If Jeremy Clarkson ever invites you to join him for a spot of "clay pidgeon shooting", graciously accept the offer because this is the sort of thing he gets up to. What a legend this bloke is!
Friday, March 16, 2007
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Visited Countries
I found a cool little tool http://douweosinga.com/projects/visitedcountries that allows you to select everywhere you have been in the world and then paints you a picture of your visited "countries". I have been to 7, which is apparently 3%. A lot more travelling to be done, methinks. I do aim to conquer some more of Europe this summer, so I shoud be correcting the absence of red there. As for the rest of the world, that shall have to wait for now.
Incidentally, there is also a version of this for States in the USA, if it interests you. I haven't been there yet so I haven't included it.
Incidentally, there is also a version of this for States in the USA, if it interests you. I haven't been there yet so I haven't included it.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Updated Links section
If you check out the righthand sidebar of this blog, I have updated the Links section. There are now two new sections. MySpace Links contains the MySpace sites of several artists of whom I am a fan and likewise Charity Links contains a list of some of my favourite charities that I would suggest are worth supporting.
First Visitor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi fans: you may be pleased to hear that I finally had my first visitor to Santander, none other than the legendary Smiler himself! Not only did he have to take time off work from HM Forces to visit and catch two flights over 2 days to get here, he even had the good manners to bring 250 of the finest PG Tips Pyramid Bags over to yours truely on the very day I ran out! Now that is what I call a true gentleman!
So I introduced the man himself to my buddies out here and everybody reported on what a thoroughly nice chap he is, not to mention that the ladies were also rather taken by his toned military physique as well! His visit luckily coincided with a 'warm snap' ; temperatures reached a dizzying 23 degrees Celcius (impressive for early March).
We made the most of the weather and enjoyed a goliath coastal walk around some of the most beautiful parts of the town's coast. During his stay he sampled the local nightlife and a few of the local restaurants, in addition to helping me discover the town's pool bar! He beat me 6-3, but considering he helped me locate the place for the first time, I shall forgive the old rascal.
Smiler: you are a legend! Cheers for the visit!
Thursday, February 22, 2007
My comment on Jade Goody and Big Brother
After all the recent news about Jade Goody's alleged racism on Big Brother UK, I feel that it is high time I released my views into the blogosphere. Now it must be noted before taking into account any of my views that I have not actually seen any of the events in question since I am currently living in Spain and have no access to British terrestrial television. However, I constantly read articles on the BBC News website, which in my opinion is a rather excellent news source and seems to demonstrate a balanced and intelligent viewpoint through its journalism. It has kept me up to date with developments back in Blighty over the last 6 months.
I shall first set the scene before airing my views. On the most recent series of Celebrity Big Brother UK, the British strain of the infamous pioneer of so-called "reality TV", celebrities are put into a house that is sealed from the outside world for a fixed period of time. An army of cameras and microphones details their every move for the viewing pleasure of the greater public. Throughout the duration of the show, the housemates nominate two of their peers to be put forward to the public for eviction from the house; the public opinion then being collected by a lucrative phone-in vote scheme until a final winner is chosen from the final few constants at the end of the show.
The celebrities chosen for the show are often not those classed by the tabloids as "A-list" and are usually those who currently have little media exposure or flagging careers and thus wish to make use of the instant and relatively easy publicity offered by reality TV shows. In some circumstances they actually use non-celebrities for tedious reasons, for example in CBBUK they once used a lookalike of Paris Hilton, an A-list celebrity. In the recent Celebrity Big Brother UK, the housemates ranged from Jo O'Meara from the now-defunct chart-topping pop band Steps, the Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, to Jade Goody (who shot to fame as a previous contestant of the non-celebrity version of Big Brother UK) and some of her family [1]. There were other contestants on the show as well but these are those relevant to the events in question.
Over the course of the series, events transpired that caused an public outcry both in the UK and abroad. Shilpa became the focus of alleged (I haven't seen it, remember) bullying by Goody, O'Meara and some of the other housemates. It remains a point of considerable debate whether the supposed bullying towards Ms. Shetty was outright and intentional racism or just silly comments made by uneducated people unaware of how their behaviour could be perceived.
