Barcelonaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

With the wife's exams finally over, it was time for holiday! The first trip of 2011 (hopefully the first of many) was going to be my first visit to Spain, in the city of the architect Gaudi: Barcelona.

It all started as a joke one boring Sunday afternoon when I was flipping through the RyanAir website and came across a return flight to Barca for £20. I could not not book and, 20 minutes later, I had booked the flights,coach to Stansted and a room in a central hotel in Barca. Come January 21st and we fled London to the Mediterranean early in the morning, very early actually.

Getting a 7am flight means waking up at 2am in order to get two buses to Victoria and a coach to Stansted at least 1.5 hours before departure. The waking up was painful but in no time we were on the bus stop. The first bus took us to Hyde Park Corner, all fine, but the second bus did not turn up and after a 2 minute moment of panic, we got a taxi to the Coach Station and started our journey to the airport, just in time. The flight was smooth for most of the time, except the last 15 minutes, during which I thought I was going to die at the foot of the Pyrenees (and that was not an exaggeration) and at 10am we landed in Girona and then boarded a coach which took us right to the city centre of the city which everyone has been visiting lately, Barcelona.

Although it was beautifully sunny and clear, the temperature was crisply cold (we later found out that it was one of the coldest weekends of this winter!) Finally rid of all luggage, the adventure began with a walk from the hotel in Placa Espanya to the Olympic Village but with one significant stop on the way: the Barcelona Pavilion. This 1929 Van der Rohe masterpiece is one of my favourite buildings in the world and to finally see it live, experience the spaces, the sleek lines, the reflections, light and shade play and the freshness of the design which is only 82 years young (it seems it was built only last year)...it is simply beyond words. The massive open spaces of the Olympic Arena are impressive, as is the Communications Tower of Calatrava and the stadiums and spaces.

The afternoon kicked off our Gaudi trail, with a visit to his Pavilion Guell and its mighty metal dragon gate and the curvy Porta Miralles. A trip to the Monastery at Pedralbes and then down to the Rambla and the Market concluded the afternoon. After dinner, we headed back to the Olympic Arena area in Montjuic to enjoy the spectacular aptly-named Magic Fountain.

After a massive breakfast, the Saturday started with exploring the Barrio Gotic or Gothic Quarter, its narrow streets (reminiscent of our own medieval streets in Mdina) and the amazing Barcelona Cathedral. Highly contrasting the old heart of the city was a visit to the modernist MACBA. Back on the Rambla, we paid tribute to the street performers and Gaudi's Palau Guell and then started some serious Gaudi study by visiting Casa Battlo. In no way do I not acknowledge the genius of Gaudi, for he paid unlimited attention to detail and design, but I am sure that the bloke was on some sort of hallucinogens whenever he was designing, for I cannot believe anyone of sound mind can come up with such surreal designs. His work is like a 3D Dali painting or a snapshot of a real-life cartoon world but, whatever was the inspiration for it or however you wish to describe it, the work of Gaudi is definitely unique. The two hours in Casa Battlo were simply mind-blowing. A visit to the Casa Amattler, Mila (or Pedrera) and Vincens concluded the day before dinner in an amazing Catalan restaurant literally round the corner from the Battlo.

The Sunday was entirely devoted to Gaudi, with first a visit to the Sagrada Familia church and then Park Guell and its surrounding areas. I shall not dare try to describe the emotions stimulated by the Sagrada but going past its threshold is like stepping out of this world and entering another world of huge stone and concrete trunks and twigs, closely and carefully mimicking the efficiency of nature's structural engineering but at the same time laden with beautiful decoration, sculpture, stained glass and abundance of natural light which all make the interior spaces magical and surreal. The trip up one of the spires was almost literally out of this world and the maze-like narrow spiralling corridors down were fun. The time in Park Guell concluded our Gaudi experience, with the compulsory pose with the mosaic dragon and a time of chilling in the Spanish sun.

I forgot to mention that in these 3 days we had walked almost 2 dozen kilometres which had one "minor" consequence: extensive blisters on 4 of my toes. It was, to say the least, uncomfortable, but, that aside, I think the weekend in Barca was amazing and, in the words of Freddie Mercury, "if God is willing we shall meet again someday!"

Happy new year!

2011 kicked off on the North Bank of the River Thames in London, spot on across the water from the London Eye which was the centrepiece for the first few minutes of the new year. As hinted earlier, on 31/12/10 we met up with the freshest newly weds from our Maltese circle of friends and by 8.45pm, we had occupied a prime location along Embankment where we awaited the first few "tocks" of the Big Ben signalling the start of 2011.

