Montreal - Chicago - Singapore

And the vacation in Montreal was a complete and utterly great experience. I cannot be happier for having had the idea of dropping by and spending (investing) a couple of days there.

Laura took a day off and we made a great tour around the city just chilling and having coffe, talking, eating, as if I lived there. This is our walk at the Mount Royal (origin of the name of the city Mont-Real – in French)


What’s this?


It’s one of Quebec’s typical dishes. You cannot go to Quebec and not try this. It’s called Poutine. What is it?. Well, click here if you want to know more :) I sort of missed it, and I had it to make sure I could go for another couple of months without it.


I made it to Montreal! And, as I said, it even feels as if I had been living there for years! Oh man... what a city!


A pause for a great coffee with signature presentations. For example a Butterfly drawn on its foam… or a star/sun. Pretty cool, eh?


Laura & Sofiane, THANK YOU very much for your hospitality and friendship. Good luck in your next steps. I will try my best to go and visit you in your new "European fancy location"… and I will work on my French so it will be even better than it is now. Merci beacoup, mes amis!

Finally, I made it safely to Chicago to find out that Jose has prepared a farewell meal for me. GRACIAS! A good deal of stuffed pasta with home made sauce. To top it all, Argentine wine. MAN, it is hard to say good bye!

And a mini CHIN CHIN…


Muchas gracias Tuchi & Jose for your hosting me and spending time with me. Good luck in your new steps and you know what they say: “el casado casa quiere” (Ya se Tuchi… Thailandia! Para un poco "compresoooor") :)

Vacations are over, dudes. Going back to Singapore as we speak. Happy, relaxed and ready to start a new chapter in my life. I feel blessed that I was able to treat myself with such a nice vacation time. I visited good friends, caught up with people, had amazing coffees and meals, slept a lot and laughed a lot, too.

Singapore: here I come!

A flash from Montreal

AY AY AY not much to tell abut these days. Just enjoying the city as the locals do: walking around, doing some shopping here and there, meeting friens, catching up with each others lives, eating in nice places, stopping here and there in little cafes to read some book or simply contemplate life.

Just nice.

Here you are some images to illustrate my days here in Montreal.

Blue Sky: Montreal welcomed me with a crispy blue sky, sunny and relatively warm weather. Funny enough, the city I just left – Chicago – is attacked by the wind and splashed with rain. (Sorry Tuchi & Jose!)


Temporary address: Thanks Laura & Sofiane for your hospitality and congratulations on your pretty cozy home!




Crepes: God intended food to look and taste like that. Then people started experimenting and things like fish and chips happened to humankind. Simply atrocious! Just lk at this: isn’t it a masterpiece!?


Fondue: another gift from God to us, human beings. There is no way after eating one of these babies you don’t feel satisfied and refined at the same time. Mm. Ou Lala! :)


Café in Old Montreal: a cute little corner in Old Montreal where you can ust sit under the sun with your book and your maple café latte and Grand Marnier or Rhum. Simply priceless!


Chinatown: Fine! I needed to feel like “at home” somehow, so I decided to walk around Chinatown. Surprisingly enough, I did not feel like home at all, it did not even resembled me to Beijing at all. Half those Chinese people were talking in French. I was like: “HELLO!? You should be saying things like wo shi bla bla, or wo bu yao bla bla”.


Favourite Neighbourhood: Le Plateau, Prince Arthur and the corner of Laval. OUTSTANDING, relativey bigger appartments, great area, quite central, green, it gives you the idea you are in Europe somewhere lost between Bruxes and Paris... Simply cool! I could sooo live there anytime.




This is all for now. I hope you enjoyed the view as much as I enjoyed taking these pictures.

Vacations: God intended life to be like this, like you were on vacations everyday.

Unbelievable...

...but after 7 years (HOLY COWS!) I am once back in Montreal!



