I'm the man!

Whenever I have to talk in spanish to someone I don't know, I get a little nervous.
I have been living in Spain for 1 year and 3 months now.
Before that I knew very little about the Spanish language. But fortunately I seem to learn languages very fast (I speak and understand 5 different languages now).
My colleagues and my girlfriend tell me I speak Spanish almost perfectly, and I even think and dream in Spanish as well.

But there is always some insecurity when I have to speak to someone I don't know.
Will I be able to understand the person? (People from the South of Spain are very dificult to understand, even by Spaniards from other regions)
Will I be able to express what I'm trying to say?
Mónica even tells me that I speak with a different accent every time I talk to someone that I'm meeting for the first time. It must be nerves.

Yesterday, one of the bosses in the U.S. gave me a call in the afternoon, saying that he needed me as a translator. He had to call to Mexico, and wasn't sure if these people were going to understand him. And because I speak English and Spanish fluently, I needed to act as a translator.
I got an instant panic attack, fearing that I was going to blow it if I was not going to understand the mexican person on the other side of the phone. They do have a peculiar accent overthere, wey.
But I did just fine. I understood what they were saying, explained what my boss wanted without a problem, and everything was arranged in 2 minutes.
Afterwards my boss wrote me a message on the instant messenger, saying: you’re the man!

Back to routine

Here I am, back at work. With more fatigue than before, thanks to the daylight saving time that started on Saturday night. I always have trouble getting used to that one hour change. But I don't seem to be the only one, because some of my colleagues look like walking zombies as well.
Mónica and I enjoyed the long weekend, although it went by very fast. Time runs fast when you're having a good time.


We had a nice 5 kilometer (3 mile) walk along the shore of Santa Maria del Mar and went to see some more of the Easter processions. We went to visit the sanctuary Covadonga, a very nice place with many souvenir shops. And on Saturday we went shopping. On Sunday afternoon I went reinstalling Mónica's father's computer.

If you clicked on one of the links, you already noticed that I uploaded most of my pictures to my Pbase galleries. They can be accessed as well by clicking on the camera button in the left column of this website.
Yesterday evening I bought myself a new digital camera. So I hope to be adding many new pictures soon. I'm not a photographer as profesional as Tine, but I enjoy making pictures. And sometimes I get lucky and they turn out rather well.

Have a happy Easter

Well, I'm off for the rest of the week, to enjoy a long Easter weekend.
I suggest you do the same.
We're not having any plans yet for the following days. What we'll do will mostly depend on the weather, I guess.
We will go watch the rest of the Easter processions, maybe visit the beautiful place Covadonga, and I urgently need a haircut as well.
Have a happy Easter.

I created a PBase gallery, where I will upload all my future pictures.
The older pictures will move to this gallery as well soon.
The pictures of the Easter processions of the last 2 days are already there:

PBase gallery

Semana Santa

Most part of the Spanish population is still very Catholic. Therefore Spain still has many religious traditions.
In Spain this week (the week between Palm Sunday and Easter) is called 'Semana Santa'.


In every city and village in Spain, daily processions are being held that represent the passion of Christ. The impressive religious statues of the processions (called 'pasos') are being carried by people belonging to religious confraternities.
They are the so-called penitents. They are not allowed to talk during the procession and are unrecognizable by their uniforms to be able to bring their sacrifice without vanity.
Pictures of the processions will be uploaded during the week.

No time to waste

We enjoyed every moment of the weekend, and did more than we would normally do in 3 weekends.
It began on Friday night, when we went to the Corte Ingles supermarket in Gijon to buy our groceries and have a look at the new Spring clothes collection. After dinner we cuddled up on the couch and watched some tv.

On Saturday we got up much earlier than we would normally do on a Saturday morning, and went skiing in San Isidro. I gave Mónica some skiing lessons, until she had enough and decided to get a suntan. I skied some more on my own, and by the end of the day we both had a nice summer colour.
We made a romantic dinner at home and finished the day watching the movie 'Trapped' with Kevin Bacon.

On Sunday we got up early again, and after finding out that Asturias's pride Fernando Alonso had won the Malaysian Grand Prix, we went to visit the sunday market in Gijon. It's the biggest market I have ever visited.
After lunch we visited the Park 'Isabel la Catolica' and had a walk along the shore to see the statue 'the emigrant's mother'.

For more pictures, you can click on the camera on the left.

Have a nice weekend!

It's Friday, it's 22C/72F outside, and tomorrow we're going skiing.
So let the weekend begin!
I've got a friend back in Belgium who always writes me a mail to tell me about the great parties he has been to and how drunk he was.
Oh, please. I'm living every Belgian's dream! And I'm loving it!