I must say it was a long wait of almost 3 hours till the real excitement began but the atmosphere was festive, the weather perfect (dry and not that cold) and by 11.45pm the action was gaining momentum. A massive countdown "clock" was projected onto the Shell building (10 or 15 floors high!) and as soon as the clock hit 12 the Eye set off with an incredible show of fireworks synchronised with the best of Brit music which lasted a full 10 minutes non-stop of colour and fire. As soon as it was all over, I witnessed the largest exodus of people ever; I later found out that 250,000 people were along the River Thames that night (that is more than half the population of Malta!) and all went seamlessly well with no accidents or confusion. Well, the tube stations were packed beyond their capacities and the journey home (which usually takes 20 minutes) took 2 hours, but once home we had champagne awaiting us and the night stretched till the early hours of 2011.

The next day was marked with a massive lunch at China Town and a farewell to our Maltese friends who flew back to Malta that night. And us? Well, it was still holiday time for me but my poor wife had to revise and study for the upcoming exams!

Wrapping up 2010

You might recall the last post - the trip to Malta for a wedding. Soon after that trip, it was time to go back yet again, this time for the Christmas break. You might also recall that the last flight was threatened by the snow and bad weather and Gatwick was on the brink of closure and we were flying from Gatwick. This time round, we were flying from Heathrow and, surprise, surprise, it was Heathrow's turn to be traumatised by the British winter!

The flight was scheduled for 8.40pm but the plane needed de-icing and left only after 10pm, arriving at Malta after 2am and thus finally going to bed almost at 3.30am. That particular night was probably the one and only really stormy night in Malta for December 2010 and the plane simply could not land but the wise pilot finally managed to get that Airbus on the ground with us passengers barely noticing, despite the heavy rain, lightning, thunder and wind that was enveloping the aircraft from all directions. By the time I was about to sleep, some God-sent rooster happily living in one of the neighbour's gardens decided to start crowing, but this was no hindrance to sleep immediately after landing in my bed!

We stayed in Malta for 10 days until Boxing Day but the week was full to the brim with activities. We had the traditional annual Christmas dinner with all of our mates, which included the Secret Santa antic (I bought my gift from London and with the 5 euro budget got a book worth £25!!) and in turn received a cool book of archaic, sadly disappearing Maltese words grouped under various topics. The next day I headed off to Valletta on a mini guys' night out and gladly remembered that in Malta you can buy a round for 4 with just 6 euro, whereas in London you pay that much for 2 drinks at most, if lucky. Good times; how I love Valletta. Then on the next day I had a reunion with some old mates, some of whom I had not seen for almost a decade and it was great catching up! Then Christmas Eve was very busy preparing for the Christmas do at home, which was more involving this year. Shopping, cleaning and cooking (well, helping thereof). And then we headed for a Midnight Mass at Valletta with the newly-wed couple from October's wedding (the couple from December were honeymooning at the Maldives!) and although the service was well animated and cheerful, it was too long and only finished in the early hours of the 25th...

On Christmas Day, we had a whole day of feasting, feeding, drinking and talking at home, where the dining room was filled to its capacity with the addition of the in-laws, but all went well. Especially the food, which I miss badly (English "cuisine" simply sucks) but at least it gets me to appreciate it more whenever I am at home. The Malta trip soon came to an end and on Boxing Day we headed back to London, the first flight in ages with no hassles! And once back in London, my poor wife embarked on a marathon of revising and studying for the January exams, which brought feelings reminiscent of December 2007 when I was studying for my own M.Sc. exams, except that I had 1 week less than her, so she cannot complain really!

I took a week off and stayed at home most of the time, except that the honeymooners made their final stop of their month long holiday here in London. This called for my London guide services, which we did this morning. We met them again later on tonight for the NYE fireworks display beside the River Thames, but that story spills over into 2011, so will leave it for the next post.

2010, the final year of the first decade of the new millennium, was a colourful year. The year characterised by the opening of Burj Khalifa (the world's tallest building) in Dubai, the Mexico Gulf oil spills much to the worry of BP, devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the Icelandic ash clouds, the iPad, the crisis in Greece and Ireland, the World Cup in South Africa and the fun related to Paul the psychic octopus, the elections in the UK, the 40th anniversary of Glastonbury, the "scandals" of WikiLeaks, the drama of the Chilean miners and the protests in London and Rome over high tuition fees and cuts in education budgets respectively.

