...finally!

Finally... Just woke up and am going to pack the last things for my travels to Andalucía for New Years. The difference with last time is that Dani will be there too, as he unfortunately couldn't make it last year.

Christmas is 'over', no more Tivoli Christmas Market in snow covered Copenhagen, but I'm off in a few hours, even though I won't arrive in Málaga until tonight at 22.40. Have a 2,5 hour lay-over in Barcelona, but ok, I'll bring some music, and some things to read, and will just enjoy watching people, which is always fun.
Jaime and Dani will pick me up in the airport, and we'll go straight to Jaime's place at the coast, and will probably talk, laugh and drink all night... Can't wait!

So, just a few more things to pack, am actually managing to squeeze a lot down my backpack. Very surprising, since I am bringing a bunch of winter clothes. It isn't 40 degrees after all, at the moment... That will be quite a change I think, seeing all these places again, in my memory bathing in bright hot sunlight; now at Denmark temperatures...

What else can I say? I should have practiced more on the lyrics as I promised some people, but ok... in a few days I will be walking down Calle Betis once again! And this time singing...


Sevilla tiene un color especial

Sevilla tan sonriente
yo me lleno de alegría
cuando hablo con su gente
Sevilla enamora el cielo
para vestirlo de azul
y hasta el sol duerme en Triana
y la luna en Santa Cruz.

Sevilla tiene un color especial
Sevilla sigue teniendo su duende
sigue oliendo a azahar
me gusta estar con su gente.

Sevilla tan cariñosa
tan torera y tan gitana
tan morena y tan hermosa.
Sevilla enamora el río
cuando a Sanlucar se va
y a la mujer de mantilla
me gusta verla pasar.

Sevilla tú eres mi amante
misteriosa reina mora
tan flamenca y elegante.
Sevilla enamora el mundo
por su manera de ser
por su calor por su feria
Sevilla tuvo que ser.

See you again in the new year! Will try to update this while I am down there, but don't count on it... I'll be probably be way to busy enjoying myself!

It's list time!!

At the end of every year everyone starts making 'best-of-the-year' lists... and I can't resist either...
Although it's not an actual year list, it's been bouncing through my head...

Oftewel, in het kader van nutteloos bezig zijn :)

"Bands/artists I would have loved to see live, even just once..."
In no particular order... some obivous ones, some not-so-obvious...

Pulp
Frank Sinatra
The Doors
Morphine (the idiot od'ed on stage a few days before the concert I was supposed to see)
Billie Holiday
Jimi Hendrix
Bob Marley
Nirvana
Miles Davis
Prince (early period, saw him in '98, so it doesnt really count)
Afghan Whigs
Faith No More
Spain
Stone Temple Pilots
Urban Dance Squad
The Beatles
Elvis
Mad Season
Thelonious Monster
Velvet Underground
The Police
The Specials
etc etc

and...still got a chance...
Carlos Vives
Tindersticks
Leonard Cohen
U2 (again!!!)
El Gran Silencio
Cafe Quijano
Twilight Singers
Paco De Lucia
Yann Tiersen
etc etc...

I invite you...

...to a nice Gmail address...

Free, from Google: one gigabyte of storage space to play with instead of Hotmails' 2 mb...

Easy, fast, and good...

Leave a comment with your email address in it, and i'll send you the invitation to sign up. (For those who don't know: you can only get a Gmail account through the invitation of someone who has one already)

God Jul!!

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas..."

No more dreaming though!! The forecast was wrong once again! Just opened my curtains, and a loooot of snow is falling. Even the construction area looks more or less ok now... what it is with people going crazy about snow for Christmas I don't know, you might blame the Disneyworld image we have created, but that doesn't matter...
No theoretical analysis of something beautiful please! Not now...
Let's just go out and enjoy... It's soooo quiet...

Merry Christmas!!

Veeery tasty

Lomo, Pata Negra, cañas of San Miguel, chorizo, green and black olives, almonds, bread, olive oil, cordero a la Catalana, chuleta del dia, etc etc etc... and the desert: Pastel d'Almendras y naranja.... mmmmmmmmm!!

No, I'm not in Spain (yet), but had a delicious meal at El Tapeo in Copenhagen... a new tapas bar. Great evening, great food, great company, good service...
Too bad the wet snow was falling in streams, and there was a wind that would freeze your ...eeehhhh... ehhhheemm... socks right of!

