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Now that my studies were officially iver, it was time to look for a job, send CVs and go to interviews… another reason to travel… here are some photos of Madrid and Gazteiz.

Although I didn´t know anybody in Gazteiz, it was nice walking and cycling around, yes, cycling, in Gazteiz you can use bikes for free But I do know some friends in Madrid, meeting them was great.

Of course I went to interviews nearby my hometown, places that I already knew and where I could meet friends that I don´t see so often.

Also, though it has nothing to do with job-searching, the year began with cold weather and it even snowed quite a lot, so I had the opportunity to go snowboarding again.

By the way, I got the job of Madrid, and I have already moved!

After long time… new post. I admit that both the lack of photos and laziness were guilty

 

Back in September I had booked flight tickets to go to Tarragona with my parents and some cousins. My parents (more my mother than my father had been all the year saying that they wanted to travel as I did, but they were afraid of doing it without me (that’s their excuse for not visiting me in Wroclaw). Well, cheap flights to Reus were the solution, so just five days after arriving from Glasgow I was again in a plane.

 

It was only one weekend; the initial plan was to sleep in Salou, spend the first day visiting Tarragona and the second one visiting Barcelona. Additional plans for me were to meet David and Sergi in Tarragona and Pau and Joan in Barcelona. But getting up so early, taking one flight, going to the hotel, then to Tarragona and sightseeing (with David) all their roman monuments, seaside and Ramblas was too much for them. On Saturday night, it was time to party with friends, to start with, a beer with David and Sergi, then dinner at David´s and then seeing what nightlife is like in Tarragona.

(Salou)

Sunday was a quiet day, just walking around Salou. In a park they were celebrating San Martin, with people dancing. San Martin is also very important in Ourense (San Martiño), it is a local holiday, so a party was organized in Faramontaos with the team. I also started training with the team again, and although I wasn’t able to play in Lalin, I was given my first minutes of XV after a year and three months. Now December was coming, dinner time!

During the last months, I had decided to take an English language course in Glasgow, it wasn´t a very stressing one, just 15 hours per week, I had classes from 9 till 12:15 and after that I could do whatever I wanted.

I can´t complain about the british weather (once again), the first week it was perfect, it almost didn´t rain, and it wasn´t cold at all; the second one it wasn´t so good, very windy and more rain; and finally the third one it was quite cold but I almost didn´t see a cloud. The place were I lived (Firhill Road) was quite good, although it wasn´t right in the city centre, it wasn´t that far either, and most of the days I went to class (with other students) on foot (also because it rarely rained and from my window I could see part of the field where the Glasgow Warriors played their matches(our building was just after the stadium), while I was there Toulousse and Leinster came to play (Heineken Cup and Magners Celtic League respectively).

During weekdays, after class, I would visit different things around Glasgow, city centre (Sauchihall st., Buchanan st., George Square…) the cathedral (with the necropolis), the university, the exhibition centre, all its parks (Glasgow Green, Kelvingrove, Pollock…) and its museums (quite interesting and most of them for free Also nice was to meet the people that studied and lived with me, all of them very different and from all over the world (apart from Spain, Portugal and South America(several countries) also from China, Palestina/Jordania, Greece, (Rusia), Italy, Japan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Czech Republic, Libia, Iran … unfortunatelly I didn´t meet anybody from Poland

(some of those who lived with me)

And during the weekend I would travel somewhere, the first weekend we went to Stirling (first capital of Scotland) and the William Wallace monument, with fine rain all day long, but that didn´t stop some us to go there. Again there were some funny things happening in the train The second weekend it was Edimburgh´s turn, more touristic than Glasgow (you could see more tourists on the streets) quite beautiful, there was a horrible wind that day, and although it didn´t rain (fortunatelly) it was reall cold. Finally, the last one we went to Loch Lomond, a lake with many mountains around it.

Some remarkable things to say are that while I was there it was Halloween, it is just a party, people dress up and go out, but they did that thursday, friday and saturday (and even on sunday when I was coming back home, I saw some people wearing their costumes) a good excuse to have some fun Also nice was to feed the squirrels, which would come if you called them, there are lots of them in most of the parks of the city; also meeting the Highland Cow (in Pollock Park and in Loch Lomond).

(a squirrel running away after getting the wanted item

After weddings,it was time to wait for the results of the exams to come out (long wait) but some time was found to some more meetings with friends, any excuse wold do, an Erasmus meeting in Santiago with Fer, Reyes(who hosted us, and was late to work the following day ;), Fredi and Alicia, where we meet other Erasmus meeting of Gliwice, it was great.

