The main event in the last week of November was Thanksgiving. Even though we moved from the US 30 years ago, my wife insists on putting on a full Thanksgiving dinner for our Spanish friends, and to do so on the actual Thanksgiving Day even though it is just an ordinary working day here. Late November also marks the start of the Christmas season in earnest, and nativity scenes and decorations are appearing everywhere. So a lot of photos of Alicante as well.
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On Sunday afternoon I drove to the centre to have a look at the huge nativity scene that is installed every year on the square in front of Alicante’s city hall. While walking from my car to city hall, I passed the Puerta del Mar and the Pigeon Man:
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Urban picnic:
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The seafront promenade is full of vendors offering fake football shirts for sale. A bit strange that the police does not clamp down more than they do, as it is a strange sight in the city which houses EU’s main intellectual property agency:
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I reached the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. The huge belén was there, to be officially inaugurated that evening:
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I think I have eye contact here:
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Along the edges of the square, the weekly antiques market was winding down:
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Conveniently, there are also 3 bars on the edges of the square:
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On Tuesday, our department had lunch in the restaurant at the office. Two of the guys in the department, Rodrigo and Damian, have recently been converted from time-limited to indefinite contract, and to celebrate it they invited the rest of us for lunch:
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We gave them custom-made t-shirts:
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My assistant Silvia:
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In the evening, we had the monthly meeting of our book club at a bar in the centre, so I took advantage of the opportunity to go for a walk beforehand to look at the decorations. Avenida de la Constitución:
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Rambla de Méndez Núñez:
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Plaza Ruperto Chapí, in front of Alicante’s main theatre:
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Plaza Montañeta always sees a lot of selfie and portrait action:
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Finally, I reached the Palmito bar where the book club was meeting. This month’s book was a Kenyan novel, The River Between by Ngugi wa Thiong’o:
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Two of our trainees who have joined the club. Victor is from Kenya (he was the one who chose the book of the month) while Charline is from Belgium. Newcomers always get to choose a book right after joining, so she got to choose our book for December:
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Then Thanksgiving Thursday arrived. I came home from work around 6:30 as I usually do, by which time the preparations were well advanced. My wife had spent most of the day working on the dinner. This being Spain, we had told our guests to come at 9:30, with the idea to sit down to eat around 10:30. Of course, the main ingredient was the turkey (our friends call the day “la fiesta de pavo”):
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Besides the turkey, there was the usual table of nibbles for the pre-dinner drinks:
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Aurora and Mati, chatting:
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Aurora and my wife, chatting:
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As usual, Iñaki was in charge of the champagne:
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Then it was time to sit down for dinner, but first Iñaki makes a group selfie:
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The two stars of the evening, my wife and the turkey:
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On Friday, I stopped by city hall on my way home from work to see the big nativity scene at night, illuminated in various colours:
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The city hall itself was of course also decorated:
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Inside the city hall there is a nativity display of more normal size:
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There is also a statue by Dalí inside city hall:
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A happy selfie:
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Mochi is now living with my daughter in Barcelona, so I do not walk to the beach every morning as I do when he is here, but on Saturday morning I did. It was a beautiful morning, and I really enjoyed the morning light, starting with the street on which I live:
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Along the beach road:
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Morning run:
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Four-way conversation:
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The wooden walkway is removed for the winter:
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Later in the day, I cycled to Aigues and Busot. In Aigues there are a lot of decorations like this one in front of people’s houses. It is a village with an artistic bent:
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In Busot there were more standard decorations next to the church, but they looked nice in contre-jour:
