Lisboa

I took a few days to go visit the city of Lisbon, capital of Portugal, arriving there on the overnight train from Madrid. Lisbon is a really cool little city, where the steep streets sloping down to the Tajo river are made of cobblestones and trams still run around the place instead of buses. The weather was a balmy 15 degrees, not bad for the middle of december.

I went out both nights there to check out the nighlife with the people from the hostal I stayed at. Bars and clubs seem come alive around 1am and generally stay open til 4am or later. My favourite was Lounge, a chilled out place playing a mix of 60s rock and roll and decor to go with it. I also noticed hordes of Erasmus students make up more than half of the nightlife this time of the year.

Aranjuez

In September I went to visit the town of Aranjez just a short train ride south of Madrid. This place is where the spanish royal family used to go on holidays back in the days when they still ruled over spanish politics and the church was a force to be reckoned with.

I walked around the palace and royal gardens with my mum and took a few photos.

More Drawings

I stopped drawing for a little while but now I've decided to take it up again, here are a few of the pics that I saw in my sketch book when I opened it again. I guess its not so bad hey?

The first pic is of my friend Vanessa, this is a friend from school. The drawing is of one time we sat down to drink coffee. I think its one of the best drawings I've done so far.

This other drawing is of my brother Javier, I make most of my drawings from photos and I took one the day we came back from walking in the mountains range north of madrid with my mum. He was carrying her back pack because she was tired.

Porto

After visiting Santiago I went on a 4hr bus ride down to the beautiful city of Porto in the north part of Portugal. I really like it there, it has a South America feel to it, being relatively undeveloped (and cheap!) for a Western European nation.

I think Portugal has been part of the EU for just as long as Spain however, unlike its Iberian neighbour, Portugal seems to have been spared some of the indecency of modern real estate development. The addition of UNESCO protected status and dramatic river landscape means that Porto is a city that is beautiful to behold and it has some stunning architecture which is (sadly) falling to pieces from lack of restoration.

If you come this way dont forget to try out the beautiful PASTRIES, the best croissant I have eaten to date is in the main Square of Porto (Praca da Liberacion). The coffee is excellet too.

Jersey

I took a long weekend in July to go and visit Jersey, a small island just off the coast of France that I've had my eye on for a while thinking that it might be a bit like Tasmania. I arrived on an easyjet flight and hired a bike and cycled all the way around the island, getting lost in the little country backroads and stumbling upon some gorgeous beaches.

The place itself is lovely, quite laid back and sedate with a very high standard of living and some stunning coastline good for snorkeling and fishing, the only thing missing are the rainforests of tassie and a university where to study and work otherwise this place would have it all.

This is a pic of a stunning sunset looking over Guersey and Sark. I was really lucky with the weather over the weekend as there was no rain and daytime temperatures round about 25 degrees. I even managed to get a bit sunburnt accross my shoulders.

Bananaman Triathlon

And here I am taking part in another crazy triathlon, this time a little longer than last one and wearing tight superhero outfit (not spandex but close enough).

The venue was in Dorney lake near Eton and Windsor. We had to jump in the lake and swim 800 meters in open water, here is a pic coming out of the water looking a bit worse for wear.. Then we cycled 30 kilometers and ran 7.5 km around the lake.

The day was lovely but just a little windy, all in al I managed to finish the whole thing in a bit over 2 hours. Which isnt a great timiming but I enjoyed myself.

I also discovered a few things I never thought about about these sporting events, the first one being "What happens if you need to go to the toilet?"... I had no clue what to do... so after some excruciating minutes I stopped my bike, went for a pee in the bushes and jumped back in it to join the race. Aparently a little bird told me you're supposed to do it in your pants if you're a real pro (Ugh!). My second discovery for the day was realising that its possible and only marginally humiliating to be overtaken by a gramma twice your age.

More of Madrid

Went to madrid again in July to visit my mum and Javi and spend some time with them for her birthday. I actually visited madrid twice in July but I dont have photos for both visits. Here is a photo we took during lunch on her birthday, with aunt Anne who came by to join us.

Also a few days later I went with Concha and Javier down to the Tajo river to join him doing some Kayaking, Javi spends most weekends during summer down there as a guide taking people down the river. So we tagged along and had a great time.

Have the Banks hit Rock Bottom?

I just noticed Barclays PLC hitting an astounding P/E ratio below 5, where long term PE ratios sit around 16 and an undervalued company would be somewhere around 10. Given the price has sunk to historic lows of around £3 (used to trade around £8), this now means that if you buy a Share in Barclays PLC you will get around 10% of your money given to you each year in the form of Dividends. Thats 5% more than a savings account.

