The things you'll see

Word from los estados unidos (EE.UU) is that it's officially the biggest snow season in 20 years. I haven't skied in the past three seasons so I can't claim to be missing anything, but it feels like I'm missing something.

Not so much a writer's block as a writer's blasé. I've been reading and reading and reading. The five book Jackson Brodie series "Case Histories" by Kate Atkinson was outstanding. All fiction. "Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and on and on." I wish some of the novels I've read recently went on and on and on.

Christmas came and went. Then New Year's. Then Three Kings/Epiphany. And then the holidays were over and the rush, noise and thrum of everything restarting and starting back up again cranked in and in about ten days I'll be on a plane back to Utah for a week for work and then February is half over and that's basically the year done. Christmas is overshadowed by Epiphany and so it was quiet. I had Christmas lunch by the sea in the sun and a yule log for dessert. All of it? Perhaps. There was a delightful dinner at friends of friends for New Years featuring pad thai and cava. A loud parade and Three Kings cake for the last of the three.

Went to Barcelona between New Year's and Three Kings Day and the Epiphany is the bigger of those big three and the street lights were beautiful, and the city was bursting and all of us were walking and shopping and drinking and talking and my oh my there were a lot of us all trying to find our place in the same shared space. We had lunch at a British feeling pub serving breakfast. I went in one sportswear store and the ninth floor was a lovely, empty cafe with views of the city and the eight floors below were shoes, shirts, pants, shoes, bikes, shoes, shirts, hats, people, people, people. Upupupupupupdowndowndowndown on escalators. Ineedsomeairnow! And a coffee.

I got my first haircut last month from a Polish man named Emil. He works out of his flat which is next door to a very nice brewery. I tried a couple of the brewery's beers at a beer and cheese festival. I enjoyed their West Coast IPA which they were rightly proud of until they heard I was from the west coast and then they turned a bit shy. But no need. It's great. At a festival or at a bar. We share the same Spanish teacher. Emil and I, not the brewery and me. But I don't think my Spanish teach and I share them same barber. I need another haircut, but I haven't heard back from Emil. 

One Sunday back in December I went for a walk and strolled by the Bad Burro. It's a bar. The Bad Burro Bar = a bad ass bar. Tada! When I walked past I noticed the bartender drinking a pint and that's just the kind of bar I like so in I went. The bar is smaller than my living room and owned by a group of friends, all from England. As I drank my first, just me and the bartender, the place started filling up with a continent's worth of relocated folks who all seemed to know each other and definitely didn't know me. Italy. Scotland. England. Portugal. Spain. Ireland. Brazil. All represented. All there for Sunday Roast and somehow I was judged an acceptable sort and assumed to be staying to eat. We were more than a dozen for dinner, it arrived a couple hours late, served one plate at a time from a kitchen at a secret location, but we had empty stomachs, a bar, stories and grudges to tied us over. Dinner was delicious and allegedly they were all friends but the closer we got to dinner and the further we got from kicking off with pre-dinner drinks the more past grievances were aired. Terrific times.

I've begun Spanish lessons. There are two different "to be" verbs. My long dormant Italian is ascendant. Italian is not Spanish. The overlap helps a bit with memorizing and patterns but not at all with pronunciation or like speaking actual Spanish. I meet with my teacher Monday mornings in person at her apartment along with another student, a retired American. And then we meet one on one for an hour over zoom on Wednesdays. On Mondays I go early to a cafe, have breakfast and do my homework and studying last minute. Just like real school. On Wednesdays I spend an hour immersed in another language and immediately after it ends I start work. I'm so confused. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to be good at this.

I found a food delivery app. I work nights. I can't go out for dinner during the week. But dinner can go out for me. It's great. There's a minimal delivery fee and I tip the delivery guy. It's always a guy. That's it. No service fees. No convenience fees. And the food is always delivered a couple minutes ahead of the expected time. I love it. I'm going to order Thai food tonight.

I found molten chocolate cakes at the supermarket. Two of them for two euros. Ten minutes in the oven. Melty and molten. That's neat. I eat them with gelato. That's helado in Spanish.

