Thursday, September 24th - Salou, Spain

This will definitely be an easy and short blog to write.  After yesterday's long walk that included lots of ups and downs, I was pretty much stiff all over and could barely get out of bed - except of course when I got another leg cramp and I quickly got up then.  obviously I did not drink enough water yesterday!

Anyway, I did get up around 9 a.m.  It is absolutely amazing how easy it is to sleep in around here.  It is so quiet and no one makes any noise, and I'm sure it's because they are all sleeping too.  A lot of the places are empty because it is no longer high season and some of the nearby buildings are owned not rented so they sit empty much of the year.  The business don't open until 10 so they are not making any noise and the street is a very quiet street with very little traffic at any time so the noise certainly wouldn't wake you up.  And the apartment looks to the west so there is no direct sun until about noon, and what light there is in the morning is kept out by the curtains.  Therefore, 9 a.m. is pretty much the usual hour for waking up.

And I really was stiff.  I stretched a lot last night and had a hot bath and took some ibuprofin but I was still stiff this morning.  The first thing I did was take another ibuprofin and then do some more stretching and drink some more water.  Then I slowly moved through my morning routine and sat a bit longer than usual clearing e-mails and staring at the computer.  About noon I decided it was time to eat so breakfast and lunch got combined.  After I cleaned up from that I decided I should go for a walk to the beach. 

I wandered again to my favourite beach because it really wasn't all that hot and I knew there would be less wind there.  I was right and I could stay for a couple of hours but that was it.  When the sun was out it was okay but when it was behind a cloud it was definitely cool to be out in your bathing suit.  And there were a lot of clouds in the sky that didn't look like they were going away so I decided it was time to head home.

On the way back I stopped again at the tourist office.  The ladies there are really nice and I had a couple of questions for them.  When I was walking yesterday and stopped to go through City Park, the tour book said there should be a tower there but I couldn't see anything.  It turns out it was numbered wrong in their brochure and the tour is actually somewhere else in town.  They didn't realize the mistake so they were happy (well, not really happy) to hear about it.

I also wanted to ask about all the big beautiful buildings / houses along the street.  They all look like mansions and they are so totally different than the other hotels and high rises that I was curious as to whether they were all authentic or built to look that way.  It turns out they are all original buildings that were once individual family homes.  The one at the end of the street, Chalet Bonet, was built in 1918 and is still owned by the same family.  It is particularly beautiful because of the decoration all around it.  It is supposedly late-modernist architecture and it was a student of Gaudi's who designed and built it.  There are arched windows on the ground floor and rectangular windows above, all with beautiful designs in and around them.  The balcony railings are artfully done and tie in with the whole design.  The main entrance is an archway that has stone at the bottom and then painted concrete with an overhang covered in colourful tiles.  The stairs leading to the main door are tiled in a pattern.  The fence around is curved and very Gaudi-ish, and there is a large ceramic sundial that is again ornately decorated.

Other houses along the street are equally big and also decorated but in different ways.  Some are now restaurants or shops.  The one is now the tourist bureau and offices.  They remind me very much of streets in Galveston, Texas with all the big old homes that the rich people owned.  And all of the homes here are right on the street across from the beach so they were waterfront property and the best locations in town.

I also checked with the tourist people re the different fountains on the waterfront and which one had the show on Friday and Saturday night.  Well, it turns out that all three fountains have shows on the weekend.  One has a "Game of Water" from 6 to 10.  One has a "Cybernetic Show" at 9 and the other just has a "Show" at 10.  I'm pretty sure the one I caught part of last Saturday night was not the game but I'm not sure how to differentiate the other two. I guess i'll find out tomorrow if I stay out late enough to catch them all.

I eventually made it back to the apartment where I sorted through a few things.  One of my chores while here is to go through everything my whole suitcase and see if there is stuff I can get rid of.  At the same time I'm also checking other things like, do I have enough malaria medication given that I'm heading to Africa a lot sooner than originally planned.  And the short answer to that is no, but I can't even worry about getting any more until I decide exactly how much I'm going to need.  And right now I don't have this trip planned far enough into the future to figure that out - just something else to worry about at a later date.

Later on I made supper and did some more computer work and that was basically it for the day.  

I did manage to stretch this blog out a lot longer than I thought I would.  I guess it's a good thing I stopped at the tourist office so I'd have something to write about.