Turgut Durduran's Site -- about Cyprus, Photography, Linux, LaTeX, Human Rights, Politics ...

Sun, 01 Jun 2008

A day at Castelldefels Beach, Spain

Ok, this is meant to be an entry to create a reason to put out a collection of photos I took during a stroll on one day at Castelldefels Beach in Spain.

I am on a travelling spree these days, not necessarily crammed together like this by choice, but since February 2008, my agenda included New Orleans LA, two trips to Tampa FL, Hamilton ON Canada and Casteldeffels Spain. The latter was a trip to visit ICFO- Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques which is a world famous optics/photonics institute. I have been there before but that last time, we decided that spending our time in Barcelona was a better choice and it turned to be an excellent city to visit — my photos on flickr from Barcelona .

This time, being alone and tired of all the travelling, I have decided to use my "get over initial hit of jet-lag" day to take a walk in the town and get to know the place. After all, despite my attempts to hide it, I miss the atmosphere of a relaxed Mediterranean town. A side note here, my colleagues at ICFO think that Casteldeffels can be chaotic with a hellish traffic, I have not seen any of that and I can't imagine it being so bad, specially in comparison to Philadelphia. So I arrived in the morning, ate breakfast, caught up with the sleep I missed due to my red-eye flight and walked to the reception. The receptionist claimed that "downtown" Castelldefels was really far away and instead, I should take a 25 minute walk down the "mountain" (barely a hill) to the beach. Sounds reasonable. So I started walking. Well, within about 5 minutes, I was at the beach so I decided to keep walking along the beach — hey, I can't be blamed for being attracted to Mediterranean. I remembered that last time we were there, October 2008, Eylem asked about the beach and she was told that only crazy northern Europeans would go there during that season. Of course, it was much warmer than ocean water at New Jersey or Florida shores gets even in August. It was pretty idyllic. People were lying around sun tanning — mid-afternoon on a week-day —, few people doing "kite boarding", and few others taking walks. Of course, I immediately noticed existence of topless sun bathers which is quite the norm in Europe but not so in U!S!A!.

My "loooong" walk which was barely 45 minutes and included quite a few breaks led me to the Olympic Canal which I immediately recognized because (a) it is on the other side of the town, (b) near to our previous hotel and ICFO. So turned into one of the streets of the town and walked towards a shopping mall — because I wanted to get some groceries. Picked up some beer, fish-crackers, chocolates, gifts and fruits and ate a quick dinner. Then I asked the waiter about taking a shorter route back to the hotel. He pointed out at "C31" which is more or less a minor highway and told me to walk along that. I thought he meant that there would be a parallel walkway so I followed a couple that was going that way and started walking. No, there was no walkway, people were walking along the shoulder of a minor highway with cars going at 50 mph which would have been fine, if I did not have to cross exit/entry ramps. That was not pleasant so I changed my path and walked along the beach.

Why did I bother with all this writing? If nothing else, to tell you not to listen to Spanish people when they tell you that things are far away or very cold or are walkable. And like any random person writing about a foreign place, I am generalizing based on single incidents of each, so you better ignore it.

I did not take very many photos in this part except the following;

My wild guess is that they were either Gypsies or people from some Slavic country. They were having a very loud argument and I was high up on an overpass. I am guessing based on their movements, dresses and my exposure to Emir Kusturica movies

You do not get to see this in a place like Philadelphia. Even in my neighborhood where many people who discourage use of electric dryers for environment's sake, this sight does not exist.

I just had to take this photo of a bumper sticker. After all, I was called the "donkey dung kid" once upon a time.

You do not see many "Jesus fish" bumper stickers in Spain, but I saw this grafitti

As you can see, it was getting late with long-shadows and I started feeling bad that I did not have my D70 along. This is parallel to the beach which I tried since I was afraid of the sand.

More long shadows and this was the beginning of a day of silouhuettes. I seem to be experimenting with those more and more.

My very wild guess is that this couple was also trying to decide whether to move to the sandy part or stay on this path.

No comment

This dog was quite restless and I do not blame him, there was a lot of action few meters away on the sand.

Watch out, a plane may hit you!

