My Kiwano

We spend the last 3 days in the North of Spain, visiting our nice Spanish friend Maria. She invited us (or better we invited ourselves) to stay with her and her family and to see a bit of her area and get known the culture. So I spend the whole January to learn a couple of Spanish Vocabularies (like:nThank you .. my name is … aso.) and forgot almost everything when we arrived, but the nice Wine from the famous area (Rioja) helped out at some point.
We really saw a lot of things, her family invited us to join their traditional Family-Saturday-Lunch and they served delicious Ham, Langostinos and much much more. Her uncle then suggested taking us to one of the Wine cellars (Bodegas) of the area as his friends works there and also to a small fabric where they make olive oil. Of course we went for it and we really got some nice background information’s as Maria did a very good job as a interpreter.
All in all we had a very interesting, funny, traditional and educational weekend and a BIG BIG THANK YOU to Maria’s Family at that stage.

Before this LONG LONG text you get awarded with some pictures:
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If you are interested, here are some facts for you about the cities we visited:

First Stop: Zaragosa
With 600.000 habitants this is the 5th biggest city of Spain and also the capital of the (former) Kingdom of Aragon. We arrived there on Friday at 1 pm and we made our way to the city center to have our first Tapas for this weekend (and I tell you this was not the last one). Afterwards we ad a nice walk through the City, we saw the famous Basilica de Pilar (from outside) and on the way to the bus station we passed the Aljafería Palace (Moorish Castle) which looked very impressive as well. Actually the city is very well know for the EXPO, the official World Fair, which was taking part 2008. So I think if you are flying to Zaragoza Airport it’s definitely worth it to have a look around the city center. But after seeing the 2 or 3 main attractions and having nice Tapas I would say it’s ok to make your way another area.
So we took the bus at 7 pm to the our next Stop Logroño which is 1.5 hours away from Zaragosa.

Next Stop: Logroño
As the Capital of the La Rioja Logroño is a city of 150.000 habitans and as you may know it’s popular for this very famous Vine “La Rioja”. Maria told us a nice story about a State of a horse at the Square of Paseo del Príncipe de Vergara -> originaly the .. mmm .. the balls (sorry) of the horse were very big and from this it comes that a now typical Spanish saying says that if a man is very relaxed his balls are bigger the once from the horse in at the Square of Paseo del Príncipe de Vergara. BUT as some man seam to complain about the VERY VERY big balls of the horse at some point the government had to downsize them … What a nice story.
Anyway a very nice place to go is also “the path of the elephants” (officially called Calle del Laurel) – a street where you can find one Tapas bar after another … and after having a Tapas + a glass of vine in each of them, people are likely to walk like an elephant because they are so dunk .. I think we have bee one of the elephants on that night …

Third Stop: Oyon
This is the nice little village of around 2000 habitants about 5 km north of Logrono – and this is the place Maria is from. We did a nice little walk abound which took us about 15 minutes and we were very surprised that they have a Schlecker Supermarket there (normally we just know this from Germany/Austria).

Next one: Labraza
Again a bit north of Oyon there is a really small village which is Labraza. In Summer around 80 habitants in Winter around 20. This little place is already in the Basque Country and where Maria’s Mum is from. AND last year it won the price of “World Walled Town of the Year” Award in 2008/2009. Its an absolutely beautiful place to go and as Maria’s mum knows the priest of the church there we also got a private guided tour. How nice is that? Surrounded by Olive Trees and Vineyards with a great view into the mountains I think this is a very nice place for weddings! WAU!

Firth Stop: Bilbao
Situated in the Basque Country is has around 350.000 habitants and so it is the biggest city there although it’s not the capital (which is Victoria). But it’s the capital of the province of Biscay. Confused? Yeah me as well. Whatever, this is also a very nice place and it’s very well know for the Museum of Modern Art the “Guggenheim Museum”. As the weather was quite nice when we arrived there we had a longer walk along the River Nervión (Rio de Bilbao) and made some nice pictures at the Guggenheim Museum but then we didn’t really know what to do next, so we decided to go for Tapas and then to take the tube to the Seaside. So only 25 minutes away from the city center of Bilbao there is:

Last stop: Neguri
.. i can’t tell you anything about the history, habitants .. of Neguri, but I can tell you that there live are a couple of crazy surfers in this area who like the big waves that the wind in January brings to the beaches there. We spent around 1 hour there to breath some Sea Air and to have a coffee, but I’m sure that if I would like in Bilbao, I would go there every Summer Weekend to have a bath in the sea.

… Friday was Halloween Night and me and my colleagues from JAC Travel planed the whole week our costumes and our scary night out on Friday the 31.Oct.
And FINALLY when it was Friday 5.30 pm after work we jumped in our costumes and had a drink (or two) and I think we all looked very good and we had lots of fun.
But unfortunalty our good night got interrupted when we arrived at the Bar/Club we all wanted to go … the fu**ing Secuity at SHUNT just simply stopped letting people in @ 8.30 because of “over crowding” (it was empty inside!) and while the most of us could get in, the 4 of us was waiting outside very patiently as we were the next group to get in! BUT after one hour queueing we couldn’t cope it anymore and went to a pub next door and as you can image we were quite dissapointed and pissed off (not pissed as we hadn’t had any drinks in the queue). Luckly in the end some of the others decided to join us in the Pub again (thanks Sun&Co) and we could cheer us up again .. so in the end the night was over to quickly as the Pub (as everywhere in London) closed at midnight and we made our ways home …

