How to drive a 747?

Go to Avis at the Grand Rapids airport and ask for the 2006 red Chevy Impala LT. Very soon you be at the wheel of a 747.

Can I go back?

When Internet Explorer 7 came out I decided to give it a try. For sure it's better than IE6 - I especially the tabs which makes much easier to move from one page to the other.

The problem in being on the cutting edge is that there are still some apps that don't fully support (recognize? since it should be backwards compatible) IE7. Since I have to use some of them regularly, I uninstalled IE7 and I went back to the old interface.

After this backwards move I start having problems with several pages, one of them being Blogger (that with some travel in the middle are the main reasons of my writing hiatus). The problem in the Blogger page was on the redirection of pages after login. It would say 'Click here to continue' and I would go for a GO TO loop ride. Today I had to buy tickets online and as I was almost in the last stages of a long process the page gave me an error and I saw myself again stuck.

That was it! I immediately upgraded again to IE7 and my life in the last couple of hours has been so much better! Is this some kind of Microsoft dirty trick, to make sure that if you tasted the honey you get stuck? Or is just one of the countless Microsoft bugs?

How to love a child?

from the Spotted section of the hollandsentinel.com

What should one do on a Sunday morning in Tuscany?

Where's the Y?

Keyboards can be very frustrating, because we humans quickly get comfy with the status quo. So far I've worked for long periods of time with Portuguese, English and Italian keyboards. At the beginning one gets surprised by the innovative places the keyboard-designer (?) decided to store some of the characters. After a while one just adapts to the change. Until now there wasn't anything big, in anyone of those keyboards, that really shocked me. Until now!
Welcome to my wild adventures with the Hungarian and specially with the super evil Czech keyboard!

Image courtesy of customkeys.com

The Hungarian keyboard is not too hard to adapt and presents just two main curiosities. (1) The zero key is before the one key and not after the nine key as in all (?) other keyboards. I wonder who decided the zero should come after the nine and not before the one? Don't we learn that zero comes before one? (2) The other aspect that is annoying but more common is the switch between the Z and Y keys. The German keyboard also has the Z in place of the Y.

Image courtesy of customkeys.com

The Czech keyboard features the most twisted and original way of distributing the symbols on the keys! This keyboard is bilingual since it can present itself to you in Czech (default) or in English if you select ALT+SHIFT. Lets dive on the details:(1) To use the numbers you have to use the SHIFT or go to the English mode. This is very, very annoying. (2) The Z and the Y are changed, but where with a twist! If you are in the Czech mode the Z is in the center and the Y on the left. If you are in the English mode then the Z is on the left and the Y is in the center. (3) There are some keys that have up to five symbols! They have some serious crowded key situation going on.

To make things more complicated try to type a password when you cannot see if the symbol resulted from the key combination was the desired one! I was having serious problems with this so I asked help from a Czech and surprise... even they have serious problems with their own keyboards!

I never thought I was able to develop a hate relationship with a keyboard.

Who is Mme. CL DE PAUW?

Who is Mme. CL DE PAUW that lives on the 8th and 9th floors of the Hotel Belgium in Brussels on Avenue Louise, 315?

Send me your theories.

How can I fit in here?

I was flying to Budapest the other week and the Alitalia flight to Milan was cancelled. Luckily I got a direct flight from Bologna to Budapest. The check-in personnel mentioned I was the only satisfied customer of the former Alitalia flight. All the others were getting ready to board a bus towards Milano.

After enjoying the bonus hours at the airport I boarded the transfer bus towards the plane. When I got there my mood changed - I was flying a Carpatair plane. What the hell is Carpatair? I had never heard about this company before, nor was I able to identify the manufacturer of the turbo propeller plane I was about to board. I immediately checked for any hanging parts and the plane's painting condition. It seemed well taken care of, so I got a little bit more relaxed.

I'm not afraid of flying but I'm used to fly in major airlines where you know a certain level of maintenance is (should be?) expected. When I get these unknown carriers I get a little suspicious. After all it is the same reaction when you are expecting to meet someone you know and suddenly someone else appears that you've never seen saying 'Hi there! I want to take you on a joyride!'. After you get to know that person you may get more relaxed but until that happens there's something that doesn't let you relax.

By the name I suspected it was a Romanian airline, which was later confirmed when I visited their website. It seems it was founded in 1999 and mainly connects Timisoara to several European cities.

When I got to my seat I learned the plane was a Saab 2000, by the name I deducted that it may be some decades old. Any product that contains that number usually refers to the year 2000. They did (do?) that to project a futuristic image to the product. I would say that branding trick would have stopped at the most by the early 90s. After some investigation I found that the plane was projected in 1988 and entered service in 1994.

The layout of a Saab 2000

Another particularity I found out in this plane was the size of the WC. It's unbelievably small! I had to curve myself to be able to do what I was supposed to do there. Another interesting aspect of the plane's WC was that it had a little window! It was my first time on a commercial plane with a window in the WC. Unfortunately I was flying at night so I couldn't enjoy the experience the plane ideators' had conceived for the passangers.

To pave or not to pave?

The apartment I live in is located on the outskirts of Bologna, in Calderara di Reno, which is a wonderful place to relax after a stressful day. You can run or bike in less trafficked roads but you are only 15 minutes from a vibrant downtown - full of osterie, bars and university students.

The apartment complex is made up of 4 building blocks each with 5 floors. Two on each side and other two in the middle. The two blocks on the sides curve at a point, making them perpendicular.

The construction of the external areas was still going on when I moved in October 2004. Not much time after the last construction worker vanished from sight, I noticed a very curious thing. The ramp for the external area in the back on my block was paved with some nice bricks, but the same ramp for the middle block wasn't paved, it was bubbling with nature - rocks, dust and some plants already conquering back their territory.


Since the construction company was the same that did the apartment complex I wonder why they had paved one side of the ramp and not the other. I couldn't come up with an answer myself and I was getting quite obsessed with the matter. I usually get obsessed by things I don't have an answer for.

One day I found a neighbor in the garage and I ask him the question that had been tormenting me for months. He mention that the reason was that since each building in the town of Calderara needs to have a certain percentage of green space (until here I was very impressed!), the construction company found out that the originally planed green area for the 2 middle blocks wasn't fulfilling city rules. So to resolve their legal problems they didn't pave the ramp, so that it counts as 'green' area! Can you believe this?!

Satelite photo of the apartment complex taken from Google Earth
(It was still under construction. I guess circa 2003)

In the above photo you can see a simulation of the green area of the two blocks. You can see that the proportion of the green area vs the block area is much bigger on the right block than on the left one.

I wonder where the problem originated and who was the smart &$% that came up with the brilliant 'solution'. Who in the Calderara comune accepted that as a valid way out? It's better to be paved and get the construction company pay some kind of violation ticket for breaking the law.

How much is 1x1?

That's an easy one, but how about multiplying 111111111 by 111111111?

12.345.678.987.654.321

Ah! The beauty of math!

Who would like to buy a damburger?

Since 'Meet the Parents' that I didn't laugh so much during a movie. 'The Pink Panther' with Steve Martin is a must! He is perfect in the role of Jacques Clouseau! His over the top French accent was perfect. The highlight of the movie was Inspector Clouseau's English lesson! Enjoy.

How does the Spanish ride usually end?

The Spanish media usually has a blindly enthusiastic view about their national football team.
Just before the WordCup started I went on a daily basis to the web site of a Madrid based sport newspaper to follow up the perspective our hermanos would be exposed to. European and World Cups usually work as a roller coaster for the Spanish team - they go really high really fast and then it all comes to a sudden stop, leaving the audience astonished by how once again their team is out of the ride so soon.

Buckle your belts and get ready for a very special Spanish WorldCup ride that will take you from June 14th to June 28th. All of the following are front covers of the Marca sport newspaper (for some strange reason that I don't understand I'm only able to load one image cover. So you will have to trust on my translations).

JUNE 14th

BRAZIL, FRANCE, ITALY, ENGLAND, ARGENTINA, GERMANY, NETHERLANDS HAVE ALREADY PLAYED...

Have you seen any team superior to Spain?

JUNE 15th
SO MUCH BRAZIL, SO MUCH ENGLAND, SO MUCH ARGENTINA, SO MUCH GERMANY... AT THE END WE ARE THE BEST
We are going to win this WorldCup...
YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD WITH THE MOUTH OPEN

JUNE 17th
ARGENTINA PUTS HERSELF AT THE SPANISH LEVEL
We'll see eachother at the final
If we are both group champions we can only meet in Berlin - It would be the dream WorlCup duel

JUNE 20th
THE FANS NEED TO SEE ANOTHER BIG GAME SO THEY CAN STOP PINCHING THEMSELVES...
You'll see it wasn't a dream

JUNE 23th
AL-DEAYEA, THE SAUDI GOALKEEPER IS ONE OF THE WORST OF THE WORLCUP - FOUR YEARS AGO GERMANY SCORED EIGHT GOALS TO HIM- TODAY HE'LL HAVE TO FACE AN UNSTOPPABLE SPAIN
You are going to take a lot

JUNE 24th
We are going to retire Zidane
WE'VE MANY PAST ACCOUNTS TO RESOLVE IN THE BEST GAME OF THE 1/8 FINAL
1-0 TO SAUDI ARABIA - WE WIN EVEN PLAYING BAD

JUNE 27th
YOU HAVE A STRANGE SENSATION IN THE STOMACH - YOU ARE IMPATIENT - IT'S HARD FOR YOU TO SLEEP - YOU FEEL LOST - SOMETIMES YOUR LEGS SHAKE - YOUR HANDS SWEAT - YOU DON'T HAVE APPETITE - YOU MOUTH IS DRY - YOU HEAR VOICES
You are afraid,
France is in
PANIC!

JUNE 28th
DON'T CRY
WE HAVE A TEAM AND WE'LL BE BACK

What is the umbrella for?

Went happy for a London business trip thinking I could escape for some days Bologna's inhuman temperatures. The worst aspect of the weather in the Emilia Romagna is the humidity. In Portugal it can get much warmer but but it's dry - one sweats under the armpits and on some other less ventilated areas, but that's it! In Bologna the sweating is not that localized.

On July 19th I got the hottest July day in London (36.5C , 97.7F) since the British started keeping temperature records. It was warmer in London than in Miami, Athens, Ibiza, Crete, Malta, Nice, Tenerife and Saigon. The prenvious hottest July day was in 1911, when Epsom, Surrey, reached 36C (This curious info and refreshing photo courtesy of the BBC and The Times).

The hottest place in Portugal and one of the hottest in Europe is the small village of Amareleja where the temperature usually arrives to the mid 40s during the summer months. It seems that the hottest temperature ever registered in Europe was in Sevilla in August 4, 1881 with 50C. Amareleja is very near the Portuguese/Spanish boarder and about 160 Kms from Sevilla.

What's interesting about Dubai?

