An important visit from India, more good news for Spanish sport, a sad affair in Duisburg and other stories.

With Sandeep and Sumit at the Escorial Monastery and Palace on Sunday

Hi again and I hope you are all doing fine. 

This last week has been great because we were blessed with the visit of our Indian friends Sandeep and Sumit.  But  before I get to that first let me start from where I left off last week and that was returning from our flying trip to Santa Pola.

If you will remember, we went there to change the curtains and bed linen which we had inherited from the Norwegian couple we bought the apartment from in 1999 and which were in dire need of a new and refreshed look.  It took nearly 2 days of hard work but the effort put in was really worth it.  Here you can see what one of the bedrooms looks like now.  In fact they are all decorated very similarly in cream with a splash of colour coming from the embroidered cushions, all from Ikea of course.

A great new look in our apartment thanks to the change in curtains and bed linen we made during our trip last week.

On Sunday we came home and on the way had lunch at a cheapo favourite in between Alicante and Albacete called El Cruce.  It’s a real roadside café with lots of lorries outside.  I learned many years ago in Spain that that is a sure sign of good and cheap food.  They offer an extensive menu of the day at 7 euros each including a very appetizing 2 course meal with wine, bread, coffee and a desert.  If you ever go that way, it’s a great place for a quick and low priced nourishing home-made meal.

A good place to stop off for a quick, tasty and low cost meal on the road between Alicante and Albacete. That's Eladio in the car in the picture.

Once again we came home to the mains water pipe burst in the middle of the garden.  This has been going on for a while now and as I write, Guillermo, our Ecuadorian gardener cum handyman is outside changing the whole pipe this time, instead of fixing it partially.  Meanwhile, of course, the water has been switched off which is rather inconvenient when it’s so hot.  Hopefully Guillermo will solve the problem permanently this time.

Monday was a down day and also a dentist day as my new crown had fallen out the day before we went to Santa Pola.  My dentist put it back in temporarily and I was to come back this week to have it put in (hopefully) permanently.  The joy of having my tooth back, albeit a false one and temporary, didn’t last long as it fell out again the next day. Let’s hope she makes a better job of it this week.  Meanwhile the feeling of a hole in your mouth and only being able to eat properly on one side is most inconvenient.

Tuesday was the longest working day of the week.  It began with the TeliaSonera Q2 results and I was happy to hear in the 8 am conference call that Yoigo had 1.8m customers at the end of June and was the company that contributed most customers to the group.  Results days are always a bit tense.  We have to write and send out both an internal and external release with the main news about Yoigo and figure out what that is of course.  After the conference call and sending out the releases I rushed in my car to the office for 2 meetings.  The whole day was a bit hot and bothered and of course in the afternoon I had another of my famous headaches.

Wednesday was the most important day of the week, the day our Indian friends, Sandeep and Sumit were coming to stay until today.  I think I wrote before that they are Olivia’s friends from her Erasmus year in 2007 at University College Falmouth in the UK.  There they formed a fast knit international group of 3 Indians (Sandeep, Sumit and Shalini), 2 Spaniards (Oli and Rafa) and 1 Japanese girl (Shino).  Eladio, my Father and I met them all when we visited Olivia in Cornwall.  We had a memorable dinner at their hall of residence, Glasny Park at Tremough (pronounced Tremo) Campus. 

The memorable  Dinner at Glasny Parc, UC Falmouth, in May 2007 from left to right: Sumit, Rafa, Shalini, me, Eladio, Shino, Sandeep and Basha

Since them we have been in touch via Facebook and I feel they are now our friends as well as Oli’s.   The girls had seen Sumit during their recent trip to India as he now lives in Mumbai working in Bollywood.  However it was to be the first time in 3 years since we had seen Sandeep, who, by the way, lives in Plymouth in the UK and works for the Twofour media group as an assistant editor.   Both boys had predicted thunder and lightning when we met again.  There were certainly great sparks of joy as we hugged and welcomed them.   It was their first time in Spain and they had arrived in Barcelona on 12^th July just in time for the World Cup Final.  From Barcelona they travelled to Granada and Seville before ending their trip with a 5 day visit to us.

Dinner on the first night of Sandeep and Sumit's visit

The days were filled having wonderful meals together where I taught Sandeep how to make Spanish tortilla (omelette) and he taught me how to make real chicken curry,  going for walks where they enjoyed using walking sticks from Eladio’s collection, chilling out by the pool and partying with the girls and their friends.

