7.7.2005 sanfermines and the case of the lost camera
so i'm prepping for my trip to spain... i've planned this trip for a while now, so there's no
turning back, even if it might be ruinously expensive... thankfully, i'm visiting patricia in
gijon for half the trip, so i'll save a bundle there...
so i'm headed first to pamplona, where i'll catch this weekend's part of the famous
fiesta de san fermin... otherwise known as the running of the bulls. that's
right kids, uncle wongoz is going to see someone get gored!
and against my personal desire, but going with my better judgment and my better half, not to
mention probably everyone else i've talked to, yours truly will not be participating... maybe
another time, but for now, i'll just have to be content with taking pics.
i'll also be heading up to san sebastian for a couple days before going to gijon... should be
good times. can't wait!
unfortunately, i don't have a digital camera right now... that's right, i lost
it. crappy. i lost it somewhere along the way to visit steph last weekend (more on that in a
sec)... of course, this is at a most inopportune time, considering my vacation next week. it
was somewhere between kohlscheid (where the ericsson building is) and aachen, between aachen
and köln, or at the köln hbf... unfortunately, i don't know exactly where, cuz i don't remember
checking it or playing with it at all, between the time i stuck it in my pocket at work, and
when i thought about it on the train from köln to basel...
so i checked at the lost and found office in the aachen hbf, and it wasn't there, nor was it
at the köln hbf lost and found office... i submitted a report, and the search will go on for
4 weeks, but seriously, i think it's gone. along with the pics from shara's going-away party
(more on that a little later)... now i'm scanning ebay every now and then, but for now, i'm
thinking i gotta get a new camera.
anyways, so yeah, i went to visit steph last weekend... at her place. at her parents' place.
oi! i was pretty nervous actually... something with first impressions kinda gets me nervous,
whether it's with the gf's parents, or a new boss, or whatever... but even more so when i can't
speak the preferred language correctly!
but it turned out alright... steph's parents were nice... her mom seemed a bit quiet, and her
dad is pretty outgoing and seems alright, but he thinks i'm quiet cuz i didn't say much when
he was around... well, it might've been the whole "be polite to elders" stuff that's been
ingrained in my head since childhood, but i think it was just cuz i couldn't speak. bleh.
steph's bros seem pretty cool too... thimmo is a bit quiet too, though steph tells me that he
really opens up when he's more familiar with you... while
andy is more outgoing, and he was really cool to
hang out with... yeah, all in all, a good intro to the family, i suppose...
alright, i can't remember if i've mentioned shara before... unfortunately, now i don't have
any pics to show of her! crap. how loser is that? well, she was an english teaching
assistant at a school here in aachen, but she's gone back to philadelphia for the summer...
she'll be back in germany teaching again, but not in aachen... so after last week's
smd meeting, we had a little going-away get-together...
sorry shara! at least we have pics from christian!
ok, i think that's about it... oh wait. i handed in my notice last week at work, so now i'm
officially "on the clock", as they say... final date here is tbd, but it'll be in mid-sept.
some time. the big change is coming up fast, and i got a ton of stuff to do... argh.
7.12.2005 lost in san sebastián
so i've managed to find an internet cafe here in san sebastián that i can ftp from, so y'all
get a nice mid-trip update... yay for you!
my digital camera problem was solved by the ever-gracious markus boehm, who lent me his sony
digicam... so far, it's done very well, though i'm finding that i'm running out of memory
already! imagine that... 4 weeks in china and i didn't come close to filling up all 3 256mb
memory sticks, and after 4 days in spain, i'm on the third stick already. bleh. but it's
all good, i got some great pics and some great vids...
but unfortunately no pics or vids for you... gonna have to wait until i get back and
upload them from home. instead, i can regale you with my tales from la fiesta
de san fermin... nah, it's better with the pics. i guess i'll just blab about the trip
so far...
