un año en españa & the lessons learned
It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since we uprooted our lives in the states, packed up our cats and moved to another country. The best way to describe our experience upon arrival is similar to when a mature tree gets uprooted and transplanted to another area in your garden, except these old trees were dug up and replanted in a different zone and country all together!
I’ll never forget the butterflies in my stomach on my stomach driving to our house, and google maps told us we had 1 min before arriving.
We had only been to Spain and saw our house once before when we toured it with our real estate agent. With our four cats stressed and meowing repeatedly for the past five hours of driving, we had one thing on our minds, get the cats situated in the cottage on our property.
Upon arrival we were greeted by the gardener that looked after our property when it was vacant. She spoke only Gallego but with a little charades and google translate we were off with our key and to check out what we were now to call home.
I’ll be honest, that first week was tough! I went through a lot of transplant shock, and thought, WTF did we do! The stone cottage on our property has a loft space, a shower that wasn’t usable and a toilet that flooded the first time using it. We had a mattress we purchased and a bed set we sent out prior to moving here, four litter boxes, and our cat Gamma’s exercise wheel. We quickly found out how nocturnal cats really are. Every night around 2AM, they would jump from the windows down to the loft, walk on the beams, Gamma would run on his exercise wheel and they would start meowing for food at 4 am.
In the darkness one of us would walk down to our guest house, go to the kitchen and prepare their food. The worst part was after they ate, they all lined up to use the litter boxes! I’ll never forget the time thinking one of the cats crapped next to their dish, only to find in the tissue, it was a giant brown Spanish slug, I nearly jumped out of my skin!
Between the roosters, the cats, a loud festival playing rock music every night, I was beyond sleep deprived and had a complete melt down!
Our expectation when we arrived in August was to have a kitchen added to our stone cottage and ready to use when we arrived, have our guest house finished with renovations by November to move into and our Ruin finished by June of 2024.
Lesson #1: Life is better when you don’t have expectations.
Life has reminded me time and time again that the more you set expectations the more you set yourself up for disappointment.
Staying in the cottage lit a fire under our asses to get our guest house ready to move in. It was a far cry from calling it home just yet. The previous owner had a parrot that she let loose and it would shit all over the beams in the living room. We hired a property management and cleaning service while the house sat vacant.
Our kitchen was very dark, thankfully. Every time I reached inside the base cabinet I didn’t want to think about what I might find. The fridge was a small 2’x2’ cube that sat on top of a cinder block. The stove was very filthy, it was questionable what they cooked in there last. I had flashbacks of cleaning all the moldy fridges and caked on grease from the oven of our cafe when we first got that space a few years ago. Little did I know that experience would come in handy! On one occasion our cat was on our counter intently staring at the wall cabinet, Kyle opened the cabinet to find a potato chip bag moving, a freaked out mouse jumped out of the bag and took off! Another adjustment, our small hot water heater that allowed us to wash dishes and maybe have one lukewarm shower. Needless to say, for the first 3 months we experienced cold showers, and food rolling out of the fridge. With lots of frustration we made the best with what we had to work with.
Adding on to our experience to remind us we’re not in Kansas anymore, the electric company had set our meter to a much lower limit while our property was vacant. I would be in the middle of cooking dinner and we would lose power! You would think something like this would be an easy fix, but it took around 9 months to get it working.
That leads me to lesson #2 Check your privilege!
Living in the US I was accustomed to businesses being more accommodating because they wanted to earn a buck. Living in a small town in Spain has taught us, it’s the exact opposite. If a business closes for siesta or lunch and you’re shopping, you have to come back when they reopen. Coming from America, you quickly realize how over accommodating we can be. I didn’t know how entitled I was, until I started living here.
The first time we went to the grocery store was an over stimulating experience. All of the ham legs hanging in a row, so much meat! All the different cheeses, wine, tinned fish, olive oil. You forget the type of foods that you typically get from the store until you’re looking for basic items. Items like salad dressing, fresh jalapeños, fresh corn, natural soap that doesn’t smell like a strong mens cologne! Our first grocery store was in a shopping mall in Vigo. Malls seem to be more popular out here, we think it’s because parking can be difficult, it’s easier to park in a garage and go in a mall for a one stop shopping experience. It took us at least four hours of just walking around looking at all the food and using google translate to see what they are.
We filled our cart with groceries that we could store outside of the fridge, thankfully out here you don’t have to refrigerate eggs! We were lined up in the queue and ready to check out. They called the number in Spanish and we didn’t hear it right away. The people in line behind us were irritated, and so was the person checking us out when she discovered we didn’t weigh and price all of our produce. That experience is just one of the many that taught me this valuable lesson.
#3 Being humiliated helps you become empathetic.
This year there have been a number of experiences that are embarrassing, and can make you feel like you are a fish out of water. Just trying to book a doctor's appointment, reserve a table, get fish at the supermercado have all been humbling experiences.
Yes, yes we know, we should have learned Spanish prior to moving. In a perfect movie scenario that would be the case. However, in reality if we would have waited until all the boxes were checked to be better equipped, we would have never made this courageous jump! The language isn’t the only thing that’s different, everything is opposite then you think it will be. If you go to pull the door open it’s usually a push, not having toilet paper in the bathroom seems to be the norm, luckily I never had to go number 2! With that being said, even if we learned Spanish in the United States, we wouldn’t know Gallego!
As long as you are putting yourself out there to live uncomfortably, to learn new things, you’ll still have humiliating and humbling experiences no matter how prepared you try to be. Maybe those experiences help us be a better human, and have more compassion for people that are willing to try.
We have been very lucky to have a great community of extranjeros that are like minded and we can bond over jumping off the cliff of comfort. We have leaned on them for resources, and can laugh at the shared growth we’ve all experienced so far. One of the biggest lessons that we’re continuing to learn is,
#4 Have patience with ourselves and each other
Realizing that “The journey is the part that you remember anyways”! Wise words Miley Cyrus
We can be paralyzed by the endless tasks that we want to do, have our properties looking how we envision, feel confident in driving here, speaking Spanish and feeling like a local. The thing I continue to come back to is it really is about the journey. Taking in each moment, remembering how long it took us to feel confident in what we accomplished back home and giving ourselves a little compassion for all that we’ve accomplished already.
When I reflect back on this past year we’ve had in Spain, it feels like we’ve always been here. Our roots are now growing deeper, enjoying the Spanish soil. Our cats and us are finally able to call it our home. We now have hot showers, a beautiful kitchen, our ruin is getting worked on and we have grocery store shopping down to almost a system!
It’s easy to get caught up in all the work that we’d like to do on our property and forget why we moved to Europe. It takes discipline to balance work with play and making time for a little adventure. As a libra, this might be the most important lesson to keep my sanity,
#5 Have balance, work hard and play harder!
I’m proud of us for making time for adventure, in this past year we’ve been to Porto Portugal 6 times, Sintra Portugal, Santiago de Compostela 4 times, A Coruña, Vigo, Ourense, Pontevedra, Baiona, Mount Tecla, lots of hikes, walks along the Camiño, wine festivals, checked out castles, palaces, cathedrals and have enjoyed relaxing on the beach. Often we stop and say “Can you believe we live here!” We’ve also had family and friends visit which helped us find new places.
Lookin g back at our life before Spain, it feels like a distant memory and it’s hard to believe moving to Galicia was such a difficult decision.
As we celebrate renewing our visas for another 2 years, we are so grateful for sitting in discomfort and overcoming the challenges that ultimately encouraged new growth.