I'm going to Utah for work in early February. Technically, that's my first trip but I'm not counting it. So, I booked my first trip. To explore. To be a tourist. End of March. Malaga. Costa del Sol. Andalusia. Andalusia is reputed to be Spain's hidden gem. Less crowded. Better food. Less expensive. Says who? What do I know though? I thought it was an island. I wonder if I'll be able to Africa if I squint?

Get out there

"It's time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now."

 I've been trying to make sense of what living here is making me feel.

I'm proud, satisfied that I made it through the process and moved here. I'm happy, excited that I live here, although those don't feel quite big enough. Those are the labels of accomplishment. Goals achieved. To-dos crossed off a list. I've had far less difficulty labeling the sensations related to wanting to move to and live in Spain than the emotions related to the being here. Labeling those has proved far more elusive which has been surprising and unsettling.

 I, wrongly it would seem, assumed I would be awash in the excitement, the thrill, the thrall of "being in Europe." But it occurred to me Sunday afternoon, when I was absent-mindedly staring out my bedroom window with no plans, means to make plans beyond myself, or any definitive desire to do anything specific that this too was what it was like to be in Europe. And not an altogether uncommon state.

On the one hand, that's a pretty common state. Life isn't all racing laps. A lot of it is on pit lane, in the garage or under caution.

On the other hand, if it's not all racing laps, then, having made this move, am I wasting laps? Do this! Do that? Go here? Go there! Try! Explore! Experience! Get out there! It's a trap of my own creation. It's the same options as anywhere isn't it? Only the vocabulary has changed? And the furniture. As I said, it's a trap I fashion myself. Oh, everything's amazing. I went to Barcelona yesterday. I'm headed to Paris for a long weekend. I had this incredible dinner last night. I'm possessed with dumbfounded disbelief if the paragraphs aren't full of these sentences. I live an IG life in my head.

Which when solving the equation of recent thoughts equals disoriented being my state of being. And it's fatiguing. Trying. Bemusing. Natural. Nestled within a conversation with a woman I met recently was the admonition to really feel the emotion. Settle deeply with it. Let it promote change and growth. Distracted by the wine and her accent, I missed the message in the moment, but it surfaced in the sobriety and solitude of a rainy afternoon. Withdraw or stretch out? Protect or be vulnerable to experience?

"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality."     

Café — Voló

Post-ride Breakfast at Voló: Shakshuka and coffee

 

 

What's the tweet cliché? "Shakshuka. That's it. That's the post."
 

Fraud

In the process of opening my bank account and finalizing the lease for my apartment I've signed multiple documents attesting that my accounts, the funds in them and the rental payments are not and will not be for the purpose of laundering money. First the obvious. If I was intent on laundering money, would signing a document deter me? "I've piles of dirty money desperate for cleaning, but now I've signed this I guess it's back to smuggling it about in my shampoo bottles like everyone else." 

Nonetheless, my honest face, pure intentions and shaky signature apparently weren't sufficient to keep my first international wire from being flagged for fraud. My American self sent my Spanish self my American money last Wednesday as my Spanish self needed European money before Monday as it had to be in the management company's account before I could sign the lease, with the signing schedule for Monday afternoon.

With no sign of the funds in my account Friday morning, and a politely panicked agent asking if I could send payment confirmation or they'd simply have to move the appointment, I set about locating my missing shampoo bottles. I could either call my bank's Toll Free number (only good in the U.S.) or call collect (only good if I could figure out how to ring an English speaking Spanish operator and request an international collect call). 

I have Google Voice for exactly this contingency! All the expat blogs helpfully advised porting a U.S. number to GV before switching to local phone service. I did that! I was quite pleased with myself! I've been receiving regular texts to my U.S. number from other U.S. numbers. I haven't made or received any calls, and upon dialing the Toll Free number I realized I wouldn't be making one now. Many, many help articles, Reddit threads and YouTube videos later I located the very (to me) obscure setting in the GV app to allow calls on WiFi instead of a cellular carrier. Never have I been happier to interact with an automated message AI and then placed on extended hold.

Not too much later I'm being told my account has indeed been locked and my wire held on suspicion of fraud and did I happen to receive an email from XXXX? I did receive that email. It looked like a phishing email - it came from an address with no mention of my bank. Included no mention of my bank in the email or footer. And cheerfully invited me to open an attachment or click on a link. Hahaha! I'm no phish. Classic phishing email! I'm much too smart to fall for that. Except it wasn't and when I didn't they didn't. I might be no phish. But I am a dummy. We worked through verifying that I am me and once done, my funds were released via an immediate transfer and before I could say thank you I received a notification that my Spanish self was looking just a bit more well off. And a few minutes after that my Spanish self was feeling just a bit less well off.

