Hipercongelador

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Af en toe gaan we hier in Las Palmas naar de ingevroren voedsel groothandel. Het is handig om altijd wat te eten in de vriezer te hebben, en bij de hipercongelador kopen we goedkoop hele pakketten vis en dergelijke in. Enig nadeel is dat de pakketten redelijk groot zijn.

Gisteren hadden we gepland om weer eens inkopen te gaan doen. Lekker makkelijk diepgevroren pulpo (inktvis), kippenpootjes, zalmpjes, etc. inkopen. Helaas was Ana niet thuis dus besloot ik maar alleen te gaan. Ik wist immers ongeveer wat onze wensen waren. Na een uurtje kwam ik weer thuis met vier plastic tassen met diepgevroren spul. Ana was inmiddels ook thuis en keek vol verbazing maar mijn tassen met voedsel.

Wat blijkt, ze was ook met een vriendin naar dezelfde winkel geweest. Bijna op dezelfde tijd ook. Toevallig hebben we elkaar niet getroffen, maar we hebben nu wel een vriezer die je niet meer zonder gevaar kan openen. Ook eten we de komende dagen verplicht inktvis, want deze paste niet meer in de vriezen, en de rest van het jaar kunnen we van onze vriezer leven.

My own mandala

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After some experimenting I made my own mandala. Using some iron wire and a little bit of time and patience it wasn’t even that hard. The mandala I had bought was pretty small (about 10cm). The version I made myself was around double the size (20cm) because the bigger size made it easier to manipulate the wires.

Needed:

  • Two big pieces of iron wire of around 20cm. Make sure the wire is not to thick to easily bend but also not to thin.
  • 36 smaller pieces of iron wire of about 6 cm
  • Pliers
  • Few pieces of rope

Preparation:

  • Bend the ends of all the iron wires, so you can hook it onto another wire

Execution:

  1. Hook the final parts of the long pieces of iron wire together so you get two separate circles of iron wire. Use the pliers to close the ends so you cannot break the circle.
  2. On each big circle you need to hook 9 little pieces of wire pointing upwards and 9 pointing downwards. Use the pliers to close the ends so that the small wires are fixed to the circle on one side.
  3. Now for the hard part. Bend the small wires one by one and bend them over the base of the next wire. The last wire needs to be bend and connected over the first wire, so stretch the wires to cover the entire circle. Use the pliers to close the ends and connect all the wires to the circle.
  4. Connect the two parts you have with the pieces of rope. You need 9 pieces of rope to connect one side of a circle to one side of the other circle.

Possible improvements:

  1. Replace the little pieces of rope by small beads. This requires you to connect the beads before you fix the small iron wires. This means you are connecting the two parts right from the start of this project, and will make it a bit more complex.

Mandala

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Mandala!2600 years ago the Tibetan monks were already playing with this toy. A mandala. It is a little toy made from some iron wire and some beads that you can fold in a lot of different shapes.

According to the accompanying note the various shapes represent the sun, the heaven, the oceans, the universe, good and evil, an explosion and the nothingness. Playing with the Mandala every now and then helps you heal your spirit.

Lets see if these harmonious movements and deep symbolism have their effect on me.

Familie Ammerlaan

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Familie Ammerlaan!Met de familie Ammerlaan weet je het nooit. Het is altijd een bron van energie en ideeën en soms een beetje chaos.

Afgelopen week waren Rogier, Barbara en de ‘kleine’ Lucas gezellig op bezoek en jawel, zo hier en daar ontstond weer wat chaos. Maar we vonden het wel heel erg leuk! Tot de volgende keer!!

Pyrenees and the south of France

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Pictures of Spain and France!After our visit to Egypt we visited the Pyrenees during a nice trip by car. From the Spanish side we drove over to the south of France and after visiting a number of sites we returned to Spain. Our trip took us past towns like San Sebastian, Pau, Lourdes (yes!), Gavarnie and Bayonne.

The food in France was absolutely delicious. We visited very typical France restaurants with very good food and equally good wine. We saw a lot of nature and made long hikes the the wild, enjoying nature at its best. In Lourdes I got quite a lot of water (you never know) and afterwards we visited the snow. A lot of pictures of this trip can be found in my Spain/France album.