Oh, and this is way cool: Flood my site (You can play with the settings at the top)
PS: give it a few seconds or you won't see a thing

What happened to true love?

Last weekend, we saw the television movie "The princess and the marine". The movie tells the true story about Bahraini princess Meriam Al-Khalifa who fell in love with former US marine Jason Johnson.
The pair began their relationship after meeting in a Bahrain shopping mall in 1999, incurring the wrath of Ms Khalifa's family.
Mr Johnson arranged for his lover to be smuggled out of Bahrain, disguised as an American with false military identification documents.
He was penalised by the military for his actions and discharged from the marines.
Ms Khalifa was eventually granted political asylum in the US and at the age of 19, married her 23-year-old marine lover in Las Vegas.

We liked the story because it seemed like a fairytale about true love and it reminded us of our own fairytale, knowing how hard it is if you can't be with the one you love.

But what a disappointment when I searched Google for their story and the first thing I found was:

Princess and ex-marine to divorce
Bahraini princess Meriam al-Khalifa and former US marine Jason Johnson are to divorce, ending a marriage that scandalised her blue-blooded family.

Doesn't true love exist anymore?

Our first beachwalk of the year

Yes, yesterday evening we had our very first beachwalk of the year.
We were afraid it was going to be too windy out there, but the weather was just great. And it only takes us 10 minutes to get there.
I even remembered to take the camera.
You can click on the picture for a bigger view.

El botellón

If you have ever been to Spain, you have probably seen them: the groups of friends that flock together in parks or around a car on a parking lot on Saturday nights, bringing plastic bags filled with bottles of liquor. It seems to be a typically Spanish phenomenon, and they call it 'el botellón'.


It's a way to relax, meet people and be able to talk without being bothered by the crowd or noise in a bar. But the most important reason for the success of the 'botellón', is that it is simply a cheap way to get drunk.
Spaniards are used to consume long drinks when going out in the weekend (not like the Belgians who almost solely drink beer on a night out). Therefore, having more than 2 drinks in a bar could lead to a very expensive night for Spanish youngsters.

The 'botellón' however leads in many occasions to complaints about noise, alcohol and drug abuse, and vandalism. That's why many Spanish cities are creating laws to prohibit drinking in the streets.
The government's hope is to reduce alcohol misuse among Spanish young people and to stamp out 'el botellón'.
I think I'm going to have to teach them how to drink beer.

Spring is in the air

The weather is finally getting better! Now the billboards of the 'El Corte Ingles' shopping malls are starting to make sense: "Ya es primavera!" (it's springtime already)
By the end of the week the temperature will rise up to 22C/72F.
It's incredible how a little sunshine can change a person's mood.

A short update on the case of the red box:
The television comercial turned out to be a company's introductional video.
Mónica had great fun recording the video, although she ended up with a bad cold.
She had to do more than just hand a red box to another person, the red box being some sort of symbolic thing by the way.
And apparently she will get paid for it.
So it was a positive experience. She was all excited when she got home.

11 M, one year ago

Church bells have been ringing all morning across Spain, in memory of the 191 passengers that were killed in a series of bomb explosions on 4 Madrid trains, one year ago today.
The bells of about 650 churches in Madrid were struck at 7.37 am, the precise time that the first of the 10 bombs went off.
It was al-Qa'eda's most lethal attack in Europe and led three days later to the fall of the conservative government.
Islamic militants claimed responsibility, saying the attack was in retaliation for Spain sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.
All over the country, people held 5 minutes of silence at noon, in memory of the victims.

Playing the spoons

If you ever feel the urge of wanting to play the spoons (you know, hitting 2 spoons on your upper leg to the rythm of the music), you better take precautions.

I think it was 1998, and I was still studying. I was living in a dorm together with other students, and a few nights a week we would go to a party.
That night it was German night, complete with big foamy half liter beers and a german band playing hum-pa-pa music in lederhosen on stage.
I felt they were missing a spoon player, so I grabbed two spoons from behind the counter, jumped on the stage, and started playing the spoons.


Now you might think that I had drunk too many of those foamy half liter beers, but sometimes I don't need to be drunk to make a complete fool of myself.
The band was happy to see that I liked their music (although that was not the case), and encouraged my spontaneous guest appearance.
But since I didn't have a microphone and they did, I was hitting those spoons like Animal from 'The Muppet Show' would hit the drums, just to make sure everyone would be able to enjoy my newly discovered talent.

