World Cup Champions - 2010

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WE DID IT !!!

First time in history. Spain wins the world cup!! the country goes crazy!!!

I watched the match with a few selected friends. :-) This is us celebrating right after the match.

There was a lot of talking on the Spanish camp about Casillas (The Spanish keeper) and his girlfriend Sara Carbonero. She works for one of the TV stations retransmmiting the Spanish world cup matches and is the one doing the interviews to the players. At the beginning of the world cup there was a lot of talking about her distracting Casillas by just being in the pitch behind the goal. As it turned out it was all bullocks.

Right after winning the world cup, Sara interviewed Casillas (which incidentally is the capitan) and this is what happened!



After drinking the champaign it was time to go and join the party so we headed for the traditional place where people celebrate Celta's sucesses (Celta is the local football team). Miguel and his sister Bea bailed out on us and let Alvaro and myself on our own. We had to walk about 4 Km to join the party but it was worth it!

There was a lot of dancing! :-)

The place was flooded with water from the fountain

On my way back (another 4 Km) I found another area where people were celebrating in a different way...with a football ball!

Oh what a night!! it may never happen again but at least it hapened once in my lifetime. :-)
Totally worth it. :-)


I think I shouldn't end this entry without adding a couple of things:

The first one is Camacho celebrating the Spanish goal (Camacho played on the national team for many years and he even became the coach of the national team on the Japan and South Korea World Cup in 2002.




The second is a piece of history that will probably be shown in Spain time and time again for the next 20 years or so...

Iniesta's goal!





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Pozas de Tourón

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I know what you are all thinking...shouldn't Yago be working by now?

yes, I should. But the weather is so good over here that it would be a crime to give up all this good weather and go back to such a mundane task as working... It's a hard job keeping you informed of all the good things you can do in Galicia but with resignation and the aim to not dissapoint my dear readers I took this hard task upon myself and now I am on a personal mission. To get the most out of this fantastic month of July.

I am not sure whether I already forgot what it is like to spend a summer in Spain or whether we are having an usually good summer this year. Yesterday I went to the beach at 20:30 pm, yes I know, some people go to sleep at that time but it was sunny and still hot and there were quite a lot of people swimming at that time! Not me though....due to my prolonged exposure to tropical waters now I have a condition called 'cold-water-phobia' also known among the scientific community as 'terror al acqua frigus', swimming on waters under 25C may lead to frostbite and amputation of my beloved limbs. Doctors recommend a prolong period of exposure to work in order for the symptoms to subside.

Anyway, just to show you I am doing interesting things: The other day Miguel and I went to an area known as "Pozas the Tourón" which is like Kakadu in Australia but with cold water and without the crocodiles. :-)

They are situated on the old road from Vigo to Ourense close to Melón.

Tourón is a tiny village in the mountains and "Pozas" is what is known in english as pools. These are natural pools created by a waterfall.

Below is the village of Tourón, as you can see it's really tiny and is mostly abandonned nowadays.

This is not exactly a touristic place is mostly known by locals and weird people like my friend Miguel. O:-)
The path to get there wasn't easy.

and you need good shoes to go there, flip-flops won't cut it. The place is magnificient, it was a pity there was a cloud just on top of us that day because everywhere around was blue sky, clouds free.

Due to my condition I couldn't go for a swim and risk a dramatic limb amputation but Miguel who's been exposed to work for a long time had to problem with it. :-)

After a nice afternoon in the pools it was time to get back home but as always in Galicia travelling also involves trying the local especialities and there is a small town called Cañiza which is renowned by its Serrano Ham, so we stopped there to have some tapas before heading home.

This is the "bar" we've tried

The Spanish omelette was fantastic but the ham itself quite dissapointing despite of the perfect cut. Nonetheless we already found the next place we are gonna try on our next trip around this area.

This is what I call a hard day at the office. :-)
Nice scenery, nice walk, good company and then a nice dinner. Perfect day!

I hope I can tell you about many more trips like this one. :-)

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Vigo - Part II

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Another post with some photos from the surrondings of Vigo. The first were taken from Laguia which in my opinion is one of the nicest places in Vigo although greatly overlooked by the locals. It's got a lot of green and on a sunny day it's a nice place to go for a walk and enjoy the views as my friend Álvaro and I did the day I took these photos.

On top of Laguia there is a small chapel and on the day I took the photos they were celebrating a wedding, which is something you can experience almost every weekend with the start of the spring. Alvaro himself got married in that chapel as he reminded me while I was taken photos from every angle possible.

