Spain Update

The last few days have been really terribly stressful, I know you probably don’t believe me but it remains true. I try not to talk about work here so I’ll just say that some of the pressure has eased and I’m starting to enjoy Spain a little.

Last night we went out for dinner again, dinner didn’t start until 9:30 or so and we didn’t finish until midnight! Great food though, excellent wine and a group salad to start. The last two places we’ve been working here in Europe I’ve had a basic understanding of the language but I don’t have a lick of Spanish and it makes a difference. I find my confidence is a little lower when I’m out around the streets and I generally feel a little more out of place. I can still pick up some of roots and decipher a lot of things contextually but this doesn’t always help a whole lot. Most people here speak some form of English, at least enough that I can get more time for my cell phone or make my way around which eases the aforementioned language barrier some.

Just now I got back from another Cathedral, it is right around the corner from our hotel. I’ll go back later and get some pictures for you. What a sight… very similar to the other Cathedrals I’ve seen before but I’m always awed by the construction and the soaring heights to which these ancient buildings rise. The other great thing about Cathedrals is that they have an overwhelming calming effect. Standing in the foyer gazing up at massive arches of stone one can’t help but contemplate the enduring nature of the church and when ones problems are compared to this they seem small and insignificant. I suspect that this is exactly what the designers had in mind.

It brought to mind a piece of one my favourite poems, specifically the first line:

Have you gazed on naked grandeur
where there’s nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley
with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence?
Then for God’s sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

This is the first stanza from “Call of the Wild” by Robert W. Service, I know it probably isn’t what he was talking about, but it came to mind nonetheless.

This particular Cathedral also houses some artifacts in a section that has been turned into a museum, all the boards were in Spanish so I don’t know what it was about but I got the general guideline of it. One question came to mind, when they portray Jesus on the cross why is it that his head is always down and to the right? You never see him looking left…

========== UPDATE  ==========

I went and took some pictures while the sun was setting but not many of them turned out, here is my favourtie from today.

Spain!

What do you mean I’m going to Spain tomorrow? I don’t speak a lick of Spanish! Ah well, should be fun (c:

Excúseme sir, su aerodeslizador es lleno de anguilas y no se puede parquear aquí entre las horas de salmones y el carro de descarga. Gracias.

Re-reading

I’ve reading my old posts from the last time I was here in Midland, and it’s eerie, it is almost 3 years ago to the day. It leads me to thinking how some things change while others stay the same, even amidst the changes; for one the boarded up McDonald’s is still  there! I also came across a great quote that I’ve posted twice before and I think I’ll post it again:

Those who thus slip into the anonymous masses will never be other than members of the impersonal flock, having fled from themselves into self-deception. On the other hand our freedom obliges us to make something of ourselves, to live ‘authentically’ or ‘truly’.”

The Road goes ever on

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

The Illuminati or Carnies?

(click for full size pictures)

Our Hotel on Google Earth

That thing in the middle of the roundabout is some sort of odd fountain thing:

On the one side is a staircase to nowhere

The weird thing is that from the top of the stairs (which are actually gated… oops) you can look straight though that little plexi-glass window in the pyramid. We asked the front desk girls what it was all about but they don’t have a clue. My pet theory is that is a mustering point for the Illuminati; they come here in the dead of night and try and throw stones from the stairs through the window and the first one to get two out of three in wins a large stuffed giraffe… or secret domination of the world, it’s not a complete theory yet.

Things I’ve done lately

Things I’ve Done Lately, A List by JN
– Eaten two new cheeses, mostly “hard” cheese, much better than the “soft”

– Went to the park and read

-  Spent half an hour driving around looking for a gas station, with the gas light on the whole time

-  Ate a local dish at a great restaurant. The dish was called cassoulet, it is a bean casserole thing with a great sauce and lots of goose meat

– Tried three new wines, but the one at the restaurant was clearly the best so far… I may have to lift my 5euro price limit on the bottles at the store and see what I can get

– work work work work work

– Drank scotch on a sidewalk bar and watched pretty girls parade by

– Speaking bad French with the locals, so far I’ve done pretty well and it’s bolstered my confidence. I asked a chamber-maid to vacuum the office today and could say every word except vacuum… they don’t teach you that one in school

– Made friends with a fellow I wasn’t too fond of for the longest time, ended up having a great time together

– Done laps in traffic circles because I keep missing my exit

List of Cheeses

My obsession with cheese continues, and in my drive for education I turned to, what else, the internet. More specifically I turned to Wikipedia since their not-quite-verified-yet-abundant information is so incredibly crosslinked it is always really high in the Google search. Wiki was kind enough to provide me this, a list of French cheeses!

Abondance
Banon
Beaufort
Bleu d’Auvergne
Bleu de Bresse
Bleu des Causses
Bleu du Haut-Jura, de Gex, de Septmoncel
Bleu du Vercors
Boursin cheese
Brie de Meaux
Brie de Melun
Brillat-Savarin
Broccio Passu
Brocciu Corse or Brocciu
Cabecou
Camembert de Normandie
Cancoillotte
Cantal or Fourme de Cantal or Cantalet
Carré de l’Est
Chabichou du Poitou
Chamois d’Or
Chaource
Chaumes cheese
Chevrotin
Coeur de Neufchatel
Comté
Coulommiers
Crottin de Chavignol ou Chavignol
Delice Du Calvados
Emmental de Savoie
Emmental français est-central
Époisses de Bourgogne
Fourme d’Ambert or Fourme de Montbrison
Gaperon
Laguiole
Langres
Livarot
Maroilles or Marolles
Mimolette
Mont des Cats
Mont d’or or Vacherin du Haut-Doubs
Morbier
**Munster or Munster-Géromé
Neufchâtel
Olivet Cendré
Ossau-lraty
Pélardon
Picodon de l’Ardèche or Picodon de la Drôme
Pont-l’Évêque
Port Salut
Pouligny-Saint-Pierre
Raclette
Reblochon or Reblochon de Savoie
Rigotte de Condrieu
Rocamadour
Roquefort
Roue de Brie
Saint Agur Blue
Saint Albray
Saint-André
Sainte-Maure de Touraine
Saint-Félicien
Saint-Marcellin
Saint-Nectaire
Salers
Selles-sur-Cher
Tome des Bauges
Tomme au Fenouil
Tomme Boudane
Tomme Butone
Tomme de Savoie
Tomme des Pyrénées
Tomme du Revard
Vacherin Mont d’Or
Valençay
Vieux-Boulogne
Yes… quite staggering in fact. There are 76 French cheeses listed, and I have 30 more days in France this time around. That works out to 2.533 cheeses per day… thats a lot of cheese!!

That also works out to:

– 7,259.14 sq km per cheese

– 2,802 sq mi per cheese for those Imperial folks

– 843,449.21 people per cheese (cheese/capita was a distressingly low 0.000001185)
– 2.92 cheeses per region

For comparison Canada has only a paltry 49 cheeses listed, a disappointingly small number, but a whopping sq km /cheese value!