28.08.06
Posted in
General
at
6:16 pm
by
Andy
After the heavy wedding weekend, I was looking forward to a quite week. A quiet week, I did not get. With Alberto back from Mongolia, Espe and I were invited over to his place on Tuesday night. Not feeling great I ended up being a bit antisocial and found it more difficult than usual understanding all the Spanish. That said Alberto, of course, had lots of stories to tell and it sounds as though the Mongol Rally lived up to its reputation. It turns out Tom declared them the champions of the rally, having been the first team to arrive in UB having entered Mongolia at the far eastern point of Tsaganuur. The reward? To dress up as a Mongolian Wrestler for the finish party…
On Wednesday I found myself not feeling particularly well. That kinda messed up my plans as I had wanted to meet several people that week. Feeling better by the end of the week Ana and her boyfriend, Mat, came over for dinner. Ana is a Spanish girl I met a long time ago while doing intercambios. We’ve stayed freinds ever since. She was lucky enough to get a grant to finish her PhD in San Fransciso. She is back breifly for the summer before returning as a researcher. I think the experience has done her loads of good. She is brimming with confindence and seems to be enjoying very much what she is doing.
Two of the CAP boys are over from Krakow . I’d planned to meet up with them for some beers and tapas, but being ill in the middle of the week put an end to that. It is a shame as Marek was only over for a week and I didn’t get to see him at all. Michal is here for a few more weeks, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to make up for that.
On Sunday, Espe and I headed up into the mountains and did a trek which I’ve been wanting to do for some time: Siete Picos, or Seven Peaks. It took us three and a half hours to do the circular trek which included scaling 7 peaks, obviously, the highest of which is a mere 2138 metres above sea level.
To finish the week off nicely, on Sunday evening we were joined by the other half of the Spanish Bulfighters, David. An evening full of stories about the rally as well as a chance to see some of David’s pics from Mongolia, including further evidence that my Mini is alive and well. Top stuff.
Posted in
Motoring
at
12:09 pm
by
Andy
The Mongol Rally is altogether a pretty stupid idea. Last year Tom introduced the idea of taking a Honda C90 pizza delivery bike. This year “Fatty B” accepted the challenge and set of with the intention of doing just that… and he arrived in UB!
Fatty B arrives!
www.londontomongolia.co.uk
26.08.06
Posted in
General
at
7:28 pm
by
Andy
I’ve just returned from our local bar downstairs. We are blessed with a bar right next door to our flat. Even better, they have a terrace out back, the owner is the freindliest bar owner I’ve ever met and his wife prepares simply fantastic food. Unfortunately they were closed last weekend for a well earned break. Unfortunate, as I wanted to treat the boys who were over for Henry and Natalia’s wedding to some of the goodness.
I first met Henry 5 years ago when Jon and I were living in Bristol at Uni. We headed into Wales to see the Network Q rally and invited a selection of friends over for it. Not only did we get an excellent weekend watching the rally cars blat through the Welsh Forests, Henry and I had great fun blasting across the Welsh roads between stages in our respective Subaru Impreza and MG Maestro Turbo. I subsequently met Natalia when Jon, Henry and I went to watch the Farnborough airshow four years ago. I have fond memories of watching fighter aircraft performing ludicrous maneuvers while we discussed the merits of me taking my current job in Madrid.
Four years later I found myself invited to their wedding in Madrid of all places. Convenient for me, but top marks to others who made the trip from far flung places such as Australia and Canada. Now I’m gonna try and keep this short. It was a fantastic weekend and we did loads, but to post it all here would be a little tedious. On top of that my memory of it all is a little hazy.
Thursday night after collecting Jon, Dan, Jack, Southall and George from the airport and passing the early evening chatting it the flat we then headed into town to meet Henry, Natalia and a larger collection of their friends (not before the boys discovered the roof terrace on the flat giving the best views of Madrid I’ve ever seen). A good evening with the opportunity to catch up with many people, and meet even more new faces. Highlight of the evening had to be had to be George attempting to crowd surf on a collection of wheely bins.
Friday morning was another casual affair. After home made Tortilla Espa�ola and Pan Tomaca we lounged around chatting all things cars, bikes, photography, travel, music, maps etc. Curzon, who’s really into kite flying showed us some stunning videos. This one most definitely bears checking out.
Friday night was a chance to catch up with even more friends I’ve not seen since Christmas. Especially satisfying was seeing Espe getting on with all of them (contary to here own belief, the girl’s English is getting better all the time). Most of the evening was spent in or around Plaza Santa Ana. After turning down an offer from some of the Germans to join them for a 50 euro steak, we headed of to a favorite little tapas place of mine, famous for their spicy mussels. The tapas was as ever fantastic, but I was amazed how cheap it worked out… Less than 8 euros a head!
