As is my nature, I rose early this morning to write, and to relax, and to get a little more centered and reflective about the year that’s passed. That time always allows me to let the kids sleep a few more minutes, and to be less stressed about the travel time.

I woke up around 7 am this morning and expected to see sun… but it was still very dark. I pulled out the phone to see what time the sun would rise, and discovered I still had another hour before it would occur. But that seemed late compared to home so I just checked to see what time it would rise in Morrisville — almost an hour earlier.

Jeez, I guess I am a bit higher up in the latitudes than I thought. We Americans do suck at geography.

So I walked out to the beach. It was cold and windy, and I do wish I had put on a hat, but the sea and sand were there. Here I stood on the edge of a body of water I’d never see and yet it was like every other. The water ran to the edge of the horizon and fell of into the dragons and the beasts. Here I stood at a place where commerce had flowed from the Greeks to the Romans and into the time of Columbus, Napoleon and Franco, and I was here. Just didn’t seem possible.

We live such isolated lives, limited to our own perspective. We read the stories about how great people, and ordinary people live, and all we can do is view it from where we stand and our lives. Being 10 and hearing about Isabella sending the Genoese sailor to the west to bring her goods from India, and thinking, “…ok—recorded to memory” and never putting context of place or meaning to it.

I looked out over the balcony of this concrete and steel building and see water to the east, and every shape, color, size and description imaginable to the west toward this town, and know that there are places and stories that I’ll never know. It humbles you, keeps me centered and leaves me in awe of the lives that live around us.

Once up and at it, they rose a bit slowly, packed our stuff and headed to the train station for our next stop: Valencia. Three hours later, after a long trip down the coast among the fields and farms throughout this region of Spain, we arrived in a town that is considerably different than any other we’ll likely visit on this trip.

Of course the highlight might have been Drew’s excited return from a visit to the bathroom (yeah, it’s not like that). He was going on and on about meeting a girl and her mother and their complete failure to understand each other, but still having some connection. After a bit of goading, the boy ran back down the train to deliver a note (edited and revised by his sister, containing his name, email, phone, and Facebook page). He returned first frustrated because he failed to find her, but we pushed him back out to search and he returned a few minutes later with a big, proud smile on his face.

As his sister was chiding him for his growing ego, and we were a bit blinded by the unending grin on his face… here came a cute, young woman with dark hair and glasses, who walked right up to him, handed him a piece of paper with her information (digits just ain’t what it used to be back in the day) and gave him a quick smile and jaunted back toward her end of the train.

We haven’t gotten his feet back on the ground since.

After dinner and a walk back to the hotel (and a lot of funny banter about the beautiful people around us, and how slow some walk), we then headed off about a half-mile in the opposite direction to Camp Mestella, the home of Valencia CF for their 9 pm game against Real Madrid.

This stadium just arises from nowhere in the middle of a quasi-commercial/residential area of Valencia. And the fans were incredibly organized and chanting the whole game. Sadly we were on the other side of the stadium from those fans and sat instead in the multi-generation section. But the looks were shared (because there were no words between us since none could understand the other) told the tale of the unfathomable failures of the official, the amazing shots on goal by the home team, and the wonder at the three goals scored by Real.

The night grew cold, but stayed with it to the very end. A disappointing end for the home team 2-3 against a much better team, but still a very respectable showing for their fans and three Americans who wanted to see La Liga up close and personal.