One of our friends asked ChatGPT (or a similar tool) to describe our blog. Apparently it said that we were slow travelers. I took that to mean that we stayed in places for a relatively long time and became comfortable in those places (to my family members who are no doubt thinking that it probably means that I am a dim-witted traveler—how dare you include Sue in that description!).

Anyway, our life has started to have a little bit of a routine. We tend to get up around 9 a.m., have a cup of coffee (so far we are not thrilled with the coffee quality; it’s very sad), go to the gym, then head to the mercado or supermarket for whatever it is we need for lunch. We have lunch, then around 3 p.m. I start work. Sue occupies herself with various activities, including starting to build us a social life by attending some ex-pat events. I finish up work between 11 p.m. and midnight. Then we relax for an hour or two and go to sleep.

Last weekend was our first mostly fully settled in weekend. The prior weekend, we ran around getting things for our apartment and going to the car show with our friends Nancy and Paul. But this weekend we decided to have quiet weekend. There are only so many days in a row that we can push and push. (Can you believe we said that? I think the tranquilo lifestyle of Valencia is starting to affect us.)

Saturday we started off by discussing the pros and cons of going out for a cup of coffee and a pastry until it just was too late to do it. We stopped in the grocery store for our daily (except Sunday or course) purchase of whatever necessities we need for the day. We decided to wander a bit far afield to find our favorite bread store from when we were here last. It is about a 15-minute walk, so we planned on getting a bicycle from Valenbici and riding over. Once again, we were foiled in our attempt to use bicycles. We quickly unlocked bikes (after reading the directions prior to going to the bike stand) I adjusted my seat and hopped on. Unfortunately, Sue’s bike was broken, the chain was off. She put that one back and picked a second one only to find that this one’s kickstand was stuck down and it was the last bike. Oh well, at least we like to walk. We had a delicious lunch of fresh bread and cheese. Yum.

The weather here has daily highs in the low 20s C (low 70s F), just perfect for being outside. After lunch we decided to go on a long walk in the Turia. The bulk of the park is north and east of our apartment (in the map below, we live roughly where the red dot is above the “i” in Grand Via. But we decided to walk south past the City of Arts and Sciences. The park is wonderful and full of people walking, biking and playing. We walked all the way to the end of the park and then turned around and walked for a few more miles. It was just a pleasant relaxing time with beautiful weather, and so always Sue and I have wonderful conversations that make the walks go quickly. (There’s always a festival here, I think it beats Chicago festival season just because it’s longer. Last week’s was the Andalucian festival and we wandered through it for a bit, getting to see the ladies in all their Andalucian dress splendor.)

On the way back from our from our bread outing we had noticed some workmen doing something with a sign above a doorway across the street from our apartment. We looked up the name and found out that it is a little pizza place called Nera and was having a grand opening last weekend. We headed over at the reasonably respectable hour of 8:30 p.m. (OK, a bit early, but we are still finding rhythm of eating later than that on the weekends.) We got a seat and it appeared that most of the people knew the guys who worked there (owners?). We ordered a couple of beers and settled in figuring they would bring us menus at some point. From her seat, Sue could see into the kitchen and she said that she wasn’t sure if they were actually cooking yet, that the kitchen might not have been finished, so we made a backup plan of going to an Indian restaurant called Kathmandu after our beer. At some point the server came over and said that the pizza tonight was free because the chef was still getting used to the equipment (or something to that effect) and he gave us a pizza. We enjoyed the delicious pizza, hung out for a while and headed home around midnight.

While it sounds like Saturday was a relaxing day, it was the busier day of our weekend. Sunday we went to the gym, then relaxed and read for most of the day. At some point we got restless and went for short walk, at which point we realized that last Sunday was Mother’s Day here and one way of celebrating is to put giant crosses made with flowers in the streets, but really we just chilled and planned our return to the U.S. in June.

So there we go. I have managed to stretch a do nothing weekend into a reasonable length blog…