Also have I been in Bratislava!

The journeys in Bratislava started with not knowing where we were... We stopped under a big bridge with a strange tower in the middle and it was completely dark at 19:30.
Nokia has improved a lot in these last years in issues of mobile phones including lots of features, and N95 8GB from Alex took us out of our problem and guide us (with GPS connection) to the hostel place, where after several minutes, we could get the bedroom, have a shower and get ready for knowing Bratislava nightlife.
We decided to go to Slovak pub, in ul. Obchodná (shops street) http://www.slovakpub.sk/eng/, where many students go there for having lunch, dinner or a warm chat drinking slovak beer.
The prices didn't disappoint us. You could drink a beer (0,5L) for less than 1€ (0,83€ cts),and have a typical Slovak meal for less than 5€.
Halusky, pierogi and many more dishes were in the menu and I don't regret to have tasted them as it won't disappoint you as well if you try them.

After more than one beer, we went out the lovely Slovak pub and decided to go to the city centre, to look for bars, pubs and any clue of nightlife. What a big disappointment when we didn't find any dance floor, any place where we fit in...
This night was the first step of our whole image of Bratislava...

Next day, Saturday morning, we had an appointment with Beata, member of AEGEE-Bratislava, friend of my flatmate Aga, and in a few hours of cultural guide. After a coffee and a piece of cake, we came accross her in the hostel and we started to walk and chat, watching attentive all we could.
Our interest was mainly focused on the strange tower on the middle of the Danubio, that seemed like a UFO and actually is called UFO.
We had to pay kind of 3€ for getting in, but it was really worth it because of the views and good weather that accompanied us during the whole day.
Here you see some of the marvelous views of whole old centre of Bratislava.



This evening, we met Matej, a Slovak friend of mine who was studying in Oviedo 2 years ago. He had dinner with us and with many members of AEGEE-Bratislava.


The next day we had to leave the room before 11:00 am, and during the checking out we started to talk with a group of Finnish girls who were in the same situation as us, it was the last day for them in Bratislava.
We all joined in a big group and decided to go to the castle after taking a coffee.
The castle was closed, so we couldn't get into, but once again, we had a beautiful views from the top of the hill where the castle is placed.

Slovak pub was our election to have lunch and to try the famous Halusky per less than 4€.Strauss and his "On the beautiful blue Danube" aslo accompained us after the lunch.


Unfortunately, this place was the last one where we saw our new Finnish friends, having to say goodbye, but wondering when we will meet again.
We all think that soon, Vienna is not so far from Krakow is it? :)

Hence, wed already seen more or less the majority of the important things in Bratislava, but Medieval weapon's and pharmacy museums were unknown for us.
The first one offered, appart from the many swords, helmets, knifes and rifles of the middle ages, an spectacular view of Bratislava during sunset, the perfect hour for photographers!


After the complete sightseeing guided tour thanks to Beata and Matej, this last one invited us to come to his place and watch some episodes of a funny serial called: "The big bang theory"


That was more or less our history in Bratislava. We would like to thank Beata and AEGEE girls for guiding us and for giving us advice.
As well we want to thank Matej, for his hospitality and always good mood.
Thank you...

I was in Vienna!

Not having rest so much after the las trip to Wroclaw, Andy told us in Tuesday that we had the tickets for going to Vienna and Bratislava, and just after going to World Press Photo,

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/
Krakow

(Entrance 5PLN)

and before entering the cinema (James Bond, Quantum of Solace)

he showed me the branch of tickets.
Finally, they were 240 PLN for going to Vienna and for returning from Bratislava. Not so cheap as I expected...

During the trip to Vienna, while we occupied to seats each (Andy, Artur, Francesco, Alex and me), we were talking from 21:15 to, more or less, one hour later, before I fell asleep.The trip was kind of long one until 5:00am.
Once being in Vienna, we had no idea where to go neither how to get our hostel
http://www.meininger-hostels.com/ and this was our first mistake that ended up in spending ours first 4€ each one for taking a taxi to get the place.