Still, definitely a place where I will go again...

Enjoy your Sunday!!

Humor...

...Example of Danish humor...

Bit over a week ago I was at a typical luscious Danish Christmas Dinner, with all the typical ingredients, great...
Anyway...One guy had made a cd with only 1 track on it, Wham's 'Last Christmas'. We have been bombarded with that song every Christmas for the last 20 years, so for my generation it's as much part of it as grandmother's cookies...

At one point, after pressing 'play' a bunch of times, people started to bitch and moan: "Don't you have something else as well?!"

Answer: "Yeah, sure, just press 'shuffle'..."

Wow... some news...

Apparently people learn...finally!

"The Pentagon has admitted that the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq have increased support for al-Qaeda, made ordinary Muslims hate the US and caused a global backlash against America because of the “self-serving hypocrisy” of George W Bush’s administration over the Middle East."

What a crap day...

pfff.... noooooot a good day...

...but what a way to get back on track with this song...

I'm dancing through my room now...

Mano Negra - Mala Vida
Soleil...

Tu me estás dando mala vida
Yo pronto me voy a escapar
Gitana mía por lo menos date cuenta
Gitana mía por favor tu no me dejas ni respirar
Tu me estás dando mala vida

Cada día se la traga mi corazón
Dime tu porque te trato yo tan bien
Cuando tu me hablas como a un cabrón
Gitana mía mi corazon está sufriendo
Gitana mía por favor sufriendo malnutrición
Me estás dando m'estás dando mala vida

Cada día se la traga mi corazón
Dime tu porque te trato yo tan bien
Cuando tu me hablas como a un cabrón
Me estás dando m'estás dando Ché
mi corazón

soleil

Tu me estás dando mala vida
Yo pronto me voy a escapar
Gitana mía por lo menos date cuenta
Gitana mía por favor tu no me dejas ni respirar
Tu m'estás dando m'estás dando mala vida

Cada día se la traga mi corazón
Cada día se la traga mi corazón
Cada día se la traga mi corazón
Cada día se la traga mi corazón
Cada día se la traga mi corazón
Cada día se la traga mi corazón

Looking forward...

Today, in 2 weeks... finally!!

I'll be waking up in Benalmadena, Spain, probably with a huge hangover...
My friends Jaime and Dani, will have picked me up the evening before in the airport of Málaga, around 11 pm. So what else is there to do than sitting on the terrace of Jaime's appartment, enjoying a great dark rum with Schweppes lemon, talking about everythign and nothing, looking to the other side of the street, where I can see the hotel where I have been numerous times with my family, last time in 1988...
It's a small world isn't it...?

Anyway...more than a week in and around Sevilla, for New Years. I am not planning crazy travels, but will still try and meet as many people as possible... hopefully seeing as many old friends as possible. Some I haven't seen for more than 2,5 years... Will be weird as well...
Still, it will be very nice. Last time I just travelled like crazy, trying to see as much as possible as well, but now that I've done most of the usual tourist guiri stuff, I'm sure I can enjoy it a lot more...
Just strolling through the narrow streets of Triana or Barrio Santa Cruz... or sipping some old sherry in a bodega in Jerez...
Lovely... just away from it all, for a bit...

...Abre El Corazon...

I know I know... Have written about this/them/it before... just can't help it, you know?

But...What else than totally, utterly and completely in love, with life, with everything and everyone, can you be, when listening to this song...??

Maná - Eres mi religión
Iba caminando por las calles empapadas en olvido.
Iba por los parques con fantasmas y con ángeles caídos.
Iba sin luz, iba sin sol, iba sin un sentido, iba muriéndome,
iba volando sobre el mar con las alas rotas.

Ay, amor apareciste en mi vida y me curaste las heridas.
Ay, amor eres mi luna, eres mi sol, eres mi pan de cada día
apareciste con tu luz. No, nunca te vayas, oh, no te vayas, no
tú eres la gloria de los dos hasta la muerte.

En un mundo de ilusión yo estaba desahuciado,
yo estaba abandonado, vivía sin sentido,
pero llegaste tú.

AY, AMOR TÚ ERES MI RELIGIÓN,
tú eres luz, tú eres mi sol,
abre el corazón, abre el corazón.

