This blog is to share with you some of my enjoyable times of my life. I talk about things I love to do and adventures I have gone through. I take the liberty to recommend places, activities and food that in my opinion are worth to try.
This is just a tool to help you to make your own decisions when you are ready to go to those places (obviously from my own point of view).
Spanish version: http://igotita-disfrutandodelavida.blogspot.com/
As I mentioned, the Scrabble Tourney in Leon was full with great moments (and not only at the tourney itself). :D
My club, Scrabble Girona, had a lot of reasons why to celebrate: Patxi winner of the classic but also the duplicate modes. Ivette got the third place and Susanna got the first place of the C group. That´s how we celebrate it! :D
After the tourney Juan Carlos Ayala took us to eat a delicious stew from Leon! I hardly recommend it, it´s at the restaurant Sorrento. Being there, Santi told us the story of the spaceship that Spain sent to the moon:
After our route at the “Barrio Húmedo” in León, where we went to the bars: La Jouja, La Trébede, Hotel París, El Flechazo, El Tizón, and la Taberna la Ribera, we went back home to rest a bit before midnight. ;P
The dinner, as the rest of foods we have done at the flat, were absolutely great and that was simple due each one did what knows was our best dish. Actually, that´s why from next week and on and will also include some of those recipes in this blog. The menu of New Year´s Eve dinner was: shrimps with champagne done by Gloria, salmon rolls and salmon with onions and capers done by Curro, Parma ham brought by Topo, turkey and rice done by me. Pochola had done a tiramisu as desert, but we were so full, with no place even for whispering! So, we left it for breakfast.
We spent the night reminding and singing, enjoying the night. We stop for a while for going to the living room to take the grapes, hear the bells on tv and to give the hugs. After that we continue enjoying the dinner.
Here some images to remember:
After the dinner we went to the living room again to watch the videos of that afternoon and then… I had my first Scrabble game of the year with David! ;P He won, but I didn´t let that fact to influence me! :D
My Scrabble Club, the Scrabble Girona, organized a New Year´s Eve party in León, as far as we had gone for the tourney, that took place on Jan 2nd. and 3rd., renting a flat for 10 people.
Curro and I went in a car with Topo on Dec. 30th. at night. Montse, Patxi, Ma. Paz Yillera (Pochola from now on) and Gloria were already there. The ride was ok, nothing special to talk about, but a flash that shocked Topo for the rest of the night. We had a bit of troubles finding a parking place to left the car, but finally all ok.
Immediately after arriving, we had to go to the supermarket. It´s amazing how cheap is to buy out of Madrid! :P After finishing at the supermarket and to make honor to the originality of our group, the guys went home to prepare the diner while the girls went to have a drink in a bar close to home. What a nice pasta Patxi made!
You won´t believe it, but that night we didn´t play Scrabble… but Rummycub and Scenne it!. My team (Montse, Curro and I) won 2 times to the rival team (Gloria, Pochola and Topocholo). We went early to bed… at 3.00 a.m.! :D
On 31st. we woke up when each one wanted, we had pantumaca for breakfast and coffee. David and Susanna arrived that morning, at 6.00 a.m., they traveled in a night train.
With just 1 bathroom at the flat, it was really amazing to release that in the whole adventure we didn´t have troubles with the turns at the shower or similar, we just had a line at the mornings, but all the rest was like if we would be less at the flat.
Juan Carlos Ayala invited us to drink something at the city center of León, at the Barrio Húmedo to be precise (the translation would be something alike “the Damp Block”) (yes, I know, the name sounds like a joke, but believe me, that´s the real name) :) Believe me, it was marvelous to find places where you can have a wine and a bar snack for 1 euro, you see, with 5 euros you already had eat and drink enough as for being “happy”. Of course the group enjoyed the afternoon quite well, here some images:
On September 23rd. 2008 Claudia Amaral offered a reception to the Spanish Scrabble team at her home.
Claudia Amaral is a great Scrabble Player that was the Scrabble World Champion in 2004, something that just few females have done.
The reception was so nice. She offered us with delicious canapes. Some people were playing Scrabble (of course!!), some talking and even some singing and playing guitar. Remarkable: Carlos Puente playing guitar and Antonio Alvarez singing.
If we take into account that Colombians are known as the “party kings” and combine that with a young team of Argentineans lovers of new technologies, we could start to get the picture about how good organized was the whole Championship.