(meeting in  Santiago with Fredi, Reyes, Fer and Alicia)

Also a “surprise” birthday party in Porriño for Chivi (followed by an outing in Ponteareas), and a team concentration in Vilamartin de Valdeorras, celebrations, and now… time for Glasgow…

One month is gone since I left Poland, I left Wroclaw by train, to go to Katowice where I took the plane to go to Liverpool. This time I had to wait more hours than previous time, so I decided to go for a walk and see the city. It seems that the Beatles are its main touristic attraction, starting with John Lennon’s airport, a lot of places use their names or something related with them, the Cavern and its surroundings, the Yellow Submarine, museums… apart from the Beatles, one of the nicest places in Liverpool was near the docks, a very nice place to go for a walk, a bit is the anglican cathedral, much nicer than the catholic and there is like a China Town. I expected Liverpool to be bigger but it was nice though. A funny thing was that there were lots of little Lambananas (like the original Superlambanana that they have in Liverpool, which is a mixture of a lamb and a banana) similar to the cow parade.

 

From Liverpool I flew back home, where I had a wedding that same day. It was not the only one as yesterday another friend also got married (a “medieval wedding as there wear no tables to sit at, just grass to move around

 

Between both weddings, a meeting with my classmates was organized, the Chiviscada, a meeting that we had been celebrating for a few years in Chivi´s house in Goian. This year, as a change, Dani organized it, by a river next to A Lama and his village (Peso). As part of the meeting (good enough meeting with those classmates that shared so many hours together but that cannot be so much time together anymore) Dani also organized a trekking route through the villages around. To end with, a good lunch at a local “furancho”.

(Chiviscada´08)

… the last days were passing by, and I went to spend a few with my polish flatmate, Mariusz Salaniec, also known as Mariuszek he is from Przyborów, a little village not far away from Wrocław, I enjoyed this time with his family (despite they only speak polish) and friends, her mother is a really good cook, this weekend I tried the best mielony of the year, she also prepared more delicious polish dishes, his friends were great, funny and really welcoming, we went for a ride by bike around the village, though small it has a couple of palaces, the region is full of lakes, they are everywhere. One day we decided to go to Lubiąż, where the largest Cisternian monastery is, after visiting it, he took me to Lubin, a small city with a nice park with a sad story about Solidarność.

(maybe not the best photo to show after more than 9 months in Poland

(Lubiąż)

The last days were spent mostly leaving everything ready for when I went away, bags, doing things that needed to be done, but I still found some time to go to świdnica, which is also not far away from Wrocław, there, a church of peace is located, it is included in Unesco´s World Heritage List. The city is not very big, but it was very nice for a last walk before going back to the dormitory to get everything that was left ready for the trip back. It has been many days, lots of experiences, really worth it, a big desire to come back to Wrocław, many things were still left to be done, and I´m still not bored at all of Wrocław, a city full of surprises, as many as dwarfes.

Inda q non falara moito del (por q supońo q seria aburrido para case todos estou en Wrocław para face-lo proxecto fin de carrera, proxecto q xa acabei. E q facer despois do ultimo sprint final? pois mais festas de despedida, visitar cousas e aproveita-los ultimos dias.

O finde despois de acaba-lo proxecto foi de despedida, para a ocasion veu Mariusz (compańeiro de modulo no segundo semestre), despois dun bo finde (durante na q tamen fixemos algo de turismo) a semana dedicamonos a visita-la cidade, sobretodo cousas ainda non vistas. Un dia tocou o museo de arquitectura, grata sorpresa, nada de outro mundo pero en absoluto aburrido, con algunhas actividades alternativas (e non creo q sexa so por q non estou en forma q me costaba tanto pedalear nesa “bicicleta”

Outro dia collimos as bicis para ir ata a outra punta da cidade, o obxetivo era o Park Południowy (parque sur, a resi esta no noreste da cidade), un parque moi ben coidado, con moito cesped, cesped, un lago cunha chea de patos e peixes e un monumento a Chopin de 4 metros; e xa q estabamos ali, decidimos ir ata o cementerio militar, con tanques e cańons nas entradas e o tipico monumento o soldado descońecido (vin bastantes este ano). Xa de volta pasamos polo centro comercial Arkady onde hai unha obra de Dali “Profil Czasu” e unha pecera de dous pisos con peixes exoticos (tipo buscando a nemo) e 3 tiburon (pequenińos, “so” tiñan un metro mais ou menos

Pois seguimos de concertos, durante todo o ano a oferta de concertos é enorme por aqui, xa comentara q a Wrocław vińera Paco de Lucia, Chambao… mais recentemente Manu Chao, Avril Lavigne, Shaggy e Wu-Tang Clan… e isto só en Wrocław, saindo un pouco mais aparecen mais e mais como The Police, Metallica con Machine Head, Asian Dub Foundation, Sex Pistols, un dos fillos de Bob Marley… cos polacos volvendose tolos nos concertos.

