The last post of the year

Well, I'm off for a long weekend, to relax and rest for the big party on Friday night.
The weather is still very bad, so I'm afraid skiing won't be an option tomorrow.
I will probably spend most of the time at Mónica's parents house, trying to install the wireless network her father bought. I had a try at installing it yesterday evening, but the network card is giving us trouble. I will have to reinstall it.

Have a great night on New Year's Eve. Make it a party to remember.
Here in Spain, it will be another traditional night. We have to wear red underwear for good luck, and at midnight, we will try to eat 12 grapes before the tower clock in Madrid has struck 12 times. Each grape represents a month of luck, and I can assure you it's not easy to eat them that fast. In fact, I never managed to do it in time.

Feliz 2005! Happy New Year!

And they lived happily ever after

On the 7th of December, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, Mónica and I were in Oviedo and decided to go have a quick lunch at our favourite Italian restaurant Gepetto.
We both had a tagliatelle 'Gepetto', and a Coke.
A few days ago, I took a look at my bank account online, and saw to my disbelief that they had charged me 70 euros for the meal. So I started looking for the credit card ticket, and yes: it said 70 euros and it was signed by me.
Immediately Mónica's words came to my mind: "You never watch the amount before you sign." She has said it so many times.

I searched for the e-mail address of the restaurant and wrote a 'nice' mail to the manager, saying that they had taught me a valuable lesson that day.
I couldn't ask for a refund, because I had thrown away the restaurant check and couldn't prove what we had eaten that day.
5 minutes later, I received a mail from the manager. He had phoned the restaurant, they had searched for my check of that day, they had seen that they had made a mistake, and they were about to return me the money.
And they did. Nice man, this Gepetto.

Back to work

I'm one of the unlucky few who are actually working today. Although I didn't do much yet, and I see my colleagues are just surfing the internet as well.
The office is very empty, and the few people that did come to work today are making very little noise. So for once it's comfortably quiet in here.


We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day with Mónica's parents. It was a serene celebration with lots of food and the typically Spanish turron for dessert, accompanied by christmas specials on television.
On Saturday and Sunday we stayed in the house, because winter has finally reached Spain, with snowstorms, heavy rain and windspeeds up to 65 mph.
I hope the weather conditions will improve a little by the end of the week, so I can go skiing for the first time this year on Thursday.

Merry Christmas!

A Merry Christmas to all my visitors!
Feliz Navidad!

Nothing to worry about

I don't know how the social security system works in the States, but in Belgium we had to pay to go to the doctor, and later the system repaid part of the fee.
In Spain, going to the doctor is free. The first time you need a doctor, you get one assigned to you. On later visits, you will always see the same doctor.
The doctor I got assigned is an older man, he must be close to 70 years old. It always makes me doubt his opinions and decisions. Ok, he probably has a lot of experience, but is he familiar with new techniques and developments?


I visited the doctor this morning. You see, two weeks ago I went to the medical check-up at work, and apparently some numbers of the blood analysis were a little low. But the doctor told me I shouldn't pay too much attention to the figures, and that everything seemed fine.
As I was waiting for my turn to see the doctor, I heard other people whispering. They were saying: "shouldn't he start thinking about retiring? He is getting a little old now, isn't he?"
Apparently, I'm not the only one doubting his opinions.

Un poquito de por favor

There are some strange people in this world. I heard that some colleagues were complaining about the fact that the office is decorated with christmas decorations.
Ok, the decorations look a bit crappy, but that's not the point. They think it is totally inappropriate that the company spends money on christmas decorations and that they are forced to work in a decorated building.

Oh please! How about some respect and tolerance. I don't understand this kind of behaviour. if some stupid mistletoe decoration already makes you freak out, you better lock yourself in for the next 2 weeks.
What's your opinion on this?

First a siesta, and then to the fiesta

I live in Spain, but many people I work with live in the United States. So I have telephone meetings with people from the United States on a daily basis.
Apparently, many people seem to think that Spain is a very big holiday resort, and that we only work a couple of hours a day.

There is the misunderstanding of the so-called 'siesta'. Many people actually think that after having lunch we have some time off to take a nap. We don't. And there are no big rooms with beds in the office either. The siesta is a nap that we take on a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon, just like my parents used to do in Belgium. I have the same 9 to 6 working hours like I had in Belgium.


