I've been with a bad cold since Tuesday, one day after Mako arrived to València. It started as a slight throat annoyance and has ended with a total dependency on a variety of pills which has been going for 3 days now.

Despite of this, Mako's visit was quite nice. I think we managed to let him go after having shown most of what one wants to see in València, and focusing on the historical monuments in the centre.

When he arrived, he had plenty of hours to explore the centre alone, as I hadn't arrived yet. He (and I, when told about it) was quite amazed about what he found at the top of the Micalet tower of the cathedral. At sunset, apparently everyone up there was smoking pot, which I guess is something you don't expect too much. On Sunday, we had a Christmas family meeting at my father's house, and just after that we went with Kiko, Brande and Marta to the Albufera, a quite unique lake we still have just a few kilometres away from València, to see his second sunset in a row. I think I hadn't seen a sunset in the Albufera, and it was pretty cool, despite the horrible cold wind, and no pot involved.

On Monday, I accidentally left him trapped in the flat, as I forgot to leave my keys with him. Oops! During the morning he would stay at home doing work while I was at office, and in the evening we'd try to do something. We visited the Glop, had tapas for dinner with Carlos, and went for food to a cool Kebab place near the stadium one night, and to the buffet another one. In Radio City, he showed how the American dudes attract the girls, and it worked quite well...

On Thursday, Kike gave us a tour through the centre of the city, and explained (with me as translator) the history of València since the pre-arab era. The explanations were very cool, because we walked into the buildings, and he gave us both architectonic and historic background for the Lonja de la Seda, the Mercat Central or the Cathedral. I don't know if he did, but I did enjoy the small facts that I didn't know yet about these buildings.

The last night, I was just too ill to go out, so after a brief visit to Terra, Kiko and Mako went to some Brazilian salsa club where according to the reports, they found HOT women all around.

Hopefully, soon it'll be our turn to cross the ocean and visit NYC. I'm really looking forward to that!

Ouch, this time it wasn't so easy. I went to the dentist again to continue with the wisdom teeth extractions.

First news was that he now wanted to extract the two in the right side, while I thought he'd go one by one. One would probably be quite straight forward, like the other day. The other one would probably need surgery.

As soon as the anesthesia was applied, the doctor extracted the upper tooth very easily, in a matter of seconds. Cool, it was a lot less aggressive than the other day.

The one in the bottom would be more difficult though, as it wasn't completely out. Instead of cutting through the flesh, he tried to cut half of the tooth so he'd be able to manually extract the rest. Urgh. He started applying evil tools on top of the poor thing, which made quite terrible noises, and worse, a smell of something burning that impressed me quite a bit. I guess I was way too nervous because they had to repeatedly ask me to calm down. As soon as I relaxed a bit, some weird noise or a bit of pain would put my body on defense mode again... and this went on for more than 30 minutes I think. In the end it was out "cleanly", and I didn't need any sewing, which is good.

When it was over, I noticed I was still trembling a bit and my legs were humid with sweat (and believe me, it's quite strange to have me sweating). After so much anesthesia, I could barely speak, because I couldn't articulate any sound which involves using your tongue...

Eating is a nice exercise now. I can't open my mouth much, and I must avoid using the right side of my jaw entirely. During the dinner, some bits of food would get "lost" inside my mouth, due to my total insensibility, and I had to look for them a few times using my finger. It was a great spectacle. As I write this, the anesthesia is completely over and I'm starting to feel deep pain in the two craters. The one in the bottom part is quite huge and still bleeds. The taste of blood gets a bit boring after so many hours...

One more time, and all this shit will be over.

My 16 year old bike was stolen around 3 hours ago, and I'm really going to miss it... It's not the first time this happens, as 3 years ago my new bike was stolen just 6 months after buying it, but this one was special. It had been my bike for 16 years, and I've been using it as my main urban vehicle for nearly 9 years.

Today we had a triathlon club meeting, and I had to go back to fetch the bike to my mother's street, where I had tied it to a sign post. When I got there, the bicycle was there. I went up to leave my bag and a chair I was carrying, and 3 minutes later when I came down it was gone. A man in the street said someone had cut the thick lock and run away with it just one minute before, but he didn't manage to see his face.

Probably it was one of the many drug-addicts that live around the area near the neighbourhood, and will try to sell it in the Sunday market. I'll be there. Fucking assholes.

Last night I stayed up until 4AM listening to the SER radio station and looking at websites with live coverage of the US elections. Despite the predictions, at 3:45 or so, the radio started saying things were looking bad, and being completely exhausted, I decided to went to bed and learn the (suspectingly terrible) outcome in the morning.