Hence, our trip started to get colour having a main place, maps and staff who informed us where to go and what to do.
One of the best things that happened to us was that the guy from the reception allowed us to enter the bedroom that night, not having paid for it. Of course, after 8-hour trip we were kind of tired and we took the opportunity of sleeping 3 hour before departing to the city center.
Going to the center and discover what Vienna had for us was the next thing we did, after having breakfast and taking our cameras.
We chose the 48h-10€ ticket for the next two days.
As the weather was not so good and we had read that tram no.1 had a kind of circled way where you could see most of the important buildings of the whole city, we got on it and "sight-saw" the city.
When we thought that the tour was over, I got off the tram which such a bad luck that the tram left when I was outside.
Here I am running after the tram...


My friends kindly got off the tram in the next stop and waited for me, after that we just walked having some problems to find the closest metro station.Even with problems our destiny was clear: Donaustadt, a little "island", where the UN building is placed.

Nothing more was actually so interesting there apart from the big Danube flowing under our wet shoes.
Coming back to our steps, we took a look around the Parliament, the City hall and the University, where a book market was taking place.
I have to admit that I really liked the infrastructure in there and I wouldn't mind to study there for a period of time, as my current flatmate Anita is going to do next semester...
Even with a nice building, we couldn't find a good place for eating, we decided to leave and take some hotdogs (aprox. 3,40€ each). It was no the best option but when you are hungry...
With something in the stomach, our clothes a bit wet and our hands frozen, we looked for a coffee place, without knowing that we would have to pay 3,30€ for a chocolate and 3,40€ for a typical "Melange" coffee.

Nevertheless it gave us strength for taking the map and point out a new place for visiting, the Schönbrunn Schloss (castle) and the gardens around it. Unfortunately, the sun wasn't with us for much longer and we couldn't appreciate the castle so well, deciding to find a warm place for staying the next couple of hours.
Moreover, we realized that we had a shopping centre close to our place, so got that way after having no direction and were surrounding the beautiful city centre,
After all, we seemed a bit tired and decided to get the hostel, rest an clarify things before our next step...
No choice had we we all fell asleep, we think, due to the long trip, the few hours slept and the long and exhausting day in the capital of culture in Europe, Vienna.
So, our next, already mentioned, step was taking a shower next day and get ready for a new day of sightseeing.
This one we visited the Museum of natural history, the national library and finally the Rathaus, where a free guided tour (in German) took place.
Afterwards, and like in every moment, we were hungry. A new member of the group was with us, a German girl friend of Andy (from Australia) who is studying in Vienna at the moment. And she knew a place for eating with "student" prices.
I think 6€ for a dish of fish, a drink and an apple is not a student price but we realised that we were in one of the most expensive cities in Europe...
The eaten fish was valid for resisting the next ours until we departed to Bratislava.
In these, more or less, 3 hours, we met a new place, a kids park.


It was near the Ernst-Happel stadium, where if I remember well, Spain defeated Germany 1-0 in the football Eurocup. Yes! we are European champions finally!


Next action was taking our rack-sacks and taking the bus (at 18:30) to Bratislava, where new language, people, prices and traditions were waiting for us...

AEGEE NetWork Meeting Wroclaw 7th-10th of November 2008.

What could I say that you, AEGEE members don't know about a Network Meeting. This time was a bit different for me because my lovely Spain was not the framework where the NWM was taking place.
It was in a unexpected beautiful, small and lovely city called Wroclaw.
We were about 100 participants, 80% polish and 20% foreign people.

Aga, who always thinks in people more than in herself, had the idea of pay a group ticket for saving some money. It would be a 40PLN return ticket, but finally we spent 47.5PLN and I finally don't know if it was worth it...
We spent 5h train trip until arriving there.

The sleeping place was an old hospital full of empty bedrooms calling us and our mattresses for being a bit more vivid.
Pizzas and coke was waiting for us, so the NWM no started so bad.

About the NWM I can say that it was a typical AEGEE event: Meeting a lot of people, sleeping few hours per night, attending workshops, sightseeing and partying. A very concentrated schedule for 3 days event.
But I have to say that It is possible to do all these things.And I would add that everyone has to experience this situation.
In fact, 2 of my Spanish mates in Krakow,Alex and Alberto (aka Toni), came, with maybe not so much interest in attending the planning proposed, and more focused on knowing the city and the nightlife, but both of them participated, asked questions and showed intered in their own way about waht was going on in the NWM.



