Space geeks

I don't think I have ever been with a bunch of people and felt comfortable making space jokes, or talking loudly about warp drive and Star Trek-isms. And yet here I am, in Barcelona, with a hundred or so people who share a passion and interest with me about space, and the opportunities and visions that are out there beyond our little blue planet. It feels good to somehow find a belonging...

After a long week of many nights sleeping only two or three hours, after working on assignments and deadlines and attending lectures at the same time, finally it was a two day weekend where we have no activities planned! So I slept in today, and got up close to eleven, and headed to the city centre with some friends. We had breakfast in the central market, and I was in fruit heaven with all these delicious (and cheap!!) berries and melons and kiwis and exotic tropical fruits. Later we wandered aimlessly through the little alleyways of the old town, getting lost, and enjoying the fact that we had time on our hands and did not have to worry or think about being there at this minute or that minute.

In the evening we went out to the movies. I had heard good reviews about Pixar/Disney's latest animation Wall.E, but I was pleasantly surprised how sweet and education the movie was. There is not much conversation, and the protagonist is a rusty old recycling robot whose lines consist of 'beeps' and high pitched squeals. But Disney magic does it again, by capturing the very human soul and essence and putting it in the most unliekly characters, taking them through ups and downs, and resolving their despairs with a sweet release.

There is a lot to be learnt in Wall.E. The waste of the human species, the eventual doom and self-destructive path we are going down at this very moment. Funnily enough, the most human character was not the people in the movie, but two robots that you learn to love and love to learn from. And there were a lot of insider jokes and anedotes about space and space travel that made it the more special, especially since all I have been doing is space, space, space in the past five weeks! I left the movie theatre, feeling light and amused, and as we made the journey home, we joked and laughed at the things that only we space-geeks would understand and appreciate.

It felt good.