This morning my mother came in to wake me up and the first thing I said was "It's Bush, right?". Nearly two hour laters I still can make up my mind to accept this reality. It's just not right: how can someone that has fucked up so many things be elected (let's not talk of re-election because that's just not true) again?

Some people warn me that this is perfectly possible because the news stories your average american watches on TV has nothing to do with what the rest of the world sees. I guess it's an edulcorated vision of war, total ignoring of famine in large areas of the world, propaganda about how good capitalism is for everyone, no information about global warming and what is causing it, no images, figures or statistics of how many people, both Iraqi and American are dying in the war, and so on, all mixed with the traditional patriotic stuff.

We appear to be in the same black hole we were thrown into by the US Supreme Court now. I guess we'll have to accept this and start hoping that maybe George W. Bush starts using his handful of neurons and stops being Cheney's puppet. From what I read, it'd be cool if Laura Bush started talking a bit about politics at home, maybe that helped a bit too.

Those who have closely followed the elections, is there any kind of promise from the Bush team to regulate/promote environmental policies like vehicles that consume less gas, protection of what's left of the American forests, etc.? Is Alaska safe still?

I really hope things change in the following four years, even if it's just a tiny little bit. If not, can you imagine what will be left of the middle east by 2008? Iran, Syria, Lybia, North Korea: are you prepared?

Sorry for the rant, I'm feeling somewhat better now. :/

Pretty please!

Tomorrow is the US Presidential Election, and unfortunately only US citizens can vote, although many, many aspects of our lives in the next four years will depend on its outcome. It sucks to be a de-facto US colony and be third-class citizens that aren't allowed to vote.

It sucks that after these long four years with Bush in office, with so many things done so wrong, half of the Americans are about to vote for him. Seeing this from Europe, it makes no sense at all: their economy is completely fucked, their environmental policies basically don't exist, and the brightest idea that has come out from the Oval Office during the last term has been the infamous preemtive war policy that all of these nuts have been enforcing.

Americans have been lied repeatedly during scandals like the Enron bankrupcy, the Medicare costs "underestimation" and the long series of Iraq's WMDs reports and war-related issues, including very obscure contracts for Cheney's company Halliburton. Unemployment has risen quite spectacularly, and the social differences in one of the most powerful economies are bigger today than in 2000. Despite of this and many other negative facts, people still trust these dudes, when all they look for is to further enrich themselves.

Bush and Cheney have killed over 10.000 iraqi people since the war started. How many of them were "terrorists"? How many were women and children who were bombed in their homes? Where is the promised freedom for Iraq, now that people can't even go out to avoid being torn apart by some random car bomb on their street? How many people are in prison without official charges against them in the name of this war against terror? What is terrorism, anyway?

If something terrorizes me tonight is the thought of four more years with this dumb ass leading, if leading is the word, the most powerful country in the planet. I really believe the future will be bloody if this madness continues.

And the worst part is that the only alternative, thanks to the braindead electoral system in the US, is only comparable to your average right wing European party. I can't imagine having to decide between the extreme-ultra-religious-right-wing and the right wing. I'd probably seek for refuge in Canada or Europe... (well, except France was in the same mess not to long ago ;)

As much as I dislike Kerry, I really hope to wake up on Wednesday with the relief of knowing the American people have kicked George W. Bush out of the White House. More than 70% of the Europeans (according to recent polls) probably share my wish... FOAD, Bush!

Yesterday I took the decision to abandon the group and get back early to València, after having completed 200 kilometres of the cycling trip.

The first day was very tough, as we started nearly at sea level and went up to 1.400 metres at some points. Most of Saturday's journey was climbing up, sometimes during 15 kilometres without a single small rest in the road, and when the bicycle bags were heavy and full of food. We should have tried to find a lighter route for the first day, but it's quite difficult in that area. We already changed it slightly to avoid climbing the road to Fredes and went to Boxar, discovering that the route to Boxar wasn't easy either. After lunch and a few more hours of steep roads, we arrived at Morella, which was packed with tourists... we had to open our way through the crowded streets on our way to the square where we wanted to rest. Not long after, we set off for our final destination, Iglesuelas del Cid, and found that the road from Morella to Cinctorres was a lot harder than we imagined. We stopped in Cinctorres for a few minutes to eat some chocolate cookies, which are the secret to keep on pushing the pedals, and continued our way up, after being warned by the people in the town that we had some 6 or 7 bad kilometres ahead until Portell.

