a smart accident

19 months ago I started to write this blog. Common themes have been food, childhood, prosecco, family and friends. However, there is something I haven't written about yet: fear

Last Saturday, I had a wonderful afternoon. Hannes, his parents, Roland and Magdalena, Lindsey, Andrea and I made a nice picnic in the garden. We had prosecco, roasted almonds, crostini with green olive paste, wasabi-gouda and strawberries. After that, we had dinner with the Quantschnigs (Roland and Magdalena invited us). After dinning, we walked to one of Innsbruck's most beautiful squares and had a drink there. Hannes’ parents left and then we headed to a bar and stayed there until half past one.

On our way home, Andrea was riding her bike in front of me when all of a sudden she was hit by a car. She didn’t see the car coming from her left side…Andre was very lucky because the driver reacted promptly (and that the car was a smart). However, as a consequence of the impact, she lost consciousness for about twenty seconds.

Many people helped after the accident. A guy stopped the cars, another called the paramedics (who arrived 4-5 minutes later) and a man gave her his jacket (she seemed cold, since her body was shaking, probably because of the contusion). I did the best I could, I carefully moved her head to allow easy breathing, put my jacket over her, verified if she could move her legs and then raised her knees to keep the blood on her chest, and talked to her all the time in order to calm her.

All this time I remained serene. We drove to the hospital, talked to the doctors, answered the policemen's questions (we both had an alcohol test, which was negative in both cases), I had to explain Andrea repeatedly what happened. After taking x-rays and an ultrasound test, the hospital personnel took her to another floor where she spent the night. I had to leave the hospital.

Only then my fear started.

I took a cab in order not to see people; the taxi-driver drove through the accident's site, which did not help at all. When I was in bed I started crying. I was so afraid because I was no longer with her, holding her hand. I was extremely worried that something could happen to her during the night. I can't remember crying so strong ever. I cried so hard and for so long that I was completely exhausted, that helped me to sleep well.

The next morning, Andrea woke me up with a text message; she was doing way much better. I went to the hospital without any fear and only then I realised that during the night I let out the fear caused by the shock of seeing the accident. My body and mind were restored.

Andrea broke no bones and was released from the hospital on Tuesday noon. She is doing very well; today she told me she quit taking the painkillers...respect!!!

I am including a picture of her so you can see that she is doing well :)

Cheese and Whisky

Last year I took someone a picture with a digital camera and I was amazed because for the first time I saw tiny red squares moving around the camera's display. It took me a while to understand that those red squares were following the faces of the people in the screen. Suddenly, a message appeared in the display telling "laugh-identifier is on"; I was astonished to see that the camera "knew" if people were laughing or not, and only when all people in the display were showing their best smile, the camera took the picture.

I enjoy taking photos with my mobile, but I really love taking pictures with analogue cameras. I am the proud owner of a polaroid, of a half-format camera, of a semi-automatic cannon (from the 1980s) and since two years I use disposable cameras and I love them! You can even play football with them and the worst thing that can happens is that the flash triggers after each kick (I tried this in new year's eve with my nephew Santiago).

Some people when taking group pictures ask the people to say "Cheese" or "Whisky", I think this is because when people pronounce the "ee" in cheese or the "y" in whisky, their face appear to be smiling. I wonder why photographers never asked us to say "the eels", instead of the usual terms for matured milk with salt or fermented and distilled cereals. Maybe the band (the eels is a wonderful band) is not known enough. However, saying "Cheese" or "Whishy" is old school, now the cameras do that on their own.

By the way, I have to show you what it happened to me in Vienna last weekend! I was taking pictures of tulips when my inner voice told me "Oscar say cheese when you shot the next picture". I dis so...in the link below you can see what happened.

Use this link to discover what happened and use this other link to hear eels' sweetest song.

P.S. I recommend you to combine the links hear the eels and see the pics

the Czech extra kilos

I stop drinking beer in 2007. Ever since, I only had one at Munich’s airport in 2007, one at a friend’s wedding in 2009, and a few in Nicaragua (beer was my prosecco substitute in Central America).

