28 February 2006
27 February 2006
25 February 2006
Finally I've got some news. And a plan. A brilliant plan.
Entonces... I finish my course the 4th and fly to London, where I'll crash at the very familiar Stansted airport. In an ungodly hour the 5th I fly to Bratislava, then look around there and Budapest and maybe Vienna as I make my way to Switzerland where I am going to visit friends, Sébastien the handyman and blowdrying-technician amongst others. After gorging on Swiss chocolate and sauerkraut and whatever the Swiss have to offer for a few days I plan to go to Luxembourg for a 5 day course (work related stuff).
Then... *drum roll*... it's home sweet home! Luxembourg-Frankfurt-London-Reykjavík. And love and hugs and skyr and family and kókómjólk and friends and wireless internet and my laptop and kleinur - hurrah! And work (bleh) and cold (bleh) and wind (bleh) and routine (bleh), but the time of earning as opposed to spending is coming. But actually I look forward to go home, so it's all good. And who nows - maybe I can stay put for a while this time.
Entonces... I finish my course the 4th and fly to London, where I'll crash at the very familiar Stansted airport. In an ungodly hour the 5th I fly to Bratislava, then look around there and Budapest and maybe Vienna as I make my way to Switzerland where I am going to visit friends, Sébastien the handyman and blowdrying-technician amongst others. After gorging on Swiss chocolate and sauerkraut and whatever the Swiss have to offer for a few days I plan to go to Luxembourg for a 5 day course (work related stuff).
Then... *drum roll*... it's home sweet home! Luxembourg-Frankfurt-London-Reykjavík. And love and hugs and skyr and family and kókómjólk and friends and wireless internet and my laptop and kleinur - hurrah! And work (bleh) and cold (bleh) and wind (bleh) and routine (bleh), but the time of earning as opposed to spending is coming. But actually I look forward to go home, so it's all good. And who nows - maybe I can stay put for a while this time.
23 February 2006
22 February 2006
19 February 2006
17 February 2006
Turkish liras
These are Turkish lira notes, a 10 lira note (YTL or New Turkish Lira) and a 10.000.000 lira note (TL or Turkish Lira). To make things complicated they have, or more correctly had, the same value. 6 zeros were knocked off for the new lira which was introduced on January 1st 2005 and co-existed with the older turkish lira throughout 2005. Turks were still adjusting to the idea in November and December and usually quoted prises in the old lira, so I was charged 1.500.000 liras for a kebab and even if I had millions of liras in my pockets it still might not have been enough for a taxi. Kemal Atatürk still decorates all the bills - and probably will through many currency relaunches to come.
These are Turkish lira notes, a 10 lira note (YTL or New Turkish Lira) and a 10.000.000 lira note (TL or Turkish Lira). To make things complicated they have, or more correctly had, the same value. 6 zeros were knocked off for the new lira which was introduced on January 1st 2005 and co-existed with the older turkish lira throughout 2005. Turks were still adjusting to the idea in November and December and usually quoted prises in the old lira, so I was charged 1.500.000 liras for a kebab and even if I had millions of liras in my pockets it still might not have been enough for a taxi. Kemal Atatürk still decorates all the bills - and probably will through many currency relaunches to come.
15 February 2006
14 February 2006
13 February 2006
12 February 2006
10 February 2006
Today's photos - The Basilica Cistern in Istanbul
the Basilica Cistern
was built by Justinian in 532 AD and was the underground reservoir for the city. The vaulted brick roof is supported by 336 columns and water was pumped through over 64 kilometers (40 miles) of aqueducts from a reservoir near the Black Sea. The cistern that was laid on an area of total 9.800 m2 has the capacity to store 100.000 tons of water. Statistics cannot however describe the feeling of walking around in the cistern, after entering through a door on the hill, knowing that above you is the hustle and bustle of the old part of Istanbul, hearing only the drip-drop echoing from the high ceiling.
If you've seen either 'From Russia With Love' or Jackie Chan's 'The Accidental Spy', you might recognise the cistern.
the Basilica Cistern
was built by Justinian in 532 AD and was the underground reservoir for the city. The vaulted brick roof is supported by 336 columns and water was pumped through over 64 kilometers (40 miles) of aqueducts from a reservoir near the Black Sea. The cistern that was laid on an area of total 9.800 m2 has the capacity to store 100.000 tons of water. Statistics cannot however describe the feeling of walking around in the cistern, after entering through a door on the hill, knowing that above you is the hustle and bustle of the old part of Istanbul, hearing only the drip-drop echoing from the high ceiling.
If you've seen either 'From Russia With Love' or Jackie Chan's 'The Accidental Spy', you might recognise the cistern.
9 February 2006
Recently I received an email from a friend, who pointed about the stagnant state of this blog and he came up with two logical explanations for this; either I didn't have an easy access to a computer or I had a latin lover which took up all my time. This friend is a very smart person and knows me quite well, but neither of his educated guesses are correct. The truth is that I just don't have a lot of idle time on my hands and my daily life isn't exactly thrilling (see last entry) to write about, although I very much enjoy it. I could tell you what I have for lunch or my constant battle with the 5 past tenses in Spanish grammar (pretérito pluscuamperfecto being the last one I learnt but also the simplest one, pretérito imperfecto and I get along pretty well but pretérito indefinido and I still haven't quite clicked), but that would be worse than not writing at all.
