Visiting continental Europe around New Year’s may be tough since it can get pretty cold. That’s what happened to us this year when we went to Vienna. It was cold, -3C, -5C,… every day but not extremely cold. The problem was that we wanted to visit many places so we were trying to be outside as much as possible. But being outside for more than an hour was not possible…the temptation going to a cafe to get a piece of cake was too much 
Pictures are available here.
It never rains in Lanzarote until we got there last November. We spent a few days in the island relaxing, taking surf classes, visiting this amazing island…and it rained every day. The Timanfaya park is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. It feels like you are in another planet.
Pictures are available here.
We went to Almeria for the Spanish Sailing Champ. A good sailing spot with strong winds and good weather.
In terms of food, we’d recommend a couple of places:
Pictures (a few of them) are available here.
You miss things when you don’t have them. That’s what is happening to me with Skype today. Skype is down because of a software issue and that’s causing me trouble. My New York office number gets forwarded to my Skype number. My voicemail is in Skype. I make all my international calls through Skype. Am I relying too much on Skype?
We celebrated my 30 year old birthday with friends and family in a disco. We wanted to try something a bit different.
Pictures are available here.
Claudia got some press coverage in glamorous West Lafayette, Indiana.
We had a sailing race in hometown Badalona on May 19-20 and Claudia took some picture of the event.
Pictures are available here.
Pictures of the trip to Japan April/May 2007:
We’re writting from the Park Hotel at Shiodome in Tokyo. The first thing it surprised us when we got here was the high-tech toilete in our hotel room. The toilete has a heated seat and built-in bidet. It’s interesting to see the contrast in the city. Almost every man wears a very classic black suit with white shirt but young people wear the most fashionable outfit ever. It’s a very modern city but you have beautiful parks with old shrines in the middle of it. People (mostly men) finish work very late but it looks like everyone is sleeping the morning commute. It’s a very crowded city but we’ve hardly seen babies or strollers in the streets. Nikko is an amazing place full of shrines and nature but near the JR station is quite crappy and we couldn’t find a decent place to eat. In Tokyo, however, we enjoyed several restaurants, in particular, a delicious meal at Toricho in the Roppongi area (thanks David for the tip about this fantastic place). If you go there order the “omasake” course, it is a 14 meat and vegetable yakitori.
Pictures are available here.
I got the USB Cordless dual phone and I am pretty satisfied with it so far. It allows me to make and receive regular phone and skype calls (skype in and skype out) in my office. It gets also all my contacts from skype on the phone. The only problem I have is that after spending 2 hours playing around and reading the manual, I still don’t know how to insert the plus sign (+), critical for making international calls.
Before buying this phone, I was looking at the wireless phones that connect directly to the router. An example is the Netgear SPH 101. This would be ideal for me, especially since I travel frequently. The reason why I didn’t buy it is because it doesn’t have a browser, so you cannot use it in hotspots. Usually at the hotel or at the airport, you need to create a login/password and pay before getting internet access. You cannot do it with these phones yet.
On October, we went to Valencia for a long weekend. My brother and I sailed in the Spanish Cup at El Saler. This is a nice spot on the south of Valencia. We didn’t have much wind and we had some trouble with big waves breaking on the beach. At the end of the Cup my brother was 3rd (great result) and I was 17th out of 50 boats. Lots to improve on my side But races were in the afternoon so we had time to visit Valencia: the old town, Oceanografic, and the America’s Cup area where we visited the Spanish Challenge. Valencia is a nice city. We recommend it for a weekend.
Pictures are available here.
Camprodon’s Valley is one of the most beatiful areas in the Pyrenees. We spent the weekend staying at Hotel Grevol in Llanars. We did the following tour on Saturday: VallTer 2000 (Ski resort), Setcases, Beget, Camprodon, and Llanars. On Sunday we visited Sant Joan de les Abedesses and Ripoll.
Pictures are available here.
Bulaternera (Bouleternere in French) is located in the north of Catalonia (south of France in the map), half an hour from Perpignan. We spent last weekend there with Nora, Maia, Caterina, and Angel. It’s a beautiful area. Prada, Sant Miquel de Cuixa, Vilafranca de Conflent, Tourinya… all of them are beautiful places but there is an amazing town, called Eus, placed on top of a mountain, which I highly recommend.
Pictures are available here.
…I need to write this. I think I am a very calm guy but this is unbelievable.
Before we moved back to Badalona I asked my dad to contract the DSL service in our new place since I needed it to work from home.
After two months, I still don’t have the service that I wanted. They are offering me things that afterwards they cannot deliver,…and the sad thing is that I don’t see alternatives in the market.
