Lazy Moo

Haven't I been naughty boy; three weeks without writing a blog entry. Tut tut. In fairness I have been pretty busy living the jetset lifestyle.

A few weekends back I went to the Fiesta de Orujo in Potes, Cantabria. Orujo is a local liquor that comes in various varieties and they hold a festival to celebrate it and to drum up interest. It was in the picturesque village of Potes, perched nicely in the Picos de Europa mountains. The festival was totally free and consisted of one enormous tent with two stages and loads of stalls giving away all the different types of Orujo, again totally free. My travelling buddies and I decided that drinking from the little shot glasses they were issuing was far too slow so we pinched a few of the bottles and enjoyed the drink at a more enjoyable rate.

After the main tent shut, all the Erasmus crowd headed into a nightclub that was playing some house/trance malarkey or joined the crowds in the village in a spot of bar-hopping or listening to all the street music and performers. All-in-all very enjoyable evening with the exception of a few of the bar owners being a little bit unfriendly with us foreigners, which struck me as a bit of a daft attitude for someone in the hospitality industry.

On to university issues. My department at Imperial sent over a professor to meet with me and discuss my project, how things are going for me generally in Santander, etc. They also footed the bill for a five course meal at a delightfully expensive restaurant in a very nice part of town. My project is beginning slowly, next week I hope to get in the lab next week to get "down and dirty" with all the gear.

I've just returned to Santander after a five day stay in England. A night out in Sheffield, another in Reading for my mate's 21st and a day in my university picking up software and catching up with some mates there. Next excursions I have planned are a week-long road trip in Andalucia in December and maybe some skiing in January. Exciting times.

Tea Crisis Solved

You will all undoubtedly be thrilled at the news that my tea bag crisis has been solved. Mother Moo Cow sent over 160 PG Tips Pyramid bags by superexpress mail and thus a certain ruminent is rather content again. However, the idea of the competition was not only to provide myself with a new stock of teabags, but also to encourage some people to catch a cheap RyanAir flight and visit. Maybe I was being too subtle and need to change tactics.

Come and visit me in Santander you lazy people.

Anyway it just so happens that I have flights booked back to Blighty! I am landing in Liverpool on Friday the 17th to spend a few days in Sheffield and then down to Reading on Monday 20th for a 21st birthday party. I'm aiming to see my man TY live at The Picket in Liverpool on Saturday the 18th as well, he's absolutely awesome. I've included a link to his MySpace page on my list of useful links on the right sidebar.

Clever Moo Cow

Today I finally received a suggested Master thesis title from my project supervisor: Synthesis and Characterisation of Nanostructured Semiconductors. For those of you who that means nothing to, I can promise you that you are missing out! I think I shall be accepting it as it is very much the topic I wanted to study: all that remains is to have a look around the lab, meet the people, see the equipment and read around the subject so that I can confirm and finally get my lazy student posterior into action.

Also I've just added a little hit counter to the sidebar in my blog that was free from www.statcounter.com so I can count how many of you people are actually reading this site and whether it is worth the effort in maintaining it.

Help! Impending Crisis

Ok there is a major problem on the horizon for me and I need some help in solving it. It is pretty serious and thus I have dreamt up the idea of a competition to persuade people to lend some assistance.


I am running out of PG Tips pyramid bags. Sound the alarm.


I only have twenty left and without them my Britishness will slowly fade into nothing and I will have lost all the qualities associated with this fabulous nationality: superb banter and general quick-wittedness, superior intelligence and strong character in the face of adversity. Don't let me become this man.

Therefore I am starting the Rescue the Moo Competition 2006! The rules are simple: the first person to visit my good self in Santander and bring with them one large quantity of premium grade PG Tips pyramid tea bags (at least 200... I will be counting) will have a grand party thrown in their honour with all sorts of sumptious food, exotic drinks and exciting people from all over the world.

The closing date for said competition is the 20th of December 2006 when I shall be coming home for Christmas. Therefore get your act together and fly out here pronto in order to claim your prize and save a Brit in need.

Rugby

¡Hola a todos!

It's been a while since my last entry as I have been quite busy. I've joined the Universidad de Cantabria Rugby team and they are a good bunch of lads. Actually only about 40% of the team are students: the rest are just blokes from throughout the region.

