Cheers,

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.

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!

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…

A lot of things have passed, so I guess I will try and start from where I left off… I have moved to my flat. Actually I have now been for more than a couple of months in the new flat and overall I am very happy about it. As always it has a million things I don’t like… such as hitting my head on the low ceiling, getting horribly hot, cracking floor, etc… but still the feeling of being my home and only mine is great! Yes I get to do all the cleaning, but at least I can keep it as clean as I want to, which results in the cleaning not being so bad after all.

And well, concerning my home, I recently bought a nice flat tv in order to watch movies and play videogames (I don’t really watch much tv). However, I had the great idea to update the software in my modded xbox (first gen) which resulted in a half-crippled box! :S I can still play original games but no longer “backup copies” of games nor watch dvd’s or other media. This is quite unfortunate, and is making me consider on buying a new generation console So still trying to decide between the PS3 and Xbox, and waiting to save some money

For the summer holidays, I went to Tenerife for a couple weeks with Alejandro, Virginia and Miguel. It was great to enjoy a lot of sun, sand and sea although surprisingly not everybody enjoys the beach! hehe It was a nice relaxing trip, and although it was a lot of fun, I have to admit it felt a bit weird going to Tenerife without my family… making me feel homesick more than usual.

After coming back from Tenerife, with a considerable delay due to Spanairs’ accident, I left the next day to Valencia with Alvaro, Jesús and Mauricio to the F1 GP of Europe! It was my first time at a F1 race and was very excited about it, plus it had the added bonus that it was the first time the race was held in Valencia, with a new street-circuit. And overall, I enjoyed the experience quite a lot. I have to say there were some things I liked a lot and some I didn’t like that much… The event is during three days (although we only went to two), which makes it bit intense… you have practices, qualifying rounds, GP2 races, porsche cup races, bmw cup races, etc. etc. and of course the F1 race. And for all of this you are sitting on a under-sized seat under the sun/rain next to a fat stinky guy Still, the sound of the engines is amazing… nothing I had ever imagined, and the atmosphere and excitement made it all worthwhile. Still, I have to admit you need to be quite a fan, but definitely something that needs to be experienced at least once in a lifetime

You can see some pictures from the summer holidays on the following public facebook album:

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29510&l=1d47f&id=500254325

And well, now back to work and daily routine I started working last week, with the office half empty and not too much work to do. Now people are coming back from holidays and activity is gearing up again. So lets see what future project comes. We are already in September and the year is going by quicly… lets try and make something out of what’s next!

Cheers!

Accompanied by Alex, Virginia, Miguel and Divya, we followed Tomtom’s directions to Torrevieja. Miguel was kind enough to offer us his place to stay, which is a very nice flat located in the party centre of Torrevieja, just one block away from the sea. Overall the trip was really nice… very relaxed. We didn’t do much except for sleep, eat, drink, play and party, but it was a very welcome break from work routine. We spent endless hours playing parchis (Ludo according to Divya ) and the only bad thing was the weather, which was very chilly, cloudy and with some rain. Still, lots of fun and looking forward to repeat the trip!!

Hope you enjoy the pictures, cheers!