Saturday 3 December 2011
Have we told you about this couple who invited us to stay with them in their home for a week? Claire was living in Valencia first, teaching English, and Bill followed her here after falling in love. He's retired, from working for the state of Texas for almost 20 years, testing newborns for genetic problems. Claire still teaches, kids and military and private lessons. They're friends of our American friend in Valencia Don Snowden (noted music journalist), who took us straight to their place nearby when we landed in Valencia and couldn't connect to get into our intended place to stay. We used their phone and Internet to leave messages, and later that night we were able to get in. A couple days later we got an email inviting us and Don to dinner at their place, and after a terrific meal (perfect salmon! veggies same!) and even better conversation, the next day another e-mail from Bill inviting us to stay at their place for a week! And so here we are. How's that for Texas-Spanish hospitality?
After another late night jaw session with the usually early riser Bill, we rose at 11 and marched off with him to the local market in their becoming-hip Russafa barrio as Claire went off to teach -- she works a lot, which is good, but also exhausting at times for her, but doesn't seem to hurt her demeanor nor cramp her outgoing style. It also meant we spent more time with Bill, who was delightfully wry and self-deprecating and really funny. He and Charles wound up sharing much early morning chat with coffee and late night conversation with wine. (Much of it Dian's great find at the Dia supermarket, where we're now members: La Mancha, cool for our reading of Don Quixote, and tasty and amazingly priced at one Euro a bottle, that's a buck 40! -- find something in the States for four times that, that won't make you sick. Ah, Spain.)
Back at their place we had Bill's famous lentils and olives and cheese on toast (tapas). For dinner, butternut squash tostados, then off to the only cinema in town that showed movies in their original language with Spanish subtitles, not dubbed, and Roman Polanski's latest, "Carnage," a spellbinder with only four actors in a single room, a la "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Oscar noms, if not wins, we predicted, but then it was the first movie we'd seen in five months besides the final "Harry Potter".
Afterwards, they took us to the famous Portland Ale House, which served authentic American hamburgers (no thanks, we'll make our own), drunken chicken sandwiches and fresh cut fries, and their own micro brews plus many other excellent ones. They had a trivia contest Sunday nights which Claire thought would be fun for us.
After another late night jaw session with the usually early riser Bill, we rose at 11 and marched off with him to the local market in their becoming-hip Russafa barrio as Claire went off to teach -- she works a lot, which is good, but also exhausting at times for her, but doesn't seem to hurt her demeanor nor cramp her outgoing style. It also meant we spent more time with Bill, who was delightfully wry and self-deprecating and really funny. He and Charles wound up sharing much early morning chat with coffee and late night conversation with wine. (Much of it Dian's great find at the Dia supermarket, where we're now members: La Mancha, cool for our reading of Don Quixote, and tasty and amazingly priced at one Euro a bottle, that's a buck 40! -- find something in the States for four times that, that won't make you sick. Ah, Spain.)
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