Rigatoni al ragù

New Year's Eve 2009, Bologna.

All alone!

I am all away...the memories of the last extra wonderful trip seem just like a pleasant dream as if it never happened.

I am all away from the people that I want to be with at all times.

You are all in that mess, somewhere in your orbital and, I am all alone in this corridor.

It's cold and dark outside and nobody except me is in here...in this corridor...at work!

What am I doing here?

What are you doing there?

Why can't we be together...forever?

We can't!

We aren't!

We won't!

When I'm gone

There's another world inside of me

That you may never see

There're secrets in this life

That I can't hide

Somewhere in this darkness

There's a light that I can't find

Maybe it's too far away

Or maybe I'm just blind

So hold me when I'm gone

Right me when I'm wrong

Hold me when I'm scared

And love me when I'm gone

Everything I am

And everything in me

Wants to be the one 

You wanted me to be

I'll never let you down

Even if I could

I'd give up everything

If only for your good

So hold me when I'm here

Right me when I'm wrong

You can hold me when I'm scared

You won't always be here

So love me when I'm gone...

Words by 3 doors down

"The nights of wonder...with friends surrounded" just like the good ol' days

I'm at home...catching up with friends...hanging out with all my boys whom I have missed their company so badly in the past couple of years...reliving the good memories and having tons of - and I literally mean 'tons' of - pure, shear fun. Such an amazing feeling to be around the people that you truly love: close family and dear friends.

My spirits are high...so high...despite the low speed of the internet which is really annoying but I've got so many other things that keeps me happily busy.

I should do this more often...way more often!

Another midday prayer

"With the hands held high into a sky so blue

As the [fjäll] opens up to swallow you" 

Time: 12:44

Date: 2012-04-13

Place: Ramundberget

D'zitnupte cenote

I swam in the cenote and (according to an old Yucatán myth) all my sins were washed [away].

My indignation

"Got my indignation but I'm pure in my thoughts...I'm alive..."

- Eddie Vedder from Guaranteed

Such a strange feeling

Almost ten years ago, I was living in an otherwise empty student room with one window facing the hotel that I am staying in now. Since I did not have a computer at home, I used to come all the way to this hotel to use the Yahoo! messenger on the PC in the lobby of the hotel to chat with one special one for hours past midnight.

Ahh...those days...those early days that surprisingly do not seem so far away now...if I only knew what I know now...

Chichén Itzá

Back in MTL, QC, CA

Yeah, finally made to Montreal again for the third time in one piece but what a trip it was. It took almost 24 hours from bed to bed, and things are not particularly easy when you are travelling with a one year old child. The poor kid who normally sleeps 15 hours a day, could only sleep for 2 hours in 24 hours during the long journey, once we managed to put her into sleep on the floor of the plane during the 7 hour flight and only after one hour we had to lift her up due to a stupid and extremely short turbulance!

Anyway, I am very glad that it's all over. This is going to be the longest period that I will be staying outside Sweden and filling my time effectively, now that I am the kid, is going to be real challenge. A confession: After staying home with baby on the parental leave I have realized that it is NOT exactly a walk in the park rather it could (and it is) at times dull and boring. I used to be quite jealous of the people who were on parental leave before but I guess I wouldn't be anymore.

I have many ambitions in mind for this month, a important one being taking care of resolution 13 but I am very much afraid that I will not be able to do as much as I want to due to lack of consistency, energy and laziness in general, may the force be with me!

So far, apart from jetlag and all the small adjustments, I have been quite apathetic to the new enviroment, maybe it is the foot injury that has been nagging me in the past week or maybe it is the lack of having a personal attachment to here which results in that but hey, I came here just for a change of scenery and it is a change alright so let's keep it that way. In addition:

1. Food and the variety of edibles are really good
2. The "moka problem" has been resolved with a great solution

So if I just put myself in the groove for 'the resolution' and my foot gets better, I've got nothing to complain ;-)

AMS

I love Amsterdam.

There is a sense of laid-back, liberty and above all, I-don't-give-a-#€%k about it that makes it very appealing. This is topped by its unique diversity, a perfect place for a reunion for a bunch of guys longing for good old times and missing their social interaction...just as we did last week and needless to say, it turned into a blast. 

"Now there is grey inside and outside..."

- Mr. P

Waiting for P & S

Place: Geneva airport

Courchevel

The love of the mountains and the thirst for feeling the raw and unfiltered speed were sufficiently quenched by one week of staying at propbably the largest ski resort in the world. The picture below does the justice to the beauty and the greatness of the 'matter' at hand more a thousand words.

