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Whom I’d like to meet in eternity…
Monday 1 April 2013
[
2013
]
[
Sunday 31 March 2013
]
We got up
ca.
8.30am and went down for breakfast
ca.
9.30am. I had cereal: sweetened puffed wheat. There was bacon, but it was micro-thin and a bit “rubbery” to chew. There were “English” and “German” sausages; I chose “English”, but it had hardly a hint of meat in it. The bread needed to be passed through the toaster at least twice. I didn’t much care for the strawberry “marmalade” I had on it; it was “diet”, not very sweet, and somewhat gelatinous. We went to the Disco Bar, where a guitar and vocal duo was initially performing easy-listening songs, for the meeting scheduled at 10.30am with the
Thomson
people. This was led by two young women: Nicola, who had been on the coach from the airport, and Liz, whom she had mentioned as being the other rep at our hotel. They introduced Javier, the hotel’s assistant manager, and events co-ordinator Kerry. Various events and excursions were described. We signed up for a trip to the Timanfaya National Park tomorrow, a submarine excursion under the Atlantic on Thursday, and a trip to some caves on Saturday. We went to the Pool Bar for a
Diet Coke.
The amount — 200ml — was too small. We followed directions out of the hotel to the bus stop. It wasn’t immediately obvious which side to wait. We got a bus (12:26) to the “centre” of Playa Blanca, two stops away; at any rate, to where the bus station was.
12:26 “Flamingo”–“Estacion Sur” €2.60
We walked down towards the ocean where there was a bustling shopping street. We wanted more cash. The first ATM that we tried was unable to process our transaction, but the second one did. We withdrew €70. There was a rather confusing message, perhaps about choosing whether commission should be charged in Euros or Sterling. I hit the “No” button, and the machine supplied the cash. The tie on Janet’s “Egypt” hat had somehow shrunk, so she couldn’t get it on her head; so she bought a hat while we were out for €5. Unfortunately it didn’t have ties, so tended to blow off in Lanzarote’s windy weather. I brought my tripod stool with me, so could sit down when my feet hurt too much. We found an Italian restaurant facing the ocean, and I had a pepperoni pizza there.
13:21:26 Lunch in Playa Blanca — views from the restaurant
13:27:46 Lunch in Playa Blanca — views from the restaurant
13:33:06 Sunlight sparkling on the azure ocean
13:36:26 Lunch in Playa Blanca
14:02:44 View south — ferry to the neighbouring island Fuerteventura
14:03:52 View east from the same spot
14:04:12 Waves breaking on the rocky beach
14:08 Bill for €14.45
We went back to the shopping street, where we sat while Janet ate her diet chocolate bars for lunch. Then we set off again.
14:12:26 Collared doves, which are everywhere
We went in the supermarket shown in the photo below, but there was no
Pepsi Diet,
so Janet suggested we go back to the
Spar
supermarket we’d passed on the way. But I selected two 2ℓ bottles of water, which we purchased. Then, because my feet hurt, I sat on a bench across the road at the taxi- rank, while she went back.
14:12:26 Not an aspect-ratio error; he really was that shape!
The taxi back to the hotel only cost €3.45, so I paid the driver €4. I noticed last night, at the entrance to the corridor on which is our room, a sign saying “Silencio” — which brought to mind the chapel on the Mount of Beatitudes in Galilee, where the people going “Ssssssssh! Silencio!” seemed to make more noise, and certainly caused more disturbance, than the people they were trying to silence. And a similar thing happened at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, though probably not using Spanish.
14:41:56 Ssssssssh!
Somehow got the
Fuji FinePix
software to do what I wanted; the tab appeared this time. Previously, I’ve set the software to delete the photos from the camera after copying them; but that hadn’t happened this time — fortunately — so I was able to copy yesterday’s photos again, now with date-and-time file-names. Not immediately, though; the software only copied today’s photos (14:57), and it required another tweak of the software to re-copy photos already copied (15:00). Edited each of yesterday’s photos with
Adobe Photoshop, e.g.
cropping, rotating, applying auto-contrast and/or auto-levels; and resizing them all from the very large default setting on the camera to a more manageable 1028 x 960 pixels (15:14–15:31). Made them into a
PowerPoint
presentation (from 15:40). Edited those of today’s photos that I had copied (16:31–17:11). For I took some photos from the balcony that stayed on the camera.
16:21:26 Views from our hotel-room balcony
16:21:42 Views from our hotel-room balcony
16:23:12 Views from our hotel-room balcony
16:26:42 Views from our hotel-room balcony
Made the edited photos into a
PowerPoint
presentation (16:27–17:21). At dinner time we first saw Liz in the reception area to pay for the excursions and receive tickets. The restaurant hadn’t opened when we went to it; although the information sheet said “18:00”, they didn’t open the door till 6.30pm. Dinner was Mexican themed: I had a shot of Tequila from the table at the entrance, but I didn’t choose anything Mexican to eat; the pattern of yesterday was more or less repeated: I had chips
[French fries]
, green beans, and this time pork spare-ribs in a barbecue sauce. I had the last of the red wine with bread and blue cheese (not as ripe as yesterday’s). We went back to the room; Janet updated her journal, and I did similarly on the computer. She went to bed
ca.
9pm, and I continued on the computer for a while. Last recorded activity is modification to the
PowerPoint
presentation of yesterday (21:43). Presumably I went to bed shortly after that.
[
Tuesday 2 April 2013
]
posted by John Edward Cooper #
4/14/2013 03:41:00 pm
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