Musical rides

This week I did something that I had never done before: I was able to ride my bicycle to and from the office for 5 days in a row, Monday to Friday. Not only do we seldom enjoy such a fine weather for such a long time, it is also very rare for me to get over my weaker self and not to fall victim to any of the numerous excuses at my disposal. I am really proud, I must say.

My ride to the office runs along the Salzach river. For most of the trip I use the bike path, which is a reconverted tow-path, used hundreds of years ago by horses and oxen for towing upstream the boats that, after reaching the salt-mines in Hallein, would be loaded with salt and driven downstream again, to give Salzburg its name (“salt castle”) and to make its prince archbishops awfully rich.

The ride is some 17km long (one-way) and I spend a little less than an hour on it —I am not at all fast! The first two days, especially Tuesday, were quite hard because I got headwind and I was still tired after a hike on Sunday. I got a little obsessed with the cycle computer as well, trying not to do too bad for the statistics. But from Wednesday on, I tried to ignore the computer and simply enjoy the ride.

I realized that there is a kind of physical “in-the-zone” feeling, a delicate and wonderful equilibrium between the force you exert on the pedals and the resistance from wind, road and gravity (slope). That means, there is always a minimum amount of force you have to use in order to maintain a certain pace. The trick is to use just this minimum force, but not more. If you try to keep the pace uninterrupted, by switching gears accordingly, you may be able to run and run with minimal effort and without even realizing the distance.



The funny part is that this kind of being “in-the-zone” happens in your mind as well. At least, once I've achieved this equilibrium of forces, my mind seems to become hypnotized by the rhythmic movement and I stop thinking about riding at all and my awareness wanders to other places.

And in this state, invariably, music comes to my mind. I guess it's because the pedalling pace is kind of a metronome that you cannot miss. It's not that I think: Let's sing “Mary had a little lamb”! Songs and melodies simply pop up in my mind. They come and go, without warning, at times switching from one to the other in colourfully wild arrangements that I would certainly not be able to make myself.

This is a selection of some of the melodies that came into my mind during this week's bicycle rides. Interestingly enough, Johann Sebastian Bach seems to have got a stronghold in my brain:

• Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1, BWV 1007, by J. S. Bach
  


• Variation 1 a 1 Clav., Goldberg Variations BWV 988, by J. S. Bach
  


• Sinfonia No. 2, BWV 788, by J. S. Bach (listen here)


• Gabriel's Oboe, “The Mission” original soundtrack, by E. Morricone
  


• Another composition for two violins by J. S. Bach (I think!) which I can sing but I still haven't found out what it is 2nd movement (Largo) from the Concerto for 2 Violins, Strings and Continuo in D Minor, BWV 1043, by J. S. Bach (listen here)

But, without a doubt, this week's winner has been the Prelude from J. S. Bach's Lute Suite No. 4, BWV 1006. Enjoy!

Manhattanhenge

Summer solstice sunrise over Stonehenge
(photograph Andrew Dunn, 21 June 2005)

Twice a year the rays of the setting sun align perfectly with the east-west direction of the main street grid in Manhattan. This beautiful phenomenon was aptly called Manhattanhenge, in reference to the alignment of the sun on summer solstice over Stonehenge, by Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Today the second 2010 Manhattanhenge is due to happen. You can check out some photographs on flickr.

Maybe someday I'll be able to post my own...

Groundhog Day

Today is Groundhog Day.

As an interested party, we from this blog celebrate this beautiful tradition, imported to North America from Central Europe, where it does not exist any more, and we are curious about what do Phil and the others predict for this year: are we going to have an early spring or do we still have to go through six more weeks of winter?

Badewetter (*)

Our neighbours, Paca and Gertrud, taking a refreshing bath against the high temperatures.



Don't they look happy? ;)

^(*) lit. "bath weather", meaning something like beach weather, is what the local weatherpersons say when temperatures over 25°C are forecast.

Blogger of the month! :)

Die Murmeltierjahre im Land des Frühschoppens has been chosen Blog of the Month for March 2009 by Expat blog, the expatriate community.

You can read the interview here. Thanks Olivier, Julien and Benjamin! :)

Underwater

There is a small country in Micronesia that I feel especially bond to. The island nation of Palau consists of 8 major and some 250 minor islands, has less than 20000 inhabitants and its highest point is less than 250 meters.


