Maintaining optimism

This is something I kind of, sort of, really actually, work at.

Don't think I'm alone in it, but I think it is something I am conscious of.

What do I do?

• hang with my husband
• hang with my kids
• hang with my dog
• walk
• get outside...in mountains or on the sea outside
• keep fit
• try to sleep
• read 
• don't read some things
• remain amazed
• look at some stupid funny things from time to time
• hang with happy people
• do things that make me feel accomplished
• avoid dreary people like the plague
• get out and see stuff that is cool.  Consciously.

Wish I could make more art, more good art specifically.

What works for you?  Do you do this consciously?

Just wondering.

Trying not to rant

But good lord it ain't easy.

Let's just say.  If one is out running with headphones, one must remember that between your breathing, your music and the plugs in your ears, you are for all intents and purposes deaf.  D.E.A.F.

No worries.  Your choice.  Deaf people, whether inherently deaf or deaf by choice have a right to go running.  Not questioning that.

*supressing a rant*

Just please try to remember that you're not the only fricking person in the world and if you have chosen deafness, it behooves you to pay a wee bit of attention to the world around you and not meander all over the path and make sudden turns without LOOKING AROUND!

*loosing control of the rant*

Holy sweet jesus, some people are u.n.b.e.l.i.e.v.a.b.l.e.

Unbelievable.



*deep breath*

This has been the public service announcement of a frustrated bicyclist and runner.

The next day

Onto the bikes...below, my trusty steed, the red bag on the handlebars is the cleverest thing I ever bought.  Brought it from Canada this summer.

If you look carefully at the bike, you will notice that it has a single speed.  This is because this route was the easiest thing I ever rode.  37K and we barely turned the pedals over.  Honestly.  It was a Via Verde, which means that it was an old railway line, and we were going down.  Smoothly and steadily.  Honestly, push off at the top and that's nearly all you have to do.  The only tricky parts were the tunnels, and there were many of them.  The lamps on the bikes kind of weren't adequate.....and they were only kind of lit at best, and some of them weren't lit at all, partially cause the wires had been stolen. 

There were sculptures along the way:

And some rivers, well, creeks.

 More art... we also manage to pick some figs.

And there was this spring fed creek, part of which was deep enough for quite a nice swim!!! Even got my back massaged in a miniature waterfall!

There were invasive N American crayfish

See!  You could swim, and you could swim up around the corner, it was very cool!  Not the water actually, that was pretty nice.  The only slightly unnerving part was hearing the miniature waterfall ahead around the bend and trying to remember if the creek was running towards it or away, cause it was deep enough there was no touching the bottom!

See the crawfish?

There were some very big bridges, and honestly the views were amazing.

We rode along the Ebre for a while, I actually kayaked past here in the spring.

A very modern sundial

They even picked us up at the end of the ride to bring the bikes (and us) back up to the start point, and the car.  Clever how they could fit all the bikes in together.

Gorgeous day out.  Trying to think how we could do it again with our own bikes....

hooks - ganxos

Went away with the man and some friends for an excursion this weekend.....and it was marvelous.

It's going to take two posts to cover this, because first I want to talk about a town in Catalunya.  The town, Horta de Sant Joan is small, and fairly remote but had a couple of interesting things about it.

Now, I have to say, I was there for very little time.  Very little, so these observations are based on very little information.  Though, still interesting to me.

First thing that struck me as unusual was the number of dogs off-leash, even in the quite busy main plaça.  Most of them smaller and all of them calm and pretty friendly.  

Then we went for a walk, and I noticed these:  

 Weird, no?  And they slope upwards, like maybe, just maybe they were supporting some sort of curved beams, but there isn't really anywhere for them to land.  So I have NO idea what those are all about.  

Then I noticed that every house has one of these, or a version thereof:

See? Lots and lots of hooks on all the buildings.  Look below, see what they then do with them?

Guess why.....

All those dogs off leash?  Seems they like garbage, which will come as no surprise to anyone who has ever had ANYTHING at all to do with a dog.  So, in this town, which seems to have agreed to leave the dogs off leash, everyone has a hook on the outside of their house, on which they hang a bucket with their garbage in it at the appropriate time of day....

I would like to add that in this town of loose dogs, we saw a grand total of 0 dog poops on the street.  That's right.  None.

Wish I could say the same about where I live, and where almost every single dog is on-leash.

Oh, and there was this really nifty mailbox too:

Street art

Walking back from the Born market I started taking photos of street art, an entirely random sample of stuff I saw as I walked along.....

going to have to do more of this.

Olive oil in Japan...

Modern version of an Egyptian temple...

This guy seems to cover a fair amount of turf

Look closely....

There's that boy again....

and again

Kinda cliched this one, nearly didn't take the picture

This was actually a sticker, which I wasn't doing, my own internal rules, but I liked this one so much I had to.

Two from this one....

To be added to!

BCN, lord I love this city.

Went into BCN today with a friend to check out the newly opened Born market.

