Buisness Abroad
These are our tickets to the Real Madrid vs. Racing de Santander Futbol game. It goes without saying that soccer here is much more than an element of entertainment here, but rather a significant part of the Spanish culture. I myself, have played on soccer teams and was looking forward to seeing a game in Spain. there are many things to note about the game itself, the fanes who were there, and etc, but that is not all. For me these tickets had an especially important contribution to my experience in Spain. Within the first week of being in Spain, groups of students, including myself, were crowded around computers searching the interenet for tickets and information from a number of sites. Tickets for a Real Madrid game are obviously expensive. A friend and myself found a website that sold tickets from other people which allowed the prices to be more affordable. We read the fine print put in our credit card number and bought the tickets. After the game, in the height of our enthusiasm and fun, I received a call which popped my bubble immediately. The tickets we had bought were so nice because they were season tickets and we needed to return them immediately to avoid my credit card being charged for the remaining games. Our niave mindset that we had received all the information about the tickets before we bought them was wrong. In America, we have all heard the stories about the hot pickles in McDonalds or fallen products in Wal-Mart and the lawsuits that go along with them. As I spent the next few days trying to clear the mess that resembled something of a gambler avoiding paying his debts, I kept thinking, “This would never be allowed in the U.S.” The story ended happy, but the moral was that doing business abroad isn’t like the U.S. It’s easy to be complacent, but dealing with new concepts of business are one of the other many things to learn about a new country.