Hotel Arts

On the arrival day, I was greeted by Alexandra Hase, our host for this event, at the Ritz Carlton´s Hotel Arts in Villa Olimpia neighborhood. She has been working for Audi Driving Experience for 10 years. If there were a six star hotel rating, this hotel would qualify for such. Unlike most Ritz´s properties, Hotel Arts has a very modern open and spacious architecture and soothing design filled with modern dark colored furniture. This property can easily be mistaken for a Four Seasons´property judging from its architecture and design.

My corner room has control panels that host more buttons than the RS4 cockpit to operate the settings of the lighting in the different sections of the room to any mood I desire, the automatic window blinds that covers the panoramic double-pane noise-reduction glass windows, the Bang & Olufsen LCD TV, CD, and Radio, and the room weather system. And of course there is one special button to call the room service for any needs you can imagine. The bathroom is as big as the $300K studio condo in San Francisco. Audi really knows how to pamper its customers.

This hotel is located at Villa Olimpia, one of the athlete villages built for the 1992 Olympic game. This location is also the most sought after beach in Barcelona. It has wide long beaches with cheerful and colorful seafront. There are many aromatic seafood restaurants, bars with live music, and discos. And the parties start at midnight and go on till the city cleaning crews arrive at dawn.

Tapas

Experiencing Barcelona would not be complete without going for Tapas. Audi took us to the emblematic Catalan cuisine restaurant Can Travi Nou. The restaurant host seated us, the Audi group, in a rustic, charming, and inviting dining room with an antique cabinet filled with china and bottles of spiced olive oil on one side, and barn-size wooden-frame glass doors on the opposite side. The doors were open and we could feel the Barcelona balmy and crisp air. Just outside the doors was the ambrosial green terrace with ornate stone tiles. The terrace overlooked the hill with houses perching on its steep sides. The lights from the houses made the hill look like a majestic lit-xmas tree.

The Tapas from this place woke us up as we were exhausted for the track exercises. The mouth-watering taste and aroma came from the pan of the true master; the iron chef. The menu included what I considered exotic dishes; oven baked snails, black rice with cuttlefish, squid, and squid ink, and saute Ganxet white beans, broccoli, cabbage, and Morcilla (pig´s blood). For the brave hearts, the tastes of these foreign dishes were unearthing discoveries.

Even the simpler Tapas from this place were heavenly. The grilled fresh vegetables, and the toasted country bread with tomato dribbled in spiced olive oil tasted ridiculously fresh and healthy. The friendly, attentive, and humorous waiters and waitresses added to the list of many little things that made this place an unforgettable Audi dining experience. After this wonderful and heavenly dining experience, Audi took us on the Barcelona night city tour.

Barcelona Old Town

There are places that make you forget about home. There places where you get to know strangers more than you know most of your friends. There are places that make you fall in love with the people, the food, the architecture, and the culture. Barcelona is one of these places. Like first love, you want to experience it over and over again.

It is almost impossible to get tired of the Spanish architecture with the incredible details of stone carvings and statues, intricate hand carved panellings, and antique furnishing. Almost all Spanish buildings have balconies adorned with vibrant red, yellow, purple flower arrangements. The city´s colors are brown and gray, the colors of stone bricks that make up the structure. Apple green, peach orange, cherry red, and grape blue colors are often used on doors, wooden window covers, window or door frames bringing zestful contrast to and accentuating the already delightful two century-old Barri Gothic neighborhood.

The collection of Gaudi´s buildings around town gives me the impression that Barcelona is a giant outdoor open museum. The sight of the Gaudi´s Sagrado Familia in Barcelona at night is out of this world. No words can describe it. Looking at it, I wondered whether I had been teleported to a civilization distant from the earth´s solar system. But I didn´t recall that our bus had gone through a stargate. This site alone makes Barcelona an obligatory visit in Spain.

