Living in the future

Yesterday, 17 November, was my friend's birthday. She lives in Utah. The birthday is about a month before mine. We're the same age except when we're not. Most years they spend the month reminding me to respect my elders, listen to the wisdom of my elders, bossing me around and I spend the month asking what it's like to be so OLD. This year, I woke up around 7 and I realized, it was already their birthday but it wasn't. Having already arrived in the future I realized I could let them know I'd seen the future and it was safe, bright and waiting patiently for them to arrive and thrive.

I'm living just a little bit in the future of my friends. This is amazing. Like the rider first in the paceline I must point out the potholes, the obstacles, the bumps. Like the hiker first on the trail I clear the cobwebs, scare the beasts away and see the vistas first that lie at the top of the hill and just around the corner.

I started finding my strength and endurance on the bike this week. I started finding new roads this week. I climbed an 8% 2km hill to Castell d'Olèrdola, became lost on the gravel roads around Olivella, admitted the coffee at my post-ride cafe wasn't that good, mistakenly, and possibly illegally, rode on a highway trying to figure out how to ride to another cafe, discovered the direct, local route after deciding this cafe would be my new cafe for post-ride coffee.

Is this burying the lede? I have a Spanish bank account with a Spanish bancomat card with my name on it. And a Spanish apartment with a signed form promising not to launder money. And a WhatsApp number for a Spanish tutor. Is there anything I can't do!?! 

(I can do none of these things. Christelle, Enric, Natalja, Merche did it all.)

Christelle made an appointment Monday morning at the bank. We had to wait for a bit for our appointment. There are apparently so many Americans in this town that when two Americans wandered in before I arrived, our contact assumed they were his Americans and took them into his office. I was his American. These two were innocent interlopers. When he realized he'd been duped he threw them, quite rightly, out on their American ears, offered us a coffee, and thirty pleasant minutes later I had an account, two banking apps, a PIN, a quote for renter's insurance and the contact information for my own personal banker. Today, I received a notification that I could pick-up my bancomat card so I walked over to the branch and ten pleasant minutes later I had another card to store in my wallet. The branch is a ten minute walk from my current, temporary apartment. Convenient! Wait! It's a one minute walk from ... my new apartment!

(How's that for a transition sentence?)

Late last week we submitted our interest in one of the apartments we'd visited. Submitting my interest included providing copies of my passport, visa, employment contract (I didn't know I had one, but I do have one and my work HR (actual HR not Spain HR) manifested it, three months of pay stubs and a personal essay (seriously) introducing myself to my potential future landlord. If someone sent me all of that, I'd take it as bible that they were interested. Naive. That was merely the start of the flirtation. A mere batting of the unibrow. If I wanted to be the sole suitor. Exclusive. I'd have to show a bit of skin. M-O-N-E-Y. The first action my sparkly new bank account was to send a "reservation fee" (a serious one) to the apartment's agent. Now the lights are low, there's heat and color in the cheeks, the wine is sweating in the ice bucket and I've laughed just a bit too long and loudly at something or other. We're waiting for the final contract to be translated into English (required by law in Spain apparently), then I send another gob of money and I move the first weekend in December.

And we all know what that means, right? I'll have a Spanish lease agreement and address which means my lawyer can finalize my application for my Foreigner's ID card for my appointment at the end of December.

There is joy in this journey.