ON STANDBY…

Brussels. You dodge the mountains of rubbish that crowd the streets of the capital of Europe, grey clouds are mirrored on grey puddles while the combination of grey smoke from grey cars owned by grey executives and driven by grey chauffeurs on grey roads and grey skyscrapers prevents one from seeing the grey skies. It snowed last week, yet although I hoped for it to settle it failed to materialise, for the blend of white and pure snow with the greyness and the layer of rubbish spawned some sort of semi liquid shite. It was grey. I read on a guide that Brussels is a city desperately in need of a PR Job. It is accurate, Parisian weather is as wretched as Brussels´, but the City of light advertises itself so skilfully that Euro Disney was set up there (it is a flop, for it is always raining). But the Bruxelloises are not very proficient at marketing: they just say that it rains and it is grey. I haven’t got the foggiest idea as to whether Brussels was nice before the arrival of the institutions (the Flemish houses here and there and the possibly most beautiful central square ever say it was a serious competitor for Antwerp or Bruges), yet the evolution from quaint Flemish town to “Dump of Europe” brought about property sharks, speculators without qualms and laissez-faire developers that made some parts of the city look like, I read somewhere, post was Sarajevo. I’ve been to Sarajevo, and I can assure it is far nicer than Brussels.

The stage is over in two weeks and, short of a last minute miracle, I will be jobless in March. I do not love Brussels, but I want to stay and try and find something here. Going back to Spain out of the blue cannot be a good decision, I would be totally lost. I have sent some CVs here and there but the response is not being very warm. In plain words, nobody answers and I sometimes feel on the brink of utter paranoia: “Does my e-mail work?” “Have I got the crappiest CV ever?”. Well, the latter is closer to reality than to paranoia. Nevertheless, I am not applying to succeed Mr. Gates in Microsoft.

I am listening to Neil Young, it helps disconnect and keep some balance. As long as there are things that sound like “Hey hey my my”, the rest seems pretty unimportant. Mmmm, then again, nothing sounds like that. Have you ever heard anything so… raw? It almost hurts, those guitars. Anything dubbed mould breaking after that is but peanuts in comparison.

My flat contract expires this month and my landlady was pressing me to renew for 5 or 6 months. I had already stomached the idea and the loss of money (I must fly to Spain two or three times in the next months, and I pictured myself jobless, paying flights and rent for 5 months or else I would lose the deposit + 1 month penalty, begging outside the Charlemagne)… until I read the contract (it is normally a good idea, reading the contracts one signs) and found out it said I am entitled to a continuation of three months. So I talk to the landlady, who was a bit dumbfounded when she read it (she was hoping for a 5 month continuation), uttered “my mistake”, and lo! I signed. So good news, I will not lose money.  It seems not sensible to stay here, yet I want to try. And 3 months is not that much. Not economically at least.

My collision money holds, I reckon what I saved before the stage will allow me to keep body and soul together for 2 or 3 months. I am not living like a dog, but I do not spend much, either. I will have to be prudent and restrain from travelling round, it is where I spend the most. But it is great.

I was in Paris, at last. Nice city, terrible weather and the resolution to go back with more time, you cannot see anything in a weekend. Great company and an apartment to die for (views to Les Invalides´ dome). I felt like a real Jaques observing Les Invalides with my morning coffee and fag, more French than a baguette. And last weekend I went again to Amsterdam. As always, it was awesome. Train ticket 40 €, beers and eating a further 60 €, free accommodation thanks to my cousin, going back home at 4.00 on a pink bicycle was PRICELESS.

Today is my last ICEX day. Almost three years since I applied and began, a month later, with the selection process on a rainy day in a Hotel on the outskirts of Madrid. Three nice years. To begin with the boring stuff, work, I liked the course in Madrid (suppose I learnt something), the year in Budapest was heaven (OFCOMES Budapest rocked, people were great and I liked what I did) and with regards to my current job in Vienna… well, no luck there at all, let´s leave it there. Money has not been a problem, that is something. Putting these things aside, in the personal sphere it has been marvellous, due to all the things I´ve experienced, the new things I´ve done and, above all, the people I got to know. That´s what really helps one see the things from a different angle, and, bearin that in mind, these have been three downright enlightening years. Now the end is nigh. Nothing lasts forever. People complain a lot about everything, but, by and large, Icex trainees live like kings. I´ve got no complain whatsoever now. I´m just grateful I lived all this.

