We moved to a rural county of California eight years ago and quickly realized–oops?– we are city people. There are advantages to each, and we get a taste of the city once or twice a month when we travel to San Francisco or San Jose, but one of the main purposes of this vacation was to return to city immersion, which was “just like riding a bike.”

The streets here are lively from whenever we wake up until around midnight, bustling with every sort of person and vehicle. Within short walking distance of our apartment one finds restaurants and drinking establishments, trades of all sorts, Supermercats and flower markets, butcheries and bakeries, banks and ballet, and a joint called Acrobatica which offers a chance to dangle from the top of a skyscraper in a harness. How delightful to leave our house at 9 pm for a late dinner, a quick trip to the farmácia, or an impulse visit to the gelato shop.

So many Metro passes! We prefer the 10-rides-for-€13 reloadable cards. It is so delightful to scan your card, be in El Born in ten minutes, visit a museum, walk to a plaça (pronounced plasha in Catalan), eat al fresco, then return by a different subway/train/bus using the same card. I was surprised to feel a thrill of real pleasure the first time we got on the subway, so familiar, so easy, so practical, so environmentally correct. Flashback to my 35 years in Boston. Some Americans say a car is freedom, but in a well-run city, car-free is worry-free.

During our nearly month-long stay in the city we will experience a professional opera at one of Europe’s storied opera houses, the Liceu; dance with the local chapter of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society; take a private tapas cooking class with a chef in his beachside home; visit multiple World Heritage Sites; and view the America’s Cup race. Only in the city are such a variety of world-class opportunities available in such a compressed area–we aren’t even planning to travel outside of Zone 1.

So, am I piling on a little bit? Well your turn for schadenfreude! A couple days ago I developed covid for the first time in my life. It was probably longer ago than that because I’ve never had covid so it took me two days of symptoms before it even occurred to me to take a test. For the last two days I’ve been more or less in the apartment, or venturing out on foot only, while wearing a mask, my favorite activity. I’ve been fairly miserable with congestion, rhinorrhea, and pharyngitis, and even taking a few OTC meds. Fortunately our remaining guests are pretty chill about this, all of them being Covid veterans, as are most people, now including me. Infectious diseases also happen in a city.

Another new experience for me: binge watching. Of the eight episodes of Breathless, we–that includes my patient, supportive, taking-care-of-me husband–saw four in one day, all in a row, then three the next day, something a healthy me would never have the patience to sit through. I’m not recommending the show or bingeing in general, but it did make some time pass. It is set in Valencia at least–when in Spain?