Photo courtesy of AB.

One of the many subjects that the company of ours touched during this trip was the reason why we are so passionate about mountains. Answer (according to me): Because they remind us how minuscule we are in terms of being a 'being' and that, somehow, not only makes us happy in a strange sort of way but also creates a sense of passion and respect. The same goes with the stars and heavenly bodies or bodies of water in the nature. It's just that different people choose different paths; some choose the mountains, some choose the sky and some choose the sea. This long discussion is better left unfinished here and in conclusion, on a sort of irrelevant note, I wrap up by a quote by non-other than his holiness(?) The North Face which was reminded to us by Mr.P himself:

"Never stop exploring!"

On España: Part II

Yo soy Español, Español, Español!" As a whistle in Johannesburg ended the final match of the 2010 World Cup, 5,000 miles away, an entire country burst into song. From the shirtless kids taking a celebratory jump into Madrid's Cibeles fountain to the couples draped in Spanish flags dancing their way down Barcelona's famous Ramblas, all of Spain, it seemed, was chanting the same joyful lyrics. But perhaps no one sang with more fervor than Mahbubul Alam. Watching the game through the window of a café in Madrid's Lavapiés neighborhood, his entire body shook as he belted out the words everyone was singing: "I am Spanish, Spanish, Spanish!" The fact that Alam is Bangladeshi hardly seemed to matter.

Every World Cup has its stories, but this year's competition was especially ripe with overarching narratives. From the romantic (in a live, postgame interview, ecstatic goalie Iker Casillas planted a kiss on the shocked reporter who — sigh! — just happened to be his girlfriend) to the financial (the win, promised several newspapers, would bring a boost to the foundering economy), Spain's 2010 World Cup was about so much more than goals and penalties. It was about identity — what it means to belong to the new Spain.

Take, for example, the spectacular rise of Spanish athletes. When Andrés Iniesta took the shot, deep in overtime, that would be the final's only goal, he brought to an end an 80-year drought that had left Spain, despite its undeniable talent, without even a World Cup semifinal to its name. Throw in Formula One star Fernando Alonso, a handful of basketball players who, when they're not tearing up the court individually for the Memphis Grizzlies or the L.A. Lakers, are together winning the European championship, and a tennis player you may have heard of named Rafael Nadal, and suddenly the country is an athletic powerhouse. "Thirty years ago our footballers would play in alpargatas [flat-soled espadrilles] on dirt fields," says Roberto Palomar, editor of the sports daily Marca. But when dictator Francisco Franco died in 1975, the democracy that followed brought in a Socialist-led government that created state subsidies and built the infrastructure necessary to raise a generation of serious athletes. "Today, there's a multimillion-euro athletic center in every town, and they all have AstroTurf," says Palomar.

Spain's World Cup win also tells a compelling tale about nationalism. In a country where the provinces of Catalonia and the Basque country, each with its own language and heritage, strive for ever greater autonomy from the central government in Madrid, soccer has long been an arena for symbolic politics. The vicious rivalry between Barça and Real Madrid derives in large part from the fact that support for the Barcelona team was one of the few means that Catalans had during the 40 years of Franco's dictatorship to express their regional identity (Franco was a big Madrid fan). Many Catalans, who dream of one day fielding their own team at the World Cup, have been loath to support any team bearing the name of Spain.

But this year was different. The national team included seven Barça members and, by promoting itself as La Furia Roja (the Red Fury), garnered a broader embrace than it normally might have. "If you feel your nation isn't Spain ... calling them La [Furia] Roja lets you still feel passion for the team," says Barcelona-based communications consultant Antoni Gutiérrez-Rubí. "Their uniform was a single color, but it held a variety of shades."

That doesn't mean football eradicated the country's regional tensions. The day before the final, Barcelona held a massive demonstration to protest the Spanish constitutional court's decision that the Catalonia region, although entitled to an extensive degree of autonomy, did not have the legal right to call itself a nation. But the following night some 75,000 Catalans turned up to watch the game on a giant screen that the municipal government, for the first time in its history, had erected outdoors. "I marched at the head of the procession on Saturday and then went home on Sunday to watch the game with my family," says Barcelona mayor Jordi Hereu. "You can do both."

The soccer-driven sense of togetherness didn't stop with the Catalans. In Lavapiés, one of Madrid's most ethnically diverse neighborhoods, Chinese wholesale shops press up against Moroccan butchers, and Peruvian women in long black skirts buy fruit from Senegalese grocers — all the result of a massive wave of immigration that has, in recent years, raised the percentage of Spain's foreign-born residents to 11% of the total population. On the night of July 11, however, the neighborhood was a sea of homogeneity — one red shirt after another. José Romero, an immigrant from Ecuador, had even painted his black-and-white dog Spot with the Spanish colors for the occasion.