Some of the reported behaviour involves Ms. Goody referring to Ms. Shetty as "Shilpa Poppadom", telling her to "go home" and the list goes on and on [2]. The ensuing media frenzy over the series managed to overspill to Shilpa Shetty's home nation, India and happened to coincide with a diplomatic tour to the very same nation by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown [3]. Such a high profile tale of prejudice did not do any favours for Mr. Brown on a trip that was designed to boost political and economic relations between Britain and its rapidly developing ex-colony as well as highlight his statesmanship and therefore suitability as the probable replacement for Tony Blair in 10 Downing Street.
Now I cannot comment fully on the events of the television program myself, as I am not a first-hand witness of the series and only have second-hand articles to go by. One of the themes raised by the events was the difference between racism and ignorance and this is discussed in article 2 of my source list. My interest in the events described lies not in the details of the events; more how was it possible for the behaviour of a few people to create such a widespread media outcry and what is it about modern British culture that permitted such people to gain such publicity.
The first topic to address is the platform of the said events: Big Brother. Throughout the history of civilisation and perhaps even before, other people providing entertainment has had a place in mankind's culture. Kings and emperors from a vast range of eras had court jesters; the ancient Greeks had a particular taste for drama and comedy; and the Romans spread throughout Europe large coliseums to provide thousands of people with the opportunity to watch gladiators slaughter animals, slaves and criminals. The modern age, with all the advances in telecommunications has a massive range of entertainment, with the use of stadiums reserved now for the viewing of sports of the non-lethal variety.
Big Brother is a form of entertainment that is as basic as it gets: a group of people are put into a box for a fixed period of time and observed. This is voyeurism in its most pure form and we as the viewing public are condoning its existence by tuning in. Its simplicity and addictiveness led to massive ratings, which spawned an entire genre of reality TV shows. During the 10 weeks or so of Big Brother season, it seems that the entire nation is gripped by this simple show: the recent developments in the "Big Brother house" hit the front pages of all the major news papers and seem to occupy every spare minute of conversation by the majority of the population. And this is not just in Britain: in all the other countries where BB exists, the same occurs each and every year.
But is it really "reality"? In the quest to grab ratings, the show's producers Endemol began to using people very different from society's "norms". In the recent series of BB, two contestants seemed to have been selected purely for having health problems that the public would find it in interesting to watch: namely Pete the singer from Brighton with Tourette's Syndrome and Shahbaz who exhibited strong of signs of mental illness, at one point threatening suicide in front of his other housemates by claiming he was "a dead man walking" [5].
In addition to exploiting ill people for capital gains, Big Brother also flies in the face of convention because it catapults normal people to overnight fame. Historically, people earned fame through outstanding actions or achievements, but reality TV specifically aims to bring normal people to the public eye. This in itself is no bad thing: the problem begins when these people are in the position to represent our country and affect the views held by other nations of the average Britain, as the case with the recent story between Jade Goody and Shilpa Shetty.
People are undoubtedly selected by reality TV producers as they are caricatures that would be highly amusing or provoke a strong reaction in viewers and thus boost viewer ratings. In the case of Jade Goody, the attraction is her strongly working-class upbringing in Bermondsey, her incredible stupidity and a notably low level of education. The recent events of Celebrity Big Brother combined with the magnifying glass effect of modern media scrutiny allowed this woman's ignorance to spread to all over the globe and as her fellow countrymen/women we are therefore associated with her. Is it right that such people should be able to tarnish our reputation and even so far as damage relations with the one of the next century's potentially biggest economic powers?
One of the main attractions in viewing and a key element in the show's success is what I call the "Snob factor". By featuring ignorant people such as Ms. Goody, and people who appear to be highly detatched from reality such as Shahbaz, people are taken aback by the nature of these people and instantly feel a sense of superiority. This allows people to instantly feel better about themselves and is hardly surprising when they have such extremes in personality with which to compare themselves such as Pete's Tourette's or Shahbaz's quasi manic-depressive behaviour.