And there is the myth that we have an incredible amount of holidays in a year. We don't. In Spain every region has its own festive holidays. So people in Barcelona have other holidays than people in Madrid. I have 14 holidays next year. I think that is the same amount as I had in Belgium. Nothing special there either.
So there is no need to envy us, especially because the wages in Spain normally are a lot lower than in other European countries and the United States.

Does Santa even know I moved to Spain?

Do you ever want to buy something, even when you know you don't really need it?
I want to buy myself a new computer, although I know I don't really need it.
I have a computer, and it has never ever let me down. But it's getting old and slow, and it is starting to show some annoying defects. I don't have much time to use it, and it still does everything I need it to do, but...
If computers weren't that expensive, I wouldn't have a problem. But it bothers me to spend that amount of money on something I don't really need, now that I finally managed to save some money.
I wish I had the same kind of luck as a colleague of mine.
Two weeks ago, on Saturday morning, he was awakened by the sound of his doorbell. When he opened the door, all he saw was a big, heavy box. He checked the elevator and the stairs, but there was nobody there. He thought it was a joke, opened the box, and found a 42 inch flat plasma television. Price of the television: 3000 euros (4000 Dollars).
2 weeks later, he still doesn't know where the tv came from.

The name definitely fits the movie

Yesterday I watched the thriller/horror/slasher movie 'High Tension'. A few weeks ago, I accidentally saw a teaser trailer on television, and was stunned by it. This one I had to see!
And I actually loved it! Especially the feeling of tension and fear that it gave me, and that reminded me of when I secretly used to watch horror movies at night when I was a kid.


I caught myself several times holding my breath, waiting with open mouth for what was going to happen. The fear of the main character in the movie actually grabs you by the throat, and you would like to scream to her or just grab something and beat the living daylights out of the killer. At one moment in the movie she manages to kick his ass, and I could feel the relief that she had to be experiencing at that moment. It actually gave me goosebumps.

Near the end of the movie, there is a sudden and unexpected twist in the plot. Many people have been criticizing and actually hating the movie for this. It is true that the twist leaves some questions unanswered, but I think you should see the movie as the main character's version of the facts, and not try to find out what really happened.
For some scenes in the movie you need a strong stomach, because the blood and gore are very graphic.

Our first Christmas tree

I thought I'd share an image of our Christmas tree with all of you. Mónica likes it so much that she would like to keep it there for the rest of the year. The rest of the living room is decorated with little glowing lights and candles. It looks very cosy. I love the atmosphere created by Christmas decorations.


On Saturday, we went to 'Mayumana': it's a show filled with rhythm, music, acrobatics, dance and humor. The members of the show were in a grateful mood after the deafening applause at the end of the show, and continued the spectacle on the street in front of the theatre for half an hour. It was quite spectacular.
On Sunday we went visiting hotels and restaurants, to find the right place to celebrate New Year's Eve. And I think we might have found it.

Emergency bad, weekend good

I went to the company doctor for a medical check-up this morning. We are not obligated to do so, but every year we get the chance to see the doctor if we want to. So I took the opportunity to go.
There is this myth among the employees here that the doctor sometimes checks the 'crown jewels' of the male employees. So every time a colleague goes to see the doctor, they ask: "Did he take you by the .....?" I'm sure it's just a myth.

So it's friday again. I only worked 2 days this week, but it seems like it were 5. Last week and this week, we had some emergency programming, and everything had to go at the speed of light. Whenever we get an emergency, we have to handle in 2 days all the things we normally handle in 2 weeks. So that means major headache.
And of course, whenever there is an emergency, my computer acts like it is on holiday. Today I had to wait several minutes every time I needed a Lotus Notes database to open. It drives me wild.
I hope things will calm down starting monday.
I'm going to relax now. Have a nice weekend.

I had a great long weekend. Monday and Wednesday were 2 Spanish holidays, so on Tuesday I took a day off to have a longer weekend. We took advantage of the free days to go shopping for Christmas decorations and to clean and decorate the apartment.

On Saturday, we went to see the IMAX 3D version of the movie "The Polar Express". The glasses we had to put on to see the 3D images did look a little ridiculous, but the effect was spectacular, leading to people trying to catch snowflakes in the theater.
The movie was great, but I think you should really see it in IMAX 3D to be able to fully enjoy it. More movies should be made like this.


