Books

Lucky for us our landlord is a literature professor who has spent a lot of time in English-speaking countries.  She left behind enough books to keep me busy for a while.  But I do like to be able to browse books, too.

from the bookstore's site

I found a used book store that is part of chain and one book is 3€, two books are 5€, and five books are 10€.  Their English selection was mostly classics and books people travel with, but there were a few that caught my eye.  I stop by now and then just to see if there is anything I desperately need. Nothing yet.

The main library is not too far from our house and is close enough to other places so I can combine errands.  If you see the bike rack in the background it is empty except for my bicycle, which I thought was strange.  When I went yesterday at 6pm it was much more crowded.

The five shelves on the left and the two shelves in the next section make up the English section.

No English newspapers, no English magazines,

but they did have plenty in both Catalan and Castilian. 

Barely any people, but this was in the morning. 

The children's room had some English books and I found a useful illustrated Spanish dictionary.
I had never seen a single person in there until I went yesterday at 6 p.m.

I did not have a library card and wanted to get books.  What to do?  I mentioned my dilemma to someone who said she was too busy to read.  She let me borrow her card and even gave me her online PIN so I could renew books.  Wow!

But then we were eligible to get cards.  How could I go in and get one when they thought I had one?  I thought about going to a different branch but it is a bit far away and does not have great hours (although I am sure I will get there at some point).  I thought if I went in the evening there would be different people working.  And I took A. in hopes that they would not throw me out in front of my kid.

We arrived and the person who I knew remembered me (he speaks English to me each time he sees me) was at the circulation desk.  I went to the information desk.  I don't the exact words, but she asked, "Did he send you to me?"  No, so she sent me to the circulation desk.  There was someone else there, too, so I asked her.  Nope, had to the see the guy who spoke English.  "You want a card for your kid?  Sure."  I said I wanted one, too.  "Don't you have one?"  At least I could honestly say I didn't.

We both got cards!

Car stickers

When I started seeing a lot of bull and donkey stickers on cars I figured it had to be a political thing. Right!

The Osborne bull, a symbol of Spain, started off as an advertisement, but became so popular that when they tried to ban roadside ads people claimed it was part of the landscape.  I have not seen more the car sticker, but in other places there are t-shirts, key rings, etc.

A little over ten years ago people in Catalonia decided they needed a counterpart and chose an animal that is hard-working, stubborn, and able to endure hardship.  Not everyone agrees with those characteristics and think of the donkey as stupid, but it is still the sticker I see a lot of around here. 

This one seems to be an ad for Catalonian brand of cow.

All sorts of other animals are on cars including cats, butterflies, and lizards.

This is the name of the town because cu is the sound
for the letter q and gat is the word for cat in Catalan.

This is my favorite and I promise to write a post about wild boars soon.

Crete (bonus day in Paris)

More guest posting from D.

After J. and A. returned from Florence I left for another solar cell conference in Crete that was led in part by my host here in Barcelona.  Next year this conference and the ISOS conference will be combined and held together in Malta...  There were a small group of us who attended both conferences, but most of the people were different and the talks were very different.  I learned quite a lot of new things from this second conference so I am feeling very up to date on the field.

Crete is clearly a tourist destination, and this conference was at a tourist resort on the beach.  The conference schedule was pretty packed so I only really had one afternoon to enjoy non-conference aspects of the location, but it was very nice just to be there.

The view from my 4th floor balcony of the resort

Another view from my balcony

 My room was high up in the main building, some of my colleagues had cabins down closer to the beach, but I heard that was a very noisy environment, and my views were great.  I did not take a photo of the restaurant, but included in the cost of the hotel room were three meals a day at a fancy hotel buffet.  Most of the dishes had signs in four languages, but not every dish was labelled, and it was not always clear to me if something was vegetarian.  I think it would have been very difficult for a vegan.  The recreational program is also part of the resort, and I did hear the three tenors who sang opera, musical numbers, and Devo! covers.  I also saw some of the Cuban Night dancing and singing.

The resort activity & entertainment schedule

I actually stayed in two hotels in Crete, because the first night the regular hotel was already booked.  Both hotels had the same interesting energy saving system.  Your key (which is a physical metal key, not an electronic card) is attached to a fob with a magnet.  When you enter the room there is no functional electricity.  To have access to electricity you have to put your magnetic key fob into a receiver which turns on the electricity to the room.  When you leave and take the key with you, you cut power to everything in the room.  I thought this worked pretty well, but there was a mini fridge in the room, but I did not experiment to see if it had a separate power line that worked full time.  It would not be so great if every time you leave the room the fridge turns off.

Magnetic key hook switch for all power in the room.