- The base salary for a non skilled worker is $150/month. There's a lot of workers from India since for them that amount is considered a good paycheck. They work in the UAE for 5/10 years and go back to India with enough money to start a new life.
- There's an amazing construction boom going on. Voices say that currently Dubai contains about 20% of the world's cranes. It feels a little exageration but the quantity of cranes is really impressive.
- The numering system used by most of the Middle East is the Indian and not the Arabic (the one that we use). It seems that about 10/15 years ago the UAE government started an education campaign about the real Arabic numbers. Currently they are used in parallel but the plan is to slowly switch to Arabic.
- There are no personal taxes!
- I got a lesson on what one should do during a desert sand storm. You should carry grease in your car and if you are caught in a sand storm, stop the car and grease the front, otherwise the sand will strip out the painting. It seems that there's not much to do regarding the windshield, which will be ruined.
- The public transportation is very poor in Dubai. The buses are few and look very old, this is probably due to the fact that cars and gas are cheap and parking is plenty. Workers are generally transported in a mini bus (usually white) which takes them from their living quarters to their work location.
- The temperature and humidity are very high, especially during the summer. I experienced temperatures around 47C and humidity around 90%. When I left the office my sunglasses would immediatly fog due to the high humidity.
- Outside the office there was a soda vending machine turned north, this means that it was exposed to the sun all day long. I wonder how much energy it consumes to get the drinks cold.- The taximeter stops when the taxi stops! What an amazing discovery, is this the only country that was this wonderful practice? This is specially important in Dubai given the traffic jams that plagues the city.
- In Europe the gas currently costs about €1.3/l, in Dubai about €0.2/l. It's the price of living in the middle of the desert!
- In Kuwait there's a law that says the if the temperature is above 50C you don't have to go to work. But it seems that the governments termometer is usually 4/5 degrees below everyone else's termometer.
- Dubai is is starting to earn the nickname of Du Vegas given the megalomaniac projects surrounded by desert.
- Rent in the old part of town can cost about $800/month. Most of the times the only way a family is able to pay is by sharing the space with other 2 families.
- Negotiation is very lively here! I love this part of doing business. Every store has a couple of big calculators with big keys and big display, which they use to write the asked price. The client after some calculations will then propose his price and turn the calculator back to the seller. The process is repeated until they reach a deal or until one of the parties quits.
- The name of the stores is very original. You'll find stores called 'Jump Sport' (sport equipment), 'Happiness Home Trading' (house products!), 'Modern Dish Cafeteria' (restaurant), 'Smart Toys Trading' (Toys), 'Top Beauty' (Beauty Shop), 'Queen Corner' (Textiles), 'Papa Shop' (African Readymade Garments), and so on..
- The Burj Al Arab hotel is never seen from the sea in official photos, that's because the structure looks like a cristian cross. It seems that the German architect that designed the structure was dismissed after someone noticed it, but the project had already been approved and started.
- Every year Ramadan moves ahead 10 days.
- Islamic followers pray six times a day. The prayings are called Fajr (dawn), Shuruq, Zohr, Asr, Maghrib (sunset) and Isha. The exact praying time changes everyday depending on the sun. When I was there the first prayer happened at 04:07am and the last one at 08:46pm.
- Smugglers in the Dubai port on route to Iran, the boats are so filled out that they look like an old floating Mexican bus.

What's this button for?

I'm working in a project for the Middle East. When I arrived to the office in Dubai and check my email through Outlook Web Access on a local machine this is what I saw:

I was caught by surprise and took some time to understand where each button was located. First, everything starts from the right, which is tricky because some of the buttons that in my normal screen would be on the right (last place) were now located on the left (last place). Second, the right alignment is very confusing on your eyes. You spend years used to a certain way, in this case left alignment, and your brain gets hard wired on how to look into a text. Routine is the worst enemy of flexibility!

Another curious thing is that Outlook Web Access showed most of the text in Arabic although some would still show up in English. As you can see Inbox, Calendar, Contacts and Task are shown in English while Public Folders, Rules and Options are in Arabic. I wonder why?

My eyes seemed to get constantly stuck on the Arabic text, they were feasting on its artistic beauty.

How can someone legally block a road?

When a problem show up it's challenging thinking on original ways to attack it. Many times the best solution is elegant, simple and not distant from the problem, but our brains usually tend to ignore simple solutions while they are busy processing all kinds of complex possibilities.

Usually it takes just a small prospective tweak to reach the ahh! moment. An example of an extremely elegant solution came some years ago when I was studying at the university in Portugal. At that time students were preparing manifestations against the Education Minister which was making some polemic reforms.

The students gathered in front of the ministry to protest and they started by cutting one of the road in Lisbon where the ministry was located. Quickly the police arrive saying it was illegal to cut roads. The students didn't took long before reaching an elegant ahh! solution to the illegality of their behavior.


There was a zebra crossing in front of the ministery, so they made two very compact lines of students that would continuously cross the road in opposite directions on the zebra crossing. They were not doing anything illegal because they were just crossing the road. Maybe the Beatles' Abbey Road album served as inspiration to some cleaver mind.

"All Together Passionately"?!

The other day at work someone mentioned the movie "Tutti insieme appassionatamente", I didn't know what movie they were talking about. Then they told me it was a 60s musical of a singing family escaping the Nazis in Austria, I immediately knew they were referring to "The Sound of Music".


English and Italian covers

I couldn't believe that in Italy the movie was translated to "All Together Passionately"! In fact the Von Trapp family is a united group showing a high number of passionate relationships between its members. I just got so surprise because I would never think on naming it in such a way. I probably would try to translate it in a more logical, like "Il suono della musica". I guess they took in consideration, and rightly so, the audience profile.