People of redeletras.com, the official web for playing Spanish Scrabble online, had been responsible of the technical organization, including, of course, retransmissions. FISE´s staff made the organization of the Championship and the different tourneys, meaning while the tourneys where played, but the Colombian Scrabble organization made, as good hosts, a great job during the time we weren´t playing.
The Scrabble Colombia team had take care of every single detail, from sending us mails the days before asking us if we prefer them to arrange taxis to wait us at the airport, made a welcome letter including prevention indications and how to behave at the city in case we go around alone, prepared a quite complete activities program for the different days the tourney lasted, most of the activities ended with party! (When they weren´t the organizators of the party, Rede´s people did!) :D and even they had done a very happy song talking about a couple that found love playing Scrabble! :D
So, every night some of us were at the different parties, some others playing Scrabble at the lobby. Yes, we just can´t get enough! And it´s not usual to have the bests of the world at the same place! So! We finished the championship inebriated of Scrabble and party! :D
With no doubts, the best party was the Chiva Rumbera one. First of all, I should explain what is a “chiva rumbera”. The chiva is a kind of bus, but with some differences from the normal ones we all know. First of all, instead of having 2 lines of sits per row, it´s just 1 line, going from one wall to the other, so, every line has it´s own door. There are no windows at the sides. Some of them have no some of the sits in order to give space to a musicians group. This all make them perfect for having party inside! And that´s exactly the goal! :D When you go into a Chiva Rumbera, it means you´ll have a party at the bus (could be with a real life musicians group, could be with cd´s) while you are giving a ride. The ride includes drinks that usually are rum. Depending on the place, you´ll go to some places or others, but the point is to have a city seeing night tour that includes a visit to a viewpoint where the Chiva stops, usually several at the same time, to make a big party, but this is just one of the stops, not the end… the end usually is at the most fashion discos street. Wherever you go with the Chiva, everybody will now a Chiva is coming due the big noise of the music inside of it… so, usually people will stop a bit for greeting the Chivas. Usually different Chivas met at the streets and it becomes into a fight for being the faster and the one with people having more fun.
In our case, we had 2 Chivas that took us from the hotel and made a tour going first to the party zone of the city, then to the La Calera overview, where we stopped for a while and then we went back to the hotel.
You see, in situations like this one is quite interesting to watch out how the different cultures behave. Since the beginning, all the people from Latin America were laughing, dancing, singing and drinking. The Spanish ones were a bit serious at the beginning, like watching what was going on… even some kept on sited big part of the way to the overview point. .. one liter of Rum latter… hehehehe! Spanish team was unrecognizable! Even Juan Carlos Ayala, that usually is so quiet and serious, was dancing! I was at his side and once he told me “Ho! In this country everybody dance! Even me, that haven´t dance in my whole life… and look at me! Now even I am dancing!”
When we were going back to the hotel, most of the people started to relax a bit, knowing the party will be over soon… but the Spanish team at this point was at the middle of the fun and went out of the Chiva, in front of the hotel, cheering: “we all want more, we all want more… we all want more, much more and much more!” :P But I´m afraid it was so late and all the people were concerned about the matches to play the day after.
The party, in all the versions (dancing or playing Scrabble) ;) had been all the nights of the championship. Topo and I had the flight for coming back home the morning after the last day of the tourney. Again the way back meant to go first from Bogota to Miami, where we stayed some hours (not enough for going out to watch a bit, but enough for doing some shopping at the airport stores and for eat something while playing a Scrabble). Then, from Miami to Madrid… and for Topo some more hours till finally arrive in Barcelona. Before leaving Bogota, Topo had been playing Scrabble… in my case, I had been dancing and dancing and dancing! We were 8 the ones that had been dancing till 5.00 in the morning, I´m afraid I had to leff then, the taxi for going to the airport would be waiting us at the door of the hotel at 5.30 and I haven´t finished to put all inside my bag already! But I even took a shower before leaving the hotel! Yeap, I had been dancing the whole night without sleeping after finishing the championship and went to the airport quite tired… but… we´ll have a lot of hours at the plane to sleep!
During the dinner different artists had been singing and playing Tibetan instruments, wearing as well typical cloth.
When we were finishing our dinner, someone of the staff was with a lot of white neckerchiefs and started to distribute them to the clients.