In Malta, 2010 is remembered as the year of firework-related tragedies, the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, the deaths of Guido DeMarco and Nikol Cauchi, the series of mafia-style robberies and attempted murders, the presentation of JPO's divorce bill in Parliament, the quasi-comical floating coffins in the Qormi flood waters, the power station debates, the repeated countrywide blackouts, the collision of a truck into the Marsa bridge bringing the country to a halt, the Isle of MTV and massive concerts by Elton John, Rod Stewart and Joseph Calleja and the usual never-ending tit-tat of Maltese politics.

For me, 2010 will be simply characterised by one event: the year of our wedding.

The final wedding of 2010

Soon after the Crewe experience, I must say that the temperatures started to seriously plunge closer to freezing and, in a few days, also went down below freezing. I am not one who usually complains of the cold, but the past 2-3 weeks were really cold! And I also got a cold. And it soon started snowing. After 2.5 years in the UK, this was not the first time I saw snow but I was still excited to see the usual London streetscapes being transformed to one uniform shade of white. But there was more distress than pleasure to this particular snow fall...

The unusually heavy snow meant that many airports across the UK had to close down, including Gatwick Airport. And it happened that we had to make one rare use of Gatwick to fly down to Malta for the wedding of 2 of our good mates! The flight was scheduled on the Saturday at 7.30am and Gatwick was meant to be closed till the Friday at 6.00am. It did open on the Friday but 80% of the flights were cancelled. So we spent all Friday checking the train company, airport and airline webpages for constant updates. Come Friday midnight, all was scheduled to work, except that the earliest train was leaving Victoria at 6am and the gate closed at 7am. Tight. We slept and got up at 3.30am, hoping for the best.

Remembering that morning brings fresh pains. It is already hard waking up so early, but even harder venturing in a temperature of -2 or so and in the rain. To cut a long story short, we made it to Victoria (2 buses worth of travel) and hoped that we get our booked train (the 5am one). Alas, we had to get the 6am train, which got to Gatwick at 6.35am, took the shuttle to the North Terminal and got there at 6.50am and impatiently passed through security at 7.00am and arrived at the gate at 7.03am after one frantic run. Just in time! All buckled and breathless, the plane took off and 3 hours later landed in Malta, where a temperature of 18 degrees awaited.

And now for the big day, the purpose of our trip: Daphne's and Vince's wedding. It was a splendid Sunday morning, sunny and crisp. We headed off to Naxxar church and all was punctual and well-organised (what else would you expect from the bride?) and again it was a good time to recall that fateful day in March, almost 9 months ago...once all was done in church, we crossed the road into the Palazzo Parisio and the fun began. Good food, good drink, good music, dancing, repeated carrying of the bride and groom on shoulders by different groups of friends (I thought this was to be done only once at the end, but I was clearly mistaken!) and lots of catching up. The final carrying on shoulders was done by "our" party, down the elaborate marble staircase, which was a tricky task, but all was done safely and surprisingly efficiently, given the levels of alcohol consumed by that time.

Once the newly weds headed off to their honeymoon suite, the rest of us headed off for a coffee and organised a Secret Santa for our annual Christmas dinner. Oh yes, by the way, in 4 days we head back to Malta and this trip will invariably be characterised by, not one, but many Christmas dinners!

This the season to be jolly

Very soon I will be flying home (for yet another wedding!) and soon after that trip there will be another trip during the Christmas recess. I know this is utterly profane and wrong, but Christmas immediately brings to mind vast amounts of food, copious volumes of alcohol and a gift here and there. The official opening ceremony of the Christmas season's festivities kicked off this week with an office dinner...

A few weeks ago, at the office, we came up with the idea of organising a Christmas dinner. As always, I immediately took over and was responsible for setting it all up. So one lazy afternoon, I drafted an email (which was well-organised in the form of a scientific paper), set up a Doodle website for the participants to vote as to which date they prefer and in a few days all was done. It was decided to have it midweek in early December in order to make sure that all are still around. And so we headed off for the #223 Christmas dinner on the 2nd day of December.

The venue I proposed and which was unanimously chosen was an Italian restaurant just off Oxford Street. The wine was good, the food excellent and the company great. After antipasto, main course and dessert, we headed off to Carnaby Street to a typical English pub where we downed a couple of pints, until we heard the obnoxious bell ringing at 11.30ish, which meant that we had to vacate the place. One of my mates suggested going to a blues bar, which was a wise decision, for the band playing live was nothing but superb. Extensive photographic evidence suggests that we all had a good time at the blues bar!

