This was the last working week of the year, and so the customary festive activities were on. On Monday we had the office-wide Christmas party, and later in the week our reading club WeRead met for its end-of-year meeting, partly to discuss December’s book, and partly to have an end-of-year celebration, complete with Secret Santa gift exchange.
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The office party was held in the atrium of our office, starting at lunchtime on Monday. Here is João, the Executive Director of our office, talking to our head of communications before his opening speech:
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João speaking, not too long:
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The first item on the agenda was a performance by our office choir, who posed for me first:
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The choir sings, as always led by their American director Janet:
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I then wandered around in the crowd, picking out people that I like to photograph, starting with my colleague Stephanie from my old department:
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Eri in conversation:
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Tina, laughing heartily:
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Two French ladies, Claire and Bérengère:
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Paloma and Rodrigo:
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The servers did an admirable job navigating the crowd with their trays:
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A rather eye-catching tatoo:
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Tamara with silly headgear:
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On Tuesday evening our book club met a bar in the centre. While walking from the parking garage to the bar, I took in the city. Avenida Alfonso El Sabio is one of the city’s main thoroughfares:
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Mercado Central:
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Avenida de la Constitución, leading to the main theatre with the Christmas tree:
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A bar with a fitting name:
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I arrived at the bar where the book club was meeting. This month’s book was a novel by
German writer Wolfgang Herrndorf called “Tschick”, or “Why we took the car” in the English translation. I had actually read it in the original German and was very pleased with myself because of that. We sat around and discussed the book first:
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Since this was our little Christmas party, people came appropriately attired: Here, my Bulgarian colleague Yasen:
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My Dutch colleague Harrie, whose antlers look at bit under the weather:
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We have a new German member Karin:
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Then we moved on to the gift exchange. The rules are simple. Everyone brings a book from his or her collection, so no buying new books for this purpose. People pick at random, ensuring of course that they don’t pick a package that they themselves have contributed. Here, Eri is unwrapping her book, which as it happens, was from me:
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I gave her one of my favourite books, “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac:
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Maria posing with her present, together with Kari:
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Kari with his present:
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Ursula has a good time:
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Finally, Caroline with her present, fitting for a Dutch lady. Caroline is the founder of the book club:
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On Thursday after work I had an errand in the centre, so I went for a walk around Plaza Montañeta, site of Alicante’s main nativity display:
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Lights:
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Father and daughter:
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A face in the crowd:
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On Saturday I cycled to Busot and Jijona. In Busot, a woman was stretching to photograph the nativity display:
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This is what she was photographing:
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On the way to Jijona, I passed the impressive new solar plant:
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Some people complain about spoiling the landscape, but I find it much more important to save the planet. Furthermore, there was no landscape to be spoiled here; before the solar plant was built, it was just a shrubby, barren field. Now it is put to good use: