Castalla, Spain

Woohoo - finally got a vacation! Went down to visit Phil in Spain. He is living in Castalla, a small town about a 30 minute drive north of Alicante.....seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but actualy not too far from civilisation. Wine and good conversation is probably what i will remember most from the trip, that and being incredibly jealous of Phil living in this cool little place (had to keep reminding myself that i also enjoy my own life ;-)
The streets of Castalla (at least the old town where Phil and his family live) all look like the picture on the left, small and narrow, and countless cars try and navigate their way through, having to suddenly reverse back.

Dont really feel like i did an awful lot during the five nights i spent at Castlenel, , and that might have something to do with the wine. Within the first 5 minutes of being in Town, I had been taken to the local alcohol shop, and purchased 5 litres of wine for just over 5 euros......and it was good wine too - none of that oddbins 2 quid stuff!) Needless to say, lots of wine was consumed over the past few days, and i am not sure how long it will take to recover.

I did manage to make it up to the castle that dominates the skyline of Castalla. Really is a lovely town, and as this was my first real trip to Spain (other than a week in menorcca when I was 10 years old) it was nice to be able to go somewhere where there were not many (if any) other tourists, and to see a little bit of the old (and real) Spain.

Other highlights of the trip included Alicante, Murcia, and Elx (Elche), as well as fire poi in the main square of Castalla.

Really enjoyed the trip, and if anyone is intrested have linked to Phil's (Goatboy) Blog on the right hand menu.

Machu Picchu

OK - so after an unventful 3 weeks in Lima o far, where i have seen nothing but the football stadium, two hotels, and one restaurant, something finally happenned to get me interested again.

Just when i thought i was going to die of despair at not being able to get any time off or any free time to explore, my office actually told me to take a day off and join a trip that a few people were making, all at the companies expense. Turns out the trip was to Machu Picchu, and here are a few pics.Machu Picchu is an inkan temple about a 3 hour journey from the Peruvian City of Cuzco. Its located at the top of a mountain at about 10000 feet (not sure of exact height, but thats close enough) It was an interesting journey....

After a party the night before, and getting to bed around 01:30, I had to be up at 3:30. In a taxi at 04:00 to join the rest of the group (34 of us) and a bus to the airport for a flight to Cuzco at 06:00. Arrived Cuzco abotu 90 minutes later where we got on a minibus to some place the name of which i cant remember how to spell or promounce. At 10:30 we then got on a train that took about 90 mins to get to the town of Machu Picchu, at the bottom of the mountain. We then had lunch before we got on another bus, this time to go up to the old inkan "Citadel."

Was so glad to finally be there - was totally exhausted, but by god it was worth it as I hope the few pics in this blog entry show. It was especially bad, as, being so high, climbing around was tough, and at one stage i thought i was going to pass out from altitude sickness. But all was good. Sadly though, we only had time to spend 90 minutes at the top of the mountain, and so we didnt get to see everything, and I will certainly go back at some stage, hopefully to spend a few days there......but thats not the end of this story........

We then headed back down the mountian in the bus to catch a train at 16:20, then a bus again at 18:00 back into Cuzco where we arrived at about 20:00. So by this stage most of the group were on about 36 hours with only a couple of hours sleep (if an - one or two had no sleep the previous night) but as we drove into Cuzco, we realised that this city is much much better than Lima....so we decide to go out and get some dinner. I think we managed to find THE worst restaurant in the whole of Cuzco. The peruvian food was good, but the spaghetti and meat dishes were all left narely touched.....on the menu however, I had spotted something i had never seen on a Menu before...Roast Guinea Pig. Now, i am of the opinion that when it comes to food, you should try everything once...at lunh, I ate Alpaca for the first time (not bad, but not my taste), and I was tempted by teh guinea pig, but was really hungry and wanted to opt for a safe Pizza...but managed to persuade another of our group to go for it with the Guinea pig. I am not sure what we were expecting, maybe pieces of meat, skewer or something, but we certainly were not expecting this.......

Looking for Paddington

Well - knew i wouldnt be posting very often to this blog, but had intended to post more often than this. Typically I started it at a bad time....am now in Peru for the U17 World Championship (footie) and am living in plush Swissotel in Lima.

Now when I go on these events, i dont get to leave the hotel much, and after having been here for 4 days now, I have left this hotel exactly twice - to go to another hotel, so dont go expecting any deep meaningful insights into Lima or Peru here.

However I have been practising my espanyol quite a bit, and have had to sit in endless meetings conducted in Spanish, with me trying to work out what is going on, and surprisingly i am actually understanding quite a bit more than I thought I would.

If anyone ever wants to learn Spanish - I whileheartedly recommend buying "Spanish by Michel Thomas" as a good start to the studies - I am 8 hours through his 8 hour cd course - and feeling pretty confident about the language - and this is after a year of hating it at uni.....

Anyway, not much to say right now - just had a burning desire to write in here - going to go take a few hours rest now, as I need some sleep.

Buenos Noches!

I hate packing!!!

Maybe I should explain the graphic - I found a new website this evening - grafiticreator.net - cool little site where you can do stuff like the above, should you be so inclined.. UFAHT by the way is a little community of guys and gals that i have known for several years now - based around the word of Hattrick (if you dont know, then click the link on the right!) and the real life world of Football.

Anyway, I digress, been packing today - god do I hate it. I probably pack bags more than most people, and I never get used to it. But the only nice thing about it is usually when packing a bag its because you are going somewhere cool, and away from the office...for me I generally take the office with me, but i am going to Peru, so all is good. First thoughI am off to the UK for a family party or two, so there will be no updates on this board until I am in Peru at the earliest...

wonder how long this will last?

ok - I decided to link the blog in my email signature, so its quite possible I may have one or two people reading this at some stage. Therefore I might as well write an update of where I am and what I am doing.

As the profile says I am currently living in Frankfurt, working on preparations for next years World Cup. Although I live in Germany, I travel a lot, and in fact I am headed to Peru next week for a month to work on the U17 football tournament there. It will be my first time in South America, so quite excited about it, especially as I hope to learn a little Spanish while I am there. Learning Spanish is currently a personal project of mine, to add to the Japanese and German that I already speak. (well my German aint that good!)

Am enjoying living in Frankfurt. Its not a great tourist city, but a nice place to live for a while, and I feel lucky to have had the chance. Though unlike Japan (I lived there for 6 years) I cant see me wanting to come back to Germany any time soon. Its not a bad country at all, but it just doesnt sit right with me and I am happy in the knowledge that I only have another year here. I will make the most of it and then move on, most likely to South Africa, but thats a story for another time.

Anyway, I recently got the internet hooked up at home which i guess is why i find i have the time to write a blog, and intend to keep this blog updated at least weekly. This is more for me than for you, but if anyone does read this, then I hope you find some of it interesting.

Lets get this thing started

Well - I finally did it. I decided to start a Blog. No doubt this place will evolve over the coming weeks (months?) but having said that i like the simplicity of the current design...

Not really sure what i am gonna say here, not even sure yet that i am gonna tell anyone about this place....but hey - I probably will eventually.

I guess my idea for this place really is just a personal diary to remind myself of the shit, and cool stuff tht goes on in my life, to try and keep track of it all I guess.

Anyway, if you do happen to be reading this, then welcome to a small insight into my mind ;-)