Hey Kai and Paola I did dream with you both.

This is the extrangest thing that I've dream in the last weeks.
You both know Kai and Paola that I don't know you, we spoke on the phone and a couple of times by email.
I knew that Kai was here in Medellin for a short period of time while I was away.., so we didn't have the oportunities to meet because when I arrove Kai was just leaving to her country.., However, I dreamt that Kai was here in Medellin, because Paola died (I can't remeber exactly how...). Can't remember too much details.., but this is the first time that I dream with people that I've only seen in pictures and not in the real life.

I Extracted the next pharagraph from a book that tends to interpret the dreams called "Enciclopedia de los sueños":
"¿Es posible que asi como nos enfermamos para expresar con el cuerpo nuestras frustraciones profundas, tambiém busquemos la muerte para expresar un radical desencanto de la vida? Y en tal caso, ¿que función tiene el instinto de conservación?"

My thoughts as usual..

I was just thinking that long time ago, when the Internet arrove to my country, I signed for 10 internet monthly hours via the phone line. I used to divide that hours between reading news, downloading some "very small" programs, chatting, reading and writing email. All of that in just 10 hours.
The time passed and now I've a broadband connection which I can use 24/7 if I want for the same fee. It's just incredible...... how everything evolves... However, I've to admit that we have pretty slow connections here in Colombia already..., I hope we can get better connections in the near future.

Before leaving to Switzerland, I use to live in another neighborhood and as a matter of fact in another building. The point is that I became a very good friend of the gatekeeper there, and also helped him with a reasonable amount of problems, he was very poor..., I also got to know his son.., we did share a lot of time, and when I was away he always used to call to my parents to ask how I was doing. Yesterday I went there to see him, to say "Hey I'm back, how are you doing" ?? I parked the car in the street and walked to the gate, knocked a few times, however I couldn´t see anything because of the tint windows. A man opened the door ( I didn´t knew him), so I asked him if Miguel (That was the name of the Gatekeeper) was there..., he replied me: "Miguel died 2 weeks ago"..., I was in a kind of shock, didn´t know what to say.., I just couldn´t beleive it......., then I asked him for details..., also for a phone number, but he didn´t have one.., so I asked him if he could try to get it for me with the other emplyees of the building. I left my old house quite sad, bored and impressed. That´s life, I know.., but it doesn´t mean that it has to be easy to understand.

A cool weekend...

On saturday, after doing some Operative Systems workshops Velez invited me to his farm with his girlfriend to spend the rest of the weekend and get relaxed. I invited Naty, and we left at 9:00 PM directly to his farm. We arrove there after 45 mins, maybe 1 hour, because it was raining..., however everything was perfect. His farm is by the airport, being more precise I think that the zone is called "El Tablazo". I remember that I went to his farm 1 year ago, and when we arrove there I realize that didn´t recognize anything...., so I asked him if they rebuild something or made any change to it, but then he told me that this one was the other house (I´ve never been to this house before) that was located on the top of a small hill.



After eating a yummy Mega Dominno´s pizza, we started to play some Rummi-Q, of course Naty won..., she´s a very good player, I didn´t win not even one match..........., anyway that wasn´t the big deal. After acouple of rounds (Again, I didn´t win) we decided to play Risk. That game was very awesome, but I was quite tired though so I didn´t pay too much atention to it. I got erased from the map on the first place (what a looser !!!), being the looser gave me the oportunity to cook for everybody on sunday (that was the penalty) and a kind of "food-slave".... I enjoyed it because I made with Velez a very cool lunch called "sanduches gratinados con papitas a la francesa", it tasted like heaven !!!!! We got some good words from the girls !! I have to admit it velez, we understand pretty well each other when we work togheter as a team.
After that great lunch we took a shower and got back to Medellin.

Right now I´m finishing a stupid work of an asignature called "Axiologia", quite boring I have to admit..., but now it's done.., time to go to bed I guess.

Adding more variables to my life equation

I started the university again last monday..., and I have to admit that I felt a little bit strange on it.... After one year without doing any studies I got used to everything except studying.., spend hours in front of blackboards and teachers talking talking and talking looks pretty boring for me now.., but I know that is something that I've to finish.. Got a new car 2 days ago, 1.8 Volkswagen Gol GLI, I'm very happy with it. All the roads there in Medellin have changed a lot.., so getting used to them sometimes is a little bit complicated when I'm planning the route to go from one place to another one.
I don't know.., I'm kind of speechless today.., also nostalgic. I'd better get a shower.