Major british bank at PE ratio of 5? Dividend yield sitting over 10%? Either the earnings are grossly understated or we have parted basic investment logic. And so one thing comes to mind: Is it that the banks hit rock bottom or is there more drops to come? Since economic fundaments change slowly this is probably due to investor irrationality. Under normal conditions I would say run to the nearest broker and buy. But market forces are not moved by pure rationality, from where I'm standing it seems unlikely but there may be further drops to come.

Santiago de Compostela

Hola boys and girls, I've been spending a bit of time in Santiago (de Compostela) in Galicia lately. I kinda liked it after doing the Camino last month so decided to spend more time soaking up the student and backpacker atmosphere in the place.

Its a lovely place full of old buildings. I've even been thinking wouldnt it be nice to have a little apartment here to retire for a bit of "Ooohhmmm" in between freelance jobs, so I dipped my feet a bit in the real estate market to see if it made sense to buy and I could afford something small.

This is a shot of my breakfast view in a lovely old walled garden that must be at least a couple centuries old. Thankfully my cafe y tostas were freshly made and very cheap since the restaurants and coffee shops cater to poor pilgrims who arrive desitute at this beautiful destination.

Athena's Birthday at Kew

Saturday was Athena's birthday, and its now been over a year since we met. I got back to London and we spent the day eating yummy food and drinking wine and then we borrowed an ice-cream van and drove it far far away into the horizon like they do in the movies. Well... nice thought but neither of us can drive so we had to walk far far away into the horizon instead, but we only made it round the Kew gardens river bend down to Richmond. It was a lovely weekend, sunday we had a picknic at Clapham Common too.

Fluoroman Cycles round London

Hello! This is me standing next to Boris' office (London Town Hall). I came to see him about the appaling situation for londons cyclists, "HI BORIS!.. I loooove your hair! ;)"

In the meantime I've been taking to riding around the streets of london wearing my other superhero outfit: FLOUROMAN.

You cant see it in that photo but I have a tight T-shirt with a big "F" plastered in the front of it underneath my flouro cape and I fly around highlighting the streets behind me. If you dont see any more posts in this blog its probably because I plastered myself against the back of routemaster bus and I'm wearing leg and arm casts instead for the next 3 months.

Eton Supersprints

Last Saturday I took part in the 2008 edition of the Eton Supersprint Triathlon. I had to dress up in fancy super-hero outfit and wear a number on my chest.

The race wasnt too bad, I had minimal preparation and managed to get in 105th out of 130 people in my age group. Thats not so bad, bottom 20% instead of bottom 5% that I did last year so I'm definately improving... well actually it could have been because this year I was competing on a racing bike.

Anyway, I signed up for the Bananaman Triathlon on the 20th July, that one's going to be a killer because its half as long as this one.

Camino a Santiago

Last week, I set off with my brother Javi and my Mum in a cold morning to join the pilgrims on the last 100Km of the Way to Compostela in the province of Galicia in the North West of Spain.

We started off in Sarria a small town where we were dropped off by an overnight train from Madrid at 6.30am and started asking the locals for directions to Santiago.

Its amazing how far one can walk on foot if you do nothing else all day. Soon we left the little town and had joined the Camino Frances (French Way) the most traditional of routes for doing the Camino.

From then on we spent the following week on the road sleeping at Peregrino Hostels and eating proper food and breathing fresh air.

You meet a lot of people doing the Camino as well, both locals that are happy to stay and chat or by bumping into other pilgrims (mostly europeans) walking the road at the same time. I had an amazing time and got to see a bit more of my own country, which I have left neglected for so long because there were more exciting places to see.

Steven's Homemade Spanish Paella

And since its the end of the world and you may still have some food left in the house, I think its time to celebrate our abundance before things get worse.

Here is a recipe for Spanish Paella that I put together:

Steven's Homemade Spanish Paella (feeds 4-6)

INGREDIENTS

Fish & Meat
- 250 g of mixed seafood (squid, mussels, prawns, etc)
- 200 g of king prawns in the shell

Stock
- 1.2L of fish or shellfish stock (should taste rich and salty), to be kept hot during steps 1-2

Veg
- 80 g of chopped green beans
- 10-15 snow peas (mangetout)
- 1/2 chopped onion
- 1/2 chopped capsicum
- 1 chopped tomato - 80g of butter beans (boiled & canned)

Rice
- 300g of Pudding Rice (Paella rice ok too but must be SHORT grain)

Condiment
- 1 teaspoon of turmeric
- 1/2 teaspoon of sweet paprika
- 1 clove of garlic, chopped and crushed
- 1/8 tube of tomato paste
- 1 pinch of saffron
- lots of olive oil
- 1 sliced lemon

Cooking Stuff
- 1 non-stick wide pan with a lid
(non-stick: very important or the rice WILL burn)
- wooden spoon

STEPS

Step 1) Fry the veg separately
Fry capsicum, onion, green beans and garlic in the paella pan with abundant oil over a low fire for 5-10 min or until soft.

