Grad trip baby!

Yup, this just happened. 5 days in Croatia, celebrating our upcoming graduation from the number-1 business school in the world.

Last Thursday, about 400 of us travelled to Sibenik, Croatia, for grad trip. The meeting point was at the beach club, by the sea, with very loud music, a salty swimming pool and many drinks. And this is how you can picture our grad trip. That’s it. Bye.

Not really. There was a bit more than drinks, sun and loud music at our graduation trip. And here’s a (as per usual) detailed description of how it was.

We stayed at an humongous resort in Southern Croatia: Solaris. It was the broadest resort I have ever been to, as it had from decent hotels (more than one) to camping parks, from spas to swimming pools, from marinas to mini golf courts, from cosy restaurants to bars and clubs. It was big enough to fit such a big group like ours, and plenty of other guests as well, but it was surprisingly well done. I mean, my expectations were quit low as I knew we would need to accommodate plenty of people, and the resort definitely exceeded my expectations.

On Thursday, as I mentioned above, the party started right away. We all met at the beach club. There was sun, loud music, rose wine, cocktails, and many beach (or not so beach) bodies. People were happy to be back together for one last (official) time. From the beach club, we moved to a buffet dinner of… meat with meat with meat, and also some potatoes. The venue was cool but the dinner was meh. And then, it was time to party some more at one of the clubs at the resort. The club was not fancy either, and I decided to party moderately and be in shape for Gorda’s arrival on the following day.

After a few hours of sleep (not so many but probably the most I got per night during the entire trip), I left the room for a HIIT workout. Luckily enough, Tony joined and we killed it together. Breakfast was surprisingly good. The rest of the day was… interesting! We were promised a yacht trip, but ended up taking a ferry boat, where we could hardly fit. We “sailed” for two hours. The views were very pretty, and it was pretty cool to hang out with so many people. If the grad trip organizers had managed our expectations well, we would have further enjoy it. We stopped by Krka National Park, and had grilled fish (or chicken) still onboard. The biggest surprise of the day was when we left the boat and realised that there were literally thousands of tourists in the park. We hiked for a bit, some people dived in the waterfalls, and a few of us (the smart ones) took a taxi back home, which took us 15 minutes instead of 2 hours on the boat. Later in the afternoon, Gorda arrived. We chilled with our friends, ate and drank some wine, and then decided to move to the city (Sibenik) for dinner, before the biggest party of the trip. Grilled fish in Croatia is good for Portuguese standards (meaning, super good!!!) and eating by the water is always charming. And then the party… One of the best we’ve had. DJ Spotify (aka Constantin) taking care of the music, and we danced all night long. Rami Hakim danced so much that he broke his foot…

The next day was… tiring! And lots of fun! I woke up early enough to enjoy a yummy breakfast and lead a workout with the Brazilians. At 2 pm, the Beach Olympics started. My friends and I decided to create a tacky all girls team (if I am not wrong the only 100% feminine team in the games), and we had a blast. Chantal, Inna, Laura, Stef and me put on tacky t-shirts saying “Gimme danger. Great things never came from playing safe”, as well as red lipstick and small bathing suits. Somehow, we managed to win our volleyball, water challenge and beer pong game, and tie the football one, making it to the second stage. “Somehow”. We just screamed all the time, and played it slightly dirty. haha. For instance, in the beer pong game, we would twerk our asses to our competitors while they were playing. One hour and a half later, we were called for the second stage and it was a true disaster. We lost our football, rugby and volleyball games. But not everything was bad about this second stage. The 6 Portuguese guys (Gorda, João, Jalles, Miguel, Thomas and Zé) were the champions of the Beach Olympics. Way to go Portugal!

That evening, Gorda and I went for dinner by ourselves. Somehow, I convinced him to do so. And it was great. We still met some friends after that but none of us had enough energy to party.

The next day was chilled. I led a workout for 12 people (look at me, becoming a credible personal trainer) and then chilled at the beach until the weather became worse and worse. After a long lunch, we eventually moved inside the hotel to avoid the rain. A white party was planned for that evening at the beach club, but had to be moved to indoors. We could have been luckier with the weather but ended up having a great evening.

The cherry on the cake was the cabaret. For over 2 hours, some 17J performed in front of the entire class. We had epic stand up comedy by Vishal and Raza, joking about many people, we had BOYS-SEAD dancing like a boys band, we had Desi dancing, some singing, and even some jokes about professors. Good to know that these future leaders of the world have some undercover skills. Buffet dinner and party followed the cabaret. Gorda and I left early as he had been having drinks since lunch time.

And then we came to last day! And Gorda and I decided to visit Spit for some culture before heading back home. We went to the city center with a few couple friends, we had a very nice seafood lunch in town, and then walked around the city center for a while. It’s a nice little city, Split. I am glad I got to spend the afternoon there.

And this is it. Gorda went back home to work for two days, and I came to Fonty for the last goodbyes. Tomorrow is graduation time!

But before I go… Let me tell you that there were lots of logistics behind the organisation of the grad trip. My favourite one was Secret Crush: a log in to select up to 5 people that each MBA candidate would like to ‘get to know better’. Needless to say that I did not play the game. It’s funny how we learnt so much at INSEAD but still managed to get more and more childish everyday. People actually had lots of fun with this app.

I am so ready for real life that you cannot imagine! It’s time to go back to routine.