It really feels like I haven’t stopped lately… (another excuse for the irregular posts). Despite living in Bristol, I spent every weekend of May in London. Throw in a week in Milan in the middle and that is not a lot of time at home.

I was out in Milan on a work trip trying to organise the Milan launch for this year’s Mongol Rally. It typical Adventurists style, I didn’t find out I was going until about two day’s before hand. Thankfully, Espe came along too, as she has been doing all the correspondence with the Italian teams. Through this job I continue to meet and work with random people through the rally (the sort that you couldn’t imagine meeting in other circumstances). In Cameroon it was the General of the Presidential Guard. In Milan it was the president of Goodyear Italia…

Milan is a nice city, full of very attractive very cool looking people. The food is of course very good, although everything seems very expensive here. We also managed to time our arrival perfectly to see half the city celebrating Inter Milan’s league victory. I didn’t get anytime for the touristy stuff, although the Duomo Cathedral and city castle are pretty impressive. I did however manage to meet up with Ivan, whom I used to work with in Madrid. Great to see him and share a pizza and beer together.

Somehow, in the brief period between Milan and a trip to Spain, I managed quite a lot. Firstly came Nina and Kuntesh’s wedding. Within less than 12 hours of getting back from Milan we were in the car and heading up to Potters Bar. Forewarned by the sign in the car park stating “Non vegetarian food and alcohol strictly prohibited”, the wedding itself, in traditional Indian style, was quite drawn out, and most of it was a bit of a mystery to me. Nina looked stunning in the traditional Indian dress and Kuntesh looked pretty dappa too. Again with traditional dress, clean shaven and trim hair look (only worth a mention as Kuntesh has the ability to put my recent beard and hairdo attempts to shame). The wedding really was like a collage reunion with loads of faces I hadn’t seen for ages. A great time to catch up. Oh, and the food, was fantastic.

Second, came the opportunity to wish goodbye to my German house mate Christian who is returning home, celebrated of course with a good curry and beers. A really pleasant chap, and a pleasure to live with, he will be missed in this household.

Thirdly, I managed to enjoy my work colleagues BMW Z3 convertible as best as my free time permitted, which she has left in my capable hands for three weeks. Espe and I managed separate trips to the Cotsworlds, the Mendips & Western Super Mare and finally Wales, where the roads really get interesting.

Flying out to Madrid I was in one of those nothing can phase me happy moods. So content, so excited. So many memories came flooding back about my four years in Madrid. The weather was fantastic, although that was to change. I met up with Jon Prior, getting to meet Mayte and their immensely cute daughter, Andrea, before moving onto the legendary Cebon for a huge slab of cow… I was impressed by how many people turned up for the occasion:. Jon, Lars, James, Ana, Nico, Zaida and Jimmy. I’d forgotten that there were than many people left.

It was fantastic to catch up and tell more tales from the road, for that is when the memories come flooding back. Catching up on the latest Sun Microsystems gossip and filling my friends in on what the hell it is that I am doing now left me feeling pretty good (helped of course by the bottle of Pacharan that Jon insisted on ordering).

I also managed to meet up with Alberto and Alejandro, who are running the Madrid launch of the Mongol Rally, briefly too. A pleasure as always meeting with them and Alberto even took me to visit the launch specific charity, Pueblos Unidos. For those in Madrid, check out the launch at the Bernabeu on July 19th.

The main reason for this trip to Spain however, was to go to Salamanca for Raul and Ana’s wedding. Raul is another ex sun colleague, who I got to know (i think) through Niki and their love of Snowboarding. Regularly offering us lifts up to the mountains to strap planks of wood to our feet and also a big help in improving my Spanish. In short, a legendary chap, this Raul fella. Always happy go lucky, with a contagious laugh. Him and his brother great to be around, sharp, witty and entertaining. Oh, and he designs very cool tattoos and t-shirts… www.shegsy.com.

Upon arrival in Salamanca (Espe and I reunited as she’d been in Valencia for the week), we met up with Raul, Ana and friends on the Friday night doing the tapas thing. Something they do pretty well in Salamanca. We got on particularly well with an Italian couple, Luca and Patrizia. I can’t really pin point why, but mainly because they were just lovely.

A beautiful city, Salamanca, you can’t get much more a prestigious spot for the wedding than the Catedral Nueva. Adding to the beauty of the place, Ana looked absolutely stunning in her wedding dress. The reception was, as all Spanish weddings are, fantastic. We started off with the apperitivo of tapas and beers on the terrace overlooking the city with loads of great bites, much in demand though was the Jamon Serrano of which between all the guests we devoured a whole leg within about 45 minutes. Such was the demand that the poor chap was not able to cut the ham quick enough as people were perpetually picking at it / taking plates away.

Having stuffed myself with the apperitivo, we then sat down for the 7 course dinner which was once again fantastic, followed by the obligatory bar and disco. I was pretty tired on the wedding day due to previous night’s shenanigans… a mistake I always seem to make (Jon Prior and Henry’s wedding spring to mind). I still managed to have a great night chatting with a large selection of Raul’s friends. I must say, it is an Honour for me to have been invited, more so when we found out that they had deliberately tried to keep the numbers down. Thank you very much squire!

A great long weekend in Spain. A country that I love. I seem to remember spending the weekend being invited to, and inviting people to visit. I sincerely hope that I follow through on these. I don’t know many people in Bristol, but I’ve got friends spread all over the world who I want to visit. I think Philippe is first on the list…