The wedding itself on Saturday was absolutely superb. They had picked a beautiful location north of Madrid. Words cannot do the place justice… the photos however do. Natalia was looking stunning for the ceremony which took place outdoors on the lawn. The whole evening was great. Great speeches, superb food, great wine, and best of all great company. Just before the ceremony I spotted someone who looked like a girl I went to school with. After a second glance I realised it not only looked like, but was Lucy de Silva. I got chatting to her after the ceremony to find out that she works with Natalia. I was introduced to her boyfriend, Wayne, who as it turns out, he grew up less than 30 seconds from my parents house! Small world.
Everything wound down at about 5am at which point we were all piled onto the coaches returning to Madrid. A bit to much for some after all the alcohol, while others thrived on it. Jack for example, managed to traverse the coach without touching the floor. A truly fantastic wedding. One of the best I’ve ever been to. The only negative thing I can say about the wedding, is that it was a shame that most people were so destroyed from the two previous evenings, although that probably helped keep everything under control.
Sunday, was understandably relaxed. After a rather long lie in, Espe and I headed down to the Retiro park to meet some of the others. We both agreed that we should go there more often as it is so relaxing. I was entertained, as is normal for a Sunday in Retiro, by the multitude of bongo players who gather in the afternoon. Afterwards Espe and wandered into the center to meet up with Philippe, Jon, Ana and Michal, who is over from Poland for a few weeks. Later on we met up with Dan, Jon and the boys, once again in Plaza Santa Ana.
Monday, thankfully was a nice relaxed day. I grabbed the photos off Dan while he, in his own words, “raped over 50% of my mp3 collection”. I dropped Jon, Dan, Jack and George off at the airport in the afternoon, with it finishing of one hell of a weekend. There are lots of highlights, but the best for me was being surrounded by so many friends, who all seem to share similar interests. I feel so normal around this lot…
A selection of the photos from the weekend can be seen in the photo gallery.
25.08.06
Posted in
Friday Fun
at
12:43 pm
by
Andy
Who sent me a whole host of amusing links. I’m posting the best of them here.
Its all about the treadmills
The World’s greatest dominoes run and not a domino in sight!
Combine fast cars and google maps… doesn’t get much better than this.
Claude Lelouch’s Rendezvous
(For the nerds amungst us, I’m not convinced by the sound track. Great though it sounds, the speed of the car doesn’t match it.)
P.S. I will get round to posting about last weekend, this week has been quite tough and I’ve not been so well.
17.08.06
Posted in
General
at
10:23 am
by
Andy
well it is. Madrid is unseasonably cold. Not only has it been dropping below 30 degrees at night, it has been dropping below 20! Today we have the very British perpetual grey skies and right now its raining! Bliss.
My weekend starts in just under 6 hours when I’m joined by Jon, Jack, Dan etc who are all over in Madrid for Henry’s wedding.
Best news of all though, has to be that from Jon:
“I’m really happy. Yesterday I found my favorite vegetable. The red onion. I bought a whole kilo!”
Bless.
12.08.06
Posted in
General
at
7:43 pm
by
Andy
Espe invited a good friend of hers, Gema, over for dinner last night. I was placed in charge of preparing a nice Thai meal. A challenge I always like to rise to. I prepared spring rolls followed by a green chicken curry. The spring rolls were the best I’ve made to date and the curry was good as always, albeit not very spicy. I erred on the side of caution due to my Spanish company however there is plenty of curry paste left to fix that for next time. A good effort, yet the simplest thing to prepare turned out the worst. The rice was to moist and starchy… Need to sort that out.
After dinner we jumped in the car and heading into the mountains to check out the Perseid Meteor storm. Unfortunately with a nearly full moon the sky was far to bright and many of the weaker stars and meteors were not visible. That said we still saw a few meteors. I reckon about 15, two of which were really big and went of for a while.
Unfortunately my efforts to capture any on film proved fruitless. No real surprise given the lack of a really wide angle lens and the infrequency of the meteors (without the moon, on average at least 1 meteor is visible per minute). Still, the photos turned out pretty well regardless.
My favorite is below, but I’ve also started a gallery for “Astro Pics” which I hope to add to, as I think this type of photo are pretty unique.
I’d just like to add, that this photo has had no modification what so ever. It is as taken, and note I used no flash. The car and foreground is illuminated purely by the moonlight!
11.08.06
Posted in
Friday Fun
at
1:23 pm
by
Andy
The title says it all really… maybe: www.theregister.co.uk
Posted in
General
at
10:07 am
by
Andy
Tonight / tomorrow morning will present the best opportunity for those in the Northern Hemisphere to see the Perseids Meteor storm. I won’t bother writing all about it here as you can find out loads on the amsmeteors.org website.
All that does need saying is get yourself out into the country side for the best views. Even with the heavy moonlight that will be present tonight you should see on average one meteor a minute…
It should be an excellent opportunity to get some good photos! Doubt I get anything as good as the Astronomy Picture of the Day though!
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