So, everybody should give (as far as we want), neckerchiefs to people, no matter if you knew them or not, wishing them good luck, with a special music played for that. In one of the tables were several Lama´s Monks and they were the ones that started, after the musicians went to sing specially for them. So, it became in some kind of “wishing good luck dance” with all the people at the restaurant. After exchanging the neckerchiefs, the leader of the group invited all of us to continue dancing, so, we all, including the monks, made a big circle taking the hand of people situated at both sides and started to jump-run-“dance”. I should say it was really happy and funny surrealistic moment! :D
At the end Zoe took me to the monks table to great them, so the one that was some kind of the Dalai Lama´s representative gave me a special blessing plus a signed pic of the Dalai Lama. I had been searching info about that to explain it better at this post, but I´m afraid I have no clue if it´s normal to be a Dalai Lama´s representative in Beijing, I was quite surprised of that.
(Hem... yes... he was talking by the mobile when I took this pic! ;P )
Yeaph! Was such a great experience! A Tibetan party with a lot of strangers including Lama´s monks! :D
As far as I had took some vacations days during my stay in China, I was willing to go to Tibet, but all the people I talked about it, told me it wasn´t a good idea to du such travel having just 3 days, they said the problem was that Tibet is so high and usually people get sick and need at least one day to recover at bed… a real pity!
Almost at midnight, we went to meet Segovia´s night life. I recommend the disco Movin´ just it starts to has ambient at 3 or 4 a.m.
Yeap! The waiter joined us! And yes, he succeeded with one of the group, not Kas btw!
We went early to Meyrem home, due the plans we had for that Sunday. Mario and Pal went to stay at Meyrem place as well, but when we told him to follow us, he said “oh! No needed! I have a good GPS!” As far as his car was very far away from us, we just said: it´s ok.
We arrived at Meyrem home, went to the bathroom, took out the make-up, put on the nightdress, made some tea and were already talking and laughing at the kitchen… and Mario and Pal still didn´t appear! Finally we received a call… was Mario, asking if we were already sleeping… ok, maybe better to tell the story from their point of view. The GPS give him a different route, that far we didn´t coincide at the road. They had troubles to find out a place to left the car, finally they did, but a bit far away. Seems some houses´ numbers were not well marked. They saw Meyrem´s one, but with all the lights off. They didn´t know what to do, so they try to knock the door, but when they did, it just opened. Pal had enter into the house saying “hi!” but no answer, seems everybody there was already sleeping, she thought we were so tired that we just went to bed and left them the door open, so she told Mario to go inside… but! Thanks of God he stopped her adducing that would be so strange and called Meryem to confirm! Of course they were in another house!!
On Sunday we came to Madrid, they were willing to visit El Rastro
After that Meyrem asked us to go with her to buy some Arabian adorns… and then we went to eat… to an Arabian place, of course! What else could it be? ;P
As good hosts, we took Kas to meet the Km.0 and to the FNAC, close there we had the privilege to finish the weekend with a marvelous street concert!
We were reminding the past night and laughing a lot. We even had some calls confirming the good results of the bought products!
That night we´ll have a dinner and party in Segovia, that is a precious city at the north of Madrid. A really worth view place, that even could be for going just one day if you are staying in Madrid. The old part of the city is what makes it worth for tourism and it´s just few blocks, so my recommendation is going in car, go to the tourism office that is close to the Aqueduct, they can give you a map with the route, enjoy the Aqueduct and walk to the Cathedral. Good place to rest a bit at the terraces and enjoy the view. You should try the “ponche segoviano”! Go walking to “El Alcázar” visiting it inside. Enjoy a great meal in Segovia and go to visit “La Granja de San Ildefonso” better if it includes the fountains´ show. I´ll talk about this place in other post.
In this video you can see what I said and a bit more (not mine):
And this other one with the fountains´ show (not mine either):
The dinner was at the hotel “La Casa Mudéjar” with Arabian dishes, specially done for us. We were like 16 females, most of them were Mari Paz belly dance students. She also invited as a surprise an old friend of Kas, Mario, that came with his girlfriend (Pal) from Palencia. Mario was the only one male at the dinner, and I think he has no complain for that! ;) At the beginning of the dinner, someone mentioned the tupper sex meeting of the night before. Just few of us had been there, so the conversation was mostly about that. Kas was the one telling more details… is a pity not to have a video of her telling one of her stories, she has an especial gift for telling funny stories, I think she should go to Paramount Comedy!
