Had another productive morning of actually getting up and working out but things tapered off quickly after that. As my primary means of getting around is walking and it was raining I pretty much went to ground today. Just stayed at home and worked all day. Tried to order some pasta for lunch but my delivery cyclist wiped out in the rain and my lunch was destroyed, so that was disheartening. Luckily, they were good enough to remedy that situation for me. Basically worked the rest of the day and then called it an early night.

With some reprieve from work this week I had time to lounge around, have coffee, work out and then dedicate just a small amount of time to actually being productive. In the afternoon I just went for a stroll around town. I ended up walking down one of the main shopping streets in Valencia. It was interesting to see all the stories gearing up for Christmas shopping. A lot of them already had their holiday decorations up. I even saw some advertising “Black Friday” sales which caught me off guard since there’s obviously no Thanksgiving in Spain. Swung back home briefly and then met some folks at Taberna Jamon Jamon for dinner. It’s a good place with a pleasant interior that specializes in… you guessed it; ham. Afterwards I headed over to Saint Martin’s for yet more birthday celebrations for another member of our group. I even managed to call it a relatively early evening as well.

A wholly uneventful day of rest. Lounged around my place and got take away tacos, can’t recall from where but they were mediocre.

After my late night last night I got a slow start to the morning. Couldn’t summon up the gumption to workout so my streak on that front ended sadly soon. I set out to find some food and ended up at Bar & Kitchen Mercat de Tapineria which has nice seating on a quiet square and decent food. We were having birthday drinks later and I was starting to flag so I headed over to Cappuccino, which is a coffee chain I discovered in Palma. It’s crazy expensive but the ambiance is very nice. I sat outside and pounded several coffees there but I still almost dozed off. Then I rallied and headed over to RED CUP for some birthday celebrations. This is a burger place that really loves those red plastic cups that are always featured at American parties. For some reason Europeans find this really novel… Hung there with some people for a while and then went over to La Mezcalaria and then to La Bella Cadiz which is a just… terrifying cocktail bar. My need for sleep was catching up with me so I called it after that, though.

A long day today. Kept the streak of actually working out alive when I woke up and then worked for a while. I had a lull it my work since I was so productive the day prior so I set out to try and find some wifi at a cafe around town to work from. As usual, everything was closed at that hour and I finally ran out of time so I ducked into the only place that had wifi around me at the time; London Cafe. It was terrible. Don’t go. Headed home to finish working and drop my things off. Had dinner with one of my fellow remotes at San Tommaso which was a really nice Italian place. I particularly enjoyed the street guitarists doing the U.S. 90’s hits. Then we went to meet even more remotes for drinks, then more drinks and dancing etc. etc. At places I don’t remember. Then I stumbled home in the wee hours of the morning while devouring some kebap. Pretty standard ending to the evening for Valencia.

Despite my best efforts I’d gotten a little behind on work while Stone was visiting. The prior day ballot curing ended in some geographies and I decided to work out which I haven’t done since I left America. All of this made for a very busy day that kept me chained to my desk for the entirety of it. I got some Thai takeout that was mediocre but kept me plugging until about 11 when I finally finished my whole task list (a rarity) and went to sleep. The upshot is that I have a very light week ahead so I’ll be able to aggressively get out and see Valencia. …hopefully.

An early start to the day to catch an early taxi to early flights out of Palma, I back to Valencia and Hayden to Madrid and then on to Lisbon. We parted ways at the airport and I headed home. After the early morning I was feeling a little lethargic the rest of the day and I made only minimal headway on work while lounging around home before going to the little pizza place across from my place in the evening for dinner.

We both had a fair amount of work to tend to today so it was less of a sightseeing day. I woke up early to try and catch some “Super Moon” photos before it set but the cell phone camera just isn’t cut out for such things. After breakfast we walked over to the Cathedral which was well worth the price of admission. I’ve seen a good number of these things during my time in Europe but this one was second only to The Vatican. We walked around some more after that and then I went over to Cappuccino to “digital nomad” and get some work done. Walking back to the hotel I ran into Stone at Cafe Placa and hung out there for a while. In the evening more tapas were consumed at Bar Espana which was quite the cool and lively hang out. Then it was an early night to catch early flights in the morning.

Work is having to become a priority once more now that the week has begun. Started the day with a slow breakfast at the hotel while working before heading to the airport for the brief flight over to Palma. Checked in at Hotel Santa Clara which is a really cool old building in old town that has been updated and has a very modern feel now while still maintaining the rustic charm. The view from the roof of this place is just great and it has a great angle on the massive cathedral that dominates the town. There was still more work to do so we went looking for lunch and wifi and found Gustar, a very good swiss place to hang out for the later half of the day. In the evening we walked around town and saw the sights but with everything closed we had to content ourselves with trying to come back the following day. We stopped for yet more tapas at La Vinya de Santa Clara near our hotel which was a very quaint shop. After that we called it a day to try and start early the next day.

After my late night out in Barcelona it was a slower start today and a more relaxed pace. We started off walking over to Sagrada de Familia which contrary to positive reviews we both just found deeply unsettling. I tried to go inside but as usually happens when I turn up places I was turned away. For want of other things to do we walked around town until we ended up at Pasteleria Mauri and paused there for a length consumption of coffee and tapas. In the evening we went to El Cercle for further tapas and then to La Alcoba Azul, which we couldn’t get into the night before. After all this we went to Milano and caught some live “modern jazz” that was really good.