Time to move on..

Sometimes life is extranger than fiction.., it's time for me to move on and forget about you.

Pieces of Esteban

It's 6:00 AM in the morning and I can't sleep anymore..., since the begining of this week I keep weaking up at this time and I definetively don't like it.
I arrove on the 14th of jan, and today is 19 of the same month. I'm posting today because somehow I feel that I've landed a little bit more.... I thought that arriving here was going to be easy, it wasn't. Confussion is the common denominator on my life right now. I would like it to be different, but I knew since the beggining that things weren't going to be easy.
Let's put some order here:
My main concern before flying was my luggage. I was carrying a big case, a big trolly cart, back pack, my laptop, and a messenger. Every single piece of this was very heavy, just imagine all the kind of things that you can carry after living 1 year in another country. Ok, so when I arrove to the counter, I checked in the big case, no big problem, it weighted 20 Kilos (I was allowed only with 20), she gave me my passboard and when I was leaving it, she saw my trolly car, then she told me that it was too big, so it wont fit on the plane, also that I shouldn't weight more than 8 Kilos, the fact is that she weighted it and it was 20 Kilos ! She told me then that I should take out some of it weight, to make the story shorter I reduce the weight to 10 Kilos and the rest I putted it on my backpack and on a lufthansa box that the woman gave me. Problem solved ! I took the flight Basel-Frankfurt without any other complication. At Frankfurt, when I was doing the check-in, the woman at the counter again told me that I wasn't allowed to carry all of my hand lugagge, that I should put some on the cargo area of the plane.., I'm sorry miss but I'm carrying a lot of computer equipment (also fragile) that if I put on the cargo area and get broken the airline won't pay for it, so then she told me: OK, just put all the luggage of the messenger on the backpack or something..., so I added more weight to my backpack and another problem solved. I took the 12 hours flight to Caracas.
After arriving in Caracas and waiting for 5 hours, I took the flight Caracas-Bogota thanks god without any complication...
At the airport, I took a cab and went to my cousin's place where I spent the night.
The next day I flew to Medellin....

When I arrove to Medellin, my mother didn't know that I was coming, so you can imagine her sourprise and hapiness when she saw me..., same for my grandparents, my father and one of my sisters.., that day was the best, everything was the way I expected and planned it.

On sunday we came to the city and I got to know my new house..., I liked it, however I felt like a complete foreigner on it... Now I'm getting more used to it.

Well, and my expectatives.., that's the twisted part..., it's like if I saw the light for 2 days and suddenly everything went dark... Too complicated to write about it already.

BUT finally I'm in my home town ! I like it !

Just one more day...

I just can't beleive that tomorrow morning I won't be here in Basel anymore. It's time to close this chapter in my life and open a new one. BUT it doesn't mean that leaving it behind would be piece of cake.
I'm already having some trouble with my lugaage which I hope I can get them solved today.

Excess Baggage

I thought that I had everything in order, but today I realize that I have a TON of things to carry back home. I unpacked, packed again, unpacked, packed again.., trying to put the weight in order, and also to keep the balance, because I'll have to carry a big part of it a lot of time. I hope to not get in any trouble at the airport when checking in my baggage on thursday because of overweight or something like that.
Time is going pretty fast, just 2 days more in Basel and then I'm gone. I think about it and I cannot beleive that I'm leaving. It's a strange feeling.
I'll let you know how was the trip, hopefully I'm going to make it (Of course I will, just that I have a load of things) !

Bye Bye Basel !!

On saturday it was my Good-bye party, most of my friends came here, and I got a little bit drunk.
I also did burn my shirt with a candle.., the thing is that there were not free chairs, so I sat on the dinning table.., what I didnt see is that behind me was a candle that I did put hours ago.. to make the story shorter, I felt something warm on my back but didnt pay attention to it, later on I was getting burned, so I took a look back and my shirt was in fire.., I manage to control the fire but my shirt was lost...., later on that night I just threw it to the trash. Felipe, a friend from Medellin stayed that night in my house, he was also in prtty bad conditions. Some pics underneath:

Paul Van Dyk in Medellin !!!

Well, I went to party with Van Dyk in Zürick on October, what a great party, what a great DJ. I liked it that much that I was looking again for one of his partys in Europe to go !. I didn't find anything, and if I did it was toooo far away from Switzerland.
Julian told me a few months ago that Van Dyk was going to play on Medellin, but I didn't beleive him, so I went to his website but found nothing.
This week I went again to his website and definetively his going to play in my city, a few weeks after my arrival ! Awesome !

