sLog05

El quinto y último sLog del viaje, que cierra el recorrido y llega a San Francisco, ya está colgado y listo para escuchar. Lo he grabado ya desde mi nuevo “hogar” en Tempe, AZ al que he llegado (por fin) esta tarde. Sé que no está muy bien grabado y que no me explayo como debería para hacer honor a la parte del viaje que trata, pero estoy sumamente cansado y, si lo dejo para otro rato mejor, sé que tal momento no va a llegar. Así que he preferido grabarlo “from scratch” y con todo “en caliente” antes que dejarlo reposar y que suene más artificial.
A partir de ahora, creo que volveré al formato escrito, en el que me siento más cómodo. He escrito alguna reflexión en el autobús que espero que llegue aquí en algún momento, y tengo en mente un proyecto que, si lo termino, puede quedar muy bonito.
Más, ya sobre mi nueva casa y vida en Tempe, próximamente.
d/

Flash Back

Tonight I had a flash one year back in time: I waited for my friend Jesus (a mexican descendent yet Californian) to finish working, then we got on his car and drove downtown San Francisco; there we picked up Vivian (a Chinese girl emigrated a few years ago to San Francisco) and headed for dinner to a korean restaurant. There we enjoyed all the delices we learnt how to love one year ago when we met in Seoul (South Korea) while being part of the ISS’07 at the University of Seoul. I hadn’t been in touch with korean culture (food is just a part of it) since I left the country, and of course I hadn’t met any of them till today, which made the experience much more real and beautiful. For a few hours, we talked about the experience and flashed back to it as if it had taken place yesterday, and remembered how happy that made us. Personally, it also feels good to see how frienships you thought you’d never meet again come back, yesterday in Asia, today in America and who knows where tomorrow…

From the Rocky Mountains

I’m posting this from the couch of a cabin in the RMBL (Rocky Mountains Biology Lab), where we are spending today, refreshing from so many miles and roads. It’s such a great and amazing trip that I’m living right now. I haven’t really updated in english that much as most of the time I’ve devoted to let the world know about this experience has gone to the sLog’s which are in spanish. However, I’m living so much I don’t believe I won’t write about it, but that will be once it’s gone and I’m relaxed enough so to sit down in front of the editor and think a bit about such a rush of pictures, sounds, roads and experiences. So, to all of you who follow me around the world but do not speak spanish (if any), be patient as there’ll be hot stuff to come soon!

From the road,

d/

Leavin’ home…

So here I am, 6:10 am (Spanish time yet), sit in front of the desk number 306 at Barajas Airport waiting for it to open and let me check-in. In a few hours I’ll be “hubbin’” in Zurich and, after a few more hours, landing at the JFK airport in New York. But before I jump into myself and dive through my feelings, let me do little bit of update: after a weird and feelings-mixed week in Santander, attending a course on history of economic thought at the summer university, I was driven directly to the Pyrenees mountains where, after a few adventures to finally get to the place, I enjoyed one of the most magic nights lately: a reggae concert by a lake, completely surrounded by nature and backed by my very close friends. Just the breath of fresh air I needed in the middle of this crazy time which started a couple of months ago and will finish when I finally settle in Tempe, AZ, by mid-August. After the concert I came back home for the last week, where the clock was not slow enough to let me fit within that time all the things, people and events I wanted to meet. However, I think I did all the paperwork I needed to, I met a good bunch of friends I won’t till Christmas and even got some uni-work done.

Back to the desk at the airport, it sounds like it should feel like Something starting or Something coming to an end; at least a break point. But actually it doesn’t. Unlike in Sweden, where I was expecting the take-off for a long time before it happened, these last days at home have been many things but waiting for something to come: I have tried to delay everything dealing with this trip till the last-minute (I started packing up 3 hours before leaving my room…) and tried to grab “home’s joys” while possible. this doesn’t imply I won’t miss my broad Family (I’m sure I will indeed) but just that I’ve tried to keep my mind busy so I can’t say I didn’t seized the moment. Personally, I I’d like to believe it’s a sign proving I’m “learning” how to travel and how to leave places where I’ve been happy: while two years ago I’d start missing places I’d enojyed before I’d left them, now I focus on enjoying them till there’s no more to enjoy. Easy to tell, getting easier to do… Yet I can’t say I’ve learned how to say goodbye (still hating them).

