People that say "I like music, I like all kinds of music" doesnt understand you when you say that you couldnt live without music.

Exam!!!

Next Wednesday we have the Lithuanian Language exam and I can tell you that I almost don't know anything.

Time to study!

Curiosidades Lituanas / Lithuanian Peculiarities: Vol IV

Curiosidad nº 4: Los baños

Todo aquel que visita Lituania y sale por la noche, más tarde o más temprano se encuentra ante la complicada tesitura de elegir una de las dos puertas que dan acceso al servicio. En todo el mundo parece existir una especie de consenso por el cual el baño de los hombres se encuentra identificado con un monigote, una foto de un tío (Humphrey Bogart es muy socorrido) o, en los bares más patibularios, un dibujo de una polla, mientras que en el baño de las tías el monigote tiene falda, en la foto sale Marylin Monroe y en el caso de tratarse de un bar que tenga una polla dibujada para señalar el de tíos, casi podemos estar seguros de que no va a haber baño de mujeres...
¿En todo el mundo? No, una pequeña nación resiste al invasor y por ello utiliza un triangulo con un vértice mirando para arriba o para abajo dependiendo del sexo del usuario.
Estoy completamente convencido de que si yo ahora pusiera una encuesta preguntando si consideráis que la figura de la derecha indica sexo masculino o femenino, la mayoría os equivocarías porque la respuesta es que ese es el símbolo para el baño de mujeres, mientras que en el de hombres la punta mira hacia abajo.

Peculiarity nº 4: The toilets

Everyone that comes to Lithuania and goes out during the night, at some point has to face the difficult situation of picking between two doors that leads him/her to the toilet with no other help than a triangle that could be looking up or down. And I'm sure that if I asked you if the figure that is at the right represents the male or female toilet, most of you would fail because that one means women toilet.

Buenos propositos

Me comentaba Santi que no pone comentarios en el blog porque:

• No le sale de la polla
• Las entradas en ingles son mas sosas

Ambas son razones poderosas y estoy de acuerdo con ambas. Dado que lo que le salga o deje de salir de la polla no es, en principio, responsabilidad mia, solo puedo intentar mejorar lo segundo. Para ello voy a intentar escribir dos versiones de casi todas las entradas, pero esta vez no traduciendo directamente (¡es un puto coñazo!) si no dejando que mi simpatia y natural gracia se desborde en la version en castellano.

Este blog va a ser una rision a la altura de Los Bingueros, ya lo vereis.

The heroin diaries. A year in the life of a shattered rock star - Nikki Sixx

What a great book!! If you like Motley Crue or you as just interested in rock'n'roll stories this is a must-read. Right from the start (Nikki Sixx left in the garbage because people though he was dead) till the moment he dies for a couple of seconds one year later, this is a non-stop of drugs and, sometimes, sex and violence. Yeah, and also the creation of the "Girls girls girls" album and its following tour.

I could tell soooo many things about this book, but I think I'm going to leave it here because I wouldn't know where to start.

From the band Sixx A.M.

Let's listen to some nice music II: Alice Cooper

Under my wheels from Killer


He's back (the man behind the mask) from Constrictor and written for the movie Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives


Bed of nails from Trash (yes, the album which starts with the song that you have heard millions of times Poison)

Hannibal Rising - Thomas Harris

I just finished this novel which is entertaining but nothing more. Maybe is because I read it in English and I had to be looking for words in the dictionary all the time and trying to remember the movie they made based on the book but I didn't like Thomas Harris' way of writing even when I think the plot was ok.

One thing that I didn't remember from the movie is that the first part of the action is set on Lithuania. Actually, even when it's never said, is very likely that Lecter is Lithuanian since he spends his childhood there. It's funny to read about Vilnius or Klaipeda now that I know a few things from the country.

Trip to Tallin & Helsinki (V)

Monday 10th:

I woke up and the first thing that I realized when I entered the kitchen is that the meatballs were gone. Alright, no problem with that, Sanna was going to bring them to her work to have them as lunch. But, why the whole kitchen was smelling like meatballs? I asked Eduardo and he started to laugh like Hell. You motherfucker heat them in the microwave and eat them a couple of minutes before waking me up!!! Hahahahaha I forgive you because I would have done the same. They were soooo good...

