Blue Pete

Last Friday I went to Utrecht to visit my friend Nuno.
It was a wicked night and I'll tell you why.
To start with the trains weren't working very well (as always) although there had been some severe weather storming the whole country so I'll cut them some slack.
Once I got at Nuno's place everybody was painted in blue(!?!). Yes that's correct! Apparently it has been an idea from Mia, a crazy Swedish stylist that was there as well. It looks like Nuno said that he doesn't like the Zwart Piet (Black Pete) story and all that comes around it. So she had the idea of painting everyone's face in blue and so we became the Blauwe Piet (Blue Pete).
It was all going very well until we had to go out! Obviously we became the subject of the evening. Everybody was staring at us and asking us why we were doing that but we couldn't really provide an excellent answer, saying that Nuno doesn't like the Zwart Piet didn't seem to be a valid answer anymore but it's an pretty good icebreaker, if you're having problems starting conversations when you go out at night just paint yourself in blue and go with the flow.
So that was it, another wicked Friday went by and it was time to go back to Amsterdam. And how do you do that? You catch the train. What train?! Again the same issue, there's one train every hour from Utrech to Amsterdam and we were just a bit too late. I wasn't going to wait for another hour for the train again. I've asked the taxi driver how much it was to take me from Utrecht to Amsterdam since we weren't going to make it to the station in time. It wasn't that bad and all I wanted was to get home so I've made a taxi driver very happy but I still don't understand why couldn't there be more late night trains on weekends?

No train, no gain

I didn't remember the last time I went to Rotterdam, but since I was going with my good friend Nuno Sacramento I thought it would be a good idea. It was in fact because I also met my old German friend Anneke that lives in Delft. She's great fun, I always like spending time with her. and she's also a bit crazy which makes her even sexier!
Anyway, after having a good dinner we went for few drinks at the Witte Aap which seems to the the place for artists and architects to hang out. Nothing wrong with the place, it seems always awfully busy in the evenings.
The problem was when it was time to go back, back to reality - how to go home from Rotterdam to Amsterdam late in the night, that was the next mission and that also made remember why I don't go to Rotterdam that often!
After 12:00 am - I believe - there's only 1 train every hour. On top of that I arrived at the station 5 minutes after the previous train left, so that meant 55 minutes waiting plus approximately 1 hour trip and suddenly I lost 2 hours of life. We couldn't even go up to the platforms because they were locked with what seemed to be improvised gates. Nuno then said the best quote of the evening when he referred the scenario to an Eastern Europe country at war like Bosnia - it really felt like a movie. I think that next time I'll remember this again and make sure that I either go by car and then I can leave anytime or I spend the night there because the train system in The Netherlands still has too much to catch up so no train, no gain!

Triangle

After New York I went to Paris. Just had time to drop my stuff make a new bag and jump on the train to the Gare du Nord.
Went there to visit my good friend Raimana Chaves from Tahiti that I met here in Amsterdam.
Went there with another friend from Amsterdam and we had quite some fun.
Three hours after I arrived I was already in the famous Olympia watching a concert from Da Weasel - a Portuguese Hip Hop band. After that we were off to a Tahitian party and I don't remember how many Tahitian Punches I drank that night :-)
In the next day had some of the best meals I had in my life in Paris. The place was called L'Escargot and it was great - it's the French cuisine at its best.
After that it was time for some party! The nice gentlemen that worked in L'Escargot recommended us the bar Le Next. Very nice and cozy, good music (dj was mixing more or less though) and nice people, I danced a lot and met a nice American girl called Sarah. It was definitely a good experience and made me want to go back there.
Now I'm back to Amsterdam and after all these experiences it got me thinking if wouldn't it be nice to get the chance to live between these cities Paris - Amsterdam - New York. It would definitely be something genial, my own Bermudas Triangle, I would like to call it the PAN triangle :-)

New York wrap up

New York was an awesome experience, both in business and leisure side. Maybe some new good business opportunities, maybe not. Even the idea of moving to New York would make some sense if some of the talks turn out to be real things.
After staying the for a couple of days it could be something I could get used to it. I had a lot of fun, made some new friends and discovered a city that has a lot to do with my life style. My partners and his friends showed me around in the city, saw some great places, ate good food met some nice people, but also spent a lot of money, New York is still quite expensive so if I would move to New York it would have to be worth it :-)
Nevertheless I'm going back there for sure, the sooner the better.