And on Tuesday we saw "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". I had read so many good reviews about this movie on the internet movie database, and was very curious to see it. But I didn’t like it at all.
The characters lack depth, there is no chemistry at all between the leading couple, and the character played by Kate Winslet is so annoying that Joel should be happy to erase her from his memory. We never see any moment of happiness in the relationship of the leading characters. The part of the movie when Joel's mind is being erased is filled with absurd images of Joel trying to hang on to his memories and doesn't add anything to the story.
And on top of it all, they tried to add some reverse-order storytelling to the movie, which only works disorienting.
I know there are many people who love this movie, but I don't have any idea why.

Exactly one year ago, at noon, I arrived in Spain.
Nervous and not knowing if I had made the right decision leaving my life, family, friends and apartment behind in Belgium.
My life changed completely in one day. I moved to another country with another language, I had a new job and I was going to live with my Spanish girlfriend with whom I had had a long-distance relationship until then (See 'A love story' on the left).
There were only 3 weeks between the day that I decided that I was going to do it, and the day that I arrived in Spain. So everything went very fast.

The first days and even weeks in my new hometown were filled with visiting the authorities to fulfill all the necessary paperwork, and all I could think of was: 'if this doesn't work out well, I'm going to have to change all this again.'
But everything did work out well: the relationship, the country, the city, the people, the language, the job, the apartment, the colleagues, the climate, the adventure.
It was a wonderful year.
There are days that I still can't believe that all this is really happening to me. I even joked about this theory that I had had an accident and was in a coma, having a great dream. If I am, don't bother trying to wake me up.

I went shopping last night, accidentally noticed one of these in a little gift shop and couldn't resist myself.


I always liked lava lamps but never had one. I knew Mónica liked them too, but we never had the right place for it in the apartment, to enjoy it at it's most.
Now we don't need that place anymore. We just plug it in.
Now I only hope it's not going to kill me:

Kent man killed by exploding lava lamp

A 24-year-old Kent man was killed Sunday afternoon when a lava lamp exploded, sending a shard of glass into his heart.

Kent police said Phillip Quinn put the lamp on a hot stovetop, causing it to explode. The King County Medical Examiner's Office ruled the death accidental.

Quinn apparently stumbled into a bedroom in his Kent trailer home after the explosion. His parents discovered his body there Sunday evening after his girlfriend reported that she couldn't get in touch with him. Police found no evidence of drug or alcohol use.

When I came home from work yesterday evening, there was a card in the mailbox, saying that I had to pick up a package at the post office. The day before, my mother had called me and asked me if I ever got the package that my sister had sent me. So she spoiled the surprise a little.
But I was curious about what she had sent me. I was even making Mónica all nervous when we were on our way to the post office. When we saw the size of the package, our curiosity got even bigger.


She sent me 2 big bags of the Haribo candy that I like so much, my favourite Belgian magazine "Humo", the newspaper of the day when the package was sent and a postcard signed by my sister, her boyfriend and the 2 kids.
So when we were watching tv last night, we ate candy until our stomachs hurt. Thanks, Sis!!

On Friday evening, we went to a colleagues house warming party. He moved to his new apartment about a month ago. I had expected that he would have the essential furniture like a couch by now, but he didn't. We entered an empty living room with only a table to present the food and drinks.
So after a few hours the guests got numb from standing and the party finished before it had even begun.

On Saturday we went shopping. First in Oviedo, and later that day in 2 malls. You see, next Thursday I will be living in Spain for exactly 1 year. On december 2nd, 2003 I arrived in Spain, my car loaded with all my stuff. So Mónica and I decided to adopt that date as our official anniversary date. And since anniversaries are synonymous with presents, we went shopping (in different shops).


On Sunday we stayed at home because the weather was bad. We huddled together under the blanket on the couch and watched the movie "50 first dates", a charming romantic comedy.

Comical.

Now, bear in mind that I never ever talked about movies to this person.
A colleague comes up to me and says:

º Did you see the movie 'Office Space'?
- Eum, no, I don't think so.
º No? Oh, it's so great. You have to see it! It gets better everytime I see it. You will laugh your *beep* off.
- Ok, I will look for it. Thanks for the tip.
º You know what? I still have it on my laptop. I will grab it for you now, so you can see it this weekend.
- Oh, ok. Thanks.