On a more fundamental level, is the quality of the program suitable enough for viewing? On E4 (Channel 4's digital arm) and the internet, viewers have 24 hour feeds to the BB house, which often consists of them just sitting around, cooking or even just sleeping. I have often found it somewhat bizarre that millions of people around the world find this exceptable subject matter for television. Why not rig up mirrors in their own home so they can watch themselves sit around/cook/sleep!
To sum up my opinions, I personally think that Big Brother is a perverse form of entertainment that exploits pyschologically weak (and maybe even now unhealthy) people in the quest for ratings; I think it is insulting to the intelligence of the viewing public due to the mundane and trivial nature of its material; and I think it is not a topic suitable for newspapers or conversation. I urge everyone to do as I do: switch off Big Brother and refuse to pay this joke of a series any attention. Endemol: enough is enough.
Sources:
1 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6281223.stm
2 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6275363.stm
3 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6270825.stm
4 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5266302.stm
5 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5008062.stm
I shall first set the scene before airing my views. On the most recent series of Celebrity Big Brother UK, the British strain of the infamous pioneer of so-called "reality TV", celebrities are put into a house that is sealed from the outside world for a fixed period of time. An army of cameras and microphones details their every move for the viewing pleasure of the greater public. Throughout the duration of the show, the housemates nominate two of their peers to be put forward to the public for eviction from the house; the public opinion then being collected by a lucrative phone-in vote scheme until a final winner is chosen from the final few constants at the end of the show.
The celebrities chosen for the show are often not those classed by the tabloids as "A-list" and are usually those who currently have little media exposure or flagging careers and thus wish to make use of the instant and relatively easy publicity offered by reality TV shows. In some circumstances they actually use non-celebrities for tedious reasons, for example in CBBUK they once used a lookalike of Paris Hilton, an A-list celebrity. In the recent Celebrity Big Brother UK, the housemates ranged from Jo O'Meara from the now-defunct chart-topping pop band Steps, the Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, to Jade Goody (who shot to fame as a previous contestant of the non-celebrity version of Big Brother UK) and some of her family [1]. There were other contestants on the show as well but these are those relevant to the events in question.
Over the course of the series, events transpired that caused an public outcry both in the UK and abroad. Shilpa became the focus of alleged (I haven't seen it, remember) bullying by Goody, O'Meara and some of the other housemates. It remains a point of considerable debate whether the supposed bullying towards Ms. Shetty was outright and intentional racism or just silly comments made by uneducated people unaware of how their behaviour could be perceived.
Some of the reported behaviour involves Ms. Goody referring to Ms. Shetty as "Shilpa Poppadom", telling her to "go home" and the list goes on and on [2]. The ensuing media frenzy over the series managed to overspill to Shilpa Shetty's home nation, India and happened to coincide with a diplomatic tour to the very same nation by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown [3]. Such a high profile tale of prejudice did not do any favours for Mr. Brown on a trip that was designed to boost political and economic relations between Britain and its rapidly developing ex-colony as well as highlight his statesmanship and therefore suitability as the probable replacement for Tony Blair in 10 Downing Street.
Now I cannot comment fully on the events of the television program myself, as I am not a first-hand witness of the series and only have second-hand articles to go by. One of the themes raised by the events was the difference between racism and ignorance and this is discussed in article 2 of my source list. My interest in the events described lies not in the details of the events; more how was it possible for the behaviour of a few people to create such a widespread media outcry and what is it about modern British culture that permitted such people to gain such publicity.
The first topic to address is the platform of the said events: Big Brother. Throughout the history of civilisation and perhaps even before, other people providing entertainment has had a place in mankind's culture. Kings and emperors from a vast range of eras had court jesters; the ancient Greeks had a particular taste for drama and comedy; and the Romans spread throughout Europe large coliseums to provide thousands of people with the opportunity to watch gladiators slaughter animals, slaves and criminals. The modern age, with all the advances in telecommunications has a massive range of entertainment, with the use of stadiums reserved now for the viewing of sports of the non-lethal variety.