Even late at nights, every Cafe, from Tapas bars to Sushi bars, brims with conversations. Many tourists take refuge from all day urban hiking, exploring the nooks and crannies of Barcelona. The streets and alleys are merging at plazas from many different angled directions like synapses connecting neurons. Looking at Barcelona old town map is like looking at many spider webs connected with one another. Finding a place here is like treasure hunting; mysterious, exciting, and full of hope of discovering the magical places and moments.

The Company

We all come from many different background, but yet we feel that our passion for driving and Audi cars brought us together. The students are from America (California, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Colorado), Puerto Rico, and Latvia. The seasoned instructors (Altfrid Heger, Sepp Haider, Markus Fiechtl-Kerschner), the hard-working and caring mechanics (Alexander Heel, Helmut Schalk), and the attentive host (Alexandra Hase) are from Germany and Austria.

We bond over the thrilling, electrifying, and gripping track exercises and track times, lively exciting lunch conversations, delicious and heavenly dinners, and relaxing drinks at the Gaucho hotel bar. Even the bar crews remember our individual favorite drink orders.

We discuss and ponder about the optimum speed to enter the chicane and the hairpins, the maximum speed in the sweeping turns, the switchbacks, the straight stretches, the brake timing, memorable personal past Audi-related experiences, various driving schools, diesel and bio diesel technologies, favorite food and drinks, favorite vacation spots, pet peeves, and many other random topics.

Despite the short time we have together, our same passion brings us so close that many of us are making plans to meet again at other Audi Driving Experience events (Finland, Sweden, and Nurburgring), as well as to visit each other in different countries!

Till We Meet Again

I will remember the Barcelona RS4 Audi Driving Experience not only for its intoxicating and exhilarating track times, but also for the people I encountered, the places we visited and stayed, the food and culture I experienced. I joined this event to simulate the life of a DTM driver. Instead, through the Audi Driving Experience, I found the reality of genuine, fun, learning, social, and cultural experiences. It is also a lot more cost effective than the cryogenic procedure to preserve my body till 2256 for the holodeck experience.

Hotel Arts

On the arrival day, I was greeted by Alexandra Hase, our host for this event, at the Ritz Carlton´s Hotel Arts in Villa Olimpia neighborhood. She has been working for Audi Driving Experience for 10 years. If there were a six star hotel rating, this hotel would qualify for such. Unlike most Ritz´s properties, Hotel Arts has a very modern open and spacious architecture and soothing design filled with modern dark colored furniture. This property can easily be mistaken for a Four Seasons´property judging from its architecture and design.

My corner room has control panels that host more buttons than the RS4 cockpit to operate the settings of the lighting in the different sections of the room to any mood I desire, the automatic window blinds that covers the panoramic double-pane noise-reduction glass windows, the Bang & Olufsen LCD TV, CD, and Radio, and the room weather system. And of course there is one special button to call the room service for any needs you can imagine. The bathroom is as big as the $300K studio condo in San Francisco. Audi really knows how to pamper its customers.

This hotel is located at Villa Olimpia, one of the athlete villages built for the 1992 Olympic game. This location is also the most sought after beach in Barcelona. It has wide long beaches with cheerful and colorful seafront. There are many aromatic seafood restaurants, bars with live music, and discos. And the parties start at midnight and go on till the city cleaning crews arrive at dawn.

Tapas

Experiencing Barcelona would not be complete without going for Tapas. Audi took us to the emblematic Catalan cuisine restaurant Can Travi Nou. The restaurant host seated us, the Audi group, in a rustic, charming, and inviting dining room with an antique cabinet filled with china and bottles of spiced olive oil on one side, and barn-size wooden-frame glass doors on the opposite side. The doors were open and we could feel the Barcelona balmy and crisp air. Just outside the doors was the ambrosial green terrace with ornate stone tiles. The terrace overlooked the hill with houses perching on its steep sides. The lights from the houses made the hill look like a majestic lit-xmas tree.

