A week during which we said goodbye to a well-liked colleague at the office who was moving on to bigger things in Brussels. We also said goodbye to the current crop of trainees, and as always I was out and about on my bicycle.
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Our trainee Alejandra finished her traineeship and is now moving on to its continuation at the European Patent Office in Munich. On her last day, I took a picture, of course:
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One evening, I met up for a beer after work with Eri and a couple of other colleagues, at a bar next to Alicante harbour. The sunset was lovely:
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Eri:
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One of the nice things about this particular bar is the location at Plaza Puerta del Mar, meaning that one can sit at the terrace and be entertained by the human traffic. Here, a selfie:
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Checking out the yachts:
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One of my bike rides took me south to La Marina. From there I cycled back north to Alicante, passing the salt flats south of Santa Pola along the way. The national road N332 passes through the Salinas, in places one is riding on water, almost:
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The end product. I am not sure if it is destined for our tables or for roads in northern Europe during the winter:
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Approaching Santa Pola:
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An after-work walk in the centre, starting at Plaza Montañeta and a man entertaining the children, hoping to extract a reward from their parents:
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Fierce cat:
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Now that many of my bike rides start at sunrise (or before), I get to see skies like this almost every morning:
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Our Polish colleague Justyna is moving on to a job at the Commission in Brussels. We used her departure as an excuse to have our first drink at the office in more than a year, albeit outside:
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Justyna says a few words, not really a speech–she is not the type to give speeches:
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A glass and a conversation:
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A Spaniard, a Greek and a Swede:
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At the end of the week, I cycled to Jijona and Busot. The road between the two towns is truly lovely:
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The new solar farm comes into view:
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I stopped for a break in Busot, at a place I have passed many times but never really explored. I realised that the windows were really murals:
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There is a sculpture representing the Cuevas de Canelobre, a bona fide tourist attraction a few km outside the town. I learned that the sculture was the work of a Polish artist living in Busot, Anna Klimowicz:
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Some closer views of the “windows”:
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