Seated outside with friends, Azhar Abbas, from Pakistan, was ecstatic before the game even began. With a red-and-yellow scarf tied around his neck and a Spanish flag emerging from his collar, he was sure Spain would win because it was such a good country. "It's not like Germany or Italy, where there's discrimination," he said. "Here there's no difference between Spaniards and foreigners." And just in case ethnic tolerance wasn't enough to guarantee victory, he added, "I went to the mosque today and prayed for Fernando Torres."

They were praying, too, at the Baobab, an African restaurant up the street, when Casillas blocked Arjen Robben's shot. Glued to the restaurant's television set, a group of Bangladeshis, one Chinese woman, a couple of native Spaniards and a half-dozen red-shirted Senegalese screamed in outrage when Nigel de Jong's foot connected with Xabi Alonso's chest. In unison, albeit in several different accents, they shouted obscenities at the referee.

The scene was much the same at Hasan Keyf's doner kebab restaurant around the corner. At one point during the evening, the 20 young Moroccan men sipping Fantas at tables draped in Spanish flags broke spontaneously into a chorus of "Viva España." "They're gods of the game," said Mohammed Dauud, referring to the Spanish team. The 22-year-old immigrated by himself to Spain from Morocco when he was just 12, and the intervening years, he said, explain his loyalty to the Spanish team: "This is where I live, who I am now. Of course, Spain is going to be my team." Asked if, by that logic, he supported Real Madrid, Dauud shook his head. "Are you crazy?" he asked. "I'm a Barça fan."

The original article from Time.com can be found here.

MJK

This is tribute to the fine memories of friendship and great music in Lowland festival 2007 which was held exactly 3 years ago.

"You are the light and way that they will only read about..."

On Barcelona: Part I

Preface: I had the intention of writing a piece based on my visit in Barcelona a couple of month ago when I ran into the following article on Time.com and I found it very much coherent with my own findings. It's a bit overdue since it should have been read just before the WC (and its sequel just after the WC) but since both parts are interesting reads anyhow, I put them here nevertheless.

Forty-five million Spaniards drew a collective breath at the news on May 2 that Xavi, the playmaking genius of FC Barcelona, was carrying an injury that might prevent him from playing in South Africa this summer for Spain's national team. His club coach said Xavi, 30, had a 3-cm rip just above his left calf muscle; if aggravated, the tear would require surgery, ruling him out of the World Cup. But with the Spanish league in its final stretch and Barça needing victories to stay ahead of archrival Real Madrid, Xavi opted to keep playing. "He is committed to this club," coach Pep Guardiola said at a press conference. "He is an example for everyone."

Not everyone was pleased by Xavi's devotion to his club. "I thought to myself, We don't need him to be an example. We just need him to be fit for South Africa," says Sergio Soto, a pharmacist's assistant in Madrid. "Because without Xavi, our World Cup dream is finished."

Spain had to wait a nerve-racking week before it could breathe easy. Xavi (few fans know his full name: Xavier Hernández i Creus) played his last game of the season for his club on May 8 and emerged without further injury. Speaking to TIME shortly afterward at Barça's training complex outside the city, Xavi says his countrymen needn't have been on tenterhooks. "I know my own body," he says. "People all over Spain were worried, but I'm all right."

It's not unusual for soccer-crazed nations to get exercised over the well-being of their star players — all of England winced at Wayne Rooney's groin strain, and Germany felt the pain of the egregious tackle that ended Michael Ballack's Cup hopes. But Spain's agonizing over Xavi tells a deeper story, one of soccer rising above politics and bridging ancient divides.

Xavi is from Catalonia, the northeastern province washed by the Mediterranean that historically has had an uneasy relationship with the rest of Spain. Many Catalans see themselves as a separate nation and dream of independence. They speak their own language, Catalan, which sounds to the untrained ear like an admixture of Spanish, French and Portuguese. And like their Basque neighbors, they have a culture and history that have been often at odds with those of other regions of Spain. During the Franco dictatorship, authorities in Madrid sought to stamp out the Catalan identity, often by bloody force. The dictator favored Real Madrid, sowing the seeds for one of soccer's most bitter rivalries.