So he disappears. 2 minutes later, he passes me again with an external cd-writer under his arm, and he says to me: "You're lucky!"

10 minutes later he shows up again with a CD and says: "here it is, enjoy it. You can give me a recordable CD on Monday. But I only accept CD's of the brand Verbatim!"

I hear that the band U2 surprised New Yorkers with a free concert on a flatbed truck the other day.
Why am I never at the right place at the right time?

A few days ago I heard the much discussed song 'Vertigo' for the first time. Here in Spain they don't play many English songs on the radio. That's why it took so long.
At the beginning of the song, Bono says: "uno, dos, tres, catorce", which is Spanish for: "one, two, three, fourteen". There are many theories about why he says fourteen, because nobody can believe it is just a stupid mistake. It even seems Bono understands some Spanish.
I don't know what the reason is, but it does sound a little strange to me and Spanish people frown their eyebrows when they hear it. And why does he have to say it in Spanish anyway?

By the way, did you ever hear George Bush sing U2's 'Sunday bloody sunday'? Here's a link.

It's time to start thinking about what we are going to do on New Year's Evening.
Last year, we spent New Year's Eve together with Mónica's friends in a rented village house.
We were 4 couples and a bachelor, and we spent 3 fun days and nights at the house. But the group of friends sort of fell apart during the year, so it doesn't seem like they are going to organize anything together again.
In Belgium, we used to have these big gala parties where thousands of people would celebrate New Year together, but it seems those don't exist here in Asturias, and the local clubs get flooded with teenagers.


So I guess we should find a nice restaurant or hotel with dinner and dance.
Do you know already what you will be doing on New Year's Eve?

On friday night we went to see Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Mónica couldn't wait to see it, as she loved the first Bridget Jones.
The movie was better than I had expected. Well, the story takes some turns that tend to be ridiculous, Bridget seems to be born for bad luck and it is all very predictable, but I didn't hear so much laughter in a movie theater since a long time.

On Saturday night, we went to see a play at the famous theater Campoamor in Oviedo. The play was titled '5mujeres.com' (5women.com), and consisted of 5 comical monologues by 5 different actresses, trying to understand men. It was quite funny. I was afraid I wasn't going to understand much about it, but luckily I did.

In december Mayumana is coming to Gijon, so I should get tickets soon. We don't want to miss that show.

In belgium, a red traffic light means that you have to stop and wait until it turns green. In Spain, I'm not so sure about what it means. It almost seems as if a red traffic light means that you can stop if you want. And if you don't feel like stopping, just speed up a little and maybe you will make it. At least that is what I see every day.

Until I tried it one day, and was immediately stopped by an officer. I tried to act like I didn't speak any Spanish, but he didn't believe me. He just wrote "90 euros" on a piece of paper and said that I had to pay immediately or he would have to confiscate my car.
So I acted like I didn't know why I had to pay anything. And when he said to me in Spanish: "you just passed a red traffic light!", I said: "amarillo!!" (which means yellow in Spanish, by the way). After 10 minutes he got a little desperate and just let me go without a fine.


Other Spanish driving habits I get nervous about: acting like the right lane on the highway doesn't exist, and starting to honk the moment the traffic light turns green. You need a lot of patience on the Spanish roads.

My girlfriend Mónica just called me all excited at work, to let me know that she has been offered her very first job. From what I understood it's only a temporary job for 4 days at a local cosmetics shop, but it's a start and I'm very happy for her.
The poor thing was already getting desperate, and it kept getting harder for me to comfort her.
You see, she has been writing letters for over a year now, but hardly received any feedback at all. she has a University degree and completed a Master, but the lack of experience always seems to be the big problem.
So she has been downgrading her standards over the year, just to be able to find any kind of job and put some experience on her resume. And finally someone called her.

By the way, thanks for all the birthday wishes I received yesterday. It felt very nice.
And for those who were wondering, Mónica managed to make it a day to remember! When I entered our apartment after work, all the lights were turned off and she was standing in the middle of our living room, holding a heart shaped chocolate cake with burning candles. She looked at me with puppy eyes and then she said with a little trembling voice: "I made it myself".
She’s the best.

Well, it's that day of the year again when I get a little older. Yep, it's my birthday today. My first birthday in Spain.