Statistics crown the cake. In three years, I´ve lived in three different European capitals (Madrid, Budapest, Vienna). I´ve improved my German (I hope). I got to know many people I now call good friends (from here, loads of thanks, you made it all worth it). ICEX paid a master (that is no master). In the master I did and International marketing plan (smokeselling, in other words. And the bloody idiot, who did not accept FOB Müller´s cover…), exported ambulances to Czech Republic (it took me one sleepless night), had really good teachers (Isaac, awesome) and really bad who blew a lot of smoke (Chimpún or “exportation workshop friends… colleagues… mates”. Many of these latter where consultants in their professional lives. Coincidence?), lost about 6 kilos, and once I did not sleep for four days in a row (could I do that now?). I learnt some Hungarian, I´ve got a diploma (én beszélek jól magyarül!). I´ve polished my skiing skills in Flaine in France, Jasna in Slovakia and Sankt Anton am Arlberg in Austria (the latter was intermingled with some wild beer drinking, the bloody fly who spoiled my first beer outdooors of the year, and great memories such us “I need something salty”, “A clean boy is a happy boy”, “The slopes in Switzerland are never prepared” and “Maiahi für die Spaniard”). I got two high level German titles (in B´pest, there is no Goethe Institut in Austria. I did three market researches (olive oil, distribution, machinery) , visited many trade fairs (some really seedy), wrote about 40 news about Hungarian economy (two times published in “El Exportador”, great magazine, I´ve wrapped countless sandwiches with it), and resolved 163 enquiries about Hungary from Spanish companies (a bloody drag). I corrected 414 Weekly Reports and 99 Monthly Reports (another bloody drag) on a big project of a huge software corporation (I signed a confidentiality agreement, if I gave details I had to kill you), ended up hating excel (FYI: it does not admit more than 4.000 different cell formats, that point reached, you lose everything… go and imagine the size of the chuffing excel tables), wrote two times the grants section of  el País de los Negocios, swallowed mountains of nonsense and shite this year in Vienna (ROI on research, a formula for that…) and underwent the most stupid internet searches one can possibly imagine (hence my current blind faith in Google, if it is not there, it is nowhere to be found). I went to Poland in december without a coat (I sweat it was hot in Budapest, all the same I could borrow something warm, thanks Agz). I´ve seen the Danube in many places (nowhere is it nicer than in Budapest). I taught ski (free of charge, I´m that magnanimous). I leant to cook tortilla de patatas, my coming of age, now I am a proper Spaniard (the biggest challenge of this year in Vienna, much more than anything I might have done in my job; I must add that my tortillas are delicious, thanks Inma for management and supervision). I was Elvis in Cologne Carnival (no pics available, more´s the pity). I was almost homeless in Prague (kitkats do not outweigh death by freezing, Javi) and in Moscow (Javi, great organization… “here´s a link” of hotel Rossija). I started a blog in English and Spanish (and I like it). I endured some beer-drinking sprees sich as stakbierfest in Munich (4 Maβ within two tours) and the less famous but much more pocket-friendly Junifest in Bratislava (Topvar T-shirt for 1 €). I learnt to skate on ice (how shitty Vienna´s ice rinks, how great Budapest´s). I have walked more than 200 Km, give or take, along the Donaukanal (putting all my strolls together, not in a row). I lost, recovered then lost again lots of Hungarian forints in those infamous poker nights at Juanjo´s (they were great, as was the way back home in the Magyar frost at 3.00 A.M. on Wednesday). I´ve sailed the Danube in Budapest and the Adriatic from Split to Hvar (I left the swimming suits on land, but I bathed… lucky I am a a man, others were not that lucky, sorry). One of my feet was painted (only once, it was painted green). I´ve lived in a flat located 5 minutes on foot from the Parliament in Budapest (it had bullet holes from the ´56 revolution). I´ve lived in a flat located 10 minutes on foot from Stephansdom in Vienna (the building was not very fin de siecle, but rather a bit socialist for Vienna, but the flat and the view were great). I´ve bathed a thousand times in Szecheny baths, seen the Danube from the Fishermen´s Bastion yet another thousand times, what fills me with happiness (thanks, Budapest). It was I that furnished my flat in Vienna, what a load of shite, IKEA´s furniture montage (I got help, thanks Inma). I learned to cook “quiches” (everything hand-made, even the bread, I am a pro!). In three years, I´ve taken 35 planes (some really scary, that takeoff in Moscow…), been to 15 different countries, visited 51 cities (see MAP) and taken 4536 photos (here some of them). I´ve eaten  517 chickenn breasts in Hungary, thereof 143 Kijevi Csirkemel in Lúgas – great restaurant - , devoured 326 Schnitzels and 132 Zwiebelrostbrättln in Vienna, paid the university of the sons of the owner of Eissalon Schwedenplatz -  Straciatella and Pralinata orgasm, mmmmm, ¿who cannot like ice cream? – and gulped 37 litres of Edelweiss, 67 Körso Dreher 156 cans of Ottakringer, 417 of Dreher and 246 of others suvh as Erdinger, Zlaty Batant, Arany Askoz, Zwiec y por supuesto Budvar (these are approximate figures).

