a quick flashback..

During the past months I was quite busy travelling both for business and pleasure..here's a quick glance at the cities that I visited and what I liked the most about them. I've been to London, Barcelona, Skopje, Zagreb, Belgrad, Chicago and Hannover. I mean they are nice cities but I must say that London has a special place as it is a really beautiful city. Me and my wife we had limited time; only three days but we tried to see as much as possible. We stayed at the Cleveland in Westminster and the hotel was quite nice. Good value. Totally recomendable and the staff was really friendly. As London taxis can be very expensive we took the bus from Stansted Airport to Oxford Street and from there with a cab for 8-9 pounds to the hotel, which was okay. We saw a lot of nice things but I must say I was impressed the most with the British Museum. It was huge and mostly for free. After that I had a business trip to the Balkan, where I started with Zagreb. The weather was perfect and Zagreb is one of the nicest cities in the Balkan region. I visited our dealer there and they are one of the nicest guys, who took good care of me..feeding me Croatian food..however, the clumsy guy I am, I almost started a mini Balcan conflict..there was some statue of Nikola Tesla in a plaza in Zagreb and the Croats claim that he was from Croatia as he was born in Smiljan, which today lies in Croatia..back then it was part of the Austrian Empire..anyways, I wondered why Croats where claiming him for themselves when the rest of the world claims that he was from Serbia..boy, wrong question asked and immediately the guys started to counter-argue that the Serbs are idiots etc. In order to drop the tension I said..''c'mon guys..of course he's Croatian..I was just teasing you..'' anyways, my friends are really cool so it was all fine and they bought me a nice necktie in a traditional shop that was selling only neckties.., which was invented by the way in Croatia and adopted by the French calling it 'cravate'..in German we also call it 'Krawatte'..

From Zagreb I made my way to Belgrade and the weather was so stormy that night that I literally pissed in my pants as there were lightnings all over the city while I was in the air praying to whatever God was available to land me safely. I took a taxi from Nikola Tesla airport and check in at the Hotel Moskva, which is a splendid hotel. It is a bit expensive compared to other four star hotels in Belgrade but is a hotel that surely has some history and the rooms are nicely decorated. I won't go into further details as I have written about Belgrade before but I suggest you visit the Bohemian quarter which is called Skadarlija as it is absolutely worth to visit with its cool bars and cafes. After Serbia I visited Skopje and the week after we went on a family trip to Barcelona. Actually it was a bit outside of Barcelona, a small village called Santa Susana. We stayed at the Aquahotel 4 nights which had two swimming pools and a short walking distance to the beach. Me and my wife did not like it much there but our daugther was totally happy. She didn't get out of the pool the whole day and whatever makes her happy makes us happy too..the train ride takes like 1 1/2 hours from Barcelona Sants to Santa Susanna. Back in Barcelona we took a hotel in Diagonal Mar called Barcelona Diagonal Cero..it is a nice hotel with nice rooms. I have nothing bad to say about it. So it was quite busy but we are not finished yet..I will be travelling to Jakarta in September and I'm really excited about that. Stay safe everybody..!

just a collection of photos..

my first job in Barcelona..

In one of my previous blog entries I wrote about the time when I moved to Barcelona and my search for a job there. As you will remember, there were some pathetic attempts to get a proper job but in the end I managed to find something through friends as a court translator at the Court of Barcelona. So, let's do something different this time and let me tell you about that period in Barcelona. That was 02-03 so quite a while ago. I will always remember the first day I entered the building, passing through security and then going to the secretary to register myself. Of course, they were waiting for me as I was requested through the translation agency and they led me to a big room where I was welcomed by some officials who explained me what the case was about. I had to translate English-Spanish and viceversa as the detained person was from the Netherlands. He was caught with cocaine inside the bus at the border and was there for his interrogation. So I waited there, with the judge, secretary and the public prosecutor (called 'fiscal' in spanish) but no lawyer was present. I found that curious then but didn't think about it much.

Anyways, the police officers brought in the Dutch, who looked a bit scared as he was looking around trying to figure out where he was. I assumed he had spent the night under arrest in a wonderful little jail room called 'calabozo', which was one floor under the court building. They sat him on a chair, the judge sat at his desk and the public prosecutor just fired away with his questions as the secretary was typing everything on a old-fashioned typewriter (no computer!), one of the police officers stood by the door and the other one left the room.

- who is your contact person here in Barcelona?

- where did you get the drugs?

- why did say that the drugs weren't yours?

- if the drugs aren't yours, how come they were in placed in your seat? 

- for this amount of drugs you are facing at least 10 years in spanish lockup. do you know that? 

I tried to translate as fast as the prosecutor asked the questions. The Dutch really seamed nervous and was in a cold sweat. I hadn't imagined that an interrogation would take place like this. In the movies, it is always the police asking the questions, you know, the detainee sitting on the chair under a lamp. It wasn't like that at all. After translating what the dutch man had to say the prosecutor started again to fire away with the SAME questions!. This went on and on. In the end I got pretty tired repeating everything back and forth. At one point, the prosecutor stopped and told the police officer to take the man back to his cell. They thanked me for my services, which was a signal that we were done and that I had to leave. 

Not bad for a first day I thought. I went to the secretary to have the receipt signed and collect my cash. 

How time passes by...