The official info (I got it from his website)
04.02.2005
Open Air / Medellin / Hipodromo de los Comuneros
http://www.medellinstyle.com/

Let's Party !!

And another one !!!

I received another later from my private stalker Veronique yesterday, and now I'm here to make it available online, it says:

"Tienes tutora? Prospero ano nuevo. Amado Dizzy. Se muy bien que me quieres !! Yo te voy a querer siempre hasta Forever. Estan todas celosos no pueden ver que yo te ame !! Me odian las mujeres porque tengo Sex Appeal. Abrazo de Veronique.
180 HP.
Tocar 3 X timbre"

There's a pic below of the envelope, pretty original by the way with some bird wing part on it, some written...
Well, life is stranger than fiction sometimes.

My private stalker talks to me again !

I received this letter 1 week ago, but didn't have the opportunity to make it available online, here it goes:

In the envelope is says: "Para mi querido Boyfriend el Colombiano"

The content of the letter is as follows:
"Querido Dizzy, Boyfriend, El Colombiano, Todos los dias nos vimos, de lejos me persigues miras donde estoy con quien hablo, etc. Eres un envidioso lo sabias !! Tienes a la otra amiga la que trabaja en Manor. Dime querido sera que no te das cuenta que vas a perderme, no solamente a mi, tambien a otras personas que no van a mostrar interes por ti. Quienes juegan en la vida con las personas por favor !! Tu te vas a quedar un dia solo !! Si continuas asi si te quiero y tu a mi?. Si te quieres venir al Brasil? Abrazo de Veronique.
La vida no es para jugar.

I have to Admit it !!

Ok!! Ok JuanE!!!!!, your'e completely right, I have to admit it, I was completely drunk singing "villancicos" on the streets on the 23th of december, also singing to the people, specially to that old guy !! ...., I also admit that I almost kick a Junkie because he was asking me for money.., but I can't stand that the government here gives to this people per month the same amount of money that I earn, maybe more, and for what ? For them to enjoy it injecting themselves, to smoke their lifes, and to continue on the non-stop party !! I'm not justifying myself, but it's something that really bothers me, because that's not equity, that's not fair, that's not ethic... why ? Because there's lot of people dying of hunger in other places, very poor people, and I know that this country is one of the richest in the world, and that's why it should use that money to help others instead of keeping and maintaining somebody's else "bad habits" and "ethernal party" !! So f**k you all junkies and do something for your life !!

You can hide your laptop while you roam.

I found this very "original". It's a pizza box to store your laptop while you move from one location to another one. It's objective is to disguise possible thieves from your laptop. Who's gonna think that the guy who's carrying a pizza is'nt a pizza?? Instead a laptop ?
Very original I have to say.
In case that you're interested this is the webpage: http://www.humanbeans.net/

What happened to the animals after the Indian Tsunami?

This is one of the the questions that I was asking myself all the time when I was watching CNN and BBC reports about the Tsunami.
I had a feeling that there were no animals casualities, because I do beleive in their sixth sense. I found this article today on wired magazine (www.wired.com) and wanted to share it:

Wild animals seem to have escaped the Indian Ocean tsunami, adding weight to notions they possess a sixth sense for disasters, experts said Thursday.
Sri Lankan wildlife officials have said the giant waves that killed over 24,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast seemingly missed wild beasts, with no dead animals found. "No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit," said H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of Sri Lanka's Wildlife Department. "I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening."
The waves washed floodwaters up to two miles inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards.
"There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence about dogs barking or birds migrating before volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. But it has not been proven," said Matthew van Lierop, an animal behavior specialist at Johannesburg Zoo. "There have been no specific studies because you can't really test it in a lab or field setting."
Other authorities concurred with this assessment. "Wildlife seem to be able to pick up certain phenomenon, especially birds ... there are many reports of birds detecting impending disasters," said Clive Walker, who has written several books on African wildlife.
Animals certainly rely on the known senses such as smell or hearing to avoid danger such as predators. The notion of an animal sixth sense -- or some other mythical power -- is an enduring one which the evidence on Sri Lanka's battered coast is likely to add to.
The Romans saw owls as omens of impending disaster and many ancient cultures viewed elephants as sacred animals endowed with special powers or attributes.
The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean Sunday, killing tens of thousands of people in Asia and East Africa.

Mother Nature....

