Fast update and comming back to the roots

Time seems to fly lately. Trips, work, small holidays, MBAreunion, and well, the new cinema screen that we have installed at cucuhaus (that, however, for the next post). For this reasons, and because my writing creativity has become a nulity for some time now, this long blog update will focus only in the facts during this last month, starting in the air, on my way to Zurich to visit Marek.

It was nice to be in Switzerland again, especially in Zurich. As always when I visit switzerland, weather was beautiful. I am starting to think that the bad weather there is a myth. However, I said that also in Amsterdam, and the day after (Lena put that sentence right) I was "facing reality" riding my bicicle under the heavy rain. Anyway, lots of sun in Zurich.

Afternoon barbecue with Zurich crowd close to the lake. Here Gloria, my temporary Italian cousin enjoying some sun.

Great afternoon that starts to become crazy night when we have a conversation about Eurovision in Till's terrace. I am trying to explain everybody the rationale behind Spain sending such a freak to the contest thsi year. If you are not European, probably you do not know what the hell is Eurovision. Believe me, it is no great deal if you continue to live without knowing about it. However, to us europeans Eurovision brings child memories, and we are so proud of participating in this music contest that every year we send the best of the best of each nationality there, to show everybody things like.....THIS.

Surprisingly, our Italian representative in Zurich, Gloria, says she does not know what Eurovision is. (it may not sound so strange, but if you are, lets say a Spanish with less than 100 years old, you know what is Eurovision of course). After sending sms to half of her phone list in desperate help, she got the answer. Apparently, Italy organized the event once, and they lost a lot of money with the organization, so the contest has not been very popular in the country at all after that. buh??! I have not x-checked this information though. Any research on the issue is welcome.

Here below Marek and Catherine after watching the 2008 Eurovision Spain representative singing the chiki chiki song.

After that we decided to go to Hive club for a bit of crazy party.

Water and sun. Perfect combination for a sunday after Hive. Thanks Marek and Gloria for a great weekend!

Another week. IESE reunion. MBa folks get together in Barcelona. Same people, same place, one year older...

On saturday we could enjoy a class from Pedro Videla, and a visit to the Ramon Roqueta winery, close to Manresa, where I completed my masters in wine this year after the trips to LaRioja and Valladolid.

Since we were going to have dinner later at the winery, and we knew that Pablo Royo was going to sit on the same table, whith nobody watching, Lamberto decided to extract a bit of liquid from a barrel that contained wine of more than 300 years old, and pour it into Pablo Royo's cup during the dinner. Suddenly, Pablo got very takative, and some kind of energy with wine smell emanated from him. Awesome

Saying goodbye at the very end of the reunion...

After all this movement I needed some rest, and the best choice was to take couple of days off for a long weekend in the green and beautiful Asturias. 25% of my blood comes from there actually. After 10 years it was great to be there again and enjoy once more landsapes like this one.

Jobita

Asturias can be very dangerous for your weight if you like eating, because literally, everything is delicious. Jabalí, corzo, perdiz, chorizo, potajes, fabada, cecina, bollo preñao, cabrales, sidra, huevos revueltos con gambas, marisco, queso la peral......I am sweating again....

And to finish...Univeristy reunion. Rebeca comes from Andorra to stay at cuchaus and we have a dinner at Francesc place to celebrate we have annother wedding this summer. Albert is getting married.

Romina Power

Having the mobile always ready allowed me to cpature this amazing dance by the king of the club that night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNeHUmE4dJA

Remembering

It just happened this week that some friends from IESE have visited Barcelona again. This time in business trip of course (after all, that is one of the reasons that we did an MBA), and for very few hours. It is good to see good friends living abroad again, even if it is just for a few beers.

"How's life man??! You know that I have heared that...."

Yesteday Yannis was in Barcelona, and Tonight Tom was in town for a daytrip, and he even visited cucuhouse!

The pics below do not have anthing to do with what is going around this week at cucuhouse. They are just a reminder of good times with good friends that are not here anymore (and that is a shame!). So by Tom's courtesy, here are some good pics from last year.

Finishingthe night at Harry and Elif's place. Somewhere in Gracia...quite late in the night...

MBAT 2007...the end

MBA tournament 2007

You can't come to have dinner on Friday?? MBAT ..in Paris?....what? Olympics? Man, you are crazy, ou should start working soon or otherwise....But I am not crazy, and one year more I was an olympic athlete in Paris trying to give the best so that IESE could beat LBS in our second attempt after last year close second position. London Business School won again :-( I think maybe we have the honour of being the first graduation class of losing both years at the MBA Olympics. Wait wait, we did not lose anything. We won the 2nd position with much less people than last year!

HEC campus. Track & Field, rugby, frisbee and fubol field. Awesome.

Me trying to climb. I was average on that. Good enough!

The winners in their base camp

HEC cherleaders....give me some action baby!

IESE rugby team. If you want some live moments from the rugby team, and especially from the "pichichi" Mark Templeman. click here

Small kids enjoy rugby as well

Women's Rugby

From left to right: Kathy, Nani and Lena.

Nani "double punch" fighting for IESE. The winner of the boxing competition and a beautiful girl you'd better be friend of. Btw, if anyone is thinking about a serious violent boxing fight between kitties, that was not exactly the idea of the boing show. Lots of fun...yes.Tug of war. Bocconi in action

Men's cheerleaders

Afternoon cervecitas time

More cervecitas time

Good bye MBAT, good bye MBA! !

Googles & Moogles

Easter 2007. I had a trip to San Sebastian and Bilbao planned. However, a morning msn conversation about the possibility of enjoying the last snow of the year changed our plans. Andorra was the final choice, although Tignes ended in second place in the “resort competition”.

Why ski? You are doing sport while you enjoy nice views of the mountains. If there is some powder from the day before is absolute fun. You have good conversations in the lifts. The shower and relaxing après-ski in the afternoon is also really good (If you can have a proper siesta in between even better). You are hungry all the time so any food tastes good, especially dinner. Same for being thirsty and drinking (However, the tiredness effect can have some negative connotations here). In conclusion, I love skiing.

Easter Andorra Featuring:

Brits 1 (Mark & Tom)

Brits 2 (Paul & John)

ROW (Ryan and Marc. USA and Spain to defend the world against the English domination)

Second day of ski we got lost in the mountain and had to do an unexpected trip across the mountain to not having to sleep in the slopes.

Extreme ski. Tom tries to jump a fence with a heli trick.

ROW again

Tom and Ryan

Starting the après-ski competitions. It was a very competitive Easter I have to say.

More ski pics

Myself in the most difficult offpiste you can ever imagine

The group

After 6 hours of ski, the group is decided to go towards other activities

The lack of water and the high easter temperatures can make you see things that are only in your mind

The summary of the après-ski activities is the following picture, a very good description of our time out of the slopes. Rule number one of the wise Spanish skier: Be careful if you go to ski with 4 Brits and one American, you can end up drinking too much of the oldest and most popular international drink. In the ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia they could not ski during the whole day before having the fermented barley sugar. They missed a good combination.