Silver

Silver powder on the branch maze in front of my balcony. Delicate and yet so cold. Tempting but untouchable.

Gold for cyanide

As you wrote that "business is business" I remembered a controversial project that came back into these days' media.
It's about allowing a Canadian company to extract the gold in a certain area using cyanide. The place where this should happen was very wild and savage mining was practiced there for a long time. There are historical (even Roman) vestiges too, but despite having these gold reservoirs, it's always been a very poor area. The strong public reactions had kept the project still for a while, but now it seems new interests- political ones- will revive it. Of course, the environment will suffer for a long time, and most of the population was already forced to move away.
I am too tired to write more, and it's too complicated. Here is some more data.
I think not everything should be for sale. Buildings -yes, but not places nor nature.

Salamanca 2

Salamanca is a university town.

No More Horse's Tail

There are 4 statues in front of the University: 3 belong to some cultural personalities and one is Michael the Brave, the first ruler who achieved the union of all 3 Romanian provinces, in 1600, on his horse.
For us, his horse, more precisely its tail, is a milestone, a cardinal point. :)
"The horse's tail" is a place any dweller of the town knows, a famous meeting point and also a fancy place with shops etc. Well, not the tail, but the sidewalk it points to.
But the statues are taken down for a while, in order to build a big underground parking lot.
So, for some time, this famous and familiar place will be out of our conversations.

Salamanca

Where I was born

Curtea-de-Arges

I'm not particularly fond of churches, except for the old wooden ones and a few monasteries in the North. But this is also one I like- it's the monastery in the legend of Manole, the mason who walled his wife in the foundation in order to prevent it from crushing every night.
We went there on a school trip at the end of November. Besides the beauty of the building itself, I like the story too. Because even if it's sad, it's true that creation often takes a toll. And I like the end, also.
I hope the Spanish translation is not awful!

Windows

There is such a great variety of windows in town that a map of the citizens could be done to understand the people who live behind them. some of them belong to the oldest lodgings, others are modern installations and there are also re-cycled uses. Like the ones over San Juan, an old house that became a hotel.

Morning joke.

See the storks on the spires? They are living hard times this year. Winter's not being so mild as they were used to. Either they came back too early or they never left. But this morning they woke up to another snowy cold day. Nothing to do with temperatures in Bucharest, but cold, anyway for the big birds.

However, there's always somebody who makes a joke of the situation. They may not know it but these small temporary creations become the joy of the morning.

Beyond the window

Different moments taken from the inside. But curiosities may not be the real world. Guess what it is. It's no teither funny or nice, but it is good from the point of view of photography.

White and Silent World

Minus 21 this morning here, and minus 34 in the Northern part of the country. The streets are almost deserted and I could hardly breath as I went out for just one minute. But I have to go to school. The sky is gray and seems lower than usually, heavy and dense.
The photos are my son's. I would never go out at night all the way to Cismigiu, on such a weather, just to take pictures, but he's young. The last one is my favourite.

Sevilla

You are about to know a completely different part of Spain, where Muslim influence is the best heritage, like this tower. La Giralda.

Bells, a Christian architectonic element to call to prayer, show today's use as part of the Cathedral. Despite the change, one can still see the brick decoration on the walls.

And this is parat of the photo in the etwinning page: La Plaza de España, built for the Iberoamerican Exhibition in 1929. This picture was taken 6 years ago in October. We were there for Halloween. Nice weather then, it could be rainy and cool in February.
I hope you enjoy your stay in Sevilla.

A Story about a Story

Twenty-some years ago, one of our children literature authors wrote a story meant to present the structure of the calendar in a manner close to our traditional tales.
In this story, the year was a king desperately trying to have a son and heir for his crown. For this, he successively married four women: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, but, unfortunately, each of them only gave birth to 3 daughters: the months.
The writer went to a publishing house, but they rejected the story because it was about a king and, on top of all, according to the civil law, only tree successive marriages were legal in that time. So, it was not politically correct.
After 1989, she tried to have it published again. This time, she was asked to make it more modern, by adding mentions of the most important events in our recent history for each month, including the Revolution. She did that, had the new version published, but she still was not happy.
After a while, she had a proposal for having it published in Japan. Under new conditions: only two seasons, to match the climate, and allusions to Japanese traditional stories. She made the changes, delivered the new version and never heard of it.
She still hopes to have her original version published: the one she wrote thinking of our old tales.
I saw this as a symbol or a symptom. In this cold world (and I'm not referring to the minus 15 degrees we had an hour ago), anything and anyone can be used somehow-even a story for small kids. And by all means, don't tell me it's normal!

Ruins

Going down to school we must waslk past this ruined house. Watching carefully inside one can still feel the inhabitants' presence, their small pieces of furniture, the spaces for rooms. You said once that your new house didn't want you there. Is it true that ruins get soaked with people's trace?
What may Haiti citizens be feeling when watching what remains of their houses?

Snow Story

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Nature and Human Activity

http://blog.eun.org/avila/

Watching the devastation, suffering, death and poverty in Haiti after the earthquake I couldn't stop thinking about our degree of guiltiness. Nature is pitiless but human activity and ambition are also to blame: wild deforestation, insane construction, corruption.
This is why I remembered the first blog I started for the project Nature and Human Activity. Students, in their own way, studied our influence on environment. And here we are, facing one of the greatest catastrophes for the whole community.
What we do has consequences! Had our students learnt only this idea when they finished school, we could be proud of them!
Or not?

Tender is the snow

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Roads, villages, towns, airports, streets, schools stopped by the tenderness of snow. Were it not so dangerous it would be one of the world wonders.

Reaction

People react in strange ways. Until a week ago, nobody wanted to get the swine flu vaccine. Even the doctors protested against it and refused to have it.
Less than a week ago, a TV actor died because of the flu. And now, it's the frenzy. This week-end, people have waited in line, night and day, to have the shot. The media have stopped talking about the alleged side effects and started talking about the insufficient number of doses. Hospitals have been working at this during the night, some of the doctors stayed at work for days in a row.
To what extent is the way we act the result of the moment and of the external influences? And is there any room left for our own convictions and judgement?

And snow finally reached us

It's never too late for snow. I would have liked it for the 1st January to go walking in the fields, but it arrived today.

To cover and water the path and the almond trees.

To draw round lines on the walls and the branches.

To finally create this strange faulty photo from the car coming back from Valladolid.

Hopefully, this snow brings luckier times.

2010 Wishes Tree

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A New Year

Not the traditional way to start a New year, but it won't be a common year either. Hard situations will have to be faced and perhaps, a little bit of this warm light will be needed.
May it not be the same for everybody.