:: @ Choepie’s ::

Thank God, these weeks are over. I’m absolutely exhausted, but that didn’t stop me going with Jon to Gema’s party last saturday and staying out untill 5h30 in the morning

This week I’ll make no plans at all… well I got every day an appointment for the rehab at 19h and might go twice or more to the gym, because the frontweight is getting problematic. I couldn’t even fit my Hugo Boss last week !  I might as well do an attempt to stop smoking this week. I kind of promised it to my father and I really should make a decent effort.

While the whole Ski and snowboard crew is allowed some rest and quiteness, I have the Lord of the Beer over, the man without limit, … yesterday he arrived from Belgium and he’s over until friday, my friend Harald. I wouldn’t feel so bad if I didn’t had to get up at 7 in the morning. That’s  unhealthy to combine with having a drink with Harald. Fortunately Toon couldn’t make it, the three of us, wouldn’t even have made it home at 7 in the morning.

After a party week in Sölden back to reality. Despite the bad forecast we actually had very good weather AND snow. The highest slopes in Sölden are about 3.300m and there’s a glacier with some beautiful slopes. But Sölden had showed great effort in bringing even the lower slopes into condition, so most of the time it wasn’t too much trouble boarding until the village at 1.300m ! Absolutely top effort !
The aprés-ski was messy as usual, with the usual ingredients : crying girls, everybody wasted, hardly a full team in the morning, missing events, huge bills, hangovers, some vomit, some arguments nobody knows the reason afterwards, but always party ! Dancing until midnight, beer, schnapps and takeaway pizza… what can I say ? It’s a great time to go snowboarding, but healthy ? Not really.
Homecoming wasn’t nice, as I had to take some bad news.
The Saturday evening was spend playing poker with some all-time friends of my village in Belgium, nice, relax and a good way of spending the evening after a day of sorrow.
I came back yesterday to find Ana sick at home, I hope she recovers fast as we have to fly to Belgium on Wednesday evening.
Unfortunately there’s no time for rest, one of my friends, Harald will show up in a couple of hours time in Madrid. So upcoming mornings will be hard as well. One day I take a real vacation and do nothing at all….

Looking out of the window at the office, I see the Ferrari dealer… at this very moment it looks like a big party is going on, I saw 100+ people entering already and I’m very tempted to join, but I will be out of tune with my jeans and black sweater as everybody is entering in tuxedos..
on a friday at noon…., some people have no respect for the working class. in 12 hours I’m on the road for a whole night drive to Austria for snowboarding. I’m really looking forward to that, it’s for years we are doing this with +/- the same crew and things traditionally run out of hand on the first day already.

As the devil is involved…. yesterda, when coming out of the office and jumping on my motorbike, I discovered that a brand new, deep scratch was on my tank… about 12 cm long and quite profound…. FUCK. If I saw someone doing that there will be blood on the street. I was so angry. It’s a typical Spanish mentality to not give a shit about somebody’s car or motorbike. This together with the knowledge that my motorbike has about the double of kilometers as the average VFR for sale in Spain, makes me wonder if it’s worth the pain of selling it. I just might running it for a couple of years more. At the end, it is a nice bike and I will never be able to sell it for more then 4000 euro’s I’m afraid.

It reminded me of the time when I swapped my red devil (an ugly Red Opel Astra 1.7d stationwagon) for a bloody red full option Jeep Cherokee 2.5td. Immediately there was a cause of worry. Nobody would consider stealing or damaging my Astra, but my Jeep has already an attempt to steal it withing the first month… The Astra was old, had 180.000km at the end I guess, but it was relyable and did the job.
It sometimes is better to by a old ugly barral that works like a charm, instead of a brand new one in order to show of. Seen the prices of petrol and speed tickets it really doesn’t pay of to have a 200bhp available.

My hart is bleeding but actions need to be taken… I’m selling “Greased Lightning” Reason is that I’m set my eye on a BMW 1150 GS Adventure. I’ve spend so many good trips with my Honda, had a great roundtrip of Spain and it never ever let me down. Honda VFR 800 is one of the best bikes I know. I’m wondering if a GS Adventure will be that reliable as both the VFR’s I’ve owned. Anyhow, live goes on and a GS will be my travelling mate for the upcomming years.

I’m leaving on snowboardvacation next week, so I just want to check how much hits it received on the online announcement I posted earlier. At the end, it’s not a very good time to sell a bike, plain winter, nobody wants to drive one over here. Madrid either is a good place, there are too much snobs over here, they don’t want an ‘maturer’ bike. And most people prefer those little scooters and such. Places like Valencia or Barcelona are much more big bike oriented. Let’s see what comes out, I’m not in a hurry at all.
VFR800 / 67000km / Givi 55L topcase / 5.750Euro

Been a long time again, but I was out of the city and didn’t really touch much electronical stuff lately. The 23rd of December I had a rented car and the plan was to go through some alternative roads to Valencia. It toke us some time to arrive in Teruel using the nice N320 from Guadelajara direction Cuenca. I’ve been in Cuenca before with the bike, so there was no need to repeat this and we headed directly to Teruel. Unfortunately snowfall made this last bit rather exciting, but in the same way slow… as this car is a rented one, I can’t trust to have snowtires on it and the road has big areas full of snow on it. It’s dark as well and it’s a mountain area. One starts to wonder how long will it take if we slip of the road and end up some meters down, until someone passes and notices what happened Neverthless we arrived safely in Teruel and despite the works on the mainsquare (Spain is a goldmine if you are in construction business) the town is very nice to visit, but a bit dull to live in, I guess.

We found a nice hostal (mentioned in the Globetrotter) and after a good diner & some copa’s, we went to bed. At the end, the day before I had a company Christmas dinner and arived around 8 o’clock in the morning home. After visiting Teruel during the morning and a stopover at another village (can’t even remember the name so ugly was it…) we went to Ana’s parents place in a village next to Valencia, were we spend the most quite Christmas in years. The food was excellent and the pace was good to slow down for some days. We had some good evenings in Valencia and did some shopping. The road back brought us to a village that supposed to be nice but completely destroyed by tourism : Peniscola. (Benidorm used to be a very beautifull village as well, look at it now) I offered the local bar only the profit of a coffee and rushed out of the area. Towards Morella, now that is a very nice place, high in the mountains, with a excellent conserved castle and a more than 2 mile city wall. Both Ana and me were very surpriced by the beauty of the citycenter and the autenticity of the buildings. I hope this name won’t appear to much on tourist folders, it will be destroyed by Dutch & German tourists asking for Heineken with Bratwurst or something similar.

New years Eve was great, we had an excellent dinner with Jon, Omar and Isabel at our place before hitting the night and move something in Lolita, a nearby club /bar where the DJ played a rather strange mix of Spanish and 80/90’s hits… a bit tricky but it wasn’t too bad after all, I’ve been to worse places in Spain. I danced the whole night and had a very good time. Next day, no hangover and my back doesn’t hurt as much as I expected… maybe that’s the cure after all… go out a bit more instead of those pills….

Tonight I will see my traumatologue (?) he has to save my snowboard vacation or he dies. Life can be very simple at times.