:: @ Choepie’s ::

So this was it… I guess it will be the start for a new way of spending my money… I had an amazing time this weekend… together with the very profesional instructors of ACUC Madrid, we went to Aguilas to do the very first Open Water Dive and it was amazing. Heading 500km to the south of Spain on fridayevening after work, had some dinner (Fried fish) on a terras with the other 9 participants and without alcohol .
Saturdaymorning at 9 o’clock we where ready to go… drove a few miles to the Dive Center, they explained how things work, we prepared the gear and off we went for a very short boatride to some rocks in the neighboorhood. The very first dive we did was only 6 meters for about 10 minutes, just to let ourselves get use to the sea and the visibility and stuff, we did exaclty the same exercices as in the swimmingpool and it made use feel at ease. A 5 minute break and we went to 10/12 meters for about 20 minutes I guess. Then a full hour break, back at the beach and with new bottles we went for a 30minute dive at 15 meters. I was already great ! The rest of the day we spend exhausted on the beach, when doing the first dive I really takes a lot of energy and that made us go to bed very soon.
Sunday dive was the best one… 45 minutes with a maximum depth of 23.5 meters, a security stop of 5 minutes between 3 and 6 meters etc… just great ! We saw 2 shipwreks, some mureens and zillions of things… It’s just too much actually… it’s like swimming in a big aquarium… definitely to be continued….

So Bladerunner is back up and running. Bladerunner is a SunBlade 100 where this website is hosted. It’s in my ‘office space’ at home, but as I had some friends over from Belgium, I need to switch it off because then it is a guestroom and the fans are just a bit too loud. Anyway, exhausted… every day of the week untill now, dive course untill half past midnight and then going out a bit with Veerle and Michel (from Belgium). It was good to have Michel and Veerle for visit, there’s only one person that I really do expect to come over before I leave this country. (no plans yet, but you never know).
Anyway, way too little sleep and it’s not good. I’m a ghost in the office today, as long as you can move around it’s not too bad, but sitting on a desk whole day is not the way forward…
This afternoon we’re heading off for Murcia, to continue the Open Water course. I’m really looking forward to it, but I hope I can get a good nightsleep . The fact that there’s no way to drink or party will help me actually.

So yesterday my first session of diving… I subscribed to a course of ACUC, one and a half hour theory and one and a half hour practice in a swimming pool for every day of this week… upcomming weekend we’ll go to Aguilles to do some seadiving…. it is actually fun ! The theory is hard because it is in Spanish and while my Spanish is not too bad, that technical vocabulary isn’t really what I use daily. The difficult part will be the one when we have a theoretical exam at the end… written. But the practise was fun… although I was completely short of breath when using the snorkel, once I put on the regulator, all was nice and fine. Later we had to take off our mask and my trouble began… apparantly I breathed out through my nose, aside the regulator and through the regulator… that shouldn’t be a problem but the automatism is that you will try to breath in through your nose as well… so the trick is to block your nose… well, I’m not sure, I don’t know if I ever blocked my nose before… at the end I succeeded in this but only when I was doing something else. While swimming around, I could get off my mask, get out the regulator and stay out of trouble at the same time. Great thing to do that diving…. the theory toke 2 hours instead of 1,5 and the practice as well.. so headed home at 1h30 in the morning. 4h30hours later I needed to get up. It will be the same schedule for the rest of the week….

After a very good night out on friday, we had to clean up the house because we had some guests upcomming week… so that was saturday, cleaning, good music, a beer, clean some more etc. so at the end we felt just like lying in the sofa for the rest of the evening.
I woke up sunday morning with a blue sky and a perfect temperature that will go up to 25 degrees at midday. Newspaper, fresh orange juice, black coffy and a fresh croissant later, the day had a brilliant start and all the odds where there to make the rest of it perfect. “Let’s go out for a ride with the motorbike”, “so where to go ?”, “Duno… hmm not to the north, there’s still some snow in the mountains so that migh be chilly”.
To Cuenca it was. It is straight between Madrid and Valencia and we could make it in 1h30.
As I do hate driving the highway with the motorbike I decided to just take the highway A2/N2 direction Zaragoza to get out of Madrid and the suburbs, up to Guadelajara and at exit 55 (which is then also 55 km from Madrid, I have to admit that this is a very good way of numbering the exists) take the N320, which will bring us directly to Cuenca.
In meantime we would test out my new motorboots, Ana’s new motortrousers and my new Tankbag, as the trip around Spain will start in 3 weeks time. 11 o’clock in the morning, fuelled up, we turned on the M30 and then to the A2… not too much trafic so the first ’speed’ test for the tankbag toke place. I didn’t strapped it to the front. Only the magnets held the bag perfect in place at 180+. Nice.
55km later the N320.. it must be one of the niciest roads I’ve ever driven… 150km, 1 lane up, 1 lane down, it starts with some civilazation, but after 25km there is almost no house to be seen. 50km further, we crossed a bridge over a dam with uncredibelly blue water ! We stopped for a smoke and some pictures and suddenly I realised that even with the low pay of the job I have, in comparison with my previous job in Belgium, this definitely was something I never will have in Belgium… driving 100km from the place I live on a spotless road, with these views around. I felt really happy living in Spain and after almost 3 years there was still a lot to discover.

