Thoughts on This and That

Ok, as I write there are 9 hours of the year left but, barring any major developments in the remainder, I think I can safely say that this year hasn’t been too bad. I never make resolutions, and I didn’t set any goals or targets for 2006 so I can safely say I haven’t failed in any way, shape or form.

I guess the biggest thing to happen to me has been giving up my job with the Revenue after 5 years, it had to be done because it was driving me crazy while making me miserable, but as a university dropout with mediocre educational qualifications I will have to live with the consequences of giving up a secure, reasonably paying job with an adequate pension at some point, but I’ll try not to worry about that just yet.

I’ve managed to get a bit more foreign travel in with, the first of many, visits to Perpignan in France back in March, a superb couple of weeks in Germany during the World Cup with side trips to Poland and the Czech Republic in the summer and, of course, the six weeks I’ve recently spent in Spain and Portugal. Each trip was fantastic in it’s own way, not just for the places I’ve visited and the way I’ve experienced a bit of life in other countries, but because of some of the people I’ve met along the way and the fun we had, I won’t name names, they (should) know who they are!

As well as my foreign travels I’ve managed to see a bit more of the U.K., and think it’s sad that so many Brits don’t realise what an amazing and varied country they live in, and most foreign visitors just go to London and don’t see the bigger picture.

Nowhere and nothing can top Yorkshire though!

Although it still plays an important part in my social life life sport has long ceased dictating my emotional state, but if there has been a disappointing aspect in my life this last year, I suppose it’s come from the teams I follow. Everything at City just seems to be a mess, and when someone like me can just stop going after 21 years something is obviously wrong. Unfortunately my opinion is that the “something” goes from top to bottom at the club, and it’s only going to get worse. At least we’ve got Leeds United to laugh at.

The Bulls had a statistically reasonable season (3rd placed finish) and banked another trophy when the World Club Challenge was won last February but some decisions taken by the club and the head in sand, sycophantic attitude of a large proportion of the clubs support is leaving me feeling a bit cold. A break from it all might do me some good.

England’s under par performance in the World Cup was just as expected by those of us with brains who don’t get taken in by hype. The Great Britain Rugby League Tri-Nations failure was depressingly inevitable, and the cricketing Ashes campaign has just been embarassing.

At least Yorkshire managed to avoid relegation in the County Championship, until next year at least.

I haven’t kept up with music too much this year, my lame attempts at saving money to travel dictated that I couldn’t spend too much money on going to gigs and buying CD’s though it was great to see, and hear, Jarvis Cocker finally making a comeback with a fine album and I got to see some great live performances from the likes of British Sea Power, Ocean Colour Scene and Bad Manners just a couple of nights ago. The least said about my experience at the Guillemots gig the better, though once again I’ll pass on my thanks to Christopher “Doctor Who” Ecclestone, like he’ll be reading this anyway!

As for the rest of it well friends have been friends, family have been family and women have been women, nothing really changes there from one year to a next so there isn’t really anything else to say!

So, 2007? At the moment it looks like I’ll be heading to Australia for a bit to do the working holiday thing, I still can’t say I’m overly enthused about it so I wouldn’t take it as a definite until I am actually on the plane! Again I am not going to set any goals about things I want to do, or specifics I want to achieve, but hopefully at some point I can come up with some sort of idea of what I really want from life, don’t hold your breath waiting.

I guess I’ll finish by wishing a Happy New Year to all of you folk silly enough to spend your time reading my ramblings, please come back and if you hope for anything for 2007 I hope you get it.

Canada or Australia?

I’ve decided that Spain can wait for now, on account of the fact that it is always going to be there and, shock election win for UKIP aside, as an EU citizen I will always be able to go work and settle in the country. Therefore I should wander off and see a bit more of the world while I can.

To that end I have applied for Working Holiday Visa’s for both Canada and Australia, basically I’m going to go to which every country gives me it first. They are both valid for a year from issue for twelve months from the date of entry (if that makes sense) so, finances permitting, I can do a year in one place then head off to the other and do a year there.

Finally I have a plan, a few days back home has simply made me desperate to leave so one of you please, hurry up.

We’re 3-0 down, we’ve already lost the Ashes, so does anyone know why the hell I am sat up, listening to online radio following the Melbourne Test when nothing of any note is actually happening?