We had just one young waiter attending us, we were in a special reserved room. In a moment Kas started to tell a very detailed story of the past night… and she didn´t released that the waiter came inside at that moment… his face was a poem! Poor boy! But the worst part was when Kas noted his confusion, due her reaction instead of keeping silence was to say “Oh well! The boy should learn some day!” I´m afraid we all started to laugh… so, the boy didn´t want to appear shy and answered: “well, who said I didn´t know that?” So it became in a joke conversation between them that finish with Kas inviting him to the place we went to dance afterwards!
The dinner was great, after Kas telling stories of the past night, other girls told some great stories as well and my favorite one is from Pal. She works at a police department and once her male colleagues must go to a special operation in a boy’s stripper house… they all wearing their uniforms! So, the girls there thought they were part of the show and started groping them!!! Poor boys!!
After the dinner, we were dancing (belly dance, of course) at the same room. Finally even the waiter danced a bit! :D
What could have a housewife living in Ponferrada (Kas), an accountant living in a village from Segovia (Meryem) and a business woman living in Guatemala (me)? A chat room! Of course! ; )
In 1997, when chats where starting, a friend of mine living in Buenos Aires told me about chats. At that step, public chats were something really nice, with people willing to know the thinking way from people in other countries, a relaxing way to have good time, an exciting window to watch the world.
This friend of mine invited me to a specific chat room: La Cantina, but usually I had to wait him for so long, that meant me to talk with a lot of people and in short time I was joining La Cantina to talk with my new pals instead the one in Bs. As.! :) There I met Kas and Meryem. We are quite different, but we have a great relation. Btw: none of us really likes to drink!
Due the distance we can´t meet each other so frequently, but when we do, we have a great time!
Meryem was willing to celebrate her 39th birthday with us. She invited us to her home to spend the weekend together. I should clarify something: if till now you got the impression that I´m extrovert, a bit crazy and daring… compared with them I´m shy, serious and demure!!
Kas came to my home on Thursday. She´s a brave woman that have had a complicated life due different reasons, but the way she tells no matter what, even the sadder parts, she makes you laugh! So, we had been laughing a lot Thursday and Friday. On Friday we both went to Meryem home.
Meryem does as hobby belly dance since 2 years ago and since she started with this, she became in some kind of Arabian culture fan, now her house is all decorate with that style.
Since one year ago she even started to give classes in Segovia. So, our first stop was there, Kas and me had join the belly dance class as well!
That night a girls´ party was programmed at Meryem home. Some of her friends wanted to do something different and funny, so, they organized a tupper sex meeting. I haven´t ever been in one and I have to admit it was so funny. We were 20 females from 35 to 60, most of us married and willing to have fun, so, the 2 girls in charge were showing us all kind of toys for 2 hours and a half and it was just to die laughing! It´s interesting to see that there are things that always will find a buyer, no matter the crisis!
The tupper sex party finished around 2.30 a.m. and we know some ladies went to rape their husbands at home that night!
We stayed at Meryem home that night, making jokes and laughing about the party, it derivates to share some videos from youtube, first ones related with the party subject, then with nice spots…
Eh! What I like of the spot is the lion! It´s my zodiacal sign! ;P
We were agree that Troya is the best film ever done by Brad Pitt (no, we were not talking about script, story or actuation quality);P
That derivates into some actors’ videos…
That derivates to some interviews… (I´m afraid in Spanish but you´ll laugh anyway watching it!)
You should watch this one!
That derivates into funny videos….
We went to sleep more or less at 4.00 a.m. Kas and I were sharing the room, reminding funny things… laughing till our stomachs hurt!
(To be continued).
As I mentioned, the Scrabble Tourney in Leon was full with great moments (and not only at the tourney itself). :D
After our route at the “Barrio Húmedo” in León, where we went to the bars: La Jouja, La Trébede, Hotel París, El Flechazo, El Tizón, and la Taberna la Ribera, we went back home to rest a bit before midnight. ;P
My Scrabble Club, the Scrabble Girona, organized a New Year´s Eve party in León, as far as we had gone for the tourney, that took place on Jan 2nd. and 3rd., renting a flat for 10 people..jpg)
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(Hem... yes... he was talking by the mobile when I took this pic! ;P )
On Saturday Meyrem surprised us with the breakfast! Fried doughs (churros) with chocolate!
What could have a housewife living in Ponferrada (Kas), an accountant living in a village from Segovia (Meryem) and a business woman living in Guatemala (me)? A chat room! Of course! ; ) 
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