Well, after packing my stuff, we went to have a kebab and then catch the metro to go to the harbor. There is nothing wrong on admitting than we both cried like babies when we were saying goodbye. So many tears, so many screams breaking the silence of the harbor... Devastating, totally devastating.

This time the ferry just took me two hours that I entirely spent reading. When I reached Tallinn it was raining but nothing was going to stop me from doing some tourism, this time during the evening. Nothing, except finding a very nice book store full of books in English. In the end I just bought four books: As you like it (Shakespeare), Heart of darkness (Conrad), Non-fiction (Palahniuk) and last but definitely not least The Heroin diaries. A year in the life of a shattered rock star (Nikki Sixx, bassist of Motley Crue. YEAAAAH)


More happy than a perro con dos chorras, I took a walk around the city, recorded a video in which is impossible to see anything and then went for dinner in a very good restaurant close to the bus station. I had a strange soup of cheese with prawns inside (It had a strange taste but not bad) and some kind of meat with fried onions on the top and mashed potatos under it.
When I finnished, I went to the station and took the bus. Inside I talked with a portuguese girl for a while and then went to sleep.

Definitely, seemed like I was not going to find the mother of my children on that trip.

Or maybe I did?

Trip to Tallin & Helsinki (IV)

Sunday 9th:

Have you ever spent a whole day without doing anything productive? Of course you have, most of you are on erasmus or have done it!
Ok, that's exactly what we did on Sunday: watch Reservoir Dogs (with Finnish subtitles), watch Idols, watch Big Brother and watch Walk the line (with English subtitles, fortunately). I loved the movie about Johnny Cash's life. I have read some informations that say the movie is too kind with Johnny, because he could be a real bastard and in the movie he seems to be a nice guy who says that can be a bad person but we never really see him acting that way.


The best two things from that day, apart from the movie, were to see Marjaana again and to had for lunch/dinner some awesome meatballs made by Sanna and her friend. Very tasty. They made lots of them so we couldn't finish them all but strangely the morning after the meatballs were gone. But that's another story...

STAY TUNED FOR THE LAST EPISODE OF THIS THRILLING STORY!!

Trip to Tallin & Helsinki (III)

Saturday 8th:

A pretty similar day than the previous one: waking up late, walking around Helsinki and then returning home. Well, it wasn't just that because we had lunch in a restaurant where we ate an awesome hamburger. It was very, very good. Truly, one of the best hamburgers than I had on my life.
In the night, we had dinner (pizza made by Sanna) and then we went out with another friend of Sanna. We were in two clubs and, except for the obligation of paying two euros for the cloakroom, everything was very nice.

I know it doesn't sound like so much fun, but there is no sense on explaining the small details and the conversations that made the day nice. What I didn't know at that moment is that it was going to be the last night to go out. But that's another story...

Trip to Tallin & Helsinki (II)

Friday 7th:

I woke up almost at 12:00 and then, after doing some stuff at the house, I left the house with Eduardo as my own-personal-guide of Helsinki.
Impossible to describe how many stories, interesting facts and hidden spots of Helsinki Eduardo unveiled to me. He is such an expert of the city that is difficult to remember all the information that he can transmit you. Hahahaha.

We ate pizza at a shopping mall and then we continued walking for a while. As Eduardo told me, and I agree with him, the city has some strange buildings that seem to be taken from Batman's Gotham City. I don't think I have seen that kind of architecture anywhere else and I definitely like it. Is just... unreal.


Another thing that I liked a lot from Helsinki is the way people look. Is incredible how many persons you can find that seem to like rock (in all its forms). It's true what Sanna told me that hardrock is their national music.

Later on, we went back home to prepare dinner (Curried chicken). We had dinner with a friend of Sanna, and after playing to a card game we went to a bar where we had a beer. Ok, it doesn't sound like great fun but it was ok. And the following night was going to be better. But that's another story...

