A second to catch up…

I’m a bit behind on the blogs due to the fact that my time on the Internet has been consumed by other work. And I was taken out for a couple days with a jungle infection in my foot from jumping off a waterfall in northern Thailand. But Ross has gotten some good blogs out there about our time in Barcelona and Hong Kong and we share a lot of the same experiences and pics.

Since I last wrote about Barcelona, we’ve returned to London for a couple of days, went to Hong Kong and then Bangkok. We just arrived in Chiang Mai after a 14-hour over night train. Not as bad as it sounds. We got some great sleeper cars and were so tired from our whirlwind Bangkok experience that stretching out on the train with a good book and some tunes was just what the doctor ordered.

A quick wrap up on the time in Barcelona. Beautiful people, new friends, great beach time, parties, rock climbing adventures, a big music festival, and the most international mix of people I’ve experienced in one city. At one time we were sitting in a group on the beach with people from Brazil, Mexico, Spain, France, Italy, Romania and the United States rapping in Spanish, English, Italian and Portuguese. Joking about stereotypes and teaching each other vocabulary or in other words breaking stereotypes and learning new languages. Dialogue and shared experience is the way to break down international stereotypes for sure, and a beach, cold beers and music always helps.

Leaving Spain was hard. It’s so nice to be speaking Spanish again and the pace of life in Spain is my kind of speed. But we went onwards and eastward with a short return to London in between for a couple of days to catch our flight to Hong Kong.

I was completely surprised to see our good friend Req, who lives in Colombia open the door when we got to James’ house in London. He and his wife Andrea were hanging out in London on vacation before they went to Croatia for a Backroads trip. We were in London for two days and took it easy, got some much needed work done, checked out a great exhibit at the Tate Modern (see blog for more info) and did a little salsa dancing at a cool Moroccan restaurant (see blog if you’ll be in London, great spot). It was awesome to see Req and catch up. One night we all cooked dinner together and finally used James’ dinning table (yeah the life of a successful young entrepreneur, 2 years and has never eaten at his dinning room table). Anyway, it was fun to sit with good friends who I had grown up with and hear stories about living in different corners of the world, starting lives, businesses and families. It reminded me why we started Matador. The opportunity for inspiration and learning you get from bringing intelligent, passionate people together from all over the world is one of the most beautiful things. A big thanks to James, Paul, Req, Andrea, Ann Marie and Ross for a great dinner.

I’ll stop hear and continue with a blog dedicated specifically to Hong Kong, because that city deserves that much. Next chapters… Hong Kong and Thailand.