But as of yesterday, Monday morning, payments have been made. Rents have been paid. Contracts have been signed. The utility bills are in my name. Internet is being setup on Friday morning. I receive the keys and move in Saturday afternoon.

Just a couple stepping stones to go to cross the residency river. Securing my padrón and registering with the police to apply for my Residency/Foreigner's ID/TIE card. I register my address using my official lease at the Sitges Town Hall (my padrón) on 12 December. As previously recounted, I register with the police on 28 December, submit fingerprints and proof of insurance and, having already met with the attorney who is handling this process, the other necessary forms and instructions that she's prepared on my behalf. Just about all that's left are those appointments and to pay the bills and I'll be an official, long-term resident of Spain in good standing.

With all this going on, one might (incorrectly as it turns out) think I've missed Thanksgiving dinner. No! I'd boarded the bus, fumbled my way through buying a ticket and was anxiously riding the route (I hoped) to S P Ribes. As the minutes passed, the bus followed a familiar and expected route and it soon became astonishingly clear I was going to arrive where and when I'd planned. Brilliant! (I knew it all along. Ain't no thing.)

I stopped in a store on the way to my friends' house for wine (to share) and a couple bags of Nutella biscuits (for hoarding and personal consumption). I know less than nothing about Spanish wines. So, my foolproof approach, a bottle of each color, of the most populous varietal, in the middle of the price range of what's on offer, with a "classy" label and a DO designation.

American Thanksgiving was beautifully, satisfyingly international - the food, the folks, the festivities. Four couples including the hosts, five children, one dog, me. A Spanish couple, he a race car driving instructor, she a graduate student in orthodontics. A Dutch/Puerto Rican couple - she a professor at a university in Barcelona, he the Southern Europe GM for Tony's Chocolates (they, recent 11-year residents of Portland living just a handful of blocks from where my brother currently lives). A French/Spanish couple - she a yoga instructor, he doing business development in Spain for an American company based in Buffalo. Their daughter a 3-year old marvel. Mom speaks to her in French. Or English. Dad speaks to her in Spanish. Or English. She replies in English. Or Spanish. Or French. At various points during the evening there was Spanish, French and English being spoken around the table concurrently. Even a brief moment of Italian.

Spanish snacks to start (olives, cured meats, cheese), a delay to the roast being finished (no turkey, no problem, and the meat taking longer to cook than planned, traditional), round the table with what we're thankful for - beautiful, competitive, poignant - before eating, and then a table heaving with food familiar, comforting and delicious: roast beef, glazed carrots, roasted sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, dressing, THE GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE, kale salad, a pasta course and then pies, pumpkin, pecan, apple. Too full to accept the generous offer to take something home and still full but filled with regret at the not accepting the next morning.

The stranger in the group, I spent far too much time answering questions about myself. I learned I share a birthday with Peter and we've plans to meet for dinner to celebrate ourselves when everyone else forgets.

Holiday week

Sorry I haven't written lately, but there's been so much going on it's hard to squeeze in a moment to think, much less keep up with correspondences.

I've been reading a lot. There's only so much Spanish "I recognize the film or format but don't understand much of anything" TV I can watch before my attention span wanes and it's either time for bed or a new distraction. I could probably watch Netflix in Spanish with English subtitles. Or in English with Spanish subtitles? Which one would help? On the recommendation of a pop culture blog which after these titles I now trust implicitly, I've been reading the Duncan Kincaid series by Deborah Crombie, Min Jin Lee - Pachinko, Sally Rooney - Beautiful World Where Are You, Claire North - Touch. The Libby app is liberating.

A couple hours this morning of the first rain. Along with lots of wind. It blew over the plants on the balcony. They're fake, but full of real soil to be swept up but not of the edge lest the dogs leaving their messes below receive a surprise from above as unpleasant as the ones they deposit.

