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1995 Gran Canaria: Where I Spend My Days
21 Oct 1995
I'm sorry that my trip reports aren't as frequent as they were in Eivissa, but I'm able to work on my second book quite a bit these days (and after the distractions and technical horrors of Eivissa I need to get some work done). Still, I've gotten my Apple QuickTake 100 running (it seems that one of the extentions it uses got corrupted and I was lucky enough to take the distribution floppies with me) and my loaner/rental PowerBook seems to be hanging together, so I'll continue to make trip report web pages.
As I did ten years ago, I've claimed the glass-enclosed porch as my home and office. It's small, but it has some great views, a good breeze, and all the amenities.
At the far right of the image are a chair and cabinet that I don't use, save to temporarily put the flyers I've been handed (before I escort them to the papelera (trash can).Some of them are interesting, and if I had time and money (ever try to travel on an author's budget?) I might see the sights. (I'll describe some of the places advertised in the flyers in some later trip report.) My Teva sandals live under the chair when not being worn.
Hanging on the walls and from the ceiling are souvenirs of Oma's many decades of world travel. In the foreground hangs a wreath of dried acorns, pinecones, nuts, flowers, and some things I've never before seen. It hangs from a hand-woven band about 8 cm (3 in) wide; I'm sure the band has a story all its own. Hanging behind that is a transparent hand-blown glass souvenir of one of Oma's trips to Israel. It features a menorah (ritual candleabra) of bright orange and the word "Israel" in traditional blue.
On the cabinet are hand-fashioned bowls - one terra-cotta, the other woven pine needles - filled with shells and small rocks from around the world. There are also two paintings on wood. On the wall are photgraphs of family members and a thermometer, which now shows a very typical inside daytime temperature of 26 C (77 F). It's a very comfortable temperature to be writing a book and web pages.
Next is the drying rack that I've brought in from the bathroom. Because of the weather here no home has a dryer. And since Oma's washer is one of those fragile portable ones I've elected to bash my clothes with a rock at the river. (Okay, okay, so I'm stomping on them in the small bathtub, but the rock thing sounded better.) Now the clothes are drying in the sun and breeze.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this in my Eivissa pages, but in the closing days (and ensuing rush) some of my tee-shirts were left in a washing machine for several hours. That unusual kind of sustained dampness is heaven for certain molds, and those clothes smelled, well, pungent, despite several subsequent machine washings. Rather than give up some comfortable shirts for dead, I wrapped them in a trash bag and brought them to Gran Canaria.
After two enthusiastic washings they've not only lost their rather objectionable smell but they're perfumed with tropical porch air.
For this collage I've pulled up the blinds. (Usually I move the blinds up and down as dictated by the strong tropical sun.) I'm not sure whose smart idea it was to put horizontal blinds on windows that open vertically, but I have some words for Oma about it. (The state of building contracting here (and in Eivissa) is that the home-owner has to watch over what's going on and ask obvious questions to make sure the work is being done to an acceptable level of quality. Everyone is resigned to it, and frequent trips to the ferreteria (hardware store) in the middle of a job is par for the course.
I have a view of the pool below and the apartment buildings to the south and east of me. Actually, I can see well over the one to the east, and I have a good view of the water. With a pair of binoculars I can clearly make out the private (big!) sailboats that come and go. (Sadly, sailing won't be on the agenda for this trip. Neither, sadly, will be SCUBA diving.)
Most of the condos in Atlantis Uno have little planted in the plant well that surrounds the porch, but Oma is cultivating the local succulents variant of ice plant and, in one corner, a rather large local cactus. Parts of the ice plant flower year-round. Scattered through the ice plant are several other local plants, all fragile and hardy and protective of the water they've captured.
Next is the breakfast table that's become my computer laboratory. Equipped with a digital camera, a 28.8 kbps modem, several boxes of floppy diskettes, a NiCad batter recharger, a Connectix QuickCam video camera (for which I've found no use other than to impress the heck out of people who've expressed an interest in being a digital nomad), a cup of coffee, and two candles, it's a miniature version of my lab at home. All that's missing is satellite ISDN and I could do all my net-related work from here.
There's no telephone on the desk; I keep it on the floor and use it only for chewing out my Spanish ISP ("what do you mean, you don't know why none of the modems are picking up?"). I've been able to stay in touch with almost everyone with whom I want very well via email. The only exception: the computer dealer from whom I usually purchase hardware.
That brings up two things I've learned on this trip (that I'll strive to remember once I get back to bit-rich California):
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