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Day 63 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A 15 Kilometre Loop
Today I walked a 15-kilometre loop because I saw people walking two abreast and decided to retrace my steps a short distance before trying a new bifurcation. By the end of this walk, my legs were starting to get tired. I walked non stop for over two hours before a quick stop at a petrol station to get some drinks before heading home.
Before going on my walk I finished the CSS course on Linkedin Learning before starting another one on HTML. It’s not that I need to learn about HTML so much as I have a desire to complement what I already know.
After passive learning I re-worked some more pages on the HTML part of my website, adding CSS to two or three pages. As a result of what I have learned over the last two or three weeks doing the same thing as I did for the index page for another directory took half an hour or less. What I learned is sticking in my memory. I still cut and paste, but the process is much faster.
Links from HTML Essential Training by Jen Simmons
The more I look up and learn, the more ideas I have for how to modernise my website. For ages I wanted to keep my website as a museum of what the web used to be but as I made pages mobile friendly that desire to keep things the same has altered and now I want to modernise it.
From a visitor point of view this may be a waste of time, as certain parts of the website have little to no traffic. This doesn’t matter, because in the grand scheme of things every page I modernise gives me experience in dealing with CSS, Javascript, navigation design and more. I may be slow on the first pages but as I work my way through the website my efficiency will go up, and with that so will my employability.
We constantly need to learn skills and working on a website, rather than browsing social media, is a great way of doing so. As I looked through Flickr galleries I saw that some people have images of people re-enacting Roman soldiers and other people have images of Rome as it looks today. I could easily breath life back into that part of the website by contacting people and getting permission to share their images.
I’m glad I am working on my website as a project again. It is effectively filling my time, encouraging me to learn more, and getting me ready for a line of work I enjoy.
See you tomorrow.
Reading About Hiking While Charging A Watch
Today I sat in the sun to charge my watch. I kept my left wrist facing the sun. My right wrist was employed in keeping a kindle in place, reading.
My goal was to get the watch to go up by one day of charge and it worked. I wouldn’t sit in the sun to get a tan, but I would to charge a device. I didn’t time how long it took to charge but it wasn’t more than half an hour. In the middle of summer, in the right mode, I could easily see this watch charging a few percent a day in the right conditions. With the right combination you could get this watch to be autonomous.
A watch that doesn’t need to be taken off to charge is ideal, because it can track your moves for weeks, months or even seasons at a time. It also means that you can carry one less charger.
I am still reading A Good Place For Maniacs. He has finally left California behind.
Cycling in Spain
When people think of cycling in Spain they think of the seaside and they think of the coast. They think of long flat roads and short climbs. I made the mistake of thinking that so when I arrived in Spain I went cycling but every direction I tried involved climbing steep gradients. The first ride I did took me to the top of the Cumbre Del Sol and I felt that it was hard but I didn’t mind as I expected it to feel like a climb.
It’s when I tried to ride in other directions that I came up to the steep gradients and started to understand the challenge of riding in such a landscape. In Switzerland you can have 12km climbs but they’re at shallow gradients most of the way with the occasional steep gradient. Roads with steep gradients are usually closed in Switzerland. In Spain they don’t have such an issue with ice and snow so they can build steep hills. The hills are so steep that I considered using normal shoes so that I could dismount easily if I ran out of steam. I continued with clipped pedals.
I was using the Komoot app for one route and it asked me to go up consecutive steep gradients. I dismounted and walked up a short bit before getting to another flat bit of road. As I walked up that steep gradient I saw a scooter descending my way and as he applied the brakes to slow down a bit he hit a wet patch of road and the scooter slid for a distance downhill. I believe I made the right decision to dismount at this point.
I eventually reached my destination after studying the map on the app and ignoring directions.
Aside from the painful uphills there are some very nice downhills. This one is going down to the sea through Fanadix, not an Asterix character. This was an excellent and pleasant descent. I only went down this road twice and as I saw that there were some wet patches I didn’t go at full speed. It’s the type of descent you see idealised in road and cycling programs. I love when you have roads that are wide enough for traffic to go uphill and downhill because it feels safer than two-way roads that are only a car width wide.
When I cycle I try to take secondary roads as much as possible for two reasons. The first of these is that there is less traffic so you can enjoy the landscape and see places that people following main roads cannot see and the second reason is that when you’re going up a steep gradient it’s nice to be able to take up the entire road. This is something that I tried in Switzerland and adopt on most of my rides. It’s safer. Before this spot I was going up a steep gradient and sticking to the right of the road when I saw a car coming down the other way. The driver could have continued down safely but she was courteous and stopped, letting me progress up the hill.
This landscape reminds me of Mont Sur Rolle. Spanish terraced vineyards looking towards the sea. In Switzerland vines are given cables to grow on but in Spain at this time of year vines are cut so you see the vineyards unblemished by metal cables.
It’s nice to cycle in Spain but I noticed that I could easily do three to five hundred metres of climbing on every bike ride up steep gradients. You need strong legs for the gradients. In Switzerland it’s rare for me to stand up as I pedal but in Spain it’s almost a requirement. It is a good place to perfect your climbing technique. I will explore more routes next time I go.
The Walking Paradox
Today I noticed how quiet the world, or at least the area in which I was walking, was. I saw very few cars, very few people walking, and very little noise from other people.
This doesn’t mean that people weren’t out and about. Although my route was for the most part deserted of people I did encounter crowds at two or three points. I think a man said “hello” but I ignored him for the cardinal sin of not walking single file, down a path, with his companion during the closing days of a pandemic.
“What does it matter?”, you may ask. I would love to do a group hike or a group Ferrata but I can’t because from a scientific point of view Switzerland is not yet clear of the virus. Meeting in groups of more than five is currently still forbidden. The groups I usually go with could be up to twelve people or more. I don’t know how long I will have to wait for the opportunity to do social activities once again.