Next morning, I woke up with not only a headache like I normally would, but also with a peculiar leg ache.
My both upper legs looked like two raw steaks that had been dried in the sun, and hurt for more than a week. So take my advice and don't get too excited with those spoons.

The case of the red box

W00t!
I finally managed to have my blogger comments show up in a pop-up window. Sweeeet!
And it all just depended on some Blogger settings.

Mónica has been going to the gym since a few months, a women only gym. That's right, no men are allowed. Men sweat and smell and stare and show off, and these girls don't want any of that.
Last week she told me that a television production company was going to do a casting at the gym. Apparently they needed people to figure in television commercials.
As she is still looking for a job, she decided to have a go at the casting on Monday afternoon.
They just made some pictures of the women that were interested in appearing in commercials, and asked for name, age and contact information.

Yesterday, Mónica called me at work, all excited. She had been called by the people of the production company, and she will be shooting a commercial on Friday. I asked her what the commercial will be about, but due to the excitement she forgot to ask.
Mónica's mother was already worried that this is going to be some sort of scam. That's what mothers are for.
So we started fantasizing and laughing about commercials for inflatable beds and sensual lingerie.


Today the production company called her again, to verify if she can be present on Friday morning at the shooting location. Now she didn't forget to ask what she will have to do.
The lady told her not to worry about anything, that she won't have to say a thing, and that she will only have to give a red box to another person.
A red box. Hmmm, I'm intrigued.

Learning how to bluejack

I'm feeling a bit numb today, because I'm having a bit of a cold. My throat hurts a little, I'm slowly losing my voice, my nose doesn't stop running and my head is a bit drowsy.
All billboards in the streets are showing posters of Gisele Bundchen in summerwear, saying: "Ya es primavera en el Corte Ingles!" (It's springtime already in the Corte Ingles), a yearly campaign by the Spanish supermarket. But it's still freezing cold outside.
By the end of the week temperatures would finally reach 12C/54F again. Let's hope that will be the official end of the cold. I can't wait untill Spring really arrives.

I learned how to bluejack today. I had never heard about it either, don't worry. But it seems it is getting quite popular lately.
Bluejacking is sending anonymous messages to people, using the bluetooth connection of your mobile phone. Now, normally you can't send messages via bluetooth, but they have found a little trick for this.


Here's how you do it:
You just create a new contact person in the phone book of your phone, but instead of the name of the contact person, you write the message you want to send, for example: 'Hello, how are you doing?'. Apparently, all phones with a bluetooth connection have the option to send the details of a contact person via bluetooth to another phone.
So, you enable bluetooth on your phone, go to the option to send via bluetooth the details of the contact person you have just created, search for other bluetooth devices within your range, and send the contact person information to the other devices found.
The other person will now see your message on his phone, but won't know where it's coming from.
This could be fun in theaters, in the disco, in school, or wherever there is a big crowd.

More trouble

On Tuesday morning the mechanic came to fix the heating.
On Tuesday night, when I was cooking dinner (I love cooking), the boiler of the central heating suddenly started making a hell of a noise, like if some animal was trapped inside of it, trying to get out. After the noise stopped, the boiler was dead again.
We had already been heating the house enough to be able to spend the night without freezing to death, but on Wednesday the mechanic didn't show up yet. Even some angry phone calls didn't do the trick.
So on Wednesday night we went to spend the night again at Mónica's parents.
Yesterday the heating got fixed again, and until now it still seems to be working. Let's hope it won't break down again, and definitely not in the weekend.

Today we got some troubling news at work. It seems that some high chiefs in the United States have decided to not longer assign us the kind of programming jobs that we have been doing up till now. Apparently, the Indian teams are less expensive than we are, so all the future jobs will be assigned to India.
The future of our team seems a little insecure at the moment. Let's hope they will find another project for us.

Murphy's law

So what happens on the coldest night of the year? That's right, the central heating system in our apartment stops working.
When I came home last night, the bad news was already waiting for me. Mónica had already called the company to send over a mechanic, but these things all seem to fail at the same time, and no mechanic was available until further notice.
The last time this happened, the mechanic came over, had to push just one button, presented the bill and left. So I started pushing all buttons I could find yesterday evening, but this time it was of no use.

We decided to pack our bags and go over to Mónica's parents to spend the night.
We had dinner, watched the movie 'Runaway Jury' and ended up watching the pictures of when we met for the first time on holiday in 1993. We both looked so young then. And it seemed unbelievable again that it all started with those four days together in Tenerife, now almost 12 years ago.
This morning, the mechanic already came over. And this time he didn't just have to push a single button. But the most important thing is that we have got heating again, and we can cuddle up on the couch again tonight under our warm blanket.