Gijon, Asturias. Raining

Hope it stops soon so I can check out the city a bit without getting soaked. I´ve been milking the free breakfast and newspaper at the hostel all morning, but I think I´ll have to leave soon. This evening, I´m catching the bus to Oviedo to stay with Amanda´s friend Agar, who is there studying the MIR (Civil Service Exam for Doctors). I´ll spend the weekend there, then head down to Madrid, where I´m meeting Amanda. I´d prefer to keep poking around in Asturias, but we have to be in Salamanca on the 1st to meet the Little Angels with whom we´ll be sharing 3 weeks of english camp in Pendueles...

Asturias is kind of like being in New Brunswick, except they´ve cut down most of the trees and scattered ancient, semi-abandoned villages of Spanish speakers all over the place. It´s really green, mountainous, full of cows and apple orchards, rains a lot. The landscape is a lot less hostile then central Spain, where you´d die of asphixiation if you were left out in the afternoon sun. Still, it´s got that kind of moping, heavy look that a lot of rural Spain has, with it´s fallen-in roofs and and stranded-looking villagers, who seem the same across the country (short, round, bald men with button-up sweaters, leaning on canes and standing around a lot), —except that here they wave at you eagerly from the side of the rode if you make eye contact from the bus.

The bus ride from Llanes to Gijon was amazing. The Picos de Europa on the left, the Cantabrian Sea on the right. It´s very rural, but I can´t help fixating on the network of transmission wires, tension towers, and telephone poles that cut-up the landscape. The people standing-out in their gardens are literally overwhelmed by cables. Even the "Rural Apartments" we pass at the side of the road seem like a joke, surrounded by more power cables then you see in most city neighbourhoods.

The sun is shining, sort of. Well, it´s stopped raining anyway, so I´m going to step outside and explore Gijon a bit.

Just finished:
Herman Scheer, The Solar Economy, lent to me by Amanda´s dad Fernando, and highly reccommended.