Because I don’t!

This isn’t the sort of thing I’d usually blog about, but it was sad to hear that James Brown passed away this morning.

He certainly led a chequered life to say the least, but my memory of seeing him live was of someone who really enjoyed what he was doing, and someone doing his damndest to please his public - he went on way after curfew and practically had to be dragged off the stage.

There’s a lot of crap spouted nowadays about legends in the music world, and influential artists, but the Godfather of Soul truly falls into both categories.

Right, lets wrap up this little trip. I’ve probably got an irrational hatred of Barcelona inbuilt but, after the traumas of getting my wallet stolen, I have to say I did manage to have a pretty good time there. Still, I probably won’t be hurrying back.

I met up with Suzanne again on the Tuesday morning and we planned to head to the Dali museum at Figueres, which is about 90 minutes out of town but, after checking the bus times and, eventually, finding the right train station we concluded that we didn’t really have time to do the place justice as she had a class to teach that night so we instead headed to one of the Gaudi designed houses in the city, Casa Battlo. Although I baulked a bit at the €16,50 entrance fee it was actually worth every penny - it’s much easier to savour a place when you have someone else with you and we had fun messing around with the audio guides, lounged around eating lunch on the terrace and generally wandered around the place at a gentle pace. It really is a superbly designed building, even if some of the claims made on the audio guide are a little spurious.

After that we stumbled upon an Islamic photography exhibition a couple of doors down, which was interesting enough, and got me thinking of Egypt again, before we headed over to Parc Citiduella, which was nice enough with a stunning water feature, lots of ducks and a great big mammoth, but lacks the class of the real top parks, like the Retiro or Bradford’s very own Lister Park!!

Once we had done strolling we took the metro across the city and aimed for Tibidabo, which has a church and amusement park on the top of a big hill with great views of the city. There is usually a funicular that takes you up there but it was out of service and, after a vain chase after a replacement bus, we decided to just walk it - not realising just how far uphill the place was. It was a nice walk and it was good to be out of the city for a bit of air, but we never made it to the top as, after it dawned upon us just how far away it was, we managed to walk into what was basically a lovers lane type place, only but the female “lovers” in the cars were being paid for! For some reason encounters involving prostitutes seem to feature highly whenever I travel somewhere in Europe!!

After a bit of break when Suzanne went to take care of her professional commitments (far away from the hill I should point out) we met back up to get something to eat, and ended up sat inside Maoz (a veggie type fast-food place) eating, and then just sat chatting there for two hours before tearing ourselves away from our seats to have a little wander around the old town and Gothic quarter, taking in some of Barcelona’s undeniably fine architecture before finding a nice little coffee shop where we sat down with a drink and chatted some more. Before saying our goodbyes for the evening we headed back to my hostel and played the worst game of pool ever seen, I think the first five shots were all fouls and it took about 40 minutes for us to finish, but it was a fun end to a pleasurable day, and being able to spend it with a friendly face helped me not to dwell too much on what had happened the day before and stopped me feeling sorry for myself.

The next day turned into a bit of a write-off in terms of sight-seeing. We met up again in the morning and headed for the Catalan Palau National Musica (via a bizarre shopping centre which seemed exclusively for sex shops and maternity clothing stores), which was one of the superb buildings we had seen the night before, but the tours of the building were a bit pricey so we gave it a miss. After grabbing a coffee and more chat we headed for what was basically a showroom of mosaics that you could decorate your place with if you were super-rich and we had fun in there dreaming for a bit looking at the elegant, not so elegant and downright distasteful ways you could waste a lot of cash. Later in the day we headed for the Palau Guell, another Gaudi house, only to find it closed for renovations and, with Suzanne due in a class, we just walked about chatting for a bit before heading our separate ways.

At this point I was intending to finish off my time in Barcelona by visiting an Egyptian museum, and another of Gaudi’s houses but, like the magnet I am, I happened to yet again bump into a fellow backpacker I had met elsewhere in Spain on my trip, and we ended up going for a two hour long coffee, and squeezing in a visit to a photography exhibition before she headed to Paris on an overnight train.

Before heading back to my hostel I took a walk round the christmas shopper filled streets, watched some street entertainers and bought some beer and snacks, that were duly demolished back at the hostel with the help of an Aussie couple who, strangely enough, are heading to Bradford to spend christmas with family, and Suzanne re-joined us later before we eventually went our own ways as she went home, and I crawled into bed preparing for an early departure.