As the plane takes off one already starts feeling the Canadianism. After all instructions in English, the French version follows. AH, sweet! And they could be literally insulting you from head to toes, but it sounds so nice that I would have not cared if it was actually an insult. But it wasn’t, it was the typical “5 exit doors: two at the front, two on the wings, and one at the back” funny air-attendant trademark emotionless routine. “When the oxygen masks drop from the overhead compartment, pull them towards you and...” HELLO!!? By the time they drop (knock on wood!) there will be so much screaming, jumping around and chaos on that plane hat people will really do not know what to do with the masks.

Anyway, don’t you find it funny hw they perform the routine?. I actually enjoy it and compare how in synch they are with each other, eventually smile when they focus on you trying to get them out of their concentration. After all it is the less paid attention routine EVER! I take some pity on them and deliberately pay attention, poor people. :)

A while after (and I say a generic “while after” as I passed out on the plane) I was able to see the city from the air, and the waterfront, and the red top houses. OH MY! Montreal, your adopted son is here... He is coming to visit!

So what's new with me?

NEW JOB!

Yes. After 3 years of rewarding employment and the corresponding month notice I am in a position where I can comfortably say I have finished my employment with my previous company (The Big Yellow Logistics company) Fun and laughter, opportunities and learning, challenges, changes, ups and downs, playing hard and working hard, it's all part of the experience.

It's time to move on and try some new things. On that note, and having always wanted to work on some sort of consulting setting, I took on a role in a global Executive Search firm in their Singapore Office. I will start on April 16th and will update my LinkedIn profile for those who would like to know more about it. feel free to add me to your profile.

Excited? Well, let's put it this way: EXCITED does not even start describing HOW excited I am. :)

This weekend I will close the previous episode, turn the page and start writting a new chapter in my life... after all the future provides us with the opportunity of "drenching ourselves in words unspoken. We should live our lives with arms wide open, the rest is still unwritten..."

CONGRATULATIONS!

It is soooooooo great to share GOOD NEWS... actually, GREAT NEWS!

"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. So there ought to be"

On April 12th Donna and David, Canadian friends of mine, extended their already lovely family, and had another son! His name is Matteo Alexander and he seems to be a handsome Canadian little dude.
Donna & David, CONGRATULATIONS! God bless you all... and see you in October! ;)

(and I can't believe how big Nicolas is! Man, time flies! - and I am already talking like an UNCLE he he he)

Flashback... like 25 years!

Late at night, kinda in an insomnia attack, checking people's blogs, zipping some Baileys (I am sure you relate to the feeling... maybe not the Baileys, though).

I came across Dimitris' blog http://dimitris.nomadlife.org/ (thanks!) with one of the cutest videos that brough me back wen I was 5-6 years old. Rushing back from school at 5PM to catch up The Muppets and some years later Fraggle Rock. THOSE were the old good times.

I loked at the YouTube videos, of course. Here they are. And I say THEY because you wll have the funny chance of comparing the ENGLISH and the SPANISH version... because very much to my ignorance back then all Cartoon Characters only spoke Spanish and not English (And their names were in Spanish, too!)

Mickey Mouse : Raton MIckey
Goofy : Tribilin
Donald Duck : Pato Donald
Pink Panther : Pantera Rosa
SpiderMan : El Hombre Arana
Smurfs : Los Pitufos

..and so on..

English version


Spanish version

Well, everyone has one of this...

... and now I do too!

Read my VisualDNA™     Get your own VisualDNA™

SE QUE NO VOLVERAS - Diego Torres

Ok Ok... due to all the requests and compliments to my countryman, here's another unplugged song for you to enjoy. SE QUE NO VOLVERAS. Enjoy...

No lo sone - Diego Torres

One of my TOP 3 fav performers of my country. A nice person and an outstanding entertainer. Ladies and gentlemen, interpreting the unplugged of one of my fav songs NO LO SONE, my friend and yours: DIEGO TORRES! Enjoy...