Errore fatale

A volte la nostra vita ci sembra così bella e perfetta che non ci rendiamo conto che gli altri intorno a noi non sono così felici. Un comportamento che ci sembra eccellente è una fonte di tristezza infinita. La felicità propria ci rendi cieci a quello che l'altra persona sente. Quando scrivo "felicità propia" forse dovrei scrivere "egoismo". L'altra persona, quindi, soffre ed è infelice, ma uno no lo vede, dato che solo la nostra felicità è importante.I cieci non sono solo quelli che non possono vedere, ci sono anche cieci che non vedono il cuore di quelli che amano e che non si rendono conto delle loro tristezza. Sembra che io sono un cieco della seconda categoria: veramente vergognoso. Adesso devo fare tutto possibile per non diventare cieco di nuovo: la prossima volta potrei non essere così fortunato.

Witches in Belgium

Last weekend, I spent with Andrea and my parents some days in Bruges, whose name in Spanish is "Brujas", our word for "witches". I cannot help finding traces of the Spanish stay every time I visit Belgium: maybe they are not so evident for others, but, in my case, they make me feel a little bit more comfortable.

We had a quite long trip by train, going first to Brussels on ICE and taking then another train to Bruges. From there, it was easy and quick to find our hotel (Grand Hotel Casselbergh, highly recommended if you find a nice offer in Internet, otherwise...). For the way back, we had two hours in Brussels, so we decided to go for a walk around Grand Place.

Bruges is called "Venice of the North" and it is true that it belongs to the limited group of cities which can be compared with Venice in equal terms. Its medieval city centre is perfectly preserved and, after some minutes of walk, it is easy to feel like long time ago. The canals surrounding the city centre also contribute to create this charming atmosphere. Central landmark is the tower of Belfort (by the way, it strongly reminds me the Dark Tower of Mordor, from Lord of the Rings) but Bruges is full of cosy corners, as you can see in the other pictures of this post.

As in Venice, one can also feel that the best years of Bruges are long gone. Somehow, the city has a decadent air, although not so strong as in Venice. Being probably too demanding, sometimes it even looks like a medieval Disneyland, given the huge amount of tourists that it has on weekends and the few "real life" that one observes. Nevertheless, this is only when we are too demanding: in overall terms, the city is really fantastic.On Brussels, there is not much new to say, since we only stayed around the cathedral, the Parc, Galeries de Saint Hubert, the Grand Place and the Manneken Pis. The latter is only remarkable as a symbol of the city: do not expect more from it because you will be quite disappointed. On the other hand, the buildings around the Grand Place are simply breathtaking: something you do not find easily in other places in Europe.I must say that the positive tone of this post is due also to the fact that we had blue sky along the weekend, something which is highly improbable when travelling to Belgium. With blue sky, life and cities are definitively more beautiful.

Gefährliche Implikationen

Vor zwei Wochen habe ich in Kino den Film "Contagion" gesehen. Das ist ein interessanter Film, nichts aussergewöhnlich aber nur ein schöner Film über das Ende der Welt dank eines Virus. Über die Rolle gespielt bei Jude Law möchte ich aber Law heute schreiben. Im Film spielt Jude Law die Rolle eines Journalistes, der im Internet die Regierung und wie sie die Krise handelt sehr stark kritisiert.

Zuerst zeigt der Journalist den Einfluss, dass falsche Nachrichten durch Internet bekommen können. Der Journalist hat keinen materiale Beweis über das, was er sagt, aber das hat keinen Preis für ihn: es ist ganz frei, weil niemand fragt ihm zurück, wenn sie sich als falsch heraus. Das ist ein neues Phänomen unsere Zeiten. Durch Internet kann man Millionen Menschen erreichen, die keine Frage stellen, um komplizierte Theorien über eine Verschwörung der Regierung zu erklären. Man sagt, was Menschen hören wollen, und es gibt keinen Grund, um eine weitere Erklärung zu geben.

Der Journalist in "Contagion" erzählt auch, dass die Krankheit mit alternativen Medizin geheilt werden kann. Hier find man eine negative Beziehung zwischen die Lüge, die der Journalist verbreit, und die alternative Medizin. Man kann schliessen daraus, dass alternative Medizin eine grösse Lüge ist, weil sie nichts gegen das Virus machen kann. Aber das ist nur halb wahr: alternative Medizin kann nicht alles heilen und hat natürlicherweise Grenze. Sie ist nutzbar für langfristige Krankenheiten, nicht für etwas so kurzfristig wie ein Virus. Diese Annährung an alternative Medizin ist ziemlich negativ eingestellt.

Dort sind nur zwei Beispiel über Ideen, die etwas versteckt in den Filme sind, aber die sehr einflussreich sein, um bestimmte Ideen bevorzuzugen oder abzulehnen.

Amenaza atunil

Hoy concluyo la serie de entradas sobre el viaje a Eslovaquia de hace unos días con la descripción de un desagradable incidente que sufrí en el control de seguridad del aeropuerto de Fráncfort. Este trance no me gusta nada en absoluto y lo considero algo estúpido, pero tras lo ocurrido hace días mis sentimientos se han incrementado.

