Summer Time...

Summer time is here. Augustus' month. Leisure and dolce far niente. Not for me, though; at least, not yet. Late months have been exhausting. Up and down, finishing deadlines and reports. I have earned the daily bread with my very sweat, I swear. Not an easy single cent. R&D is not a business for nitwits, specially when the UE commission and a bunch of square-headed Germans are involved. And yet, so much to do, so much to try and so much to improve. Those deaf-language signs don't translate by them selves!



If childhood is said to be the golden age for most people, I think summer is the best period among these heavenly days. It was, at least, for me. It was time of beach, sea, sand, jumping, playing outdoors, bikes, football, friends, dogs, bugs, storms, girls, naps, crackers, ice creams, coca-cola, dirt, excruciating heat, sweating, thirst, mountain, dust, walking, singing, firebones, stars, crickets, vivac, and most of all, freedom. First time I noticed I was actually growing older was when I discovered I unavoidably had to work in summer. Childhood was over, and sweet summer vacations too.

Now, I'm already accustomed to, and since I was living in Japan, having just a week long summer vacation seems fair to me. Nevertheless, last year I had a long month of vacation, and this year, adding up all my unused vacation days, I have accummulated almost five weeks, which I will distribute from now to the end of the year. I can't leave the project I'm involved in ungarded, my manager could discover I'm not that important!

What am I gonna do? Nothing: sleeping, reading, going to the beach and the pool, strolling, and maybe some short escape to the Pyrenees. I'm tired of traveling, airports, flights, connections, trains, subways, crowds. I'm starting to think that tourism is a great hoax with no interest at all. What's the point of going to Paris if you can't even order a café au lait? Culture, people say. Yeah, maybe. But I'm really surprised to verify that the only few days people is interested in culture coincide with the same period they leave their own places. Strange, isn't it?

Some also use the argument of learning different ways of living. Really? In France? Sorry, I don't think so. It might be true in the Crusade ages, but nowadays, there are not much differences within the whole Europe, apart from local languages, and some regional specialities in McDonalds.

Besides, most apparent differences come from basic unawareness. That's why some naively travel to exhotic lands to discover new frontiers. Another rip-off, but in their own delusion, they still think they have reached some revealing and unknown teaching. Bogus. They can't even tell the difference between a tourist trap and a life-losing trap. See what happened to these Catalan guys in Mexico while trying to cross an unbridled river in a precarious canoe.

This kind of travelers are the most laughable to me, and think of themselves as new editions of Pedro de Alvarado or Aguirre while buying their gear at Decathlon. In this open-to-the-world city Barcelona is there are plenty of them. Always ready to "discover the Americas". What it is funny is that in America there are some other super cool guys that envisage coming to Europe to discover our strange ways of living to re-edit the feats of Hemingway or their own grandpa in WWII.

What's the point of tourism, then? None, unless we stick to some genuine one, like having some rest and fun in our free time and, if lucky, finding whatever true treasure might still remain under the tones of vulgarity, triviality, easiness, common-places, and non-sense we are living in, which I fear is kind of difficult in places such as attraction park Barcelona. Good luck.