Last weekend I did something interesting though; I went to Lisbon, which is a beautiful city. It was also nice to go somewhere else, hear something else than Spanish and enjoy another culture and a different environment. Don't get me wrong - I love Spain - but I just need to see something different every once in a while (I'll never be able to settle down, will I?). And to make it even more enjoyable the weather was great, 12-14°C. It snowed in Lisbon about 10 days ago, when Spain practically closed down because of snow, but that was for the first time for 56 years.
The train takes 7 hours from Salamanca, through lovely landscape and countless idyllic towns and villages, very picturesque. I'm used to hassle at borders but in this case there was none, another perk of travelling in Europe. I'm never quite at ease if nobody looks at my passport though; if you've got a stamp you're always OK but without an entry stamp... I don't know, I just never trust it that everything will be OK. At borders I always feel like I've done somehting wrong, but maybe that just comes from too many dodgy border crossings in Africa and whatnot. Crossings in the Middle East aren't too great either.
But more about Lisbon; I stayed there for three days and thoroughly liked it. It's very different from Spain, doesn't have this continental feel to it, reminded me a lot of Salvador de Bahia in the Northeast of Brazil; similar architecture, very colourful buildings, small winding cobblestone streets and narrow shady alleys, the port (hte harbour that is, not the wine), hills with fantastic view, lots of ascensores (funicular elevators)... and of course the Portuguese, although differrent from Brazil's it sounds beautiful. On the train I listened to a Portuguese crash-course I've got on the ipod, which I listened to last year before going to Brazil, and made the promise not to speak any English in Portugal, a promise I mostly kept apart from when I spoke to the staff at the hostel where I stayed (it's a fantastic HI hostel by the way, I can recommend it), my Spanish-Portuguese hybrid is not quite good enough for a proper conversation, at least not if I want to come across as a moderately knowledgeable person.
Legend has it that Ulysses founded the city, although it was more probably the Phoenicians. Since then many have stopped by; Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Moors, Spanish, French... After Napoleon's four-year occupation of Lisbon from 1807, the city, like the rest of the country, fell into political chaos and military insurrection for over a century. In the early 20th century, a 16-year period brought 45 changes in government. António de Oliveira Salazar headed an authoritarian regime for 36 years that lasted until 1976, with the usual; censorship, propaganda, secret police etc. Like in Spain it's amazing how much things have changed in a few decades and though of course the countries have got their classic issues to deal with they have certainly surged forward in many aspects. But I'm not going into politics or history any further, maybe one day I'll try to explain a bit of what's going on in Spain these days, what with Catalunya wanting independence and all, but that will have to wait.
So yeah, that's it for now.
Last weekend I did something interesting though; I went to Lisbon, which is a beautiful city. It was also nice to go somewhere else, hear something else than Spanish and enjoy another culture and a different environment. Don't get me wrong - I love Spain - but I just need to see something different every once in a while (I'll never be able to settle down, will I?). And to make it even more enjoyable the weather was great, 12-14°C. It snowed in Lisbon about 10 days ago, when Spain practically closed down because of snow, but that was for the first time for 56 years.
The train takes 7 hours from Salamanca, through lovely landscape and countless idyllic towns and villages, very picturesque. I'm used to hassle at borders but in this case there was none, another perk of travelling in Europe. I'm never quite at ease if nobody looks at my passport though; if you've got a stamp you're always OK but without an entry stamp... I don't know, I just never trust it that everything will be OK. At borders I always feel like I've done somehting wrong, but maybe that just comes from too many dodgy border crossings in Africa and whatnot. Crossings in the Middle East aren't too great either.
But more about Lisbon; I stayed there for three days and thoroughly liked it. It's very different from Spain, doesn't have this continental feel to it, reminded me a lot of Salvador de Bahia in the Northeast of Brazil; similar architecture, very colourful buildings, small winding cobblestone streets and narrow shady alleys, the port (hte harbour that is, not the wine), hills with fantastic view, lots of ascensores (funicular elevators)... and of course the Portuguese, although differrent from Brazil's it sounds beautiful. On the train I listened to a Portuguese crash-course I've got on the ipod, which I listened to last year before going to Brazil, and made the promise not to speak any English in Portugal, a promise I mostly kept apart from when I spoke to the staff at the hostel where I stayed (it's a fantastic HI hostel by the way, I can recommend it), my Spanish-Portuguese hybrid is not quite good enough for a proper conversation, at least not if I want to come across as a moderately knowledgeable person.
Legend has it that Ulysses founded the city, although it was more probably the Phoenicians. Since then many have stopped by; Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Moors, Spanish, French... After Napoleon's four-year occupation of Lisbon from 1807, the city, like the rest of the country, fell into political chaos and military insurrection for over a century. In the early 20th century, a 16-year period brought 45 changes in government. António de Oliveira Salazar headed an authoritarian regime for 36 years that lasted until 1976, with the usual; censorship, propaganda, secret police etc. Like in Spain it's amazing how much things have changed in a few decades and though of course the countries have got their classic issues to deal with they have certainly surged forward in many aspects. But I'm not going into politics or history any further, maybe one day I'll try to explain a bit of what's going on in Spain these days, what with Catalunya wanting independence and all, but that will have to wait.
So yeah, that's it for now.
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