Zandvoort to Valencia

Netherlands!

The trip continued in Holland, or Netherlands, however you want to call it. I thought we were going to play in Amsterdam, but we didn't, the town was called Zandvoort which was 30 minutes away from Amsterdam. It was such a peaceful place! A beach town with plenty of shopping places, a couple of small casinos, and streets that ran in every direction possible, with no apparent organization. It was not a big town so getting lost was not a big problem, but you could definetly take much longer routes throught the streets if you didn't know them, as I found out, after doing some excessive walking around the place. The houses were gorgeous! The great mayority were really old, at least 50 years, and many of them were duplexes (for me those are the houses that share a wall or both walls). They had a small front but had 2 or 3 stories up. At first glance all of the houses might be kind of similar, but no, each house, with it´s little garden in front of it, was well taken care of! Every single one had different things on the porch or the garden; grass, chairs, bird feeders, flowers, fish pools, crazy sculptures, trees, etc etc.. it was really cool. Some houses had names! I saw Betsy, Anna and others I can't remember. I took pictures of lots of houses but I can't show them to you all... the story comes a little later. Anyways, Zandvoort the town was beautiful.

The golf course was awesome, I really liked it. Links style, but with more vegetation than the ones I saw in the island. The weather was crazy too! Every single day of the week was the same: clouds one hour, then hot sun the next, then big gusting winds, then cold rain, then sun again, then rain, then clouds, then wind... every single day. So of course the golf bag was full with equipment to fight EVERY single weather condition... it was heavy people. Felipe played a great 2d round and final round in some nasty weather. Very encouraging!

Tickets to Valencia!

Felipe had a commitment with one of his sponsors in Chile this week, so he went back and I decided to visit my cousin who lives in Valencia-Spain. I woke up from the hostal I was staying in Zandvoort at 5am, walked to the train station, took a train to Amsterdam, had 4 minutes to run from the platform (anden) I arrived to another, barely made it and went to Utrecht. In Utrecht I changed trains again to go to Eindhoven in a minute. Took a taxi to the Eindhoven airport and got to the counter to check in the flight 2 minutes before they closed. There was a direct flight from Eindhoven to Valencia, so it was my only chance, and I barely made it! That is one things about travelling here in Europe, you get "lost" in these samller cities (it is easy to find flights from London, or Rome, or Madrid) and you find the best/cheapest way to get top your next destination and you embark yourself in crazy little trips against time in places where you don't know the language and can't read the signs. It is crazy, scary at times, but mostly fun!! Challenges everywhere :)

So I got to Valencia and it has been awesome. First to catch up with my cousin Felipe (yes, same name as my "Boss"). He left Chile about exactly the same time I left for the US 7 years ago; and then to just chill out in the Spaniard summer. We have been in the beach... I bathe in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time, cooked a lot of barbecues, and chilled out in his balcony. His apartment is huge and it lies in a small town outside of Valencia. Spain is full of this little towns, you know, about 5 to 10,000 people. You find everything you need, but they are small and quiet for the msot part. Many of these towns conform the "community" that is called Valencia, not only the city downtown and its surroundings. Chiva, which is the town Felipe lives in, is about 25 mins away.

The other remarkable thing about Spain is the amount of holidays they have. They are the european country with the most free days in the year, and probably of the world. Many are not national holidays, but it is for some of these small towns. Each town has their own "week" of the year when they ahve their own traditional party. The week before I got here it was Chiva's turn. They let a bull loose on the streets, I bet you've seen things similar on tv. But in this case, Felipe was telling me they do something else. After the bull has gone around the town they choose one of them and tie its head to a post, hook some gasoline dripping torches on its horns and light them up! then let the bull loose!!! Animal cruelty anyone?!?? So then people escape from the flaming horned bull... these spaniards are crazy.

