Dog days

Saturday, January 28 - Not a lot to report for the last few days. The weather has been about average for this time of year in Valencia - highs in the low to mid-teens, lots of sun, and blessedly little wind, which makes it feel warmer than it actually is. 

I ran on Thursday, the usual route: down to Turia Park and back. Yesterday, it was a fast walk, also the now customary route: through Central Park, over the tracks and back around Estacion del Norte. And then today, another run. I think I’ve now worked back up to 5K, by lengthening the distance I run towards the centre in Turia Park.

On Thursday, we didn’t do much. Karen remembers - or thinks she remembers - that we walked down to Turia Park and biked back or part way back, or the other way around. Maybe, but I have no clear memory of this. I do remember thinking about going out again in the evening and rejecting the idea. So who knows? This is why we have to do stuff every day - otherwise, the days just run together.

Yesterday, we walked over to Carmen and had a cheap lunch at a place Shelley Boyes had recommended, L’Express. It’s a lunch spot for working folks, not in the least fancy, but good value. Ten euros for three courses and a drink - the sort of prices we saw six or seven years ago. We both had honey ribs for mains, served with oven-fried potatoes. Judging by what we could see of other tables around the room, we were probably the only gringos there - and got the boniest, least meaty servings of the ribs. 

I had a very nice, and filling, lentil soup for starters. Karen had a mini-paella dish, which I would order another time if we went there and it was on the menu. For dessert, I had something they called chocolate cake, but was in fact chocolate pudding. It was tasty, but I didn’t finish it as it almost certainly had dairy in it. The wine was okay, not as good as in the other places we’ve eaten, but perfectly drinkable. The total bill came to just over CDN$30.

Would we go back there? Maybe not. I had tummy issues that night, which, in fairness, may have had nothing to do with the food - but, equally, might have.

We biked home.

Later in the afternoon, we walked over to Central Park. We strolled a bit, and Karen sat in the sun briefly reading her book while I took pictures. The pictures - of rippling water, flowers and leaves - were meant to be fodder for some of the experiments in multi-exposure images that I was working on before we left home. So far, they have yielded only images of doubtful merit.

Waterfall

Roses

After I’d dropped Karen off at home, I went out again and biked to MuVIM. I walked back into the neighbourhood behind the museum. I’m not sure what it’s called, but it may be considered part of a barrio shown on maps as Extramurs - which I’m assuming means “outside the walls” - although this area would not have been outside the city’s medieval walls. In any case, it has been good hunting grounds for street art in the past  - and continues to be. 

I was struck by the massive scale of some of these murals. They could not have been created on the fly; the artists must have had the permission of the city and/or property owners, and taken a long time over them. The one of the woman holding grapes. covers the end of a building overlooking neighbourhood garden allotments.

From there, I wandered, via the Central Market, into Carmen, by which time the street lamps were lit and the sky light was fading fast. A half an hour wandering there, finishing at Torre del Quart, then a bike ride home along Guillem de Castro and Xativa. 

Torre del Quart

We’re watching a couple of Netflix/Prime series right now, both of which we weren’t sure about to begin with, but have grown to appreciate. 

The one is Chilean, the title in English translated as 42 Days of Darkness. (I'm no linguist, but I would question the translation - oscuridad means quite a few other things, including obscurity, murk, gloom, etc.) It’s about a woman who goes missing, a wife and mother of two daughters, living in a gated community outside a city that is not Santiago. The 42 days are the days she remains missing, but the series continues for two more episodes after the 42 days are up. The characters all seem very real, including the sister who desperately searches for the missing woman, the incompetent police and the discredited lawyer and his private detective buddies who are looking for a way to cash in on the case and win some glory for solving it. Nothing turns out as anyone - including us - expects.

The other is one I’ve already mentioned, Outer Range, a sci-fi/fantasy set in Wyoming ranching country. It is totally original, and oddly convincing. Josh Brolin stars. We feared it would be another Lost or Manifest, two idiotic, long-running American sci-fi series that in the end made no sense. This is orders of magnitude better. So far. The world is very convincingly built, the writing and acting are pretty good and the characters are well drawn and believable - well, as believable as they can be given the sci-fi premise.

This afternoon, we’re going to bike over to a little ornamental garden on the other side of the Turia, the Jardí de Montfort. Maybe we’ll sit and read if there’s any sun left.