So, I kindly recommend whoever reads this blog that maybe an AEGEE event like this one could open a bit your eyes and open as well some doors to societies, experiences and even laboral world.

For further information: www.aegee.org

well, for finishing this small post, have to say something about the return trip. It was a bit more tiring and I'll explain you why. Young people were on the train making our trip a bit uncomfortable having to stand in the corridor during more or les 3h and a half.
A party was taking place in Katowice (city in the middle of Wroclaw and Krakow) and it seemed that nobody wanted to miss it...

We didn't care about that party and just wanted to arrive our place, willing to rest due to the 4days intensive event we enjoyed...

Zakopane

Where would you go if you where in Poland and you would like to hike, to climb, to do winter sports, and to enjoy a beutiful place and views.
Yes, the answer is Zakopane. A small place almost in the middle of Poland and Slovakia, in the south of Poland.

On friday (31st November'08) afternoon, more or less at 16:30, Alex and me said to each other, why not to go to Zakopane this weekend?
and the answer was inmediate, a heavy YES was ejected from our throats.
In less than 5 minutes we knew the buses timetables and we got throught the accomodation place by phone, being sure that we had places for sleeping.
The place was: Dom turisty. And we paid 26 zloty (7.5€) per night and per person, in a five-person room.

The information about the bus companies and the accomodation place was given by my guide of Poland. The Lonely planet one. (25€)

Seriously, it is worth it to have such a nice guide or another similar. A lot of useful information is written there.

When we arrived, we got the dormitory quickly, and just after leaving the backpacks in the room, we went out to a pub called vavavoom. It was quite quiet and all the people
were sitting down.

After that we went to another pub, we paid 10PLN and we stayed there for not so long. The next day we would be hiking early.

Next morning, the alarm-clock started ringing at 9:00, we got dressed and we went to information office. Just in the way, we met a south Korean girl who was
willing to go to the mountains and she was returning back from the closed info office. All-Saints-day was not such a good day for sightseeing in Poland...
She asked us for joining us and we of course agreed. Her name was Narae and she came from Prague.

We were a bit hungry, so we decided to have something to eat. The only place that was open was, unfortunately, McDonald's. I renegate to have breakfast there and
I decided to take a smoked sheep-cheese for 8PLN. This one was accompaining me the whole hiking way until 14:30, when I defeated it.

With something in the stomach, we read the lonely planet, and took the few streets that separated us from the mountains.

Walking by these paths was quite nice. Lots of leaves on the ground, a small stream of water by our side all the time, and little waterfalls


We got the top of one of the mountains in more or less one hour and a half.
The wind was so strong that we even had to lay on the ground for not being thrown away by it.
But getting there was worth it. The view was wonderful and we saw Zakopane while we were on high.


Coming back to the town we found a place for eating typical polish food. As the one I took: Pierogi with meat.
At 15.30 the sun was already hiding down and there was nobody on he streets. So we decided to take some pictures at night.


When we went to McDonald's again to have something to eat, what a surprise... three spanish guys, one spanish girl and a french guy were sitting just next to us.
We met them and decided to go to their hostel and have some drinks. Was a nice time...

It's really a place to go if you are close.
Don't hesitate in asking me anything if you are over here!
www.discoverzakopane.com

Greetings!

Photo-Weekend in Barcelona with Dorothée.

As the title suggests, I'm going to talk about my last weekend in Barcelona, the last step for coming to Krakow where I'm at the moment as Erasmus MSc. student.
On Friday 24th of October I flight at 8:10am from Asturias airport to Barcelona airport. It was 1h flight and I had slept 3 hours the night before. I was with Gelo, having some drinks until late.

At 9:30 I was travelling towards Barcelona center by train. I had the map and the indications of Dorothée, my friend who is working and living in Barcelona. She works for Erai (Enterprise Rhône-Alpes International www.erai.org).
It was quite intuitive to get the place where she was working, but a bit tiring because I was carrying with my one-Krakow-year-luggage. I left the luggage there and I went alone with my camera to Park Güell.

