The second week of December was marked by the continuing celebrations of the season, still under the influence of the virus, but people want to enjoy themselves now that most are fully vaccinated and many also boosted. And the weather continued to be very favourable to my preferred activities of cycling in the mountains and walking around the city.
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Nature continued to provide me with gorgeous seascapes early in the morning on our beach:
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Christmas markets, big and small, are everywhere. This one, on Plaza Seneca, is aimed mainly at the children:
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There is a big slide:
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Santa’s helpers are observing Covid protocols:
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The usual sticky stuff is on sale:
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On the main street of our little suburb-of-a-suburb of Alicante there is the same holiday decoration every year, a couple of hundred meters down the street from our house:
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On Friday we had our department Christmas lunch, about 30-35 of us at a restaurant in the centre called Bigoli (bigoli is an Italian pasta similar to spaghetti but thicker and made of buckwheat). I put the 60mm lens on my Fuji and focused in on individual colleages. Here, Patricia (Spanish):
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Antoine (French):
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Kari (Finnish):
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Gyta (Lithuanian):
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Our young trainees, enjoying the meal even more since we in the department management picked up their bill, as is our custom:
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As usual, Stephanie had made the arrangements, and here she is negotiating something with the waiter (probably additional wine consumption):
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To make it even more festive, it was Blanca’s 50th birthday:
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Blanca and Antoine share a laugh:
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On the way back to my car, a grab shot of a woman with funny headgear:
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On Sunday morning, I cycled to Agost, stopping for a break after about 20 km in the small village of Verdegás. There was a service going on in the church. The priest of this small church believes in God but he clearly also believes in science:
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The square in Agost was busier than I had ever seen it. A Christmas market was on:
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As usual, there were activities for the children:
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A pair of musicians were getting ready to entertain the crowd. I was taking my break on a bench just behind them, and got some nice backlit images:
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In the afternoon, we went for a walk on our beach. Sunrises are nice but sunsets are not shabby either, especially when combined with nice reflections following a spell of rain that morning:
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Playa Muchavista, El Campello, a popular destination for visitors from Spain and abroad. We live a couple of km from this spot:
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Finally, the 21st century equivalent of the 17th century Dutch tulip craze is now visible even here. I predict that the crypto craze will end in a similar way as do all other fads of this type:
