We had a day of shopping and wandering the streets, once again, in Old Town with a lovely lunch at a sidewalk cafe.  Joey and I ate healthily and then there was Jocelyn! The pictures say it all.

We found new shops to wander into including all kinds of basketry shops making everything in ratan from chairs and elephant heads to cactus and yes, baskets.  Another area of a street featured everything made from wood.  There are truly some talented craftsmen in Valencia.  Joey finally got to go into the huge Cathedral and although there were a wedding, a mass and a baptism being held, she saw everything she wanted to and was so happy she had gone.  Jocelyn did some shopping and I wandered by myself and we all met up at a given time.

“Let’s just jump on a bus and see where it takes us”, I said. “Surely, it will  just do a circuit and come back to here”, I said.  Everyone agreed and all was going well until the bus stopped, and the driver told us in Spanish and sign language that this was the last stop – finito – and we had to get off. Oh, the joys of a new country.  We studied the map at the bus stop not knowing if another bus would be coming and if so, what number and where would we end up.  We finally had a little luck and the same number bus came and we were off again, ending up where we had started.  “Let’s do that again”, I said.  And away we went, this time, on a new bus, taking a lovely ride along the beach area and through new streets.  We figured out from that trip how to get to the main harbour for Joey and me and for Jocelyn, how to get to a new part of the beach.   We’ll do that on Monday.

Speaking of sign language, we did come across an interesting event during this time.  The  Annual International Conference for the Deaf was being held in one of the large squares.  Joce wandered over to where several hundred people were sitting at tables under a huge tent and she said it was the quietest place to be.  They were all signing and arms were flailing.  They had music playing so loudly that Joey said if they weren’t deaf when they got here, they certainly would be by the time they left.

That pretty much sums up our day yesterday.

I do have a few funny stories to share so I’ll use my time today to tell you.

Funny Story #1

I have been taking pictures of doors all during our stay in Valencia and Mallorca.  I’ve got the girls looking for new ones with me and on one occasion, I think we were on the bus,  Joey, all excited, saw a new, beautiful one, and exclaimed, “Look, that one’s got beautiful knockers”! We fell apart laughing.

Funny Story #2

Jocelyn and I have our bedrooms up in the loft area so we need to come down every morning, generally in a daze, to get our day going. One morning I was already sitting at the table when Joce started down the stairs.  Upon landing at the bottom she looked at the door on her left and said, “I never noticed this door before, have you? Where does it go”?  I sat bewildered, not knowing if she was serious or just being funny.  I was stunned and didn’t answer right away and when she looked at my face she knew why.  It was our front door that we always enter the apartment in.  She must have lost some of her brain cells during the night and once again, we fell apart laughing.

Funny Story #3

After our day out on the town yesterday, we took the subway home.  Now, we’ve ridden the subway dozens of times but when we got off, I noticed an elevator to the street level.  Why hadn’t I seen it before?  We would have saved a lot of unnecessary stair climbing as we do enough of that in our flat. Anyhow, Joey decided to climb the stairs and Joce and I got in the elevator, pressed the button and took the long, slow journey up one level.  Never have I been in such a slow elevator.  When we got to the top the door didn’t open.  “Now what”? I said.  “Are we stuck here forever”? Joce exclaimed.  We pushed the button repeatedly and nothing happened.  We were getting exasperated, when I looked behind me and there stood Joey, looking at us in puzzlement wondering what the heck we were doing.  There were two doors in the elevator!  We were almost peeing our pants when we got off.  Who has more fun than women?

Here are a few of the wonderful meals we have made and shared together.  We certainly haven’t gone hungry!

These two pictures show a couple of store shelves in the big supermarket not far from our flat.  The one on the top is all yogurt!!!!  The other one, liquor!  More yogurt than liquor…what’s that all about?

That’s it for today.