Pola mińa parte animeime a un festival, os cabeza de cartel eran Lenny Kravitz e Chemical Brothers respectivamente para cada unha das noites, pero vimos nomes tan cońecidos como Orishas, Stereo Mc´s, Eddy Grant, Gentleman, Nightmares on Wax, “Morcheeba” (por q si, o gitarista era o mesmo, pero non tińa un irman tamen no grupo?… e a cantante non era negra? … Chemical Brothers levan un espectaculo visual q da igual se te gusta a musica ou non, merece a pena velo. O concerto de Lenny estivo cheo de momentos, coa sua maneira de ser tan peculiar cunha entrada e saida rompedoras(Bring it on, Always on the run e American woman, Fly away e Are you gonna go my way?), con solos de todos os q o acompañan, incluindo a participacion de Junior Marvin en Stillness of Heart, baixou o publico (Let Love Rule), cantou Billie Jean…

E certo q o sitio non era como os q estou acostrumbrado a ir, nin o ambiente era o mesmo, pero supońo q o liston esta moi alto ainda asi habia cousas curiosas como en todo-os festivais, nos concertos? un dos grupos do escenario secundario pedindo 50 centimos para a causa q apoian (Positivo Moçambique), Stereo Mc´s eran curiosos de por si, “You say Asere!”….

Ademais de ir ó festival aproveitamos para visitar unha abadia por ali cerca, en Melk.

En Wrocław hai un monton de actividades, festivais de cine (Brave Festival…), de musica, de xuventude (Wrocław Non Stop…)… ainda asi os dias estan sendo tranquilos con algura locura de vez en cando.

O mais interesante desta semana foi sen duda o concerto de Manu Chao, outro concertazo, de mais de 2 horas dando cańa, movendo a xente, con as suas cancions, as de Mano Negra, co guitarrista e o resto do grupo dando espectaculo…

e xa sei q non estou pońendo fotos, asi q aqui van duas, a ver se actualizo o blog con fotos…

 

Despois de un mes volvin a Wroclaw, perdin moita cousa durante este tempo, quizas o mais importante bastantes despedidas de moitos q xa marcharan antes de q eu volvera.

Para volver a Wroclaw tiven q facer escala en Bristol, como tińa bastantes horas decidin dar un paseo pola cidade, moi chula, sobretodo polo porto e o Suspension Brigde, e moitas cousas para ver, pena q pillara bastantes pechadas/en obras (torre Cabot…) inda q cargar coa mochila chea de chourizos e xamon pasou factura (e non habia consignas en ningun lado por motivos de seguridade…).

Xa en Wroclaw, as baixas na resi xa eran moitas, cada dia marchaba alguen… e recordades aquel post no q dicia q non conseguiria entradas para ver os Police? mentin! ala me fun eu con Julian, iamonos encontrar en Chorzów (Katowice) con Luis, q ia cos pais, para visitar despois Krakow e de ahi de volta a Jaen, pensando q o concerto acabaria mais cedo (non contou entre outras cousas, q antes dos Police tocarian os Counting Crows) asi q decidiu non quedar ó concerto… Luis, non volvas a Katowice q sempre te pasa algo! o concerto xenial, un estadio cheo, xogo de luces espectacular, sonido perfecto, e STING e os POLICE!!! mais de hora e media de cancions miticas cońecidas por todos. Ó acabar carreron para chegar xustisimos de tempo ó tren para levarnos de volta a Wroclaw.

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=awlXpcDqqF0

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=PwxwGhVydCs&feature=PlayList&p=C146B378424065F7&index=13

O dia seguinte recibia a visita de Rober e Ceci e mailo irman, q ian de paso para regresar a casa. Quedaron o fin de semana visitando a cidade, o centro, Ostrow Tumski, universidade, Hala Ludowa e o xardin xapones, Panorama e museo nacional, cousas q non fixera antes foi subir a torre de Saint Elizabeth e ir ó Spiz probala sua cerveza casera e Zurek dentro dun bollo e ir o Museo de Correos e Telecomunicacion e, non se pudo evitar…, ver a final da eurocopa.

E o fin de semana pasado, xogabase en Gdynia o torneo final da liga de rugbi7 de polonia, acabamos 4, despois aproveitando o bo tempo e q o torneo era no baltico quedei co equipo de acampada o fin de semana en Sopot, non fixen moito turismo, foi un fin de semana con polacos de sol, praia e chapuzons do Baltico.