Sunday 20th October

After a long lie-in and a leisurely breakfast, I went and paid €10 for the Internet for 3 days. O2 will let me roam here, but it only offers 15mb data for that. 15mb? I’m not sure that’s enough even just for a bit of online research, this blog, and twitter. The Internet will be useful to find information about travel, and use Tripadvisor for restaurant reviews. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.
I’ve already managed to use it to save some money, by finding out about the train to Barcelona, which is seemingly cheaper and faster than the buses we’ve seen advertised, oddly.
And the bus company has an app with all the times, prices, etc. to different locations. That’s another reason why the Internet is absolutely required. And not just because I can’t go for a few days without it.

Noisy trees

We went for a walk around Salou again, and while out, heard a lot of noise that sounded like birds. But unusual-sounding birds, going absolutely crazy about something.
It’s times like this I’m happy I have a camera which might not have the clarity of a digital SLR, or be particularly compact, but it does have a pretty good zoom.

Upon closer inspection, right up there at the top of a tall palm tree,
all the noise was coming from these little guys. Parakeets?

How colourful!

While we were watching them, there was noise in some other nearby trees. I assumed some had flown from one tree to the other, but it was more joining them. And then they all flew off.

I thought that would be the end of it, but they did a circular lap of the visible sky, and as they flew past more palm trees, more hidden birds took off from those trees and joined the display, like a mini murmuration, but with these fantastical green things, instead of starlings.

My girlfriend thinks they were busy eating the dates growing on the palm trees. Maybe that’s what I need in my garden back home, to entice some birds more interesting than pigeons.

Fountains

Mediterranean countries love their fountains, don’t they.
These diagonal ones did a nice switching display. All on, then every other one would stop, then they’d swap the on and off ones, and so on. Some interesting patterns.

And then these next ones had this danger walkway through the middle. They were set to run continuously, until you put a foot on a pressure pad at either end of the bridge, at which point the lower ones would stop so you could walk through.

But how long do they stop for? Long enough for you to run through? To walk through?
Nice to see a bit of danger added to something as simple as a bridge.
While I was stood there, some kids stepped on the pressure pad the other side, then walked through. The fountains didn’t stop and they were absolutely drenched. They didn’t seem remotely bothered. They were just enjoying getting wet at (well, near) the beach

Cambrils

There’s somewhere called Cambrils nearby, and so we decided to walk to it. It doesn’t look that far on the map, and I guess it wasn’t really.
However, it wasn’t worth the walk. The beach is more shingly, and more seaweedy. Just after the equivalent of a “You are now entering Cambrils” sign, there was a load of illegal street traders selling fake sunglasses, Adidas tshirts, bags and watches. It had a much more run-down unloved feel, and apartment blocks that were so dreary we weren’t sure if they were even open. A few we were convinced were closed, suddenly had residents coming/going.
When we were searching for this holiday, Cambrils is one of the other places we considered staying. So that was lucky.

We didn’t spend long there (and I didn’t take any pictures) before returning to our apartment. I came into the kitchen while my girlfriend was making a cup of tea, and my shadow spooked another lizard! It ran off somewhere, and we left the room and closed the door.
After dinner, my girlfriend decided we needed to remove the kitchen lizard. Not wanting to continue our unfortunate run of lizard murder, she talked me into removing it ourselves. So after we had located it, with a few attempts, a bit of her picking it up with the dustpan, and it jumping out, her picking it up again, etc., she got it to sit calmly in a mop bucket. I erm…well…I umm.. opened all the doors, while she transferred it outside onto the balcony. She then couldn’t get it to come out the mop bucket, so we left the bucket out there. It was gone the morning after (the lizard, not the bucket).
I’ll remove the next lizard, definitely.

We ate out at an Italian restaurant tonight. I quite liked the music that was playing so tried to Shazam it. However, with no Internet access, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Shazam can now cache a recording – so record now, and then check later when I have Internet. Good news.
If you were wondering, the music was called Eastend, and it’s by Stargazer. It’s porno jazz, basically.

My girlfriend lasted 2 days without one, but today she finally bought a guidebook. She’s not happy with her purchase, but there seemed to be limited ones available. It’s actually the Timeout guide to Barcelona as she couldn’t find a guide to Salou anywhere. We’re planning to visit Barcelona anyway, but there’s too much about drinking and shopping, and not enough about places to visit, historical stuff, travel information, etc.