First off, I'm free! Final assignment has been submitted. Only two exams to go for this year (27th & 31st May). It feels good. Erin and I have been riding a tidal wave of mayhem for the last 5 months. Remember sinusoidal waves from school? Well our lives have been the superposition of a number of waves (volleyball, BSF, weights, softball, tag rugby, assignments, over-time, etc.) for the last 5 months or so. Free-time has been elusive and we even went 6 weeks without a date (calm down Dohms - I still love her and I promise I'm looking after her).
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| Unfortunately our activities have more often been in-phase |
But all of a sudden the wave broke recently! We are perfectly 180 degrees out of phase. The line is flat. My semester finished, work calmed down, volleyball came to a triumphant end! On my way home last week after submitting my final assignment I called Erin and said be ready to leave the house in 10 minutes because we are going to Little Wing! It was glorious. Time together. No commitments. Pizza for starter, pizza for main, affogato for dessert.
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| Little wing, little bill (20% student discount baby!) |
Well let me tell you about the volleyball. Team Madden had a disappointing season on both sides. My team underperformed all year, weren't committed in training and finished a lowly 3rd in the league. Erin's team, champions two years running, choked in the two most important games of the season and ceded their title to the superior Aztecs team as ye of blognation will already know. The NIVB cup is the last throw of the dice every year. Its the big one. An all day event with 6 courts on the go (the most physically possible at one time anywhere in Ireland). We began playing at 9am and did not finish until 10pm. Early-onset arthritis ahoy.
All the usual suspects were there - Aztecs for the girls, Richill Raiders (current champs) for the guys. And then some imports from down south. It was a competitive day. Needless to say Team Madden came home double champs! 2 nail biting finals but we did it! But there is more... Erin got voted MVP for the whole year! And was awarded 'Best Libero turned go-to hitter award'.
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| Queens 1st Team 2012/13 |
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| Now NIVB Cup Champions |
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| Jordanstown! Also NIVB Cup Champions! |
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| The most fun playing I've had all year |
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| We also went to a N. Ireland volleyball fundraiser event - cow-plop bingo. Yep, only in Ireland! You send a cow into a field with a grid painted on, buy a square or two, and if the cow poos in your square - you win! We didn't win. But we took some of the cow home :) |
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| Erin graciously accepting her MVP award |
Yet again I've travelled to this stupid blog intending to fill in the gaps of the Spain trip and got caught up in the present. Now I have to go to bed!!! I guess it was never meant to be.
Alright, just one then. So this guy:
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| Gonzalo Fernandez-Prieto |
What a character! This guy is big time. High society, philanthropist, purveyor of the arts, linguist... Gonzalo is wealthy stock trader. He wakes every morning at 4am to monitor the movement of the markets in Asia before submitting his orders/puts/options for the day and turning some serious green. He pretty much owns a whole street in Malaga city centre. And for one Friday afternoon we had him all to ourselves for two hours. He owns houses in London, Paris, Madrid... yet he primarily mans the reception desk at the place of his true love - the Museo del Vidrio y Cristal.
Eccentric is not the word! For the first ten minutes we did not know if we should be taking him seriously or not. If there is one thing to be said about this man - its that he loves glass. I have no idea what value could be put on his collection. But he told us the story of every piece with such passion, such vigour. We got the story of how he came to obtain them, hoard them, what he loved most about them. His English was bizarre, at first sounding hurried and rehearsed but we learned that this was just his love for glass overflowing.
His dream is to turn his street into an arcade full of artisans! He wants craftsmen and artists and musicians filling the street with creative genious. I could tell you so many stories about this man and yet I hardly met him. For the nominal fee of 5 euro you get quite the experience. When we went it was empty. Lucky us! Here are the highlights of our tour:
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| Pretty inconspicous |
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| His personal favourite - the drunken pillar. Its the 2nd orange one by his right hand. He bought it for $30 and it's now worth $30,000! |
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| This is 1/36th of full scale model of the whole of Malaga. Commisioned by the city council then carelessly stored in cardboarded boxes for years, Gonzalo couldn't bear the thought of this treasure being hidden from the people. So he bought it. Now he just needs room to erect the rest. Look at the detail! |
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| Stained glass became beautiful to me on this tour. So often (especially in Ireland) do we overlook the intricacy and detail of these pieces despite how painstaking it is to work with. Gonzalo was alerted to this piece located in a church in Scotland. He went to visit out of appreciation. He told us he fell in love with the look on Jesus' face and the love he had for the children. He had traveled primarily to purchase an expensive apartment in London (probably the most expensive place in the world to buy real estate) and impulsively, but without hesitation canned the apartment and spent more (we're talking half a million dollars - he wouldn't tell) on this must have piece for himself. Note the inscription. |
Good night!