While I enjoyed my couple of days, it was certainly a case of the people (or person) I was with making the place. Although I am a massive fan of some of the architecture, in particular Gaudi’s work, the city just has a vibe that I don’t really connect with, tourists (including plenty of obnoxious pissed-up Brits) are abundant and it’s about as Spanish as good customer service or a meal not containing ham. I don’t think I’ll be back in a hurry, though it was good to see some of the sights I missed on my visit in 2005.

Our banks and building societies get a lot of stick, so when they do something right I feel it onlu fair to help redress the balance - my wallet with 4 credit/debit cards from two separate banks is stolen on Monday in Barcelona and reported missing that afternoon and, by this morning all 4 replacement cards had been received back at home. When I had rung up I had been told it would be 7-10 working days for replacements to be issued and, with this being the christmas period, I was worried that would mean it would be a while before the cards were received, but it seems my fears were misplaced.

Of course the cynical part of me could suggest it’s because they want me spending money again ASAP, but I’ll give them a little benefit of the doubt!

Now they are here, and I’ve bought a replacement wallet I’m starting to realise the worst about the whole thing, it’s not the cards and money that bother me that much, it’s the little things I had in there too that can’t be replaced - my leaf from the British Sea Power gig, business cards with contact details of people I’ve met on and a couple of other little things. Still, looking on the bright side things could be a lot worse.

and I just had a curry, and it was bloody good. Now I feel like I’ve done Bradford and I can jet off somewhere else!!

Now I must sleep, I’ll get around to dealing with Barcelona when I get up!

Ok, maybe “hell” is a little strong, but when I was in Barcelona last year I just didn´t like the place, no-one can deny the beauty of some of the architecture here but, without wanting to sound pretentious, there was just a vibe about the place I didn´t like.

However, I am nothing but a fair kind of guy so I decided to give the place a second chance, most other people seem to love it so there has to be something about the city so I fly in from Madrid on Monday and what´s the first thing that happens to me? My pocket gets picked and my wallet is stolen. Welcome back Asim.

I´m not one of these paranoid travellers constantly worried about getting things stolen, and I carry all my cards and cash in my wallet though I usually keep a little cash and a credit card for emergencies hidden away in my backpack, except when I am flying in case the bag goes astray. As I was flying this, of course, meant I lost everything, bar a few loose euros I had in my pocket.

Now I knew I had my wallet on the plane, because I bought some water on there, so after discovering the wallet missing, me being a trusting type immediately presumed I must have left it on my seat when I had got it out. With that in mind I headed to the luggage enquiries desk for the airline I flew in with and explained what I thought had happened, a couple of phone calls were exchanged and, after about ten minutes, I was told the plane had been searched and a wallet had been found, the relief was immense and I was told to leave the arrivals area and go to the main airline office in the airport, and the wallet would be brought for me. This I promptly did, I waited for a while and eventually an air stewardess headed over with the recovered property, which wasn´t a wallet at all it was a folder with some kind of papers in. The relieved feeling disappeared extremely quickly.

After clarifying with someone at the desk that my wallet hadn´t been recovered it suddenly dawned on me that I was in a bit of a predicament - after weighing up my options I decided to head into the centre on the train with the few euros I had to my name and get to my hostel which I could then use as a base to sort things out. Upon getting there I was met with a semi-helpful response, I called the card companies to get my cards blocked but I was informed that I couldn´t give the hostel phone number to someone to call me and, unless I somehow came up with some cash, I couldn´t stay there that night - which was nice - and that I should contact someone to send me some money I could collect via Western Union, which was actually a better idea than the one I had of someone paying for me to fly home at the earliest opportunity, so I guess I should be thankful for that.

Enter my friends to come to the rescue. I didn´t really want to freak my mum out by telling her what had happened and having her trying to initiate a money transfer in a state of panic so, after some deliberation (I figured I have quite a few friends I could rely on in such a crisis, which is nice) I contacted Darren who, after some hassle trying to do it online, got to a Western Union office and sent me some money to tide me over, for which I will always be grateful. That wasn´t the end of that though as, in the meantime, most of the Western Union offices in Barcelona had closed for the night and I went on a bit of a dash trying to find one that was open, eventually finding one that didn´t close for another half an hour, unfortunately when that half hour had passed I was still stood in the queue and the counter was closed on me, which was nice.

