Sunday in Tenerfie & we meet Lydia

 On the way to dinner that night. No filter and no cropping. Big sky Tenerife!

No Larry tonight. He's home in Miami by now. Just the three of us. Sunday night. A lot of places are not open past the midday meal. So we found a gastro bar which ended up being better than we expected. The menu was somewhat limited but the preparation of each course was excellent. Everything was served hot by super friendly servers, one who told us our Spanish was better than her English let us practice with her. Really nice evening, with a lovely walk there and back on the bridge over the arroyo.

Earlier in the day we had done some time in the Plaza - 

So we went out for coffee and a small bite (call it brunch even though it was 1:45.) I had a mocha and a salmon sandwich and Phil had a tuna tartare and Cafe con leche followed by a mocha (FOMO is real.) We were just hanging out enjoying the beautiful day in a laid back coffee shop when we got into a conversation with Lydia (whose name we learned later) after several minutes of conversation we asked if she wanted to join us and she moved to our table and we continued getting to know each other until the shop closed for siesta and we went on our way (me back home to laundry, Phil to the grocery to pick up a few things and Lydia off to prepare for the "afternoon" practice which ends around 9 pm.) She doesn't have practice tomorrow so we invited her to dine with us and changed our reservation to four. She's a professional basketball player here in Spain. She's played pro for the last five years in Europe. She played in Romania and Turkey before coming to Spain last year. She misses her family in Carolina (both of them) and we must have seemed like her grandparents, so safe to approach and spend a bit of time with. So, fun afternoon. Now I'm watching clothes dry and Phil is out for a walk. You can see the photo from our table shows a blue sky and it's (to me) the perfect temperature 72/73* #lifeisgood

Dinner tonight. A last minute switch in the venue but we ended up at a place with a strong menu and decent execution of the food. Good service from a good humored gentleman who informed us up front that we over ordered. Which ended up being true. The place was called La  Buena Vida.

The next day we went for coffee at a cute converted store (drogueria, bazaar, film store, toilet paper store, many items with less than obvious overall theme.) Now they sell pastries and coffee and a few food items and have a nice sidewalk cafe area. The address is C. del Castillo, 9, 38002 Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain because Facebook doesn't know it. It is called Pamelita.

The very quiet tram comes by our plaza location about every seven minutes (a guess, as it isn't loud enough to notice). It runs from the port up into the hills of this volcanic island. You can see the beautiful blue sky again today! We just came from afternoon coffee. Sitting outside enjoying various views of blue. #livineasy

We met Lydia for dinner that night at KIKI Japanese - it was a fun evening with a spectacular dinner:

Fabulous dinner tonight with our new friend Lydia. We had incredible Japanese. This is a place worth seeking out if you are ever in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Everything was exquisite. New flavor combinations and different approaches to preparations. Possibly the best "sushi" meal we've ever had. Menu items marked. And dessert video added to the end if possible.

So that was fun... and we still had roughly a week more in Tenerife...  so more to follow-