1995 Gran Canaria: How I Spend My Days

I awake when the sun shines through the open windows onto my sleeping bag. As I mentioned yesterday, I then block the sun with a small throw pillow that I lean against the porch railing. That happens about 0830. I can usually sleep until 1000. The mornings are accompanied by the birds in the two aviaries downstairs by the pool, cool breezes blowing from the east, and the sounds of early-morning fitness swimmers.

The second time I awaken I turn, put my feet on the floor, and, leaning back, pull up the blinds that cover the bed. Standing up, I move the pillow to the other side of the bed and drag my sleeping bag behind me as I trudge into the living room, where I lay it out to air, away from the harsh tropical sunlight.

In three steps I'm between the refrigerator and the coffee maker. I pour water from the 8-liter container into the coffee maker, up to the line marked '4'. (Nobody - even the locals, it seems - drinks the water. It's fine for washing clothes and dishes, showering, and brushing ones teeth, but not for drinking.) From the freezer I take pre-ground Edschuco coffee and spoon it into a paper filter. I plug it in and wander to the bathroom for a hot shower.

To make space for the small clothes-washing machine Oma replaced the full-sized bathtub with a half-sized one that's useless for bathing. The shower is fine, though. (I had to pick the corrosion from the holes on the first day I used the shower; seven months of non-use had allowed the metal to mostly fill the holes.) By the time I'm finished and dried off I can smell the coffee browing in the "kitchen".

Back on the porch, I throw on a pair of shorts, sandals, and an button-front shirt and head for the door, to the supermercado downstairs. Each day I pick up fresh fruit and vegetables for breakfast and my work-time thereafter. Today I pick up an onion, two tomatoes, and an avocado. Going inside I get two poppy-seed rolls (baked a few hours earlier) and 50 grams of cheese, sliced into lonches.

Milk is packaged in these great cardboard boxes that don't require refrigeration until opened. Why in hell don't we have this at home? The amount of electricity for refrigeration this saves must be collosal; talk about ecological awareness. This trip I'm able to get non-fat milk; during previous trips I've had to readjust to full-octane milk (which to my palette tastes like heavy cream). There's also something labelled "Fresh Canarian Milk", which seems to be milk taken from the cows last night and rushed into the stores. I tasted it, but I must confess that I can't tell the difference.

On the way out I peruse the headlines of newspapers and magazines; usually the Spanish ones since English, German, French, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Russian papers won't arrive for a while yet (if they arrive at all on any given day). That usually takes less than a minute. Then I'm trying to keep my knees high as I bounce up the stairs to the fourth floor. I open the door, put the food on the kitchen counter, turn on the radio, and return.

The coffee, completely brewed, is by now good and ready for drinking. I pour a bit of milk into a cup, add coffee, cut the tomato and onion and avocado onto a plate, season with pepper, and enjoy. Or perhaps I'll eat the rolls and cheese, and leave the veggies for later. Or perhaps I'll just have a bowl of muesli cereal, and leave everything else for later. Whatever I choose, I eat it on the porch, enjoying the sun rising above the water and buildings, turing the water a bright gold color.

By now it's 1100, and I'm ready to start "real work". I drag my PowerBook from the floor under the bed (where it spends the evenings) and put it on my work table. I plug it in, flip up the screen, and power it up. Since I'm working on a book, I start by looking at where I left off the day before, reading through that section in the proposed table of contents, and peering at my working notes. Then I square my shoulders, imagine I'm explaining the subject to a special someone I know, and begin. I typically work four hours, until 1500. Then I get up, stretch, and either go for a quick walk or take my PowerBook downstairs to the restaurant downstairs, where I continue writing with a caffè con leche at my right elbow. At some time between 1630 and 1730 I've used up the battery, and I go back upstairs to recharge the battery and me.

I've now been writing, thinking about writing, or thinking about what I've written for six hours. I'm more exhausted than if I was hiking in Yosemite. Taking advantage of the local custom of siesta, I curl up in bed and nap from 1800 to 1900, when I'm woken by my Newton.

At other times I'll go out for a run along the beach, or through the dunes (very hard work), or up and down some of the amazingly long stairways that overlook the beach. On those days I'm out for about an hour and a half, and I return and shower by 1900.

The phone rates having just dropped, are now less exhorbinant. I put my PowerBook back on the table, attach my modem, and connect (things willing) to my ISP in Zaragosa, Spain. I retrieve email. If I have any replies that I've composed during the day I send them now. 1900 GMT (or UCT, Universal Coordinated Time) is 1100 Pacific Time.

PowerBook under my arm, I walk downstairs to the restaurant, sit at "my" table, and spend a few minutes speaking with Gisela, Rainer Joseph, and Poul. (I'll include them on another day's tour.) I eat a fine dinner while reading and replying to email, interrupted occasionally by Rainer, who is always ready for some conversation. It's a welcome interruption. (You may have noticed that I have far less human contact on this phase of my trip than I did in Eivissa.)

By 2000 I'm finished with dinner. There are several things I can do:

Spend more time in the restaurant, visiting with Gisela and Rainer as the remaining guests leave. Then at 1000 we have a beer. Then we talk some more.
Go to The Shamrock Club and watch a newly-made friend sing and play the gituar, sometimes with his girlfriend. I'll introduce you to Eric (and "Ray") another day.
Go to the café and watch a group of local musicians (with whom I've become rather good friends) play for the tourists. I'll introduce you to them another day.
Go for a moon-lit wark on the dunes, by the water.
Go upstairs and read and reply to more email.
Go upstairs and read another "Newton book" (about which I've already held court).
Go upstairs and work on the web pages of clients. (I'm pretty pleased to be getting more and more work from folks who want on-going web work and don't care what hemisphere I'm in at the moment.)
Go upstairs and work on these web pages. That entails working with the images that I've downloaded from my Apple QuickTake 100, assembling collages, making thumbnails, writing pages of text, putting together the image pointers, and running the whole shebang through Netscape (to make sure you see what I had in my mind's eye).

This is, of course, not the daily activities of someone on vacation. Writing a book in such a nice place entails challenges all its own. When Oma arrives I'm sure I'll be spending more time sight-seeing. I'll take my QuickTake (and you) along with me.

Have you found errors nontrivial or marginal, factual, analytical and illogical, arithmetical, temporal, or even typographical? Please let me know; drop me email. Thanks!

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