Barcelona Wrap Up

And before we knew it, we were finished!

The press sheets looked beautiful, and this was by far the easiest press check I've ever done.



During the three days I spent at the plant in Barcelona, I noticed a few things that I really liked: The plant is family owned and in the office, the owner of the company - Bernardo - and his brother work right alongside the rest of the staff, right in the same big open office space. He doesn't have some fancy office space cut off from the rest of the staff. He is not the kind of guy who shows up once a year for the Christmas party. (Admittedly, he does have a nicer car than anyone else, but hey, I guess there are some perks to being the boss). This means decisions get made quickly, and also that there is an atmosphere of open communication.

Second, during a tour of the binding portion of the plant I noticed that at every station someone was pulling books off the line and really looking at them: shaking them, peering into and around them, flipping pages. There wasn't just some guy at the end of the line checking books - everyone was checking the quality of what their particular operation was producing. Later Bernardo told me that each time a customer comes to them with a new and higher quality requirement they adopt this procedure for the entire plant, for all their titles. And I don't think this was just hype, I saw it in action.



Having finished the press check, David and I had lunch with Jose and Bernardo at a wonderful seaside cafe. Late in the afternoon, David and I had a chance to explore Barcelona a little bit on our own. We admired a Gaudi facade.











And wandered around through la Boceria. After two hours of exploring, and getting lost in strange passageways off Las Ramblas, my feet began to hurt. So we wound our way back to the great tapas restaurant Bernardo had taken us to, two nights before, and tried our hand at ordering our own tapas. The food was still good, but it was not the same as Bernardo ordering those special treats that seemed to have something like cream cheese in them; or the ones with anchovies or the roasted eggplant and red peppers.

I'll be up tomorrow morning at 4:30 am, in order to get to the airport in time for my flight to London. Painful.