Sunday, May 10, 2009

When to sleep?

An airplane is like a catapult.
Because it brings a person quickly from one situation to the next.
In this particular case, from Amsterdam, the Netherlands to Barcelona in Spain.

After the two hour flight is over, a new country, culture, language and tradition is entered.

A two-hour flight that was not experienced as such.
This because of the man who was the neighbour.
He was talkative.
In fact, he started talking once inside the plane in Amsterdam until it came to a complete standstill in Barcelona.
He worked for a company that makes machines for packing products and that of course is a fascinating subject.
An intelligent person can listen to those stories for hours and hours.
To die of boredom.

While a certain tiredness, or maybe better called exhaustion, was prepared to express itself during the flight in the form of a good nap.
Because the days and nights in Amsterdam had been exhausting with just a little sleep.
Because of many meetings, talking and emotions.

But it was not to be to rest the head for two hours and when the details of the machines that can pack pharmaceutical products had ended it was explained that the father had been a dairy farmer all his life.
And how the sons had refused to continue to take care and milk the 70 cows.
What is so interesting about that, a sane person may ask.

It is all matter of how one looks at things.
This was a flight of only two hours.
To calm down and not get over irritated by the man, it was imagined that he was the neighbour on a 12-hour flight from London to Sydney.
That would have resulted in a murder.
Strangled with the life jacket.

From the Barcelona airport to the harbour.
The section where the cruise ships dock.
Because the good friend has a job managing the thousand and thousands of tourists who come to visit Barcelona by cruiser.
Huge ships that look like horizontal apartment buildings.
So high that it is a miracle they don’t fall over.

Each cruise ship lodges approximately 3 to 5.000 persons.
And there were in the harbour of Barcelona about 6 of those monsters.
All those tourists are transported by buses and taxis to the city of Barcelona.
Not to shop anymore because even the cruise ship tourist limits spending these hardship economic times.
They go to visit buildings and churches.
Specific areas of the town.
Or to a specially organized Flamengo dancing demonstration.

The world of the cruise ship traveller is very specific.
Rather different compared to life in the Fuso Szulc.

The evening and night in Barcelona was intense, warm and most enjoyable.
The friends getting together in a fabulous Japanese restaurant laughing and talking.
Finding eventually a bed to touch the sheets just for a few hours.

Today is the bus trip to Cadaques.
Returning to the village at the Spanish east coast with which a connection is alive since 1990.
The plan is to make a long walk in the mountains surrounding the village, to lay down in the sun and finally catch some sleep.



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