Erik’s Blog

For a week now I’ve been seeing signs around town advertising the “I Festival de Cerveza de Colindres“, but none of the signs said exactly what or where it was, just the dates, June 17 – 20 and the bars that were sponsoring the event. I sort of assumed that it was going to be some discount on beers in those bars or something, but yesterday we ran into a friend that informed us that it was a big festival with bands in a tent near the town hall. Unfortunately, it has been cold and rainy all week, but today, on the last day of the festival, we went to check it out. This is what we found…
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Last Friday during my morning walk with Nora around town, we went down to the fishing port. The port was as busy as I’ve ever seen it: people mending fishing nets, loading nets onto boats, and unloading fish by the metric ton. It was very interesting, but also something I didn’t want to be in the middle of with a baby for too long. Below are some photos I took of the fishing port followed by some others I took on the rest of the walk.
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On today’s walk I went down a street I don’t normally use and found a bronze plaque I had never noticed. On it was a poem by José Hierro, one of Spain’s twentieth century poets. He was born in Madrid, but then moved to Cantabria, the region where I live, when he was two years old. I don’t know about Hierro’s philosophy, but this particular poem is quite nihilistic. It’s also just the length and has just the right amount of wordplay that I like in poems. What do you think?
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Recently during a daily walk around town, I noticed this cracked facade with the house number, 29, looking as old as the house. For the rest of the walk, and subsequent walks that week, my eyes were drawn to the numbers above the doors of houses, some ornate, some decaying, all interesting. I briefly considered taking enough pictures to have all the first 29 integers in sequence, but I decided against it, partially because I’m lazy and partially because my photography interests are so capricious. Ooh, look! A flower!
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During the recent flying ban in Europe because of the volcano in Iceland, some of the grocery stores in the UK started to run out of fresh fruit. This reminded me of a few years back when the Spanish truckers union was on strike for a few days and the grocery shelves became empty surprisingly fast. These little reminders about how quickly our global food supply chain can collapse with just the slightest hiccup are a little sobering. When we hit Peak Oil any day now, “eating locally” might not be for the rich suburban housewives anymore.

Last week at the grocery store, I noticed a sign saying “Peas from Colindres” in the vegetable section, so I asked how they should be prepared and bought a kilo. I was told to boil them for a little bit first, and then place them in a frying pan with some small diced bits of jamón, Spanish cured ham. The result was very, very nice.
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On a recent walk I snapped a photograph of the local postman’s scooter. The mail in Colindres is delivered mostly by foot, with mailmen and mail-women walking around town pulling a little pull-cart, like the ones housewives pull to and from the grocery store. There’s one mailman who zips around on a scooter, parking it in the middle of a neighborhood and delivering letters from it to the nearby houses. I really liked my photo of his scooter and decided to play with it in photoshop, adding a pseudo-tilt-shift focusing effect to the scooter, with some desaturation of the background. I liked it so much that when a mailbox caught my eye, sitting alone with a tree, the following day, I snapped a photograph. After some similar photoshopping, the mailbox and tree really look to be keeping each other company. With these two made, I decided to go, yesterday, and snap the other mailbox (there are only two in town that I know of). Lo and behold it, too, was accompanied by some inanimate friends. And thus, I present to you, Correos Still Life.
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Last Saturday, Marga and I decided to take Nora down to a local optometrist to see if there were some sunglasses that fit her. Her previous ones got lost. Nora was having absolutely nothing to do with trying on sunglasses, so we left to head back to the car to go to the mall. On the way back home, Marga noticed a coin purse on the ground near a fruit shop. I picked it up and discovered a DNI (a Spanish national identity card), a credit card, and at least 50€ in it. Whenever I find a wallet, I am overtaken by empathy for its owner and do my best to do the right thing. The owner was a 28-year-old from Laredo. The fruit shop owner recognized her as a customer, but didn’t really know her. So we went to the Colindres police station, only to find it abandoned. On our way to the mall, we stopped by the Laredo Guardia Civil station to drop it off. They asked for all my details, including my name, cell phone number, and DNI number.
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As a result of working six time zones away from where I live, I have the mornings off to spend with my daughter, but it also means that I have pretty late nights. It’s not uncommon for me to go to bed after midnight. The problem with going to bed after midnight is that you have to be very careful about using the concepts “today” and “tomorrow”, especially when looking at the date on your computer. Last night, before going to bed, I remembered to look in Nora’s doctor appointment book because I knew that she had a regular checkup this week but could not recall the date. It said “April 8, 10:00″. I looked at the date on my computer and it said “April 7″, so my sleepy brain said, “Oh no! That’s tomorrow!”, and I preceded to set my alarm clock with plenty of time to get Nora up and dressed and to the doctor. And so it played out… We got up, got dressed, and headed to the doctor’s office. When we got there, there were three confused pensioners pulling and pushing on the locked doors. Finally a sickly teenager came by and rang the doorbell, and the emergency doctor came to open the door. She explained that the health center was closed except for emergencies. “Excuse me,” I interjected indignantly, “but I have an appointment. See?” Her face and mouth communicated how unlikely my claim seemed to her as I showed her the appointment book. “Today is April 7th,” she said, “That appointment is for tomorrow.” I apologized and slunk off, secretly pleased that my daughter didn’t yet have the cognitive awareness of the situation to laugh at her father. There will be plenty of time for that later.
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A couple days ago the weather was nice, so I decided to walk across the iron bridge into the neighboring town of Treto. Partly because I don’t think I’ve ever crossed the bridge on foot and partly because I was curious about the nearest train station. The bridge is a well-known landmark, designed by some French guy named Eiffel. It was a very pleasant walk.
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Last month, I was asked to participate, as a native English speaker, in a videocast from the local language school, Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Laredo, about English pronunciation. The man who filmed me and is the brain of the whole videocast, Rodolfo, is really annoyed at his students’ (and, in general, all Spaniards’) lack of care when pronouncing English words. Rather uniquely, Rodolfo has specifically chosen American English as his pronunciation goal; he has worked really hard, and his pronunciation is superb. This is the third installment in his videocast. Here are the first and second.
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