1995

3 Months

NYC

A Jewel

Eivissa

Tree Abuse

ECO

Black Friday

Bocadillo

Danger!

Estofado

Sangria

Rave

Cannibis

Camino Viejo

Neutrinos

Weather

Roosters

JCS

The PM

Plongeé

Smila

Customs

O. J. Verdict

1995 Eivissa (Ibiza): Fish Monger

A Roar

MacWorld

Padinkos

Bye E, Hello GC

Gran Canaria

Where

A Tour

How

Food

Yumbo

Las Palmas

Playa

1995 Gran Canaria: Potpourri

Norteños

More Food

Irishmen

Heading Home

USA

With Dad

Back at Home

Monday 2 Oct 1995

Fernandito's again. Having survived the usual early-morning familial breakfast chaos, Daniel and I have opened ECO, scanned the faxes that have arrived overnight (nothing exciting, alas), and fled to our local café to enjoy the refuge of caffiene and the company of others. Folks come and go, greetings are exchanged and news/gossip are shared.

From the Diario de Ibiza:

• Greenpeace has issued a report condemning the annual killing of 20,000 sea turtles in the pituises (little ones - the collective name for Eivissa and neighboring island of Formentera)

• the mental health center reports that the number of alcoholics who recieve ongoing treatment has stabilized at 118, one down from the year before

DHL calls from Madrid. A computer from the USA is 1995 Eivissa (Ibiza): Stuck in Customs and they want my passport number to be sure I'm not a Spanish national looking to evade taxes. The prospect of having a fully-functional PowerBook in hand is a heady one. I'm very much looking forward to getting (a) back to work on my book, (b) back in touch with friend, and (c) putting the last ten days (is it almost two weeks?) worth of scribbled travel diary up on my web pages.

Derk suggested that I try an old path to get to Benniràs, and I'm here a quarter-hour faster as a result. The route is a lot more interesting, it winds by farmer's houses and fields. One elderly lady had one German Shephard (thankfully tied up) and a half-dozen yapping smaller dogs. One farmer has made rather large and flat fields, which look quite out of place on an island where almost all growing surfaces are terraced. I saw a professional almond picker (at right).

At Benniràs I run into Fernandito. He invites me for a whiskey and soda, his daily post-swim beverage. Fernandito has been swimming at this beach since he was a small boy. Unused as I am to strong drink - my usual is a glass of red wine in the evenings - my head spins. We talk about his early life on the island, his first car (a dark blue Dodge Dart with white leather interior - same as the politicians used to drive (the Spanish generals drove Mercedes)), and recent changes to the island. He loves it here, and he loves the bachelor life he lives in the apartment above the restaurant.

1700 I just got back from the beach and finished reading B. F. Skinner's Walden Two. I was prepared to not like the book, having not liked the man (when he was a guest lecturer at a Harvard Extention class I took), but both the story and the writing style kept me reading. The next book I'll be reading is Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle.