Sunday, July 28, 2013

Susan is all packed and ready for her California/Colorado adventure.  She leaves on Tuesday and returns on August 19^th.  The hot and humid weather has limited our activities, but has not gotten in the way of our eating out.

Tuesday we had lunch at Carosel and since things were not super busy Jordi sat down and chatted with us for quite a while.  He updates us on all his projects, as well as his vacation plans.  He will be taking two weeks off in the middle of August. After lunch we headed back home and at 8:00 we headed out again bound for Jimmy Glass.

The featured artist Tuesday evening was Jorge Pardo, an award winning flautist and saxophonist.  One of the members of his quartet was Josemi Carmona, an unbelievable Flamenco guitarist who is also part of the group Ketama. The music was a combination of Nuevo Flamenco and Jazz/Flamenco fusion.  The room was packed to capacity and the air conditioner was not up to the task given the hot lights, the number of bodies and the outside temperature.  The music ended at 11:00 and Susan and I made our way home where we read for a while before turning out the lights.

Thursday night we had dinner with Vilma and Juanjo.  We met at La Bodeguita del Gato in the Carmen and had a lovely evening filled with good food and interesting conversation.  The two of them are planning a trip to Honduras to visit with Vilma’s family and to do some exploring of the neighboring Central American countries.  We were so engrossed in conversation that we were surprised to discover that midnight had come and gone and, given the fact that both of them had to get up for work tomorrow, we said our goodbyes and we each went our separate ways.

Friday evening we caught up with Ofelia, Brian and Olivia.  We started out with drinks at their place and around 9:30 we made our way to Sorsi e Morsi, an Italian restaurant that always seemed to be closed when we tried to eat there.  We had an enjoyable meal and I ended up doing some magic for those assembled at the table.  I also did some magic for our server, Flor, who was very appreciative of the two souvenirs that I gave her.

Yesterday it was lunch at Kawayan, an Asian restaurant that now occupies the space that was Ballando Nudi.  The food was excellent and, ironically, as we were leaving the former owner of the space, Francisco Cocineros, drove up on his Vespa.  We chatted for a while and discovered that he is currently working as a bartender at Radio City to help finance a trip back to Italy.  The rest of the day was uneventful and both Susan and I put a substantial dent in the books that we are reading.

The TV is our bedroom died so on Thursday we went to FNAC to take advantage of their 12% off sale.  We picked up a 32-inch Samsung Smart TV, which weighs less than ten pounds.  Susan assembled the base and I took care of setting it up and connecting it to our router.  We then took down the old TV in the bedroom and replaced it with the TV that had been in the living room.  Susan removed the hardware from the old TV and replaced it on the other TV and we hung it back on the wall without any problem.  We turned it on and discovered that everything was in perfect working order.

When we were at Jimmy Glass on Tuesday Susan made an interesting discovery.  There is a tourist magazine published here in Valencia called 24/7.  It is one of the many giveaway publications that are found in hotels and restaurants.  Susan had submitted a couple of photos for their READERS’ PHOTOS section and, borrowing a copy from a nearby table, she discovered that her pictures have been published in the current issue.

Today will be an Eggs Benedict Sunday at The Ginger Loft. The Batalla de las flores is scheduled at 8:00 PM tonight.  The temperature is supposed to flirt with 100 today and it will have an effect on our decision to attend the event.  We shall see what the day brings.