After Laguia, Álvaro suggested going to Chapela, which is one of the neighbourhoods on that part of town where we where. I've only past by a few times through Chapela so I don't really know the place but Álvaro lived there for a while so he knew it pretty well and as he was driving we went to "the beach" in Chapela. You may have noticed I´ve put the word ´beach´ in quotes because it was more like a sandbox rather than a proper beach as we all understand it but there were quite a few people there sunbathing and even swimming so I would imagine that qualifies as a beach.

The local beach wasn't my cup of tea granted, but the views from there where quite nice though.

Not bad!

I've got a few more trips in mind to show you all the nice areas around Vigo. I think you won't be disappointed. I'm also on a mission to discover all the good and wonderful local summer parties. It's a busy schedule but I'll try my best not to dissapoint. :-)

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The Australian Movies

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The other day while going through the photos from the Australian trip I realised I had quite a few videos as well that I couldn´t publish at the time due to bandwith limitations. But now I have no such limitations. :-)

So why not doing a post with all the videos?

So fasten your belt and get ready for some moving action! Nothing spectacular I must admit but you may find some quite interesting. The first video was taken on the trip from Sydney to Melbourne - Day 3.

As usual,  my camera does not allow me to take photos from long distances so I had to get pretty close in order to take a picture from the below kangaroos...but as soon as I started to get any closer they would jump away so if I wanted to capture them with my camera I would have to make it as a movie and this is the result:

The below second and third videos were taken in Tasmania while visiting the Tasmanian devil conservation park. I took a few photos from the tasmanian devils but you can't really appreciate how mean they are from a photo. A video however, it's another story. :-)

The below two cute things spent half an hour going at each other, unfortunatelly I only captured a few seconds but you can hear the sound they make when fighting.

The next one is my FAVORITE. Pay no attention to the image, only the sound it's important. Do you remember the talking toilet I blogged about when I was in Adelaide ?
See to believe!

Dangerous if you spend more than 10 minutes inside...the door unlocks...

The next set of videos were taken in Kangaroo Island - Day 1. If you like sea lions or seals you are in for a treat!

Momma sea lion and her calf.

They like to play too!

I also made a few movies of the New Zealand fur seals on Kangaroo Island - Day 2

Looking for Momma. A baby seal spent quite a lot of time looking for his/her momma, in the following 3 videos you can see him/her searching desperately all over...

The next video was taken at the pinnacles in the trip Perth to Broome - Day 1

I've noticed that all the photos I was taken weren't making justice to the place, in this video you can appreciate the magnitude of the area and how many pinnacles there were...although you can only see a small section of the area.

The next one is from our 3rd day on the trip Perth to Broome. Feeding the dolphins. Although it may not look like it, these are wild dolphins.

The next three videos were from when Aída, Sharon and Hitome when to see the whale sharks (Perth to Broome - Day 5)

And that was it ladies and gentlemen. All the videos I had from Australia. It took a while to upload them all but I hope you find them worth it of your precious time. :-)

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Arcade - Festa dos fachos

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As I promised in a previous post, I would be sacrifising myself for the greater good (that is you dear readers) and I would start attending some of the local traditional and cultural summer parties.

This is the first of a long list I hope. :-) Actually going to this party was Miguel's idea or Bea's (Miguel's sister), there's still a debate going on about how's idea was it in the first place but what I do know is that it wasn't my idea because I had never heard of this party ever before, but I'm glad I went because I had a great time! :-)

Let's start with the introductions, below are Miguel and Bea the culprits of making me go to this crazy party! :-)

You'll have to forgive the photographic quality on this post since night pictures are not exactly what my camera was designed for but I tried my best and some are not too bad.

So, what is all about?
At the village you get yourself a torch...mind you, not a 20th century torch, a 15th century torch, you know, made from wax and cloth. You light it up and join the rest of people.

What you do is to walk up the local mountain with your torch lightened up and once you reach the top, they start a big fire and prepare some "queimadas".

For those of you unfamiliar with what the "queimadas" are.

They are made from a local alcoholic drink of high alcohol content (made from destilling what was left from the grapes when making wine), some sugar, lemon and other ingredients which vary depending on who is making it, they are all added to the mix and finally you put the whole thing on fire at the same time you cast away all the evil spirits. The last part is the most important. ;-)

I was quite eager and really looking forward to this weird party so when we got to the village where it all started from, we got ourselves a torch each and started to walk, following the crowd. As you probably imagined by now, you don't need to make your own torch back home, you can buy it ready made at the village for a couple of euros which help to pay for the event.