Or another plane may deafen you. I think this is a campaign and I am lazy to look it up.

I have never seen one of these. They use a solid plastic instead of the net. Nevertheless, it is cool to have public table tennis.

And I could not stay off the sand for much longer.

And here comes the interesting part, it was very windy, it was already past 6pm, and idyllic beach had hundreds (yes, literally) of men and women doing kite boarding, playing volleyball, basketball, Frisbee and taking their dogs for walks. And a loooot of sand flying in the air. It had the vague feeling of being in a desert instead of being at the beach. The sky was not as dark as these photos depict but I felt like emphasizing the sand instead of the sunshine.

Now you know why I was afraid of the sand.

It makes sense that a windy day means a good excuse for kite boarding , I did not see that many of them the next day. It took me a while

to figure out how exactly they were doing this. It is quite elaborate and tough it seems. Some people were really good. They were pulling of nice jumps. Again, too bad I did not have my D70 with my variety of lenses with me — probably I would have never made it back to the hotel before dark. Wikipedia has quite a bit on "kite boarding".

And people...

First I thought that this lady was doing a prayer, but when I got nearer, her hair was not covered and she appeared to be doing some sort of a yoga instead. I like the contrast of the two people in the first photo.

Sports, games ...

Kids loved playing in the sand with their parents.

This dog was quite well trained. The owner played fetch with it but with strict rules.

Football at the beach -- fine soccer -- is fun.

And the best one for the end. This person took really long time to change.

These photos are also posted as a separate set on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ulugeyik/sets/72157605384884969/.

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Fri, 16 May 2008

More activities from "refuse it" group of initiatives
Last December (2007) I wrote about "The Initiative for Conscientious Objection in Cyprus" and its activities. The group has been very active since then and has received a lot of "negative" (wonderful thing!) and "positive" (another wonderful thing!) media attention in Cyprus and abroad. They have been present in all major demonstrations in Cyprus. They have just celebrated May 15th, the International Conscientious Objectors' Day with a daring demonstration and press conference in front of the main military recruitment center in northern Nicosia. I am proud to be part of this group. What I said earlier was: "The initiative is being organized under a larger umbrella titled "refuse it" (reddet, http://www.reddet.org )which includes rejection of militarism, homophobia, discrimination, racism, occupations, wars and nationalism amongst its goals." Back then, only the part about conscientious objection was active. Now, there is an extensive and creative section about homophobia too, which now has its own web-site at: http://www.homofobiyekarsiinisiyatif.org/ . They have participated in various demonstrations and are planning a bunch of events for May 17th, Global Anti-Homophobia day. They have also submitted a request to the puppet parliament to change the archaic laws that make homosexual relationships a crime. This is a very significant step in a society that is not as intolerant as other societies in the region as long as people keep their sexual orientation secret. I have hopes that these taboos may be shattered too and the individuals who have stepped out to be part of this initiative deserve our support, solidarity and participation in their activities. We need more of these. Bring it on!

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Fri, 09 May 2008

Hiroshima Photos
I just saw this on a Conscientious Blog and expected destroyed buildings, damage, may be a few bodies but these photographs are very striking. They show humans, many of them. I normally do not re-post blog entries here but could not help it. Quoting Conscientious: "The Robert L. Capp collection at the Hoover Institution Archives contains ten never-before-published photographs illustrating the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing. These photographs, taken by an unknown Japanese photographer, were found in 1945 among rolls of undeveloped film in a cave outside Hiroshima by U.S. serviceman Robert L. Capp, who was attached to the occupation forces. Unlike most photos of the Hiroshima bombing, these dramatically convey the human as well as material destruction unleashed by the atomic bomb. Mr. Capp donated them to the Hoover Archives in 1998 with the provision that they not be reproduced until 2008.". The photos are posted here. .

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Mon, 05 May 2008

Signs and Faces Of Mt Airy Day 2008
It was an overcast and unusually cold day but full of diverse, interesting, energetic, creative, dedicated .....etc..etc.. people. Decided to go "creative" (i.e. unusual) with colors. Mt Airy Day is an annual event at Mt Airy , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is held at the grounds of Cliveden. My photoset is at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ulugeyik/sets/72157604882605848/

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