on the 7th day, thou shalt rest

I've been in Alicante for almost 2 weeks, i think I'm quite adjusted to this place already because it's not that hard to do so here. Alicante is a small beautiful town next to the Mediterranean coast, but because of it's cold weather at this moment, there's not much to do at the beach. Spaniards, like the rest of the Europeans that I've met, are very friendly, there's warm greeting everywhere you go. The fact that I can speak Spanish also helps me to get around here, raising other's interests since my Argentinean accent is very, uhm, odd to them. Argentinean accent is a very unique accent among Spanish speaking countries, there are certain vocabs and expressions that are only heard in the region, yet famous to mostly all Spanish connoisseurs. so when people, especially semi-drunk guys, hear my Argentinean accent, they'll try to pull out a few typical Porteno comments, like the infamous "che! boludo!"

Anyway, here are some updates and thoughts of my stay in Alicante so far:

- New coworkers. So I finally met my coworkers! I'm now working for a humble PV company at its early stages, and altho the company is Spanish, the boss and a majority of its employees are Dutch (from Netherlands) or can speak Dutch. Manuel, our accountant, and I are the only 2 people who can't catch any Dutch, all the rest can speak it... I'm considering in buying some Dutch 101 CDs...

- Work environment. There's no doubt that Spanish people are very lazy and can be quite slow. They start work around 9am (mine is from 830~6 to adjust to Netherland's times), right after going into the office, they go out for breakfast/coffee break, then there is a long lunch break, and several long breaks in between hours. This is quite a big change for me, but I can't complain! =D

- Meal hours. They have very late meal hours. My coworkers have breakfast around 9am (ok), snack around 11 (wha?), we lunch around 1:30~2pm until 3~3:30 (late), and dinner is after 9, after 10+ if it's weekend (too late!!!). The dinner gatherings that I've joined so far all started after 10, sometimes even 11pm. And they like to sit down, savor their food properly, something that I strongly recommend for healthy digestion, but that should be done if dinner starts at an earlier time! I really could fall asleep while eating.

- Gastronomy. Spanish food is VERY VERY salty. And oily. Olive oil is poured in every dish, and they pour salt on food as if it could do magic healing or something. It's extra added salt on food that is already salty. Despite the exessive salt on their dishes, the ingredients are good and fresh, and the food is actually good. I just need a gallon of water next on the table to wash it down. I really enjoy some of their simple food: ham (jamon serrano, but it can be a bit too greasy), fresh tomato (either raw, cooked, or in salsa paste), toast w/butter, toast w/tomato sauce, olives, fresh bread, almonds, dark chocolate, pastry. There are still a lot of things left to try, but so far, they're all excellent.

- Outings. People go out for a breakfast coffee run at the bar in the morning, they sit at a bar for negotiations and some meetings. There's no such thing as brief 3hr of Happy Hour, you just go to a bar after work and be happy for the rest of the evening. Then on weekend, it's one party after other after other til dawn. Last weekend, Bram took me out to experience partying here: we started at his friend's bday dinner followed by dancing with drinks at nearby bar. We later moved to find a coworker at a reggae bar and happy danced along with drinks, but stopped midway for the best mojito in town. Soon we got bored of reggae, so switched to local club and stayed there til its 4am closing. But as people say, "one door closes, another one opens". There's a club that OPENS at 4am, so it was almost a must that we headed there and partied till 7am. Oh, and we did our last stop that day at a kebab store. Good food! (well, anything tastes good when you're tipsy from a full night of partying and drinking, right?)

- Physical hydration. It's not weird to see people order a glass of beer for lunch, or 2. They like drinking and know how to enjoy it quite well. At certain restaurants, they even give liquor shots as dessert! Anyway, as the previous category mentioned a bit, I think I'm building up on my alcohol tolerance. So far, I've chugged all the dessert liquor whenever wherever they served it, slowly appreciating hot chocolate with rum, and finishing my glasses of beer. I'm especially proud of my drinking last Fri: sangria, liquor shots, beer sips, mojito, kahlua+milk, rum+coke, more sips of beer, more sips of rum+coke. And I was still high and jumping at 5am! Awesome~

- Store hours. Regular stores operate till late, generally with 2+ hr break in the afternoon, but it reopens until 9pm to compensate. However, whether it's because of labor regulations or simple laziness, stores are NOT open on Sundays NOR any holiday. No supermarkets on Sundays, no traditional markets on weekends, no retail stores on holidays. After living for years in countries with strong consumerism and high expenditures, this really surprised me. No store open on Sundays or holidays?! How can I live without malls on weekends? Fine, the restaurants and some bakeries were open, but what about other sorts of entertainment? I spent that weekend filling my stomach with starch coz bread was the only food available.