Talking about crazy, this week it was Bunol's turn, the town right next to Chiva. Bunol does have a worldwide famous party though, you might have seen it on the news; it is called "La Tomatina". Basically they dump 200 tons of ripe tomatoes in the town center, and at 11am they fire a cannon starting a tomato fight, with another cannon marking the end of the fight at noon. With Felipe we made the effort of trying to get there, but we messed up and couldn't get to the actual site. We made it to Bunol, and fought our way through 40,000 people in these tiny streets (Bunol might have 5,000 habitants) to almost the center of the fight, but we couldn't. Instead, someone stole my camera with the Holland and Tomatina pictures from Felipe's pocket in the pushing and shoving, AND we got soaking wet with the water people threw from the balconies. No tomatoes though. We ACTUALLY came back to Felipe's apartment and had one of his friends dump a tomato puree can on top of our heads.

We had our own Tomatina!

If you want to check out the Tomatina check their website. It is absolutely crazy http://www.latomatina.es/

I also posted a video of the "Chistorra Sausage" we cooked with Felipe in honor of my brother Cristian. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83wK1Xbbbbg

So I have no pictures this time for all of you, other than the one up here from downtown Chiva. We did buy another camera and I will try to get some pictures for the next time... of Felipe's apartment and his dog "Flojo" (Lazy), he is really sweet.

Oh yea! I turned 30 Tuesday... it is ALL going downhill now people!!

Miss you all!

M

Back In Business!

…and I am back in Europe!

I went to Chile for a little over 2 weeks and it was great. It had been a little over a year and a half since I last visited, so it was super nice to see my family and friends. Not only that but I had a surprise visitor!

Liz, it was AWESOME to have you down there :)

And then it was time to get back into the adventure! I flew from Santiago to Madrid. I had about 6 hours of layover, so I went to downtown Madrid and had some tapas and beer watching the Olympic games. Then to Copenhagen, where I had a 3 hour layover and finally heading to Stockholm in Sweden, my final destination. It was midnight and after 26 hours of travel… the hotel I planned to stay at the airport was full! But I managed to find something else which ended up being right next to the club where we played the tournament, so it worked out fine.
Felipe got there Monday night, so I had all Monday to go out and do the tourist thing. So I jumped in a bus and went to downtown Stockholm. The city is really beautiful, very similar to Helsinki. The city hall was a big brick building overseeing the main waterway of Stockholm, with a huge tower that you could climb up (picture here). I didn’t, the waiting time was too long. Instead I went to “Gamla Stan” - the old downtown. It is a relatively small island; maybe 15 blocks long and about 6 wide. All the roads are cobblestone and it is full of little alleys and passageways, which take you to all kinds of hidden shops, restaurants, coffee shops, museums and a royal palace! I was blown away with it. I stayed there for maybe 3 or 4 hours making sure I walked every main road of the island… I loved that place!! I am going to blame my choices that day to bad luck. There are more than 70 museums in Stockholm, and I found myself in front of the Alfred Nobel museum, the guy who “invented” the Nobel prize there in Gamla Stan. I chose that museum to do my culturization that day and I was VERY dissapointed. There was almost nothing in there! The only thing that actually showed Nobel prize winners was some videos, but that was it. Then I walked into this restaurant that had some catacombs. It was a 700 year old prison. Awesome place, but then again, the food was not good. Tried some goulash soup (meat and potatoes) BUT not good as I said.

After Gamla Stan I walked to Djurgarden; another island. There I saw more museums and the Skansen, a sort of zoo but with buildings from “old” Sweden, basically showing the way things used to be in the old days.

All the rest of the week it was golf tournament time, until Friday! That was my night out in town. Of course I had company, and this time I was soooo happy to see Rebecca, another of “my” girls in the golf team in Arkansas. She and her friend Jonas came for the weekend to hang out and watch the golf tournament. We went out to this club that was all in white… the floor, the walls, the bar, even the DJ’s headphones where white. Pretty cool.

The other cool thing of Sweden is the amount of different cultures that are present here. Of course you have the “classic” swedish… you know, blonde, pale, tall, light eyes, but there are so many other cultures present… imagine there are 30,000 people from Chile only!
Oh yes, we are slowly conquering the world!

…so I’m back in Europe, for quite a while… keep me posted with all of your happenings friends! I love hearing news from everybody!

In Holland (Netherlands) now, wish us luck! You can follow the results at http://www.europeantour.com/ or watch it at http://www.channelsurfing.net/

Peace!
Mo