Ale and Stef hosted most of (the 30 of) us, and the three of them prepared a real plan for the weekend.

We arrived in Rome late in the afternoon on Friday, and met at the rooftop of the Grand Hotel de la Minerve for aperitif. The view from there was absolutely stunning, and the finger food and drinks made everyone's tummies able to wait for a 11 pm Italian dinner. From there, we walk to the restaurant, passing by Piazza Navona and other important monuments. We then had dinner at Ale's favorite restaurant, Giulio Passami l'olio - pasta for everyone, tagliata for me. To finish the evening right, we did some bar hopping around Piazza del Fico, Campo dei Fiori, and so.

Saturday was literally an epic day. It started at 11:15 am, at Galleria Borghese - once the house of  Cardinal Scipione Borghese, and nowadays the best museum in the city with artwork from Bernini, Caravaggio, Raffaelo, Casanova, and other superstars. Around 20 of us did a guided tour around Galleria, with probably the best guide alive. Two hours later, we were all impressed with what we learnt and saw inside. We then walked in the Villa Borghese gardens, and met at Pincio, where we had a quick bite. From there, our Roman friends guided us in a walk through the city centre - Pincio, Trinità Dei Monti, Piazza di Spagna, Via Condotti, Via del Corso, Fontana di Trevi, Quirinale, Monti (an ice-cream place in the hipster neighbourhood , and Colosseo. It is absolutely unbelievable how much history and beauty fits within just a few square kilometres.

Around 6 pm, after having walked about 16 km already, we went home for a quick rest and shower.

At 8:40 pm, we met for probably my favourite event of the weekend: Viaggio nei Fori, a journey through Ancient Rome. It is a night trip through part of the Forum of Caesar, with movies, reconstructions, light signalling and explanations, that makes you feel back in that era. It is quite hard to explain what it consists of, but let me tell you that it has probably been the best touristy activity I have ever been to. I highly recommend anyone visiting Rome to do so.

Around 11 pm, we were sit at Nonna Betta in the Ghetto, the Jewish neighbourhood, for some Roman Jewish food. Not bad! After dinner, we were supposed to go to the opening night of Master's 1000 of Rome at BallRoom in Foro Italico, but the event got cancelled and we ended up going to a trashy club. 

On Sunday, we had another lovely day. At 1 pm, we met at Baja for "brunch". Bear in mind that, in Italy, brunch is a buffet of Italian food. Baja is a boat parked in the margins of the Tiber, that was once a club and now is a very pleasant restaurant. Food was good and everyone enjoyed this de-hangovering event. From there, we went to Ale's favourite ice-cream place (I have no idea how people still managed to have an ice-cream after brunch), and then the touristy stuff restarted. We walked through Castel Sant'Angelo, initially built as a mausoleum for the emperor Adriano, but later converted into a fortress for the Popes. Following that, we visited the magnificent San Pietro. Gorda had never been in Rome so I really wanted to make sure he checked all the most important monuments in town. San Pietro is probably one of the most impressive things built my mankind. It is probably the main concentration of wealth in the world as well. Despite its beauty, monumentality and view, I always feel sad when I go there. It is quite striking to me that such a spiritual place is so rich as well. Imagine what could have been done in the world with all the money invested in Vaticano... Going up the Cupola was extremely special though. What a view from up there...

From San Pietro, Gorda left back home and we went for an Aperitif in town, while the boys went to the Roma-Juventus football match. Dinner was at Stef's favourite pizza place. This time, it was hard for me to resist a damn good looking pizza, but so did I. Almost cried but my last meal in Rome was grilled chicken, Italian style...

Again, I need to thank my Roman friends for such an organization, especially Stef, who hosted Gorda and me.