The First Post from Spain: A Little Backstory

(Does this qualify as “little” or do I need an editor??)

It begins with Husband who misses his days of living abroad and perhaps slightly regrets getting hitched and having children.  (Just kidding, honey!!)  But he dreams of travel that involves more than just a week in a hotel in a foreign city with all the other New Yorkers on Spring Break.  He would much rather experience an immersion, and he wants that for his kids, too.  He relishes in the stories that his co-workers tell of their extended time abroad – when one moved with their three kids to Mumbai for a year.  “See!  It can be done!” he tells his wife.  Wife responds that his friend must have a screw loose and also probably dysentery.  “Plus,” Wife says, “what a logistical nightmare.  Especially with the kids.  Do you really want to add Logistical Nightmare to your list of things to do?”

Then, as though the Laughing Gods of Irony are listening, Wife gets breast cancer. Early in 2013.  Husband comes to her rescue and attends every doctor appointment, cuts way back at work, and their hectic, over-scheduled, over-planned, over-achieving lives in New York City come to a screeching halt.  (Wife writes a blog about it.  See previous entries.)  And after two years of surgeries, doctors, appointments, side-effects, and doctors and appointments for those side effects, Husband and Wife and their two kids have a new life together.  She is now living almost entirely in the present, something she's never been proficient in.  Gone are the lists of goals and dreams set in a future that never comes and she's not sure she'll ever experience anyway.  She plans what is for dinner and when she'll see family and friends but not much more than that.   And He is no longer tied up in knots, pushing himself beyond his limits.  They are both keenly aware that stress was perhaps where and how the Cancer grew.  (Full disclosure: they also both go to therapy and come by these new outlooks with a good deal of soul-searching, time, effort, and heartache.  New outlooks are not, unfortunately, found on trees nor are they available on Amazon.com).

And so, sometime towards the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015, Husband again brings up the topic of living abroad, if only for just a spell.   Lucky for him, Wife is in a better place to hear it.  They sit down one night and look at a globe.  They talk about what they might want to get out of an adventure like this, how long it would be for, and, of course, a whole host of other Logistics.  Two priorities top their list.  Husband would like the kids to learn some Spanish.  And Wife would like to live in a country that is fluent in coffee.  Asia is eliminated and they hone in on Costa Rica because husband enjoyed a semester abroad there in college.  And also because their friends Sue and Ward just moved there with their kids and Wife made the mistake of offering them packing supplies before they left so when they came to pick them up Husband heard all about their plans and suddenly had another family to point to who was “making it happen.”  (In the case of Sue and Ward, one year has become two and may well become three, four, all bets on permanence).  They love it so much that it must be Heaven down there.  Husband, Wife, and the Two Kids plan a trip for Spring Break to visit and see Heaven for themselves.

There are only three things you need to know about Costa Rica for the purposes of this story.  Uno: every day between 11am and 3pm, the heat gets up to 95 degrees Fahrenheit and beyond.  For a cancer patient forced into an early menopause with regular and formidable hot flashes, describing this period of the day as Hell is not an exaggeration.  Dos: lizards, spiders, general bugs.  Probably not necessary to go any further than these three words, but it’s worth pointing out that Wife discovered that living in Costa Rica is a lot like camping, which no doubt makes it a wonderful place for people who think camping is fun.  Wife is not one of those people.  Camping stopped being fun for Wife about 15 years ago when she discovered the comforts of a good hotel.  Tres: birds, monkeys, and other wildlife that are always so very cute and preciously god’s gifts except during early morning pre-alarm hours when they beat at bedroom windows, and afternoon and evening hours when they shit on your outdoor furniture and general living space.

Back in New York City, the Family sits down with the globe once more.  They’ve narrowed the world down to Spanish speaking countries so that the kids might learn a phrase or two.  Europe begins to gain advantage over the other continents when considering of all the countries accessible by train or quick flights on weekends.  So Spain is selected and they pull up Weather.com to find out what the temperature is like in Madrid in January.  They discover it’s nicer in Seville.  Flights are booked to Seville for the last week of summer break 2015 for one more reconnaissance mission.  All systems are go for a move that begins January of 2016.  Family is getting down to the wire.  They’d better find a city soon.  Preferably one with a school for their children and an apartment to live in.

The trip to Seville is lovely and busy.  Husband is in charge of the planning so the five days are chock-full and no one is allowed to sleep too much lest they not be able to sleep.  Or something like that.  Wife doesn’t get it, but she defers to Husband on this one because his Passport is twice as thick as hers.  Family visits two schools, two apartments, a Flamenco dance, and a horse dancing event that is borderline bizarre but historic and cultural.  Family walks the streets of Seville, eats ham, tours in a carriage, and tries to imagine themselves living there.  Then, the day before flying home, they drive to Ronda.

Ronda is a little Spanish town on a hillside somewhere between Seville and the Malaga airport.  Husband thought it would be fun to spend their last night in a smaller town before heading home.  And the evening changes their thinking a bit.  By the time they board the plane the following day back to NYC, all are in agreement that Seville is too big and that they would rather spend six months in a small town like Ronda.  Husband and wife confer on the plane, scanning their brains for another possibility.  Husband says he spent 24 hours in Granada once 20 years ago and enjoyed it.  Wife, tired of airplanes and time zones and itching to make a decision so she can get on with her life, agrees that Granada is the perfect place. 

“But you’ve never been,” he says. 

“I’m sure it’s lovely,” she says. 

“Get out your calendar and let’s find a time in October to visit,” he says. 

“No.” she replies.  “You get out your calendar and figure out when you can go see it.  I’ll get on the internet, watch some YouTube videos, and Google Map my way around the town.  I’m sure it’s lovely.”

Four months later they move to Granada, to a very old and beautiful neighborhood called the Albayzin with an amazing history and a series of alleyways they call streets.  They have a little yard.  It looks out over the roofs of their neighbors, towards the Alhambra and Sierra Nevada mountains.  They settle in for a six-month adventure.  And it is lovely.