Hace tanto tiempo corazón, vivía en dolor, en el olvido.
Ay, amor eres mi bendición, mi religión, eres mi sol que cura el frío,
apareciste con tu luz, no, no, no me abandones, no, nunca mi amor,
gloria de los dos, tú eres sol, tu eres mi todo toda tú eres bendición.

En un mundo de ilusión
yo estaba desahuciado,
yo estaba abandonado,
vivía sin sentido, pero llegaste tú.

Ay, amor tú eres mi religión,
tú eres luz, tú eres mi sol,
abre el corazón, abre el corazón.

Ay, amor tú eres mi bendición,
tú eres luz, tú eres mi sol,
abre el corazón, abre el corazón.

Viviré siempre a tu lado con tu luz
oh, oh, oh
moriré estando a tu lado eres gloria y bendición,
oh, oh, oh

Eres tu mi bendición, eres tú mi religión, yee
oh, oh, oh
Eres tú mi eternidad y hasta eres salvación
oh, oh, oh

no tenia nada y hoy te tengo con la gloria
con la gloria, con la gloria amor, amor, amor, amor, amor
eres tú mi bendición
eres mi luz, eres mi sol.

Have been listening to it again today, in great expectation of the arrival of their new DVD Aceso Total, which is an overview of their 2002-2003 tour. As I was one of the fortunate ones, with some of my best friends, to visit one of the concerts I naturally need to have that DVD... and yes, have ordered it... just hoping it will arrive soon!!

Will have to do for now with some live-recordings on mp3 and the concert that is in my head, being played on continuous repeat...
Viva la vida!

Learning the lingo... and a lot more

If I have learned one thing of living in 2 countries, is that the only way to totally be able to understand one another (I am on purpose not using 'integrate into society' or any crap politically correct blah blah) is to learn each others' language. Just simple understanding of his or her language gives a surprisingly deep insight in the how and why of that person and the country or region they come from.

Thought of this when I came across another great example here. We can always make fun of famous people (señor Beckham), but the point stressed here only underlines everything ever written about 'integration'.
By the way, how about all these English, Dutch ex-pats that have lived in Benidorm for more than 20 years now and still only speak pidgeon Spanish? If they do at all? Their own stores, doctors, newspapers... etc etc...

Still, learning about another country, its way of being and its way of reacting to certain issues cannot only be learnt from language, you have to live it...
Recently English newspapers (and the Spanish followed suit) went into to a hypocrite flurry of articles babbling and accusing Spain of being a racist country, because of the comments of a football coach and some shouting at a friendly game between the countries.
Apart from showing the 'importance' of football once again, and the mediacraze that is part of it, hardly anyone was able to put in a smart word. Simply, as no one basically understands each other, not the language, not the society... (and easily blames the other, which is always easier than blaming yourself). Fortunately others, that are actually living it AND speak the languages AND combine the two to understand can get a decent point across...

"Laudable though the English initiative was in bringing the racism-football slogan to Spain for the game last week, its presence raised the issue of to what extent sport should really be the focus for a cancer that eats away at society, not football.

You can debate for weeks and weeks as to whether there is monkey chanting in Spanish stadiums (I personally haven't heard a great deal in fourteen years here), and you can interview a couple of black players in La Liga to tell you that they suffer racist taunts every week - Valencia's Sissoko, for example, said this - but in the end the whole issue boils down to whether you are accusing Spain of being a racist country.

Or to put it into last week's context, a more racist country than England. By wearing the anti-racism shirts and obliging the Spanish to join in the condemnation before the game, the England players' implicit message, sparked off by Luis Aragonés' ridiculous phrase about Thierry Henry, was that they came from a land of greater moral conscience. That may well be true. It's not for me to say.

But having lived in Spain for some considerable time, I can tell you that the one thing that the Spanish most hate is being told what to do. It's part of the attraction of the country.

At an institutional level, Spain is very lax. There's a lawlessness to the place that is very attractive, in some ways. No-one really bothers about your tax returns, if you forget your seat belt nobody notices, you go to the bank to discuss a mortgage and your adviser blows smoke in your face, you put on the telly and another bull is undergoing ritualistic slaughter, you go for a drink at midnight and you find kids playing around your ankles in the bar - in short, the winds of political correctness have never blown too strongly in this country. It's changing, but these things have developed over time in England, which is both a mature democracy and a country that tends more naturally towards institutional control.