Alicante is a very interesting town, it might not be big, but it has its uniqueness that makes people enjoy their stay. So is my case here, enjoying my life so far in Alicante. What I don't like, are Mr. Kebab and Mr. Popcorn that have showed up in pimple forms on my face (from yesterday's drinking), fried salty food as zits, excessive oilve oil and ham that have enlarged my facial and waist dimentions for at least 1 inch, and the lack of veggies in my stomach. Probably the lack of sleep too...

Welcome to EU...

So this is a brief update of my first business trip to Shanghai and Spain so far.
Shanghai is a huge city, filled with bright lights, tall high scrapers, people, and cars, and people and cars some more. We didn’t have that much time to explore around Shanghai because most of our daytime we spend it on traveling to other surrounding cities for company visits. Our transportation for China was via bus, with an average traveling time: 3.5hrs, one way. It wasn’t till later that we were informed it was much easier to take the train, needing only half the time compared to bus. Regardless of the semi-poor logistics, I spent some good time on the bus discussing about PV with other people and, every now and then, looking out of the window for its scenery. Wait. There wasn’t any. So I slept for a huge amount of time on the bus.

More on Shanghai and the rest of China trip later, because I want to dedicate this entry to my process of getting to Spain first. After weeks of “working remotely” in Taiwan, getting myself familiar with my new company and industry, and actually, bumming at home, I’m finally called to pay my first visit to Spain, to the HQ, first for a company party that’s happening this weekend, then for a proper corporate training, later work in Spain until end of January. That means 2 months of staying abroad, AKA, a lot of packing. Things would have been easier if the Shanghai trip wasn’t stuck in between, but since there wasn’t other way to arrange the itinerary around, I packed my belongings and hauled it to Shanghai first.

And thanks to the terrorists’ attacks and all the TSA regulations, below are the costs of this trip (on top of plane tickets):
TPE-SHA excess luggage cost: NT$6000 (bleh)
SHA-CDG excess luggage cost: RMB58xx (about to take the razor and slit my wrists)
CDG-Orly bus trip: EU$18 (sigh, euros)
Orly-ALC excess luggage cost: EU$130? (ouch)

Hold a sec… Charles de Gaulle AND Orly? 2 airports in France?
Apparently, my dear colleagues didn’t explain it to me quite well when they booked my Shanghai-Spain tickets. They were so excited to have found a good connecting flight that only needed 1 connection but forgot to mention that I had to do it through separate airports in France. WTH.
And that’s where I am at the time of writing this entry, at Paris-Orly airport, smelling like everything but meadows and prairies, and still 5hrs away from boarding.

Fortunately, my 12hr Shanghai-Paris trip wasn’t too bad. Was able to watch 2 movies that I missed this Summer: The Dark Knight and Wanted, both really good movies, but I think the in-flight version chops parts of the movie, so I might need to watch Dark Knight again on DVD. And because I flew out at night, sleeping on the plane wasn’t that hard, I wasn’t sure for the big guy that was sitting in the middle though… that poor French, almost double my size and was assigned to a middle seat. But I guess the bottles of wine and whiskies helped him out a bit.

Upon landing at CDG, I did a quick WC stop before picking up my suitcases, and got locked in the cube for good 5 minutes because the door knob was stuck and it was impossible to open. And no lady seemed to need the toilet at that moment, what a coincidence. I really started to panic and was about to yell for help when I remember that I had the solar flashlight in my bag (souvenir from the last company visit), and hit the knob open. Piuff… thank god I didn’t have to go thru the embarrassing moment of screaming from a toilet cube (that reminds me of an episode of Friends, when Chandler was left naked in a public restroom wearing a women’s thong).

I wonder if, unconsciously, I knew things wouldn’t be this smooth and somehow saw shitty things coming, because when other people were enthusiastic about my going to Spain, I couldn’t share the same excitement (or maybe my brain is still not registering that I’m going to Spain). I mean, I’m going to Spain for 2 months for crying out loud!

Looking from the bright side, this adventure got me to see a bit more of France and Paris, although only the night glimpse from Charles de Gaulle to Orly, with no sheer sights of the Eiffel Tower. See? I knew I would come back to France again! HA.
I was also able to brush up my broken French again, now being very thankful that those years of French is finally paying off.

My goodness, I’m being more bitter and synical by the minute.

Anyway, it’s time to let my brain know that I’m in Paris and will be in Europe for the following weeks. Maybe should start with a short visit to PAUL’s for some espresso and croissant (since they charge ridiculous prices in Taiwan).

I’m in EUROPE BABY~!