Uncategorized

And where I’ve been recently
Munich, Germany
Vienna, Austria
Sapporo, Japan

J’habite à Genève et gare fréquemment mon vélo devant la gare dans les
places disponibles pour cet effet.

Aujourd’hui, dimanche 8 mars, vers 10:50, n’ayant pas de places
disponibles tout au tour de la gare, j’ai décidé avec mon ami de garer
contre un des escaliers pour monter du centre commercial sous la gare.
On a laissé les vélos jusqu’à 18:30, quand on est arrivé de notre
voyage en train.

Quel est notre surprise quand on voit que les deux vélos ont le pneu
d’avant crevé, clairement un signe de vandalisme contre les vélos. Le
matin j’avais déjà vu que les vélos gares au même endroit avaient un,
soit les deux pneus vides d’air.

Voyant que cette situation arrive jamais quand les vélos sont bien
garés dans les (pas assez de) places disponibles, je me demande s’il
ne s’agit pas d’une action de terrorisme de la part de CFF (ou
autorité commandé par les CFF) pour faire peur aux utilisateurs de
vélos qui garent ces vélos hors des places disponibles.

Je le dis car l’autre fois que le même m’est arrivé j’avais aussi garé
le vélo dans un endroit pas fait pour eux et aujourd’hui même d’autres
vélos garés contre le plan de la ville (aussi mal garés) avaient les
pneus crevés.

Serait intéressant savoir s’il y a, dans les CFF, des ordres pour
punir les cyclistes que trouvent pas de place pour garer ces vélos
amis de l’environnement.

Some non-sense numbers gathered together:
– visited countries: 36
– coldest day experienced: -36° C (Oulu, Finland)
– hottest day experienced: +4x° C (either in Portugal or Morocco)
– most expensive hotel night paid: 170 euros/person (hotel Vals-Therme, Switzerland)
– cheapest hotel night paid: 2 euros/person (Kota Bharu, Malaysia)
– most expensive meal paid: 110 euros/person (Buffet Gare Eaux-Vives, Switzerland)
– cheapest meal paid: <2 euros/person (either South Korea or Malaysia)
– most distant place from Portugal been: Sydney (18000km)
– highest altitude: 4554 meters (capanna Margherita, Italian Alps)

Today is my 30th anniversary and I cannot complaint at all. Even if I don’t have a car, no television, my computer is seven years old, no nespresso machine; even if I had to do my laundry today, clean the house because I don’t have a cleaning person, I’m extremely happy of my life until now.

I’ve lived in three countries, visited 30 other, I’ve followed most of my dreams and yes, realized them. From living away from Portugal, to teach aerobics, dreams come true. Is just a matter of effort.

At 30, in my mind, I’m about to start the third chapter of my life, the world trip with Eva. Leaving everything behind after, mostly likely, had arrived to the top of the pyramid on well being and wealth. It has been an excellent exercise so far and I recommend.

The other two parts of my life were – first – before I left Portugal, up to 2001. Some sub parts there – first kiss, first girlfriend, university and move to my grand-mother house in Coimbra. Then – second part – I went to CERN, Geneva, as summerstudent in 2001. This was the discovery that better and different worlds existed. Meeting 150 persons at once from different nationalities. Were three short months but changed my way of being. The second part continued one year after when I moved to Northern Finland, Oulu, first to finish my studies but ended up living there for one full year. Surviving the depressing winter, celebrating the solstice – Juhannus -, meeting again dozens of new people and lifelong friends and the person which I would end up to live with during three years, first in Finland and then in Switzerland. Here in Switzerland I met Eva at beginning of 2007 and we have been living unofficially together since then. Live is getting more and more enjoyable and I’m afraid I have done with Eva one of the best decisions of life. And manage to realize another dream.

Bitola europeia, horário cadenciado e tarifa quilométrica
O ministro dos transportes de portugal apresentou ontem o plano de relançamento dos tranportes públicos de longo curso. Deixando de lado a ideia “faraónica” do TGV, que o ministro considera apenas levar à ainda maior centralização do país em torno de Lisboa e Porto, Marquês de Pombal mostrou um plano ambicioso baseado, segundo ele, “no exemplo suíço”.
As duas medidas a colocar em prática já na próxima mudança de horário europeia, a acontecer na segunda semana de dezembro, são a introdução de tarifa quilométrica, definida pela associação de transportadores, que será obrigatoriamente válida para viagens fora dos centros urbanos e em todas as empresas de transporte; e a introdução de horários cadenciados, a cobrir todo o país, afectando principalmente os comboios. Estas duas medidas têm por consequência que todos os comboios entre duas cidades terão o mesmo preço independente da qualidade do comboio ou tempo de percurso. No entanto, de forma transitória, uma reserva de lugar continuará a ser obrigatória nos comboios alfa, de modo a garantir o conforto e segurança dos utentes.
Outra mudança visível serão os comboios a circular de norte a sul do país. Haverá comboios directos de Évora à Guarda e Beja à Covilhã, por exemplo. Em conjunção com o horário cadenciado será possível efectuar em cada 30 minutos uma partida entre Lisboa e Porto, sendo que em metade dos casos será necessário efectuar transbordo no Entrocamento. O tempo de viagem, no entanto, será sempre menor que 3 horas.
Entrocamento e Coimbra irão ter um papel central nesta revolução, sendo estações de transbordo onde vários comboios chegarão em simultâneo e partirão alguns minutos depois igualmente em simultâneo. Faro, Beja, Évora, Covilhã, Guarda, Braga e Guimarães irão ser num primeiro tempo as estações terminais da maior parte dos comboios de longo curso, mas em vista estão extensões a Vila Real de Santo António e Sagres no Sul e V.N. Cerveira e Bragança no Norte. Ligações mais frequentes a Madrid, Corunha e Salamanca são também ideias que serão postas na mesa com os parceiros ibéricos.
Finalmente a outra grande revolução será a adopção da bitola europeia. Portugal e espanha são os únicos países europeus que adoptaram uma medida diferente entre os carris, impedindo deste modo a circulação de comboios a nível europeu. Nesta primeira fase a colocação de um terceiro carril, à bitola europeia será feita e mais tarde a substituição dos eixos dos comboios. Igualmente todo o material rolante será no futuro adoptado a circular a 220km/h.

Like any other country, portugal has its good and bad points. Today I had mostly the good ones. An excellent bacalhau (codfish) in a small restaurant in company of my friend R. and a also a bottle of wine. This kind of restaurant ambiance and food is always portugal to me. Then we moved for a coffee at cinema S. Jorge, an old cinema in downtown lisbon, built with 1927 seats in the 50s but later transformed in 3 rooms, leaving one of them with around 900 places.

This morning after testing my eyes again, this time for changing glasses lenses, i walk lost in lisbon. I love to loose my self in lisbon, is beautiful but unfortunately less and less populated. The city does not appeal people to live and keeps transforming buildings in offices and streets in mega parking spaces, chaoting even more the traffic.

Yesterday i become citizen again by doing my citizen card. First try in Amadora but at 10am they were not giving any more numbers as it was full for the day. Second try in the car service in Lisbon and luckly was raining and I was not affraid of it. Less than ten minutes wait and I did all the papers. Now is only one month to have the card and its multiple codes for doing i don’t know what. Then I test again my contact lenses. I like the opticien I go in lisbon, she cares about me and makes several tests to understand if she should or not change the lenses. Then she gave me a test lens and a new liquid bottle to try next month. And all for free, even the consultation.

Tonight will be lisbon family dinner. Hopefully not too much traffic to go there. I did not manage to convince my family on going by train… One day.