Trip to Tallin & Helsinki (I)

Last Wednesday I took the night bus and headed out to Tallin. It took almost 9 hours and I didn't really sleep a lot, just the last 3 hours but it wasn't as horrible as it seemed, even when I wasn't reading or listening music, just thinking.

Thursday 6th:
When I reached Tallinn I discovered that the bus didn't do the stops that it was supposed to do, that is: Terminal A and terminal D of the harbor and center of Tallinn, so I found myself in an unknown place with no money and no possibility of changing my litas to Estonian kroons. Well, since I brought two credit cards the situation was ok. But of course, one of the credit cards seemed not to work and with the other all the information was in Estonian. After waiting for a while to see if the currency exchange opened, someone told me that it opened at 9 in the morning and it was just 7... In the end I tried my Estonian skills and I managed to get some money just by touching the buttons. Kids, don't do that at home.

Someone could say that at that point everything was done: get a taxi and go to the D Terminal to leave the luggage at a locker. That would be the easy way of doing things. So I went out of the bus station and took a trolley that was supposed to go to the harbor but no idea in which direction. I took it and tried to pay but the driver rejected my money, probably because she considered I was giving a note that was too big. Great, now I'm going "somewhere" without ticket.
A couple of stations later I started to suspect about my way so I decided to go out of the bus and reconsider the whole situation. I walked a little and found another bus station where YES, there was a map of the city! I found my way to the harbor and draw it on a paper. Fifteen minutes later (well, maybe thirty minutes, because I entered a music store) I was leaving the luggage, changing some money and feeling extremely happy for having been able of dealing with the whole situation without using any kind of "shortcuts".


Free from the luggage, I walked around the city and had breakfast at a popular Finnish burger called HessBurger. Then I continued walking inside the old town until it was time for getting the ferry to Helsinki. I bought another burger with french fries and got inside the ferry, where I had to fight with a bird to eat my lunch. Yes, exactly that flying bastard that appears in the photo.

I spent the whole travel on the ferry reading "Hannibal rising" and looking at the people, that seemed to have an uncontrollable impulse for buying alcohol at the ferry.
When I reached Helsinki, my friend Eduardo was waiting for me, so thanks to its incredible knowledge of Helsinki we ended at his house not too much later. We spent the rest of the day talking, having dinner also with his girlfriend Sanna and finally, talking a little bit more while having a beer in a near bar.
Then we went bed to have some energy to visit the city the following day. But that's another story...

Curiosidades Lituanas / Lithuanian Peculiarities: Vol III

Curiosidad nº 3: El transporte público

Para moverte por Vilnius puedes coger el trolebús, autobús o taxi. En general los precios de cualquiera de los tres son bastante más baratos que en España.

• Precio trolebús/autobús sin carnet de estudiante: 1.40 litas comprándolo dentro del transporte
• Precio trolebús/autobús sin carnet de estudiante: 1.10 litas comprándolo en "estancos"
  
• Precio trolebús/autobús con carnet de estudiante: 0.70 litas comprándolo dentro del transporte
• Precio trolebús/autobús con carnet de estudiante: 0.55 litas comprándolo en "estancos"

El taxi funciona por taxímetro, aunque se puede fijar el precio antes de empezar.

Al entrar en el autobús o trolebús lo primero que hay que hacer es validar tu ticket en las maquinas que hay a tal efecto. Esto se hace porque con bastante frecuencia entran revisores a comprobar que los billetes validados son los correctos. Yo me he encontrado con revisores unas 5 o 6 veces y aunque una de las veces el billete que enseñé no era el correcto (era de ese mismo día pero de otro trolebús) se toman su trabajo bastante en serio y no merece la pena arriesgarse.
Claramente, si estas viviendo aquí lo que merece más la pena es sacarse el abono, que siendo tanto de autobús como de trolebús y teniendo el carnet de estudiante te sale por 12 litas.

En general el transporte funciona bastante bien y es puntual por lo que consultar los horarios antes de salir de casa suele ser la mejor opción, especialmente en las horas de menos transito.

