News to me

Do you know who this famous Spaniard is?
He is pictured here giving a talk in Miami, Florida.

Here he is with his family.

Tennis player?  Futbol? Actor? Musician?

He is the king, Felipe VI of Spain.

Did you know there was a king?  Today is his birthday and it is not a holiday, even in Madrid.  Time to do a little more research and learn more about someone who is not on the cover of every tabloid.

Paving paradise

Joni Mitchell sang about paving paradise and putting up a parking lot, which sounds terrible.  It turns out that not paving paradise and letting people park where they want is not great, either. I don't know why there seem to be so many more cars than available spots, but open space has become a parking lot around here.

I am guessing the dirt lot on the right used to be a field. 

This dirt lot is near a bike path and the curvy road on the right leads to horse
stables and a hiking trail. Some people park on the sidewalk when this lot is full.

This is near a business park and the trail to the left is for walking and cycling.
The dirt lot does not look so big, but people along the side of the path, too.

There is a parking lot at the top of this image, but the dirt lot is usually
overflowing with cars. We cycle through this lot to get to A.'s school.

On Saturday there were barriers to the lot.

The literal translation of the sign is, "No parking, work, trees."
The lot is closed Monday and Tuesday.

This is the ground view of the same parking lot. So many people park here that
the trees have been damaged and I am curious to see if they will be removed.

Random food pictures

Not much to post, so this will have to do.

Plastic security box for pine nuts!

Plastic security box for anchovies!

More fruit and vegetable stickers.

Exploring near Swansea - guest post

Sunday I decided to travel out about 10 miles and back by bicycle to a new place and go walking. 

The map shows my cycling route

 This is the region where I went hiking.

This place was one of three suggested to me by my host.  She had encouraged me to take the bus there, but on Sunday busses are not running much, so by doing it on bike I was free to come and go when I wanted.  I checked that there was a small coffee shop/general store there that would be open, so that I could get some warm lunch there if I wanted, and also some advice on where to walk.  The shop was good and I purchased a Sunday Observer (Guardian) for J. there.  They also had a wide selection of other papers and someone who could give me commentary of the political leanings of each.

The ride there was okay, not great, but reasonably direct.  I decided to sit for a light brunch before taking my hike.  The strange thing about the hike was that in this gorgeous place there were not many people, and I was a bit confused if I was supposed to be on a specific path or trail, but the locals I met said you can go all over as long as you don’t cross fences into private property (which I really did not notice at all). 

I enjoyed walking on the green undulated surfaces at the tops of the cliffs, but it was so un-American that there were no guard rails or fences to protect you from walking over the cliff edges!  

My mild fear of heights did kick in as I tried to capture photos of the cliffs.  The terrain was really different as well, just not flat at all, but filled with small craters and hillocks all over.  It was beautiful even if it was not as sunny as the previous two days.  I got some sun, and no rain or bitter cold, so that was fine.  I went down to one of the small cove beaches near where the earth view map has the “Google” label.  There I took off one shoe and dipped a foot in the ocean.  There were caves cut into the cliff and I looked in some of those too.  Then I went up over the cliffs and down to the edge of “Three Cliff Bay” but did not go down to the beach there.  

Then I went up inland to the Castle, and over the Pennard Golf Course.  The castle was more in ruins than I had expected, but still very interesting.  Amazingly, there is no signage with either warnings about climbing, or historical facts at the castle at all, very very different from the US. This is my third castle visit here, and you can read about the castle here,

The other two I have visited which at least had some signage are:

http://www.castlewales.com/swansea.html (this is next to my apartment!)

This one I went to on Saturday on my walk to Mumbles lighthouse and pier along the coast.

The golf course was built up around the castle, so one had to cross it at points.  I learned to play golf in my teens and enjoyed it a little, but this golf course is a completely different experience from the ones I have played on.  I found it much more interesting topographically, and playing here would require significantly different skills than just hitting long straight shots like you try to do on courses I have played on.  You can see this a bit on this website.

All in all a very nice outing for me today, and while I was on my own, I made small conversations with several different folks while I was out and about.

Heading home on a converted railroad track.

Laundry

A little like seeing the variety of terraces, I like seeing the variety of laundry set ups around town.