Crete is home to the ancient Minoan civilization, named for the king Minos and it goes way back, older than the Greeks, and mostly known now by its role in Greek mythology.  We had one trip to the ruins of the ancient palace of Minos, called Knossos.  While those in Crete always knew it was there, the site was "discovered", excavated, and partially reconstructed by a English archeologist, Sir Arthur Evans, in 1900.  I did not get to go the museum where they have moved many of the original excavations, but had a wonderful tour of the site with lots of witty commentary from another English scholar who studies ancient forms of writing, and who has been living and working in Crete for over 20 years.  If you want to understand a bit more about this site than I am putting into the blog, I found a nice description of Knossos in the Ancient History Encyclopedia.

Knossos food storage not so dissimilar to what you see in other cultures.

Crete suffers from serious earthquakes, and the site may have been rebuilt a few times, but the conclusion of the era came with some serious fires which were likely fueled by oils stored in the basement of structure.  You can see the black burn marks on the original stones at the lower levels.

Knosos ruins

I understand that the mythology states that Minos hired Daedelus of Athens to design the palace so that it was a labyrinth so complex that anyone who went in could not find their way out.  Supposedly he then locked Daedelus and his son Icarus within a tower so that they could not tell anyone about the design.  Daedelus invents wings so he and Icarus can fly away, but Icarus goes to high and the sun melts his wings leading to his literal downfall.  How this story relates to reality is not clear, but the architecture was clearly very complex with 5 or six levels and many tight corridors.

Partially restored ruins that suggest the labyrinth 

The items that were excavated are in the museum which I did not get to see, but they have recreated some of these and many other things on the site.  Obviously, with time there are many criticisms of the Victorian nature of the some of the recreations at the site, so it is interesting to see and discuss, but may not be any more accurate than the mythological stories...  I should note that our guide points out that the mythology was recorded by the Greeks and does not put the Minoans in a very good light.  The Minoan culture was supposed to be quite advanced, and those who study it suggest that it had many impressive and positive attributes.

Replica of excavated tile work reproduced at the site

I did not focus much on the story of the Minotaur here but there are many pieces representing bulls at the site, and the story of the Minotaur is interesting.  The scholars note that there was a sport in Minoan culture where the athletes jumped over the bulls, and that to do this they were said to become one with the bulls, so this might explain part of the origin Minotaur mythology.  Read more at the link I mentioned earlier, the Ancient History Encyclopedia.

At the end of our tour I found this sign for thanking the guides, but it was the first visual I had seen of what the completed Knossos might have looked like.

An artist's rendition of the Knossos Complex at its peak

On my free afternoon, I walked along the beach with some of my science colleague and then into the center of town with the big stores, important civic buildings, etc. were located.  We have a friend who collect images of Ben & Jerry's all over the world, so I snapped this for her.  The Fatto a mano next door was an organic gelato shop, which we choose to favor over the B&J, but the juxtaposition was interesting.

Ben & Jerry's next to an all natural gelato shop

Interesting combination sign warning about DWI at an optician's shop

At the harbor with some of my colleagues

Beautiful sunset in Crete

There are no nonstop flights between Crete and Barcelona.  On the way there I flew Barcelona - Athens, and Athens - Crete, with a short stop in Athens.  However the same combination did not work coming back.  This opened up lots of possibilities, for my return flight.  In the end I choose to take Crete - Paris and Paris - Barcelona, with an 8 hour delay in Paris.  The last time I was in Paris was 30 years ago, and I naïvely thought that I could "spend a day in Paris" with this arrangement.  Of course it turns out that it takes about an hour by train to get into Paris from CDG airport, and of course you need to return to the airport two hours before your flight, and I had a baggage to deal with, so in the end I had about 3 hours in Paris.  However, it was enough time for me to go enjoy a walk and a lunch in Paris on a beautiful day, and to feel no guilt about skipping standing in line for anything.

My 1st Paris destination

I walked to my 2nd Paris destination

My return to the airport was interesting.  I knew where to get the first train and to transfer to the second.  However, while waiting for my second train, I was surprised by the scientific equations on the walls.  Then my intended train seemed to disappear from the monitors.  My french is very weak, (but better than my German) so I could discern an announcement about my train and that it was late.  I actually saw some folks leave the platform and started to follow but was not sure where they were going.  I returned to my platform and found some other folks with luggage and engaged them in conversation.  Two of them were scheduled for my same flight to Barcelona, and the third was headed to Prague.  Somehow we determined that our late train would arrive at a different platform at a different level of the station.  We managed to find this thanks to fellow headed to Prague who spoke more French than the rest of us.  We rode the train together and enjoyed our achievement.  The couple headed to Barcelona was from Texas and the fellow headed to Prague was from Columbia but grew up in Florida.  He first moved to Barcelona for the electronic music scene and now lives and works in Prague doing electronic music.

In the big train station on the wall? One of many equations!

An explanation!

Weekend summary

David wasn't scheduled to return until Saturday night so we were on our own for most of the weekend.  We started it off by visiting several stores for wand supplies.

I got distracted by roasted chestnuts, even though it isn't 1 November yet.