I'm a bit of a melancholic person, and birthdays always make me feel a little down, especially my own. I inherited that from my mother. She always cries all day on her birthday, whining that it will almost be her last. She can be a little theatrical at times.
I'm sure she will be thinking a lot about me today, feeling sad that she can't congratulate me in person. She misses me a lot, because I used to visit her almost every day when I was still living in Belgium, telling her stuff and making her laugh. When I left, she said: 'Now I have nobody left to talk to' (she lives with my father and I have 2 sisters, by the way). Whenever I call her, I hear that she is trying to suppress her tears at the end of the call.


On my birthday, my parents, 2 sisters and their children used to come together to congratulate me and eat some birthday cake. Although I never seemed to care much about those moments, I think I will miss it today. But I'm sure Mónica will do everything within her power to give me a wonderful day, a first Spanish birthday to remember.

Every morning when I go to work, I have to stop at an intersection two blocks from our apartment, to let some young kids on their way to school cross the street. Apparently they are obliged to wear some kind of school uniform, what makes them all look like little angels.
The other day I saw one of the teachers enter the school, and all the kids were waving at him with a big smile.
Now this was an image I had never seen in Belgium.
I thought: it must be a piece of cake to be a teacher in this school! it looked as if teasing, bullying and fighting are things they don't have to deal with.
Now I'm sure I'm wrong about that, but the image was so different than the image that I was used to see at the entrance of any normal school in Belgium.
I personally have known teachers of students not much older than these kids, who were afraid in the classroom, often crying at night because of the intimidations by the brats.

But life in general is much more peaceful in Spain than in Belgium, at least where we are living.
When I just moved here, and we used to walk home through the abandoned streets after going out at night, I used to feel uncomfortable, double checking every strange sound I heard. Mónica reassured me however that it was quite safe to walk along the streets at night, and that she used to make these walks alone.
It is something I still have to get used to.
There is a completely different feeling of security in the streets where I live now. And it affects the way people walk down the street and treat each other incredibly.

I added a new section to the website, called 'Our Story'.
Click on the heart icon in the left icon bar, read our love story and weep.

Well, what I didn't want to happen, happened. By Saturday morning Mónica and I were both sick. Headache, feeling weak and feverish, running nose, you get the picture. So we spent all weekend at home, only leaving the house on Sunday morning to get more medicine.


We slept a lot, watched tv and movies that were so bad that they aren't even worth mentioning, played some games, slept again, felt bored and slept some more.
Of course, by Sunday evening I was feeling better already. So I would have felt guilty not showing up at work today. Now it feels like I didn't have a weekend. I already asked Mónica to bear with me if I start acting cranky this week.
The christmas decoration shopping that I was looking forward to will have to wait until next weekend.

I woke up with a sore throat this morning, and i'm sneezing too.
Last night I already had a feeling like I was going to be sick. I sure hope it will pass soon, because I don't feel like staying home all weekend, feeling lousy.
I went to the drugstore before coming to work, to get something for my throat.
Whenever I have to do something like that, I always practice in my car on how I am going to ask it in Spanish. I'm always afraid to say something stupid, although everybody says I already speak Spanish like a native. Yeah, right.

I put a picture on top of my site, although I'm not sure yet if I will leave it there. Does it look a bit OK to you?

When I was surfing around blogexplosion yesterday, I stumbled upon this little dragon on one of the blogs, watched the video about it (you can click the picture to see it) and was immediately intrigued by it. You see, it's not just a little ugly dragon, it is also quite an amazing optical illusion. I found the instructions to make one, and made one myself yesterday evening. Now it's keeping me company on my desk, and 2 of my colleagues already came to ask me for the instructions.


To all the blogexplosioners who are passing for extra traffic, I have been reading a little about site admission lately, and if you haven't admitted your site to the 'open directory project' yet, it's a good idea to do so. Especially Google rankings seem to be kind to you when your site is listed in the directory.

The place where you live can change your status completely.
Last year I moved from Belgium to Spain (If you had read my profile you would have known that already!).
When I was still living in Belgium, I couldn't find a job. I was without a job for more then a year, and if I had still been living there now, I probably would have been without a job still.
I was a computer programmer like so many, without that extra knowledge or experience to stand out from the rest of them.
I had 2 college degrees in engineering, but that was of no importance in the computer business. I spoke four languages, but in Belgium that is common knowledge. We need experts, not the average programmer. Next!