As you can see, there was a nice weather and it was plenty of people. Nice place to visit if you go to Bcn.

My friend and me are just initiated in the great world of the photography,and this weekend was the first one for both os us using a tripod.

We went out to a pub called "Quilombo" with live music. At first time, there was an argentinian guy playing songs with his guitar and singing quite well.
We were almost alone with two more couples and we had a good time talking about her trip to Perú. Lucky her...
The flatmates came and joined us in our small table. In 2 hours since we arrived the place was crowded, many people was singing and some other people were shaking cans and feeling the rhythm. Just in this moment we decided to go home for sleeping a bit before my departure.

I slept 3 hours. I could have slept one more hour because the hour was changing this day and I realized when I arrived to the bus station (Barcelona Nord).
I seemed like I was the only one who didn't know that the time had changed.
I got the bus and I slept a bit, getting Girona airport sooner than I expected...

At first time I had an hour delay in my flight and I decided to take it easy. I sat down and I just chill it out. Having slept 3 hours, my body was expecting me to let hime sleep more hour but I had to be aware of the check-in time.
I decided, finally, to wait for the queue and check-in and, as I supposed, my luggage was 4Kg heavier than it was allowed, and I had to pay 10€ per kilo, so as you would have done, I take clothes out and I started to dress myself up and to
become a onion with 2 or 3 layers...
When I eventually checked in, I went to the bathroom and... What a surprise! One more hour delay in my flight.
I was in Girona airport and I had to wait for 3 hours until my flight had departed, then I decided to take a coffee and to watch a Dexter's 3rd season episode I had in my hard disk.


I strictly recommend this serial. Could a psycho be a cop?

When I flew, I was in Katowice airport, and I got in a car of my lovely fly company Wizzair and I got Krakow at 15:45 more or less.
Alejandro was supposed to be there but because of my delay and some misunderstandings we didn't meet. I had to get home on my own and hopefully there was someone in the flat, Anita, my new flatemate as Bartek, Aga and Alejandro.

The life in Krakow has just started...

My first HDR

Do you like pictures? Are you always thinking of how to make the best picture?
Do you want MORE from your pictures?
Well I think I have something to say about it.

Recently, as some of you know I bought a DSLR.
A DSRL is not a brand-new car, it's just a Digital Single Lens Reflex.
The name of the camera is Nikon D40. It's a 2006 camera and it's considered the most basic one for begginers.
That's exactly what I wanted, because before that I knew nothing about how to take pictures.
Even though it's the basic one taking pictures with a DSLR is another concept of taking pictures.

During my period living in London, looking at my new toy and all the bookshops you can go there, it was no strange that I also bought a book about DSRL.
Many advices on How to make good pictures and how to become a very good photographer are in there.
The book is: Collins Digital SLR Handbook.
It was actually my tube-travel partner throughout my stance in London, reading it just before frame the big Ben or the Thames with my D40.

In this point, many of you would be asking what is HDR and why I titled this page like this. Well, cameras and pictures are closely related with HDR.
High Dynamic Range also known as HDR is a technique used for giving more energy to your pictures. "Mixing" the same picture with different exposures
the results are great!
http://www.dzoom.org.es/noticia-1444.html

As I have Adobe Photoshop CS2 I didn't want to complicate myself and I looked for the best way to create a HDR picture with CS2.
Lookin up in the internet everyone can see that there are two ways to create a HDR picture:
1)You can take diferent pictures of the same place with different exposures and with a compress format (as jpg).
2)You can take one picture with the RAW format. Afterwards you can create new pictures with different exposures from the original RAW.

I selected the second one, but there was a problem. Here I noticed that I needed a plug-in for the CS2 for watching and editing my RAW pictures.
It is called Camera raw 3,7 (It depends on your camera and your Photoshop version).
Got it here: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/thankyou.jsp?ftpID=3587&fileID=3377

Once I had the pictures I wanted I just follow the very good explained steps shown below:
http://www.dzoom.org.es/noticia-1585.html

The first one I selected for practising HDR was the London eye, what I took a picture of it the last week.
Here you can check it: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fernandomartin/


Let's HDR!

