Groningen

After two crazy months of work and travel and thus, blog inactivity, I am writing again from the Netherlands, which was the real birthplace of this blog already many years ago. In the meanwhile, we have been to Tainan in Southern Taiwan and around Chengdu, in Sichuan, China.

After more than 5 years without coming back to the Netherlands, I came for a conference in Groningen, in the North of the country.

Groningen is a nice student town with a compact and beautiful city center. Some buildings are truly gorgeous and the general feel of the city is pretty nice. Groningen can be reached from Schiphol Airport by train (just over 2h). For me, it was the first time to go that far North in spite of having lived in the country for two years.

Now, some photos to show you the city!

Back from Cuba and Mexico City

The end of the year holiday is quite over, but I am still recovering from the consequences of a long trip. This year, our trip was to Cuba (10 days) with a 5-day stopover in Ciudad de Mexico and 2 days in Los Angeles, CA. It was pretty intense and we could meet several friends along the way. In LA, I met my friends from Caltech Alejandro and Bernardo. In Mexico City, we had Xmas lunch with Jacques and Rosita, our friend Cynthia's family. And in Cuba, we could meet Seppo and Cynthia in Viñales and La Habana. In short, we visited cool places and met some good friends.

This is the itinerary in Cuba: La Habana - Viñales - Trinidad - Cienfuegos - Santa Clara

These are some random photos I just chose randomly. They were taken in La Habana, Viñales and Trinidad, respectively. More photos and stories soon! :-)

Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday, it was the third anniversary of our wedding. It is amazing already three years have flown away... it feels like I got married just yesterday!

To celebrate such an occasion, I made a reservation in the same restaurant where we celebrated our wedding banquet: Asakusa Imahan Bekkan, next to the famous Sensoji 浅草寺 in Asakusa 浅草, the heart of Tokyo's Shitamachi 下町. We had a nice sukiyaki dinner with gorgeous Japanese beef in a beautiful tatami private room!

Color changing leaves in Gunma 群馬県で紅葉

This weekend we are in Gunma-ken, watching color changing leaves and visiting several spa towns. We are visiting Ikaho onsen, Kusatsu onsen and Shima onsen and areas around them! Good food, relaxed time and beautiful scenery!

From De viaje por el mundo

Finally left Spain after Xmas

After more than 3 weeks in Spain, relaxing and doing some paperwork, I had to leave and continue doing more paperwork in CA. Now I finished all of it and I am on my way to Peru and Bolivia for my last trip before starting working in Tokyo!

This Xmas was really cold in Spain and my home town was covered in snow for many days.



It was also a good opportunity to catch up with friends after a whole year out of my country!



Just before departing for the USA, I had time to visit Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias in Valencia, with my family. It keeps on improving!! Amazing!

Back from Tunisia and Andorra

Yep, I am back in Europe and as soon as I got here, I went to Tunisia and Andorra. It has been one week in total, not too long... but enough to satisfy my craving for an arab country and snow! ;) It was quite a contrast to go from the moderately warm Tunisia to ice cold Andorra, to change medinas for stone houses, the sea and the desert for snow and mountains.

Hitting the road again

Last weekend, it was time to hit the road again and further explore the American West. Little by little, I have been visiting all the states in the West and I have almost got to the Mid-West in my exploration ;) In orange, the states I have visited, 21 now.


This time, I went to South and North Dakota and came back to Wyoming, this time to the Eastern side of that state.


These states are very rural and agriculture looks the only way of subsistence here. No big cities, huge distance and beautiful nature. That's what they have plenty to offer. I have even heard some Americans call this area of the country "fly-over country"! The real thing is it still feels like the Wild West. Look at these buildings!



In the previous photo, you could also see a nice peculiarity about the way they pack cereals and crops. They cut them and pack them in cylindrical shapes! In Spain and other countries in Europe, they are normally packed in parallelepiped shapes (long cubes...). And before collecting them, they lie in the middle of the fields. That creates irregular patterns of cylinders all over the Great Plains.


These are the panels welcoming visitors to the Dakotas:



And this is the car which become my companion in my 1150 miles trip within these states, a nice Mustang.




Hitting the road is always fun. The feeling of freedom it provides is quite unbeatable and to visit National Parks is just amazing. I was camping all the time and did not see a bed in almost 4 days! I slept in my backpacking tent at below zero (C) temperatures! (around 30F) and woke up invariably before sunrise shaking with cold. It may sound crazy but it sounds fun to me... I must be going nuts! ;) or I already went...