We continued the road, it was such a smooth drive, I really got into my rythm and even started singing out loud in my helmet, 120~140km/h curves and without concentrating I realised it was a long time ago I had such an easy ride, a decent speed, no cars and I can’t remember ever touching the brakes unless for the 3 villages we crossed more at the end of the road. The scenary we passed was just breathtaking : in full springtime the colours where amazing and it looked like we where crossing a proper painting, green pinetrees together with darkred fields, bright red flowers, yellow flowers, green hills and lightbrown rocks, all covered by a clear blue sky. This was just wonderfull.

Entering Cuenca, it was a bit of a search to get out of the ‘newest’ part of the city and climb up the hill to the historical center, all around the Plaza Mayor, where we had a little lunch and enjoyed the sun and atmosphere. It felt like a vacation and an overwhelming feeling off disconnecting and enjoying cought me, this was like what you experience when you are already 1 week away for a holiday, while it was only a sunday trip with the bike !
We visited the houses build on the very edge of the valley from an old wood and iron bridge, just before heading to the top of the mountain to have a breathtaking view over the canyon where Cuenca was build in. At the top we just enjoyed the view without talking, there was nothing to be said, complete silence together with the panorama over the valey was just the perfect thing to do. We smoked another one, had a refreshment and talked about the fact that this will be the feeling when doing the trip around Spain. I rode back to Madrid in one go and so we slowely entered from the desolate countryside of Castilla de la Mancha into the civilised and stressed-up world of Guadelajara and later Madrid. To complete the picture we couldn’t do else but having a jarra (a clay pot of beer) at Gallego III. Just a perfect day, I’m glad I spend it with you !

Thank god it’s friday. I end a ’standby’ shift of 7 days 24/24. Although there is not much to do, the impact is not little : you cannot take a metro, ride a bike, go to the theatre, to a concert,… because of the fact we need to be able to pick up our phone all the time. In meantime we need to stay in a 30minute range from our computer to be able to login within that period. So if I’m in the center of Madrid, it will be very depenging on the hour to find a taxi and rush home the moment a call comes. But it is all over now and I’m looking forward to a great weekend !!!! Tonight we will probably meet up with Isabel and Lutz, I like those 2, Lutz got an amazing vinyl collection and Isabel is always smiling that’s good to have people like that around. If we get up on time, I’m very temted to grab the bike and go somewhere from saturday until sunday.
I have a Spanish Motor magazine at home, having an article about 25 years BMW GS. I think you need a certain age to appreciate those bikes, while everything needs to be fast, flashy and state of the art before, at a certain moment other things come into acount and for me this is where the GS jumps in. Not that I dislike my Honda VFR 800i at the moment, not at all, but I know that one day I will own a GS. Anyway in the article there where some short interviews of GS owners and one of them was a from a spanish man, I guess he must be around 45/50, lives in Madrid and owns ’some’ motorcycles. His favorit was the GS (otherwise he wouldn’t have been in the article of course) but the reason why, made me dream a bit more… he stated that the GS was the only bike that would allow him, after work on friday, jump on his bike, head for the highest peak in the Atlas mountains and be back to start a new workweek on monday. For your information : he lives in Madrid, the High Atlas are at the west side of Morroco. I won’t say it’s impossible but it must be hard. I wonder if I could do it.
Right, the issue is, the GS is a ‘relax’ heavy bike. A friend of mine rented one and he told me he didn’t had too much problems following the race bikes in the same group as they were making a trip for the weekend. That is the point. You can have 150bhp on speed, but except for some parts on the German highways or a private track there is nowhere you can use it. Even in spain, the police noticed the economical benefit of speedcontrol.
So if the hangover is not too bad, off to the coast it will be on saturday !!!! Playa, Cerveza and Sol ! There are worse things in life !

