French Connection (formerly known as London Connection)

Being somewhat cultural for a change... I went to Windsor (and Windsor Castle) with my flatmate. Really nice town and cool castle!

After visiting the part open for visitors (absolutely ridiculous decoration, pheeeew... mental!!), for which we got ripped (as usual here), we walked around a bit and decided to go to the pub (The Horse & Groom) we had spotted at the beginning of the journey. There we had our "Beef and Ale pie": a classic!! It´s one of those dishes that ALWAYS seem to taste good, amazing, I mean, considering the "quality", or should we say "lack of it", of the "Cuisine Anglaise"...

Now, apparently, the place was Henry VIII´s favourite pub. HA! It´s supposed to even have a secret passage to the castle... Great atmosphere with some tradition inside and we were sitting in the best place, just infront of the cheminée... Really nice!! And it was Lynn´s first pub, since arriving in September (oh la la)... Well, she had been in a beergarden but that barely counts!
Pics below:

My mate Jaime just called. He´s partying with some English blokes he knows who happen to be Fulham fans, so finally tomorrow we´re gonna give it a shot and go to the Cup game against Stoke... On the phone they introduced me already to the newest Fulham chant: "Vincenzo oh-oh, Montella oh-oh-oh-oh, he comes from Italy, he f*cking hates Chelsea"... one to remember for tomorrow´s game. Wouldn´t be surprised if I ended up with a Montella shirt on my back, we´ll see... Vamos Fulhaaaaaaaaam!

Not written in quite a while on my Blog as I've been very, very busy translating my football magazine but finally, after a ton of e-mails complaining about my absence, well not really but a few faithful keep checking the website (thanks Magali and Kike) so here we go with a quick roundup of the event of last month, 10 events that marked my last 30, in chronological order:

10 – So there was this weekend in Germany which I can sum up in the words of my friend Pau, which is the guy who gently offered me a place to stay at:

“Marco locoooooooooooo, Menos mal que ya te has ido y nuestras vidas pueden volver a la normalidad, yo también estoy sin voz y estoy hecho polvo, vaya fin de semana!!!! La –censured- estaba buena, me alegraste la noche y sirvió para vengar la derrota del Mundial...” which means something like, “Thanks God you left and our life gets back to normality…” but in a nice way :P

It was crazy in terms of Weizen consumption, partying and… well, many other things, including an early morning karaoke, where I pretended to be able to perform an Offspring song (Self-esteem) imitating Axl Rose’s voice… Yup, that’s me!

Nacho, Pau and Jorgito, amongst others, were there from the 04-05 Dusseldorf crew... Actually the reason for travelling to Germany was "Nacho's Goodbye Party"... In the words of Borat it was "niiiiiiicccceeee... happy tiiiiime... woawoawoooooowah"

9 – Heathrow Chaos: To sum up one of the worst experiences you possibly can have at an airport before Xmas, let’s say I spent 22h at Heathrow from Dec. 21st to Dec. 22nd, and that I was THIS close to not making it home for Christmas, at all! My planes to Madrid were successively cancelled on Thursday and I was without a ticket on Thursday 1am, after our last hope to get back, a flight that would have flown out around 11pm was cancelled. Conclusion: spent the night at Heathrow, sleeping on the floor, while cueing in front of the rebooking office (as I had no ticket…), which opened at 5:30 in the morning. I wasn’t too sure about staying there the whole night but it turned out to be the saving decision because at 5:30 there were like 500 people behind us in the cue… Now, when I look back I have a grin on my face but hey, I already pictured myself having a nice Christmas time either home alone or with one of my workmates who, friendly as they are, has invited me to theirs.
I made it back to Madrid via Amsterdam in the end, as I told the lady at the rebooking office something along these lines: “I don’t care where I have to go, even if it’s Ankara or Helsinki, but just get me out of Heathrow!” And it worked. Heathrow was definitely not prepared for this and there was such a mess the BAA crue almost made me miss my flight to Amsterdam because they had no f*ckin’ clue what was going on and passengers had to stay in a tent outside the terminal, before they could proceed to the check-in area. Guess what… THEY DIDN’T CALL US UP FOR THE FREAKING AMSTERDAM FLIGHT!! When there were 55 mins. left for my plane to leave, and after asking for the 4th(!!) time, I was told I could now check-in. Obviously I had like 200 people in front of me and 20 mins to check in, which led to another BAA crue member to call up people for some flights (Geneva, Dusseldorf… AMSTERDAM…) and we had to cut the line and hustle to the gate. Thanks BAA, we’d do better in Spain!
At least I met some cool people at the cue: one Spaniard with whom I shared a few pints, another one, whose brother is a professional basketball player in Spain, and a chap who lives in Pasadena… working for the NASA!!! When he started talking about his “mission to Mars projects” I think I hit low point in my professional career, starting to think what I am doing selling mobile games and translating football magazines… in this world! Whatever…

