The arrival to Mongolia was interesting, with very nice views in the train of the typical mongolian ger’s. Mongolia is a country with a third of its population still nomadic, which makes for an interesting countryside.

We stayed in Mongolia for three days… based in Ulaanbaatar, the first day we walked around and visited the city. Highly recommended is the Gandantegchinlen Monastery, which includes a couple budhist temples and a few buildings. The central area of the city is Sükhbaatar Square and the area around Peace Avenue road. There are also a couple of sightseeing places in the hills nearby, a couple museums and a few shopping centres, but there is not much more to see in the city.

The second day we decided to hire a driver, who basically drove us wherever we wanted, and helped in recommending places and explaining stuff. This is definitely the best way to move around mongolia, as in many places you will encounter people who don’t speak english and the driver will help you out and translate. We went to a couple places, including a huge equestrian figure of Genghis Khan (supposedly the biggest equastrian figure in the world) and to Gorkhi-Terelj National Park which has, besides a turtle-shaped rock, a very nice buddhist monastery and Ger’s prepared for tourists. We decided to stay for the night at one of the Ger’s below the buddhist monastery, and it was an unforgettable experience. At the park we also took rides on camels and we went 2 hourse horse-riding.

After Ulaanbaatar, we took the transmongolian train again now headed to Beijing. Although the train seemed to be pretty much the same as the first one, this was operated by chinese people and you could really tell the difference in the (scarce) service. Again, this meant two days in the train, but only one night. Still, it seemed as a long trip and we spent quite a few hours crossing the border between Mongolia and China, where besides doing passport and visa control, they also have to change the width of the train tracks. This is an interesting process for any engineer, since they lift the whole train, including passengers, remove the weels, adjust the tracks, and put chinese wheels on.

The arrival to Beijing was a bit overwhelming. The city is huge, full of a mixture of mist and pollution, and overall quite dirty. The differences in cultures can be a bit shocking, specially the spitting and peeing on the streets. However the city turned to be very very interesting. In beijing we visited the typical tourist places… from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, to the Great Wall (at Badaling) and the Summer Palace.

For the next and last stop, we took a night express train to Shanghai. This turned out to be a very modern train which even included a tv for every bed (although all movies were in Chinese). The train arrives in the early morning to Shanghai, which is an amazing city. It is not as historical as Beijing, but it is full of lights and nightlife. Overall it feels like people are ‘cleaner’ in Shanghai and you don’t see as often things such as spitting. In Shanghai we went to the Pearl Tower, a sight-seeing tunnel (with no sight to see) and the Expo 2010 (which was very impressive), but overall the city is more about walking around and living it rather than visiting tourist places. I have to admit I really liked the city and would be a very interesting experience to live there for a while.

For the trip back home, we started out with the Maglev Train to the airport, whose typical maximum speed is of 431 km/h, although it has reached 501 km/h. This was an amazing trip, although very short… about 7 minutes for 30 Km. From Shanghai we flew to Moscow  (with Aeroflot) and from there back to Madrid. An amazing trip which I will never forget.

The challenge actually started quite a few months before the trip, as we organized and bought everything on our own. First, being 7 people in total for the trip, it was a tedious work to get to agreements, but with time we learned to be more efficient. Once we had agreed on the route planned and the dates, we set to buy airplane tickets, train tickets, make hostel reservations and arrange visa permits. The plan was to start in Russia, go to lake Baikal, take the trans-mongolian train to Ulaanbaatar, continue to Beijing and end in Shanghai.

Buying the airplane tickets was an easy task with Aeroflot, a russian airline with relatively good service. Buying the train tickes however proved to be a bit more complicated. We ended up buying the train tickets through local agencies, as international trains cannot be bought online. Obtaining the 3 required visas proved also to be a challenge, especially the russian which requires and invitation to the country and hence we had to do it through a travel agency (with the additional costs implied).

The trip started out by flying to St. Petersburg after an overnight flight to Moscow, where we spent a couple days to enjoy the city. We had the opportunity to visit the Peterhof palace and enjoy the russian ballet with Anna Karenina.

Afterwards we flew to Moscow, where we spent another couple of days. Here we made the typical visits to the Kremlin, to Lenin’s mausoleum, the Red square and other areas around the city. I had the great pleasure to meet an old russian friend from university, who gave us the insider tour and took us around all the city. Overall we had a great time in Moscow and it couldn’t have been better.