Not bad, huh? And this is but a bit of it.

My little household problem was sorted out yesterday. Hausverwaltung did not give a damn. Wien Energie told me I would be charged 200 € should they come in vain. At the 4th try, the owner picked up and said he was sending an electrician. The guy came and within minutes found out that, inside a closet out my flat (to which only the Hausverwaltung, Wien Energie and electricians have the key), a piece was missing. He went home then came back with the missing thing, plugged it and Lo! Light and electricity came back. Where was the piece? The electrician said that SOME BASTARD who found himself without light for whatever the reason MUST HAVE STOLEN IT. The key to that closet is nothing special and anyone can buy one in any electrician store.

I´ve got light and electricity again. Marvellous. How did people manage in the Middle Ages? What would we do without electricians? Plumbers, electricians, peasants, waiters… people who wait our tables, keep our cities clean, solve our problems… Heroes, tenfold as necessary as CEOs and bigwigs who pull the strings.

In this year of spiritual retirement in Vienna, I have thought too much and experienced the full gamut of human emotions. I feel more intensely than ever how time flashes by and we grow up. Things change very quickly. A friend of mine who found himself in a similar situation in London harbours very similar thoughts. This morning on the subway I was listening to Nena´s “Irgendwie, Irgendwo, Irgendwann” and I became melancholic, as I always do when listening to that song. It reminds me of my Erasmus in Bielefeld. Everything was so wonderful there, so childish and naïve. I do not want to grow up. Where are the summer loves now? The Sommerlager? American hard rock from the 80s? The partys with dated pop in German discos? Beers at 12.00 in the morning?

People evolve somehow, grow up. And I do not know whether I do that in a logical way. It seems I do not, as the majority seem to follow the “way towards anticipated retirement”. The news that this or that guy has settled down reaches me more frequently now than ever before. Someone writes a mail and says “here in Spain the people are so stuck… no wonder, I suppose that´s what there is if you stay… all my friends buy a house, get married or have children”. Meanwhile I keep on thinking about going to Brussels, burning money to pay the flat rent in Vienna and in 1000 journeys. People you´ve known for years tell you that those who´ve got a decent economy have bought a house… It seems sensible, does it not? Mortgage for ever, children, marriage. Security, peace, in other words. But by doing that one also leaves other things: different stories and scenarios, new friends, errors to learn from, and so forth.

Settlind down? I´d rather take advantage of the opportunities of rambling round now that I´m young, I´m a curious baby en tour of discovery. Setlling down terrifies me, it would mark the end of childhood. I´ve got dead serious Peter Pan complex, I´m the naughty boy who did not want to grow up. Marriage? I cannot, I´m a boy. A mortgage? Bitte, I haven’t got the slightest idea as to where I will be 7 months from now. Maybe I should go home, look for a job there, mortgage up my life and settle down. Is that the prudent and logical thing to do? I do not think the people who do that ever though about the opportunity cost. Then again, they might have…

Yet I suppose it is normal to reflect on those things when you can see everything change around you. And when a friend informs you that the love of your days of youth got married, so beautiful a girl that that I very seldom gathered the courage to talk to her… and she got married! Well, in addition to that, my friend came to know it because the “marvellous news” appeared, with pics and all, in the social section of certain tacky newspaper, alongside three or four sentences that… for the love of God! So kitschy they could make a man puke. My friend sent the mentioned “thing” to me. Devastating. She looked beautiful. Ye Gods, I feel like Die Ärtzte, it is too late for me, and I knew it from a friend. And like Die Ärtzte, someday I will avenge it and she´ll regret it, yet it will be too late.

