{"id":3127,"date":"2020-12-31T21:11:01","date_gmt":"2020-12-31T20:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=3127"},"modified":"2020-12-31T22:06:23","modified_gmt":"2020-12-31T21:06:23","slug":"week-52-christmas-in-alicante","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=3127","title":{"rendered":"Week 52: Christmas in Alicante"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday was my last day at the office in 2020, and the latter part of the week was of course marked by Christmas. Last year our family was complete–our son and daughter-in-law had come over from New Jersey; this year we were just the three of us–my wife, me and our daughter–and no meetings with friends during Christmas itself, although we did have our usual Sunday lunch with friends. <\/p>\n

52_1<\/strong>
\nThe week started on Sunday with my usual bike ride. In Busot, I happened upon a Christmas performance for children:
\n\"1160846\"<\/p>\n

52_2<\/strong>
\nAfter assuring the police officer who was there to make sure everyone complied with corona rules that I was not going to join the crowd and that in any event I had a mask in my handlebar bag, I took a few pictures and rode home:
\n\"1160849\"<\/p>\n

52_3<\/strong>
\nLater on Sunday, our friends Eliot and Assumpta came for lunch. As always, they brought some goodies to eat, in this case some cecina<\/em>, a kind of smoked ham, but made of beef, not pork:
\n\"DSF8091\"<\/p>\n

52_4<\/strong>
\nThe we got down to business. My wife had prepared a lunch reflecting my Polish heritage and our years of living in Belgium. So we started with some moules<\/em>:
\n\"R006290\"<\/p>\n

52_5<\/strong>
\nThis was followed by two very traditional Polish dishes. First, go\u00c5\u201a\u00c4\u2026bki<\/em> (“little pigeons”, a completely non-sensical name), cabbage leaves with meat or vegetarian “meat” inside:
\n\"R006287\"<\/p>\n

52_6<\/strong>
\nAnd then pierogi<\/em>, a kind of dumpling but fried with onion, with potato and farmers cheese inside:
\n\"R006291\"<\/p>\n

52_7<\/strong>
\nThis is the tool used for shaping the dough for the pierogi:
\n\"R006296\"<\/p>\n

52_8<\/strong>
\nOf course, the cute Balu came too:
\n\"DSF8089\"<\/p>\n

52_9<\/strong>
\nAfter lunch, we took him for a walk:
\n\"DSF8098\"<\/p>\n

52_10<\/strong>
\nWe passed a house with somewhat confused holiday decorations:
\n\"DSF8099\"<\/p>\n

52_11<\/strong>
\nAfter the walk, Balu was thirsty:
\n\"DSF8103\"<\/p>\n

52_12<\/strong>
\nMonday was winter solstice, and I wanted to take some pictures of the sunset. I stopped at Alicante harbour on my way home from work, but I did not really get any sunset views. However, I did get a rare look at the commercial harbour:
\n\"DSF8105\"<\/p>\n

52_13<\/strong>
\nThe fish auction house and a small boat. Alicante is the biggest city around here, but as a fishing port, smaller towns like Santa Pola to the south and Villajoyosa to the north are more important:
\n\"DSF8111\"<\/p>\n

52_14<\/strong>
\nOn Tuesday morning, I photographed the first sunrise after the solstice:
\n\"1160851\"<\/p>\n

52_15<\/strong>
\nLater in the day, I went Christmas shopping with my daughter, and we had lunch at a Greek restaurant in the centre:
\n\"DSF8112\"<\/p>\n

52_16<\/strong>
\nShe had a moussaka:
\n\"DSF8114\"<\/p>\n

52_17<\/strong>
\nWhile I had a goat burger:
\n\"DSF8115\"<\/p>\n

52_18<\/strong>
\nWhile walking around after lunch, I noticed some new street art, various colourful installations. Here, cars:
\n\"DSF8116\"<\/p>\n

52_19<\/strong>
\nYellow ducks on Plaza Canalejas:
\n\"DSF8159\"<\/p>\n

52_20<\/strong>
\nThe little boy is impressed:
\n\"DSF8161\"<\/p>\n

52_21<\/strong>
\nOn Wednesday morning I drove a few km north, to the centre of El Campello, to enjoy the sunrise there. I parked and walked down to the beach on a walkway among apartment buildings:
\n\"DSF8118\"<\/p>\n

52_22<\/strong>
\nThe path took me to the dog beach; I remember taking Cheeta there, the last time in 2016:
\n\"DSF8126\"<\/p>\n

52_23<\/strong>
\nSome rowers out practicing in the dawn light:
\n\"DSF8132\"<\/p>\n

52_24<\/strong>
\nFinally, the sun emerges over the Mediterranean:
\n\"DSF8136\"<\/p>\n

52_25<\/strong>
\n\"DSF8150\"<\/p>\n

52_26<\/strong>
\nEl Campello beach, illuminated by the rising sun:
\n\"DSF8154\"<\/p>\n

52_27<\/strong>
\nThursday started with a nice bike ride in the mountains. The road between Aig\u00c3\u00bces and Relleu provides some of the nicest views in the area:
\n\"1160863\"<\/p>\n

52_28<\/strong>
\nOther cyclists were out enjoying it as well:
\n\"1160865\"<\/p>\n

52_29<\/strong>
\n\"1160860\"<\/p>\n

52_30<\/strong>
\nThen it was Christmas Eve, and Monica got dressed for dinner:
\n\"DSF8162\"<\/p>\n

52_31<\/strong>
\nMy wife made baked hake stuffed with shrimp, with bechamel sauce on top. It was delicious:
\n\"DSF8167\"<\/p>\n

52_32<\/strong>
\nThen Christmas morning arrived, and we did the gift exchange. It was a bit subdued compared to last year, when my son and daughter-in-law were here as well. But still:
\n\"DSF8175\"<\/p>\n

52_33<\/strong>
\nMy wife opens one of her presents, some jewellery from Majorica that my daughter and I had bought during our outing earlier in the week:
\n\"DSF8174\"<\/p>\n

52_34<\/strong>
\nMonica got a Cuddly Reader, a device for reading a book or a tablet in bed:
\n\"DSF8180\"<\/p>\n

52_35<\/strong>
\nAnd then Santa brought her an iPad Air:
\n\"DSF8185\"<\/p>\n

52_36<\/strong>
\nAs we do every year (at my wife’s insistence), a Christmassy family portrait was taken. A last-minute wardrobe adjustment:
\n\"DSF8188\"<\/p>\n

52_37<\/strong>
\nAnd then we donned the special masks and let the camera do its job on self-timer:
\n\"DSF8192\"<\/p>\n

52_38<\/strong>
\nIn the evening, my son and I played a game of chess online, something we both enjoy doing from time to time. The game is played on the computer, while the iPad is used for chatting. Not quite the same as sitting in the same room, but better than nothing:
\n\"R006302\"<\/p>\n

And that was our Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday was my last day at the office in 2020, and the latter part of the week was of course marked by Christmas. Last year our family was complete–our son and daughter-in-law had come over from New Jersey; this year we were just the three of us–my wife, me and our daughter–and no meetings with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2755,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3127"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3127"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3135,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3127\/revisions\/3135"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}