Luckily, in the meantime, I had managed to meet up with Suzanne, a girl I first met a few weeks back in Madrid and who is now teaching here and she gave me some money so I could pay for my bed and get some food. At about 11 we headed to my hostel, I finally managed to check in, and we spent an hour or so having a chat and making arrangements for sightseeing the next day.

After an interrupted night of sleep I was outside a Western Union office as soon as the place opened to collect my money, and all was well with the world again. I´m not a panicker, and at no stage of the whole thing did I really lose it, but I guess that´s because I know I have friends that I can rely on and something was always going to be worked out. No doubt there are plenty out there who aren´t so lucky.

Anyway, apart from that start Barcelona hasn´t been too bad. I fly home tomorrow so I´ll give the full run-down when I get back, and have a decent curry safely encased in my stomach!

So, I´ve been back in Madrid these last few days and I´ve decided this place has to be the worlds biggest village. Since Thursday I´ve bumped into no fewer than seven different people I´ve met in hostels over the last few weeks in Spain - that has it´s advantages and disadvantages, though I guess it´s a side effect of spending such a long period of time in the same country out of season.

Mostly I have just acknowledged the person, or maybe had a quick chat but I had a pleasant suprise this afternoon when I was wandering around the Reina Sofia and bumped into Clara, a girl I spent a couple of days with in San Sebastian and Bilbao. I was at a loose end and she and her friend were first-timers in the city so we spent a pleasant afternoon strolling around the place, drinking coffee and they enjoyed/endured the benefit of my knowledge, it was a nice, relaxing way to spend an afternoon I had no other plans for, especially after last night….

If we count the four separate periods I have spent in Madrid on this trip independently I´ve now visited the place nine times over the last 18 months or so, as you´d expect I have now seen pretty much everything - although last night I saw something new, and it wasn´t particularly pleasant.

It was a typical mad Saturday night in Madrid, I´d hooked up with a bunch of people from the hostel and we´d headed out to do the Madrid “thing”, jumping from tapas bar to tapas bar eating early on, before heading to a couple of drinking bars, at about 230 we hit a so-called “discobar”, and that´s when the fun started.

A discobar is so-called because basically it´s a bar where music is played and there is a dancefloor, the particular bar we went in has windows looking out from the dancefloor on the same level of the street, we ended up by the window next to a group of three local girls who were dancing, giving a bit of a performance for the passers-by, many of whom stopped to join in, make fun of and generally just have a bit of a laugh with the girls and us from one side of the window to the other, all except one drunken/drugged-up/mentally disturbed tramp, who took things a little too far.

Having lived in Bradford, Salford and Hull I thought I´d seen it all when it came to deviant behaviour from scrotes, but this guy took things to new extremes - it started off harmlessly enough with lewd gestures in the direction of the girls, but then things took a sinister twist when he removed his trousers and stood there dancing in his lovely grey y-fronts. Before too long it became obvious that he was getting, erm, excited by what he was doing but he got a little bit too excited, the y-fronts were cast aside and, for want of a better way of explanation, the guy starting pleasuring himself while looking into the bar from the street. Which was nice and like I said, a sight I hadn´t seen in the city before despite my many visits - and it´s one I hope I don´t have to see again.

So, it´s back to Bradford in a few days and decisions will have to be made about what I am going to do come January, am I any clearer than I was six weeks ago? Not really and I´m just going to forget about it for the next few days. I´m about to head down to the Vicente Calderon for the Atletico v Getafe derby game then tomorrow it´s on to Barcelona and another little reunion, though this one planned, with a girl I met in Madrid a few weeks back. It should be fun but I doubt I´ll see anything to top last night!

Is anyone out there a full (ie paid up) member of Friends Reunited? If so would you be willing to send someone a message for me?

I checked my email today to find a message from someone I haven´t seen since I was 6 years old, a whopping 20 years ago, sure it would be nice to reply but I really don´t want to shell out €12 just to send someone a message with my email address on it, and have an account destined never to be used again, at the end of the day I am in touch with the people I want to be in touch with and I have little interest in bringing up the past.

So anyone willing to do me a favour just get in touch, I´ll owe you one!