Work Lies Ahead
The next day we met up with a colleague and his wife, took a walk around the city, and chatted. The details about local life that they shared with me have leaked into other parts, and will surely continue to do so. Much to my regret, this day was a Sunday, which meant I had to work the very next day. I built myself a makeshift little nest out of a regular small table and a living room chair. To level out the height, I put a pillow under me. Pulled out a drawer and laid my favorite puffy jacket on it to save my wrist. Took out my brand new little Microsoft Compact Design Keyboard so I wouldn't have to reach far for the laptop, along with the wireless Logitech mouse I'd brought with me. I ordered the keyboard on Amazon before the flight, and overall it’s fine. However, I completely failed to realize that the Spaniards have their own layout. And although the Latin letters are in the same place, the top row is different from the LV or US layouts, which gets pretty annoying. I type mostly by touch, but when I occasionally glance at the keyboard, I get confused. I gotta say, the Spaniards were very original and added the ¿¡ symbols to their language, which they use to start questions and exclamations. It’s handy, of course, to know right away that you’re dealing with a question, I won’t argue with that. It looks kind of like quotes, first the opening sign, then our usual, closing one. They enclose only the part of the sentence directly containing the question I hope that’s ¿clear?
¡Wonderful!
Interestingly, I ordered the keyboard around my flight time, and Amazon kept scaring me that it would take as long as two or three weeks to arrive. Naturally, it arrived at the parcel locker right away, the very next day. Just another dark UI pattern, I've lost count by now. Apparently, Amazon got inspired by how accommodation booking sites scare you that there are few places left and soon you'll have nowhere to live. It scares you so you'd order express delivery or buy the Prime service. You can't fool us with that, even though the Spanish Amazon doesn't have an English version, unlike the German one. I have to use a Chrome extension with Google Translate. Although I'll tell you, DeepL really does translate noticeably better. Why I had to learn this, and on what unpleasant occasion, I won't be telling you anytime soon, because that happened later in Girona.
Sucking on coffee beans
Then the workdays started, nowhere near as entertaining as the first week. Nevertheless, I still managed to squeeze some modicum of action into my schedule. Every day I walked a lot along the Turia, went to an outlet mall with an incredible variety of branded deadstock, where I bought some colorful pants, which I have a soft spot for. On occasion, I even managed to ride a bike on weekdays. I'd leave after the last call, come back after dark, and then work for another hour or an hour and a half. That turned out to be not so fun after all. It's just too hard to get out of a big city while it's still light: nothing but 🚦, overpasses, 🚸, fences, cowsheds (c). Then again, for a while I managed to get up bright and early, around eight, which is a record for me. Alas, now I've slid back to nine or ten, and another hour will be added when I return to my native Latvidzha.
By the way, I forgot to mention that in the morning, before going to the science museum, I popped into a coffee shop called Savoiardi (which means "ladyfinger") with a massive number of seats. A dozen or two outside, several dozen inside, plus there's an "informal-style" burger joint built in with another couple dozen. In the coffee shop I spotted the famous 🍰 "muerte por chocolate", that is, "death by chocolate". Of course, I couldn't not try it. The cake is chocolate, with chocolate shavings and chocolate cream, and it's drenched in chocolate. As much as I love chocolate, even to me it seemed too chocolatey. Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. So there!
The coffee was interesting too, although not craft: a latte where at the bottom of a large glass there was a layer of syrup two fingers thick. I tried all sorts of other coffee in my further wanderings, and I'll say that in Spain it's so-so. If you want to drink some really good stuff, any big city has hipster coffee shops where the coffee is simply wonderful, but there will be a limited number of them. You shouldn't expect to get a non-bitter one from a washed espresso machine everywhere you go. In Italy the chances are much higher, and in Switzerland too, I suppose. Look what I've come down to — running a lifestyle travelogue where I suck on coffee beans. And yet I was always a bit of a lefty and a neo-hippie, sympathized with punks and anarchists. Look what an improvement in living standards does to people! At this rate I'll end up buying some e-bike like the Scott Lumen 900 sl for 16k euros - the most expensive production bike I know of.
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