(picture: lonely planet images)

It is not difficult to imagine how do Palauans (and most of the islanders in the world) feel about ice melting on the Poles and the accelerating sea level rise associated. Many countries, like Palau, are going to see their coastlines dramatically affected. Other nations will simply cease to exist.

That's why Palau and some other small islands are willing to present a resolution calling on the UN Security Council to address climate change as a pressing threat to international peace and security. Avaaz, an international NGO, started raising signatures to help support these small islands. I believe the first step to solve a problem, maybe the most important one, is to realize that we have a problem.


(picture: woody1778a)

Many years ago my father received a post offer to buy a special edition of all stamps of the Republic of Palau, which was being offered to people bearing this name around the world. He did not take the offer at the time, although he lamented not having done so afterwards.

I always thought maybe some day I would receive such an offer, too. I really hope that it is not too late for Palau and for all threatened small islands around the world.

Schadenfreude

Campeones... Campeones... Oé!, oé!, oé!

Yes, Spain won the Euro2008 yesterday. I am no football fan, but I like justice and (I heard that) Spain played very well during the whole thing, and that she deserved to win. Good so.

I would like to remark three facts that I observed:

(i) two very different concepts are usually mixed up outside Spain: Olé is a salute that the public does on a bullfight when the torero makes a beautiful figure. The howl to cheer for your team is NOT Olé!, olé!, olé!, but Oé!, oé!, oé!, without "l".

(ii) it is interesting how a success of the national team is automatically transferred to all nationals of the winning country. Even though I did absolutely nothing, I have been ten times complimented on the Spanish triumph. Winners are popular.

(iii) even more interestingly, Austrians seem to be really happy with the result of the match yesterday. But I guess it's not only because of a special sympathy they have for Spain, but also, on the negative, because of who did Spain beat. I guess a certain Schadenfreude (today's favourite word) was behind the horn concert yesterday... ;)

Euro-impressions

How ya' doing? ;)


Don't you feel much safer now?


Swedish hats...


...and Russian and Greek ones!


What is that on his head?


Going in


Looking down


I swear it's the last time I bring granny to the fan zone!


I wasn't the only one...

Heppy Birsday (*)

One year ago I started my Murmeltierjahre adventure. After 65 posts, I must say that blogging has changed my life. Maybe not in a profound, crucial way, but still, very often I discover myself thinking "public", thinking about an audience, thinking how could I explain this or that, what picture shall transmit best my feelings or my points.

Blogging in English has always been a real challenge to my skills. As I already told, I did not want to lose my English skills, and having so few chance to practise, Die Murmeltierjahre has been a really cool way to think in English. I always try to write English first and then translate (or rewrite) in Spanish.

I would like to thank you, yes, you that are reading these words, because without you blogging would make no sense and would be no fun. Thanks for being there and welcome to this second Murmeltierjahre season, now with a more personal layout, which I hope you'll like!



(*) German speakers use to have a lot of trouble with this TH sound (as in birTHday). It's funny to hear them sing "heppy birSday to you, heppy birSday to you, ..." ;)

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.

Looking at the pointing finger

"It is said that when someone points to something only dummies look at the pointing finger. But sometimes, to look at the pointing finger allows us seeing the unexpected or simply discovering the ordinary under new points of view.

Toni Palau (Tarragona, 1975) started to look at the pointing finger some years ago in Austria. Through a camera lens."



Today Mateo, from DIVINOTINTO, the one and only Spanish bodega in Salzburg, published my photo exhibition online. You may visit it here, and also my flickr album here. And, beginning on March 25th, you may visit it on site, along with good wine and conversation.

I hope you like it! :)

Driving home for Xmas...

Well, actually we didn't drive, we flew home. But the spirit is the same as in the song, because we started our travel (almost our journey!) yesterday in the morning and we arrived home at night. But it's really nice to meet (again or, in some cases, for the first time in person!) with those who have been supporting me all the time.