Resulta que intenté pasar dos latas de ventresca en aceite de oliva y saltaron todas las alarmas del aeropuerto. El empleado de turno me dijo con una sonrisa que no las podía llevar, después de rebuscar y revolver en mi maleta como si fuera un sabueso. Me tocó discutir con él, porque precisamente en el anterior viaje a Niza había llevado dos latas de ventresca y no saltó ninguna alarma por ningún sitio, y la situación me parecía surrealista, especialmente cuando me chillaron que no abriera la lata allí porque podía ser peligroso. En el fondo, sin ser físico, creo poder afirmar que la ventresca no es líquido.

Todo esto me lleva a pensar por qué en el aeropuerto hay que pasar por este trago tan desagradable de vaciar tus bolsillos, de comprimir tus líquidos de aseo en recipientes minúsculos, de rezar para que la hebilla del cinturón o la pasta metálica de tus gafas no suponga un cacheo en toda regla, cuando en otros medios de transporte, no existen controles de este tipo: ¿existen este tipo de controles en las estaciones de tren?, ¿en los puertos marítimos? A todo esto hay que añadir la actitud de algunos de los trabajadores del aeropuerto, que más parecen estar tratando con ganado o con terroristas en potencia que con seres humanos como ellos.

Ciertamente me parece una medida estúpida, destinada únicamente a calmar los miedos de la masa y a darla una falsa sensación de tranquilidad, pero sin resultado aparente. Lisa Simpson utiliza un razonamiento lógico muy poderoso que puede extrapolarse a este caso y con el que acabo esta entrada de hoy: en Springfield no hay osos pardos porque Lisa tiene una piedra mágica y realmente funciona, porque, ¿cuántos osos hay a la vista en Springfield? Ninguno. Basta con sustituir "osos pardos" por "ataques terroristas", "piedra mágica" por "restricciones a los líquidos" y "Springfield" por "Europa" para empezar a dudar de la eficacia de esta medida.

Three countries in one day

On the way back from Bratislava to Frankfurt, we decided to drive the 800 kilometres between both cities, going through three countries in our trip: Slovakia, Austria and Germany.

The first part of the trip, from Bratislava to Passau, did not offer much to comment. The trip started with a sunny day, but just after five kilometres we entered into the realm of fog. Out of the 400 kilometres driven, only the huge refinery in the outskirts of Vienna (several kilometers long) and the views over the abbey in Melk, the town of the young apprentice in "The name of the rose" and the abbey upon which the book is supposedly based, are to be mentioned.

We decided to stop in Passau, the city of the three rivers: Danube, Ilz and Inn. The city centre is really cosy and nice, but what really defines the character of the city is the water. Obviously, such a situation was perfect for trade and gave the city also an strategic position in times of wars. The views from the castle in Passau are supposed to be breathtaking, but we did not have time for a walk uphill of 20 minutes.It is possible to walk really close to the rivers Danube and Inn. In that walk, we discovered that there are sticks hanging close to the river, to rescue people who may fall into the stream. If they are still there, it is because there is the need; otherwise, you could not find them every 50 metres.Once there, the trip got a bit boring, although we could easily make stages of 100 kilometres each, as Regensburg, Nürnberg, Würzburg and Frankfurt are separated by more or less 100 kilometres each. I do not know why, but driving in German highways is not what I enjoy the most (I would certainly say the contrary). We could finally make it to Frankfurt after eight hours driving and I could feel like at home.

Long weekend in Bratislava

Last week I spent four days in Bratislava, Slovakia. It was all in all my fourth visit there in one year, so it seems it is becoming a familiar place to me (I must admit I feel really well in it).

The trip did not have an easy start, but I would describe the incident in the security check in the aiport in a different post, because it was so bizarre that it deserves its own minute of glory.

Once on the plane, we were placed in the wrong row: row 14. I warn you: avoid row 14 when flying with Niki from Frankfurt to Vienna. Let me explain why: the service on board was divided in two: from row 1 to row 14, and from row 15 to row 28. So, we had to wait almost 45 minutes for our strange sandwich and, then, as the flight Frankfurt-Vienna is not very long, it was time to land. So, when the crew was announcing that we should put our table in vertical position, we were starting to bite our sandwich, hungry like piranhas in the Amazonas.

But we managed to survive this strange flight. Once in Bratislava, we went to Cunovo and Danubiana. Cunovo is near the border with Hungary and it is place for training of kayaking and similar sports, where Slovakia seems to be quite strong. Danubiana is an open air museum of modern art, in a peninsula over the Donau, which has interesting works (to the extent possible, remember it is a museum of modern art) and, needless to say, offers spectacular views of the Donau. At this point, I would like to make a short mention to how a real river looks like and not what we have in Guadalajara, be it Henares or Ablanquejo.In Bratislava, I could find this time a lot of tourists in the city centre (and even a flying-man, see picture above), so it seems that the city is becoming quite trendy now for visitors. This time, as I am becoming familiar with most of the tourist attractions of the city, we had to innovate and we went to a museum with a strange passage: it has books piled on both sides and, thanks to a lot of mirrors, it gives the impression of being a neverending pile of books. It is really interesting from an optical point of view.
The rest of the time was devoted to non-touristical actitivies such as going shopping to a commercial center or to go bathing to an indoor swimming pool. In this sense, we were passing very often by one of my favourites features of Bratislava: a bus-stop on top of a bridge. I simply cannot help loving it, that is so amazing!

In approximately one month, I will be back to Bratislava, for business reasons. Let's see what I report then...