Valencia, Spain &The Never Ending Anniversary

Trey and I got married on October 3, 2014. We have been celebrating our 2 year anniversary a lot. We went on a 21 day adventure in August as our anniversary trip. Still being in Europe and having the opportunity we decided to make another anniversary trip and scheduled a weekend in Valencia to celebrate the actual day. We went through Air B&B and found a basement room in a house near the beach with a our own bathroom for a very reasonable price with Thomas and Chico.

We took the bus for this trip. We went through the maze of metro and train links to get to the bus station and away we went on the night bus to Valencia. I slept most of the trip and Trey practiced his Spanish, talking to himself in his head in Spanish, and listening to the amusing bus driver skillfully switch the radio stations. The bus driver went through Latin Jazz, Spanish contemporary music, Spanish talk shows, American Pop hits, and Like a Virgin with a special accompanist, the bus driver! 

When we got there we instantly felt the humidity and could smell the sea air. We found a taxi and were whisked away having a tour of the city on the 20 minute drive to the beach. When there we were greeted by Chico, one of the residents of the house and shown to our room. We had not eaten dinner yet so found our way to the veranda where we ate our Iberico Jamon, Spanish Mountain Cheese, Organic Olive Oil and Pan. We enjoyed a nice bottle of Rioja wine with the dinner and listened to some good music. A great night laughing and talking as we toasted to two years of the start of our great adventure together!

We slept in till around 11 on Saturday then got dressed to get a bite of breakfast. We were expecting it to be chilly so dressed accordingly. In the basement it is hard to judge the weather. We got out and it was a wonderful October day! The sun was out, blue skies, about 75 degrees and no wind. We walked out to the beach which was a block in front of us and found a nice place where they served toast and tomato, my favorite Spanish breakfast, and coffee and Baileys. We sipped and dined and looked out at the beach and sea enjoying each other's company and decided to go put our swimsuits on and get some sunshine. We rented chairs from the local beach services guy. Trey showed the guy Kiawah's bro shake and they laughed about the beach life as Trey fumbled with his Spanglish. We relaxed, Trey got in the water a few times, and life was good for us city folk from Madrid where we grow to miss the beach. Once we worked up an appetite it was a short three block walk to the famous Casa Carmela, where they serve Valencia's best paella. We got seated in the back patio, were served our ritual bottle of Cava, and started on a scrumptious shrimp appetizer while we waited for our seafood paella. We relaxed, enjoying the weather and people watching. It is a tradition in Spain to eat paella and locals were there in groups of as many as ten sharing huge pans of the wonderful rice. Once finished we made our way back to the house feeling happy and laughing. The sun and fun does that to us. We enjoyed the Spanish rite of siesta before getting ready for a big night out. 

I bought a new dress for our Saturday in Valencia and Trey wore his suit. We got dressed to impress and took the bus to the city center. We walked and marveled at the beautiful architecture, the clean city, the people, and the water fountains. There was a group of medieval dressed men throwing flags around With others beating drums. As we made our way through the crowd we took a good look at the event then  kept moving and they kept throwing those flags. We then made it to our first destination, a cocktail bar that had fancy decor to go with the fancy drinks. We had our fill of Hendricks and Petron then headed to our big event. Jimmy Glass is a famous Jazz Bar in Valencia. When we arrived we were greeted by the bartender, two musicians were warming up, the owner seated front and center having a beer, and us. Nobody else. We were told to arrive at 10:00 and we were on time. We had the bar to ourselves, took our seat at our reserved table and ordered a nice bottle of wine. While the two were warming up we couldn't see them from our table, just their backs. When we spoke to the waiter we asked if we could move. He said we could sit anywhere we wanted. We setup right by the owner. Seemed like a good spot, and we were glad we moved. By 10:30 the place was packed. There was not an empty seat in the house.

We were front row to the best live jazz guitar performance we have ever seen. The two musicians played off each other really well. The older man was called sensei by the younger and he was astonishing. His fingers moved up and down the fret board doing all sorts of configurations of chords while his strumming hand used all five fingers in different patterns to produce so many varying degrees of sounds and patterns. His thumb nail was resined and used as a pick. He was special and has a real gift for music. His student kept right up and they played jazz that really made you feel. He would stop after each song and give a brief introduction in Spanish to the next song. What feeling and passion they were able to display on the guitars. Just after midnight they took their set break and we were out of wine and feeling good so we paid the tap and found the first taxi back to the beach. 

Our bus left again at four in the afternoon on Sunday so we went to the aquarium, one of the largest in Europe, and toured around for two hours. The shark tank was as big as the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston. It was so impressive to see all the marine life they had. Tropical coral configurations, walrus and beluga whales of the Arctic, Dolphins, penguins, you name it marine, they had it at this aquarium. We made the best of our two hours we had there. We still had one more stop to make before getting to the bus. Thomas and Chico made us a cake for our anniversary back at the house and we didn't want to miss that. We made it back and had coffee with cake and spoke Spanish with Chico. They were so accommodating and again we didn't want to leave. 

We grabbed our bags, loaded on the bus and back to Madrid. Wonder what year three anniversary will be like. Will be tough to beat year two but I think we can figure something out!