so ts now super dark, and seems to be most of the day.
it’s supposed to have been snowing a fair amount, yet all we get is drizzle and cloud.

nic and i have our first french lesson today. there was an aussie there too. it’s not a bad price, and the teacher lady is cool.
we’ll probably be taking these twice a week for 20 weeks, so come on the ability to finally chat up a foreign girl!

oh yeh, i went snowboarding sunday!!!! it was ace, and my body is still aching. the lifts are only open at the weekends. the winter has begun!

hot!

i tried a snowboard, and will keep on demoing boards to find one more appropriate to the big mountains.

the job hunt is slow, as is the house hunt.

a photo i took from the bottom of the mountain the other day:

evening

so tomorrow the car is going to the garage to have the block box recorder fitted for the insurance company.
so nic and i can have a good swim and sauna, and maybe food too.

also, i have started copying all of my dvd’s to my hard drives, so that i can carry my dvd collection without a huge cd wallet, it’s taking time, but no rush. when i’m done i will sendf the dvd’s back to teh uk to be stored. the beginning of the end of physical media.

last thing, i made a great paella last night, and everybody even said they loved it, without teh need to threaten them!

me n me baked rice

also i began to use adobe lightroom 2 today. i think it may avoid the necessity to use photoshop so much. the program will allow me to organise photos, make small modifications. i’m liking it so far!! supposedly i can upload my pics directly to the net.

what else, i’m going to try to convert all of my camera’s raw files to .dng, as this will hopefully become de-facto, and wont become out dated as raw is already.

so now i have downgraded from my slr to my compact, and from photoshop to lightroom. easier to use and with plenty of usefulness.

ciao ciao for now.

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i’ve spent a whole lot of time wasting time on the net. mainly reading, about tech, about mountains, about photography. cramming more information in there. harriet thinks my laptop is the ideal bed, but only when i am trying to use it!

but i have also been a little active. no visits to the beach, i think i will do enough of that in cadiz next week.

on tuesday i cooked a lasagne from scratch, and it was delicious, and super cheesey, my belly shows growth!

but on wednesday marta went to work. she’s not too happy about it, but who would be after a 5 month holiday?

so i went to montserrat not the Caribbean island but the monastery/mountain slightly inland from barcelona. i was a fool and not only left the gps at home, but didn’t even think to look at the map. i drove past the mountain on the way to andorra, and thought i could find my way there unaided. so i ended up with a tour of central barcelona, and many traffic lights!

the mountain is very interesting, and the reason i went was to walk, not so much to visit the monastery. i’m told that excavations centuries ago unearthed a statue of the virgin mary and the monks build their refuge there. i was going to walk from the base of the mountain, but since there was no information online, i couldn’t find a route to start from so rove to the monastery. very touristy! but i made for the summits (there are funicular railways but that takes the joy out of it) and went to the further higher peak. very nice warm day, but it was hazy, so no great views. i made my way to the other side of the mountain, where the lift goes. i made my way down. i had a quick look around the new monastery. there are even hotels built up there! but i missed out the main attraction, the caves built into the mountain by the monks, purposely. i will make another trip back there and walk the entire mountain from the base to the caves. it’s the only large mountain so easily accessible.

to find other routes, i will have to enlist marta to search the net, or invest in some books, or wait until i get to the alps.

yesterday i walked from badalona to barcelona, about 20km and took some photos. i ended the evening in a bar with a transsexual and a couple of others. so it was nice to socialise, and made me feel like i was in london in a way.

i feel i’ve missed much socialising this summer, but i think it is relative, because i have done a lot, even though it isn’t like london. it’s great to have new experiences and do new things.

i’m thinking about buying a kite, so that i can learn to kite surf!

some flickr pics of mine:

i’m off to seville to meet ben, harry and amy on monday and stay in cadiz for a few days, so more sun sun sun!!

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the origins of sata claus (quoted from wikipedia):

“The origins of Joulupukki

One interesting theory about the origins of Joulupukki and his flying reindeer, comes from the aboriginal Sami people of Lapland. In the forests there is a common poisonous mushroom, Amanita muscaria that is red with white dots. The shamans of Sami used to feed this mushroom to the reindeer, whereby the intestinal tract of the reindeer would filter out the poison, but leave the intoxicating substances. The urine of the reindeer would then be collected, and used as a hallucinogenic by the shamans. The shamans would often have out-of-the-body experiences and fly in the sky, returning through the chimney hole of their tent or cottage to their bodies. This shamanistic tradition would nicely explain the flying reindeer, the use of chimneys, and even the red-white colouring of Joulupukki.”

interesting.

so today was hot hot hot, well it felt like it. yesterday i got reading my book,a nd spent a long time reading it, i must have read over 200 pages of it. i couldn’t put it down, and i didn’t go to sleep until after 2am because of it.

i will not start another book until i have found a job. i probably wont read if i have a job, due to lack of time.

so today i woke up just before lunch, and wandered to the beach to sleep some more.

marta’s mum is great she cooks food and leaves it here for me to eat.

so i’m off out with marta’s mum and mum’s boyfriend to teh town party, and maybe out later, but i don’t plan on being out too late, i’m taking no money. and i wish to go to barcelona to continue my job hunt, earlier in the day, to avoid having to walk or move in the heat.

photo i took in sweden of an old volvo, now hotrod with flames paint job:

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