Gonna get two posts out of it too, for my trouble!

So here's the Born market.  I actually learned a ton of Catalan/Barcelona history today.  For instance this is one of many markets in BCN, but they discovered after they finished it that it is was much bigger than it needed to be so they ended up making it a wholesale market, it is near two separate train stations and all the the north of the city making it easy for farmers to bring their produce in.

It was built on the remnants of a large part of the city that was razed by the Spanish military when Catalonia lost it's independence 300 years ago next year.  What is now the parc de la ciutadel was a giant fort built to subdue and control the local population and they razed something like 17% of the city to create a defense zone.  This was part of it.

In fact as an excellent finishing touch, home owners were forced to tear down their own houses.  Nice that, eh?

Here's some photos:

It was strange and touching and weird.  There are construction elements that are still in use today, that we have in our house now, virtually unchanged.  It brings it home.

It is weird how low the streets are, they just piled it all up and kept building, though much of the building material must have gone into the fort.

It is deeply deeply nationalistic and any Madrid politician will have kittens.  Really deeply political.

This leaves me on two levels.  One is that it is important to remember and know our history, I do not doubt that for a moment, and visiting it with a Catalan was also illuminating.  Felt very personal I would say.

At the same time, there is a very North American part of me that thinks sometimes history has to be let go, or we end up like parts of the Middle East or Ireland with long running hatreds that date back and back and back.

I know that each of these places has a distinct story and history, but I came away from the very political nature of many of the information boards with a sense of it not necessarily being a good idea to fan the flames.

The Catalans continue to impress me with their calm, with their determination for peace and democracy.  This felt hotter.

There are also quite a lot of angry Catalan old women.  If Madrid thinks this is independence thing is all from young people, or hot heads, they should be aware.  The grandmas are pissed.  This seems powerful to me.

Still trying to tease apart how I felt about all of this.

Personally I continue to be shocked by Madrid's brazen unwillingness to allow a democratic referendum. Honestly, it is shameful.

Independence itself, I can't vote.

I would like to see it happen, I would.

The Born exhibit.

left me:

fascinated

educated

slightly alarmed

delighted

impressed with their guts

totally worth going.  A new must see in the city.

The joys of bicycling

Nothing like a ride on public transit in the morning rush hour to make me love my bike all over again.

First of all, I've got to leave before I normally get up, then there is the far to liberally applied scents on al the women, morning breath, left over smoker's stink, leaking headphone music, shouted cell phone conversations, coughing, wheezing, sneezing, sweating and then there are the pick-pockets, the strange leering men, plus the crowds and the hot airless cars.

Give me my bike any day of the week.

and then the mountains

Got up this morning pretty early to go walking with the local mountain group....met at 7:30 and headed off to the starting point.  By far the most dangerous part of the day happened during the drive to the start...when we nearly got hit by a guy running a stop sign while looking at we know not what, but not the road.  Very near thing.

I was under the impression that everyone was going to walk as a group, and then we weren't, so I decided to see what I could do after a really pretty blobby summer.  Also probably to somewhat weary, as I have gone on long walks on Mon, Wed and Fri and rode the bike on Tue and Thur....that said, I didn't push very hard on any of those walks.

I did push pretty hard today, never went right into the red zone or anything, but pretty red in the face and puffy in places....

I felt fantastic.  Walked and walked and walked...pushed hard enough that there were moments when it felt long-ish, and then the descent into town - which was long - felt so good that I ran it all.

Felt fantastic.

Carried the darned camera the whole way and didn't take a single photo.......ah well.

Great walk.

Turns out that another walk we had planned I can go on which I thought I wouldn't be able to as we don't leave town till AFTER I finish work!  (I couldn't find a substitute so thought that was that)  BONUS!!!!!

Mar, check, Muntanya....tomorrow

Spent a good part of the day on and around tall ships.

How good is that!

See:

Masts, and lines and blocks....

There was a beautiful Portuguese boat there, built in '37 that used to go over to NFLD to go cod fishing, she even had some of the traditional gear on her, stored in a dory like they would have used....

The Kruzenshtern, the largest sailing vessel in the world, I think, German built, the Russians got it as booty after WWII, amazingly huge, rather frighteningly so, all too easy to get hurt working that boat.  And looking into the galleys?  Go with the Portuguese ship for eats I'd say....though there was a smaller Turkish boat that won the food category hands down by the look of the galley.

Kruzenshtern's masts, riveted plate!  The crew are aboard for 3 months, then a new crew arrives.  We think they are trainees for the merchant marine.

Kruzenshtern again, note the cameras...mother Russia, with love.

This crazy band was playing all over the place.  The Brazilian boat had music playing, then closed up the ship and sat on the stern quarter with a drum set, guitars and beer.  Ahhh Brazil!

Tomorrow, a walk in the mountains.

Life is very good indeed.

Now I just need to make friends with a kind hearted sailor who owns an underutilized Laser.