well, one of a world-traveler's worst nightmares came true today for me and the fam. we started off the weekend perfectly, with delicious tapas and so much laughter at the outdoor restaurants of the centro that we caused quite a scene. hit up the festival of the nations on friday night and caught up with mis padres y hermano, and went out for a night on the town with mis amigos y mi hermano.

we went to umbracle and had a fantastic time, thanks to our free entry, watching lauren speak to her new spanish lover, and stealing the thunder from teh girls paid to dance on barrels above the crowd.

had a wonderful day yesterday, despite a late start and missing the museo de los falleros. but we went and had THE BEST PAELLA EVER at blayet, thanks to the suggestion of peter. we took my madre with us and she was the chattiest little thing with my whole family, with my brother learning via rosetta stone and doing ok, my dad throwing in random words that kind of pertain to the conversation and my mom understanding everything but telling stories about 30 years ago in the present tense. not to mention aunt bonnie, aunt patsy, and uncle herb knowing about 10 words among them. i was impressed though at how well people can communicate if there are a few words they understand and some context, my aunt bonnie and madre had a full 5 minute conversation walking back from the beach, they may have been talking about entirely different subjects, but they did communicate. but it was a really good time, had tapas and a paella de mariscos and a paella de conejo y pollo. as much as i hate to say it, conejo is DELICIOUS (for those who know the other meaning of conejo, that's what he said).

afterword, madre took us to her favorite horchata place near blayet and then we found out that she has another apartment right on the beach in the town where blayet is, and were all shocked (having learned that spanish people seldom invite friends to their homes, much less 6 strangers) when she invited us up to her terrace overlooking the beach to enjoy the horchata. it was a perfect little afternoon, and just made me fall in love with my madre all over again. she really is the sweetest thing, and she said that she has never been to america but that she'll come visit for my wedding, what a muffin. we got some quality good-time photos of the family on the beach and then headed back into main valencia for a little siesta time.

we found an awesome place for mandeditos in el centro last night in la plaza de la reina and had some excellent chocolate postres at the chocolate shop nextdoor. mandeditos are little pieces of bread with some sort of topping on them, like little bruschetta style sandwiches. some can be boring, but the ones we had were with chorizo y queso or tortilla de patata or jamon wrapped dates or all these other exotic combinations that were insanely good. this was while watching the crowds of rowdy futbol fans who were watching the usa england game and the hoards of bachelor and bachelorette parties going on. after dinner i went out with my friends to fennigans, where everyone is irish, english, or american so it's nice sometimes to take a little break from thinking spanish. afterword headed out to high cube again to do a little dancing and chatting with the locals, but found some fun new german friends instead. i will find you again someday, anis.

so anyway, back to the nightmare of a day: this morning we went to the plaza de toros to see it and the train station to get a ticket for me to madrid next weekend to meet up with my family again before they leave spain. we parked in the estacion del norte and walked up through several plazas to the cathedral and another little mandeditos place (because they're my new obsession). we take our time walking through the city and enjoying the architecture and people and weather until we get back to the car and see the front window is bashed in and then realize ALL of their luggage was stolen. EVERYTHING. i immediately break down (probably not helped by my lack of sleep) and sprint to people histerically asking if they saw anything, but really only saying "ladron, ventana rota, maletas robadas." so eventually the police come and speak way too quickly for my frantic mind to keep up with the spanish but we figure out that we need to go to the police station to make a statement and file a report. long story short, we spend about 3 hours trying to sort all of this out in broken spanish and charades and then have to go replace the rental car. eventually it turned into the butt of every joke made the rest of the day, but it still makes me sick to my stomach to think about it. i felt awful. "hey welcome to my home and city i love so much, say goodbye to all your belongings!"

but after all, they're only material possessions (aside from my brother and uncle herb losing their passports full of stamps from around the world, that was a bummer) and nobody got stabbed or anything so i guess that's good. trying to look at the bright side here.

all in all, today was an epic fail. but i'm going to try my best not to let it ruin the other amazing memories from the weekend.

aaaand, amy and liz just got here so i get to go meet up with them and galavant around the city, watch out people.