Nordic Adventure

I realize it's a bit late to tell you about the trip we did during Easter to Sweden and Norway, but the reason is that I didn't get the pictures until recently. I didn't wanna write and write about what we did and how much we enjoyed our time over there without presenting you some photos.

As many of us are working already and now free days start to be rare, we need to use every holiday to get out of Pamplona. So that's what we did. We took three days off and made a ten days vacation. I'm not gonna go into much detail about the itinerary and what we did in each place, just mention. However, I really want to comment a little bit about the highlight of the trip (there were a lot of anecdotes, like when we almost got arrested, but those are not as important as this one), which is the three days we spent in Kiruna.




Kiruna is a small town in the Northest part of Sweden. We went there by plane and then came back by train (in which we had a rave, I mean, we didn't sleep much because we kept meeting crazy people ready to party). Anyway, the thing is that up there we did an excursion to a remote area by both snowmobile and dogsled. We spent the night near a frozen river in a small hut and living next to a pretty weird Inuit (I believe that's the right name for the native people of that region). He was in charge of the tiny camp and cooked us reindeer twice. Well, it was an unforgettable experience I'll always remember. Oh, and I almost forgot, we also visited the Ice Hotel, which is located near Kiruna and which is astonishing.







Before we had been in Stockholm, really beautiful city. And there I met up with Marie, my Swedish friend whom I hadn't seen since our last reunion in Vienna. After Kiruna we headed down again and visited Aitor, our friend who is studying over there his master degree. He is living in Gavle, a small and nice city in which the party is granted, even in a dorm basement, hehe. And from there we went to our final destination, Oslo, which is also nice but I just didn't like it as much as the others. For me, personally, Sweden was better than Norway, but that's just my opinion.

My flights

The other day I discovered this amazing website. I know some of you might think is silly but I really love it. Basically it enables you to enter all the flights you have taken in your life, so that you can keep the record and create statistics, as well as maps with those flights. Here are my statistics and maps. I encourage you to create your own too.

http://my.flightmemory.com/Abarcia

And the website is:

http://www.flightmemory.com/

Enjoy!!!

Annyunghaseyo!

Hello my friends. I came back from South Korea about two weeks ago and I can tell you it was one of the best experiences of my life so far. I had to go there for work reasons, but saved some free days for discovering as well.



I had to give a one week training in a really rural and small town called Yeongyang. That's where the wind farm is located. And that's where I experience the real Korea. I tried really different food, ate sitting on the floor, became an expert in the use of chopsticks... but most importantly, met great people. Everyone working there was so welcoming and honest that you could not avoid falling for them. They treated me like I was someone important but always with this charm and closeness that made me feel at home. And that I truely appreciate.




The training was a complete success, and I was completely pleased with how it went. I believe people learnt, at least something. But I'm sure, some of the forty students there understood and enjoyed most of it. What I know for sure is that I enjoyed giving the training and that I had a great time with them. Although I was exhausted by the end of the week, after talking 8 hours for 5 days, non-stop.





When the training was over I went to Seoul for four days, so that I could visit the city before heading back to Spain. There, I met some Korean friends I made in Barcelona during the weekend we went to The Killers concert. We didn't know each other very well since we had only spoken for like ten minutes, but we soon got confident and had a great time. So basically, my days in Seoul consisted on sightseeing, going out and catching up with some friends. Well, and of course meeting new people, but that's out of the question, hehe.





Oh, I almost forgot. I know Julen and Mauro are gonna love this one. I went to the North Korea - South Korea border, sneaked into one of the infiltration tunnels the North koreans built... Isn't that exotic?

A brief update

I haven't written much in quite a long time here, so I thought it would be a nice idea to make a brief update on what's going on in my life at the moment. Don't worry guys, I don't pretend for this to become usual and I will continue with my one-trip, one-experience... posts (in fact, I still have to tell you about my trip to Sweden in Easter).

So as most of you might know, I'm going to South Korea next Saturday. I have to give a one week course over there and then I took four free days so that I could enjoy the culture. When I was in Barcelona for the The Killers concert I met some Koreans. Well, I already talked with them and we'll meet so that they can show me around. You can imagine this past week has been crazy for me and I expect this one not to be less. I have to get everything ready.