Alas, it will never happen for me. I should have thought about the opportunity cost back then, when I should have tried: what is the alternative to doing nothing? Exactly what it happened: NOTHING. And now she´s on the “way towards anticipated retirement”. Why that urge to settle down? I cannot grasp it. I told my friend in London about my Liebeskummer and he developed some raving on the application of opportunity cost to relationships. I link it here. As you see, opportunity cost must always be borne in mind. 

Opportunity cost is a term used in economics to mean the cost of something in terms of an opportunity forgone (and the benefits that could be received from that opportunity), or the most valuable forgone alternative. For example, if a city decides to build a hospital on vacant land that it owns, the opportunity cost is some other thing that might have been done with the land and construction funds instead. In building the hospital, the city has forgone the opportunity to build a sporting centre on that land, or a parking lot, or the ability to sell the land to reduce the city’s debt, and so forth… Opportunity cost need not be assessed in monetary terms, but rather can be assessed in terms of anything that is of value to the person or persons doing the assessing. Assessing opportunity costs is fundamental to assessing the true cost of any course of action. Note that opportunity cost is not the sum of the available alternatives, but rather of benefit of the best alternative of them.

I´ve gone through opportunity cost in this blog already, in Arbeit macht krank & Le Stage. Here I assessed the opportunity cost of going to Brussels, and not the other way round. Error. Opportunity cost must be assessed both ways. In Le Stage, the opportunity cost of going to Brussels is staying here; the only benefits I lose: money and security. It seems high, does it not? Well then, let´s take a look at the opportunity cost of staying here: not going to Brussels to do the Stage, and consequently losing all this stuff:

• Having my piece of mind back (here I do shite that chips away at the frayed seams of my sanity day in day out)
• New city, new country
• Learning French
• Getting to know 600 stagiers from more than 30 different countries
• Be close to people I love
• The widening of opportunities the stage may provide me with
• Seeing how the EU is, from the inside.
• Being the guy who resurrected the Doha Round of Trade Talks, thus revving up global Trade (I exaggerate here).

I could go on for hours, yet, in a nutshell: NO CONTEST. I´m going to Brussels. I already told the bosses here and they understood. Well, nobody could expect that so nice a guy as I am would stay here doing rubbish. Two months to go and counting! I´ll keep on rumbling down the road and musing on Erasmus, summer loves and that I do not want to settle down yet. Falling through space and time, direction endlessness.

The bloody heat wave that stormed Vienna has worn off, now it cannot be higher than 20´ and there is a refreshing wind that blows from the North. I´m wearing a pullover, I can think clearly again. I´m clean, I can move without sweating, I do not need three or four showers a day, the tube smells of tube and not of sweaty cattle. After the hell we endured throughout the last two weeks, this is paradise on earth. Then, how is it possible that I am the only one who seems to be downright happy with this refreshing wave? Everyone complains now. I cannot grasp it, but people love extreme heat. I, on the other hand, hate it, you can do nothing but sunbathe and activities that do not involve movement or the use of your brain. My favourite seasons are undoubtedly spring and, above all, autumn, when everything is golden and fresh and a bit melancholic and decadent. Nicest months of the year: September, October and May, with no possible contest. And between 0´ and 30´, I´d rather have the former.

But people apparently love to sweat and stink. And, according to scientists, it is getting ever worse, since global warming seems unstoppable, mainly because people do not give a damn. I wonder whether the people would be so carelessly happy-go-lucky about the weather if it were “global freezing” instead. Surely not. Were we about to face an ice-age, heads would roll, measures would be taken and everyone would be dead scared. But the perspective of a few degrees higher average temperature in the foreseeable future has got some appeal for the people, who, again, love to sweat and stink and do nothing but lie in the sun. More sun is more fun, to hell with the generations still to come and live in a planet that will closely resemble hell! Humankind is a selfish beast. But there are selfish arguments against global warming as well; more sun is not necessarily more fun for everyone: skiing, for example, will suffer.

