Our love affair with Jose Manuel; a belated account of the first weekend

2pm on Friday marks the start of my weekend, so of course at 14:01 I burst out of the school gates and strode off to experience the fabulous city in which I am lucky enough to be teaching (read: had a three-hour nap followed by a trip to the pharmacy for some antibiotics).

After this vigorous start, we gathered in the kitchen, cooked and waited for a knock from our landlord. 

Our first encounter with Jose Manuel had been prompted by hot water issues a few days before. Having reported cold showers, Jose materialised like our very own gruff yet caring Spanish genie and proceeded to not only magic away our water problems, but also enthusiastically demonstrate the workings of every fixture in the apartment (coat hangers included). It remains unclear whether we were given this tour out of sheer warmth and zeal on Jose’s part or because of suspected incompetence on ours… regardless, the comprehensive guide was followed by a call to his son – who lives in the US and was neither amused nor surprised by his father’s intrusion – in order to set up Friday evening. Jose was offering to drive us around the city at night, to take us to the beach, drop us in the old town and generally show off his city. We gladly accepted his offer.

So, at 10pm last Friday, Jose Manuel appeared at our door bearing knives (there was only one sharp one in our apartment, so we’d asked for more) and ushered us into his car. Safeguarding alarm bells were ringing… but we needn’t have worried – Jose’s wife was already sat in the passenger seat and this fabulous couple proceeded to give us the most fantastic, adorable, and authentically Valencian excursion we could have hoped for.

We started off by visiting the beach. Pitch-black, cool and calming, populated by a few groups of night-time fishermen; it was the perfect palate cleanser after a hectic week. We wandered up to the shoreline to test the water and our adopted Spanish grandfather chuckled as we were caught by the surf.

Next stop: the science museums. Jose let us out of car and for a while we stood alone and in silence, in the heart of the city, surrounded by sparkling marble stairs and colossal futuristic architecture - all illuminated in purples and blues. Valencia was beginning to seem utopian, and in that moment we had it all to ourselves. 

With our speech recovered, we drove on into the old town. Señora Jose was hungry, and so we found ourselves, well past midnight, following our 60-something landlord and lady to a McDonald’s. They walked hand-in-hand the whole way and our hearts were melted. After some unabashedly touristy photo-taking, we found food of our own: ice-cream. Lots and lots of ice cream. I ordered 4 different flavours: Banana supreme, Dulche de leche, Chocolate rocky road and the outlet’s award-winning Mystery flavour. I have no regrets.

But our culinary evening wasn’t halfway finished. Our new favourite couple met us with our mountains of ice-cream (more chuckling) and led us off the streets, into a basement juice bar. Sombreros hung from the ceiling as lamp shades, all the seat covers were brightly coloured cross-sections of fruit and seats themselves were braided-straw beach chairs – it felt as though we were in Buenos Aires. We struggled to choose from a ridiculously tempting list of drinks (Mr and Mrs Jose, of course, ordered off the menu) but soon enough our helado-filled stomachs had to make way for vast goblets of the freshest, most satisfying juice I reckon I will ever have.

Our group has varying abilities in Spanish – from getting-on-to fluent to absolutely-no-idea-please-send-help – but neither one of our tour guides has a knowledge of English. This made conversation over juice a little challenging, but we persevered, determined to show both our gratitude and our interest in them and their country. By the time the goblets had been emptied, we’d learned all about their technology-whizz of a son and how much they miss him, we’d attempted to explain what we were doing in their country and we’d emphasised multiple times how incredibly grateful we were for the whole evening. Jose happily let us pick up the bill and then drove us all home (although not before pointing us in the direction of a few clubs he thought we’d like).

We got through the door well after 2am, but wide awake and buzzing on juice, ice cream and the untapped phenomenon that is 60-something year-old couples. 

That was just Friday evening.

I do actually have lessons to plan and siestas to take, so to give you a rundown of the rest of the weekend:

• the whole Valencia gang had a sangria-soaked lesson on paella making
• this was followed by a group excursion to the afore-praised Riviera Park and science museums
• some of us crashed an open-air classical guitar concert in the park and were enchanted by the myriad of Spanish toddlers that danced around us
• cycle-boards (paddleboards meet bikes) were rented with varying degrees of success
• we facetimed the A Coruña lot and it was so lovely to see all of their faces, even if we couldn’t hear anything they were saying
• our apartment inaugurated Sunday night Churros y Chocolate, long may it continue

7 minutes later