Ad-Tech 2005

Wow! That's one way to describe the Ad-Tech event.
This is my first time for me, my partners are already veterans :-)
It's big and crowded, considered the biggest event in online marketing and advertisement!
You get to meet some much people, all the big players are there and you have the chance to talk with these people and make sure they know you, or even better when they know you already and they want to make business with you - that's how I like it better :-)
After a long day of meetings and information sharing the real moment I've been waiting for arrives - party, party, party :-)
We started by having dinner at a very very nice Japanese restaurant with some of our business partners. The food was great, although I skipped the raw food, it's not really my kind of thing, but all the rest was at the highest level and the desert was exquisit. If you plan a trip to New York I recommend you to drop by the Matsuri and you won't regret.
The next stop was the Glo Club, one of the official parties of the event! What a venue that was, the place was very nice, really trendy, New York style! People were fantastic, the music was great, you could hear all kinds of music genders just like I like it.
It didn't last long though because today there's more Ad-Tech, lets see what it brings.

After the Marathon

My partners have gone up a couple of points in my consideration after finishing the New York Marathon this Sunday.
It's amazing to see how many people commit themselves to this event. It's a very good sight and it's definitely not an easy thing to do and it sure is not a task for the average person.
After the event it was time to celebrate and the party as expected happened at the Felix Restaurant. The place was packed and full of Dutchies as apparently most of the Dutch runners of the Marathon ended up there. The good thing about it was that the party was sponsored by Heineken so you can imagine how it ended up.
I don't remember much after a certain point in the evening, all I remember was that there was lots of nice women :-)
Thea, the Philippines woman from the restaurant came with this idea of drinking a Brazilian Passion Fruit cocktail (Maracuja) which is very tricky, you drink it like it's juicy but the next thing you know it feels like you've been kicked in the head big time! So after a certain hour everything started to get a bit blurry and fuzzy. I remember that I went after some girls from Nebraska (I think!) and ended up in a place called Club One, then I lost them and the next thing I know it's morning and I'm with a huge hangover...
It's time to get things going, it's time to start working in New York, the conference starts today.

First impression

New York has been a great experience! I'm really amazed by this city.
Now it's obvious where the 'Big' comes from the Big Apple :-) All those buildings next to each other provide an exclusive skyline that it's recognizable from anywhere.
In these few days I've been able to do quite a lot. The first thing I had to do was to get a ride in a Yellow Cab with all the extras. You find Bulgarians, Pakistanis and I don't know where from driving those cabs. The traffic of course is imense!
I've seen Ground Zero, Wall Street, Madison Square Garden, 5th Avenue, Bryant Park, Central Park, SOHO, Greenwich Village - that's actually where the hotel is at.
I've also had to experience the Subway which can be quite some experience :-)
My connection here is the PR of the Felix Restaurant. A very nice restaurant very well known in the city owned by a French guy married to a Brazilian woman. Lots of Brazilian music, I like it a lot!
Apparently Thea, the PR from Felix, is the ex-Miss Philippines or something like that. An amazing person crazier than me and she's the one that is showing us around New York in the evening. She knows everybody in the night life of New York. She got us into some of the most famous clubs in the city Marquee, Bed and Guest House in front of everybody else, no questions asked :-)
People here are quite friendly too, my first impression from these first couple of days have been 10 out of 10, we'll see what the future brings next.

Today is the marathon day. My partners are actually running it as I type this post. I'm just about to leave to meet them. I'll tell you how that works out after :-)