Big Brother is a form of entertainment that is as basic as it gets: a group of people are put into a box for a fixed period of time and observed. This is voyeurism in its most pure form and we as the viewing public are condoning its existence by tuning in. Its simplicity and addictiveness led to massive ratings, which spawned an entire genre of reality TV shows. During the 10 weeks or so of Big Brother season, it seems that the entire nation is gripped by this simple show: the recent developments in the "Big Brother house" hit the front pages of all the major news papers and seem to occupy every spare minute of conversation by the majority of the population. And this is not just in Britain: in all the other countries where BB exists, the same occurs each and every year.
But is it really "reality"? In the quest to grab ratings, the show's producers Endemol began to using people very different from society's "norms". In the recent series of BB, two contestants seemed to have been selected purely for having health problems that the public would find it in interesting to watch: namely Pete the singer from Brighton with Tourette's Syndrome and Shahbaz who exhibited strong of signs of mental illness, at one point threatening suicide in front of his other housemates by claiming he was "a dead man walking" [5].
In addition to exploiting ill people for capital gains, Big Brother also flies in the face of convention because it catapults normal people to overnight fame. Historically, people earned fame through outstanding actions or achievements, but reality TV specifically aims to bring normal people to the public eye. This in itself is no bad thing: the problem begins when these people are in the position to represent our country and affect the views held by other nations of the average Britain, as the case with the recent story between Jade Goody and Shilpa Shetty.
People are undoubtedly selected by reality TV producers as they are caricatures that would be highly amusing or provoke a strong reaction in viewers and thus boost viewer ratings. In the case of Jade Goody, the attraction is her strongly working-class upbringing in Bermondsey, her incredible stupidity and a notably low level of education. The recent events of Celebrity Big Brother combined with the magnifying glass effect of modern media scrutiny allowed this woman's ignorance to spread to all over the globe and as her fellow countrymen/women we are therefore associated with her. Is it right that such people should be able to tarnish our reputation and even so far as damage relations with the one of the next century's potentially biggest economic powers?
One of the main attractions in viewing and a key element in the show's success is what I call the "Snob factor". By featuring ignorant people such as Ms. Goody, and people who appear to be highly detatched from reality such as Shahbaz, people are taken aback by the nature of these people and instantly feel a sense of superiority. This allows people to instantly feel better about themselves and is hardly surprising when they have such extremes in personality with which to compare themselves such as Pete's Tourette's or Shahbaz's quasi manic-depressive behaviour.
On a more fundamental level, is the quality of the program suitable enough for viewing? On E4 (Channel 4's digital arm) and the internet, viewers have 24 hour feeds to the BB house, which often consists of them just sitting around, cooking or even just sleeping. I have often found it somewhat bizarre that millions of people around the world find this exceptable subject matter for television. Why not rig up mirrors in their own home so they can watch themselves sit around/cook/sleep!
To sum up my opinions, I personally think that Big Brother is a perverse form of entertainment that exploits pyschologically weak (and maybe even now unhealthy) people in the quest for ratings; I think it is insulting to the intelligence of the viewing public due to the mundane and trivial nature of its material; and I think it is not a topic suitable for newspapers or conversation. I urge everyone to do as I do: switch off Big Brother and refuse to pay this joke of a series any attention. Endemol: enough is enough.
Sources:
1 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6281223.stm
2 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6275363.stm
3 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6270825.stm
4 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5266302.stm
5 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5008062.stm
Kano vs Wiley MC Battle
I'm a big fan of Kano it must be said; Home Sweet Home is one of my favourite albums of UK hiphop/grime or whatever name the genre now carries. Here is a video of him having an MC battle with Wiley and in my personal opinion Kano wins hands down. However, I'm not entirely convinced his lyrics are off the cuff but that doesn't take away from the fact they are still sound awesome.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
New Erasmus batch about to arrive!