Del transporte público de Vilnius hay dos cosas que me llaman poderosamente la atención:

1. Que solo hay transporte nocturno en fines de semana. Putadón que implica tener que volverse sobre las 23:00-23:30 o esperarse al primer transporte (sobre las 5:00)
2. Que para en ABSOLUTAMENTE TODAS LAS PARADAS sin importar si hay alguien esperando en la parada o gente dentro del bus. Yo he llegado a estar solo en el trolebús sentado en el asiento y he contemplado como parábamos en todas las ocasiones, se abrían y cerraban las puertas y por supuesto nadie subía o bajaba. Me imagino que de esta forma más o menos consiguen ajustarse al horario pero aún así puedes ser un poco desesperante.
   

Nótese la cuca cortinita que decora el trolebús

Peculiarity nº 3: The public transport

To move inside Vilnius you can use the trolleybus, bus or taxi. In general, the prices for any of these services are cheaper than in Spain

• Trolleybus/bus price without student card: 1.40 lt buying it inside the bus
• Trolleybus/bus price without student card: 1.40 lt buying it before getting the bus
• Trolleybus/bus price with student card: 0.70 lt buying it inside the bus
• Trolleybus/bus price with student card: 0.55 lt buying it before getting the bus

Taxi works with taximeter, but you can arrange a price before going, if you prefer.

When you enter a bus or trolley, the first thing that you have to do is to validate your ticket because ticket inspectors come quite often. Since I'm here, I have seen them 5 or 6 times and even when once I gave them an incorrect ticket and they didn't notice, in general they pay a lot of attention to the ticket.

If you are living at Vilnius, clearly the best thing to do is to get the monthly card which is valid for both trolley and bus and costs 12 lt with the student card.

In general, public transport works well and it's punctual so it's convenient to look for the schedule before leaving home, specially at the hours that are less buses.

There are two things that I find strange in the public transport:

1. There is only night buses during weekends. This means that you either get the last bus at 23:00-23:30 or you have to wait for the first one (around 5:00). Forget about going out just for a couple of beers if you don't want to get a taxi or walk like hell.
   
2. Trolleys and buses stop in ABSOLUTELY ALL THE STOPS. Doesn't matter if there is people waiting at the stop or how many people is inside the bus. I have been sitting alone in the trolley and still the trolley stopped in all the stops and opened and closed the doors for nobody. It would be funny to see if the driver does even stop without anyone in the bus...
   I understand that it's a good way to keep on the scheduled timetable but still can be desesperating. Ok, I don't say that is better what happens in Spain, where sometimes the driver does not stop even when you asked for it and you have to start yelling to stop...

Diary. A novel - Chuck Palahniuk

Ok, I tell you what it happens.

I was quite tired so I decided to go to sleep. It was early, not even 24:00, so I thought that I could read one or two chapters from Chuck Palahniuk's "Diary. A novel". Two hours later I have finished the book, I'm totally awaken and my brain is full of an angst that is difficult to describe. Palahniuk probably would be proud of how bad I felt while I was reading this book.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like to suffer and if I continued reading this book was because:

• Some of the thoughts about Art on the book were interesting.
• The psychological horror that defines this novel gets you almost right from the beginning. And even when reading it becomes a hard work and the atmosphere is so oppressive that you are damning Palahniuk for being so twisted, you have to continue.

Do I recommend the story of Misty Wilmot, a once-promising young artist currently working as a waitress in a hotel. Her husband, a contractor, is in a coma after a suicide attempt. According to the description on the back of Diary: A Novel, Misty "soon finds herself a pawn in a larger conspiracy that threatens to cost hundreds of lives."? Well, I'm sure that I won't read it again but some of the elements that are inside the novel moved me to a reflection exercise about what means to be an artist.

Lately, seems like all books that I'm reading are not exactly cheerful... Now this book, before it "Si esto es un hombre" ("If this a human being", I guess would be the English title) the biographical history of a Italian Jew that survived from Auswitch that my friend Eduardo gave me before I left Spain. And the books that I bought with "Diary" seems to be similar: Rant, also from Palahniuk and Hannibal Rising. Luckily, I also bought "The merchant of Venice".