Portuguese cover

In Portuguese release the movie is titled "Musica no Coração", which translated into English means "Music in the Heart". I see that there's some commonality on the tittles selected for the latin releases, both of them transmit more emotion than the original one. I'm trying to discover how the Spanish translate the movie to see if my theory is really valid.

What is success?

Steven Bradbury winning the 1,000m Short Track competition
during the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics
(Photo from BBC)

Success is getting up one more time than you fall.

Success is getting up faster than the others who fell.

Success is waiting for others to fall.

Success is not falling.

What's in 'all comforts'?

During the same trip to Rome in the same avenue (see post of May 24th) I found the following street sign. It announces all comforts 20 meters to my left. After hours of walking in the sun you can't image how much tempting a sign like this becomes! I already had an hotel booked but I was ready to loose my reservation for this promised land. I imagine myself immersed in a tub filled with cool water, having a cold drink while hearing soothing music.

My wife brought me back to reality saying that we should get moving. Occasionally, during the trip, the sign would haunt me, sparking my imagination to picture it as a oasis where a fresh breeze runs in the middle of an arid city desert.

When I got my hands on a web connection I went to look what amenities were included in 'all comforts'. This is what I found:
- Air conditioning
- Credit card accepted
- Groups welcome
- Historic building
- Laundry service
- Lift/elevator
- Pets accepted
- Room service - limited hour
- Front desk - 24 hour
- Front desk - fax service
- Personal newspapers
- Tourist information
- Limousine service
- Rent a car in the hotel
- Shuttle service from and/or to the airport
- Baby sitter

I think that the owner's of Hotel Duca d'Alba have a very broad interpretation of what all comforts mean! I also question what 'personal newspapers' mean? Although being a newly parent I have to say that the 'Baby sitter' amenity almost convinced me that in fact Duca d'Alba offers all comforts.

Are you up for a canton cooking Hong Kong snack?

During a weekend in the città eterna I noticed this colorful street sign full of little red Chinese balloons announcing a restaurant near Roma's Termini train station.

The phrase CANTON COOKING HONGKONG SNACK caught my attention. Isn't it a little demeaning to label your food speciality as a snack? Snack is defined as (1) a hurried or light meal (2) food eaten between meals. Even McDonald's labels their food as a meal, which sounds more solid and fulfilling. I typically don't associate Chinese restaurants to fast food, but maybe this is what the owner intended to transmit - "Before you go catch that train come for a fast bite in our canton cooking HongKong snacks!"

Another curiosity about this sign is that everything is written in English except for the words 'Restaurante' and 'Internazionale'. The first one is written or in Portuguese or in Spanish, while the second is written in Italian. Is quite ironic that the word 'Internazionale' is not written in English! Why this language confusion? Would they want to write word 'Restaurante' as 'Ristorante' (Italian) or as 'Restaurant' (English)? For sure the closest one is the english one, maybe someone added the extra 'e' at the end for mistake.

I have no idea how much it costs to create and maintain a sign like this in one of the main avenues in Rome, but it must not be cheap. Couldn't the restaurant owner invest a little more time in proof reading the sign? But if was a 'normal' restaurant street sign anouncing it probably wouldn't have caught my attention the way this one did, but not everyone is nerdy as I tend to be.

Where's my seat?

I don't have anything personal against Trenitalia, eventough I'm quite critical about how they operate. I went to Roma with my wife, our son and my mother inlaw to spend the weekend. I had bough our tickets on the Trenitalia website and I requested consecutive seats so we would all be together.

When I was checking for our seats I've realized the tweaking and sickening seating logic Trenitalia has selected. This was the numbering of our seating cluster:

As you can observe it's not the easiest number assignment. For example, if you look at 82 you would expect to find 81 or 83 near it, but no... they decided 88 was a better fit. It took me sometime to understand how the hell 88 landed there... During the trip I've noticed the time people would take to find out their seating number and I realized that most had a similar problem.

Why did Trenitalia decided to assign seat numbers this way? If we map the seats (red line) we can see that the numbers flow to the left/right seat on the opposite row, except on the window seats where it goes to the seat directly in front of it. There's a logic behind it, but it's not immediate to the tired passengers in a hurry to find their seats.