A. got right to work.

It was pouring rain on Saturday morning but only drizzling by the time we left for Barcelona.  We walked around Sagrada Familia (seen behind the trees), walked through parks, visited a library, and stopped in a few stores. We both enjoyed not having a schedule and just a couple destinations.

D. made it home and we started the day together by walking a few blocks to catch some of the 21.1km (half-marathon) going through town.  Most participants had their names on their bibs so we cheered for them by name and got lots of thumbs up.

I was surprised that the race went right through the pedestrian area and past the autumn festival.

image taken from here

The finish was in front of city hall and a lot of kids waited for their parents and they crossed the finish line together.  It looked like a disaster waiting to happen but it was very sweet to watch. 

Most of the festival had taken place on Saturday, but today was the day for local organizations to have booths.  There were national groups like Oxfam and Amnesty International, 

and local political groups.

I was not only amazed to see women making lace, but to see that they could talk while doing it.

Here are some of the weekend's wands.

Freiburg

Yet another guest post from D.

October has been a travel month.  Just before J. and A. went to Florence, I went to a conference in Freiburg on stability of novel low cost solar technologies.  This was the 9th ISOS conference, and I had been at the 3rd (Roskilde, Denmark) and 4th (Golden, CO USA) so I saw some familiar faces, including colleagues from our year in Denmark on our last stint abroad.  I arrived a day early and had some time to explore.  I had never been to Freiburg before, and found the architecture in the old part of the city to be well preserved and beautiful.

This is the old Church behind the train station

This building is in the plaza with the Cathedral which is under restoration

This is one of the two remaining gates to the old city

 I also took some time to hike on trails near the city.  I did not know exactly where to go, but I tried to go up which was easy to do.  Apparently if I had gone further up there was a lookout tower that would have given vistas in all directions, but I missed that.  Nevertheless, this Black Forrest region is beautiful.

Taken from a bridge over the busy street.  I hiked up to the restaurant situated halfway up the hill

 Outside the Cathedral there is a plaza which has an open market daily.  There were lots of different vendors there selling wooden toys, wooden kitchen items, and many kinds of food.  I made a meal from the Tofu Bratwurst stand, roasted chestnuts, fresh raspberries, and some cheese cake.  The first three vendors are shown below.

I was pleased to be able to enjoy brat wurst without eating meat

This chestnut vendor spoke to me in both English and Hebrew

The fruits and vegetables were very attractive and tasty

 I don't have a picture, but I did go to the "new" synagogue in Freiburg.  The previous one was burned down in the Kristallnacht pogrom on November 10, 1938.  The new synagogue was built with support from the city in 1987 and is modern and functional.  It is located very close to the cathedral.  I went to a service which was very international, as there were folks from Russia, Brazil, Israel, etc.

Later I walked by a Science Shop, which unfortunately was closed.  I had hoped to get back when it was open, but it looked like a nice place, and I was glad to look in the windows.

Main window of the Science Shop

I found this shirt available online which may be related to the shop or simply a supplier

 As always I enjoyed seeing a city that has a thriving bicycle culture.  There were lots of bicycle lanes and I had to be careful not to walk across them without looking.  I went to four bike shops in town, including one that is explicitly for tandem bikes.  I met other bicyclists and enthusiasts attending the conference.  There were incredible numbers of bikes parked all over town.

Just along the main street by the conference center.

The year we lived in Denmark, two women from a design school invented the Hövding invisible bicycle helmet which is kind of like an airbag for a bicyclist's head stored in a neck garment that looked like scarves worn in Scandinavia.  I had never seen one of these in person, but they were in the store in Freiburg for about 3 times the price of a regular helmet at that store.

This store actually sold Hövding helmets for ~300 €.

My science colleagues noted that bike theft is a serious problem, especially in the area near the train station.  There is actually a giant bicycle parking garage system near the train station where you can join and have your bike stored.  My colleague noted that she has two bikes, and uses the old one near campus and the other for riding other places.  Most bikes I saw were heavy duty commuters, but there were occasionally really nice bikes like this bamboo one.

A pretty high end bike parked near the train station and conference center.

The conference ended with a tour of Fraunhofer ISE, which hosted the conference.  I saw my collaborators labs and the central facilities.  They do all types of solar energy systems there including electrolysis of water for hydrogen powered cars (they had the Toyota Murai there), solar thermal systems, concentrated solar PV, silicon PV, and a wide range of thin film PV technologies.  It was impressive.  The atrium of the main building has panels they made there which have silicon cells spaced out on the glass to allow both energy harvesting and natural light.  They also had some nice displays.

Solar panels in the Fraunhofer ISE atrium

A display showing the processing of high purity silicon

Flexible thin Silicon crystal PV on thin glass

Several generations of concentrated PV systems

Overall the conference was a good experience, and I learned quite a bit and felt that I made significant contributions to the discussions.  I led one of the break out sessions and reported on it to the full conference.