On the roof

Off the terrace

On the terrace

More laundry on the roof

More laundry off the terrace

I suppose there is not so much variety! Despite that I still frequently find myself taking laundry pictures. Maybe by posting some today I will cut down a bit.  If I need to I can go to the electronic folder of my own laundry!

almost eight years ago

Unusual post

I don't usually write about US politics, but the last time we had a new president I didn't even have a blog.

The inauguration was on in the evening and was on regular television. The way they do things here is not to put subtitles in the language of the station (some stations are in Spanish and some are in Catalan) and allow the original language to be heard, but to have someone speaking Spanish over the original speaker.  I wonder if they think not enough people speak English and not enough people would read the subtitles.

It was too annoying to understand so little so we thought about listening to the live stream and watching the television on mute, but they were out so out of sync that it was funny.

We finally just watched the computer, but I wish it would have had little labels for people whose names I know but faces I don't.  Dinner was ready just after people were headed inside so we didn't see any of the post-inauguration festivities (except for one bit of all the fancy tables - I was glad it was not my job to figure out the seating assignments!).

Today there were women's marches around the globe.
This is the logo the Barcelona group created.

I did not get to the march in time, but took this picture from their website.

This one, too.
I liked the sign in center, which reminds me of
a Monty Python movie (you may want to watch only the first thirty seconds).

The speeches were in two languages and one was English!

I had knit a hat but did not think I would ever wear again
and was so happy to find someone who really wanted it.

I left feeling that people would and could work together to support each other, not necessarily against one person, but to in order to help those who need it most.

And then there was this new graffiti on the way home from the train station.

At home I saw a bit of news about people in DC and people on their way to LA.

I listened to speeches as I made dinner.  I found some messages uncomfortable, but I did my best to listen with an open mind and to remember that we don't all have to agree to move forward.

I wish I could read today's and tomorrow's newspaper in print.

Story time

I am not quite sure why I got asked, maybe because she knew I would say yes? I agreed to read a book and come up with a craft for an event sponsored by the school's PTA-like group.

The first job was to find a book in English that I thought would lend itself to a craft.  I narrowed it down to Eric Carle's book honoring the Franz Marc, a controversial German expressionist.

I was excited to find this video of Eric Carle discussing the book.

Shel Silverstein's Who Wants A Cheap Rhinoceros? was the other book. In the end I read both.

I thought the kids could make paper lunch bag puppets, which would allow them to do something easy (just color) or something more complex (cut, glue, create).  I forgot that everyone here eats a hot lunch and have no concept of a lunch bag!  Lucky for me the coordinator has been saving toilet paper tubes for two years.

I have no idea how much English the children (ages 3-7?) understood, but they seemed to enjoy the books and loved having stickers, pipe cleaners, yarn, and googly eyes to create whatever they wanted.

One thirteen-year-old came to help and also had fun being creative!

Waking up

In class we were talking about reflexive verbs (washing oneself is reflexive because the subject and object are the same - read more here).  We had discussion about what time we wake ourselves up ("A qué hora te levantas?" "Me levanto a las siete.").  Out of the fifteen students present that day only one woke up before 7 a.m.!  I guess all of us are adopting the local customs!

Drinks

I don't usually buy coffee but it was before 10 a.m. as I was heading back from the airport and I saw someone else with a little cup. I decided I would enjoy one, too.

Such a cute little cup and it was about half full!

As I was taking a picture I noticed something in the 

background that I don't see at the coffee places at home.

Or maybe they do serve wine in the morning while I have coffee at home!

Now I Know More!

I enjoyed round two of public transportation instead of the private bus.  It is a bit of an unfair comparison because when looking for the train to the airport I just needed to follow the signs with the plane.  

When trying to figure out my way home there was no sign like this.

Today I started in Sant Cugat and took the train to Provença on the FGC line.  I switched to L5 on the TMB line and went west to Sants Estació, which is the location of the main train station for Barcelona. 

From there I followed the plane signs.  I tried to buy a ticket at a machine, but it was only for out-of-Barcelona destinations.  I tried to buy a ticket at the within-Barcelona booth and the attendant said my trip on the T-10 would get me to the airport on the Rodalies R2 line.