Step 2) Fry the rice and garlic
Add some more oil and fry the rice (yes the rice) with the fire on high setting, stir constantly until the rice changes color from translucent to white.

Step 3) Add the stock and veg
Add the stock to the frying rice (if hot enough it will reach boiling point very suddenly, this is good) keep adding until it covers a finger or so over the rice. Add the fried vegetables, chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, paprika, saffron, turmeric. Stir it in. Taste the broth, it should taste a little bit salty, add more salt if needed (dont worry the rice will absorb most of the flavour). If too salty add boiling water to compensate.

Step 4) Turn it down.
Turn down the fire to the lowest setting and wait to die down a bit. Put the lid on and cook for 10-15 minutes. Add more stock and stir occasionally if the rice gets too dry (add boiling water if there's no stock left but not ideal).

Step 5) Add the seafood
Put the king prawns and snowpeas aside to decorate with. Add the rest of seafood and stir in again one last time. Leave it to cook on low fire until rice is almost done. Place the snowpeas/prawns on top looking pretty and turn off the fire. There rice should be bubbling but only with a little bit of liquid at this point. Leave for another 5 minutes to finish cooking with its own heat. Add the lemon slices and serve.

Enjoy! :)

Intesting article from BBC

A bit freaky, its not just me... See the following article from the BBC on the problem I was writing about in the blog entry below a month ago.





http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/7360479.stm

Slightly Concerned

Without meaning to sound like a scaremonger: something I saw recently scared the living daylights out of me... You dont need an economics degree to figure this one out....

Is it me or is the shit about to hit the fan?




















NOTE: That you see right there is a trebbling (3x) in the USD price of wheat for the last couple of years. Wheat is the staple food for half the world and much of our human diet is based on it, not just directly in the form of breakfast cereal and bread, but also indirectly in the form of stock feed for farm animals which produce our milk, egss and meat. Perhaps the effect is not so high in western societies where diet only makes up 10-20% of family incomes, but in poor countries or the majority of the world population food makes up closer to 100% of family income. Whats going to happen when they can no longer afford to feed themselves?

Been Drawing

I've been giving this drawing business a try and I think I might have a bit of knack for it. Javi is doing a fair bit of it so I decided to pick up the pencil one day seeing as I had some free time while in Madrid.

The pic on the right is my friend Ignacio (Nacho), he's a dentist, one of the guys I went to junior school in spain with. We met one day for his lunchbreak and I took a pic of him which I later drew.

I never had any training before, was busy studying how to be successful and run a business when my schoolmates got their hands dirty with paint and artwork at school. I guess maybe I was picking the wrong subjects. Later on I did a fair bit of graphic design and maybe thats why its now easy to work with the pencil as my eyes are already trained to see detail and proportion.

The other pic (left) is a model from the easyjet magazine that I started drawing on the plane because I got a bit bored.

I've done a few more portraits and will keep at it, I reckon if I do about 50-60 of these I might upgrade and pick up the brush instead so I can give a try at some oil-paste business which is a lot harder than using the pencil.

Trujillo

I headed off to trujillo with Athena just before the new year to spend a few days with my brother, mum and and my auntie Carmen. My aunt and cousin Candela live there in an old house in the city walls where I used to stay as a child when we went to visit the grandparents.

Trujillo is an old roman walled city perched on a hill of granite in the western part of Extremadura just next to Portugal. It was conquered by the moorish and became a frontier town with the around 1000 years ago so its still got quite a lot of features like a castle and old moorish buildings.

I had a lovely few days, it was a pity that Candela's daughter Alejandra was away for a few days, last time I came to visit was 4 years ago and she was pregnant then so I still havent met her little girl.

It was very cold those few days, had to rug up real well as you can see in the pic (right) with me standing in the Espolon just outside the city. I was cold during the evenings specially.

Mum and Javi also had a good time. I think she was glad to leave the routine and go and make a trip for a couple of days.

All in all a great time. I just wish I'd stayed longer as this place is pretty magical.

More of Madrid

I'm going to Madrid more often lately. Been staying with my brother and mum and catching up with family and old friends.

My mother's getting a bit better with the help of Javier, who's now staying in spain for a while until she improves a bit more... He hasnt changed much though, looking as hippie as ever.