So today is the Orientation of the new batch of Erasmus students in Santander, should prove to be an awesome week of parties, especially as today is St Valentine's Day and the weekend in Carnival! I might be travelling to Santoña, Cantabria, where the Carnival is pretty famous. Everybody descends en masse to this small town on the coast for a weekend of costumed-fun, drinking, socialising, music etc. Should be pretty awesome!
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Barcelona New Year's Eve
Here is the belated report of Moo Cow's recent excursion and after I shall be almost up to date with current events! Along with a few mates from my old school, the illustrious DGS, I spent a week in the capital of the Catalunya and Spain's second-biggest city, Barcelona. There were five of us in total and it turned out to be an interesting experience in several ways.
Arriving there in the fume-spewing airborne hamster cage that is a Ryanair £36 return flight, we were greeted by a smiling Sun and a surprising 18 degrees Celsius: cue jacket-removal and pleasant mutterings by all Brits present. However, Spain once again lived up to its potential as the bearer of the most weird-and-wonderful smells known (and unknown) to man. The entire week managed to demonstrate to my associates that time spent in Spain is akin to a game of olfactory Russian roulette. The spectrum of possible odours ranges from the "Wow, this restaurant smells incredible! The chef must be cooking little bits of rainbow mixed with kisses from Lindsey Lohan out there" to the more harrowing "Has there recently been an ethnic cleansing in this vicinity or is it just that the local sewer has been made redundant from his job and spent the last 6 weeks without a shower watching daytime TV and eating microwave meals?".
With 18 degrees C and clear blue skies on the 31st of December, we soon managed to forget that we had been awake since 3am and that we actually had no accommodation for the first night. It also helped us to remain light-hearted after one of our party's cards was swallowed by a cash machine almost as soon as we arrived. We left our suitcases in the station, ignored the bad omen and sallied forth into the unknown city. We spent several hours exploring the centre, targeting possible points for festivities, admiring the scenery and desperately trying to seek some available accommodation. Alas, there was none (as if that was a surprise 6 hours before New Year's Eve in one of the most highly rated cities in Europe). Prior to flying out to Barcelona, we did have the sense to book a flat for the other four nights there, so we knew we were only homeless for NYE itself.
Back in the station, we got changed into our glad rags and ventured out to meet 2 of my mates from Erasmus in Santander, each of whom had a friend over from France and the States respectively. The party that night was awesome; we did the countdown in Plaça Reial in the midst of hundreds of people and then proceeded to spend the majority of the rest of the night touring the Plaça's bars and wandering around La Rambla searching for a club until the early hours. We got the Metro back to the station where some lovely benches were awaiting our weary selves. In fact, one of my favourite moments of the week when two English ladies were chatting up my mate on the Metro and it was obvious they were cracking on to him to everyone else except the silly sod himself. So when they asked "...So where you heading off to now?", he came out with the awe-inspiringly suave reply: "I'm going to the train station to sleep!!!". Nice one, Heemy, at least you gave me a laugh!
After five hours of intermittent dozing in the station's chilly conditions and two hours waiting in a café near our flat whilst the lazy Spaniards took their time in cleaning it, we finally moved into our pad for the remainder of the week. Turns out it was an awesome little place on Caller D'Avinyo right in the heart of the Barri Gotic (the city's centre). It was better than staying in a hostel or similar as it was awesome to have a place to host pre-parties for all my Santander mates that were there. We sat down and took stock of the night before and heard that one of our mate's phones had been pick-pocketed and someone tried to take one out of another mates hand whilst he was using it!
The first visited location we headed to was, of course, the world-famous stadium of FC Barcelona, Camp Neu. We did the stadium and museum tour and realised what a shame it was that it was the winter beak of Spanish football and thus we wouldn't be able to see a game there. No trip in Barcelona would be complete without investigating the art and architecture. So cue visits to the Cathedral, Museu Picasso and Gaudí's La Sagrada Familia and Park Güell. It was mind-blowing to finally get to see some Gaudí in person, as I am a bit of a fan and have been for some time.
