I will be migrating to a different server in the next few days here, so there may be minor downtime.
While I realize that there’s next to no one actually using this blog…
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Son pascual
I just finished having a meal at don pascuals, a restaurant near the port in montevideo and it was excellent.
Monte Video, Uruguay
I took the BoquBus ferry from Buenos Ares to Monte Video yesterday to check out this city. Its a very small city, and this time of year many of the people who reside here aren’t present this time of year (i guess like half of them are on vacation). The beach is beautiful, but has zero night life, and is kinda sketchy in general.
Today i’m going to head to colonia.
Tenerife is really inexpensive compared to Madrid
After spending a week in Madrid I’m re-realizing how cheap Tenerife really was. Madrid is not a particularly expensive city, but Tenerife (and canary islands in general) are just super cheap.
Christmas in Madrid
So the family has finally finished moving to Madrid, just in the nick of time for christmas.
Spain is a very catholic country and as such seriously celebrates christmas, but in a very different way than austria.
From: http://www.spanish-fiestas.com/spanish-festivals/christmas-in-spain.htm
24th December - Christmas Eve is called Nochebuena in Spanish (Goodnight) and it is the most important family gathering of the year. In the evening people often meet early for a few drinks with friends then return home to enjoy a meal with the family. Most bars and restaurants close in the evening. Prawn starters followed by roast lamb would be a typical meal rounded off with a typically Christmas sweet called turrón which is a nougat made of toasted sweet almonds. Another typical festive sweet is called Polvorones which is made from almonds, flour and sugar. Cava, Catalan champagne, would be the chosen drink for the Christmas toast though plenty fine Spanish wines will also be consumed with the meal.
In Plaza Colon they setup 20′ tall speakers and blasted a Choir for hours. One could hear the music from around a kilometer away.
iPhone4S Trial
So i’ve been trying out the iPhone4S from sprint for the past couple of weeks. Within the USA it was extremely slow on Sprint’s network, though since i’ve gotten back to Europe this hasn’t been an issue (even though I’m still using a Sprint SIM Card).
The phone itself is almost identical in performance, look, and feel, to the iPhone4. The Camera is a little better, but so far as it being dual processor, I don’t know that its any faster nor uses any less power than the prior model.
iCloud on the other hand is a mess. The email doesn’t push through imediately (which is strange seeing as my Microsoft Exchange Servers have no problem pushing instantly to the Apple device). So hopefully they will work on that some.
I haven’t yet found any use for Siri, but once I have played around with it a bit more, i’ll report back on that.
Using personal hotpot is very finicky and doesn’t work well at all. I can’t seem to get it to stay connected nor go very fast. After a little research it looks like I may have to completely reformat and re-setup my phone to prevent any OS Upgrade fragments. However I don’t want to do this while i’m abroad incase it is not possible to re-activate while overseas (i don’t know if it will work when i’m not on sprint’s towers).
I also managed to lose the micro-sim card that came with the iphone, the one that’s needed when i’m in the USA (i’m not sure if it will function with no sim card in it at all).
Canary Islands
Just arrived at LPA, the main airport of the Canary Islands, on Gran Canary.
Though it is currently winter time here, it is still nice and warm, in the 60′s-80′s during the day.
Evidently due to a volcano errupting nearby, there may soon be an 8th island joining with the 7 other islands that make up the Canary Islands.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112434010/volcanic-activity-could-spawn-new-canary-island
Tomorrow or the next day I plan to take the ferry from Gran Canary (the island i’m currently on) over to Tenerife (the island everyone says I should stay on).
Ashanti Lodge – Green Point
I’ve been staying in the Ashanti Lodge in green point for a few days now, and find it quiet but very nice. The entire place is very clean, staff extremely friendly and helpful, and there are a few other guests around as well.
Do note that this is a very small lodge, it is not nearly as large as the Ashanti Gardens, which much bigger.
The location is good though, very close to the beach as well as the “Waterfront” shopping area.
There is no bar nor smoking room at this hostel.
Second segment of AA OneWorld RTW Award: HKG-AMS on Cathay Pacific First.
So a few days ago I took one of the longest flights of my life, over 12 hours in the air, from HKG to AMS (not to mention sitting on the ground an extra hour or so).
Cathay’s ground service is acceptable definately not one of my favorites. The staff itself are friendly and responsive, but the lounges seemed very crowded and understaffed. It also seemed that there were way too many pax for it being a First Class Lounge. I can understang all sorts of people to enter the biz lounge, but f lounges should be limited to primarily f pax, and I didn’t feel that to be the case at either “The Pier” nor “The Wing.”
The food offerings at the lounges is also very limited.
My flights was hours delayed, both before and after boarding. This is when the experience started to change.
Unlike on the ground, the quality of beverages offered in the air was much better. Krug was their champagne of Choice, and wasn’t bad. They also offered Johnny Walker Blue label.
The caviar was not too impressive at all, but the rest of the meal was very good.
The bed itself was quite large but not especially comfortable. The IFE included a good sized screen.
ios5 and iphone 4S
Well once again my iphone has become an iBrick. I updated to IOS5 which has made my gevey Sim card adapter cease to function, and I’m just too tired of dealing with it to play around any longer.
I’m going to pick up a new iphone4s from sprint when I’m in the us for a couple days in Dec.
I should be able to figure out how to use the unlimited data sim card in it (I’ve already ideas on how to do this, but am not going to publically post them, feel free email me if you want specifics).