8- From Schiphol to the “Meka de la baguette”: Schiphol is one biiiiiiiiiig airport! Crazy, the landway crosses a motorway so go figure it yourselves… As I was knackered and without having slept more than 2 hours, I walked to the wrong terminal first and then had this exchange with an arrogant KLM crue lady at the boarding gate:
Me: “When does the gate open?”
Her: “Have you actually checked your boarding pass… the information is on it!”
Me (rather confused as I had checked it before asking): “Mmmmh… I don’t think so”
Her (taking the boarding pass away from me): “Yes it does!”
…….. and it didn’t. so she gave the boarding pass back and said something along these lines: “You’ll find out in time…”. She wouldn’t tell me the gate opened at 17:30, unbelievable! I ws too tired to argue…
… arrived in Madrid (with a record 24h delay) I met my family and then went out with my “Aicecks masters” mates… first with Kike and Isra, afterwards we met the whole bunch, including Fatima, Rafolets, Jaime, Susana, Vero and Jorgito… It was nice, wild and three of us ended up having a baguette at the “Meka de la baguette”, an all time classic after wild Madrid nights. Afterwards we gentlemanly escorted one of the girls to the bus station and got home by 7:30am.

7- Christmas at home and back to the Meka: Christmas at home was quite nice, chilling and relaxing. Spent some time with the family and there’s not that many anecdotes to tell… I just got treated at home food-wise, hehe, and didn’t even go out on New Year’s eve, although, I have to admit, I had one crazy night on the 30. of December. From Serrano to Sol and back to the Meka for a calamari baguette, half a morcilla (blood sausage) baguette, some croquettes and 3 porras (typical Madrid pastry) with a coffee… at 6:30 am along with the most inconsistent phrase of the night “nah, no coke for me, coke is unhealthy…”! And you don't know why, but Pau is always around when it comes to crazy nights... hmmmm...
One good restaurant tip: La Panincota d’E. Trendy, cool decorated place with nice paninis and pizzas. It’s something different for Madrid standards.
I also watched to movies: Babel (solid movie about miscommunication and injustice in this world). I can tell it’s a good movie but it’s not like I came out of the cinema like “Woah woah woahhhh…”. My mum was quite impressed and though it was great. For me it’s just that, a good movie that deals with problems of our society in an efficient cinematographic way. Then I also watched The Illusionist with Edward Norton and Sophie Biel (who reminds me of someone but I won’t tell who… she is proper cute in the film) and it was a nice movie. Enjoyable, with some nice visual effects and a surprising ending, unless you have one of those movie-spoiling personalities by which you tend to figure out the end before the plot has even started, therefore missing out on the actual plot. I liked it. Oh, and for the naïf amongst you, who think that you should pursue your dreams and love no matter what (I would have to include myself here, I think…): Big Fish At the start I though “WTF????? What a crappy movie…” but at the end I went “Man, what a beautiful movie…” Let’s move on before I start crying… *lol*

6- Translating and more translating: … I also had the “pleasure” of translating during 5 days in a row, about 8-10 hours a day, before New Year’s and again from about Jan-05 till… yesterday! Fun times!!! It’s absolutely knackering so it looks like after two editions, this might be my last magazine. It’s just a full-time job not very compatible with an 8-10h working schedule, as I end up literally working from 9am-1am from Mo-Fr which leaves me totally worn down for the time being… Glad I’m done for this one…


5- The arrival of one crazy friend’s brother…: Nacho's brother, a really good mate from Germany, just moved to London... We didn't really know each other but we've been out a couple of times already and it tends to end up being "a bit" of a crazy eve every time, which shouldn;t actually be surprising, given that the brother is a crazy party animal, too... More on this as the year goes on... I'm sure...


4- Silver: (update: January 26th, 2007... here are the pics, ehem... no comments...)

3- Greg Oden and Fulham…: Got the chance to see one of the next two superstars to enter the NBA last Saturday: Greg Oden. (The other one is Kevin Durant) The guy is HUGE, full stop. Athletic, an amazing shot blocker and will be a superstar in the Pros a la David Robinson, with less of an offensive game I would say. He “abused” the opposite team in the first half but then again, some of the guys covering him looked like kids, so… But it was interesting to get a glance at him. I’m pretty mucho sold on him now.
And then there’s Fulham, the team I want to start supporting from now on. I’ve already studied their lineup and will attend their February game against Newcastle no matter what. Actually, Jaime (see above) and I will “test the water” during few games this season and might end up buying season tickets next one if the experience is satisfying… This obviously includes starting to follow their games, rooting for them on the road from home, buying the shirt (it’s on sale for 20 quid), getting high on new signing Montella and of course rooting for Volz, the small German fullback who is SH*T(!!!!), to leave the team!! Fulham forever… or till the summer! ;)

2- … and I’m starting to like American Football: Really intrigued by the NFL Playoffs now. High octane sport. So much tension involved at the end of games, you get really soaked into it… It helped that the team I somehow support, the Patriots won, but anyways, these guys play for their lives out there! Every play is like the end of the World or something. Hardly ever seen such an intense team sport… Thumbs up! Will try to keep following it during the Playoffs!

1- … Crazy Paris: yep, that's where I'm going this weekend... Hmmmmm... we'll see :) (update: January 22nd, 2007... Paris was really good. Always worth a trip... The weather was so-so and we just did much walking and drunk like 650 cafes au lait but it was fun... The eclaires were awesome as usual and the city remains as charming as always.