We also had another brilliant night out on the bar strip next to Port Olimpic which was eventful to say the least. As we left, two of my mates had their wallets lifted straight out of their pockets in the crowd, one of them being the poor sod who had his phone nicked only days earlier. The title of Europe's pickpocket capital seems to be a deserved one. We returned to England on the 5th a little older, a little more culturally informed, and more importantly a little wiser about which pocket our wallets and phone should be located in! The motto of the week was "Triumph over adversity" without a shadow of a doubt.
Arriving there in the fume-spewing airborne hamster cage that is a Ryanair £36 return flight, we were greeted by a smiling Sun and a surprising 18 degrees Celsius: cue jacket-removal and pleasant mutterings by all Brits present. However, Spain once again lived up to its potential as the bearer of the most weird-and-wonderful smells known (and unknown) to man. The entire week managed to demonstrate to my associates that time spent in Spain is akin to a game of olfactory Russian roulette. The spectrum of possible odours ranges from the "Wow, this restaurant smells incredible! The chef must be cooking little bits of rainbow mixed with kisses from Lindsey Lohan out there" to the more harrowing "Has there recently been an ethnic cleansing in this vicinity or is it just that the local sewer has been made redundant from his job and spent the last 6 weeks without a shower watching daytime TV and eating microwave meals?".
With 18 degrees C and clear blue skies on the 31st of December, we soon managed to forget that we had been awake since 3am and that we actually had no accommodation for the first night. It also helped us to remain light-hearted after one of our party's cards was swallowed by a cash machine almost as soon as we arrived. We left our suitcases in the station, ignored the bad omen and sallied forth into the unknown city. We spent several hours exploring the centre, targeting possible points for festivities, admiring the scenery and desperately trying to seek some available accommodation. Alas, there was none (as if that was a surprise 6 hours before New Year's Eve in one of the most highly rated cities in Europe). Prior to flying out to Barcelona, we did have the sense to book a flat for the other four nights there, so we knew we were only homeless for NYE itself.
Back in the station, we got changed into our glad rags and ventured out to meet 2 of my mates from Erasmus in Santander, each of whom had a friend over from France and the States respectively. The party that night was awesome; we did the countdown in Plaça Reial in the midst of hundreds of people and then proceeded to spend the majority of the rest of the night touring the Plaça's bars and wandering around La Rambla searching for a club until the early hours. We got the Metro back to the station where some lovely benches were awaiting our weary selves. In fact, one of my favourite moments of the week when two English ladies were chatting up my mate on the Metro and it was obvious they were cracking on to him to everyone else except the silly sod himself. So when they asked "...So where you heading off to now?", he came out with the awe-inspiringly suave reply: "I'm going to the train station to sleep!!!". Nice one, Heemy, at least you gave me a laugh!
After five hours of intermittent dozing in the station's chilly conditions and two hours waiting in a café near our flat whilst the lazy Spaniards took their time in cleaning it, we finally moved into our pad for the remainder of the week. Turns out it was an awesome little place on Caller D'Avinyo right in the heart of the Barri Gotic (the city's centre). It was better than staying in a hostel or similar as it was awesome to have a place to host pre-parties for all my Santander mates that were there. We sat down and took stock of the night before and heard that one of our mate's phones had been pick-pocketed and someone tried to take one out of another mates hand whilst he was using it!
The first visited location we headed to was, of course, the world-famous stadium of FC Barcelona, Camp Neu. We did the stadium and museum tour and realised what a shame it was that it was the winter beak of Spanish football and thus we wouldn't be able to see a game there. No trip in Barcelona would be complete without investigating the art and architecture. So cue visits to the Cathedral, Museu Picasso and Gaudí's La Sagrada Familia and Park Güell. It was mind-blowing to finally get to see some Gaudí in person, as I am a bit of a fan and have been for some time.