There are so many other easier ways to number the seats. For example:
1. ZIG-ZAG
In this option we would maintain consecutive numbers on the same side of the aisle, with a zig-zag shape.

2. Square
In this option we would still maintain consecutive numbers on the same side of the aisle, with a square shape.

3. Snake
In this option the seats on the same side of the aisle would have consecutive numbers, this is probably the most logical one if we consider that the seating number continues into other rows.

If you travel frequently by train please notice how the seats are numbered and let me know. Let me also know if you find a reason for the numbering option selected by Trenitalia.

Mi hai rotto i coglioni!

The other day my wife was driving us to work. She is practicing driving a car in Italy since she got her driving experience in Finland and as you can imagine those civilized rules don't apply to Italy.

For example, there they don't teach you about the nanosecond rule - if you are stopped in a red light and take more than 1 nanosecond to start moving the vehicles behind you have the right show you their discontent by using the horns and shouting obscene names to you mother.

That given day she was driving the car following the zone speed limit of 70Km/h, which is quite a good speed for the type of road we were on. Suddently a crazy Ford Focus passes us with the driver blasting the horn and making quite rude gestures. He was making us understand that we were going to slow for his taste. After some seconds of it I lost it! I started gesturing the guy back to make him understand that he was not good of his mind.

He starts braking to slow us down, but since we weren't in a hurry - unlike him! - we slowed down too. In the mean time he continues gesticulating like a mad man and I continue my vain effort to make him understand that he was still not good of his mind.

Suddently, as if he finally understood what I was trying to communicate, he stops his car and opens the door (see the photo above!). (I want to call attention that if by any chance you started reading in the middle of the story, that this is happening in the middle of a busy road where cars travel at least 70Km/h). He then goes to my window and shouts "MI HAI ROTTO I COGLIONI! NON DOVETE ANDARE PIANO SU LA STRADA!", which means "YOU HAVE BROKEN MY BALLS! YOU SHOULDN'T DRIVE SLOW ON THE ROAD!".

The irony mirrored in the actions of this intelligent man! He was mad at us because we were driving only at the speed limit. He then spent some good minutes driving slowly to make us understand that we should drive faster. The climax of the irony comes when we takes time of his precious schedule to stop the car in the middle of the road and comes to chat with us.

Did he realize that with the time he lost in these nonsense activity he could have arrived to his destination driving at 70Km/h without having to break the law several times - passing in a continuous line, breaking the speed limit and stopping this car in the middle of the road?

How fast can the police drive?

Sant'Agata Bolognese is the home of Lamborghini. It's a small country town about 30 minutes from Bologna, and quite close from where I currently work.

History tells that Ferrucio Lamborghini, a wealthy tractor manufacturer that confronted Enzo Ferrari with some complaints about one of his automobiles. Enzo dismissed his complaint with "What does a tractor maker know about cars?". A year later Ferrucio founded his car company.

Quite frequently I pass by (they pass by me) Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Maseratis, since all these manufacturers are headquartered around Bologna. I regularly see a blue and white Lamborghini belonging to the Italian police, the other day he speed my me but I was fast enough to take a photo of it. It seems that the Lamborghini Polizia rotates around several cities, but regularly goes to Sant'Agata for maintenance.

Who's able to delay an SMS for 4 days?

Only Trenitalia could manage to accomplish this amazing feat! I guess that they have the gift of delay. They are like the Midas of delay, everything they touch, or get involved with gets inevitably delayed.

I had bought a train ticket online and during the check out the user has the chance to insert a cell phone number to where Trenitalia sends a transaction confirmation SMS. It contains not only the seat number but also a code to be given to the ticket inspector.

I was traveling the day after. Only when I arrived to the train I realized that I didn't had received the confirmation SMS. Fortunately I had writen my seat and the code on the back of a supermarket receipt otherwise I would be in real trouble.

I had completely forgot this episode, when four days later it bounced back to me in the form of "beep-beep beep-beep". I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the SMS I had just received... It was the Trenitalia message informing me that my train to Rome was leaving three days ago at 9:45 and that they had assigned me seat 34 on car 12.

Do you self video?

I self video.

(Self service video store in Torino)

Want to be embraced by a mysterious lightness?