The Tapas from this place woke us up as we were exhausted for the track exercises. The mouth-watering taste and aroma came from the pan of the true master; the iron chef. The menu included what I considered exotic dishes; oven baked snails, black rice with cuttlefish, squid, and squid ink, and saute Ganxet white beans, broccoli, cabbage, and Morcilla (pig´s blood). For the brave hearts, the tastes of these foreign dishes were unearthing discoveries.

Even the simpler Tapas from this place were heavenly. The grilled fresh vegetables, and the toasted country bread with tomato dribbled in spiced olive oil tasted ridiculously fresh and healthy. The friendly, attentive, and humorous waiters and waitresses added to the list of many little things that made this place an unforgettable Audi dining experience. After this wonderful and heavenly dining experience, Audi took us on the Barcelona night city tour.

Barcelona Old Town

There are places that make you forget about home. There places where you get to know strangers more than you know most of your friends. There are places that make you fall in love with the people, the food, the architecture, and the culture. Barcelona is one of these places. Like first love, you want to experience it over and over again.

It is almost impossible to get tired of the Spanish architecture with the incredible details of stone carvings and statues, intricate hand carved panellings, and antique furnishing. Almost all Spanish buildings have balconies adorned with vibrant red, yellow, purple flower arrangements. The city´s colors are brown and gray, the colors of stone bricks that make up the structure. Apple green, peach orange, cherry red, and grape blue colors are often used on doors, wooden window covers, window or door frames bringing zestful contrast to and accentuating the already delightful two century-old Barri Gothic neighborhood.

The collection of Gaudi´s buildings around town gives me the impression that Barcelona is a giant outdoor open museum. The sight of the Gaudi´s Sagrado Familia in Barcelona at night is out of this world. No words can describe it. Looking at it, I wondered whether I had been teleported to a civilization distant from the earth´s solar system. But I didn´t recall that our bus had gone through a stargate. This site alone makes Barcelona an obligatory visit in Spain.

Even late at nights, every Cafe, from Tapas bars to Sushi bars, brims with conversations. Many tourists take refuge from all day urban hiking, exploring the nooks and crannies of Barcelona. The streets and alleys are merging at plazas from many different angled directions like synapses connecting neurons. Looking at Barcelona old town map is like looking at many spider webs connected with one another. Finding a place here is like treasure hunting; mysterious, exciting, and full of hope of discovering the magical places and moments.

The Company

We all come from many different background, but yet we feel that our passion for driving and Audi cars brought us together. The students are from America (California, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Colorado), Puerto Rico, and Latvia. The seasoned instructors (Altfrid Heger, Sepp Haider, Markus Fiechtl-Kerschner), the hard-working and caring mechanics (Alexander Heel, Helmut Schalk), and the attentive host (Alexandra Hase) are from Germany and Austria.

We bond over the thrilling, electrifying, and gripping track exercises and track times, lively exciting lunch conversations, delicious and heavenly dinners, and relaxing drinks at the Gaucho hotel bar. Even the bar crews remember our individual favorite drink orders.

We discuss and ponder about the optimum speed to enter the chicane and the hairpins, the maximum speed in the sweeping turns, the switchbacks, the straight stretches, the brake timing, memorable personal past Audi-related experiences, various driving schools, diesel and bio diesel technologies, favorite food and drinks, favorite vacation spots, pet peeves, and many other random topics.

Despite the short time we have together, our same passion brings us so close that many of us are making plans to meet again at other Audi Driving Experience events (Finland, Sweden, and Nurburgring), as well as to visit each other in different countries!

Till We Meet Again

I will remember the Barcelona RS4 Audi Driving Experience not only for its intoxicating and exhilarating track times, but also for the people I encountered, the places we visited and stayed, the food and culture I experienced. I joined this event to simulate the life of a DTM driver. Instead, through the Audi Driving Experience, I found the reality of genuine, fun, learning, social, and cultural experiences. It is also a lot more cost effective than the cryogenic procedure to preserve my body till 2256 for the holodeck experience.