We also had another brilliant night out on the bar strip next to Port Olimpic which was eventful to say the least. As we left, two of my mates had their wallets lifted straight out of their pockets in the crowd, one of them being the poor sod who had his phone nicked only days earlier. The title of Europe's pickpocket capital seems to be a deserved one. We returned to England on the 5th a little older, a little more culturally informed, and more importantly a little wiser about which pocket our wallets and phone should be located in! The motto of the week was "Triumph over adversity" without a shadow of a doubt.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
End of Term and Christmas
So, the end of term arrived at the University of Cantabria and as such I discovered a tradition of Spanish university life. Called champanada, it involves skipping the entire last day of lectures and going to have a massive party outdoors (this outdoor partying/drinking actually has a name of its own, botellón). I think the name champanada is a play-on-words between the sound of a bell ringing and champagne, although I could be mistaken. Also I am not sure whether this tradition is the last day of every term, or just Christmas.
Anyway at 11am, I headed down to the patio-terraces that are on the hill facing the university which are the main area for UniCan's champanada. There was about 500 people there all milling around, partying and just generally getting off their face before lunch. Pretty awesome sight, really!
One funny memory that comes to mind was the fence where the boys kept running to in order to relief themselves throughout the day was next to a block of flats (although to be honest in this country, they are everywhere). The occupants were so intent on dissuading the young gentlemen from 'watering the plants', that some of them used their shower attachments to spray water out of their windows onto the offending youths below, although this attempted deterrent was in vain.
The whole event began to finish at about 7pm as students scuttled off to sober up before dinner with mummy and daddy (most students in Spain still live with their family as they stay in their home town for university). At 11 o'clock people started to hit the main bar zone until about 3am. So was a pretty intense day of celebration!
Whilst back in good ol' Blighty over Christmas, I indulged in the usual activities (i.e. pubs and clubs) in my home town, in addition to making the most of the sales at Bluewater. I didn't go too mad though, as my cash reserves were being saved for my 6 day trip on New Year's Eve for Barcelona.
Anyway at 11am, I headed down to the patio-terraces that are on the hill facing the university which are the main area for UniCan's champanada. There was about 500 people there all milling around, partying and just generally getting off their face before lunch. Pretty awesome sight, really!
One funny memory that comes to mind was the fence where the boys kept running to in order to relief themselves throughout the day was next to a block of flats (although to be honest in this country, they are everywhere). The occupants were so intent on dissuading the young gentlemen from 'watering the plants', that some of them used their shower attachments to spray water out of their windows onto the offending youths below, although this attempted deterrent was in vain.
The whole event began to finish at about 7pm as students scuttled off to sober up before dinner with mummy and daddy (most students in Spain still live with their family as they stay in their home town for university). At 11 o'clock people started to hit the main bar zone until about 3am. So was a pretty intense day of celebration!
Whilst back in good ol' Blighty over Christmas, I indulged in the usual activities (i.e. pubs and clubs) in my home town, in addition to making the most of the sales at Bluewater. I didn't go too mad though, as my cash reserves were being saved for my 6 day trip on New Year's Eve for Barcelona.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Andalucía summary... 2 months late!
I have really hit new levels of blog-related procrastination: nearly two months without an update. They have been pretty intense months, in all fairness! The end of November/beginning of December saw me and 20 of my Santander Erasmus companions venture to the other side of the country on a 9 day road trip, making the most of a week that contained two national holidays. We spent one night in Toledo, two in Granada, two in Cádiz, two in Sevilla and one in Córdoba and had an awesome time in each place.
Whilst there we visited some awesome sights, including: the old fortified city and cathedrals of Toledo; the Alhambra (a beautiful Moorish palace) and the Sierra Nevada in Granada; Flamenco dancing, the Cathedral, the Plaza de España and the Alcazar palace in Sevilla; and the Cathedral in Córdoba that is rather cheekily built inside a massive ex-mosque. There is, of course, a link to my photo album of said places in the sidebar.