Scientists are warning that global warming is melting Alpine glaciers at an unprecedented rate. They claim that in 15 years time, many low level ski resorts could have no snow at all. Temperatures have already risen about one degree in the last 10 years. This has caused the snow line to recede up the side of most mountains by an average of 150 metres. In the Austrian Alps, it could move from 1200 metres to 1800 metres within 15 years. Global warming will reduce the snow pack area and glaciers will experience accelerated melting. It is estimated that 50 to 90 percent of current Alpine glaciers will have disappeared by the end of the 21st Century. Low level skiing resorts have the most to lose as they could end up with no snow at all. Many are investing heavily in snow-making machines but their spending could be in vain, as snow cannons only work if the air temperature is below freezing in the first place.

In some resorts, skiing could disappear all together.

Many people say global warming is not happening. Well it bloody is, and some of the low level ski resorts will simply be wiped out. Within some years we will no longer dream of going to a resort below 1800 metres. If current climate changes continue and the scientists are right, then winter skiing at low level resorts could become a thing of the past.

The Viennese Fortune teller told me that something good would happen to me in June. Creepy! It did. On the 16th of June a guy from the EU phoned me. I got the formal confirmation two weeks later. I´ve been selected for a European Union Stage, 5 months in Brussels in the DG Trade, commercial relations EU-America-Persian Gulf, and Trade barriers. The contract and a lot of bureaucracy arrived towards the end of June. I sent back the signed contracts with all the due shite on Wednesday the 5th of July (certified, priority and with confirmation of reception… my paranoia with these things brinks on madness, I must admit…). Yesterday I got the confirmation of reception. So I suppose it is official now: It is mine and everything is sorted out already. I did not want to count the chicken before they had hatched.

I begin in Brussels on the 1st of October, which means that I´ll break my current contract, since I signed for a year. But I know what happens: I do not get the last month and must turn back a 1/12 of the money I got in advance, and that´s all folks! I have not yet told anything to my boss. I have never quit (not specially difficult, bearing in mind my incredibly wide work experience). I realise I´m a blundering fool for feeling as if I were about to betray somebody; everyone does it. Moreover, what the chuff do they expect? That I stay here forever doing the shite I do?

Well, there´s something to chew on in the whole thing. Opportunity cost, as usual. If they renewed me here (that is not sure), I´d get something that looks downright riveting: nice contract, 2000 € month, I´d live in Vienna, a great city… With the stage, I´ll earn reasonably well to live in Brussels without starving for 5 months and then, wham bahm! Straight to the dole. What I reject: nice contract, 2000 € month, security, Vienna. Is not enough? No, neither here nor now. It is not Vienna. I like Vienna, she´s got that quietness and indulgence typical of Mitteleuropa, it is perfect to live in and she´s beautiful. But I have not been capable of enjoying all that, I´ve got no time to enjoy all that. I feel like a stranger here. I do not belong. Nonexistent social life, lack of fun, no real friends, I´m far away from all the people I care for. Above all, I loathe my job. I earn good, that´s true, but, money? I´ve got it, and I feel alone and empty. One gets used to everything and now I hardly notice that loneliness, mainly because from Monday to Thursday my life closely resembles a desperate fucking race against the clock. Yet this is by far not what I want. I lack direction here, there is no point in going on with something that makes you feel so bloody unhappy. Should I be renewed here and decide to stay, I would do so out of fear; fear of seeing myself with no job and no money either. A trade off, hours of torment for money. It would not be honest. Nice salary, Vienna, successful firm. Poetry. Fuck on that. I´d be Judas if I accepted. 30 pieces of silver and a deal is a deal. A bribe, through and through. Slaves are made in such ways.

I hate money.

I´m accepting the stage. And I did not need to dwell on it, it was a decision that came from my guts. I´ve got to get out of here, I´ve got to break out. Nature made us wise, and what comes straight from the heart is normally right. This time at least, it is 100% right. I´m positive. I´m going to Brussels in October. I got a stage. Jolly good show chaps!

Silly Friday. Even sillier week. Incredibly moist and hot in Vienna. From noon on the sun hits the place where I work dead straight. Vienna was begging for rain. Bush came and went away. This place was a frigging sauna. That, alongside my below-zero motivation towards my current job made this week more horrible still. What am I doing in Vienna? My German improves, yet my level is already good, it is hard to go further and, though I learn, I do not practice. Nonexistent social life. No time to. And I need some time for me, for my music, books, my things. Spiritual asylum.

