Happy Friday, All!
Yes, well … I am still at it! It would be great having a traveling “tourist” life style in retirement if I had the money … Let’s see what happens … who discovers me or whom I discover! Always an optimist. So, T.G.I.F as is in order around here … whomever you consider your God to be, so to speak, if only a power greater than yourself!
I am in Valencia again. This time, I am in a more residential area called “La Lonja”. There are quite a few sights which I will capture today in photos and it is not such a college oriented area. It is “downtown” … of course, every place has a “downtown”, quite often, several downtowns!! So, I am in one of them … you know … people on the streets drinking and chatting until “the end of the night/beginning of the morning” type of downtowns! Yeah, and there is a typical Spanish style balcony here where I am staying just big enough for one chair and one small eating table … and a window overlooking the narrow street! I am “living with the people”! I love it. It’s a studio apartment with dishes, microwave, refrigerator and bathroom/toilet and air conditioning! It is called the “United Colors Apartment”, a building renovated right in the downtown area near one of the “mercats” or markets, which I will visit shortly. It is a little ways from the beach which I plan to visit today or tomorrow, for sure.
Traveling … and alone again, naturally … one can learn a lot about oneself! How much stamina do you have? How well and how far can you walk with arthritis? How happy can you be and how grateful does that happiness make you when you accomplish your mission? It is a treat for me! I learn to ask for directions and unsuspecting souls actually help out! I immerse myself in the moments because we never know when they will end … or how it will be tomorrow … Just glad to be alive and rather healthy and able to push through life’s dramas in style! Thank you, My Creator, for wiring me this way!
I will be here for 4 days … the weekend … and leaving Tuesday to head back to Sabadell, Barcelona where I am currently sharing a bedroom with my new good friend from Argentina, “Cris”, and the other two house guests – Hilda and Quing Yin, from Indonesia and China respectively. We are all guests at Vicky Lao’s home in Sabadell. I will be there until the 17th of October when my flight leaves BCN (Barcelona Airport) going to ATL’s airport and the last leg back to Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport! I have gotten a lot of information about retiring abroad, I have learned some tricks and made a few contacts as well. It is an experience, which, if you can, one ought to try … There are a lot of senior travelers out “here” from so many countries, some of them in groups and others “flying solo” like me! I am a “people person” and love “people watching” as well as sitting back when I can and enjoy “the local vibe”. Can “you” get along with other people without “thinking” that you are in “control” of them?!? I can, and that is why I am usually fortunate enough to meet some very fine people … not perfect, but very fine!
I will immerse myself in the culture here in Valencia, looking to locate that local “vegetarian Valencian paella” that some of my friends from the gym in Sabadell told me about as well as locate the beach here again. I am a little ways away from it but that never stopped me before … and it won’t stop me now. Valencia … here I come … AGAIN!
Have a great weekend!
Peace,
John I. Cook, Director
Educational Excellence 