After the first 3 or so it was clear we wouldn't make it to Iglesuelas, as the Sun was quite low already. When we were mostly there, the real problems started for me, as it seems I had too many cookies and my stomach didn't like it. Also, given the lack of real cycling training in the last too many months, my left quadricep started to get annoyed by the constant activity, and hurted quite a bit. In Portell de Morella, we had dinner and looked for some shelter where to sleep, and found a nice place with a roof in the main square of the town.

At 11 or so the three of us were inside the sleeping bags, but we were too near the town's bar, and there was a lot of sound. Also, we discovered that the square was used by the young people to meet before going to other towns spend the night, so we couldn't sleep until they all were gone. At 4AM or so, two girls came back from their night, one of them crying loudly because some boy had been bad to her. They didn't notice us, so they kept talking loudly and crying, until I kindly asked them to go away, which luckily they did.

A few hours later, at dawn, we got up, packed again and set off to Iglesuelas without having much breakfast. The landscape in this area was beautiful, and after climbing up a mountain, we could enjoy the sight as we descended. I didn't know Iglesuelas is so cool, it's full of small palaces, streets made of stone and cool buildings. We had breakfast there and continued our way towards Gúdar and Rubielos de Mora. In the middle of this was Linares de Mora, which we couldn't imagine would be so terrible.

An hour or so after leaving Iglesuelas, we finally met with Kiko, who joined the group, and started to climb the Puerto de Linares. We started to have strong wind against us, and my quadricep said "enough" after 1 hour of cycling on the steep roads with very cold wind.

When we finally made it, going down to Linares was nearly worse than the climbing, as the wind literally blew us from one side of the road to the other one. I have never ridden a bicycle I had so little control over, it was really scary, but luckily the heavy bags behind us probably made less difficult to stay on top of the bicycles.

At that point, I was completely out of fuel, with a very bad cold and muscular problems in my legs, but above all, my morale was at minimum. I started thinking about the possibility of abandoning, as Kiko's parents were near the area and could easily pick me up at some point in the road. When we stopped in Rubielos to have lunch and I thought how much I had suffered, I took the decision to end the adventure there, not being too sure of how my legs would react to the third day.

Once I was back at home I've realized I took the correct decision because the cold is quite bad and my stomach isn't getting any better. Too bad I'll have to deal with some mockery when the rest come back, but I already knew that when I took the decision...

Next year, I hope we retake our plan to do the trip to Mallorca, which will be quite plain and nice...

Early on Saturday we'll set off for what will probably be the craziest and biggest adventure ever. Kike, Kiko, Raúl and I will start a cycling trip during all of the long weekend we have in Spain, travelling through four Spanish provinces in just four days.

Last year, we did something similar (Catalan) when we followed part of the route El Cid Campeador took while he conquered all of this land, centuries ago. The experience marked me a lot, because I had never travelled without knowing where I would sleep, or if we'd find something to eat that night. During 4 days and nights, we crossed the provinces of Teruel and Castelló, carrying all we needed on our bikes. In total, we completed something like 420 kms, after sleeping three nights under the stars.

This year, it's the same story, with a few major differences. The route is different, of course. We'll go to Vinaròs by car, kindly lifted by Raúl's dad, and from there, we'll travel to Ulldecona, Fredes, Morella, Camarilla, Alcalá de la Selva, Javalambre, Ademúz and Requena, where we'll fetch a train to València. In total, that's over 510 kms to complete in less than four days, which is pretty crazy.

If this isn't enough, Raúl is talking about not carrying a camping tent, to save some kilograms in our "luggage". Normally we wouldn't use it anyway, but it's good to know you have it behind you just in case you come across a storm.

And this takes us to the worst part. The weather forecasts say we're going to be soaking wet pretty soon after we start, and rain will be a constant all over the four days. I can imagine the cold getting inside my wet maillot already and not being able to change clothes... or getting to a village and not finding some dry place where we can sleep.

We're prepared to do it, anyway. It's going to be tough, but I'm very looking forward to my first computer-free vacation in the last many months.

This evening I went with Kiko and Kike to see an exposition about the thousands of children from the areas loyal to the Spanish Republic who were evacuated to different destinations outside of Spain during the Spanish Civil War.

I'm passionate about anything regarding this war, and I really don't know why. At the time of the uprising of the fascists led, the National Labour Confederation, of libertarian socialist ideals had a lot of support in Spain, and led much of the resistance against Franco's forces in Madrid, Barcelona and València. That's probably one reason that makes the Civil War so fascinating to me, but there are others, like the stories of things that happened in Catalunya during those hard years, as told by my grandmother, or the awful life the defeated had after Franco won the war and the long dictatorship started.