Egypt pictures

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Ana riding a camel!Finally online, our pictures of Egypt. A lot of ancient ruins, temples, a lot a lot of hyroglyfs, a few piramids and some pictures of the river Nile including proof that I swam in the Nile.

In the end we did not really select the best pictures but posted almost all pictures we had. Don’t freak out if you suddenly notice we posted around 700 pictures.

Egypt

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Egypt proved to be a very impressive place. It is incredible to see the constructions they made 5000 years ago. Huge temples and gigantic pyramids and at the same time precious jewelry with incredibly small details. If make you think twice about the world of ‘progress’ in which we are living.

We started of with a boat cruise over the Nile. A very nice adventure but with a very busy schedule. A lot of days (I was unable to sleep a lot) we got up before sunrise to go on an excursion to visit yet another piece of history. It was nice to see hieroglyphs had been carved in almost all the stones. All around 3000 to 5000 years old, joined here and there by names and dates of about 100 or 200 years old. ‘Piet was here 1843’. I was able to restrain myself and did not add my name to this part of history.

After the cruise we spend a few days in Cairo. The city was very very crowded. There are more people living in Cairo than it the entire Netherlands. In the city center it is always busy. You can clearly notice that the local Muslims don’t really have a positive attitude towards non-Muslims and tourists. Especially girls and woman suffer because of this. They get regular pinches in the ass and get touched at every occasion by the hairy Muslims. As a tourist you should not return the favor with a totally covered Muslima because then they cut of your hands (or so they say).

It was quite an experience! We planned on a lot of excursions from the start, and this was maybe overdoing it a little. A lot of excursions were really very nice, but there were a lot where commerce was clearly on the mind of the Egyptians.

If you get the chance you should definitely visit Egypt. However, if you don’t like chicken and rice be warned because there seems to be little other food available. We made around 700 pictures which I’ll have to look through, so be patient.

Gui-gui

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Guigui!Last weekend I spend on the Güi-güi beach. A nice little beach in the middle of nowhere. We went there on Saturday morning and made the return trip on Sunday morning.

The big advantage of this beach is that it is almost deserted. The reason is simple: you need to walk for two and a half hours to get to the beach. Around one and a half hour is spend climbing a big hill and then you spend an hour going down towards the beach.

The beach is quite nice. The water is very clear and the surroundings are breathtakingly beautiful. Still it is quite a lot of effort you need to undertake. There is no shop or anything near the beach so you need to bring everything along; water, beers, a tent, towels, sunscreen, everything.

The route: Drive to Tasartico. In Tasartico the road changes from asphalt to dirt and stones. Following the path you reach a little parking place that will fit around 3 or 4 cars. This is where the path starts. First cover your body with sunscreen and then just follow the path. After a hike of about an hour and a half you will reach the top of the hill. Quite a hike and you should rest a little on top, before starting the descend. The way down made difficult because the path is covered with loose sand and little pebbles. Quite dangerous because you slip very easily. When you finally arrive the only thing left is to feel happy and proud of the hike you just did. Finally you can start enjoying this little piece of paradise.

Ziggo

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Ziggo!Gisteren las ik een verhaal over onder andere Ziggo op de blog van Cesar. Grappig om te lezen en ik kan me nog goed herinneren dat ik bij mezelf dacht dat ik gelukkig hier ver weg in Spanje geen last meer heb van die (voorheen-)Casema rompslomp. Ik heb immers al een paar jaar geleden mijn abo opgezegd.

Maar wat blijkt bij het controleren van mijn bankrekening. Ziggo heeft de afgelopen maanden lekker geld van mijn rekening lopen incasseren! Het moet g&tv#rd$mm% niet veel gekker worden.

Ik had nog nooit van deze toko gehoord en blijkbaar pakken ze al twee maanden mijn geld. En waarom? Alleen ziggo weet het denk ik, dus ik heb ze maar eventjes om opheldering gevraagd. Via mail, dat wel, dus ik wat wel weer van het kastje naar de muur gestuurd worden totdat ik via een brief bewijs dat ik helemaal niet meer in NL woon. Foeter!