Day trip to Het Gooi: Laren, Naarden and Muiden

Last Sunday we woke up early so we decided to play the tourist. There are a lot of nice places for a day trip in The Netherlands, the country is not so big so if you are more or less in the center of it, almost everything is close enough for an excursion. 

We decided to go to a little area called Het Gooi in the province of North Holland. In this area there are some very beautiful medieval villages. We visited three of them, Laren, Naarden and Muiden (I have just read that Muiden is not in Het Gooi but in another region called Vechtstreek, but anyway).

Our first stop was Laren, a small very rich village just some kilometers north of Hilversum. This town is full of small farms reconverted in houses, expensive shops and small mansions. The center of the town is nice for a walk, there are a couple of churches and a park. You can see that people that live there are no beggars, the wealthiness  is all over the place, it can be seen in the quality of the houses, in the cars and in the shops. Here there are some pictures:

Monday's Music: El Último Ke Zierre - Por domesticar

This is one of my favorites bands, I have seen them hundreds of times. They started in 1987 and have played all around Spain and Latin America, where they have legions of fans. I remember when they recorded their second live album "Vivos... por domesticar" (meaning "Alive... to be tamed") in Madrid a couple of friends and I went there to see the concert, after 4 hours by bus -four hours by bus with one of my friends is really a pain in the ass- we arrived in Madrid and headed to the venue... just to discovered that the city hall had closed it that very same afternoon!!! Gallardón, the former major of Madrid, now Justice Minister, owes us like a 100 euros per person. Anyway, we had big fun in Madrid that weekend and the show was postponed to next Saturday so we had to go to party again to Madrid :)

The Netherlands smell to shit (and I like it)

Yep, that's it. I had to tell it to the world. Actually to say that it smells to cow shit is a bit more accurate... and that's because farmers are getting all the cow shit they can and throwing it into their fields. Ok, it is probably not cow shit, more likely it is some kind of product to make your potatos grow altius, fortius, citius but still it stinks. And I like it not because of the smell, which is disgusting, but because it means that spring is coming! 

Valencia, a lesson for Spain

Spain is sinking. It has been sinking for years already and every day it sinks a bit more. The main problem is that it's not only sinking economically but also morally and of course, democratically. I never really believed in democracy; since I started to think by myself I started to say that introducing a paper in a box each four years is not really democracy, it's just delegating your vote and your rights (but not your obligations) to another guy that, very likely, you don't know. That's the reason why I have only voted once in my life. Once I even had to stay in the voting school for the whole day and I didn't vote.

Eat democracy, you dirty scum! Picture taken from www.publico.es

Monday's Music: Vanilla Muffins - The drug is football

It has been a football weekend. Not that I practised it (sports? No way!) but yesterday I went to Galgenwaard to see FC Utrecht against AZ Alkmaar. The idea was to see a nice match between the leader and our beloved FC Utrecht but reallity was that we show a shitty match. I don't think they even had to take a shower after the match as they didn't run at all. I was expecting something more from the leaders but they did nothing at all, so they deserved the 3-0 Utrecht scored. Well, the three points are really needed so very welcomed :)

Homage to Nesu, picture is taken from http://fcutrecht.nl

Monday's music: LMDC - Gástale una broma

After a nice weekend it is Monday again (almost done, but still there) and today's song is dedicated to the Spanish Government and the opposition, which have been fucking the country for seven or eight years and now they transfer it to another party, but for me basically is the same shit. Now they approved what they call the new "working law" that is no more an euphemism as saying that it is good for the workers. Well, let's put it real, it is the new "slavery law". 

Ice Skating in a canal in Utrecht

Yesterday night I went to see Circle J and The Real McKenzies to the Bibelot venue, in Dordrecht. The show was great, as always, these two bands always perform incredibly good, they are just awesome, and the new songs from Circle J sounded very good. 

Snow in Utrecht!

Last weekend was pretty cold in The Netherlands but it was sunny and not windy so we decided to go to the center to take some pictures. We walked a bit around the center, it was very beautiful to see the city covered with snow but at the same time a blue sky and a very sunny day. It was like -5ºC or - 7ºC but if you were in the sunny side of the street it was very nice, in the shadow was not so nice though.

Here you have some pictures from our "expedition":

Monday's music: The Real McKenzies and Circle J

Monday again! After a great but cold weekend and looking forward to the next weekend. Next Friday there is a concert in Dordrecht, there are playing my good friends of "Circle J" and the Canadian-Scottish outlaw punkfolkers of "The Real McKenzies". Last time I saw them together was just great and this time Circle J is going to show us his newest EP, 'Diggers'. They have put a lot of effort and feelings in this new album, they are really enthusiastic about it and so do I.

Today two songs:

The Real McKenzies - Scots Wha' Ha'e:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYU67AX4xDY

Circle J - See you all in hell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjlefeEfszI

It's snowing in Sunny Netherlands!

Finally the snow is here!! We have been the whole week with freezing temperatures, maximum always below zero but very sunny and dry and today morning it has started to snow!! When I was in the office this morning my girlfriend told me that it was already snowing in Utrecht, and before lunch it started to snow also in North Brabant (where I work) so I decided to go home after lunch to avoid traffic jams. I think that is one of the best ideas I have ever had -I means my girlfriend-, this afternoon there were 800km of traffic jams in the whole country. Might seem that is not so much traffic for a country, but take in account that that's like going from the northernmost point of the country to the southernmost point in the country and back again. Not to talk about the trains, a complete chaos all over the country and specially in Utrecht, the main station in The Netherlands. Amsterdam's airport also had a lot of troubles with delayed planes and so on.

Nice view, but be careful where you step, this is kind of the dog toilet of the area :)

As I arrived to Utrecht early I didn't have troubles in the highway and I went to walk around the neighborhood to take a couple of pictures while I smoked a cigarette. I like the feeling of walking on the snow while it is still snowing hard, it is something you don't do everyday unless you live far in the north, and for a southron like me it is even stranger. I must say that in my city snow is not so common but now it is also snowing quite hard. Anyway, it is very nice that we have snow, tomorrow it's gonna be sunny again so most of the snow will became ice and that won't be so funny but so far so good.

Here you have some mroe pictures of my neighborhood snowed:

First Jagerteam's Pintxos Championship

As I said in last post the other day we organized a "pintxos contest" at our place with some friends, here I will show you what we ate and how I prepared my pintxo:

I will start with my pintxo: apple's mousse with caramelized onion, small pieces of old sheep cheese and mashed nuts. I wanted to add also a reduction of Porto wine, but it got sooooo reduced that got glued to the pan :)