The transsiberian train route starts in Moscow, but because of time constraints, we decided to cheat a bit and do the first leg of the journey by air. We flew directly to Irkutsk, where we took a local (illegal) taxi to Listvyanka, next to the lake Baikal. Here we stayed for the night in a very nice cabin overseeing the lake. The next day, we began the train journey from Irkutsk to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia. This meant 2 nights in train including 7 hours being held up to cross the border. The train was a very interesting experience, meeting new people and even getting to know yourself a bit better

Russia overall was a great country to visit, and I feel like I need to go back to Moscow and St. Petersburg sometime soon. People are not very used to tourists and the language barrier can make things difficult at times, but it was totally worth it.

It was a long trip and I don’t want to bore you, so I will continue on another post but I leave you with a few pictures I hope you will enjoy.

The campaign was done by Pleaseletmedesign, Happiness Brussels and others… and the font can be downloaded at nl.toyota.be/iqfont

Empiezo por fotos de la boda de Mary y Marc, la cual fue tan divertida como emotiva. Tuvo de todo un poco… ‘bloopers’ en la iglesia, invitados tardíos (o de plano ausentes), apagón de luz en la iglesia (durante la sesión de fotos), excelente comida, mucho alcohol, bailarines profesionales, cuenta-chistes con zapatos dispares, etc. En fin, una boda muy completa jeje.

Además, debo decir que quedé con una impresión super positiva del fotógrafo, que aunque ya había visto fotos suyas de otras bodas antes, las fotos que he visto hasta ahora son increíbles. Aunque todavía no están todas listas, dejo un par de muestra de la sesión de fotos en la Feria de Chapultepec

Y bueno, de vuelta a la vida en Madrid no han habido novedades importantes. Me he escapado de las nevadas pero no del frío, aunque por lo menos ya empieza a mejorar la temperatura y los días son mucho más alegres.

Además de alguna que otra fiesta, también me fui un fin de semana a una casa rural con Álvaro y el resto de la familia brasileña-francesa-española-dominicana-bulgara. Muy divertido y la casa de lujo, aunque no sé si es exactamente lo que se conoce generalmente como una experiencia rural… con mesa de billar, televisiones planas, etc.

Y el último viaje fue otro fin de semana a Marruecos, un sitio que tenía muchísimas ganas de visitar y representa mi primer visita a un país musulmán. Definitivamente una experiencia que vale la pena, y más aún bien acompañado, como tuve yo la oportunidad de ir con toda la bola de nokieros y ex-nokieros. Aunque saque muchas fotos, pongo mis favoritas aquí.

Ahora, los próximos viajes planeados son a Barcelona y Toulouse… aunque me muero de ganas por visitar Paris, Londres, Irlanda, Alemania, etc etc. En fin, ya veremos a donde nos lleva la vida. Saludos!

This past Christmas I had the opportunity to go back home to Mexico for the Christmas season. It was great enjoying time with the family and friends. On top of that, I had my sisters wedding, which was great fun and lots of stressful moments, as any wedding should be. At the end, everything turned out well and we had a great time. I also had the chance to spend new years at Valle de Bravo with Marc’s family and, except for getting sick, it was great.

Overall it was nice going back to Mexico, but on the other hand it also felt strange… or rather than strange it felt dissappointing. I am impressed as how quickly things are getting worse in Mexico City. And it is not that there is too much traffic or whatever, what dissappoints me is that there is a complete lack of authority, causing that everybody does whatever they please. Some things that you would have never seen 5 years ago are now a daily, and the worse part is that no one seems to care. Talking about this with friends, I just got quick replies but no real answers. I guess people get accostumed to living in that situation but that obviously doesn’t change the fact that things are not as they should be. And I do realize it has a lot to do with the current government and that the rest of mexico is not like Mexico city, but it is still very dissappointing to see where it is all heading.

I now have the chance to live somewhere else and see it all from afar, but that doesn’t stop me from wishing the situation gets better. Let’s hope next time things start to change for the better.