 The great chicken curry Sandeep made for 10 on Saturday

On Thursday and Friday the girls took them to Madrid to visit the city.  I think the most relevant site they visited was the Real Madrid Bernabeu stadium.  Oli told me she had read it was the most visited place in Spain after the Alhambra.  Can that be true I ask myself?  What about all the other historical sites and monuments?  They were joined by Rafa, their companion during the Erasmus year and other friends of Suzy and Oli’s including Rocío who went to India with the girls and had already met Sumit and of course both boys’ families who had hosted them so well. 

From left to right: Olivia, Sumit and Sandeep at the Real Madrid Bernabeu stadium

On Sunday I organized a family outing to El Escorial, the famous small town some 50km from the centre where Philip II built a palace in the 16^th century.  It has since become a monastery and also houses a Basilica (cathedral).  It is here where most of the Spanish Kings are buried as well as the Queens who gave birth to boys who became kings.  The visit itself is rather long and some parts are boring.  For me the most interesting part is the royal pantheon, the chamber and bed King Philip died on, the Basilicia and most definitely the amazing library.

From L-R Sandeep, Oli, Sumit and Suzy waiting to go in and visit the Escorial Palace.

Hungry after visiting the palace, we made our way to the Charolés restaurant, supposed to be the best in town.  The boys don’t eat meat or fish except for chicken so the choice on the menu was a little limited.  However they have enjoyed gazpacho and salads throughout.  The meal together was our last and had to be the best.  We have so much enjoyed their company and were all feeling a little sad yesterday knowing it was their last day.

Sumit and Sandeep and my girls at the Charolés restaurant yesterday in El Escorial.

This morning we were all up early to say goodbye as they were leaving at 8 am.  Eladio drove them to the airport and there was a flat feeling in the house when they had left.  They are Indian and we are European but all of us share a similar joy for life and sense of fun, as well as basic good family values. Hopefully we will see them again in the not too distant future. As they were leaving Sumit invited us to visit them in the Punjab and maybe we will one day.  Who knows?  Meanwhile you can see some more photos of their visit here.

This week was also the week Spain continued to excel in international sporting competitions.  Not only has Spain won Wimbledon with Nadal and the World Cup but yesterday, Alberto Contador won the Tour de France, possibly the hardest sporting feat in the world.  Spain has now won it for the last 5 years in a row, 3 of those wins coming from Alberto Contador, a modest 27 year old from the working class town of Pinto outside Madrid.  He has been much praised but also criticized for his fair play strategy.  This has been his hardest TDF which was tainted by the controversy produced when his rival Andy Schleck had a technical breakdown and he didn’t wait for him in one of the mountain stages.  He took over the coveted yellow jersey and went from being 31 seconds behind to 8 seconds ahead.   There is no rule in cycling that you have to stop for a rival in distress but there are voices for and against.  I agree with my friend and ex TDF winner, Pedro Delgado, who compared cycling to motor cycling racing and said that when a rider falls or crashes in motor cycling, no one stops to wait for him so why should they in cycling.

Alberto Contador celebrating his third Tour de France win yesterday at the Champs Elysees in Paris.  Well done Alberto, well done Spanish sport.

The Tour ended yesterday, Sunday, with a great win for Spain.  But it wasn’t the only sporting success of the day.  Fernando Alonso won the F1 German GP too and Jorge Lorenzo won the US Motor Cycling GP.  So, all in all, yesterday was a hat trick and a great day for Spanish sport.

This was happy news for Spain.  However news from Germany was all but happy.  At the weekend the famous music festival, the Love Parade, was held in Duisburg and a terrible accident occurred killing some 19 young people.  Apparently there was only one access which was a tunnel that turned into a terrible trap for the public when it produced a mass stampede in which people were trampled under-foot.  2 of the victims were Spanish Erasmus students, vivacious and fun loving Clara Zapater and Marta Costa from Tarragona.   My thoughts are with all the families who must be going through hell right now.

The Duisburg Love Parade disaster this weekend where 19 people were trampled on and died including 2 Spanish girls.

That brings me to today Monday which may well turn out to be important in our lives  as this morning we interviewed a 35 year old single Argentinian woman, Olga, to come and live with us to help with the domestic chores but also to be here for my Father, especially when we are away.  She was recommended to me by Laura and we liked her as soon as we met her.  Olga will be starting on 10^th August.  Having a home help living in may take some getting used to but I’m sure there are more advantages than disadvantages.  More about that once she is with us.

Today is certainly important for 33 year old Raúl González, the striker legend of Real Madrid who announced this morning that he is leaving the club.  He has been with RM for 16 years and is one of the most iconic and emblematic players in the history of the club and I somehow cannot imagine it without him.  Goodbye Raúl!

Raúl González, the legendary Real Madrid striker, announced leaving the club today.  He will be sorely missed.