Then I decided to move to Spain. So the first thing to do was to look for a job there, obviously. In less then 3 weeks time I was offered a job. They asked me how much I wanted to earn, and they gave me some more than I had asked for.
I have been living here for almost a year now, and the people give me respect. I speak a fifth language now (Spanish that is), and in Spain speaking 5 languages is like being supernatural. The 2 college degrees in engineering only seem to confirm that to them.
My boss once said to me: what are you, an infiltrant from the CIA?
To the recruiters here, I am a completely different person than the person that I was to the Belgian recruiters.
That feeling of getting respect helps to build your self confidence and your self esteem, I can tell you that. But I still know that back there in Belgium, I am just like all the rest of them.

It's scary movie Tuesday again.
On my menu today is 'Dark Water': another Japanese movie, from the same director as Ringu (which is the original Japanese version of 'The Ring').
I certainly hope it's better then 'The Ring', because that movie only bored me to death. To me the plot was just too ridiculous.


I just love the feeling of creepiness that you get from watching a good scary movie. When I was much younger, I used to watch them alone at night in a totally dark livingroom, when my parents had already gone to bed.
BBC television used to play scary and horror movies late at night. So I used to sneak down the stairs to go watch them.
I remember there were times that I got myself so scared, that after the movie had finished, I turned off the tv and held my breath in the dark, to be able to hear every sound in the house. I could be there like that for 5 minutes, and then I had to force myself to get moving again and go to bed.
There was the tension of the movie and the tension of getting caught sneaking up the stairs.
One movie that really gave me the creeps back then was 'The Quiet Earth'.

I'm living in Spain less then 1 year, and on Friday I was already on Spanish television!
There was an official inauguration of 2 buildings at work on Friday, with the visit of the Asturian government, and the local television networks. They were filming us while the guests where visiting the buildings. So an hour later, I get a message from Mónica, saying: I saw you on the news on television!!
I saw it too later that evening. Mónica grabbed it on video, and watched it over and over again, to get an idea of where I spend 8 hours every day.

Talking about playing games: I remember that in the early 80's when I was a kid, it was cool to have an Atari console. So I begged my dad to get me one of those. However, when we went to buy one, he found it necessary to ask around about which console was better and had the most and best games. So I ended up with a CBS Colecovision, completely unknown in Europe, with games unknown to any of my friends.

In 1982, partly because of the success of the movie E.T., the BMX bikes became very popular in Europe. So I begged my dad to get me one of those. However, when we went to buy one, he saw this other type of bike that looked so much cooler to him. So I ended up with a Raleigh Chopper, and I must have been the only one in Belgium because I never saw another one in my life. Many people mocked me because of that bike. And I will never get over the fact that I never had a BMX.


Just get your kids whatever all their friends have. All the rest doesn't matter.

Mónica and I have been playing a computergame all evening yesterday. Puzzle Bobble is a game that she used to play many years ago. And now that she is home alone all day, she asked me to install it again for her. I had never played it before, but got hooked on it in 5 minutes.
The game is very simple: You have to aim and fire various coloured bubbles so that you get three or more in a row, and they then disappear.
So we have been playing a few rounds against each other yesterday night: some 100 rounds actually. Because you just can't stop playing it once you start!
There is only one problem: since I moved to Spain, I seem to win every game that we play together. We have been playing videogames, pool, tennis, bowling, air hockey, and I don't remember what else, and I always win! She is already getting a little desperate, the poor thing.


Today, a coworker explained me about MAME: The multiple arcade machine emulator, to play arcade games on the computer. And I just remembered that I must have a copy of 'Revolt' in the basement, a game that I played for hours and hours. It's playtime!

I won't talk too much about politics. Because that's all you hear about today. I just hope that whoever wins doesn't make too big a mess of it in the next 4 years, and at least tries to solve problems in such a way that no innocent people have to suffer, because that only leads to more hatred and more fanatics.

Let me tell you something about the Spanish habits.
The Spanish have some weird expressions they use whenever something goes wrong or doesn't work out the way they planned.
They say: 'Me cago en...'. Literally translated this means: 'I shit in...'. And they shit in almost everything. For example, they use: I shit in the milk, I shit in the moon, I shit in the whore, I shit in God or I shit in the sea. Only, whenever they use it, they don't think about it literally. It's just an expression of bad luck.
When I just moved to Spain, it sounded a little weird to me. And I asked my girlfriend: how do you know which expression you have to use at each occasion? But it doesn't seem to work that way. You just shit in what you want, although some expressions sound a little stronger then others.
If you ever visit Spain, I'm sure you will hear it, because they say it all day. I have my own variant. I say: me cago en la mano (I shit in my hand). At least it's mine.



