Non-academic interests

Non-Governmental Organizations

I'm a member of just one of them: Médicos sin Fronteras, as I'm convinced this is the one which may help against poverty and suffering in a more clean, quick and efficient way. I've been financially contributing to it on a monthly basis for many years, so I was very happy when they got the Nobel Prize, as we all received a letter telling us that a little piece of it was for each of us.

Could you please consider becoming a member of some NGO yourself?

If so, you may help people who are really desperate!!!

Travelling

I've visited the following countries, so far:
Europe: Portugal, Gibraltar, Italy, Andorra, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Austria, Chzeq Republic, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Russia.
America: Canada, USA, Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Costa Rica, Brazil and Argentina.
Africa: Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Canary Islands, Ivory Coast and Nigeria.
Asia: Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.
My favourite cities are Venice, Amsterdam, Prague, London and San Francisco. I look forward to visit India and Australia.

Motorcycles

My longest trip in a row so far was Vienna-Tarragone: 2000 kms in 20 hours, non-stop —well, very short breaks just for eating something, both myself and the bike. My longest trip by stages was Valencia-Nordkapp (Norway)-Valencia: 11000 kms, across 9 countries, in 11 days (Lyon, Kiel, Uppsala, Tornio, Nordkapp, Rovaniemi, Sundsvall, Jörkoping, Bremen, Bastogne —through Groningen, Afsluitdijk, Amsterdam and Liege— then Valencia). A second one, less hard, but not that bad, was Valencia-Balkans-Valencia: 4100 kms, across 6 countries, in 13 days (Barcelona, Genova -by ferry, Venice, Lubliana, Zagreb, Belgrade, Podgoritza, Saint Stefan, Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, Mostar, Split, Rijeka, Piacenza, Genova, Barcelona -by ferry, then Valencia).
 
 

Classical music

Software

Some of my favourite composers: Dowland, Monteverdi, Carissimi, Charpentier, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, R. Strauss and Mahler; as for contemporary composers: Stravinsky, Ravel, Szymanowski, Schrecker, Schulhoff, Bartok, Britten, Shostakovich, Lutoslawski, Carter and Kurtag, to cite just a few. It is not that I dislike popular music; I like blues, jazz -especially dixieland, and some rock and pop, but If you have a look at my collection of cds you'll find that more than 90% of them are classical.
 

Hardware

To see last update and full details of my system you can click here; I have my Maggies 1.6 heavily modified by myself; to see a complete description of my mods you can click here.

Cinema

Bird watching