(T-10 is a ten trip ticket and it be purchased for whichever number of zones a person chooses.  Within Barcelona is one zone and to Sant Cugat is two zones.  A. uses a one-zone card to get to school when he takes his cello.  There are other cards, but no tap system like other big cities. I can use any of the systems pictured on the card in the last post, but I have a limited time, based on the number of zones.)

Still in doubt, I went down to the track and confirmed with the attendant (whose job it was to make sure people did not unintentionally get on the train that came to the same track but had a different destination) that I did not need a special ticket.  I did all this in Spanish!

The airport train comes just every twenty minutes and was quite full, but it was easy to find and easy to ride.  When we got to the airport I still thought there would be someone who would want me to buy a special ticket, but I was wrong.  I got all the way to the airport for just under 2€!

The confusing part was arriving at Terminal 2B. Walking from the station to the pedestrian walkway was well-marked, although it is not very close to the terminal  There is a bus to Terminal 1, but without prior knowledge how was I supposed to figure out whether a person was arriving at Terminal 2A or B (which are next to each other but not connected inside)?  I didn't even learn until later that there is a Terminal 2C!

My conclusion is still that the bus is better since it is faster (leaves every five minutes), involves only one change, and drops the passenger off right at the terminal.  However, with enough time (to ride the the two frequent trains and wait for the third) and without too much luggage (schlepping between the three trains and to the terminal) this is a good savings (just over 5€) and not complicated.  I think it is a great method to use when meeting someone at the airport!

Now I Know

You can click on this Barcelona Metro map and see the whole

system or you can go to their website and have fun poking around.

I went with R. to the airport the usual way, which is to catch the FGC train (dark blue, S1, S2, S5, S55) in Sant Cugat (not the Renfe train - which is another post), disembark in Plaça de Catalunya, cross the square, and take an Aerobús, which goes directly to the terminal.  The cost is about 8€ total, give or take a bit depending whether you buy a roundtrip bus ticket (save 0.80€) and how you get to the train station.  We usually allow 90 minutes for this trip.  The taxi is about 50€, but takes about thirty minutes.

Less than a year ago the metro opened a line that goes right to Terminal 2 (not quite true since you have walk through the station and across the parking lot in a raised walkway, but it is pretty close).  If you happen to be leaving from Terminal 1 (which most Schengen Zone flights do) you would take a free shuttle between the two.  The metro costs a little less (0.60€) than the bus, but it involves two extra trains compared to one bus that goes right to the terminal door.

The airport is in the lower-lefthand part of the map and
I was trying to get the Provença stop on the right side.

After seeing R. through security I decided to try the new L9 (orange) to see for myself if it was worth the 0.60€ savings.  The train was very empty and very clean and I took it to Collblanc and had to take five (six?  I lost count!) escalators up to get to the next line.  That was spooky to me.  From there I switched to L5 (kind of sky blue), which goes to Diagonal and I was able to connect to Provença underground.  It is easy to catch one of our regular trains there, but since you aren't getting on at the beginning of the line there is less likelihood of getting a seat in the morning.

It definitely was not worth the savings.  The additional walking and additional train added significant time to the trip, plus lugging stuff around before and after a trip is no joy.  At least I know for myself now.

~~~~~~
Oh, gosh.  I wrote that whole blog post and then found several errors!  The L9 (orange) does go to Terminal 1! Plus the Metro people made me buy this 4.50€ ticket and having read a bit more, I think the Rodalies (Renfe within Catalonia) people require only an additional 0.99€ ticket if a person already had a ten-trip ticket, which I do.

At the time I didn't want to use the Rodalies system because the stop is Sant Cugat is not near where I needed to go that morning, but I realize now I could have changed in Barcelona Sants to a Metro train.  I still wonder what happens when travelling to the airport?  Where does one buy that extra 0.99€ ticket?  Maybe I'll find out when I meet R. at the airport later this week.

I still don't think any of these train options are reasonable when trying to catch a flight since they add significant time and adding additional trains leads to concerns about work on the track or other issues. When dealing with luggage it is also a hassle.  If these are not concerns then it is worth saving a bit of money.