Bea trying an exorcism on me.

There were quite a lot of people attending the party

The whole climb is probably 2-3 Km, and the views at night are quite impressive, a pity none of the pictures I took are good enough to see it.

As night photography was letting me down I decided to change strategy and made a movie where you'll probably be able to feel the atmosphere better than with a few dark pictures.

Again, I tried to capture some action and avoid the photos that were letting me down. This should give you a feel for what the atmosphere was like on the top of the mountain.

Then along came the spell casters! :-)

The next part was the preparation of the "Queimada" and all the spell casting that goes with it...hilarious, a pity it's impossible to appreciate from a few photos. I've got a couple of videos but they are 200+ Mb, it is too dark to see anything and it's in Galician so I figured I'll have to live with just a few pictures.

All in all it was a great night, we had a few laughs and we managed to make it to the top without burning ourselves nor our clothing...which is something not everyone attending the party can say. :-) The "queimada" was pretty good and we even got a "queimada" cup as a souvenir. :-)

I would really recommend it and if I have the chance to attend again, I'll be coming back!

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Vigo - Part I

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For the past 12 months I´ve been travelling all around the world, I've been in 4 different continents which is easier said than done and although I only started blogging in my last 2-3 trips, I think it´s also worth talking about the place were I grew up.

Just because I like travelling and visit other places it doesn't mean I don't like the south of Galicia. I think it's a place that has a lot to offer and although I always give it for granted, it was brought to my attention the little fact that other people who never visited the area may find the place quite interesting in the same way I may find Asia or Australia interesting.

First, the location. Where is it?
Galicia is that chunk of Spain which sits just on top of Portugal, it's the most north-western region of Spain.

When you hear the word Spain, probably the first thing that springs to mind is flamenco dancing, bullfighting, paella, lots of sun and scorthing temperatures that will make your skin go from pink to red in 5 minutes.

Well, let me disapoint you from the start, that, ladies and gentlemen is not Spain, that´s Andalucia (which is the most southern region of Spain). The rest of Spain is very different.

Galicia may not have the flamenco dancing nor the bullfighting but what it does have is some of the best seafood in Europe, amazing landscapes whether you like the beach or the mountain and some amazing tapas! :-)

Over the next days,weeks, months or whatever time I spend here I am going to try and show you some of the most interesting tradicions and celebrations, the weird and the wonderful...not to mention the traditional photos showing the best places. :-) 

For you my dear reader, I'll make a big sacrifice and shall try all the tradicional parties around the area, all the tradicional tapas in the region and visit the nicest and most beautiful areas in this little known region of Spain...just for you...no need to thank me, you deserve it because you´re worth it my dearest reader. :-)

Galicia it's very green in the same way England is, winters tend to be quite rainy and the summers are generally dry  but not too hot, average temperatures are around 25-30C on the coast, probably a bit higher inland. It's not extrememly humid and there is always a nice breeze that makes it quite pleasant. At night temperatures drop to 15-20C so you'll need a thin jumper. It's never too hot nor too cold.

You've probably heard of the famous "Saint Jack's Way" that comes all the way from France to Santiago de Compostela. Thousands of people walk the way every year. You may not know this but Santiago de Compostela is the Capital of Galicia so if you had in your mind the idea of doing Saint Jacks Way, you would undoubtely end up in Galicia. :-)

The other day I was passing by a mountain I used to climb by bicycle when I was much yonger lad and I was also much fitter than now and it occured to me I could take that oportunity to take a few pictures from the top. It was a sunny day althogh there was a slight fog but photos turned out to be clear enough. Mind you, this time I went all the way up by car...I don't think I would be alive today should I have tried it on a bicycle.  :-)

You'll be able to see Vigo at the end in some of the photos although with that slight fog on the background it may not be an easy task.

Photos taken from Domaio looking over Vigo.

I am going to try and take some more photos from other places with good  views. Vigo is not a pretty town on its own, although it has got a few interesting places it's mostly concrete and the traffic is so bad that in Japan they used Vigo as a study case for a poorly designed town. Nonetheless, the places around Vigo are truly breathtaken and worth visiting. Hopefully my future pictures will speak by themselves. :-)
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