In turn, many Spaniards have long regarded Catalans with distrust. In soccer, that translates into a frostiness toward Catalan players, a suspicion that they don't play for the national colors with the same enthusiasm as they do for FC Barcelona, a club so closely linked to the Catalan identity that its crest includes the Catalan flag. Barça's slogan, "Més que un club" (More than a club), hints at its political role. Some Spaniards blame generations of Catalan players for the fact that the national team has never won the World Cup despite fielding world-beating talent every four years. During the 2006 Cup, Spain flamed out to France even before the quarterfinals.

And yet in South Africa this year, the hopes of the Spanish national team — known as La Furia Roja, or the Red Fury — rest on a group of Catalan players: Xavi, Cesc Fabregas and Sergio Busquets in midfield and Carles Puyol and Gerard Piqué in defense. (Goaltender Victor Valdés is also on the squad bound for South Africa, along with three non-Catalan players from Barça: Andrés Iniesta, Pedro Rodríguez and the club's latest signing, David Villa.) The Catalan contingent, products of Barça's vaunted youth system, has helped the national team sweep all before it in the past four years, becoming European champions and flying up the FIFA national rankings from 12th to first, before being overtaken by Brazil. Now, thanks to the Catalan stars, La Furia Roja will travel to South Africa as favorites to win the tournament. "Catalan players do their best in the national team, and we are proving that," says Piqué, 23.

In that time span, Barça has won three Spanish league titles and two European championships. "This is Catalonia's golden generation of players," says Marc Ingla, a former marketing chief at Barça and a candidate for the club's presidency in elections this month. "Both the club and the country have benefited from these riches."

For the players, the distinction is unimportant. "A footballer doesn't understand politics. What he wants to do is win," says Xavi. Says Piqué: "As a player, your dream is to play in the national shirt and defend it against the world."

But Xavi and company can't expect all their fellow Catalans to see it that way. For some Barça fans, the only "national" team is a collection of Catalan all-stars that plays occasional exhibition games in the region's colors. "One day we will send a Catalan team to the World Cup," says Xavier, a university student who refused to give his last name. "Until that day, that tournament means nothing to me."

That sentiment is shared by the club's top official. Joan Laporta's highly successful seven-year presidency at Barça ends this month. He and Ingla have done more to turn the club into an international soccer powerhouse, with an annual budget in excess of $500 million and hundreds of millions of fans around the globe. "Barça belongs to the world," says Laporta. "Barça is Japanese, it's African, it's American." But is it Spanish? Laporta pauses for thought, then shrugs. "I have no emotion for the [Spanish] national team," he says. "It doesn't matter if six of my players are in it." Some divides not even soccer can bridge.

The original article can be read here.

A sign in SF

Juicy, eh?

Date: 2008-11-18

Time: 12:50 local time

Place: Tampa, USA

Poles apart

Sitting alone in a otherwise full bus, I am on the road in very low quality high roads of the neighboring country...getting farther and farther from home and beloved ones...heading to a destination that may change the course of rest of my life...the 2nd trip on the same damn road, this ride eventually took slightly over 40 hours which was a progress compared to the 1st one which took 52 hours in a row!...passing by the mountains and the cold landscape...I am sitting by the window and staring at the half cloudy sky, completely drowned in my thoughts...Will I succeed this time? and if so, what will happen next? How will it go this time? How does it look out there anyway...out there in the very west?

Gilmore in my walkman says:
"Did you know...it was all going to go so wrong for you
And did you see it was all going to be so right for me
Why did we tell you then
You were always the golden boy then
And that you'd never lose that light in your eyes

Hey you...did you ever realise what you'd become
And did you see that it wasn't only me you were running from
Did you know all the time but it never bothered you anyway
Leading the blind while I stared out the steel in your eyes

The rain fell slow, down on all the roofs of uncertainty
I thought of you and the years and all the sadness fell away from me
And did you know...

I never thought that you'd lose that light in your eyes"

A memory from last summer

Location: exterior, downtown Seattle, close to James and 3rd, the presence of Washington state green is felt strongly everywhere
Weather: temperature around 22C, ca. 34% humidity, partly cloudy
Time: 17:42 local time, early August 09

Scene: 2 happy dudes in an old beige Toyota are driving in downtown and are having great fun catching up. Both front windows are open as the car has no functioning AC. The driver has just picked up the other guy and they laugh loudly at times. Car radio at mid volume sings in the background:

"Just dance, gonna be okay
Da da doo doot-n
Just dance, spin that record babe
Da da doo doot-n
Just dance, gonna be okay
D-D-D-Dance, dance, dance, just
J-J-Just dance..."