Coming to terms with things Catalan ..

 Catalonia is definitely a different place: 

Part 1


Take something as standard as a light switch...In my cliff top apartment in San Feliu de Guixols I have two standard lamps....just to be precise:  by standard lamp I mean a light on a long pole higher than myself, with a shade and a base and a way of switching On or Off.   These switches are usually managed by fingers, flipped up or down or sideways.   But not here.   My standard lamps - which are considerably taller than myself - have foot operated on/off switches. These are small rectangular objects on which there is a 'protuberance' which has to be slid from side to side to the switch the lamp on/off - or dimmed.  

At first I worried that the object would slide over the tiled floor as I attempted to move the switch.   I would clutch the standard part of the lamp and bend down to switch the switch with my hand.  Later I got impatient and tried to work this switch with my naked foot - tiresome to have to take off a shoe to switch on/off a light - Then I got even more impatient, or perhaps used to the system, and just used my shoed foot to operate the switch.  Success. One up to Barcelona's designers.!


Part 2

It is quite a long walk down the hill to town from my cliff top apartment and, curiously, whilst the road is wide enough to accommodate roaring cars and bikes, there are two different styles of pedestrian area.    Today reasons for this occurred to me - I am not sure whether I am right, but there seems a certain logic in it.

At the top of the hill pedestrians are offered a relatively wide brick pavement. Halfway down the hill, just before a break with steps down to an underpass, a zebra crossing suggests to walkers to cross over to a simpler cement pathway and the brick pathway stops. The Guixols drivers are very respectful of zebra crossings.

Today there were seriously blustery winds - I remembered that the winds coming straight down from the Pyrenees to the sea could be very fierce.   I felt it.

Then I saw it:  at the crossing point there is a danger that people/things could be blown over the cliff, several feet down to the road below...

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