9 years later.......

And it was on the 31st July 1998 that I landed in London!!

I can't believe how fast time has gone. And 9 years later here I am!

Initially i was going to be here only for 2 years, but I guess I liked it too much and with one excuse or another stayed well passed the 2 year mark.

9 years in summary:
- I have lived in 7 houses
- Met people from all continents
- Travelled to many countries I have never been to before
- Visited far too many bars/ pubs
- Drunk lots of beer (well not so much beer), wine, whiskey, tequila...... house cocktails from all those parties
- Worked for over 7 years at IBM ....... how i managed that i will never know!!!
- Made fantastic friendships that I hope last many years
- Found and lost love
- Cried a little and laughed a lot

It has been an amazing journey and what I take with me most of all is the fact that I got to know me...... to know who I am and what I stand for, what makes me happy and what drives me to move forward. I have learnt how precious the little moments are with the people that you care about and how I thrive for live and love. I have learnt to treasure happy memories that always come handy when times are difficult.

Most of all I have learnt the value of friendship.... and how friends, specially when you live far from home, are more than friends...... And even though some come and some go, because that is the nature of relationships, the main ones stay for very long time. And even though I'm crap at staying in touch with everybody, all live in my thoughts!

Happy 9th Anniversary Me!!!!!!

My right to siesta!!

Do you know what is one of the most frustrating things I find in this life?..... When my eyes keep shutting down because I'm so tired that I just can't keep them open!

Look back and think about the amount of times you wished you could just crawl under your desk when you are at work, or hide away while sitting through a really boring lecture at university, or when you are in the train and your stop is getting close.... you know that if you close your eyes you will miss it!!

OK, so there isn't much you can do when you are falling asleep in a train, and in fact you can actually sleep!! There isn't much you could do when you were at uni. But what about work??!!!

I claim my right to have a siesta after lunch!!!

And why not? I think that having a siesta would make me much more productive, but not only that, it would make me a happier person! If I spend up to an hour trying to keep my eyes open and fighting tiredness, compare that with the 20 minutes that a power nap would take! Imagine this, you have your lunch and break, you disappear for 20 minutes, or crawl under your desk. Passed the 20 minutes you sit back on your chair and start working....... Your eyes are open, you don't feel tired, you don't spend the next hour dreaming about sleeping, you are ready and prepared to start work straight away. Plus, what is more important, you are in a much better mood.

And believe me, who in this world would not want to have happy us at work with a broad smile in your faces?

Talking about the weather

Ever since I moved to the UK....... 9 years ago!, I have lived throught many many talks about the weather.

I never noticed what an important part of everybody's life the weather is. But specially how many conversations it generates.

I think I still don't fully understand why.... but here you have some guesses as of why the weather is such a used topic of conversation:

• It is a common topic that allows anybody and everybody to join in
• It provides a heartlighted chat without being intrusive about people's believes or lives
• It fills empty spaces when you run out of conversation
• Everybody can be an authority on the weather
• It gives me a very general topic to start my blog!

I wonder if the weather talk is a cultural thing.... Could it be possible that there are cultures more shy about asking questions, and therefore need to have a non-important topic to talk to complete strangers?

It is interesting though how, me being Spanish, I'm finding myself keeping lots of weather conversation....

So I guess that if it would finally be sunny and warm, and people would then have a reason to spend more time out and about having fun and meeting friends. If the summer would finally arrive to London, like it has in may places in Europe, and for a few days it would stop raining. If I could finally wear my summer clothes and sit outside for a drink to see life go by, then the last thing on my mind would be having a conversation about the weather.