The reason for quitting was the relation between beer consumption and my increasing body fat-index.

Last Friday I travelled to Prague for working reasons. We stayed in a nice hotel with a huge breakfast buffet.

The very first morning, I was late for our meeting and only had 5 minutes for breakfast (literally 5 minutes). While having breakfast I felt like breaking a Guinness record. I cut my fried egg and some bacon stripes and built four portions I ate in four bites (around 15 seconds per portion, 60 seconds). On the side I had baked beans and cucumber; I mixed the beans with cucumber to have a “healthy” version of an English breakfast. I exterminated those guys also in 60 seconds. While doing all this I brew myself a cup of earl grey (3 minutes). I never ate so fast in my life, but at least I was on time for the meeting.

During the resting days I ate like Conan the barbarian: Beef, goose, dumplings, Gulasch, kraut, potatoes…and beer.

I came back yesterday from Prague after five and a half days of work (12 hours a day) and at least 15 litres of Kozel, Zlatoplamen, Pilsner Urquell and Budweiser.

Already on Sunday I felt my body was not content with the amounts of Czech food and beer I was consuming, that day I started having oats and fruits for breakfast until I discovered miso-soup at the end of the buffet line…thank you hotel manager!

This morning I called my friend Kathrin, who knows an ayurvedic treatment for expelling toxins from one’s body. She warned me that the preparation for this regimen lasts between 4 and 5 days (no sugar, no pasta, no alcohol), and only then the real treatment begins. This is hard core! I think I won’t try Kathrin’s treatment this time. Until then, I hope I can cope with my Czech extra kilos.

Today is a nice Sunday :-)

It’s been three months since I’ve been in Mexico, nevertheless, today is a good day for writing about my family. For those of you who are not Mexican, or don’t know any Mexican, let me tell you that for us, our family consists of mother and father, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles (including the in-laws), grandparents, and sometimes even good family friends are considered family, that is the case of my cousin Mario, with him I don’t share any close DNA-tracks, but still, he is my cousin.

I made a filckr album; there you will see Allison, my brother’s wonderful girlfriend. She is from Hawaii; they met in Chile and have lived together in two different Mexican cities and also in Innsbruck. Allison is the first girl in the photo album (showing us her christmas present: a bracelet).

Among those pics, you will also see Víctor. He is my sister’s husband. According to her, he is the most wonderful man on earth; my sister is incredible intelligent, so if she says that it is true. You can recognise him because he is the guy reading the label of a red wine bottle.

You will see also pics from my cousins and their partners. The children are from my cousins Liliana and Larisa, their last names are “Aragón Castro”, I am a “Germes Castro”, our second last name reveals that our mothers are sisters.

There is a wonderful picture of my mother and Anna, Anna is for me (together wit Luisa) the most beautiful child in the world.

There is one weird picture you may ask yourself “What the hell?” when you see it. It is Albino and me holding firecrackers with our mouths. Albino is for me the funniest Spaniard (together with Javier Cámara, but he is an actor). Albino is the proud husband of my cousin and childhood-sidekick Karla.

The last picture is of the two people I love the most in this planet (not counting my mom). They are Tita, my wonderful sister, and Tomás, my funny brother.

I hope you like the pics and thank you for reading this personal message to my beloved family…if you are one of the people in the photos let me tell you that I miss you.

And if you click here, you can see the album

I am sexier than Rick Asley

The oldest memory I have of being bullied at school was related to my skin and hair.
I think I was around 9 or 10 years old when my school "friends" formed a circle around me and started singing "f*cking freckle-face penguin", they only stop doing that after I burst into tears. There is another sad story, my mom told me that once I came back home crying from kindergarten because children found my freckles bizarre and then I told my mom "Mother, they laugh at my freckles, and I am full of them".

During my late childhood, I was given nicknames such as tortilla, carrot, and the non plus ultra "f*cking freckle-face penguin" (putos cerdos!). But when I was 17 or so, my hair started getting darker and darker, and by the time I reached the age of 24, my head hair was completely black.

