SANTA IGLESIA CATEDRAL - VALENCIA, SPAIN

ANNUAL BRAG LETTER

I finally finished mailing all the Christmas cards. This year I cut the list down in half by not sending to those that I have not heard from the last two years. Next year I might even learn to send Christmas eCards.

In keeping with the tradition, here is my "braggin' letter" included with the cards.

"We hope 2008 was a peaceful year for you and your family. We wish you a blessed Christmas and a New Year filled with good health, love and happiness.

CP and I celebrated our 19th Wedding Anniversary with a Western Mediterranean cruise. We visited Portofino, Italy; Nice and Cannes, France; Valencia, Spain, then cruised the Mediterranean Sea to Malta, then onto Tunisia, Africa and an extra 3-day in Rome after the cruise. You might wonder why celebrate 19th Anniversary. We say why not 19th, why wait for 20th or any other year. Isn’t every year worth celebrating?

Our other highlight was attending Game 1 of the Stanley Cup to cheer for our Beloved Detroit Red Wings. The Red Wings won their 4th Stanley Cup Championships within the last 10 years.

We keep in touch with our families in New York, Michigan, South Carolina, Colorado, Texas, and Wisconsin thru phone calls, email, blogs and Facebooks. I finally have my very own Facebooks but I rarely checked the page or do anything with it. Currently we are both employed, not sure how long in this uncertain economy. Our investment is very conservative so the setback was not too bad and with a few dollars in savings, we hope to weather the storm.

We do keep our servicemen and women in our prayers and appreciate their sacrifices keeping America safe and providing freedom and liberty to the world.

May peace, love and happiness fill your heart and your home. We hope you will keep in touch and look forward to hearing from you."

VALENCIA, SPAIN

On June 31st we arrived at the port of Valencia, on the east coast of central Spain. The bus ride took about 20 minutes from the port to the city centre with a stop for photos at the futuristic Arts and Science Centre (photo above). The Centre includes a science museum with inter-active exhibits (we did not have time to go inside so we just had to trust the tour guide that the exhibits were great for both adults and children). I thought of my brother and his son as they would have enjoyed playing and learning at this museum. There were also the "Hemesferic" planatarium and the oceannarium (top 2 photos) which again based on what the tour guide told us "a spectacular underwater city of the marine life". We spent about 20 minutes in an open garden across from the planatarium. When we tried to cross the street to get back to the bus on the other side of the road, while my husband and I waited to the traffic lights, other people decided to run across and one of them almost got hit by a group of motorcycles. Here is my report - people in Spain also drive on the right side of the roads as in the States.
After leaving the modern city centre, we visited the Cathedral Metropolitana, the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, the central square of the old town with buildings of mixture architectural styles of Gothic, Romanesque, and baroque. The Cathedral is known for supposedly as the home of the Holy Grail from which Jesus shared communion with his chosen disciples at the Last Supper. I enjoyed this part of the tour as I was more interested in seeing historic churches, not the typical modern, sprawling and industrialized city centre.
My Spanish came in handy when I was not sure if I had to pay to use public restrooms. As I walked towards one of the toilets, a lady stopped me and she said "Un momento". So I said to her, "Dinero necesita?". She said no so I waited behind her. Turned out, she was waiting for her daughter. Almost 20 years later, two words I still remembered from my Spanish courses at Hunter College were put to practical usage!