Someway somehow it seems rather difficult to be regular at writing posts, but in line with Murphy’s law I always think of something to write when I have the least time available. Anyhow, let’s get on with another news update…

This past month has been good… without any major news, but as they say, no news good news. Winter has finally arrived, and its getting cold, dark and rainy in Madrid. Although I generally like winter, being home alone can make it a bit depressing, hence I am now only thinking about going to Mexico… which will be next saturday 20th. Related to that, even though we are close to Christmas I haven’t felt any christmas spirit at all… definitely don’t feel like going shopping (nothing to do with the , and all I’ve had (and will have all this week) are Christmas dinners… which is dangerous hehe. But hopefully all of that will change when I reach home

And well, lately work has been….  weird.  Lots of work but no projects, which means a lot of commercial activity doing proposals and commercial presentations, but somehow there is a big lack of planning. Besides work, it has been good… we suffered from Imad’s visit almost a month ago, and we had a great time. Lots of party and lots of jayness… Afterwards a couple of parties have taken place, with the last one including a big bunch of brazilians, some gift exchanges and even a visit by the police to shut us up.

Ahh and in a less important note, the tv show “The IT Crowd” has started the third season… hilarious, I highly recommend it for a good laugh.

And now the countdown has begun… only 5 days left before leaving, and lots of things to do (of which some I want to and others not so much hehe).  This trip back to Mexico marks another year that has gone by, and I am now in the first quarter of my third year in Madrid… which although very fun, starts to seem a bit scary. Let’s see how things evolve…

This is a long forgetten post that got lost in the drafts section. Although I don’t intend to say what I originally wanted to say, I do want to point out that this year was the 50th anniversary of the creation of NASA.

Over the course of these 50 years a lot of things have happened… from walking in the Moon to driving RC cars in Mars, the Hubble telescope and the International Space Station.

But the history of space exploration also reflects the history on earth, from a race to space to an era of cooperation with an International Space Station. And now NASA has competition not only from Russia and Europe, but also China and India are investing heavily on their space programs. Last week even Australia announced they are planning on launching a national space agency. All this focus on Space exploration shows the importance it has for real life on earth…

However, although NASA certainly has earned the right to celebrate (despite the several unfortunate accidents that are always innevitable), I can only think of the ageing fleet of Space Shuttles. Built during the 1980s, only 3 remain (Discovery, Atlantis & Endeavour) but are scheduled to be retired in 2010, which is not that far away. They are planned to be succeded by the Orion Spacecraft, but with the current financial crisis and shrinking budgets, lets hope NASA can celebrate with as much pride in 25 years.

Well, recently it has been a weird mix of good and bad things… first of all, I received the visit from Gautam Chandarana, an old friendo from Erasmus I met in Jönköping, Sweden. It had been a veery long time since we last saw each other, to be more precise about 5 years. But what impressed me is how after such a long time during which we hardly communicated, he is still the same fun guy and we still get along great. He arrived last thursday and came with his brother… in a small detour from his family visits to London (although from indian origin, he was actually born in Kenya and lives in Florida ).

With Gautam and Rishnan’s visit, the bad news started… first, while cleaning I accidentaly connected my old Xbox directly to the powerline, which caused an inmediate puff followed by a thik and stinky cloud of white smoke declaring the death of my old Xbox. I think my poor old xbox almost deserves a post of its own It has a very peculiar story but in brief, I bought it in Canada in 2002 while studying a summer course. It was the first generation, just released… I carried it in my back to Mexico where it enjoyed years of service Then I took it with me to Querétaro, then back to México, and last February I brought it with me to Spain. While performing a software update I half-crippled it, loosing the ability to play movies, and now this weekend I gave the final blow… which I guess is a good excuse to buy a new xbox or PS3

But my bad luck didn’t end there… later on during the same day, while watching the TV with Gautam and his brother, it suddenly went pitch dark. At first, we thought it had accidentaly powered off, but no… it suddenly started making screetching noises and showing lines and odd things at the top of the screen. And so, both my xbox and tv died the same day The TV is almost new (3 months) so it is still covered by the warranty, however it is a royal pain in the ass.

But we end with some more good news I had a great time with Gautam during the weekend… we started off with Diwali dinner on friday, went to Segovia on saturday and visited Madrid on sunday. They are leaving tomorrow tuesday, and my parents are coming over, arriving on thursday and staying for a week! And yes, I will post pictures soon!

So in summary, unexpected bad news but still good news and good times to come