On Tuesday, I called Carol and she told me that at school (she is currently studying art-restoration) she had a course on Christian painting, and there she learned that Judas (the informant among jesus' buddies) is commonly represented as a ginger. Now I finally understand why Cartman from South Park thinks red-haired people have no soul: Jews in general, and not only Judas, as well as "enemies of the church" are commonly portrayed as gingers in Christian art. In addition to that, during the Spanish inquisition, gingers were stigmatized as Jews.

During my Wikipedia research, I also learned that red is the rarest hair colour in the world (1% to 2% of the world's population); but the most striking data I got is that gingers are more sensitive to thermal pain. This may explain why I love shadows during summer and why I hate temperatures over 28°C. My sister, who is also a ginger, also dislikes hot weather. My brother loves the summer, but although he also had red hair, his skin is dark and he has no freckles.

I'll go back to this blog entry's title: Carol told me on the phone that ginger men are everything but sex-symbols, and that is the reason why there are no ginger actors. After laughing at me for a while, she tried to console me by saying that she only knows two red-haired men: Rick Asley and me, and eventhough she is not attracted to gingers, she was my girlfriend for over two years. Sweet, that automatically makes me sexier than Rick Asley.

If you are wondering how Rick Asley looks like, use this link

My pros are my cons OR I am a post-modern pragmatic emo?

At the end of 2004, weeks before finishing University, I found myself spreading CV's all around Europe. Back then, my mother told me that she could support me financially for only four months after my final exam. My graduation was on December 2004, so I had only until April 2005 to find a job, otherwise, I would have to return to Chihuahua (back then Chihuahua was one of the safest, better organised and tidiest cities in Mexico).

It was hell. I sent around 30 CVs per post and more than 50 via e-mail. Only three firms showed interest, but that interest turned up into only two job interviews.

When preparing for the first job interview of my life, I sat with Hannes and Gimm (both my flatmates back then) and discussed about the possible answers I could give to possible questions.

One of the questions that Hannes and Gimm asked me in that interview-simulation was actually the mother of all job-interview questions: "What are your pros and what are your cons?" Looking into Gimm and Hannes faces, I replied without hesitating: "that is an easy one, my only pro is at the same time, my only con, and that is my cool hair".

There was some true in my answer, when I had long hair (1999-2003) I really loved my hair, the only problem is that long hair look terribly bad on me (see the profile pic). There is something else regarding my hair: I was very ofter late at dinner or parties because it took me hours to style my hair...even though I had already short hair.

Now, I am 32 and I confront a different problem. Whenever I am interested in a girl and I tell her about my feelings, there are only two possible reactions from her side: She finds me funny and stays, or she walks away from me very, very fast.

…but, if fortune is on my side, and the girl stays, she will probably like me sooner or later because some qualities I have (my pros); however, if I later ask this girl if she’s interested is starting a relationship with me, the one and only question I get is “no, because you…bla bla bla”, and that “bla bla bla” matches perfectly the list of my pros.

If one sees this situation in a positive way one could say “My defects attract girls”, but I am far away from being a positive guy, I am a post-modern pragmatic emo, so I can only say “My qualities expel girls”.

Sport ist Mord

There is a saying in German which I love, it reads „Sport ist Mord“ and can be translated to „sport kills“. Last Saturday I went snowboarding with Hannes and Anne and at the middle of the first slope I felt (just after coming to a complete stop). when this happenes, I was moving so slow before falling, that you cannot even call that speed; however, I landed on my knees and hands. My right wrist was injured.

Doing sport is one of the two reasons I haven’t written in my blog, the other one is the lack of interesting happenings at the moment. Yes, my life is currently pretty boring.

Based on the lack of curious, sad or funny events in the last two weeks, I will show you a series of pictures from me enjoying the night life in Los Cabos. These pictures reflect what partying, getting drunk and meeting girls is for me.

If you want to see me at my best, click here