We had two training sessions last week which went pretty well. Then this weekend we had a training camp about 40 minutes to the east of Santander in a town bordering the Basque Country called Santoña. The training was lead by Roland Biron, coach of the French Second Division tem Tarbes and two other French gentlemen (Maurice and Pascal) who play for/coach amateur teams in that area.

The morning of the Saturday consisting of a training and gameplan theory presentation, pretty advanced and very interesting. Then we headed out to the field to do some basic skills and fitness. After dinner we then took the cars over to our home ground to watch the Cantabria youth team play a match before our own game against Gijón of the Asturias region. I came on for 15 to 20 minutes in the second half and played some as back ro, some as second row. Not very happy about second row I must say but any game time is good for me at the moment as I am rather out of shape after doing no exercise whatsoever in the summer.

We right royally stuffed them all game until the last 5 minutes when they scored two tries to take it the final score to about 56-24. We headed back to the hostel for dinner and then the inevitable celebrations after. We had a bar crawl around Santoña which was absolutely awesome. Good banter, good music (surprisingly) and I think we got home at about 8. I say I think as my memory of the last hour or so is (as usual) a tad blurred.

After two hours slept we were cruelly woken up to be put through a beastly fitness session through what I can honestly say was one of the worst hangovers I've had in a long time. I wasn't alone but that's hardly any comfort, is it? Nevertheless great weekend and thanks to Msr. Biron and Co. for all the work they put in.

The photo above is the view from outside the youth hostel with myself and my mate Hugo (the only other Erasmus student in the team) posing Sunday morning. We both have nicknames in the team: Hugo is Franchute which is like the Spanish version of "frog" and mine is Guiri which is the general slang term for foreigner as (very strangely) the Spanish don't seem to have a derogatory term for the English. I haven't told them I have relatives in Gibraltar or else they'd quickly find one!

The nicknames are obviously good-humoured and just for a laugh. But my word do they swear a lot. Fair enough, so do British lads in any sports team, but even the coaches do and in fact so to daytime TV presenters! Leads me to the conclusion that swearing out here is not as grave as in Blighty. They have a rather interesting phrase that the rugger lads say quite often, which translates literally as "I poo on God". You won't be catching me saying that as I think that's slightly over the top!

End of Summer

Ok the summer has officially ended. Last night I was woken up by the remnants of an Atlantic hurricane trying to rip the wall off my block of flats and today the weather has been average to poor. I have been reliably informed that it will rain here this winter... lots. Like with the lack of girls at Imperial College, they don't tell you that at the open day.

But the weekend was awesome, nearly did a triple backflip on Friday night as I stumbled (appropriate word) apon a club playing hard house music at 5am. I decided the acrobatics were a little over the top, so instead I settled for having a few drinks and a dance. But I was very happy about it I can tell you.

Saturday was also a good night out, found another new bar that does funky house and is therefore full of especially goodlooking girls. However, I don't have a set of earplugs here and any more than about 45 minutes of that drivel will probably kill me. So I was in there for about 30 minutes and upon leaving rushed to the nearest food shop to consume some dead animal in order to counteract the negative effects of the girly music.

Sunday was absolutely fantastic and I wish every day could be like it this year. All the Erasmus exchange students went down to the Primera Playa de Sardinero to participate in general frolics & all the fun of a group hangover. The weather was spot on and the waves were pretty awesome for the surfers. The division between the Germans and the rest was immediate as they sat down next to each other in a group that was close to but not exactly part of ours. So we played them in a big game of beach footy and (obviously) dominated them with yours truely being completely pivotal and busting out some Rio de Janeiro styles. Set up all the goals and just generally ran around being a stud. Brilliant.

Had a poker night with the lads last night which saw me come 4th out of 5 (not happy) but at least we're not playing for money yet. Did the classic bloke thing of rating all the ladies in the group, creating plans of attack, etc etc. Good banter.

And tonight I've got my first rugby session of the year so I've got to get a move on. The photo is of the beach we were at on Sunday. Beautiful eh?

MC x

End of First Week of Uni!!

Hello all! Hope Blighty is treating you well as Spain is certainly doing a good job of looking after me!

