A weekend in Paris.... skating!

Last year, some skate-mates went to Paris to skate inline around the "City of Light", unfortunately I couldn’t go, but I know that This, I had to do... And the opportunity arrived, this year any excuse was accepted for not going to.

So, taking advantage of Mercè festivity (24th September).... In a way that we have a long weekend, a group of seventeen skaters from Barcelona flied on Friday morning to Paris and have spent almost 48 hours over our rollers.

The effort of getting up on 4:30 am on Friday morning, arrive at 11 am at the hotel and put your rollers and lost yourself over Paris streets has its reward.

Almost any place that you want to arrive is able to do with your rollers. The accessibility to nearly everywhere I dare to say that is perfect. You only need to take a map and enjoy your ride.

But, above anything else... don’t miss the "Friday Night’s Rollerskate Ride in Paris"... I don’t have words to explain it... It’s just spectacular!

The meeting point is every Friday at 10 pm in Montparnasse. It’s about 3 hours... Non stops, with a vivid speed, riding in the middle of the streets, these are cut by the police... and the staff/stoppers look for the ride and the skaters. An ambulance is following the march just in case had to do an unluckily intervention.

This cannot be compare with any of the routes that are taking place in Barcelona... I have to recognise... It’s sheer envy! But I know, that this ride will not be the last one... I will repeat it.

Take a glance to the web of the organizers and to the route of this last Friday 23rd September 2005... And book a day on your diary to do it... This experience is worthy to be lived!

http://www.pari-roller.com/

Marian Keyes vs Jane Austen

I have just read “The other side of the story” by Marian Keyes. I haven’t got the idea of writing about the books that I read, but getting the idea of what my Mum is doing about her readings, I will try to do more or less the same.

Anyway, you will check that the list along the year is not going to be very vast, because I don’t read so much as she does. Nevertheless I don’t pretend to excuse me about it, it’s as simple as I like to do lots of outdoor activities and certainly that’s not arranged with being a “mouse of a library” (a Catalan expression that defines someone who likes read and study above all)... aaaghh I’m just excusing myself, that’s not fair! Let’s change the topic!

I discovered Marian Keyes with “Lucy Sullivan is getting married” (“Lucy Sullivan se casa”), and after this one, I read “Sushi for Beginners” (“Sushi para principiantes”), “Angels” (“Maggie ve la luz”) and now it has been the turn to “The other side of the story”. This last one, I have had the courage to read it in English. And, of course, I have probably missed some details, but I have got the general idea, and I have enjoyied it as well as the other ones.
http://www.mariankeyes.com/
http://www.mariankeyesbooks.com/

Marian Keyes writes about women in their thirties and I dare to say that her principal public are exactly the same... women in their thirties that can find some identification in the characters of the books, the stories, the thoughts and the feelings... Certainly, we are talking about “Femenine contemporany literature”.

I wouldn’t like to compare, but with the intention to explain which kind of literature represents Marian Keyes and all the concept that I have been defined as “Feminine contemporary literature”, I will do probably a savage comparison...

Under my point of view, Marian Keyes, and other authors like Helen Fielding (the one of “Bridged Jones’s Diary”) are in the XXI Century what Jane Austen or Charlotte Brönte were on the XIX Century.

Don’t be offend, I’m not talking about the style, either the quality,... I don’t have the knowledge to do a reasonable and extensive comparison, but at least, I think that the “victims” of this kind of literature are the same. Or so I am... one of these victims... because, YES! I love Jane Austen too!

Who was Jane Austen? I think that it could be stuff for another post, but well I have started talking about her and I can only say that I strongly recommend you to read her books... “Pride and Prejudice”, “Sense and Sensibility”, “Mansfield Park”, “Emma” and “Persuasion”... I am not able to say which is the best one. I spent great time with all of them.

And, finally, if you are going to be as fan as I am, and you have the opportunity to go to UK, don’t forget to go to Bath, walk around its streets and visit “The Jane Austen Centre in Bath”... You will believe that you are in the19th Century and you will share the places that she lived and wrote about.
http://www.janeausten.co.uk/

Health & Thankfulness

So strange as so important is health, that you don’t care about it until you are ill, or at least, when you aren’t in the best conditions.

Two days ago I was jumping, running and skating, but 24hours later I was living a kind of nightmare. Now, when calm has arrived again, I could think that I was exagerating my painful. But that wasn’t the situation when I was contorting myself in the bed looking for the least painful position. All the worries related with other matters that aren’t health disappeared. You don’t think with love, friends, work, studies... Anything of these is important. Life just goes around you and your physical health is the only thing that counts... all the other problems are nonsense.

Nowadays we have two kind of health... the physical and the mental. But all the “light” problems of the mental one seem to appear just when you are in a good shape of the first one. It is being said that mental health is a characteristic of illness of this Century. Certainly, the brain only “works too much” when you are healthy in a physically way... I think that to think too much is not a good option. I know, we are human beings, and we have to take advantage of this capacity to enrich ourselves with a vast kind of emotions as well as impoverish our happiness when we don’t know how to canalize them in a good way.

Anyway, today before going to the hospital to being submited in an uncomplicated operation but vital for being someone able to have mental problems again... (well, now I am doubting if I did the right thing...)

Well, the fact is that I was waiting in a street corner for a taxi to going to the hospital... You know, when you are in a hurry because you think you are bound to die of pain and of course it’s a rainy day,... in this situation Murphy exists: Barcelona hasn’t got any taxi.

I was firstly desesperated, after heated, then I felt that my skin should be as white as a sheet... I was terribly dizzy and nearly to fall... I need immediately some place to sit down... I saw a Cafe with some chairs outside... I had to arrive there!

Fortunately, the owner of the Cafe was looking to the people passing through.. She saw my desesperation, my pain... and she went directly to rescue me, made me sit down, and invited me a coffe with milk. A simple gesture, that I will never forget, and I feel a terrible gratefulness to her. A sympathetic anonymous that was in the right place at the right time... Thanks.