A Christmas Concert

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Our busy week continues. Miguel and I will make a trip to Carrefour to pick up a nightstand for the bedroom and then he will join us for lunch. This evening we will be having dinner with Ofelia and Brian and going to a jazz club afterwards.

Yesterday we headed for the market around noon. We had stopped off at a business around the corner from us to print out some photos to give to Jordi, but it took them forever to print the four photos. At one point I told Susan to go on ahead and that I would catch up with her at the market. When I finally got to the market she was waiting for Amparo to wait on her at Frutería Ros. I told Susan that I was going to run across the street to the Banco Popular because they had trouble reading my debit card at the Palau the other night. I inserted my card in the automatic teller and received a message that said, “This operation cannot be completed with this card. That was not the first time that I have seen this message. It means that the magnetic strip on the card has been corrupted.

I then made my way to the central office of the bank and visited with Carlos once again so that I could order a new card. I then made my way back to the market where Susan had stopped at a sidewalk café to have a cup of coffee while she waited for me to return. Just before heading to the bank we had stopped off at Carusel to give Jordi and Carol the pictures of Joanna that we had had printed. We also picked up six bottles of wine that Jordi had ordered for us. Jordi gave us his discount that he gets from his distributor and the six bottles of wine cost us 16 Euros.

When we got home we unpacked the roller and gave some thought to lunch. Since Susan had an Aqua Fitness class at 3:30 we decided to eat early. We went over to the restaurant at Rojas Clemente to let Enrique prepare lunch for us. We both started with an ensalada valenciana, which had a little bit of everything in it = lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, beets, olives, radishes and tuna. Susan ordered the chicken brochette as her entrée and I had the filet. Susan and I shared our desserts. I had ordered the almond cake and she had ordered the apple pie. We finished the meal with a coffee.

As soon as we got home, Susan picked up her gym bag and headed off for her class. I sat down at the computer and wrote Wednesday’s blog entry. When I finished I headed for the gym to get in my workout. I got back home a little after 6:00 and hopped in the shower because we were going to a concert that started at 7:30.

The choir of the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia was presenting its Christmas concert at the Palau de Música. This was an extra special event because it also marker the tenth anniversary of the formation of the choir. My friend and fellow magician, Jaime Gómez, is the current president of the choir. He had alerted me to the concert and told me to arrive by 7:00 to get a good seat because tickets were free and it was general seating. We picked up our tickets at the box office and decided to have a drink at the bar since they had not started admitting people into the hall yet.

As we made our way to the entrance of the concert hall Susan heard someone calling her name. It was Zahava. She and Klaus were there at the invitation of a friend who is a member of the choir. They were ahead of us in line, but they indicated that they would save us two seats. They did just that and we settled comfortably into our seats in the 9^th row of the orchestra. We chatted for a bit until the concert began.

The first part of the program consisted of traditional Valencian and Spanish Christmas pieces. The second half of their program consisted mainly of American carols and Christmas tunes like Jingle Bells and The 12 Days of Christmas. We enjoyed the first half of the concert more because we got to discover new music. The second half consisted of songs that were very familiar to us, but not to the Valencian audience.

When the concert ended we headed for home. We decided to walk a bit and then take a cab when we felt the need to do so. On our way we stopped into a restaurant and had a drink and ordered some tapas to fortify us on our journey home. We never took a cab and walked all the way back to the apartment. Once there we gave Rachel a call and spoke to her for a while and also spoke with my brother. Around 11:30 we got under the covers and read for a while and it was a little after midnight when we went to sleep.