On the weekend of 16/17 February we went to Torino to experience the Olympics. The day before we left we were looking for a B&B near the city to spend the night. We went online to look for options, when we found out the B&B Luna (www.luna.asti.it) in Monferrato, near Asti. We were browsing their website when we found two amazing pieces of promotional writing. Only someone very, very inspired and talented could have written it. The English version adds to the highly poetic message a pint of poor translation, which makes it... quite unique. If you speak French or German make sure you check the site.

Pink Room: "The pink room is characterized from a furnishing in liberty style. Its dimensions and its proportions render it intimate and discreet. A caress of mysterious lightness embraces to you between evocative images."
Blue Room: "The blue room prominences for its fresh lines. The square shape renders it practical and airy and the elegance of furnitures adapts well to the gentility of ensamble. A relaxation feeling tells far histories to you."

I have to say that we got a great night of sleep on the pink room. I may not have felt the caress of a mysterious lightness embracing me between evocative images, but I certainly felt carried on Somnus' steady arms and gently delivered to his beloved son Morpheus, who wrapped his black wing around me and took me to a distant place of which I remember absolutely nothing.

Do you do it?

Regardless of what you think you can be, you're not what you are until you do it.

Good condition?!?!

I was browsing secondamano, an Italian site where users can sell second hand goods, for good deal on a car. In the list came out this Piaggio Ape, which is a noisy crossover aberration between a scooter and a Fiat 600.

The ad mentions that the 'thing' features a 'green bottle' color and that it has 37,000Km (can it take that much?). It also mentions that it is in good condition and the cause for selling is lack of usage. It's just me or do you also see a flat tire?

Does it snow in Lisbon?

Very rarerly, but today it did and I wasn't there! Everyone is taking photos, talking about the big snow fall (nevão) and celebrating this unusual event. It seems that the last time it snowed in Lisbon was on February 2nd, 1954. 52 years ago! I want to commemorate with the weather.com screen that will confirm, to future generations that this in fact really took place. I'm sure we'll not see the frozen drops falling in Lisbon for many years, except if man continues to screw up the ozone.

Do you touch without feeling?

The average human looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odor, and talks without thinking.

Leonardo da Vinci
Architect, musician, anatomist, inventor, engineer, sculptor, geometer, and painter
1452-1519

How about a very special cup of coffee?

After reading this you'll think twice if a friend asks you to taste his just bought gourmet coffee.

On the island of Sumatra, a small animal eats the coffee fruits and the seeds (beans) pass through its digestive system and are excreted. The beans are collected from the jungle and processed as normal coffee. The taste is supposedly much richer than typical coffee. You read correctly. This small creature, which has the scientific name of Paradoxurus hermaphroditus, loves coffee fruits, but its digestive system cannot handle them, so they are expelled together with the rests of his previous meals. While the coffee beans are rolling inside the Paradoxurus they go through a natural fermentation process that gives them an "earthy flavor with a musty tone that is heavy bodied".
Like the common house cat, the civet habitually tends to empty its bowels in the same spot every day. The island natives already knowing were to find the little creature's feces, run their fingers though them to find the little hidden treasures, which are then whashed (thank God!), shipped, packaged, sticked with a heavy price tag (in Milano they sell for €450/Kg), bought, ground, prepared, savoured, and expelled bak to nature.

The real thing is called 'Kopi Luwak'. Be attentive for knock offs, you may never know what creature's digestive system the coffee bean has gone through.

Would you like to have this in front of you?

Taken during the usual A1 traffic blocks between Bologna and Firenze. I would not expect a normal looking van like that would transport DANGEROUS GOODS. I'm not sure what it contained, but I made sure I didn't had to find out.

How about invading some train tracks?

I'm tired of strikes! I can't stand them any longer!

Two days ago I had a meeting in Roma, so I decided to take the train because it's a much more comfortable way to travel. I can move, eat, read, get lost in my thought and not run the danger of being smashed by some truck that decided to cruise the highway at 170Km/h. I was just arriving to the train station when I start hearing strange noises - horns and people shouting. I turn to towards the source of the noise and I see a crazy sea of people wavering red flags.