I'm amazed with the Tsunami that faced Thailand and Sri Lanka (India), 110.000 deaths and they haven't finished searching already, plus the people that is going to die because of the bad conditions of the water, food and environment. It makes no sense for me that this is only happening to poor countries; first the hurricane this year in Haiti (Also Florida but the casualities weren't as high as in Haiti), and now this tsunami in Sri Lanka and India. I know that this is nobody's fault, but for example a lot of deaths could be avoided if Sri Lanka and Thailand have had installed tsunami detectors, with just one hour people would have had the required time to evacuate to a safe zone. I make a call to the developed and rich countries to sponsor the construction of this kind of devices instead of spending their money on war (not in all the cases).
With mother nature there are some things that can be avoided if detected on time, and those posibilities exist these days, especially for tsunamis, like the pacific ocean that's very well protected but why ?? Because a big part of the United States is there, and this country has plenty of money to maintain this, but what about the rest of the world? If they have the posibility to help others that are not able to do it by themselves, why not give them a hand and avoid all of this killing ? I'm not blaming you USA, but I think that there are more important things that war right now. I think is time to stop thinking just about ourselves and think in the other people that live with us; from inside to outside, I mean, let's be proactive and don't wait for the people to change, let's start the change by ourselves.
On the beginning I was going to do my traineeship on Sri Lanka, but later on I decided to come to Switzerland, the reasons doesn't matter right now, that's life, I feel lucky, but not happy because of that.

I was thinking also that I live in a city of 120.000 inhabitants..., and it's like if I wake up tomorrow and everybody is death except me. That's a lot of people ! How many inhabitants does your city have ?.

Lots of countries and companies are giving money to help this crisis, also helping with food and other materials, which is really good, but the problem is that nothing is being really coordinated, they know that this items are comming but they don't know when, which makes it more difficult to plan and give a better management to the situation !! People is dying out there right now !! I think that it's time to create a world organization just for this kind of disasters. I think that there's not even one country prepared to face this kind of disasters, specially third world ones.

Xmas !!

At the begining I thought that it was going to be a lonely and kind of sad christmas, without my family, friends and PL. However, the last sunday (18th of december) 2 friends arrove from Cologne and Dortmund (Both from Medellin and from the same university as me), and on thursday (23th of dec) Veronica that's another friend that's studying in Belgium (Same university as me in Medellin) came, my roomate took off, Perfect!
First of all we went to make some shopping in Lorrach (Germany), IT WAS MY MISTAKE to buy all of that goods at the same time. The thing is that it was very heavy and we were only 3 guys.., also Luis forgot his passport and when we came back he got stopped by the customs.., and the normal blah blah blah.., until we manage to get inside switzerland again.
We were not even in the middle of the way and we were completely drained of energy, exhausted !! So I decided to try to go and search for a shopping cart somewhere (its very common to find them here arround the city).. I searched for 1 hour and nothing !!! That's bad !! So we started carrying everything until we arrove to the tram station, waited for it and then took it. When we got to Feldbergstrasse (tram station) we went out prepared to take another tram (of course we had to walk maybe 200 mts to get it) and as a miracle I found a shopping cart !!! We put everything there and headed to my flat. JuanE wanted to see the junkies so we went by the place where they're all the time, but we were unable to see not even one. It was difficult to drive that shopping cart because the floor was full of snow, well, it was hard ice actually..., so it was making plenty of noise. We manage to arrove at home at 11:00 PM taking in mind that we went to Lorrach at 6:00 PM it was a LONGGGGG time.
That night and the rest of them Luis and JuanE slept on the floor fn my room (poor of them, but I was going to experience the same pain in a couple of days). The next day I went to work and I met them afterwards..., it was like 6:30 PM or 7:00 PM I can't remember exactly, the fact is that we met on one of the bridges and it was near the red light district which Luis was looking forward to go to. When I met them, they were kind of "happy" (they were drinking redbull vodka). We went to Mark's computer store to get something for this pair of "junkies". They both got satisfied there, and after that we left directly to the "red light district". JuanE was always the first one in enter on those places.., I think he's a PRO on this topic..., however in one of those he went directly to one girl called "Renata", she was from Romania and she spoke spanish.., so we spent there some time talking with her.., I got treatened by the main lady (the one that keeps the business running) because I wasn't driking anything, so I ordered a beer which tasted like hell and ultra-expensive. Talking and talking with renata she told us that she used to charge 100 CHF for her services plus 50 CHF (You have to buy her some champagne), cheap, isn't her? The next thing that she told us was that she used to charge more to the old people, why ??? I've got no idea.., maybe they've to do more thing to make that "rusty machine" work !!!!!!!.
After having a nice chat we left and in our way we crashed with a "latino shop", we entered and there was some salsa music playing, JuanE started dancing inmediatly like if he were on the "tibiri", long steps, moving his head..., the guy was crazy, like a junkie !!! I got some platanos and PAID them..., then we headed to the door when JuanE extended his hand without even looking back and took a Platano and started running. Thanks god nobody in that latino shop saw him, because there was a warning where it said that if they caught somebody stealing they would take "drastic meausres". We headed home and when we were almost there, we saw a small pond with ice in the middle, so JuanE beleived that he could manage to jump on it and get on the other side safetly. The deal was that he would do it if Luis also jumped. I was toooo drunk to even try, so I just kept their wallets, cameras, etc. JuanE made the first try, he fell onto the water like a baby..., jajajjajajajajjajaja, the ice of course broke and he got completely wet !!!! After that Luis did the same... We headed fast to home.., I wasn't sure if they were able to make it.
The next day they're shoes were completely wet, so they had to use bags as a second sock to protect themselves agains the humidity.
Veronica arrived on thursday, we picked up her on the station and headed home...., later on went to Bar Rouge and had a VERYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY cool House party..., also some pretty good margaritas !! We arrove home at 3 AM.
NExt day (24th of dec) we went to lorrach again to buy the xmas food but for our sourprise everything was closed.., so we headed home again, and I was thinking on something to Improvise. When we finally got home Andrew (A gringo) and Ricardo (another guy from Colombia - Bogota) were waiting for use here..., so we came into. I prepared a yummy spaguetis with 2 kinds of delicious sauces..., everybody liked them...., it was the best thing I could do considering the contents of my fridge. Veronica got completely drunk, so we were !!!! At 3AM we headed to fame (A club) until 4 AM with no success..., later on we went to my office to make some phone calls to our parents, arriving at home at 5:00 AM. It was a very cool and different christmas..., I fell sleep.
The next day JuanE and Luis went to see Luzern and I stayed with Veronica at home watching movies all the afternoon.., we were quite tired, we also spent that night watching movies when the guys arrove.
On Sunday they all left..., and I felt alone. I missed them so much. It was very cool to spend all this time with you JuanE, Luis and Vero.