What else? Oh, yeah. Today, Miguelcho and I, we booked our flight for this summer. We are going to Romania to visit Anca and also to see anyone else who wants to join this reunion. We leave on July the 2nd and get back on the 12th. It's not much, but it's the most we could do taking into account that both of us are working already. We don't have that many free days anymore.

That's all for now in the traveling section, which you know it's my favourite. In other topics, we already finished the basketball season and it hasn't been a very good ending. But anyway, the important thing is the good atmosphere in the team and among the teammates. Almost as good as the one I'm living at work. I really like what I do and what is more important, I feel really comfortable going to work everyday.

And well, I believe that's pretty much it for now. I really hope I can write more often because I enjoy it so much. Oh, and my Deutsch is going great. I'm starting to like it a lot, so Deutsch speaking friends, we'll be able to have a conversation in your mother language soon.

I leave you with one of my favourites songs these days. I hope you like it.

Editors - Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors

Rito de Acero: La union de un pueblo

This is the title of a documentary a friend of mine realized. After a year and a half of hard work he saw his dream become a reality. So us, his friends, had to go to the premier and support him but also enjoy with him his success. We all stayed in a "rural house" in his village, La Seca, which is fifteen minutes from Tordesillas. It was not the first time we visited it, since we usually go every year over there to attend its festivals. We are members of a Peña called Tatocao in which we had good friends. Anyway, that's not the point of this post and I'm loosing focus here. The thing is that we spent an incredible weekend in La Seca.



Of course, the main event of the weekend was the premier of the documentary and it was a complete success. But we had way more fun the next day during the barbecue at my friend's place. His family organized it and lasted the whole day. Great fun! There was time for everything: eating, drinking, karaoke, dancing... When it got dark, we took some pretty big and nice speakers outside to the frontyard and created our very own disco. Some neighbors told us the next day that they could hear the music from the other side of the town, it was pretty sick.

But most important, it was a good excuse to visit my friend, who I don't see as often as I would like. And I believe this weekend they had some kind of party around there as well. I wish I could have gone but I couldn't make it. Have fun guys!!!!!

Casta Comunicacion

The Killers in Barcelona

Yes, believe it or not I'm alive. I know it's been a really long time since the last time I wrote something here, but I've been busy as hell for the past month and did not even remember I had a blog to update. I will update you on things I've been doing for the last month and a half in different posts. This particular one is gonna be about the craziest and funniest weekend I've ever had in Barcelona.

I went there in order to see the Killers. We bought the tickets some time ago and were now ready to have real fun. The friends I went with got into Barcelona a day before me, since I could not get Friday off at work. Anyway, I arrived there on Friday night and after meeting with my friends we went out to Razzmatazz disco. It's a pretty big one with awesome music. Great night. I even met some Korean girls who I will see again in May when I go over there, but that's another story I will tell some other day.




On Saturday, I met my cousin who is working in Barcelona and spent some quality time with here. Since I see here quite randomly, it was really nice talking with here. She even invited me for lunch. And at night, CONCERT. It was sweeeeeet!!!!! They started playing Human, and the whole crowd went crazy. All the best songs followed, and they did not missed any of them. I had not sweat so much in my entire life. We bounced, yelled, singed... during every second of the spectacle.



And afterward, we went to a house party of someone my friend knew. The best part was that we did not even know we were going to a party. We thought we were going to that guy's place in order to drink a little bit before going out. But when we got there, we found it was a crowded and weird (in the good way) party. I became the Underground organizer of the party, gaining the name of "Under" for the rest of the night (don't even tell me how I did it or try for me to explain the whole thing because I don't even know for sure myself)



So all in all it was an awesome weekend with lots of partying and fun. I really needed it and I can't wait to my next excursion.

Scientist claims CO2 increase 'Good' for Humanity

I was just checking some blogs I like to read about alternative energy when I found this unbelievable video. How can someone think that in these days we live in?