My first day in London.

With my trip to London I would like to start a new stage of my life.
Becoming an Erasmus student in Krakow the next month,to develop my Master Science Thesis, I want to be a blog user
to keep all my adventures and disadventures all over the world written down.

As the title says, my first day in London is the topic of this page.
I'm here, the famous capital of the United Kingdom, because I selected it for
doing a course of English paid for the Ministry of Education of Spain.

After going to Dublin in October 2007 and had to pay 800€ (yes, eight 0 0) for three week classes of English,
this year I had liked to find something more economic knowing that many companies knows the money that the Ministry gives to us...

A very friend of mine, Alberto, found a place in London that seemed cheaper and in the same conditions of learning than the Dublin place.
I had no doubt, and applied for the same place than him, but in different dates (He will come one week later).

The very first problem I have had today was to find the place where, supposedly, I was going to take my classes.
Soni, my roomate during this month, suggested me a way to get the centre as quick as possible and I tried to do as she said. Unfortunately, the Overground wasn't working at this time and I had to come back to the place I started and find another way to get my destiny.
It meant 45 minutes of delay in my city centre trip.
I knew that the studies centre was at Seven Sisters Road, but they call it the Finsbury park centre. Looking at the tube map, I saw two stops in the Victoria line (blue one), one called Finsbury park
and other one called Seven sisters. I thought of the name of the road and I chose the Seven sister stop. Never in my life had I take worse decision when orienting in a city. The point is that I was, in fact, in Seven sister Road, but I stopped
in the number 700 ish and I didn't know that the place for studying was at number 67-83. As I had no pounds and no credit in the Oyster card* (without realising that I could pay with the credit card), I had to walk for a long way since the roads in London are veeery big.
Once I walked during 45 minutes more or less, I found Finsbury park. I watched it from the outside hurrying to find the centre (one hour and a half late at this time).
Sweating, being hurt by the shoe and carrying a backpack with my camera, my laptop and some papers, I was thinking: 'Ok, it's my first day in London, tomorrow it'll be better'.
Finally I found the centre of studies, it was 11:20 and I supposed to be there at 9:00.

The girl at the reception was talking with a girl when I arrived and I had to wait a little more to get in contact with the people I was looking for the whole morning. After some problems seeking me in the computer (date of birth wrong memorised), eventually, she managed to find me.
As in the majority of the cases, these kind of academies give you a test of aptitude for placing you in one of the 6 or 8 levels of study they have. Here wasn't different of course. She gave me a 100-question test and said to me that I had to fulfill it. I did properly and I give it back to her.
My score was 74 of 100 (tests were never my best point in the English language), and she said that with this score I would be placed on level 6 (First Certificate), but looking at how I speaked and the fluency of my English she decided to place me at the level 7 (Advanced), but also told me that
if I wanted to atted level 7 classes at 9:00 I had to change of centre of studies. My new destination, Oxford St.

After all this chaos, in the same Seven sister Road, I got a bank and I could finally change my lovely Euro into Pounds. With pounds, the life in London became different, I change my possition from cannot buy a little can of coke to can recharge my new Oyster card with 109 pounds for 3 zones and the whole month.
One problem was solved. The second problem was my mobile telephone connection. In this month I will have to get in contact with Soni, because she has different schedule than mine and we share keys by the beginning.
I went to T-Mobile and to vodafone. The best one month-payment plan was in T-Mobile, with 350 minutes to every network and 650 sms for the whole month. I tried to buy it but without having a credit or debit card I was not allowed to buy it... What a pity, it will have to wait until next day...

Knowing that my place of studies would be in Oxford Street, and noticing that the omelet and the banana that I had eaten for breakfast was enough for two hours more, I decided to meet my new place of studies.
Oxford street is such a big street with many people, many shops and much of everything. You can find all you want there, even an English studies centre 5 minutes walking from the tube gap I got off. Oxford street 103A, my next place for studying and learning English during 4 weeks.

Once the place was recognised, I decided to go back home eat something and relax a bit.