:: @ Choepie’s ::

Yesterday it was the x-th party in a row for Gareths’ leaving for Australia. For me it was the 2nd and it won’t be the last time… we still have 7 days or so to go… it was ok in El Capitan, actually a lot of people showed up and I chatted to about everyone.. I still didn’t smoke even not when I was a bit wasted at the end… the speed of beerdrinking rises when you are not smoking. A good thing was that I wasn’t very bothered about not smoking, it crossed my mind once in a while but it was never annoying. So 63 hours smoke free…

that’s the time on my screen that I’m smoke-free holy sh*t… first of all, it’s NOT true… I put out my last cigaret when Andy was here around 8 in the evening on monday. So it’s less, it’s about 37hours and a half… anyway it’s a start… Looking for information and some support I surfed around yesterday. Welcome in Belgium : last year a big campain was launched to get Belgium of smoking, you could subscribe and received once in a while emails with tips and tricks to continue. There was no button on the site where you could indicate that you failed and started again, so the whole number of x-thousands people stopped smoking and therefore got some VIPS doing some actions to celebrate is just plain fake. My name must be at least 3 times registrated over there and 3 times I returned smoking within the first 24 hours… Now the media campain has ended and so the website… no more support, just some very basic info… a better one then is www.stopsmokingcenter.net huge site with some good tips and a lot of information. So if you’re thinking about it, go to visit that one, it might help.
For now, fingers crossed so I stay alert. For the moment it’s actually good fun… it doesn’t skip my mind for a second, so I’m very alert to find the moment that I’m NOT thinking about cigarets, once I noticed that I’m not, I have to start over again. In january it will be forbitten to smoke in bars in Madrid. As a smoker, I always thought over it as a good idea. Oh and to rest assured : I support all smokers : I will never turn into an anti-smoker. I didn’t smoke for 3 years and all who wanted to smoke in my house was free to do so. I don’t mind at all, if you’re happy I’m happy. The most hatefull behaviour is that of ex-smokers turning into real anti-tabacco. I guess those people are just waiting to hate something. Let me tell you something : go out and wait for 15 minutes for a bus on Plz. Castilla in Madrid and then tell me what smoke is. Have a nice one, all of you. (btw, I’m not in a bad mood for not smoking, rather more crazy).

Went diving this weekend Fully equiped, spend all my money on decent dive gear, we left 1 day in advance (had to take a day of for this weekend, but happily spend. I joined Natxo and Isabel towards his mothers house near Cartagena for some dives in Cabo de Palos, said as one of the best diving places in Spain. Off we went for a 4 hours drive, very good reception by everyone there, so mentally preparing for a good dive on saturdaymorning. Saturday 7h30 for once not angry at my alarm, quick wakeup shower, breakfast was planned next to the diving center.
So having a croissant and some coffees before checking in the divecenter… very friendly reception there as well, nothing could go wrong. Getting myself a tank, registering, changing and loading the boat together with Natxo and 2 other divers (3 star instructors…)
Besides that I forgot to inflate my jacket, I entered the water with all my new gear and was very surpriced about the isolation of my suit. Mask OK, torch still there, knife still there… let’s go ! … wait a bit : can’t see too much and the waves are pulling me from one site to the other… the other 3 divers were looking for some place to go, but due to some wind and currents and a very bad visibility with the rocks very close by… nothing to do there… so after 7 minutes at 3 - 3.8m the dive was canceled… SHIT ! Well, I was still quite happy that all my gear was OK, but this could have been a lot more fun. Sunday was even worse… the wind was stronger and no divers out there… our gear was dry in meantime so we silently packed and back to madrid.
3 days and a 1000km drive for a 7 minutes dive … bad result.
So today I’m desperately looking to book a flight to Tenerife now …

If there exists a website listing the WORST functioning WEBSITE EVER, please vote for the one of : EL CORTE INGLES…. you should take an insurance against insanity and braking your computer before entering that website… I’ll spare you the details, but even if (with lots of patience and good mood) you manage to book or select what you want to buy (as I did for a flight to Italy 4 moths ago as well for a gift from a wedding list somewhat later) , you think all is OK, (at the end you use the internet because of the ease and because you don’t want to lose time going to the shop itself)… no, sir ! For the Italy flight I received an email at 7 o’ clock in the morning, that I had 24 hours to recuperate my tickets… so that ment I had to go the very same day. Queued for > 1hour to discover that they can’t use the correct credit card details of my registration booking to actually get the money as well. I couldn’t pay with my card either and the nearest cash machine was 20minutes away. I lost more than 5 hours from the time I connected to book my flight with el Corte Ingles untill the moment I got my tickets in my hand, for the wedding gift, we gave up after 2 hours and called them… it toke as well almost an hour to get that done… , I won’t go into the details for a flight for Tenerife… Viva el corte ingles !!!!

That’s actually the biggest issue in whole Spain : everybody is complaining about everything, but nobody gives a shit about delivering quality… they are very rare the people giving actually a good friendly service in a shop or (Even worse… ) a public service… No wonder that spain has one of the highest rate in depressions, valium/alcohol/drugs consumption and mental illness…
It does compensate with the people you meet in private, spaniards do enjoy life more than most of the other europeans.

More than a week since my last post…. unforgiveble ! Ok what happened… As I’m working home about 80% of the time, I’m spending more hours on my computer than I like to, therefore I prefer doing complete other things when I stop. Got a call from Saskia yesterdayevening, just at the time I was about to iron, so that has been postphoned to today. I couldn’t name the month when I last heared of her so we spend about an hour on international rate (sorry Sas) to give a quick quick overview on things going on. She’s a nice and rather active girl. I should make a plan to go to visit her instead of leaving it in the middle al the time.
Last friday I fancied Thai food and wanted to try out a restaurant of which all said that it was the best in Madrid. So calling up some people but it’s hard to do that the last minute, because people tend to have already made plans, but we managed to be with 6, food was great, service chaotic, even for Spanish norms this wasn’t normal, though friendly. After that a couple of beers in La taverna del norte, a bar owned by the sister of a friend of ours. A good bar we don’t frequent enough. There the plan was made to do a pubcrawl on saturday, it was the last night that Gareth and Jon could go out together so we made a deal to start of at the very end of c/ Palma, and crawl our way down towards the metrostation Tribunal while having a beer in every bar we encounter. Started at 8h30 and we managed to be halfway the street at around 3 o’clock… but a good night though and a few new interesting bars on our list.
Sunday I spend with Jon wandering around Madrid, and monday there was the ‘Popquiz’ in Moors, where -in addition to a good quiz- the plan was made to join the mongol rally with 10 mini’s !!!! (more on that later).
In meantime my glasses broke, my bikeboots are unrepairable and I had a bigger bill then I expected for getting my dive gear checked. But now all the divegear is ready to go and that’s where I’m off to friday, saturday and sunday : Las Islas Hormigas. It’s in a natural reserve where not every diver is allowed to go, but because of my pretty face (or is it my acuc licence?) I can. I’m joining Natxo and Isabel, both experienced divers. Hopefully this matches ok, at the end you never know if you only met 1 time before.
More on this on my return !