More birthday

 24th March, 2012, thank you Norway

 Niece and family dog forced together for photo session.

 Actually taken on my birthday. Note the snow blowing across our faces.

25th March, 2012, thank you again TROMSØ

Yes, I was wrong to say Norway under the top photo. In the car on the way back from my sister on Sunday (may I also say: My birthday? Mount of Doom+Ring-day? And International Waffle Day?), Maja called me from Oslo and asked about the weather. She'd just been to Frognerparken (where they keep their naked statues) having waffles in the sunshine and 15 degrees.

Ah well, this week has been more rain, then rain, some sleet and some more rain, and now it's all frozen over and become lethal ice. Good thing it's going to rain more. No, I'm not complaining - tonight I'll be celebrating my birthday (final mention) with my friends. In May I shall be in Falmouth, Brighton and London - and before this I am going to Oslo and Russia (fingers crossed) with the Red Cross. Life is very good.

High five, self

Just finished an intense (20+ hours) online course all about the Red Cross. If you're extremely interested in the Red Cross, it is open for anyone who might want to do it - but even I found it pretty difficult. Now I'm going to celebrate having finished, and passed the final test, by making moustaches and eating pasta with my dear Ingrid.

Grandmother Ninna's 85th

 Sister tries to use my camera, leading to NO photos where Dina and I both...

 a) look good, b) have heads

 I'm not much better, apparently, to busy nomming cupcakes to focus properly.

85 year old lady, right here.

 Sneaking photos of cousin and mother who resent being photographed

 Fine, this is the day after. Dina is adorable, though.

Even when she's ill,

and probably in the very moment this was taken, infecting my mum.

Hello food stuffs

 Maybe the main reason I love beets is this: They make your kitchen look like the set of a crime tv series.

 Also, you can build towers with them.

 Grandmother's birthday, had at least five (randomly gluten free) cupcakes.

 Day before own birthday and own birthday: Chocolate fondants

Own birthday: OM NOM (mother asked specifically for this mention) my mum's fantastic cake frosting

By now (twenty-three years oughta do it) my mum knows me well enough to make an enormous amount of frosting/icing, so we can have some left in the fridge and I can nom it later. Like now. As I'm writing, I'm fighting hard not to devour the (small)(ish) bowl of cake icing in front of me...

Lazy bum

Bunting! Hearts! Princesses! Cards! Stinky!

I've been out, I've been to the Red Cross teaching computer skills to the middle aged, I've been accosted by drunk military Canadians, I've had lunch with my grandmother, I've watched another Spanish film and I've completed 78% of the WORC (World of Red Cross and Red Crescent) online course I have to take. Now I'm going out to see my lovely Ida and Viktoria, and my browser is being silly, so no more photos for you yet! I have plenty of children and nature though...

Smug Old Woman

Bam! As of yesterday, I am old! And my family gave me another Moomin mug - the third Snufkins mug I've gotten within one year, so today I went and exchanged it with a fantastic Stinky mug where he is stealing all the bottles (of homemade wine I guess). Fantastic. I also had waffles - my birthday being the international waffle day and all, in addition to cake and chocolate fondant. I like birthdays.

Salamanca stole my heart, really

 New Cathedral (left) and Old Cathedral (right). New Cathedral only being 400 years old.

 My excellent travel companion. Also: love rivers. This one, exceptionally clean.

 Remember, this is in winter. Summer must be amazing (listen to the Salamanca-fangirl).

 Just your normal copy/printing shop.

 For the first time, we were not alone in our touristy-ness.

 This... is someone's dead hand. Catholic churches creep me out a bit.

 Makes me think something like this happened, a thousand years ago

 Look, I exist, I was there.

 Up high, high above. My excitement for rivers is slightly exceeded by

my excitement for being high up in a church or a tower.

 I think these are people who have become Doctors of Stuff at Salamanca University.

Tiny church made for Thomas Becket: "Santo Tomas Cantuariense" = Saint Thomas of Canterbury.

We kept inside the old town of Salamanca, so I can't say much about the rest of the town. You don't need the rest of the town, because the old town is so massive and old and amazing. We didn't go to all the old buildings, we didn't go to any of the museums or churches where you had to pay to get in (and this means most), yet we still filled two days with sightseeing and looking at old stuff that we were interested in. Strongly recommended.

More of the sunset kind and houses I will live in when I am old

 View from the road near Segura de Toro (the population peaked in 1951)

 "Alicja, can you hold these branches for a second"

 Plasencia old town

 My future, imperfectly perfect house

Moving here shortly.

Will it never end?

 "studying" "English" and "Spanish" at the farm

Shame I don't like oranges.

Cemetery

 Slightly creepy gravestones

 Sunset

and beautiful poems and texts about the deceased

makes for a perfect cemetery experience. I love cemeteries, as all my visitors realise when I drag them up to the top of the Tromsø island to look at The Old Cemetery for the well-to-do people of Tromsø a hundred years ago. This tiny one in Casas had one old part, also seemingly for a few, rich families, and one new part that I hardly looked at. Alicja rested on the cemetery wall, and was shouted at by an old couple who feared she would fall down - if she didn't fall ill from wearing too little clothes first (15 degrees is warm for Polish and Norwegians, but rather chilly for the Spanish). Anyway. Cemeteries are so beautiful and sad and serene at the same time, and I just need to spend time in them now and then.

The plaque on the last photo says something like (now remember my low level of Spanish):

You cannot wake up anymore

Because you cannot feel,

Your sleep will be eternal

And my heart beats.

Under this cold stone

Which denies air entry,

You also meet worn out

The heart of your parents.

Fernanda Garcia died (...) at the age of 21 years

Daughter of Ylario and Josefa Martin.

Caaabras

 One day, we went shopping with Marcela and Antonio, which included looking at goats,

 ...some random sheep inbetween,

 and adorable kids. Ten days later we had cabrito for la cena...

 We then drove to the Gabriel y Galan lake (everything in this area is called Gabriel y Galan)

 Again, this reminds me of something, a mix of Norwegian and maybe North American landscapes?

See that little village to the left of the cow, up in the mountain? That's the village next to Casas.