We also passed by Gibraltar on the way to Tarifa, which is a town located on the "Costa del Windsurf". Suffice to say that upon trying to enter Gibraltar it transpired that, like a complete plonker, I had left my passport all the way back in Santander and was thus denied access to my own country. How I enjoyed sitting in the frontier McDonald's mindlessly stirring a McFlurry for 2 hours whilst my French mates ran around like schoolkids having the time of their life in "my country".
The people in Andalucía are a lot more accessible if you need help or feel like chatting to a stranger in comparison to Cantabria. However, the downside of this is that when you do talk to them, they have this daft accent that omits the majority of the appearances of the letter S, a sound which Spanish is not exactly shy of. The end result is that they sound like they are speaking with a dummy in or have some juvenile speech impediment. I assure you that this ceased to be amusing rather quickly.
Toledo is actually not in the region of Andalucía and is situated right in the centre of Spain. We used it as a stopping point on the first day to avoid a full 12 hours driving. It had beautiful old buildings, but was how dead the nightlife was for a Saturday night beggars belief. Granada was not particularly attractive as a town but appeared to have a lot going on. Unfortunately we were there on Sunday and Monday nights and therefore didn't really get to sample the nightlife. Cádiz was really quite pleasant in terms of architecture and general city ambience. The nightlife on the Tuesday night before the Wednesday national holiday was good, but it seemed like quite a small town and would probably get boring pretty quickly. Sevilla was far and away the best place we visited: awesome architecture, brilliant nightlife and so many fantastic sights in one area. The flamenco there can only be described accurately as mesmerising and addictive. If you ever get the chance to see it, do, as you will not be disappointed. Córdoba was scenic but pretty small and we weren't there long enough to judge it accurately in all fairness.
Whilst there we visited some awesome sights, including: the old fortified city and cathedrals of Toledo; the Alhambra (a beautiful Moorish palace) and the Sierra Nevada in Granada; Flamenco dancing, the Cathedral, the Plaza de España and the Alcazar palace in Sevilla; and the Cathedral in Córdoba that is rather cheekily built inside a massive ex-mosque. There is, of course, a link to my photo album of said places in the sidebar.
We also passed by Gibraltar on the way to Tarifa, which is a town located on the "Costa del Windsurf". Suffice to say that upon trying to enter Gibraltar it transpired that, like a complete plonker, I had left my passport all the way back in Santander and was thus denied access to my own country. How I enjoyed sitting in the frontier McDonald's mindlessly stirring a McFlurry for 2 hours whilst my French mates ran around like schoolkids having the time of their life in "my country".
The people in Andalucía are a lot more accessible if you need help or feel like chatting to a stranger in comparison to Cantabria. However, the downside of this is that when you do talk to them, they have this daft accent that omits the majority of the appearances of the letter S, a sound which Spanish is not exactly shy of. The end result is that they sound like they are speaking with a dummy in or have some juvenile speech impediment. I assure you that this ceased to be amusing rather quickly.
Toledo is actually not in the region of Andalucía and is situated right in the centre of Spain. We used it as a stopping point on the first day to avoid a full 12 hours driving. It had beautiful old buildings, but was how dead the nightlife was for a Saturday night beggars belief. Granada was not particularly attractive as a town but appeared to have a lot going on. Unfortunately we were there on Sunday and Monday nights and therefore didn't really get to sample the nightlife. Cádiz was really quite pleasant in terms of architecture and general city ambience. The nightlife on the Tuesday night before the Wednesday national holiday was good, but it seemed like quite a small town and would probably get boring pretty quickly. Sevilla was far and away the best place we visited: awesome architecture, brilliant nightlife and so many fantastic sights in one area. The flamenco there can only be described accurately as mesmerising and addictive. If you ever get the chance to see it, do, as you will not be disappointed. Córdoba was scenic but pretty small and we weren't there long enough to judge it accurately in all fairness.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
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!
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
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
Friday, September 29, 2006
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.
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.
Monday, September 25, 2006
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
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
Thursday, September 21, 2006
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
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
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
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
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
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