Vuelta a España 2006!
You may recall that last year, when I had just moved to Madrid, one of the first things that came through town was the Vuelta a España. And then a week later, the UCI World Road Championships were in Madrid. And I got a photo fo Tom Boonen from about three feet away (he just happened to walk past when I happened to have my camera out.)
The other day, the Vuelta came through Guadalajara; I left Guadalajara a couple of hours before it got there (everyone was in a rush to get out of town before all the roads were closed), so it was lovely to learn (from a billboard upon arriving in town) that the Vuelta was coming through here yet.
It was here today! I went and watched from the finish line; naturally, my camera didn't get any shots of the finish. I got a couple of good ones though, of the people who weren't riding by so ridiculously quickly.
Afterwards, since I was already wearing cycling gear (so that I could get a photo of myself by the finish line, of course) I decided to take a ride up to the Alhambra. I rode up past it by where all of the hotels are, and in front of one of the hotels were the bike buses for some of the teams. I chatted with the italians and loked at the beautiful bianchis, and then with the phonak mechanics, who were super friendly. They were pressure washing and tuning all of the bikes. At some point, one of them picked my bike up (and made a face from how heavy it is; I took a picture) and started washing it, and then another one of the mechanics completely tuned it up. My bicycle is shinier that it's been since I bought it. And teven then, since I had put grubby pedals on it, it wasn't really so shiny. And it was nice to have the gears and brakes adjusted, since I had mounted the thing myself after moving back here to Spain, and, um, last time I checked I still wasn't very good at those two details of bike fixing.
They also gave me a water bottle (they gave everyone who was passing by a water bottle.) Thanks, Phonak! (namely: Antonio and Modesto.)
Other than that, I moved some stuff into my new place today; let's call the new place my experiment in living in suburban hell. It's not that bad, actually, since it's actually in an apartment and it's actually _in_ Granada. It's past the Carthusian monastery, though, which in my previous frame of reference for Granada was pretty much as far out of town as one would want to be. (I was going to link to a picture of the monastery here, but this connection is slow and I'm hungry. I encourage you to find a suitable image on your own. The couple of minutes I gave myself to do it only resulted in interior pictures, and I wanted to show you an exterior.)
It's with two of the people (whom I know from a conference here before) who do stuff with the CSIC/EEA (Superior Council for Scientific Investigation/School of Arab Studies.) If it weren't with people whom I already knew, I would never move into somewhere that far from the center. By "far," in Granada, I mean a twenty minute bike ride from the center. It's really not that far away. The furniture in that place is awful; it's like a 1980s suburban Omaha dream house. There are flower patterns everywhere, even on the bathroom tiles.
Woohoo! The Surly is so shiny!
You may recall that last year, when I had just moved to Madrid, one of the first things that came through town was the Vuelta a España. And then a week later, the UCI World Road Championships were in Madrid. And I got a photo fo Tom Boonen from about three feet away (he just happened to walk past when I happened to have my camera out.)
The other day, the Vuelta came through Guadalajara; I left Guadalajara a couple of hours before it got there (everyone was in a rush to get out of town before all the roads were closed), so it was lovely to learn (from a billboard upon arriving in town) that the Vuelta was coming through here yet.
It was here today! I went and watched from the finish line; naturally, my camera didn't get any shots of the finish. I got a couple of good ones though, of the people who weren't riding by so ridiculously quickly.
Afterwards, since I was already wearing cycling gear (so that I could get a photo of myself by the finish line, of course) I decided to take a ride up to the Alhambra. I rode up past it by where all of the hotels are, and in front of one of the hotels were the bike buses for some of the teams. I chatted with the italians and loked at the beautiful bianchis, and then with the phonak mechanics, who were super friendly. They were pressure washing and tuning all of the bikes. At some point, one of them picked my bike up (and made a face from how heavy it is; I took a picture) and started washing it, and then another one of the mechanics completely tuned it up. My bicycle is shinier that it's been since I bought it. And teven then, since I had put grubby pedals on it, it wasn't really so shiny. And it was nice to have the gears and brakes adjusted, since I had mounted the thing myself after moving back here to Spain, and, um, last time I checked I still wasn't very good at those two details of bike fixing.
They also gave me a water bottle (they gave everyone who was passing by a water bottle.) Thanks, Phonak! (namely: Antonio and Modesto.)
Other than that, I moved some stuff into my new place today; let's call the new place my experiment in living in suburban hell. It's not that bad, actually, since it's actually in an apartment and it's actually _in_ Granada. It's past the Carthusian monastery, though, which in my previous frame of reference for Granada was pretty much as far out of town as one would want to be. (I was going to link to a picture of the monastery here, but this connection is slow and I'm hungry. I encourage you to find a suitable image on your own. The couple of minutes I gave myself to do it only resulted in interior pictures, and I wanted to show you an exterior.)
It's with two of the people (whom I know from a conference here before) who do stuff with the CSIC/EEA (Superior Council for Scientific Investigation/School of Arab Studies.) If it weren't with people whom I already knew, I would never move into somewhere that far from the center. By "far," in Granada, I mean a twenty minute bike ride from the center. It's really not that far away. The furniture in that place is awful; it's like a 1980s suburban Omaha dream house. There are flower patterns everywhere, even on the bathroom tiles.
Woohoo! The Surly is so shiny!
posted by AV at 2:42 PM
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