Apparently, some of my visitors don't understand the little script on the left of this blog. You see where it says: 'Hello to the people visiting this site from...'? Well, every person who visits this blog sees another city and state in that sentence: their own. It's like a little program that looks up where your IP address is located, and fills in the city and state. But many people seem to think: hey, this guy is from around here! Sorry, I am not. Unless you live in Spain (where I live) or in Belgium (where I used to live). Then you're right.

Friday evening started bad. I was very tired when I got home, so I fell asleep until Mónica woke me up around 20:30 to tell me that the central heating system broke down and was making a strange noise. We called the technician, but he couldn't come until Saturday morning. So we spent the evening cuddled up on the couch.
The technician arrives at 9am on Saturday morning, enters our kitchen, pushes a button and says: it's ok now. Couldn't he say over the phone: try to push that button??? Moreover, he charged us 23 euros for this! Next time I will try pushing every button I find!

On Saturday afternoon we went shopping, had dinner at the mall, and even went bowling afterwards. although it seemed more like a game of: try to hit a pin if you can.
Sunday was a rainy day. We stayed at home and watched 'love actually' in the afternoon: a movie that shows us the love stories of 8 different couples around christmas. Ideal for a rainy Sunday.
On Sunday night, Halloween, we watched the director's cut of 'the exorcist' on tv.

Yesterday morning, we met with Mónica's parents to visit the cemetary. We all spent the afternoon at the mall together. We had lunch at Antonio Banderas's restaurant 'La posada de Antonio'. The service was terrible! We were already waiting an hour for our first course, when Mónica's father asked why it was taking so long. 5 minutes later they show up with our main course, and they cancelled our first course without any explanation. Sorry Antonio, but you won't see us again there soon.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my violent movie nights. Mónica doesn't like (unnecessary) violence in a movie, so I watch the more violent ones on the nights that she has got her dancing classes.
I watched Kill Bill Vol.2 yesterday. Well, about half of it.
Never in my life was I ever this bored watching a movie!
I had been told that it was a little slow and that it didn't have that many fighting scenes like the first volume. But I saw the first volume about a year ago, and I was a little curious how it was going to end. I have been watching the last half hour at double and quadruple speed, thinking: just kill him and get it over with. What a pity.
But Uma rocks. That's a fact.



It's Friday again, and I'm ready for a long weekend. But it seems like a transition weekend. On Monday it will be november, so the cold will probably start kicking in. And on Saturday night the daylight saving time comes to an end, and we have to change the time. It will be dark early, but I comfort myself with the thought that starting next week I can get up an hour later then during the daylight saving time, and maybe I won't feel so tired by the end of the week.

Yesterday a new computer store opened up near to the mall in Oviedo: PC city. It's the first big specialised computer store around. Because a cousin and a friend of Mónica's found a job there, we decided to go take a look after work. It looks promising: you can buy everything from a screw to a motherboard to fully assembled computers.
The employees were happy the store finally opened up, after a month of training in Madrid and working hard on arranging the store prior to the opening.
I bought a new keyboard for my computer. You see, my Belgian keyboard was different from the Qwerty keyboards they use here in Spain. So now that I'm used to working on a Spanish keyboard at work, I typed many mistakes whenever I typed something at home. So it was time to get a Spanish keyboard.

Busy day on the job. I had a meeting that was scheduled for 9 am this morning. So I got up 15 minutes earlier then normally this morning, just to make sure that I would arrive on time. The meeting however didn't start until 10:15. Now that makes me a bit cranky.
In the afternoon, I had to do a security inspection. To make sure everybody understands the security rules on the job, the inspections have to be done every 2 weeks by 3 randomly chosen employees. So today was my turn.
You have to know that security is very strict where I work. You can't have anything on your desk that doesn't belong there, file cabinets have to be closed at all times, you have to lock the computer whenever you leave your desk, things like that.
So what the inspection comes down to is that we have to tell on our fellow workers, and make a list of all the security rules they broke.

