locked in

Well, today was a turning point.

The building I work in has no door handles because it is still under construction, but it does have locks. As humiliating as it is, I got locked in the bathroom with nothing to open the door. At most the room was 3x4ft, and oh yeah, nobody was going to be around until the evening, maybe.

After 20 minutes of various experiments to open the door, it proved to be impossible. So I tried my luck, I waited for someone to come. What a terrible ironic metaphor to my overall situation. I got locked in around 9:30, first I flipped on the iPod and listened to Ira Glass for a while, then some other philosophy podcast, I was thinking hard. Then after a while of this thinking, I realized that my time would be better off exploring a place like Barcelona.

A little after 12, when I finished up thinking and ran out of patients, I kicked open the door. It took about 10 tries, I didn't want to break the door more than I had too. The lock flew across the room when the door flew open, I owe some money to Eulalia.

As terrible (and smelly) as that experience was it got me to take some time to step back and think about what I should really be doing with my time. I was cleaning seed 30+ hours a week alone with not to much to do around town. There was absolutely nothing wrong with what I was doing, simply, it was not what I should be doing with my time here. In fact, I will miss Iris, Eulalia, Juan, and Isis a ton.

I will miss the late night combines just outside my window as well....

And I have to admit the moon is pretty freakin' crazy here.

Well anyways. I'm going to try and get a bus into Barcelona early monday morning. Still have a few things I want to do here, i.e. the observatory.

Today I learned I am sort of in a valley, I did not realize it because it is so incredibly huge. Iris and I drove up the valley, town after town, all the way to the top where Franco built a hydroelectric dam that runs on mountain water. In fact, Franco put a pretty huge investment in electricity, most of the stuff he built is still in use, and there is a lot of it.

You know, the place is gigantic. You can see Iris sitting on the edge!

Complete with a gondola for the tourist, not me! It was not running either.

Things cleared up a bit today.

Saving Seeds Continued

Well, I am still saving seed. Here is my hightech workstation.

This photo I took over my head, I am sitting in that tiny chair. To my right you can see some of the spines and needles of the wheat, the seeds are mostly in the bowl, and the casings are everywhere, including my hair.

I am going to try and take to mourning off tomorrow to let my hands recover. Gloves slow things down.

Eulalia thinks I am loco, I was sitting in the street laughing at this photo after finishing work, I am obviously tired.

The sun lights up the mountain sides in the evening turning them from a beige into a crazy pink.

So many shades of blue.

locked-out and anemic

is not as bad as it sounds. I will buy supplements for B12 soon, and I am getting better about finding sources of protein. At EcoDharma the meals are balanced, but here in Salas I must think about it.

And about being locked-out, I do not have any keys! So I am locked-out of the house whenever I leave, and today in addition I was locked-out of the bakery as well, so I wandered the town for many hours.

I made some iced coffee before I left to drink at work. Reshaping my plans I found a bench a block away and admired the view while thoroughly enjoying my morning coffee.

A common theme of any old town in Spain is water, no water-no life. So there are many natural springs all over town, about every other block. Originally it was for cattle and humans pre-plumbing. The troughs are still here, and still functioning.

They are still used by animals to this day!

Then....

.... and now.

Any guess as to what this is?

It is where everyone in town use to do their laundry. I also found the remains of a mill, no idea how it worked though, I think it was hydro-powered....

I mark my trail as I go along.

I walked pretty far out of town, here is the entire place in one photograph.

And at last I made it back home, and waited on this bench. Eulalia showed up shortly after, yay!

How hot is the sun in Spain?

I was a bit cooped up yesterday, but I am feeling better now. Skyping Zoe and a 1 1/2 hour walk improved things a lot. The air is actually a tolerable temperature the majority of the time, direct sunlight however.... extremely hot. I took these pictures on my walk, which illustrates the power of the sun -at it's lowest point.

Iris and I go for a swim every other day to try and cope with the heat. It's a man made lake, so where I am standing it is actually 20ft+ deep. The water is almost too cold, which is so great.

My current flat

So where I am currently staying is on the top two floors of a flat with Iris and Eulalia. There is a loft but it is way to hot to sleep in, my room is the door next to the desk.

Here is our lovely kitchen which has all the appliances in it including the washing machine (Left of the stove).

We lounge in here and watch Walker Texas Ranger sometimes. This room leads out to the deck.

Similar language is spoken in meth labs

Well, I missed coffee, among other things. All the bars are cafes in the morning, but it is not the same as some plain old manual dripped coffee with milk and maple syrup. Both Iris and Eulalia think coffee is terrible, so I had to improvise a bit. To feed my addiction I went into at least 5 different grocery looking for the $3 manual coffee dripper, but no luck, I bought some coffee and filters anyways. Coffee isn't bad out of an olive jar.

July is towards the end of the dry season, thunderstorms form over the mountains in the evening teasing the dry country side. Each day the storms draw closer and closer, sometimes with short, quick showers. The roof leaks a lot in my room, but mostly the water runs down my scrambled egg colored walls.

This is right after it rained for 10 minutes, probably the longest shower.

Salas

I am staying in a place called Salas, a tiny town over 1000 years old. Each house on my street has a wine cellar under their basement. All the wine cellars are connected by what appears to be tiny hand dug tunnels just larget enough to squeeze through. At one point there was a large castle, parts of it still exist, but it has been broken up and absorbed into separate buildings. Churches are always scary, notice my shadow.

There were so many birds.

This is behind the bakery.

This is where I am living, the building with the deck, I am on the top floor.

My lovely room....

.... which includes a view!