Here (right) is a pic of Javier and I in the kitchen at the flat in Madrid taken recently.. we are both looking a bit similiar to another photo Sara took ages ago back in tassie.. here (left) I just found it on Facebook.


And here is a pic of all of us having Xmas dinner, with me strategically placed next to the smoked salmon and Javi having done a good job with that tortilla.

Its been a while

Since its been a long time since my last post here is a joke I read today:

A train hits a bus load of Catholic school girls and they all perish. They are all in heaven trying to enter the pearly gates past St. Peter.St. Peter asks the first girl, "Jessica, have you ever had any contact with a penis?"
She giggles and shyly replies, "Well I once touched the head of one with the tip of my finger."
St. Peter says, "OK, dip the tip of your finger in The Holy Water and pass through the gate."St. Peter asks the next girl the same question, "Jennifer have you ever had any contact with a penis?"
The girl is a little reluctant but replies, "Well once I fondled and stroked one."
St. Peter says, "OK, dip your whole hand in The Holy Water and pass through the gate."
All of a sudden there is a lot of commotion in the line of girls, one girl is pushing her way to the front of the line.When she reaches the front of the line St. Peter says, "Lisa! What seems to be the rush?"
The girl replies, "If I'm going to have to gargle that Holy Water, I want to do it before Tiffany sticks her ass in it."

Avenue Q

Last week I went to check out this play in Leicester Square with my friend Theo from work and a couple of his flatmates.

This musical is full of rude and histerically funny muppets that interact with humans and between themselves. Its a brilliant show - expect to be shocked. A must-see specially if you're living in London (or another big city) as it talks about quite a few real life issues that young mobile people like me face in their daily life: finding work, parents, marriage, love, sex, friendship and more importantly the ones that are not so easy to talk about such as poverty, exploitation, homosexuality, racism, purpose etc etc, and does so in a clever way full of humour and witty insights.

So enjoy and remember - "THE INTERNET IS FOR PORN!".

Madrid

HOLA! This is my crazy bro and me in one of those moments you just dont know what to do.. It took about 15 shots with the mobile to get us to look moderately crazy without getting too scary, a couple of cars honked at us too while we were at it.

Yep, so I've been going to Madrid a lot recently, it wasnt planned ... more like one day I found I was spending almost as much time over there as in London town. Easyjet have decided to make me "Customer of the Year" on the London-Madrid stretch. They named a plane after me and awarded me an autographed photo of Stelios.

This here on the left is a small town called Bustarviejo up in the mountains near madrid. I went over there last weekend with my little bro to check out some partying they were doing, and as we all know Spanish will come up with any excuse to have fun enjoy themselves. I think they were doing some kind of fire-theatre in the town square, cant remember very well.. the evening was kind of hazy.

And this is the reason why I've been going to Spain so much. You see my mums a bit down lately, well she's been so far down for so long now its gone way beyond depression into something a bit more serious. At least she is smiling a bit on that pic, her kids seem to have that effect on her.

Facebook

So yea, I finally caved in and joined the craze after 1000's of people started knocking on my door saying: So why arent you on Facebook yet? ARRRGHH!!! :o)

WOW. This stuff is addictive, I just spent 3 hours solid on it last night when I really should have gone to bed at 11, the result... I think Im up to 25 friends, mostly people from Hobart I havent seen in ages.

San Sebastian

HOLA EVERYONE! :)

Just got back from a brilliant weekend in San Sebastian, a beautiful little town in the north of Spain. Took 5 days to go and visit this place with some guys I met at work: Theo (second from right) and Karune (far right). We met up with Terry (the guy next to me), another work buddy, who had been taking a couple of weeks of catching some sun, eating beautiful food and going out every night like we were about to.

Once there I spent the first few nights going out in the Parte Vieja (the old town) where you rock up after some sun on the beach and your daily siesta and slowly start the night with either dinner or some pintxos washed down with a bit of tinto or the local sidra (cider). Apart from 3 amazing beaches, San Seabastian can also boast the best night life in the area, with lots of french and spanish people from the area flocking over on summer weekends and partying to open-air concerts. There seemed to be a lot of Aussies there too who'd just arrived after running the bulls in nearby Pamplona. This weekend was special too. The beginning of Semana Grande (the big week) with lots of fireworks and events put together by the Ayuntamiento.

The last couple of days I spent with my auntie Tina in her home up on one of the mountains around SS. The pic on the left is the view from her house.

Here are all the photos: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/sdesalas/SanSebastian2007

Pues que le den!

Feeling a bit like I've had a massive dose of 'keleden' today... I think you have to be Spanish to get the joke, some things you just cant translate...

:o)