He Found Me in Valencia!

“This was a bad plan!” I chided myself, walking for miles in my chic “haven’t seen you in 6 months” outfit. “I’ll find you at the port,” I said. “I’ll just follow the stream of Americans,” I said. “As a backup, meet me at the port authority building steps,” I said. 

I saw no Americans. I walked miles around the massive port and found no Americans, and no port authority building with steps. 

“Que disastre!” I used my high school Spanish in my head. 

Rafael asked me to take a picture of him and his bike by the Mediterranean. He asked if I was Valencian. After establishing I spoke no English he asked if I wanted to get a drink. Que lastima, no tengo tiempo. Eye roll. 

I could see chris’ ship. I walked to the end of the port pier. Only to find the ship was juuuuuuust on the other side of the opening of the port. I don’t know any swear words in Spanish. 

I started to feel very desperate. The first plan (I’ll find you! It’s easy to find thousands of Americans!) was a bust. The second plan (port authority steps) was a bust. I decided to try to keep walking toward Chris’s ship. Several miles later I was regretting my lack of a back up back up plan. I knew we’d find each other eventually, but it all seemed uncertain and hopeless right now. 

“Well Lord, this seems pretty hopeless,” I prayed. “It would take a miracle to run into each other in this city.” 

“MARI!” 

Chris was across the street, walking in the opposite direction. Someone told him there were multiple port authority buildings, so that verifies that my plan was bad. He was walking from the one he had been at (which I didn’t know about) to the one I was at (which didn’t have any steps). 

HE FOUND ME ANYWAY. IT WAS A MIRACLE. And considering the fact that I didn’t know when he would get off the boat exactly and he didn’t know when I would get there exactly, we really hadn’t even wasted much time wandering around—I’d been there a couple hours; he’d been off the boat about one hour. 

We had lunch at the marina beach club overlooking golden sand, the Spanish mountains, and the blue-green Mediterranean. A fine start to our 10th anniversary celebration. Finding each other was such a miracle…a decade ago AND today!