It was raining like crazy today so that kept me in for basically the whole day. Apparently there were even a bunch of waterspouts out over the gulf. …something I missed while trapped in the apartment all day.

Another pretty low key day today. It rained in the early part of the day so I stayed in and did some work. In the evening I went over to Mercado Colon and me a fellow remote for drinks. It just so happened that they were doing a big cava tasting so the place was totally packed. After that we went over to Ameyal and met some more people for dinner which was excellent.

For me today marks the halfway point through this one year journey. Just like I expected the time has flown by but at the same time it’s hard to believe how much I have packed in over the past six months. I didn’t do anything to mark the occasion as after a late night out of eating and drinking for Thanksgiving I just lounged around the house today and rounded out some work and rested. Pretty uneventful.

Thanksgiving Day. I still had to work so I spent most of the day working on that. The coincident timing of Thanksgiving and reaching the halfway point (tomorrow) in the trip had my feeling very homesick. Went to dinner at Ricard Camarena with one of my fellow remotes to celebrate. It was excellent and I’d highly recommend it to anyone in Valencia. Afterwards we went to Portland Ale House which is the “American Bar” in Valencia and had drinks with some other folks.

Another cloudy and rainy day in Valencia. I was hungry enough to brave the drizzle, though, so I walked over to Brunch Corner which has been getting a lot of attendance from my fellow remotes. Nice ambiance, good food, inexpensive. I can see why it’s well attended. I headed over to Wayco to work but finished all of the work I could in about an hour. Then I was stuck waiting for America to wake up so I decided to head back home and work from there for the rest of the day so I could conceivably do nothing the next day on Thanksgiving. In the end that didn’t pan out, though.

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.