When they arrive to the station they go directly to the lines and settle there in the middle of tracks, where in just 5 minutes my Rome heading train was going to arrive!! I couldn't believe my luck. The information board suddenly came alive with the delay updates - the smallest delay was of 40 minutes. My Roma bound train showed a 1h delay. If the track invasion had not convinced me that my trip was going nowhere, that board did it. I went to the ticket office to look for a reimbursement. As I was in the ticket office line the delay times in the board had a life of their own. In a couple of minutes my train's delay was already in 1H20m.

After getting my money back, I decided to find out what was going on. I went outside and the hell was loose there. Hundreds of people with red flags filled the tracks.

They were protesting against the lack of agreement regarding the new labor contract of the metal workers (Metalmeccanici). It seems that they wanted a €100 euro monthly raise and the industry said that wouldn't raise that high. So they decided to go out and make the life all the other Italians a hell by cutting highway and train tracks.

I'm ok with strikes to be used in certain situations and people fighting for their rights. But I'm not ok at all, with people lacking respect to others. Imagine that someone had to go to Roma to a urgent doctor appoitment due to a life threatening diseasee? Is all those people their raise increases more important than one single persons health situation? I don't think so.

They could be creative and do other forms of protest, like for example invading RAI and stopping all those crappy TV shows. I would even join them!

(All photos are from the Il Resto del Carlino newspaper)

Why would you want to stretch your mind?

"Man's mind strectched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions"

Oliver Wendell Holmes
American author and physician
1809-1894

Wy aim glade thei sepeake englisch?

I've found this amusing sign 0n Barcelona's Hostel Lucense. Aim glade thei speake ande note rite!

Why do people spend money to save money?

It's quite common to see people spending money with the objective of saving money. Unfortunately most of the times they end up spending the double of what they wanted to save. Usually the cycle repeats itself for several interactions until the person, or organization, has a cash flow problem or decides that it suffered enough and stops the bleeding.

Typically the thing goes like this: let's invest €75K which will enable us to save €25K a year for the next five years. This would have a five year ROI of 67%, which seems reasonably good. Problems usually happen due to three factors. First, the estimated costs and savings assumptions were wrong. Second, no proper cost and risk analysis was done. Third, poor project management planning and implementing the initiative. In this example the company can easily end up discovering that the real costs were €120K and that the saving turned out to be €20K, the five year ROI suddenly became -17%. They would done better to keep that money in a order account and gain the standard interest of 0.00000012%.

There's also another reason why many of these budget burning projects happen, no analysis at all was made. Someone just got enthusiastic about something and the organization failed to have controls in place to detect, stop or correct projects that are slippering or that should have been stopped before starting.

Would you want this license plate?

Look to the license plate I've found in a car parked under a bridge in the center of Budapest. Does this person speak English or did he/she choose on purpose?

What's so special about Moskva Ter?

Moskva Ter is an amazing subway station in Hungary. I experienced it for the first time in 1996 while doing an InterRail and for 9 years I recurrently thought about it.

In 2005 I had the chance to return to Budapest and the first thing I did was to go back to the Moskva Ter subway station ready to pay more attention to it.

The special fact about this station is how deep the station is and the huge and slow escalator that takes you to the surface. The station is 38 meters deep and it takes 1 minutes and 44 seconds to arrive to the top. The effect is stronger if you see it for the first time from the bottom. If someone faints during the time the escalator is carrying them it's certain death. No one can survive a fall of that kind. Exciting!

Why are people, that are supposed to be helpful and friendly, rude?

Last Friday I had enough of rude people. I had a problem with the ADSL connection so I called my provider Libero for some needed assistance. I got to hear the latest Shakira's hit appropriately called 'Tortura' for 40 minutes. When finally someone decided I had suffered enough, I got a feminine voice on the other side asking 'What do you want?'. I was amazed by the way she answered the phone... I asked if I was interrupting her dinner. This exchange started our conversation on the right foot. From then on it just got worse.
I believe that Luisa had a very developed technique in how to 'unserve' customers. First, she makes you feel guilty about calling and then she makes you feel the dumbest person on earth for having the problem you need help to solve.

I'm tired of bad customer service! This episode was the culmination of a string of experiences to forget. I have decided to fight this war and to give honest feedback, in a educated way and with the help of irony to all customer service representatives that don't know the meaning of the word friendly or helpful.