The first week of July begun with a short visit to Santander in northern Spain where I was going to give a talk on Monday morning. It continued in Alicante with a performance of the choir in which my wife sings, and it finished with a lunch with friends at a local Alsatian restaurant called La Petite Alsace.
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I flew to Santander on Sunday afternoon. While I was not too keen on this particular business trip since Monday was my first day as director of the new department and I did not like being away on that day, I was pleased to visit a place I had never visited, always an interesting experience. My hotel was near one the city’s many beaches, and the temperature being about 10 degrees lower than Alicante, it was pleasant to spend the next few hours walking around the city (and having dinner):
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There are many steep streets in the centre of Santander:
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Helpfully, the city has installed airport-style moving sidewalks on particularly steep streets:
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I walked to a seaside neighbourhood called Puertochico to look at this memorial to “los raqueros”. In the old days, poor children would dive for coins thrown from ships entering the harbour:
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On Monday morning I walked the 2 km or so from my hotel to Palacio de la Magdalena, where the Spanish patent office was holding a week-long summer school on intellectual property in cooperation with the Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo. It was a beautiful walk along the water, passing places such as this Neptun sculpture:
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An old lighthouse:
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I arrived at the Palacio de la Magdalena, site of the event. It was built in the early 20th century as a summer residence for the royal family:
I spent most of Monday afternoon travelling back to Alicante, by train since there were no flights that day and I wanted to be back at the office on Tuesday morning.
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On Tuesday evening the choir in which my wife sings performed in a cultural centre in the old part of Alicante, and my daughter and I went to see her. On the way, I stopped to photograph this building, decorated in a way often seen in Barcelona, with a banner proclaiming “We want to sleep”, a protest against nightly noise in the street:
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Most of the recent performances I have attended have been in churches, with frankly speaking slightly boring music. This time was different; the music was more lively, with a traditional Spanish theme:
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There was even a guitarist and a flamenco dancer:
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The finale:
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On the way to the car park, I passed the Mercado Central. It has been a while since I have seen it at night:
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On Friday I walked over to the building that had been my home for 12 years to say goodbye to one of our trainees, Tara, who left us early (normally trainees stay with us until mid-September):
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I photographed Tara with two of her fellow trainees. Three delightful and highly intelligent young women, who undoubtedly have a bright future:
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Finally, on Friday afternoon, our male group of friends, Les 8 Salopards (“the 8 assholes”), went for our monthly lunch. This time we went to La Petite Alsace, a very authentic place owned by a couple from Alsace:
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And this was the main attraction, la choucroute, a classic dish from Alsace involving lots of pork in various forms, sauerkraut, potatoes and condiments such as mustard and horseradish. Perhaps not the ideal lunch for a hot summer day, but delicious nonetheless:
More Santander pictures can be seen here.