it's been pretty cool... met a lot of people on the trip already, on every stage of the trip
so far... buses, planes, the hostels... it's been good times. i'm in san sebastián now, and
it is sa-weet-ah! no, seriously, it's super nice... today, i had a nice big lunch, then lay
on the beach the whole afternoon, and now i've got some sunburn... nice.
first impressions so far of northern spain... it's nice. actual greenery in the hills, nice
beaches, no unbearably hot weather... hmmm, i could get used to this! i think it's the
atlantic influence, vs. the mediterranean... but it's definitely on the list of places i
could retire at...
flew into santander... i only knew it as the hometown of the spanish carlos i knew back in
the day... but it's a pretty nice town... didn't see much cuz i only had 5 hours to kill,
but together with miriam, a canadian girl from ottawa who was on the same flight, and an
american girl who was also killing some time, we walked around a bit... seems nice enough
and it's gotta be a relatively big city if there's a deutsche
bank...
took the bus to pamplona and miriam managed to find a couple of her friends there, leah and
melissa, both of hamilton... after finding my pensión and dropping off my gear, we went to
party... now, during the rest of the year, i think pamplona is a pretty calm and quiet place.
but for sanfermines... wow, the population triples and it's like non-stop drinking and
partying. well, they stop for the bull run, but that's about it.
one consequence of this is that, there's no shortage of people to go out with, and not just
the people you meet in the place you stay at (shout-out to alfredo, sandra, adrian and james,
the los angeles peeps, and brian, pat, george, and henry, our irish buddies). there's
always people out and about, even at 9am. actually, yesterday, i had the earliest beer i've
ever had... about 9:15am. sounds sick, eh? well, after running and seeing some bulls run
over some guys not more than 5 feet away, and then running around in the arena dodging bull
(that sounds funny just typing it), i was good for a drink.
another consequence, since it's such a small town to begin with, is that the place reeks...
not everywhere, but there are certain areas in the streets, certain intersections, where
the combined smell of beer, wine, piss, vomit, and probably other stuff, well, it just makes
you nauseous. the bull-running is fun, and the partying is good if you like that... but
i called in early the second night and i was glad to get out of there in the
end...
now i'm in san sebastián, with mike, a texan i met in the pensión in pamplona... he heard i
was coming up here, and he was getting tired of pamplona, so even though he had paid up for
his bed until the end of the festival (july 14), he decided to bail and come up here... we
get along pretty good, don't always see eye-to-eye on certain issues, but he's a fun guy all
the same...
as for san sebastián, it's a really nice place, with a totally awesome old town... i even
looked at some real estate listings... but as with its own history, san sebastián is for
the rich... a fair-sized flat, say around 100 sqm (1000 sq. ft.), in the old town, costs
over 600K euros! man... if i had the coin...
but it's really a great city... good public transit, good bike lanes (rented a bike
yesterday and rode just about all over town), great big beaches, good food, and of course,
the people are beautiful here... sa-weet-ah!
anyhoo, this essay is getting long enough... taking a bus to gijón tomorrow afternoon to
visit patricia... can't wait!
7.31.2005 the dog days are upon us
sorry about the lack of posting... just been a bit busy... ok, a bit lazy... ok, a lot
lazy... my bad.
some guy getting stomped on... ouch.
click here for more pics
anyways, so i've started posting
some pics from my trip to spain... i think they turned out pretty good, and in fact, one
of them was selected as photo of the
day at this cool travel blog, gadling... sweet! so
i do have some photo skillz...
anyhow... a lot has happened since the last post (obviously)... finished off the trip in
gijón, visiting patricia there... met a canadian guy, ian, working at the
united nations in bonn, who also works with this french girl,
judith, who i met last year on a train... so random, i'll have to tell the whole story
later... got my british student visa about a week and a half ago, which was an adventure in
itself... and steph came to visit last week, so that was really good...
well, i hope i can get around to filling in the gaps here sometime soon... just wanted to do
a quick update now for the pics and all that. prepping for my move to london is continuing
too... it's sneaking up on me pretty fast, so we'll just see how things go...