Today we celebrate the day of the Canarians once again. A festivity on the Canary Islands that translates to a day filled with typical Canarian activities. Yesterday it already started with all the children going to school in a typical Canarian outfit. The outfit is not so difficult. Woman/girls wear an enormous skirt and men/boys wear dark pants, a white shirt and a long sash around their waist, worn like some kind of belt.

For us it is really a perfect day because our holidays start today. Tomorrow we will leave to Madrid and afterwards we´ll visit Holland! Even Alex is looking forward to it!

The Spanish bank Bankia has gotten into some problems. Just one week ago the bank has been taken over by the state and it has become public that since then more then a billion euros has been transferred by clients of Bankia to somewhere else.

I used to have a Bankia account (it used to be called Caja de Canarias), but I closed the account due to an extremely unfriendly attitude towards their clients. Now the rest of Spain is also closing their accounts. Probably not because of their attitude towards their clients but more likely because of the huge amount of properties that the bank owns. Properties that are almost impossible to sell and that keep dropping in value.

According to the bank there is (of course) no reason to worry. These are seasonal fluctuations in the amount of capital they have. Sure, what else are they going to say. Where is all the money going? Other banks, other European banks outside of Spain, or even farther away to different currencies or even valuables like gold? I just don’t know so I’ll just keep observing the situation from a safe distance. First see what happens and then I’ll figure out what to do.

Or vacation was not filled with activities. Hanging around the pool and a few short trips with the car. Still we had a nice adventure. A hedgehog came to visit our apartment in the middle of the night.

Yesterday Spain was in protest. A lot of people were on strike the entire day (a day that gets subtracted from your paycheck) and during the evening there were protests. The reason for the strike is the deterioration of employee rights. Shortly it will become (much) easier and (much) cheaper to fire people. The politicians think that this will stimulate employees to employ more people, because getting rid of people will be easier and cheaper. Employees simple fear unemployment. The fixed contracts and job security will loose its value. More than 8 days ill? Fired. More then three month loosing money? Fired. Fixed contract? Fired with a small compensation.

In Las Palmas the protesters started their march around 6 o clock and there were a lot of people! A protest with a lot of noise and chaos. I estimate around 20.000+ people were protesting and this is quite an achievement for an island where the people usually just wait and see what happens in the Spanish mainland. Now we wait and see the aftermath of this protest, but usually the end result is a quiet acceptance of the changes.

It’s always nice to eat a tasty homemade hamburger. We bought some buns and a package of hamburgers. The hamburgers were all beef, because pig is bad for you. But what’s in a hamburger except for the meat? I looked at the list of ingredients and knew directly that checking the ingredients was a mistake.

Our hamburgers contain beef, but they don’t specify how much beef. In addition they contain grain, rice and oranges (!). Together with some additives for flavor, color and smell. It does explain the low price, and the burger tasted okay. Still, next time I will think twice when buying this ‘meat’ and probably get real meat.

Being Dutch driving a bike is as normal as walking. It is a part of my heritage. A part that I neglected a little bit here in Spain, but finally a perfect excuse arose. My work moved to a new office and the new distance was to far for walking. I immediately thought a bike would be the perfect solution.

The only problem is that in Spain the average car driver does not take into account the existence of bikes. They are not used to bikes and a bike path is very rare. This results in a high risk when you move around on a bike. Luckily a campaign is going on to rise awareness about bikes and they even prepared a couple of bike paths.

I’ll just go ahead and give it a try. I bought a folding bike so I can store it without to many hassle inside the office.

The operation went well. Ana’s gallbladder was removed during an operation that took about two hours. During the operation it became clear Ana’s gall was very big, but still they managed to remove it through a small incision near her belly button. After the surgery Ana felt sick the entire day. A common after effect from the general anesthetic she endured. The next day she felt a lot better and even managed to walk around a little.

Today Ana went home. She will need to take it easy about ten days and then her stitches will be removed. Afterwards she can start the process of normalizing her diet.

Tomorrow is the day. Ana will enter into surgery and they will remove her gall bladder. This afternoon Ana will be admitted in the hospital and tomorrow the operation will take place. If all goes well she will be allowed to go home the day after tomorrow. Afterwards she’ll need to take it easy for about 10 days and than she should be fine again.

The time she spend with her gall bladder full of stones was at times quite painful. She had a strict diet without any fat, but whenever Ana made a mistake and ate something containing fat she suffered a painful night. After a while she managed better with her diet and started loosing about a kilo or weight a week. After the surgery she should be able to eat normally again, but she will need to avoid food that contains lots of fat.

The operation itself is not so difficult. Ana will be fully anesthetized and the will make three incisions in her stomach. One incision to pump air in, one for a little light and one for the instruments and to take out the gall bladder. If all goes well the operation itself should take about half an hour. The entire process should take about 2 hours.

More nicotine, more tar and more of everything for much less money. It’s a win-win situation. Mecanicos are a very cheap brand of cigarets from the Canary Islands and the price for a carton is less then 6 euros. This means you can get an entire carton of cigarets for a price that is less then what you pay for two packs in Holland. Too bad (?, not really) I don’t smoke.

I am quite certain now that somewhere on this island tobacco plants are being cultivated. Of course I would like a little plant of my own, just to be able to see it grow. It find it I will need to be smart. To find anything on the Canary islands that is not directly aimed at the tourists you will need to use the social network. There is just no other way. I will have to ask some Canarians and see if my integration on the island is sufficient to provide me with a result.

Just before the new year I caught a running opportunity. The San Silvestre. A traditional running match that people run on the 31st of December in all of Spain. The run in Las Palmas was over a 7.5 kilometer distance and my time was a respectable 35 minutes.