Monday I had my first day of university. Bit of a let down, missed my first lecture due to not having the timetable. I only have one lecture course (Eléctronica Física) this term until I find a research project, which means I only have four hours a week. Hooray! Monday night was one of the french dude's birthdays and ended up being pretty hectic (those of you with access to facebook.com can see the photos on my profile). So I also missed my second day of uni here as well. Whoops.

So I finally attended my first lecture on Wednesday. I couldn't follow most of what the lecturer was saying but I could understand the projector slides perfectly which means in a fortnight when I am used to the speed of speech here I will hopefully be able to understand more easily. The topic is quite interesting and I am considering asking the lecturer if he can be the supervisor for my Masters project which I am supposed to be starting soon.

The one hour lecture was far too much hard work fo rme so I took a well earned stroll down the road to the fantastic Primera Playa de El Sardinero. My first time at the beach after being in Spain for a week, shameful. Had a good few hours of siesta on the powdery sand with the sun blazing down and the relaxing sound of the waves gently fizzing up and down the coast.

Thursday I had no courses so at about 3pm myself and some other brave explorers bought a return ticket to the Playa del Somo which is on the other side of Bahía de Santander. 15 minutes on the boat and 5 minute walk led us to a long, practically deserted beach with a surf shop a tenth of the cost of the one at the Sardinero. The idea was for us to rent some gear and go surfing, but the waves were tiny so we decided it wasn't worth the money and thus we just messed around in the sea and sunbathed a bit. I was quite looking forward to learning how to "surfear" but next time.

Today after my lecture I obtained the phone number of the Santander Rugby captain so I shall be giving him a ring this weekend to see if I can start training next Tuesday. The day at the beach made me realise how I need to join a sports club quick before I become chronically unfit.

Anyway I'm bored of this so time to shower and head down to the Plaza for the obligatory evening booze up.

MC

PS: It has come to my attention that the legendary coach Brimah at ICURFC is in hospital recovering from a brain aneurism. I've sent him a text sending my support but if anyone goes to visit can you give him regards for me as he might not have got the text. Thanks.

Spanish is Hard

You know all that rubbish about being good at Spanish? Well that was total rubbish. Today I had my first day in college and about 3 Spanish people tried speaking to me and I´m not joking, I couldn't understand a word. My writing and reading is fine, but in terms of speech I can´t process the information fast enough and so I end up sitting there with a blank face like a complete idiot. Next time I'm going to fake deafness or something to take the look of complete disgust off their faces.

So Thursday night was good, went out, few beers in some German girl's house with the rest of the Erasmus ensemble and then headed to Plaza Cañadió as usual for a few jars until 2am whence we moved to our first club. If you can call it that. All the clubs are tiny and play such rubbish like reggaeton music. It's not London, I can tell you that for sure.

Friday consisted of a tour around the musuem/replica of Las Cuevas de Altamira, where they found loads of prehistoric cave paintings. It was ok and it was pretty inspiring learning how they did the paintings and the context of their time period, but everyone was hungover as hell and not really interested. Well I say hungover, you don't get drunk here you just stay up til 6 or 7am so the hangover effect is purely down to sleep deprivation.

Saturday the new flatmate arrived, a 27 year old from the Czech Republic. Seems like a pretty sound bloke but he's been in the flat for a total of about 10 minutes since he arrived here because he´s dashing about everywhere. He did miss the induction week I suppose so he's had a lot to do.

Bought some footy boots, a rugby ball and a football today so I can finally get some sport action on and not have to feel constant longing to go to the park but not having the correct accutrements.

I'll be uploading some photos onto here this week so keep reading! Sorry for the short entry but I've got to get home and get changed for the evening's partying.

Ciao for now from Moo Cow

Señor Moo Cow

Well it's happened, I'm here! This is going to take a while so you might want to get a mug of tea and bring the biscuit barrel over to the PC!

The Cow touched down on Monday afternoon with Mrs Moo in tow to help out and lend monetary assistance. Taxi to the new abode, met landlady. Crazy, old, four foot high, gold teeth, couldn't understand half of what she said through her accent, you know the drill. Confirmed the rent is a mindblowing €150 a month which is just awesome. For those too lazy to check that works out at a ridiculous 100 pounds a month which is what I was paying for the flat in London per week!

