Category Archives: All over the place

Meer plaatsen bezoeken -> meer leren -> meer mens

The social network

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The social network!It keeps amazing me. The enormous power the social networks have in Spain. Earlier this year I had already experienced that the social network can take more than a year of your next scheduled doctors appointment.

The social network also seems to have very direct financial benefits. Like the price of medicines, a very important product for the public health. Instead of paying the normal price for our medicines we no just pay 66% for all products you can get in the pharmacy. Where I used to pay around 21 euros for a pot of multivitamins I now pay just 14 euro.

For us this is a nice discount and we would be fools not to make use of it. Still, it is annoying that the price of health in Spain for someone without connections or for a tourist is a lot higher.

Roque Nublo

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Gran Canaria, roque Nublo!
Right in the middle of Gran Canaria you find a nice piece of nature and in the middle of it all a nice big rock called ‘Roque Nublo‘. The name simply means rock in the clouds.

This rock used to be revered by the original inhabitants of the island who thought it was a holy rock. On this photo you see the rock and on the background the volcano of Tenerife, the Teide, which is also the highest point of Spain.

Photos La Gomera

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La Gomera!
The most stunning think about La Gomera was the beautiful nature we encountered. Ancient forests with Laresilva trees and a huge amount of walking routes crisscrossing the island. In the forest we could at times clearly see the horizontal rain. These are clouds that are hanging low over a track in which you can see the wind moving. The wind makes the little drops in the clouds move horizontally of even upwards.

La Gomera - Terras!A lot of the mountains contained lots of terraces. These were created by the old Gomerians to cultivate all kinds of plants. Surely this must have been a lot of work. Still at times you can see banana trees, potatoes or grapes in some places, but the vast majority of terraces is not being used any more. The locals must have moted that working for the tourists is much more profitable than working with plants. A sad loss of tradition, but very good for providing beautiful imagery.

La Gomera - Orgel!The boat trip to the island was like a roller coaster ride. I enjoyed it a lot, but Ana was less pleased with the trip. To see a typically shaped cliff you needed to get another boat trip to have the best view, but this was out of the question after our experiences arriving at the island. Anyway, there were really a lot of these typically shaped rocks visible all over the island.

In my photo album you can find some more images of our trip to La Gomera.

La Gomera

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Next weekend we will be traveling again, and this time were visiting the island La Gomera for a weekend. La Gomera is one of the Canary Islands that was still missing on my list.
Canary Islands!

La Palma El Hierro La Gomera Tenerife Gran Canaria Fuerteventura Lanzarote
El Hierro! El Hierro
Fuerteventura! Fuerteventura
Gran Canaria! Gran Canaria
La Gomera! La Gomera
La Palma! La Palma
Lanzarote! Lanzarote
Tenerife! Tenerife

The island is difficult to reach. First we need to take the ferry to Tenerife, and from Tenerife continue to La Gomera in a different Ferry. We were lucky because the the schedules connect pretty well, and we get a 50% discount on the fare for being Canarian citizens.

La Gomera promises to be a nice place to visit. The island offers a lot of nature, the Garajonay National Park. Also there is a typical rock face, Los Organos, that resembles a kind of organ.

In La Gomera that have a lot of local delicacies. Local cheeses, roasted pig or goat, honey from palm trees and this is the place where almogrote was invented!

It is the only place in the world where the inhabitants were forced to develop a unique language. A whistle-ing language called
Silbo Gomero (Gomerian whistle). The local population communicated with whistles covering great distances. It proved the easiest way to quickly pass information over the ravines. Of course I’m planing to do some whistling myself. If I make a mistake there is still no problem. The receiver of any error will surely be far far away at the other end of a ravine.

Carnival 2011 – The Indian party

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On the Monday after Carnival (this year on the 7th of March) there is a very typical celebration in Las Palmas. The party of the Indians. During this party everyone is dressed in white and the crowd slowly moves through the main street ‘Triana’ starting in the ‘San Telmo’ square towards the ‘Plaza de la Rana’ square. There is always some Canarian band playing and everyone tries to keep close to the music. At the same time everyone is throwing powder in the air. The distance is only about 1 kilometer but the crowd needs a few hours to reach the end point.

The main street can be recognized from a very big distance because an enormous white cloud is hanging above it. The cloud exists out of the power that is being strayed into the air by the attendants. Once you enter the street everything is white. The ground, the air, your glasses, your clothes, everything. In the street the only thing you do is follow the partying crowd and follow the music, stopping a lot of times to spray powder into the air.

This is one of the most original parties in Las Palmas, and you could even compare it to queens day in Holland, with the only difference that everything is white instead of orange, and of course it is a much smaller scale.
Carnival 2011 - Powder party!

Our honeymoon

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Greece!What used to be meant to be a period where you got to know your new spouse has lost all of its meaning. I already knew Ana very well after years of living together, but being newlyweds was the ideal excuse to go on a nice long vacation.

Our first plan was to go to Argentina, and we also thought about Madagascar, China, Vietnam, but in the end we ended up with Greece, the lands of myths and gods. Our choice for Greece was largely based on some insecurity about an exam date. Ana needed to complete a state exam for her job and she could not miss this exam. The date of this exam was a long time unknown and only recently we found out the exam date is the 23rd of October, a week before our wedding. Not knowing the date earlier we did not want to risk planning a far vacation and then not being able to go, so we choose the smart solution and picked a relatively close destination.

We are plaing to spend three weeks in Greece where we hope to discover the Greek culture, the Greek food and the Greek habits. Of course we’ll also enjoy the beauty of the Greek islands.

Twee keer jarig

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Heilige Ana!Spanjaarden zijn ieder jaar niet één, maar twee keer jarig. Een keertje op de geboortedag en nog een extra keer op je naam-dag. De naamdag is de dag waarop de heilige is geboren op wie jou naam lijkt. Vandaag is de dag van de Ana’s in Spanje, en dat zijn er nogal wat. Morgen gaan we het vieren met maar liefst 4 Ana’s.

Behind me

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After two weeks celebrating in London, Amsterdam, The Hague, Noordwijkerhout and one night in Madrid we find ourselves once again in Las Palmas. The holidays were very nice which was underlined by the fact that I did not think about my work even once. We enjoyed a lot seeing (almost) all our friends and family again.

Our first stop over was London. We spend four days in the center of London in a nice hotel and of course we visited all the highlights of the city. Big Ben, Parliament, Tower bridge, the changing of the guards, a ride in the London Eye and naturally I drank a good amount of pints.

Afterwards we visited Holland and we were surprised by a very fast growing Annabel and an even faster growing Lucas. We also briefly met up with parents, friends and family.

Today the holidays are clearly over, and I had to go to work once again. At work I found my desk covered in Spanish decorations. Clearly the Spaniards had beaten the Dutch in a football match and the Spanish emotion about this match was vented at my desk. Que fuerte!

Canarian day

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Canarian flag!This Sunday the people on the Canary Islands celebrate. Everyone will be eating typical Canarian potatoes with a nice ‘mojo’ sauce, honey rum, fish prepared in water from the ocean, almogrote, and everything typical the locals like to eat and drink.

Of course there are little markets all over the place selling local products and to make everything even better the Monday after the party is a holiday as well!