:: @ Choepie’s ::

Those who ever visit me in Madrid, should have their hair raised by this title… chinchon is a small little village in the South-East of Madrid, about 40 minutes ride from where I live, with a very nice central square, where time is well spend just having a drink and enjoy the quiteness.

Besides this peacefull face there’s a devilish kind of local schnapps  ‘Chinchon’ is for Spain what Obstler is for Austria, there’s a ‘normal’ version (can go up to 73% vol !) and a ’sweet’ version. The latter one is sweet as in Anis,  (see Ricard/Pastis/Ouzo/…).

I actually only had a coffee and an empanada de atun, because we were on the motorbike, escaping from the city, after Chinchon we hit the road to Aranguez, a kind of residence of the royal family, though I doubt there are ever there… there is a Royal park, which ofcourse is beautifull seeing the amount of people paying for the maintenance of it. Another terras over here, enjoying the first spring weather, we left madrid with 16 degrees and cloudy weather, but now it was about 23 and clear blue sky. Another terras in Toledo made the south Madrid trip complete, it was a lazy ride, but after all the stress Ana and me went through the last weeks, it was perfect to take it that easy. Around 200km in nice weather from one terras to another on 3 of the most beautifull places just south of Madrid, you won’t hear me complain.

Last weekend I was in Belgium… about 12 friends were waiting for me in a bar in Aalst just to have a good night out.. thought Aalst isn’t really the place to be, we managed to keep ourself busy untill the morning and it was good fun. I should do this more but I’m afraid there won’t be too much of them interested in doing these kinds of nights more than once every x months. Anyway, excellent night.

Saturday was another story, Cliff asked me to join him in DJ-ing at a party… I selected the most ‘conservative’ records I had, but no use…  nobody liked it At least Cliff had some very wrong music with him and apparentely we got them dancing after a while. Closed the party and went over to a real ball… all teenagers dressed in smoking and evening dresses, we were all drunk enough to have a good time over there untill the lights went on.

Normally this weekend was supposed to be a perfect one to take the bike and go away from Madrid for one or two days.. but it’s very cloudy and windy and it might rain and as theses weekends are rare in Spain, it’s worth postphone this to another weekend. Jon came by yesterday night and we managed to emtpy halfway the fridge beer and half a bottle vodka while talking nonsense whole evening
Next weekend Ana and me are in Milan…

Indeed that’s what it is : there’s blue sky, nice sunny weather, a bit fresh in the morning (12degrees Celcius) but very comfortable during the day up untill 25 ! At least life is great in Madrid :-)  Terrasses are smiling, the roads are inviting me for a ride on the bike… and I have ‘The only way is up”  at least digital… still looking for a vinyl version.. so if anybody has this 12″ or full album of Yazz, somewhere, please let me know… it’s the favorite song of Ana and I just want it…

Nothing more impressive happened, I turned down an invitation to go snowboarding in the Sierra Nevada… with this first sunshine I really can’t be bothered with putting my snowboard gear on and go looking up the snow.. maybe I’ll be more tempted in August when temperaturer are heading above 45degrees… but not now.. now I want to concentrate on picking up inline skating again and deep-sea diving….

March already… time goes by so fast. Ana is at the end of her thesis and that’s no day to fast, last months were hectic and extremely stressy for her. Right now her work is at the university and we’re waiting for a date for her to defend it. Maybe end of april or so… Though things are more relaxed right now, but we are a bit limited at the moment because she felt without income. Time will solve that one as well, I’m not worried about that. She should take full advantage right now of her freedom and that’s what counts at the moment, she’ll have time enough to work later.

In 2 weeks time I’m heading for Belgium for another weekend, looking forward as well. I prepared a 2 hour set to play at a party, though it’s a 40-year birthday party so the people might not like what I’ll play… I kind of made a very conservative selection… no minimal electro, a bit Depeche Mode to warm up and so, but I couldn’t resist putting some early techno in my bag as well, you never know what those people are up to after 10 beers