The flat is not a hovel as I was dreading, it is actually pretty sweet! 5 minutes from Santander 'town centre', 10 minutes from the uni, 15 minutes from the beaches. That's right: beach plural. Brilliant. Plus sea views and a balcony, combined with a room that's double the size of my rooms in London or Kent. Well done, Señor Moo.

There was one student who had already moved in two weeks before: Finnish bloke called Antti. He's sound as a pound, in addition to being a completely fluent English speaker which is just smashing. He has only been studying Spanish for 1 year but learning fast. Apparently this Saturday we have the third and final addition of the team flying in from Czech Republic or Germany. Watch this space.

The first two days involved sorting out my gear, exploration of the immediate locale of the flat and sampling local cafés. Mother Moo kindly provided financial backing before flying back to Blighty on Tuesday afternoon.

That evening I discovered how cheap the grub is here; €10 for a 3 course meal and half a bottle of wine. It was all edible but I must say I did pick something at random and ended up with pork and chips for main course. Imagine travelling hundreds of miles to a country reknowned for the quality of its alimentation only to be chucked a plate of chips. Not happy. Just as well the rest of it was scrummy or else fracas would have undoubtedly ensued.

Wednesday was my first day at the University of Cantabria! The first of three Orientation days, we had a big presentation in the main hall, a guided tour of campus and got given the usual continual stream of paperwork. Met with all the other Erasmus dudes and dudettes and went on a coach tour of the town/city. Saw the palaces, beaches, had a boat cruise along the coast. I forget how much I adore being on water, living in London does that do you. The subtle back and forth motion of the boat and the rhythmic drone of the engine is so relaxing, combined with the sense of perspective that being so small in comparison to something so huge. Joining the uni sailing class for beginners is an idea on my mind at the moment

Compared to a lot of the Erasmus students my Spanish is pretty good. However, after eight years you would expect it to be, wouldn't you? All, and I really do mean all, of them speak English. Fluently, even the French. Convenient but does make you think about how we (or is it the US?) has 'culturally invaded' the world as a whole. Food for thought.

Aah yes and if it wasn't enough that I work for two French companies in London, now the majority of the social crowd just happen to be French as well. It must be a sign that I shouldn't have given up français at 16 and that I was born to learn it as well as castellano (Spanish). I'm going to give in and just start trying to get involved again.

Before I arrived the weather was terribly dull with rain and the like. In the four days that I've been here it's been nothing but glorious sunshine and clear blue skies. Very welcome and the tan is developing, unfortunately albeit forearms and face. If it is still the same this weekend I'll sort out the rest.

My timetable is already coming into line with the Spanish norm, I'm eating at about 9-10 and then go out at about 10.30-11. Wednesday night we all headed down to one of the main Plazas (public squares surrounding by cafés for those unaware) and had a few beers ouside whilst mingling with the Erasmus exchange crowd. Very interesting situation to have so many cultures and languages exchanged at the same time in such a manner, in addition to everyone trying to make headway with the target language and trying to make friends. Language overload will probably occur in about a fortnight and I will just crave language being effortless and comfortable instead of being at the forefront of my attention all of my waking day.

There is only one other English person in the group, a girl from Birmingham who studies at Nottingham Trent. She is providing a welcome rest from the pressures of having to make myself understood as well as providing me with a comical Brummie accent which cheers me up no end.

Today (Thursday) has consisted of an extended coach trip to Los Picos de Europa, a mountain range on the Cantabria/Asturias border. Beautiful place; despite the fact that I have seen it before during the Sixth Form school trip it is still mesmerising being up there. We proceded to travel around Cantabria stopping at certain villages with nice churches/palaces/general tourist malarkey. Passed some beaches with some pretty decent size waves and there is a lot of talk about some of the blokes that surf teaching the rest of us this weekend. Exciting developments.

That's pretty much it so far. Pretty long entry but I haven't had access to a PC/ any time to myself since being here until now. This has taken ages to write as well so I'm off to have dinner and maybe a beer too.

MC

Counting Down... 5 Days

Well the send-off party has been and gone (cheers to my boy in the first picture for hosting a brilliant evening!) and now all that remains to be done before the move is another 3 days of internship and packing. Then next Monday I shall be jetting off to pastures new: luscious, unspoiled and ready for grazing.

