OK... so this blog does say that it's about everything and anything so here goes: Congratulations to the Tractis team, a Web 2.0 start-up based in Barcelona that is simply on fire right now!!!
Check out how they are mentioned on CNN.com... great little insight on the company and its fearless leader.
Good job guys! The sky is the limit!!!
Friday, July 27, 2007
Bachelor Party in Spain
I was pretty worried last week because I knew my time was up and my Spanish buddés were gonna throw me a bachelor party. The "worried" part comes from the fact that a bachelor or stag party in Spain is not quite what one would imagine coming from Northern Europe or North America. I have seen and heard of some crazy shit here. Of course, getting your buddy crazy drunk, taking his wallet and putting him on a bus to Pamplona during the running of the bulls is always an option but the favorite thing to do is to dress up (or down) your friend as something very shameful (like a giant penis for instance) and prance him around the city all night (or two nights) making him do all kinds of embarrassing stuff. The reality of it is that anything can happen but in all cases, the husband-to-be is going to be the bitch for one night or one weekend. My buddés are pretty hard core when it comes to this type of stuff so I was basically worried as hell. It turned out to be a fantastic weekend.
So... 2 of my friends (one Spanish and the other one French) picked me up after work on Friday. I thought we would only meet up with one more buddy but we ended up being six crazy mofos. I still had no clue where we were going after 3 hours of driving and then I realized that we were heading for Gijón in Asturias- 3 Spanish dudes, 2 French dudes and yours truly. Gijón is a great place right on the Atlantic ocean. Great people, great food. They had prepared everything and booked 2 rooms in a sketchy little hostel. The owner, Manú, was really weird, which made things even funnier. When we finally sat down for a beer the game started. I was to comply with ten rules or suffer the consequences. Here are the ones I remember cause ten was a lot, although they monitored me well since they had a PDA with an excell sheet to make sure the punishment for non-compliance was in line with the broken rule: only drink with your left hand, never say your girlfriend's name, do not speak French, etc... The punishments were either 10-15 push-ups, shots of the worst vodka possible, etc. It might not seem like much but when you have 5 guys on your case making sure you break the rules the punishments become exponential. But I must admit I was given some leeway, especially when my arms couldn't take it anymore or when I was on the verge of vomiting. The two French dudes would only speak to me in French to make things worse.
It was an awesome time. We partied hard, ate giant crab, drank cases of Asturian sidra (cider) with some natives, went go-carting and then it happened... the bastards had to do it... they dressed me up! Yup, they dressed me up as some kind of psycho cleaning lady/witch. In retrospect it's kind of coherent with my nature. Fortunately my buddies were a bit tipsy and I managed to get rid of the costume about 2 1/2 hours later although a friend of mine found it in the trash an made me put it on again, at which point I decided to get rid of it forever and went on a mission so that they would never find it again.
On Sunday I realized it would take days to get over all of this. My body ached until Thursday and my arms were out of commission for 3 days. Hell, it's a small price to pay.
Thanks for everything dudes!!!
So... 2 of my friends (one Spanish and the other one French) picked me up after work on Friday. I thought we would only meet up with one more buddy but we ended up being six crazy mofos. I still had no clue where we were going after 3 hours of driving and then I realized that we were heading for Gijón in Asturias- 3 Spanish dudes, 2 French dudes and yours truly. Gijón is a great place right on the Atlantic ocean. Great people, great food. They had prepared everything and booked 2 rooms in a sketchy little hostel. The owner, Manú, was really weird, which made things even funnier. When we finally sat down for a beer the game started. I was to comply with ten rules or suffer the consequences. Here are the ones I remember cause ten was a lot, although they monitored me well since they had a PDA with an excell sheet to make sure the punishment for non-compliance was in line with the broken rule: only drink with your left hand, never say your girlfriend's name, do not speak French, etc... The punishments were either 10-15 push-ups, shots of the worst vodka possible, etc. It might not seem like much but when you have 5 guys on your case making sure you break the rules the punishments become exponential. But I must admit I was given some leeway, especially when my arms couldn't take it anymore or when I was on the verge of vomiting. The two French dudes would only speak to me in French to make things worse.
It was an awesome time. We partied hard, ate giant crab, drank cases of Asturian sidra (cider) with some natives, went go-carting and then it happened... the bastards had to do it... they dressed me up! Yup, they dressed me up as some kind of psycho cleaning lady/witch. In retrospect it's kind of coherent with my nature. Fortunately my buddies were a bit tipsy and I managed to get rid of the costume about 2 1/2 hours later although a friend of mine found it in the trash an made me put it on again, at which point I decided to get rid of it forever and went on a mission so that they would never find it again.
On Sunday I realized it would take days to get over all of this. My body ached until Thursday and my arms were out of commission for 3 days. Hell, it's a small price to pay.
Thanks for everything dudes!!!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Anyways... Chuletón!
Wow... that first post was hardcore but it feeeeeelt soooooooo gooooooooood. Ok so here's the deal... Spain is a great country to live in and they have pretty damn decent BBQ chicken. And that matters. No, for real, there is wicked food in Spain. If you think a T-Bone is something to brag about, try the "chuletón". It's the bronco burger version of the T-BONE. Sooooooo taaaasty but if you eat too much it might be a bit hard on the stomach.
So chuletón is from the Basque Country and you have to go to a "sidrería" to eat one, a real one that is. The translation for sidrería would probably be something like cider house. If you don't think you like cider try cider from northern Spain. It's diggidy dank but it can hit you hard. So, what do you eat at the cider house? Chistorra (the greasiest sausage ever... yum yum), tortilla de bacalao (that's cod omelette- cod is like the most important fish in the Iberian Peninsula), and..... Chuletón. You wash that down with sidra (cider).
They say the best cider houses are in Guipúzcoa (the province where San Sebastián is) and there you should go during the right season which I think is in late winter but I forget.
ENJOY!
So chuletón is from the Basque Country and you have to go to a "sidrería" to eat one, a real one that is. The translation for sidrería would probably be something like cider house. If you don't think you like cider try cider from northern Spain. It's diggidy dank but it can hit you hard. So, what do you eat at the cider house? Chistorra (the greasiest sausage ever... yum yum), tortilla de bacalao (that's cod omelette- cod is like the most important fish in the Iberian Peninsula), and..... Chuletón. You wash that down with sidra (cider).
They say the best cider houses are in Guipúzcoa (the province where San Sebastián is) and there you should go during the right season which I think is in late winter but I forget.
ENJOY!
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