The long, last, brief, wild dash to the new year has begun with last week's first holiday week. A shortened week of work with wandering focus and then back to regular weeks while still the focus wanders, thoughts scatter until the final couple of empty weeks pregnant with expectation and meaning. I think about what celebrating in my new home will look like. How will I choose to mark the moments? Will I? Stripped bare of the standard, treasured options for gathering with family or friends, does those missing increase the poignancy? If the obligations and traditions are absent, does the meaning shine through?

My HM invited me to join their Thanksgiving to be celebrated on Friday as all the other guests would be working Thursday and Friday. So Thursday we Americans went for drinks and sushi. 

(I forgot how unmoored it can feel here on these American holidays. Everyone going about the typical routine whilst I wander freely, not competing with everyone else over the same groceries or space.) 

They knew where to go for sushi and it turned out I'd seen a place for drinks that they hadn't so street cred tipped in my favor. The drinks place is two full walls of retail wines with a lengthy, broad communal table down the center for drinks and talks. Dark, elegant, comfortable. The sushi was familiar - rolls, edamame - and kept bringing up thoughts of the dinner in "A Christmas Story". All of it walkable. All of it - good food, good friends, overindulgence, thankfulness - Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Friday, sunny, chilly, quintessentially fall. I started the day with a holiday appetite priming ride past castles, vineyards with rusted gold leaves and ongoing incredulity that I call this my local loop. Oh the places you'll go. Having seen the first turning of leaves in Utah and now hearing stories of snow covered canyons I feel the frequent but never often enough sensation of awe for the roads I am gifted to ride and rue the all to frequent resistant attitude to get out there. 

Showered and fed (volo's coffee, avocado, egg and blistered tomatoes on toast, a slice of carrot cake, holiday-level moderation), I made a visit to my future apartment and its current resident to talk about furnishings. He's South African and semi-retired and moving to Valencia after two years in Sitges. He has a lot of household items he doesn't want to bring and I have no household items to bring. We're a perfect pair. We talked about moving countries, proper care for the plants he's leaving and I'm inevitably going to kill, and settled on a price for a furnished flat. I don't know exactly what will be there when I arrive though. I've started filling an Ikea cart and hopefully will be able to empty most of it.

Visit, social and practical, complete, I walked back home intent on lounging, feeling a bit bereft realizing I hadn't had any chips or football yet. Is this Thanksgiving or heresy? Back at my apartment I realized I was due at my host's house in St Pere de Ribes, too far to walk. So, another adventure - the bus! All the local buses start their runs from in front of the train station. I knew the number, L2, the departure time, 16.10 and I thought I knew where I'd find the bus. Standing in the area, a bus arrives at the right time but it's a 72. A popular 72. I've seen the L2 around town. Like the L1 and L3 it's small and blue. I've seen these as well. It's big and white. I don't know the difference. But this one isn't small and blue. It's big and white. Everyone in the area begins to board. It's a few minutes yet until I expect my blue L2 so I stand back. It's time for my L2 but 72 is in the way. Taking a longer look at the stops flashing by on the front of the bus I see "S P Ribes" spin by. This is my bus! Probably! It's beyond my ability to check. But that's my destination and this is my time. So I board. What could go wrong! I wave my phone across the payment scanner and a big red X flashes. That went wrong. Flustered. The driver says something that I don't understand. I think I see a passenger point at a scanner behind me. Of course, wrong scanner. Duh! I flash my phone across this one and a big red X flashes. That went wrong. Flusterederer. The driver says something more that I don't understand buy I think I hear "efectivo" which I know means "cash". And he's pointing at a tray next to his driving booth. I have to pay with cash! I brought cash just for this purpose! He points at an icon that shows a ticket and 2.40euros. I have that! I put 3.00euros on the tray. He prints the ticket but doesn't hand it to me. He points at the 2.40 and says something. Probably says it very slowly and clearly. I have no idea. Flustererest. Since he's not handing me the ticket or change I assume he's saying exact change only. I don't have exact change. I tell him that, hoping he'll just give me the ticket and keep the difference. By now, the passengers already on the bus are throwing fruit at me and starting to light torches because I'm making them late. (They aren't. This is all in my flustered, anxious, silly mind.) The bus driver points at the total again and then at my coins. My two 1.00euro coins. I'm .40cents short. I add another euro. He hands me my ticket and change and we set off on time.