And that more or less brings me to the end of this week’s blog post.  Before I finish, however,  I just must mention to you that my nephew Miguel, an expert in finance in general and the stock exchange has started writing a blog which you can follow here.  He works for IG Markets and is now working 3 weeks out of 4 in Montrondo.   His main job is PR actually and he spends much of his time being interviewed on financial programmes advising people about the financial market.  The blog is called “Nueva Era” or New Era and refers to his new life, working and living in Montrondo, that remote village of León where my husband’s family is from.  In his first post Miguel says he will be writing every day for the first 8 months at least.  I know I will be one of his most avid readers and if you can read Spanish I’m sure you’ll find it interesting too.

Miguel, my nephew, who has just begun to write a blog which you can follow here.

That’s it for this week.  Hope you have a great one.  Hopefully mine will go past quickly as next week I will be taking a week or so off to go to Montrondo for the annual family gathering and then on to Santa Pola with Eladio and my Father.  Our real holiday though will be in September when we go to Israel and Jordan on the 4th September for 2 weeks, the next big trip on our travelling agenda.

Cheers till next week

Masha

History in the making, the Cow Parade, Mt. Everest, Ruth Lorenzo, a make up session, Valkyrie, snow again and planning new excursions.

One of the shots of Suzy from the make over session. Isn't she beautiful?
Hello again,

Another week has passed and once again I am writing my blog to record what’s happened and how it’s been. I print each month’s posts and now have two full files holding the diary of our lives since I started writing in September 2005. I spent some time this week adding labels to the posts on all the different things I write about. They are on the right but at the very bottom. It’s now an important part of my life and one of my weekly tasks is updating it. I can imagine my grandchildren reading excerpts of it one day in the future and it being, hopefully, an important part of the annals of our family history.

History in the making in this week’s title refers not only to my blog but also to Rafa Nadal’s achievement in winning the Australian tennis championship, a first for Spain. To get to the final, only the 4th time a Spaniard had reached it, he had to play another rival from Spain, Verdasco in the semi-finals. Together they also made history by playing the longest match ever in this tournament.

Today he beat Roger Federer who has been the top seed since Rafa started in the circuit at the age of 17. Federer who had hoped to win his 14th Grand Slam today and equal Pete Sampras, could only cry at the end of the match of emotion, defeat and I suspect exhaustion.

Rafa Nadal has now won 6 Grand Slams (4 French Opens (Roland Garros), Wimbledon and now the Australian Open). The only Grand Slam missing now is Flushing Meadows, the US Open in September. If he wins this championship he will make history again and join the select group of only 6 men in the history of tennis to win all 4.

This week has been full of events. I had lunch with my dear Finnish friend Viivi on Wednesday and we went to the restaurant that is fast becoming one of my favourites, Enriich in La Moraleja.

This week brought with it the birth of a wonderful PR project which was actually killed the next day. I had some doubts but others had more, so I didn’t go ahead with it. I think the whole thing affected me quite a lot and kept me awake for a few nights. I always involve myself heart and soul in my work and this kind of thing still keep me awake.

I was in touch this week with Grainne who lives in Barcelona, well rather Badalona. We went to school together (St. Joseph’s College) and Grainne was the older sister of one of my best friends, Brenda. Grainne has been doing some translating for me and I have to say they are some of the best I have seen in all my time in Spain. Hopefully we will meet up in Barcelona when I go to the Mobile World Congress in a couple of weeks.

Amanda also enters my blog this week. I hadn’t heard from her since Christmas and was a little worried as her husband’s company went into administration very recently. So it was good to hear that, despite this set back, they are faring well and even planning a trip to Prague.

On Thursday I went to the annual Nokia press lunch to welcome the New Year and present the year end results. It was held at Oui, a new events venue which is part of the Madrid sports pavilion in Calle Goya. This was the third one I was going to and I quite looked forward to it, despite some of the bad memories this branch of the company in Spain conjures up for me. But I put on my best smile, put all those thoughts out of my mind and enjoyed greeting journalist friends and acquaintances as well as ex colleagues. I sat next to Solange, my successor who was the perfect hostess.

As I left the Nokia lunch, I made a quick foray into the Corté Inglés (Spanish number one department store) and so saw part of the Cow Parade exhibition that is dotting the Spanish capital this month and next. Seeing the cows reminded me of seeing cows in India, the difference, of course, being like night and day. I had heard about the Cow Parade and so was quite interested in taking a look at these artistic and colourful statues.
One of the cows in the Cow Parade in Madrid
This week I got an email from Mr. Lama, our guide in Nepal. He is actually called Jitendra or Jitu but we always called him Mr. Lama. He wanted to know how we were. I wrote back and thanked him for looking after us so well on our trip to the Kathmandu Valley and told him that we would love to return one day to go trekking. He immediately wrote back and suggested we trek to the Everest Base Camp!!! Actually the idea has stayed with me and I have even been looking for graphic information on Sr. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s ascent in 1953 in You Tube and have listened mesmerised to the former’s description of that historic adventure. So you never know, we may well attempt a trekking holiday there one day.

