Sunny weekend in Tokyo

This weekend has been pretty intense. Weather was great and therefore, we went for barbecue to a famous park, Mizumoto-koen. Going out for BBQ when the weather is good is one of the favorite pastimes of people in Tokyo. Basically, you are giving one spot in the barbecue area and there, you bring all your stuff and eat and drink freely. Once you are done, you must clean everything and leave the place as you found it.

On Saturday night and then again on Sunday, I met some friends visiting Japan these days. We went for a walk in Harajuku in order to look for cosplayers, and then, we went to Ginza, to enjoy the upmarket shopping area and some nice traditional crafts shops.

We wrapped up the night in an izakaya in Okachimachi area. This is the whole crew: Francis, Chris, Jesus and Andres.

Davide's birthday

Last Tuesday, 9th October, was Davide's birthday. For those who do not know, Davide is my office mate Manuela's boyfriend. ;-)



I was invited to their home and enjoyed an extremely good Italian dinner!! Manuela's mother had come from Sicily and she cooked delicious Italian/Sicilian food:
1st dish: Pasta called "Spaccatella al burro"
2nd dish: "Cotolette di Pollo"
3rd dish: "Gamberoni con Salamariglio"
+ Birthday cake and nice wine to accompany the dishes

IMPRESSIVE!!



The dinner was too good and so was the evening. Next day, I couldn't have breakfast and dinner but it was well worth it!



To end, Davide, "Buon compleanno! Auguri!"

Gayle and Zack

Well, back to business! It has been a quite long time without writing! I just came back from the States... well, i arrived in Europe on Tuesday but I was kind of jetlagged and sleepind all day when I wasn't working or watching Heroes :)

The trip to the US was really nice! I liked the three cities in spite of some small problems in some places. New York was stressing and extremely busy but nice for tourism. Chicago was the most "normal" city we went to. Washington was nice but where were the restaurants and the people ;-) ? Too many offices and monuments instead of life in the city...

Without any doubt, the best thing was meeting Naochan after we were together for the last time in late March. These 12 days together were great!

Besides that, the best thing of the trip was meeting Gayle and Zack again! It had been almost one year since we last met in Strasbourg and it was so nice to meet up again and see they were doing so great! We went for dinner and beers with them on our second day in Washington, well... precisely, it wasn't in DC, but in Maryland, where they live... It was nice to talk to them after so long!





Next day, Gayle could come with us and we visited together some interesting places in DC: Arlington cemetery and Dupont Circle. Zack couldn't make it this time... coz' he was working. Gambatte!! Arlington Cemetery is the typical cemetery which can be seen in movies with all the white tombs aligned. I will put some pictures in a future post. Dupont Circle was the most lively place we were to in DC. It was nice to enjoy a real half-a-litre american smoothie in a terrace, relaxed...



Finally, we had to say bye (or see you soon!) to Gayle and get back to the hotel to pack and leave to NYC next morning.

Tomorrow I will start describing the trip from the beginning, but I wanted to thank Gayle and Zack for being so kind! It was really really nice to meet you guys after all this year!!

My time in Valencia

Today, checking the blogs I usually read, I found a nice picture of my old friends in Colegio Mayor Galileo Galilei when I started studying Telecommunication Engineering in Polytechnic University of Valencia. Thanks Pedro for your post! It reminded me of all the good times at Galileo and later at Mif's (Miguel Angel: hay que reconocer que Mif's suena mejor que Algongar's jeje). So many nice people, so many good times...

Therefore, I considered those times deserve a homage and started looking for pictures in the old folders... I would have had to remove the dust if they were real ;-) Not having looked at them for so long made me enjoy them much more! Photos are like memories, if checked many times they finally wear off, but if we don't see them for a while, they can awake the nicest feelings and memories of good past times.

So, here come the pictures as promised!

From left to right: Alvaro, Tonaka, Mifergi, Gerardet, Marcelo, Rikel y Pedro
At the 3rd floor in "our building": Teleco

From left to right: Tonaka, Gerry, Rollorod, Pedro, yo y Miguel Angel

Dinner at Mif's when Toni came from Birmingham

From left to right: Angel (part of the world-wide known Catarroja guerrilla), 2 commanders of the Catarroja Commando and 2 external allies which supplied camps when necessary ;-) This was taken at the entrance of Llampua.


From left to right: some intruder, mif, Donis, me, Marcos, Roberto (Catarroja) y Gerard. This was during a "botellon" next to the river


From left to right: Antonio, Parras, me, Aquilino, Toni and Rikel

Dinner at Algongar's (Mif wasn't in, therefore, it becomes algongar's ;-)

Aitor and me at some random party at Galileo

I tried to show photos with as many of you as possible but some people were missing in the archives... Sorry...