Once the gig was all done, it was "still" 1am, so we headed off to a place called "The Bar", in a small alleyway off Oxford Street. This is probably the weirdest place I have seen so far in London. A narrow staircase leads to a 40 square metre room at basement level with walls all covered by mirrors to give a false illusion of space. The crammed space was packed with people who seemed to be there from the 1960s: middle-aged, thin men with long hair and hippie T shirts, scantily clad women clearly having enjoyed the odd heroin shot earlier and normal people, like us. The music was surprisingly good and it was a good way to conclude the night. I was shocked to pay a visit to the loo and, while using the urinal, I heard shuffling and panting in the locked WC cubicle. Unbelievable.

At 3am, I decided it is best to head home and try to get some sleep. One bus ride later and a short walk from High Street Ken, I was at home and after one hot power shower, I was all assembled in bed, where I stayed till 10.30am the next day. Malta in less than 24 hours and Malta again in less than 2 weeks! What a good start to the festive season of 2010!

A week up in the north

After the weekend in Essex, it was time for me to travel up to the north of England, the furthest north I have been so far in the country (and indeed the furthest in the Europe or even in the world!) but this trip was no holiday; I was attending the Simulia UK RUM 2010, or, in layman's terms, a conference...

One thing to immediately comment about: the English love their acronyms! Everything is abbreviated (even the name of their country is reduced to UK). During my first weeks at uni, I was confused by all the jargon involving 2 or 3 letter "words" all over the campus: SCR, JCR, SAF, ICT and all the others related to my work: MOD, DSTL, UD, PUR and what not. Oh, by the way, the RUM signifies "Regional Users' Meeting"; the conference was really a gathering of users from all over the UK of a particular piece of software (ABAQUS, but this is not an abbreviation, as far as I know!)

I was not quite aware of such meetings, until a few weeks back my co-supervisor sent me an email and suggested that I should attend to this 3 day conference. I gladly accepted and, after recovering from a 2 day cold last week, on Monday night, I headed off to the north, precisely to a town called Crewe up in Chesire. I was totally not familiar with the place (except for my knowing of the existence of a Chesire cat, albeit I saw no cats during my stay there) but upon arrival after a 3 hour train journey and reading almost half a novel (which I found quite pleasant - more later), I took a taxi and this took me promptly to my destination: Crewe Hall just outside the town.

Now this conference was being held at the hotel forming part of Crewe Hall and I thought it best to stay at the venue to save on daily commuting time and money. This was probably the best choice made during this week, for the place was simply wonderful. I felt like I was in a set of a Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings movie: an ancient, wonderfully-kept mansion with sculpture, wooden panelling and ceilings, elaborate staircases, low lighting and, of course, excellent hospitality. And the "small single bedroom" I had reserved was absolutely gorgeous: huge, warm, brand new fittings and of modern design. I indulged into the bath and slept like a baby, ready for a week's worth of listening and lobbying and talk.

The next morning, after a power shower, I headed down to the brasserie, where a massive buffet breakfast awaited. And what a breakfast that was! The conference kicked off, with intermittent coffee/tea breaks and lunch, till the evening when the whole group headed off to the main hall for a banquet. The hall was accessed from a labyrinth of high corridors, typical medieval construction, but with elaborate Victorian décor. The hall itself reminded me of that in Windsor (but on a much smaller scale, of course). The food and service were excellent and fruity, Spanish wine was flowing. A good dessert and coffee brought the first day to an end. After dinner, I wandered around the Crewe Hall and took a few shots of the lit façades and the interiors and then headed off to my room for another relaxing bath and a good sleep.

The second day was very much like the first, except that the sessions ended at 4.30pm, which gave me a good afternoon's worth of reading, during which I finished the novel I mentioned earlier. The Botticelli Secret went down quite well, especially since I like historical novels and especially when they overlap fact with fiction in a seamless fashion. After finishing Dan Brown's The lost symbol a few weeks ago, this next book I read was very fitting. In the evening, I headed down to the main restaurant and had a wonderful dinner - warm soup and grilled salmon and vegetables cooked in the most tasty way. I finished the day in the same way as before, but my new read was my revisiting of Huxley's classic Brave new world (though I only managed a few chapters, I must say that the first 1 or 2 are my absolute favourite).