This week I also heard about a young Spanish girl, Ruth Lorenzo, who seems to be making history for Spain in the UK, except that hardly anyone in Spain has heard of her. Ruth, who has an exceptional voice, has just become a finalist of X Factor and according to the interview I heard, cannot walk 20 yards without being asked for an autograph. She became even more famous when the song she sang, Purple Rain, by Prince, was more popular on You Tube than the original version and Prince made You Tube remove it. The whole of the UK rallied to her side and she even received a letter from Gordon Brown. Funny to think that José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero still doesn’t know who she is. Ruth makes true the biblical reference, a prophet is never a prophet in his own home.
Ruth Lorenzo from Murcia Spain, finalist in X Factor
Suzy had another exam this week, “food engineering” and needed some relaxation afterwards. Copi, her childhood friend and neighbour, needed to do some make over photos for her curriculum and so she came round on Thursday evening and joined us for dinner. After dinner the make over session began. Oli joined it when she returned from RTVE late at night (she works from 15h to 22h from Mondays to Fridays on a regular basis) and Copi did a work of art on both my kids. Unfortunately I only have a photo of Suzy for this post and one of her with Copi but none of Olivia.
Copi and Suzy
On Friday Eladio and I went to see the much acclaimed Valkyrie film with Tom Cruise. I suppose there is no need to explain that it was about the famous attempt to assassinate Hitler by the young Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. There had been 14 previous attempts and this was the last. It was part of a big operation to topple the Reich and actually Valkyrie was the name of the operation designed by the Reich itself in case Hitler died. I saw the 2004 German version this week too and was quite well documented and did not really expect the American version to be much better. Also I just didn’t see Tom Cruise playing the part but I was wrong. It was superb, he was superb and the film was very well made. It’s not up for next week’s Oscars but if it was I’m sure it would garner a statue or so.

After the film we went to La Alpargatería for dinner and Oli joined us. Then, very naughtily, we went to Haagen-Dazs for our dessert.

The weekend has been cold and wet and it even snowed this morning. Thank God it was a Sunday otherwise it would have caused havoc with the traffic tomorrow. Many roads were blocked and villages cut off. It actually only lasted a few hours but was quite beautiful to witness from inside our warm house. We did, however, take our walk just as it was ending and turning into sleet. We always take our walk, come rain or shine. There is no stopping us.
It snowed today
Suzy will be off to London with Gaby not this week but next. Oli, who has very itchy feet, bought tickets to fly to Amsterdam with her friend Miad at the same time. We are also thinking about travelling again. Will it be New York, all 5 of us, will it be Yorkshire in the summer with my Father? Who knows, but meanwhile we have made use of our Parador points and have booked 4 nights at Easter in Cáceres, Guadalupe and Mérida in the Extramadura region. It’s always lovely to have something to look forward to. My Father’s eyes lit up with joy when we told him, as of course, he will be coming with us. He loves to travel with us and to get to know new parts of Spain. He also loves the Paradors and “room service” too!

And that’s about it for this week, except to send birthday greetings to Laura, my niece and Isidro and Yoli’s daughter. She will have been 26 on Thursday. Her sister, Alicia, who is also our god daughter will be 17 tomorrow. Happy birthday to you both girls.

Cheers till next week
Masha

A quiet and very hot week. Spain won the Basket Ball World Championship!

Hi again

This week has been very quiet, not much to report really. We’ve just been doing our usual things and enjoying the peace of the last week of August.

It has been the hottest summer in 45 years apparently. We had a break in the middle of August when we came back from Santa Pola but now the hot weather has returned with a vengeance. The forecast for today is 39º, just a bit too much. Thank God for the swimming pool I say. It might seem like a luxury to anyone living outside Spain, but here it is almost a necessity.

As a lot of you know, I am quite a keen sports follower (not a player which is different but a couch spectator) and yesterday it was great to see Spain beat Greece in the Basket Ball world championship final. The final was actually a bit of a walk over whereas the semi finals where much more exciting. Greece eliminated the US team quite amazingly and Spain beat Argentina, the reigning champions by one point only.

Here is part of the the family watching the final (Left to right: Gaby, Susi, José Luis and my Father).




That’s all for the moment folks!
Love Masha