Yesterday it rained. It is cool now. Fresh, how lovely. I do not feel like working. I loathe my job, I learn Zilch. Intellectual challenge zero. Anyone with a good command of English could do it. Totally mechanical, no need to think whatsoever.

I sometimes marvel at the fact that I earn what I earn for doing what I do (thanks to ICEX, who pays 50% and fixes the salary depending on the city; Vienna is incredibly handsomely paid). Regardless of that, were we to measure it against the intellectual contribution or effort I make, I would not deserve my salary. A good deal then? Not in a thousand years. For then I think that here I am the one who does the boring, repetitive yet unfortunately necessary and time consuming work nobody would like to do. That makes it important for the big guys, does it not? Through this approach, my salary is fair. Let´s go further, shall we? Let´s bear in mind the cost of opportunity: I spend millions of hours doing something I hate and from which I learn naught; hours I´d rather be elsewhere doing other things, and the majority of alternatives seem more appealing to me. ¿How much is all that time worth? All that time I´m working, taking into consideration that each minute is like a Lovecraftian nightmare to me? That´s bloody priceless. If we bear in mind the cost of opportunity, I should earn millions.

I had better stop, this path is beaten and leads to “Das Kapital” and Marx´s theories on how much one´s work costs. I won´t be here for long and I already know what I´ll be doing afterwards. And I´m happy. Just by thinking of leaving I feel like singing and dancing. I won´t give details until everything is totally sorted out. But something nice happened in June, as the Fortune Teller predicted. Uneasy feeling, is it not? I begin to believe I´m really going to die at the age of 88. Bloody Fakir.

I`m 328 years old and come from the future. I got to know this blog through an old lunatic called Ziggy, a roofless alcoholic beggar who lives in a GSPB (Government subventioned Park Bench) he came to get through a NGO who helps ruined former property-bubble-is-about-to-pump doomsayers. I decided to use my time machine to tell you all how things are going in Spain in my time.

Luckily, the Pumping of the property bubble predicted by such imbeciles and doomsayers as that Ziggy never happened. Real state prices in Spain hace increased a solid yearly 17% throughout the last 50 years. We have therefore turned into the richest country of the world: a loft in Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid is twice as expensive as the whole state of California and the Imperial Palace of Tokio put together; then again, nobody lives in Paseo de la Castellana any longer: those houses are not to live in, but to invest in.

Though I work in Madrid, I, for one, have bought a wonderfully cosy 40 square metre flat in a God forsaken village 90 kilometres north of Burgos, that, thanks to the motorway, is just a stone´s throw away (only 300 kilometres) from Madrid. In order to pay the rent, my wife and I and other 3 couples have gathered round: A notar married to a State´s attorney, an ambassador married to a bestselling novelist, and a Supreme Court Judge married to a scientist that developed a cure for cancer and patented it. Through this alliance, we can pay the mortgage with only six salaries, so that we can use the remaining two to live on. At the beginning it was hard, but now we barely notice it; besides, the value of the flat has already increased a 17% since we bought it a year ago. Moreover, the ambassador´s wife, the novelist, is downright hot.

Although my salary is passable (I´m the CEO and owner of a multinational firm present in 100 countries, though I also have a part time job as grave digger for the night time), I must admit that the inflation we suffer due to the fact that we are the richest country in the world makes things a wee bit difficult; all the same, it all comes down to getting used to it: we all complained when we began to eat lizard sausages, and now, lo and behold! You grill them kindly and they taste heavenly. However, I will take advantage of the fact that the minimal working age has been reduced to ten years to take my child out of school and find him a job shovelling concrete. Another salary will sure help pay the mortgage.

I earn 2000 cranes after taxes per month. The crane is the currency that took the place of the € when we were banished from the EU (that´s how ugly and damaging jealousy and envy can be). The exchange rate is 1000 cranes/€. A loaf of bread costs a million cranes. There is no longer gold in the safes of the Bank of Spain. There are bricks instead, which, in this country, have proven to yield amazing returns on investment to and be a far safer asset than gold.

The atomic wars triggered by the owners of state-subventioned houses in Andalusia reduced the population to just 5 million Spaniards. Nevertheless, there are 50 million south americans all employed by the construction industry, so 800.000 new buildings erupt each year and we have a ratio of 20 flats per Spaniard. Construction represents already a 99% of the GDP in Spain, and this figure keeps on rising, fast and steady. 90% of Spain´s surface is urbanized and we are investing zillions of cranes in R&D in order to try and find a way to build cities in the sea (one cannot live there, yet then again, those houses are not to live in, but to invest in).