I am quite excited about these Xmas! :)

The importance of words

If there is something I like about Austrians is their sincerity and how do they say stuff in a straight way. For good and for bad, they do not talk in roundabouts. Which is something quite nice, because understanding certain euphemisms in a foreign language is no easy job. Like the time I was at the doctor and the nurse asked me if I could make a Hahn (which may mean rooster, tap or valve). Even though I said yes without a doubt, used as I am to understanding things after a little delay, I guess my face might have been quite explicit, because until she had some mercy and pronounced the word Urin I did not realise that she was asking me for an urine test.



But I am loosing my focus. I was saying that Austrians do not like roundabouts and tend to call a a spade a spade. As an example, the piece of news that I read yesterday about the doormen of one of the most poshy locations in Salzburg, who did not let in an Iranian and a Bolivian because, using their own words, "there were already too many foreigners inside." No roundabouts. No evasive answers. And no shame, I would point out.

The arrest of an alleged group of Islamist terrorists in Vienna (who were, in fact, nothing but three morons that used the Internet to utter threats and, allegedly, could have got some information about what would they have to do in the event of having to get themselves some explosives) has been all too good for some critical voices with Islam and its presence at the heart of Europe. The usual hatemongers appeared on the media right away: Jörg Haider, from his Carinthian fief, championing a veto on headscarves and minarets, and HC Strache, shielded by the intellectual elite in Brigittenau, picketing the building of an Islamic cultural centre. The novelty this time is that they come along with some other characters, who do not lean so much to the right, like Lower Austria's Landeshauptmann (something like the head of the provincial government), Erwin Pröll, a couple of weeks ago.



There is no need to erect a mosque in Lower Austria, stated the guy, because "minarets are foreign (etwas Artfremdes). And, in the long run, foreign does no good to a culture." And let us stop here for a moment to weigh the word choice. It is difficult to translate the word Artfremd. It might be something alien, something foreign. This word is by no means new and has some quite negative connotations. It was used, along with entartet (degenerate, depraved) and ungesund (unhealthy, noxious), to refer to the work of Jewish artists. In 1937 the Entartete Kunst (degenerate art) exhibition opened in Munich, featuring over 650 paintings, sculptures, prints and books by modern artists like Oskar Kokoschka, Marc Chagall, Otto Dix or Emil Nolde, selected by the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda among the 16000 confiscated by the Nazis. The exhibition wanted to horrify the visitors with the depravation of Jewish art. Interestingly enough, it has been the most successful modern art exhibition in Germany ever since, with more than 2 million visitors.

Mr. Pröll might have chosen fremdartig (exotic, alien, unfamiliar), which sounds far less harmful than artfremd. Although I have read that he also likes to use Überfremdung, a word meaning something like "foreign infiltration", which is one of the favourite words of the right wing extremism, and was voted Faux-pas Word of the Year (Unwort des Jahres) in 1993 by the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (Society for the German Language).



Setting the word choice aside, I think claiming that foreign does no good to a culture is very sad and shows an alarming simple-mindedness. How would be Lower Austria today, had the "foreign" Celtic and Roman people not come? But I guess that my buddy Pröll, seeing how extended that profound ignorance that identifies Islam with terrorism is, does nothing but catching a cheap argumentation train. With quite undesirable travel companions, might I say.

Maybe it is the need to feel themselves members of a group, the need to feel special, what drives those not-any-more-teenagers to believe that shouting Allah Akhbar before pushing that little button will bring them into Paradise... Maybe we all have this need to belong to a group, to feel special.



From my side, I do feel quite special when I realize, for example, that the Spanish word zanahoria bears no resemblance to any other language whatsoever (neither the English carrot, nor the German Karotte or Möhre, nor the Italian carota, nor the French carotte, nor the Catalan pastanaga, nor the Occitan pastenaga, nor the Greek καρότο), except perhaps the Portuguese cenoura. When I realize that "Spain is different", and probably the most admired here Spanish spiritedness, have their roots in Al-Andalus and in Islam. When I listen to the lively phone conversation of that friendly man wearing a turban who sometimes shares the bus with me on the way back home and I realize that, if I don't pay much attention to the words but only to the melody, he could be perfectly taken for someone from Málaga or Córdoba.

And on realizing all that, I feel really proud of that Moorish DNA, of that Maghreb and Arabic heritage that we Spaniards have in our blood, an old and wise heritage that, were we able to listen to it, would tell us its story. Our History.