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23 March 2025 What a full week! My friends Eric and Dan were here this week from Boise to experience the craziness that is Fallas in Valencia. Monday, I went to Spanish classes, while they slept in and then did some exploring of the city. The plan was to meet for the Maskleta after my…

16 March 2025 (Warning! Long blog post, with lots of photos) After three weeks of the worst cold I’ve ever had, I’m finally getting better…and just in time! I had a Couchsurfer arrive on Sunday, last week. Ilya is at attorney from Belarus and currently lives in Warsaw Poland. He was here until Friday. Because…

9 March, 2025 It’s been another quiet week in Valencia. We have had an unusually wet week with so much rain that that they issued flood warnings and closed schools Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That meant that my school moved to online classes. And because I’ve still been recovering from this tenacious cold, I was…

2 March, 2025 I don’t have much to share this week. I’ve been home, sick with the worst head cold of my life. It’s just lots of congestion, coughing from my chest, constant running nose and exhaustion. I went to choir practice on Monday, the 17th of February. It was the first time that all…

16 February 2025 First off, in my last post I misspoke. Thankfully! The concerts weren’t that week, they were this week. So, the last two weeks have really concentrated on preparing, practicing, and rehearsing this music. Bruckner’s Mass in E minor is by far the most difficult piece of music I’ve ever sung. And having…

2 February 2025 Choir has been getting busier and busier. That will consume my attention for the coming week. I’m trying to practice at home when I can with recordings from the Internet. We have Bruckner’s Mass in E minor to perform this coming week. I feel very unprepared. But I’ll keep working on it.…

26 January 2025 My visa renewal took a step forward this week. I needed a copy of the contract for my health insurance that included the start date for this year and proof of payment for the year. But the company website has been down for weeks. My sales rep is always very helpful. But…

19 January 2025 The big news this week is that my application to continue my student visa has hit some snags. I’m not panicking but it’s been going on a couple weeks and it’s starting to become a “story,” A couple weeks ago, my attorney sent a message that the authorities wanted signed bank statements…

12 January 2025 Monday was Epiphany, the Feast of the Three Kings. That meant almost everything was closed for the day. There were no classes. And after all the activities of the last few weeks, my friend Mike from Denver and I planned a quiet day. The only thing on our agenda was a local…

5 January 2025 Happy New Year and Happy Kings Day! I hope your new year is off to a wonderful start. Mike (my friend visiting from Denver) and I continue to celebrate the holidays and enjoy Valencia. For New Year’s Eve, we started the day with Vicente for Almuerzo. In most of Spain and the…