The third day was a day-long seminar which included good lecturing and very practical hands-on sessions. The day came to an end around 5pm (and, by the way, in addition to the buffet breakfast, also had a buffet lunch!) and then I started my long journey back to London. During the trip, I completed Brave new world, which I found, even after having read it again, totally dramatic and was keeping me off my seat with adrenalin. My reflective moods were triggered by Huxley's fictional vision into the future (well, his future is really our present) and this made me start writing down a few ideas of my own. Nothing socio-political, for that is not my cup of tea, but more on these writings will come up in this blog for sure in the future...

Back to London, I was almost shocked to find that in a few days, my "home" city had turned into a wintry scene: all the trees in Lexham Gardens were naked and all the streets were covered in a crunching carpet of autumn colours: gold and yellow leaves all over the place. The light drizzle and quite strong wind helped, but I must say that is far "warmer" here that it was up in Crewe! I was back in the office on Friday and (almost) concluded my transfer report, which will be the official stepping up from 1st year to 2nd year of my Ph.D., which I hope to do before Christmas...

The land of the East Saxons

I never understood why there are areas in England called Wessex, Sussex, Essex and Middlesex. Not to mention failing to understand why there is no Northsex? Ever since I was a child, whenever we sent Christmas card to my uncle who lives in Middlesex, I was mystified by the notion of combining terms for geographical bearings with the 3 letter word at their ends. The meaning was undisclosed upon my arrival to the UK a few years ago (the names are remnants of the old English names for the various kingdoms of the Anglo Saxons). Last weekend, my wife and I headed off for the eastern part of the country - Essex - and this trip included "firsts" on many levels.

It was the first time out of London for October. It is always welcome to flee from the capital and its busy life and spend a few days away from the laptop and not think about work and Uni work.

It was the first time I was on a "HOST" visit. By some serendipitous accident, I found out about this scheme a few months ago, whereby one can apply to go and spend a weekend with a host family, whom the organisation locates for you according to your likings and travel limitations. Once there, the hosts will show around the local area and be introduced to English customs and food. So after the application, all arrangements were done and off we were to Chelmsford, the main town of Essex.

Upon arrival, we were picked up by our hostess (her husband was still at work). We drove to their cosy home outside Chelmsford in Bicknacre and started chatting about our studies and work, Malta, their travels across all over the world and plans for the weekend. The husband arrived soon after and then we had a lovely cottage pie for dinner and after a warm shower headed off to sleep to recharge for a day out tomorrow.

On the Saturday, the weather was absolutely wonderful. Sunny and crisply fresh. We got into the car and headed off to Thaxted in the north of Essex. We walked around the quiet village, its church (more of a cathedral, really) and up to the windmill, which reminded me of the windmill in the cartoon adaptation of Orwell's Animal Farm. Back on the motorway, we headed to another tiny village, Finchingfield, where another first occurred: having English cream tea. A very tasty and anything but low calorie meal of fruit scones, Tiptree jam and clotted cream, all washed down with English tea (or coffee). It was really wonderful but the cholesterol intake made me feel guilty for the rest of the day! A "quick" stop at a massive shopping village forced us to buy a new pair of shoes each and a jacket for me too at great prices, and the day's travels were concluded by a visit to Maldon along the River Blackwater, where we saw a number of barges, which looked very pretty under the setting sun. A drive back home and we had a lovely dinner of chicken and another first (eating swede), accompanied by endless talk and a glass of good red wine. The day was finished off by a good sleep, including an extra hour due to the end of summer time!

The weather on Sunday was less attractive; it was drizzling in the morning. After breakfast, we went off to church and then drove down to Southend-on-sea. Except for the varying tide (which I always find very fascinating and beautiful to photograph), this seaside town reminded me of home but had a particular characteristic: it has the longest pier in the world! A mile and a third to be precise (2158 m if you happen to decipher metric measurements more easily, like me). We walked down the pier, had a quick lunch at the cafe at the end, walked back the pier (in the hope of burning off some of the previous day's cream tea!) and then visited the many amusement outlets along the promenade. It was a pleasant visit indeed! Back home, we had a great Sunday roast cooked nothing short of perfection: pork, crackling (mmm), stuffing, potatoes, parsnips (mmm!!), courgettes and gravy, followed by rhubarb crumble (another first) and coffee.

It was time to head back to London and so our kind hosts drove us to Chelmsford station and after bidding goodbye, started our journey back to London. It was a welcome break amidst the scholastic year and I am sure that "HOST" will be getting another application from us for sure!