In a nutshell, all this is what the world jealously calls „the Spanish miracle“, subject of endless investigation, studied by doctors, shrinks and scientists worldwide. Droves of researchers from all the countries of the world visit Spain every year to marvel at it all. It would be no wonder, when many of them chose to stay. Life is beautiful here.

And that is all I can tell you about the fate that awaits you all. Okay, I must go and hunt some lizards for lunch.

Frankfurt airport, 5 German yuppies near me, one has just eyed me suspiciously, as if I were eavesdropping; fearful of industrial espionage. I couldn´t care less. 90 minutes to go until I board my plane to Vienna. A direct flight was not feasible (it cost a bomb). Leastways I´ll be witness to Austrian Airlines magnanimity: a chocolate (Mozart brand, of course). After that feast, I very much doubt whether I will be able to eat anything in the next 3 days. Maybe it is for the better, after a turbulent landing and Lufthansa´s lasagne, I feel as though I had battery acid wreaking havoc inside my guts.

Lovely long weekend in Spain. The people I work for decided to invite me to a “summit” in Madrid and paid the flight, so I took advantage of it and booked the return for Monday. I landed in Madrid on Wednesday at 23.30, was let out of the plane at 00.45 because we had to wait for the police to come and hold a pair of “undesirables” who were on the plane (I saw nothing yet noticed the stewardesses and pilot´s progressions along the corridor during the flight); subway, greetings, and a piece of Sacher cake put off my going to bed until 3.30. I woke up at seven, no time (hence, no shower), must take a cab to the “summit”. The event went on relentlessly through the whole day and is not worthy of this blog. Business ended at 17.30… for me; there was a party scheduled, corporative stuff, get to know your colleagues, a trendy pub, lock, stock and barrel. A lot of bollocks. Not my cup of tea. Besides, I was used up and the velvety night of Madrid held a far more appealing promise: friends and catharsis.

Met Requejo and for the first time in months I just enjoyed the simple pleasure of going out. We gulped the beers at breakneck speed, helped by the sparkling pace of the conversation. Talked about things that are dear to us, important things. No need to fake. I miss it, I seldom go out in Vienna, I´m on an introspective trip here. The people I know here are great, really, yet you know, they are not my people. Not now anyway. I lack that certain something that makes one want to stay out, crave for more. In Madrid I was with a friend, I was feeling happy, relaxed, drinking because I really felt like it… There was that certain something. Requejo did not let me down, he took me to two great pubs I didn´t know: Tupperware (the waitress had a T-shirt of Brian Jones) and Garaje Sónico. The guy has done his homework in Madrid. To my chagrin, we stopped at 1.30. I had to wake up early to endure another presentation on some website. Thank God this was downright interesting, even after four hours of sleep.

Then freedom. Freedom for almost three days in Spain.

I ate with friends I got to know in Budapest (uhh, no, tears are falling…) then we picked up Inma at the airport. In a nutshell, I spent the day with people I care for. In a nutshell, I realised again that a pair of buddies with whom I really connect is just what I miss in Vienna.

20´ less when I hopped off the bus in Burgos at 1.00. The same old quiet, cold night. The same old cold gust of wind caressed my face in a familiar greeting, revitalizing, purifying. I was home. Throughout the next two days I let my family take care of me. My mum did all but spoonfeed me. Again I realised that, after a year and a half of wandering, I missed it. My family, my house, my things.

I´m boarding my plane within minutes. After the bus and the first plane, I just want to arrive home. It is only when I think of going to work tomorrow that I begin to understand the words “frustration” and “homesick”. Surely work has stacked during these days. Surely it will be boring, hateful. When one does not like what he does, it becomes more than ever a trade off: I trade my hours for a bloody handful of dimes. And ye Gods, how I loathe my current job!

I feel restless, suddenly; dissatisfied. The drone of the planes annoys me. Sick to death of this airport, actually. What the chuff am I doing in Vienna? Well, we live and learn, and not all the decisions one takes are perfect. I´ll try nonetheless to make the most of it.

I guess those are the dreary routines of this noisy century and its bludgeoning drive towards progress.