Pura droga sin cortar

“Yo no buscaba escribir la super rima, el super flow o la super polla“

-Xhelazz-

On a monday night walk…

Tonight, we’ve had a really nice dinner to celebrate one of the student’s birthday. It’s taken place at another group of student’s place, which turned out to be a really nice apartment in a peaceful and really italian district nearby the university. We ate outside at the terrace tomato and mozarella cheese and chatted for a while. Then I walked by myself back home through the streets of central Rome thinking how nice this opportunity is for me. Not only have I learnt (I still am, indeed) a lot of spatial stuff, but also I’ve had the chance to meet different people whose only common point is a very rare and specialized field in social science. And whenever very different people meet, there’s a huge lot to learn, both about what you like and what you don’t like from them; about what you’d like to become and what you’d not. All along this time here, that quote from My blueberry nights has come to me over and over again, and I think I couldn’t put it better myself…

“Sometimes, we depend on other people as a mirror to define us and tell us who we are, and each reflection make me like myself a little more.“

Lizz (Norah Jones).

Update: week 2

First update after a week without passing by this place… Time here is turning great and almost everyday there’s something new to tell about. Anway, I’ll try to zoom out and just put down the most relevant highlights of the week. For now, just two of them…

Certainly, I’ve cut down my amount of walks and pictures, I guess it has to do with the fact I feel more comfortable. Once a friend of mine told me the first days are always somewhat more sad because one tends to feel more lone but they are also those you usually learn the most from. I guess I’ve already get used to San Lorenzo and somehow Rome and don’t feel anymore the need to go out in the street, walk while listening to music and shoot pictures to fill that “empty space”…

Last week, we had Harry Kelejian for the theoretical part. I did learn a lot about spatial econometrics but specially it was the non-tangible part the best. As we say in Spain, “más sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo” (it’d go something like “devil is wiser because of his age than because of his status as devil”): he is very young in mind but full of experience and I believe that’s what really makes the difference when it comes to teaching. Analytical stuff and models themselves can be found in a book or a .pdf (of course it’s far better if someone shows you the key parts) but I’m pretty sure the most important and interesting thing I’ll keep from the week with Kelejian will be the last one hour and a half he started by saying: “you know, this stuff I’m gonna tell you about is not in the lecture notes, nor in any book, so you can take it as an extra for your own human capital…“

Last day+Rome

I’m finally in Rome. I got here today after a crazy and really fast friday fixing everything for the US visa, a farewell dinner with my friends from the uni, party night, shower (notice i didn’t mention sleep) and a 2 hours plane-sleep. Ago picked me up@the airport (thanks god) and took me “home” where I dropped the luggage and headed for a slide of pizza (Italian food rules).

So far, really good weather and a nice area next to the uni, not much more. More to come after I get a real sleep, rest and puzzle out all the feelings and thoughts running around right now… it’s been too much in too little time.

Music&Life

There’s surely no doubt, all over my life music has been as the curtain of many memmories. A few days ago, I was wandering the net and found out this post. It’s sth I had though so many times I guess it was the perfect excuse to start my own music life-cartography. Here I paste it. Of course, there are some important tunes missing, but those showing up here are part of myself: just random moments shaping a way to see the world. How about you guys?

” 15)I start listening to sweet reggae a bit more seriously than I had been, but even today the old Bob keeps defining myself in “Soul Rebel” (bob Marley).

17) Could have been either Pennywise, NoFX, or even blink-182, but the perfect combination to me of happy punk-rock and positiveness to life of Millenconlin just made my youth a better time to live

19)I’ve already made my way to the university, and breakdancing is at its peak time in my scale of preferences… no doubt that was partly due to Dj Shadow and his “Organ Donnor”.

22)Just that flight by my own would have been enough, but one more year living in Sweden after it makes sure the tune of my early twenties is swedish Lopptroop’s “Fly away” ( I even got it tattoed on my feet later…).

23)Here I am, i’ve already landed one month ago in seoul and, while leaving it on my way back to Spain, I guess the only way i can find to get a bit of peace in the middle of this stream of planes, symbols i don’t know at all and feeling-rollercoasters is to go really back to the roots of beauty and plug my ears to Satie’s piano and his Gymnopedie Nr. 1.“

Never really gone, but now back

Consecuences of a weird mixed weekend. Raw and maybe not as fancy as previous, but dangerously honest.