It has occurred to me that I haven't explained why in fact I am moving to Santander at all, so I had better give a bit of background:

I'm currently an undergraduate student at the prestigous Imperial College London reading MSci Physics with a Year in Europe. As part of our course we have to spend one year (our third of four) on the EU Erasmus Exchange Program at a partner University. There we will be a normal undergraduate of the institution in question for the academic year.

Orginally I applied to the Universitat de Valencia as the city is Spain's third biggest and the college itself is quite large. However, as fate would have it, I was beaten to the limited places by some eager beavers on my course who achieved better grades than me in my first year. It was news to me that I'd even taken exams in my first year; all I remember is 36 weeks of unadulterated lash, staggering into the lecture hall occasionally for a nap and at the end a really big hall that I was sat in, perfectly silent and majorly hungover. That must have been the exam room in hindsight. Shame I didn't know at the time.

But anyway I had to take my second choice uni, Universidad de Cantabria (in Santander, the regional capital) and work at a 2:1 for that. As noted in an earlier entry, I just scraped the grades in what can be described as an 'efficient performance'. Minimum effort, maximum effect.

So here I am with 5 days till the move having to face going to an office in the City that is so well air-conditioned it would be more accurate to describe it as 'refridgerated'. During the heatwave in August I had to bring a jumper in to work with me for the office, much to the amusement of my flatmates.

Packing is going to be an interesting affair; I have only 40 kgs in two suitcases for all my worldly goods. Sorting out my clothes last night lend me to the discovery that about 60% of my apparell is sportswear, leading me to the conclusion that my university moniker of 'that Chav' is actually quite accurate.

x x x MC

Swedish Beauty

By the way, how amazing is the Koenigsegg CC range of cars? Pure Swedish genius. Anyone that wants to buy me one for Christmas is very welcome.

Counting Down... 11 Days

Well the summer is nearly over for me: eleven days left in London! Goodbye 7am starts! Goodbye London AKA the Big Smoke! Hello Spain, the beach, the lash, Kalimotxo, weekend trips around Europe, merely 2 lecture courses a week and more importantly, learning how to business the Continent.

Considering that I have such a short amount of time before jetting off, I am quite surprised by my lack of organisation, planning or any cares at all. I am, at best, a plan-aholic and yet despite being on the verdge of moving abroad with nowhere to live, I am remarkably calm about the whole affair. To describe it as ambivalence (which is how I should probably be feeling) would be incorrect. It is pure indifference. The idea of packing a suitcase last minute and staying in a BnB is swiftly turning into the most probable scenario and this does not phase me in the slightest. For now, anyway!

This weekend will see the leaving party for a certain udder-baring ruminent. To say it is going to be an absolutely legendary send-off is not doing justice to how excited I am about it. If you're not coming... chin up!

MC

Pre-Spain Planning

My results came through the post last week; made the grade for Spain by a whisker! I needed a 60% average over my first and second years combined and I managed to get 60.3%! Now that is cutting it fine!

I'm currently swamped big time with paperwork for the big move and a truck-load of work in my internship, too. They say that moving house is the most stressful thing short of having a kid and I must say I agree with that opinion as this moment in time.

It suddenly occured to me I've never spent any longer than 3 weeks at once outside of the M25. How little I have seen of the world! Oh and turns out there's not another person going from my university either. It's just me. Fabolous.

I'm thinking I need to take a little piece of Britain with me to educated the uneducated.The pack so far includes a cricket set and my collection of Oasis CDs. I've heard they are shunning the barbarian ways though; rumour has it that one can even buy teabags there now. However, I shall include a hundred PG tips in the BritPack, as it is not a chance I wish to take. I've never been a man to succumb to hearsay or rumour by any means. Likewise they say rugby is popular in the north as it is near to France and the Basque region, who apparently love a bit of eggchasing; nevertheless there shall be a large ellipsoidal mass residing patiently in my suitcase.

M.C.

Grand Opening!

Here's my first post on my new blog, Moo Cow's Mountain! It seemed sensible to me that I begin some form of website to document the events of the big move to Spain so that people can stay up to date with all thats going on in the World of Moo. Likewise I'm going to try and sort out a feature for everyone to post their news on here too if it's possible.

I must say that given how easy it is to allow the typed word to degrade into txt spk & ther4 rooinin inglish, I will endeavour to produce postings in correct English.

So that's it for now, until the next entry!

x M.C.