In Spain, after forty years of being told what to do by Franco, often at the point of a gun, the Spanish are more reluctant to take on things at the drop of a legislative hat, especially when the initiative does not come from them. And therein lies the problem. Spain is no more or less racist than any other similarly developed European country, it is just more lax at dealing with the problem.

Added to this, it has never declared itself officially (like England) a multi-ethnic society, probably because it isn't one, with the result that at an educational and political level, people are unaccustomed to dealing with these often complex matters."

Matters that are important more than ever. Right now some Danish Muslim organisation is going ballistic over the fact that the national tv channel showed the movie made by the recently killed Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh. This movie was the incentive for some idiot to butcher him. Many people wondered about the how and the why, and try to understand, so... let's have a look at it, and see if it makes sense somehow. And yup... they even filed a police report!!

Let's stop here... I can keep going... I just want to see a good football game, that's why I read some stuff on the webpage that prompted me to start babbling here...
Talk to you tomorrow...

I've got mail

Every time I go to the post office, I have to think of the following:
"Things could always be worse; for instance, you could be ugly and work in the Post Office."

Fortunately all I had to do was pick up a package that was sent for my birthday, only 9 days ago... and the Danish postal services claim to be the fastest in Europe...
I am still waiting for many letters actually...

Good, just opened the package, and it contains something 'to keep my soul warm'... real Salzburger Mozart Kuglen. Some of the best chocolate I know, I still remember from early childhood trips to Austria.
Thanks!! :)

Finally recovered?

Ok, a post that got a bit delayed...

But ok, I guess I can say I have recovered from my birthday party...

Already more than a week ago again! It was a lot of fun.
After running around the whole day, and with several people cooking delicious meals, from French quiches, to Spanish tortillas, to Aussie-made Chili con carne (with a looooot of chili...I threw in sooooome jalapeños), the first guests arrived around 6 pm.
By chance (??) these were actually the same that left at 6 am the next morning as well, but that is a different story. I think...

We had dinner with around 20 people, enjoying Christmas beer, Danish akvavit, various wines and generally a good mood. The various beverages achieved their purpose fairly quickly with some I have to say though...
All along I was presented with some really nice presents, really special gifts. For example, I got a lovely bottle of Colombian dark rum. A bottle I had never seen before, but apparently of fine quality. And of course, I have lovely bottle of Venezuelan rum, Cacique, again. This one is decent, quite good actually, but for me it is a strong reminder of my first two summers in Spain, when visiting friends. In other words: two years of San Fermin in Pamplona!
In general has my shelf with alcohol been increased after my birthday. I've got a nice seletion of wines again, and 5 different kinds of lovely dark rums.
All of which will not be drunk on a night of unbridled drinking (haven't had one of those for a looooooong time anyway, but ok...), but enjoying with some good friends, who appreciate the taste as well. They are too good.

Then after dinner more people came, and we had a looot of fun until early morning. As usual lots of crazy things happened, as many others undoubtedly can tell you about other years as well, but it actually was the most 'Danish' party I have ever organised...
Don't know what to think of that realisation, but I guess I am integrating well...
I suddenly saw it: we were mostly sitting around tables, drinking, talking with the ones we knew, with candles, and music and all...
And then, when the alcohol intake had reached certain levels, we finally started dancing.
With these 2 sentences I think I describe every Danish home party ever organised.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but it was weird to realise as well.

Some of the best moments however, the moments that gave me a huge grin al night, were some phonecalls and messages I received throughout the night.
From people I sometimes haven't heard from, or seen, in years... and suddenly I received the nicest, sweetest and warmest greeting I could imagine.
One guy, dear Jakobo, the hardcore fisherman from Estonia, who now lives in Madrid, called me from his mobile, for about 20 minutes. We spoke as if we had met a short while ago, but we actually haven't met since August 2000. So long ago, and still so close. It was so cool to talk to him.
I highlight this, but had more really cool calls of course... some messages, cards and mails were delayed, but they all brought a smile to my face, as it is just nice to hear from our friends, wherver they live.
From Quebec to Bangalore...
...just writing this post makes me smile again!

So, just want to say thank to everybody to make that day another great birthday... see you soon, wherever you are!