Yesterday I saw that movie I spoke of the other day: Battle Royale. It was fairly good, if you like your movies disturbed and Japanese. Some scenes were great, but some great scenes don't make a great movie. There is a twist at the end that doesn't make much sense. That kind of spoiled it for me.

We bought 2 goldfish yesterday. You see, Mónica never had a pet, until a few months ago we won a goldfish on the fair. She was all excited about having a pet for the first time in her life. 2 weeks later however, the fish died in misterious circumstances. I think it must have been sick already when we got it. It stopped eating, and started losing all of his scales.
After the fish incident, we were going on holidays, so we decided to wait until after the holidays before buying a new fish. So yesterday we finally bought our 2 new pets. We bought a small 10 liter fishtank, because I read that the fish go crazy in a bowl, and a waterfilter because the water pollutes very fast without it. And because 1 small fish looked a bit ridiculous in a 10 liter tank, we bought 2.


But actually, we both would like to have a small dog. When I was living with my parents, we always had dogs. But now that Mónica and I are living in an apartment, it's a little more dificult to keep a dog. Also, if Mónica would find a job, the dog would be home alone all day. And that's no way to keep a dog.

My girlfriend, her name is Mónica by the way, wanted to get out of the house on Friday evening, so we went to have dinner in a new Chinese restaurant in the shopping mall "Parque Principado". It's an 'eat as much as you want' buffet restaurant, which seems like a good idea, because not many people in Spain are familiar with chinese meals and their names. The food was good, and for the first time Mónica was enthusiastic about a chinese restaurant.
After dinner we went to the movies, to see "the forgotten". I had only seen the trailer on television, and didn't know much about the movie. It started out good, but turned into a way to easy science fiction story, with plot holes the size of Canada. I was a little disappointed.

Saturday was one of those days that we lacked energy to do anything useful. We slept until the afternoon, went to the mall again to visit some shops, and called it a day.
Yesterday we went to the tourism fair that was being held this weekend. We went there because we couldn't think of anything else to do. But we picked up some ideas for places to visit whenever we lack inventiveness again.

I've been discussing movies with one of my colleagues, and he recommended me the Japanese cult classic 'Battle Royale' (Batoru rowaiaru). I had never heard of the movie, but I have been reading about it all morning, and I'm intrigued by it, to say the least.
The story may sound a little strange (42 15-year old high school students are forced to kill each other on an uninhabited island) but almost everyone who has seen it, seems to love it. This is a movie I must see.



Finally it's Friday. I really need a weekend. I'm tired, and the air conditioning in the office broke down at the beginning of the week, so we had temperatures up to 29°C/84°F on the job.
We don't have any plans for the weekend yet, but the weather is going to be great, so we will think of something.

The sport store Decathlon is having a sale of second hand sports equipment this week. We went to have a look yesterday evening, and I bought skis, boots and poles, all together for 45 euros. And it all looks like new.
Now we're just waiting for the ski season to begin. Officially it starts on the 8th of november, but I doubt that we will have any snow by then.

I feel like I have moved to the perfect place. I can be at the beach in 5 minutes, and when I go south, I can be skiing the slopes in an hour and a half. Only the weather could be a little better. We have the worst weather in all of Spain.

Because television programs in Spain are pathetic (one Big Brother spin-off after the other), my girlfriend and I have been watching many movies lately. The last few weeks we have been watching around 6 movies every week. I search the internet movie database for good reviews, and we watch every movie that we think might be good. You can say we are searching for the ultimate movie experience.

Last week we watched one of my favourite movies again: Donnie Darko (if you haven't seen it yet, make sure you do). What I didn't know until a few days ago, is that you can find an explanation of the complete movie by the director on the internet. You can even read the book mentioned in the movie: 'the philosophy of time travel'.
Only, the explanation they offer is a little far fetched. You better stick to your personal interpretation. If you know a movie that you think I should see, please let me know.

First post

Welcome to my new blog. This is the first post. So you didn't miss anything yet.
I have another blog online, but since that one is written for my friends and family to read, I feel that I can't express enough of my thoughts on that one.
You see, I recently moved from Belgium to Spain to be with the one I love. So my friends and family back in Belgium only want to read how I am doing, what the weather is like in Spain and what we did during the weekend.
No problem, but there is more to tell than that. And that is what I will post here. The thoughts in the margin.