The exposition has a lot of material regarding the fate of all these children who's parents sent outside so they could avoid the bombings, hunger and horror of the war. Of the 32.000 children that were evacuated, 20.000 went to France, some other few thousands to England, Wales and Scotland, Belgium, USSR and Mexico. Denmark and Norway didn't recieve any, but funded a few colonies in France. Other non-official initiatives from Switzerland, USA and other countries also sent money in to help them. Of course, this doesn't count the many which crossed the French border to exile with their families, which probably would add a few 300.000 more.

You can see American and English stamps and postcards with "Help the Spanish children" messages for fundraising, and assorted objects like dresses, shoes, dolls, etc. which people kept from the day they crossed the border. The exposition is divided into different areas which explain the details of how things went for these children depending on the different destinations.

The kids sent to Mexico and the USSR probably had a very tough time, because it took a long while for them to return to Spain, if they ever did, as Mexico and the USSR didn't recognize the new Spanish government. Those sent to Russia quickly faced the siege of Leningrad, and those in Mexico lost the government support when their president was replaced. In France, many had to live in refugee camps which were quite bad, and many who were old enough to carry a gun soon went out to fight against the nazis.

Every now and then you could find a letter or two written by a child to their parents in Spain, telling them how well they were being treated, how quick they were learning French, or that they were 10kgs heavier than when they arrived. There was one letter, though, that moved me so much that I was very close to burst in tears. It's a farewell letter of a man in prison, a few hours before being shot by the fascists. He tells her daugher and wife that he's innocent and has nothing to be sorry for, and asks them to redo their lives after his death. The letter ends with a "I will die thinking about you", which made me feel my eyes a bit wet.

There's a nice website with nice pictures and information about the Spanish exile, if you're interested. If you're in València, this is a must see, though.

Getting a job meant a few things for me: getting up early, having to do a few things that go against my political views, dealing with cigarrette smoke, a severe cut in your time to do fun stuff, and a lot more. But of course, it had to happen some day, right? Not everything is bad, though. The income has helped me to finally go to live with a few friends, something I really was looking forward to, but couldn't afford at all.

We looked for a flat in Benimaclet, a neighbourhood which is in the North limit of the city and which had been an independent small town until a few decades ago, when València finally grew enough to make it part of itself. My father lived there for a few good years when I was 8 years old, and now most of my friends, triathletes and non-triathletes, live there, so I really wanted to find some house there.

We were very lucky, and found a nice flat in the area which had renewed bathrooms and kitchen, and enough room for 3 persons and 6 bicycles. I got a bit unlucky in the drawing to assign rooms and got the smaller one. It is really small, and I'll have to squeeze my brain to get all my stuff in it. I'm already considering buying a TFT monitor because the CRT will just take up too much space (and it's showing some signs of dying sometime soon anyway), and anything I want to add to the room will have to be screwed to the wall, as just the bed, wardrobe and desk fill up the floor surface.

My flatmates are two of my triathlon club teammates, Kiko and Rubén, which have moved already. I've been a bit too busy lately, but will start living there this week. We'll see how it goes... last Thursday we held an inauguration dinner with different friends, which was quite cool. Hopefully there'll be pics up on our site soonish.

Time flies and today was the day.

I went to the dentist to get the first of my wisdom teeth removed. I went in a bit nervous, like a 10 year old, but I was more annoyed than frightened about the removal. I was quite happy of having grown up with no teeth decay and with all my teeth in good shape, and now I had to get some removed even if they are healthy.

Anyway, it all lasted for about 25 minutes, including the short wait for my turn and the wait for the anesthesia to do its job. After that, the doctor started pulling and doing stuff and voilà, it was out, and my mouth full of blood. He gave me my tooth so I can do whatever I want with it. It's long, and the part that was exposed is cleaner than what wasn't. I'm keeping it for a while, maybe I get a great idea of what to do with four long Wisdom teeth. I tried to get two teeth out at once, but the doctor said it wasn't possible, as that would involve both sides of the mouth, and that can get annoying when eating. The next two to go out will involve surgery. That won't be as easy as today...

The rest of the evening was spent at Kike's house and trying to go to the bicycle demonstration for the "Day without cars", but we got to the starting point late and never found them. So, while we looked for it, Kike told me Ferran Torrent is about to publish the third part of the book saga "Societat limitada" and "Espècies protegides". Not finding the group of bicycles, we moved to FNAC to look for the new book, but it isn't out yet. I'll raid the "Tres i quatre" bookstore to get it as soon as it's out. I can't wait.

Oh, before the dentist I met Kike and Raúl to plan our next cycling trip during the October 9-12 long weekend. The route is decided, and it's going to be *tough* once again!