In another ten days we will be heading out to the airport for our flight to Spain.  We will land in Madrid where we will spend a few days before heading to Valencia where we will be for the majority of the three months that we will spend in Spain this year.  Our original plan was to spend ten or eleven months, but we were unable to complete all the requirements needed for a Spanish visa.  Our main hangup has been and is an FBI background check.  You need to submit ink fingerprints so that they can run the background check.  We began the process in early January of this year.  After three attempts they were finally able to successfully scan my prints and complete my background check.  That is not the case for Susan.  Her fingerprints are so faint that they are unable to be read by the scanner.  We are currently seeking an alternate solution.  In the meantime, we decided that we would put the visa application on hold and take full advantage of the ninety day period that one may stay in Spain with a visa.

After much searching we were able to find a furnished apartment in Valencia.  It is a two bedroom flat with cable and internet and, perhaps most importantly, air conditioning.  We are ten minutes away from last year’s apartment and a short five minute walk away from the Central Market.  Friends who have checked the apartment out for us report that is is just like the photos that are posted on the internet.  It is an older building that has been well maintained and is located in what is starting to become one of the trendy areas in Valencia.  It is away from the hustle and bustle of traffic and the master is off of the building’s interior central patio.  It promises to be a good base of operations.

The only event that we have pre-planned for this visit is a trip to Spain’s northwestern- most autonomía (province), Galicia.  We will be attending the 2010 Spanish National Magic Convention in the city of La Coruña.  It runs from September 22 to the 25th.  We will also spend a few days in Madrid at the end of our stay and will get to barcelona for a few days so that Susan can take some current pictures of Gaudi’s Templo de la Sagrada Familia.  She began shooting this church back in the summer of 1974 and although it is still far from completion, the amount of the work that has been done in the intervening thirty six years is remarkable.

Everyone asks us what we will be doing during out three months in country and the reply is not very complicated.  We will just be living there for the three months while we visit with friends, improve our Spanish, improve our knowledge of Valencia and Spanish culture.  In short, we will live like valencianos for three months.  We plan to take more cooking classes at Fun and Food and certainly Susan will be taking more pictures of Valencia and its environs.  In addition to doing a lot of reading in Spanish, I hope to spend a goodly amount of time doing magic.  As of the moment I have no idea what the possibilities are, but there are a few things that I hope to do.

I would like to continue to do shows in a school setting.  Given the fact that I can perform in both Spanish and English that may help me get my foot in the door.  I also would like to do magic for children who are in the hospital.  Rather than being part of a show (and I would not object to that), I would like to visit individuals and spend some time with them chatting and doing a bit of magic.  Lastly, when we were last in Valencia there was some talk about one of the restaurants that we frequented doing a magic night that would include a magical menu,along with magic being performed after the meal.  I hope to pursue that idea soon after we arrive.

That’s about it for the moment.  There probably will no be any more blog entries until we are in Spain.  I have written this entry to sort of warm up my blog chops and to let those of you who will follow this blog know that I intend to make frequent additions while in Spain.