I had a busy week, not the office, that doesn’t affect me anymore, but besides that a lot of important things needed to be arranged. Buying some stuff for the roundtrip on the bike around spain, arranging tax payments for the Spanish Government etc.
Upcomming monday I’ll start a ACUC diving course ! I had 2 goals for 2005 : freefall and openwaterdiving. I did a 4000m freefall earlier this year and now the dive course. It will be in spanish and me was told a big spanish acuc manual will be delivered and a written test will follow after the course… hmmm. not sure about that. 4 sessions during the week : 1h30 theory and 1h30 practice in a swimming pool. The following weekend we’ll do seadiving in the South of Spain. Never went deeper into water than my shower, so I’m very curious about this.

Very strange weekend. On friday we met Fred en Uko and a whole group of friends for some beers in ‘La caracola’ a nice bar in Malasagna. Uko was hyper activated and together with Mat (came to visit from London) we launched ourselves in some Mojito’s lateron. So that was supposed to be hangover time on saturday, but it wasn’t that bad. Saturday very bad news came from a friend of us and it keep me and Ana in a strange mood. We tried to talk about it, but actually there wasn’t much to say. A girl commited suicide and as it was the best friend of a friend of ours, we’ve seen the girl frequently as we went out. I will remember her as a bit shy but always smiling girl, it is a great loss and zillions of questions are left unanswered. Having no trust in the futur must be hard to deal with. I’m sure she made people happy. It gave us a mixed feeling because both Ana and me lost a good friend in same conditions. Lutz ended up his DJ session on saturday with a special song for the girl. It was a very nice gesture.

Finaly, after a short nightsleep, a rush for shower and breakfast, we could do another 2 hours nap in the bus heading for the circuit. The organisation arranged police escort to our rugby pitch, so we arrived perfect on time to grab a little breakfast in the only bar we encountered between the parking and the circuit and to arrive on time for the start of the second qualification settings. Trulli lost some position, Raïkönnen (McLaren) toke pole and Alonso 3rd straight after Webber. Good position after all.
It was a hot day again and we were the whole morning facing the sun, so sunscreen was an hourly part of attention.
The race itself should have been very boring if it wasn’t for the fun on the Asturian stage, it was plain carnaval. Pleople dressed in traditional clothing, all in bleu and yellow which is a coincidence of being the regional colors of Asturia and as well of the Renauld F1 team.
Alonso toke second position in the first corner, Raïkönnen jumped away an Schumacher felt out after a 2nd flat tire, which ment a lot on the ‘asturian’ stage… That’s really all that happend.
But it was an excellent day after all.

We where there because we toke the invitation of the fanclub of Fernando Alonso, to join the organised trip to see the Formula 1. There were about 30 busses from all over Spain, all organised by this fanclub. So a lot of them stayed a the same hotel in the samve village on the Costa Brava. They had organised a night out and had rented a whole club to go out. Unfortunately the early mornings didn’t allow to have a big night out so around 2 o’clock we headed home. We needed to get up at 7 o’clock to be able to have a *horrible* breakfast and a 130km busride back to the circuit de Catalunia. Some training sessions and then the qualifications for the F1, Alonso missed the pole from Jarno Trulli (Toyota) for 0.016 seconds, but sunday morning would be the second qualifications so we still had good optimism. Even more when Michael Schumacher ended up at the middle somewhere. Just after the qualifications there was an ‘Asturian’ party on the rugby pitch (photo) near the place were the busses where parked. Very nice sidra and foot, very ’spanish’ dj session but the sun was shining and it was nice laying on the grass, smoking and drinking beer, everybody had a good time and the atmosfeer was great, everybody was ready for the race tomorrow. The disco must have been emtpy because the whole bus was asleep by the time we came to the hotel. Avoiding the embarrasing encounter of a dutch barman, we jumpted into an English bar, where they had proper Belgian beer : Leffe Blonde. Great day !

Asturian Party on a Rugby pitch

After a whole night on the but we drove a bit around the circuit area to end up near a Rugy Pitch which should be the ‘base’ for the 3 days. It was a 20minute walk to the racecircuit, and we would pass exaclty 1 bar on the way. That was indeed our first stop for a coffee this morning.
We arrived just in time to see the training sessions for the F1, qualifications for the GP2 and some Porches.
At noon we tought a halfhour busride would bring us up to the hotel, but they changed plans so it was good 1hour30 to get there… it made us aware that *not* getting the bus in the morning, was no option. It was a nightmare of a place where the hotel was… most of the people over there (we are talking about the costa Brava) don’t speak any word of spanish, all Dutch, German and Brittish…. it was horrible. You go in Spain into a bar and ask for *a caña* or a *cafe cortado* and the barkeeper gives you a look as you’re from a very strange country and mumbles that he doesn’t understand you. In fucking Spain !!! They should kick them out of their beautifull country ! It is absolutely arrogant to live in a country and expect everybody to adapt to you.

On the beach in little holland.