Seeing further doesn't mean seeing everything in the gap.

I saw this situation before coming, and I also saw the end, I trust 100% my intuition and I know what's gonna happen next, just don't lie to me anymore, I know it's hard to say, but sooner or later you'll have to no matter what, there's no other way to do it. I'm just waiting for you. Trust me, don't be scared.

Snowing....

It started to snow just a few hours ago, and it feels so cool, so full of magic, everything now looks white, cars full of snow completely white, there's even some people outside playing with it, trying to eat it, thats funny, there's also a small girl that just came to the street to play with it on her winter outfit. I don't know what it has, but it just feels good. I look like a kid just looking throughout the window seeing the snowflakes falling.

Is the Boxing a Sport?

Well, yesterday night I was just watching a spanish movie on "TVE (Television Espanola)" and after it finished they started with something that I did not like much, so I continue changing channels until I stoped on a sport one (thats a miracle, because I dont enjoy watching sports), well, the thing is that they were showing a boxing match and I just started watching it (dont know why....) and the next question arrove to my mind... "Is the boxing a Sport?". Dog's fights are not allowed or at least are illegal, any kind of animal fight is illegal these days.., so then, why they do allow people to fight? I do know that they wear this gloves, but it doesn't mean anything at all. The match was between a US gay and a korean one (this was the final). It happens then that the Korean one was covered with blood on his face while his wife and daughter (12 years old) were watching that. His wife was crying and you can tell that his daughter wanted to get inside the match and take his daddy away. I can't beleive how the mediums like the press, the newspapers, the television can be that NO SENSIBLE and show that kind of things. Why don't you focus only on the match? Why do you have to show the suffering of his family? Whats the point? Sell More? Gather more audience?. And then people ask why people is that violent these days, why etics and values are on the floor, why people doesn't tolerate each other and I can go on and on writing about this. When the match was over (I don't know a lot of boxing, but the thing is that none of them went to the floor, they just said that the winner was the US guy "Markus Meyer" I dont even know why I do remember his name) the TV showed the face of his wife again taking away all that stress and tears out, because her husband was now not going to receive any more hits. This was a sad image. And then is when I ask myself again: Is the boxing a sport? And then the only answer that I found is: It's all about money, like always.