Here some scary pic’s:
… more pics here

… this weekend was everthing about Austria. On Saturday we went to the Kipferl and had a very very good Käsekrainer (you should have seen Rudi’s Face). Then we bought some very nice Austrian delights like Semmelknödel (bread dumplings), Manner Wafferl, Stiegl Beer, apricot jam, Sauerkraut, Kremser Senf (Austrian mustard), Traminer Wine, Almdudler aso.
In the evening we invited Rudi’s colleague Amit and Vini (who not our only friend in London anymore but we still like him very much!) for some Frittatensuppe, Semmelknödel and Eispalatschinken and I think we had a very nice cosmopolitan (thanks Amit for this new vocabulary) time with Indien, French and Austrian Musik.
Finaly today we had Bratwürstel from Liedl and a Müller Milchreis for dinner and so we feel both very happy and just realised who much we miss the good authentic Austrian food …
And if it wouldn’t be that expensive I guess we would go to Kipferl every day.

Ca. 1 Stunde und 15 Zugminuten nördlich von London gelegen, befindet sich die Universitätsstadt Cambridge, die wir uns am Samstag angesehen haben. Zu siebt (Nadine, Silvia, Kerstin, Eva, Anders Rudi und ich) sind wir losgezogen und hatten eine windigen, aber sonnigen Tag für unseren Ausflug erwischt.
Mit ca. 120.000 Einwohnern ist Cambridge zwar kleiner als Linz, aber die etwa 23.000 Studenten lassen die Stadt aufleben. Ein Teil der Studenten und Einheimischen verdienen sich an den schönen Tagen des Jahres ein wenig Extra-Geld mit dem “Punting” auf dem Fluß Cam, der direkt durch die Stadt fließt. Nicht um sonst wird Cambridge oft das kleine Venedig von Englang genannt, und so wurde auch die berühmte Seufzerbrücke in Kleinfromat nachgebaut.
Es ist echt eine sehenswerte Stadt und mit den kleinen alten Häusern und netten Pub’s, eine, für mich, typische Englische Stadt. Also ein Tagesauflug lohnt sich auf jeden Fall. Seht selbst:

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Nachdem das Wetter an diesem Wochenende hervorragend war, haben die sonnigen Nachmittage in den zwei groessten Parkanlagen der “Innenstadt” genossen. Am Samstag waren wir im Hyde Park und heute haben uns wir mit Manu und Vini den Regent’s Park unter die Lupe genommen.
… Solche Tage koennte es ruhig oefters geben. Ueberzeugt er selbst:

Achja, gestern Abend haben wir uns gemeinsam mit Olga und Nadine, zwei von meinen neuen Arbeitskolleginnen, im IMAX Kino “I am Legend” angesehen und dann waren wir noch am Covent Garden auf einen Drink … war auch ein sehr lustiger Abend:

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… ich hab heute von Julia, voila:

ein paar Fotos von den ersten Wochen in Tooting bekommen und die will ich euch nicht lange vorenthalten …

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Gestern haben wir am Abend alle zu uns in die Wohnung eingeladen und ein wenig Bier eingekauft .. war ein sehr amuesanter Abend!
Und wenn wir vor haben mehr von solchen Parties zu schmeissen, muessen wir uns ein paar mehr sesseln zulegen!

War sehr super, dass wir im Haus wo wir die ersten 2 Wochen gewohnt haben, ein paar Leute kennen gelernt haben. Wir hatten somit die Möglichkeit gehabt mit ein paar Leuten fort zu gehen. Letzten Donnerstag nahmen wir in der Nähe vom Haus, in Hoochi Mama’s, einen Drink und am Samstag sind wir (nach 2 Std. Anfahrtszeit) zu den Burschen vorglühn gefahren und dann wollte wir einen tollen Club am Leicester Square gehen, ABER wir hatten alle Turnschuhe an und ich hab meinen Ausweis vergessen, deshalb ist es nur eine eher kleinere und unbekannte Bar geworden, war aber trotzdem sehr lustig.

Also nicht vergessen, die wichtigsten Regeln fürs Fortgehn in London
- in der oeffentlichkeit immer ein Plastiksackerl ueber die Bierdose (sonst 500 £ penalty oder 1 Tag Knast!)
- hab immer einen Ausweis mit – egal wie alt du bist
- keine Turnschuhe
- du kannst NIE over-dressed sein … also ein Ballkleid ist nur untertrieben!
- Check bevor du fort gehst die Night-lignes die zu dir nach Hause fahren!!
- Und glüh vor so viel du kannst – die Clubs sind ziemlich teuer (in einem durchschnittlichen Club ist an einem normalen Tag 20,00 € Eintritt)

… und wir haben viel gegessen!
Sabrina von der Telekom Gruppe hat gestern so richtig aufgekocht für uns alle! Spaghetti Carbonare/Bolognese und Schweinemedaillons gratiniert in Pfeffersauce! Lecker lecker ….

Es war uns ein Festmahl.

die mitbewohner (Basti, Torben, Andi und Mark) haben alle ihre freunde eingeladen und am Samstag ein big-BBQ gegeben! … Viel Forsters-Bier, Tequila und Bowle sind geflossen und wir haben uns gleich dem Deutsch-Englischen Humor hingeben müssen! Es war wirklich lustig! ….


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