Books on the tramp

If there is a day when I miss being in Catalonia it is April the 23rd, Diada de Sant Jordi and World Book Day. It is an old Catalan tradition to give a rose and a book to the loved one. Last Wednesday I longed all day for the smell of the roses and the never ending bookseller stands all over La Rambla.

It is World Book Day because Miguel de Cervantes died on April 23rd 1616, and so did William Shakespeare (funnily enough, though, and thanks to the late British adoption of the Gregorian calendar, they died ten days apart!). Garcilaso de la Vega died on an April 23rd, and Shakespeare himself was born on a 23rd April, too, so everything pointed to this day.

And thinking of books, I remembered I wanted to tell you about BookCrossing. Are you ready to enter the biggest library in the world? Do you enjoy reading? Would you like to do it for free? Are you up to have some fun without leaving your city? Take a look at their website!

I love such crazy ideas, those initiatives that are based exclusively in people's good will and brotherhood. And though they work. And they make me regain faith in the future of mankind every day. Last week we catched two new books. Someone released them just on our supermarket's windowsill. That easy.



Plus, Mar gave me a rose and a new book for the Diada, and I gave a rose and a book to her. We've been doing so every year since we are here. My parents told me that they have another book for me, too.

So, I guess I have some homework to do now.

Einst war alles besser...

Stuff

I like to carry all my stuff around in a bag (not a purse, a man's bag). Apart of my keys and my wallet, there are some very important things that I (almost) always carry around with me.

A book. One of the great things of commuting by bus is that I have time to read. I started doing so as I was living in Barcelona, where I had more than one hour one-way commute time (ah, the big city). The bus trip to Hallein does not last for that long (around 30 minutes) but it's quite OK too. I've never considered commute time as lost. I always try to read books that fit into my bag. Currently I read "The Spanish Labyrinth" by Gerald Brenan.

A Moleskine, because you never know when are the Muses going to smile to you, so you better be prepared. In fact, most of the posts on Die Murmeltierjahre im Land des Frühschoppens have been conceived on the ruled pages of a Moleskine.



A pen. Totally necessary to fulfill the life purpose of the Moleskine.

After adopting our third camera, I kept thinking about what I wrote: "... I missed a small camera to carry around ever since ...", and I realized that I wasn't really taking advantage of our slim Nikonsita. So I decided to extend my stuff with just one more item: Nikonsita comes with me everyday, because a hobby photographer's eye never sleeps.





Or maybe just because it's fun to experiment!



PS: I need to go get myself another Moleskine! :)

Egging around