Beyond the Map

Buenas! (shortcut for Buenos Días, Buenos Tardes, Buenos Noches…a sweet and simple way to say “Hello” at any time of the day.) We had wonderful visit with Mark and Shannon during Valencia’s crazy annual festival – Las Fallas. Ed has some thoughts to share about that wild experience, but that’s another post for another day. Stay tuned. In the meantime, we’ve embraced the “shop til you drop” approach to life as an Expat.

Expat day #53

Mark & Shannon in Valencia!

El Corte Inglés is a Madrid-based department store chain (largest in Europe) with a big presence throughout Spain. The Valencia store is in two separate buildings – one is household stuff, the other clothing and personal care items. The El Corte Inglés household goods store feels like our second Valencian home. The six floors contain everything you could possibly imagine, and it can be a bit overwhelming. One day, I was looking for an iron and found the iron section in two rows – steam irons on one row, dry irons on the other. My decision to buy a plancha de vapor narrowed the options down to about 30. That’s right, 30 different steam irons to choose from. On our way out with my new iron, we passed the row displaying immersion blenders – 28 different brands.

It’s been a busy time in Valencia! We were so thrilled to have Mark and Shannon visit us for a week. We enjoyed sharing our new city with them. The week they were here was the final week of Valencia’s annual festival – Las Falles. Wow! What an experience that was! It’s difficult to describe the scene and the experience – think Mardi Gras on massive steroids with lots of firecrackers. Stay tuned for Ed’s insights about this amazing event.

Learning to Shop

We’ve made good progress making a home here. The new mattress is comfy, and the sheets fit! We make and receive calls using our Spanish phone numbers. We have a debit card to draw Euros from our Spanish bank account. We moved out of the temporary rental and are settling into our new place. Of course, this has required lots of shopping. Our three main shopping options have included El Corte Inglés, various el Chinos, and Amazon (still trying to wean myself). Each provide plenty of opportunity for learning!

Another item on my shopping list was a throw – you know, those small, decorative blankets we throw over the sofa. I thought I’d have to consult Google Translate to be sure the clerk didn’t think I was planning to toss a sofa somewhere. Instead, I looked around and saw the word “manta” on signs above blankets for the bed and I came up with “¿Tienes una manta pequeña?” It worked! (I’m so proud of myself for this small accomplishment, but also for finding that upside down question mark using my keyboard just now.) El Corte Inglés can be mentally exhausting. Fortunately, there’s a taxi stand just outside to make getting the goods home a breeze and a glass of wine to enjoy at one of numerous cafes near our new place.

Lastly, the Amazon shopping experience is a familiar one but does contribute to my goal of becoming more proficient at communicating in Spanish. Amazon’s Spain website allows me to shop and purchase items in English, but all the follow-up emails regarding purchases and delivery status are in Spanish. Then, there’s the process of navigating the Amazon app in Spanish to open the delivery locker in the nearby small supermercado.  

CHINA STORES

Shopping option #2 – el Chino. When we were here last September, there was a store we walked past every day that seemed like a version of a Dollar Store in the U.S. Lots of cheap stuff, all made in China. Some of our expat friends mentioned shopping at the “China Stores” and I wasn’t sure how I felt about using this term – if felt pejorative and disrespectful. Now, I’ve shopped in a few of these stores and learned a bit about them. Usually they’re called something like “Chino Bazaar” or “Asia Bazaar” but locals refer to them as “el Chino.”  They’re everywhere – so far, I’ve found four el Chinos within a 5-minute walk from our apartment. They vary in size, and all are absolutely stuffed with every conceivable item you can think of.

Some interesting background…until relatively recently, there were no convenience stores in Spain. Retail had always been a highly regimented and regulated affair: you bought your newspapers from the newspaper stand; your cigarettes (and bus passes?) from the tobacco store; medicine from the pharmacy; bread and milk at the grocer’s – or more recently, the supermercado (supermarket); etc. There are thousands of these little shops all over Valencia, and they have similar opening and closing hours. Typically, they are open from 10am to 1:30pm and from 5.30pm to 8.30pm (lunch is at 2 and is followed by siesta). While shops in the tourist areas are an exception, it’s not uncommon to find even supermarkets closed for 2-3 hours every afternoon. Don’t worry, we’re learning to enjoy siesta time!

Anyway, back to the el Chinos. It would have been almost impossible to find a Chinese person in Spain prior to the 1980s. (General Franco’s dictatorship wasn’t too keen on communist China.) Since the early 2000’s, identifying a need, Chinese immigrants have dedicated themselves to the opening of these stores. They are all owned and staffed by Chinese families who sometimes speak a little Spanish and usually no English. These stores have been a game changer for Spain. There are often rumblings in the press about how success of these stores’ rests on sweatshop labor practices. But, their products, and especially the very low prices, are very popular. So, the el Chino is now a feature of Spanish life.

The el Chino store has three main characteristics: it stocks a little bit of everything; it is not luxuriously outfitted (let’s just say they don’t invest much in appearances); and it hardly ever closes (definitely not for siesta). Inside the el Chino things are often somewhat ramshackle. Also, being open all the time, reinforces the stereotype that exists among the Spanish of the hardworking Chinese. In fact, in Spain, the phrase for killing yourself working is “trabajando como un chino” (working liking a Chinese).

PLAN B

This week brings more adventure. In addition to our regular visit to El Corte Inglés, we have an appointment at the Police Department to get fingerprinted for our residence card, cocktail hour with a big group of expat friends, and we leave for a 12-day get-away to Italy on Friday!

Adiós, hasta la próxima.

It’s the little things that can get you sometimes, right? Life as an expat is full of those little things…from banks to beds!

EXPAT DAY #34

First, to wrap up the bank account saga, I’d like to announce that after three trips to the bank, we have succeeded! The most curious thing about this experience is that we finally opened an account WITHOUT giving the bank any money. That means, of course, that at our initial bank balance was zero. However, because we were convinced by the person assisting us that we needed to buy a renter’s insurance policy, the first annual premium was automatically deducted from our account within minutes. This meant we were overdrawn on our first day of having a Spanish bank account. Kind of upsetting, but we were told not to worry; it won’t matter for a few days and there won’t be any fees. Crazy, right?

SPEAKING SPANISH

Did I mention there are two languages spoken in Valencia? Spanish (Castilian) of course, and Valencian which is a dialect of Catalan which is spoken in the autonomous community of Catalan, including Barcelona. (Valencia is in the autonomous community of Valencia.) All that to say that the word “plaza” in Spanish is “plaça” in Valencian. Likewise, street is “calle” (Castilian) or “carrer” (Valencian) – just a little confusing at times!

We’ve been working at improving our Spanish but hadn’t quite processed the need to learn Valencian as well. The local government makes sure it emphasizes the use of Valencian. For example, all signs and announcements are in Valencian, with Spanish translations underneath in smaller type. New street signs have the Valencian name for street (carrer), but older street signs (with the Spanish names) are only replaced when necessary. So, it’s common to see streets and squares referred to with their Castilian name, their Valencian name, or both. A bit of a challenge at times, but we’re getting the hang of it.

BEDS ARE COMPLICATED

We’re in the process of furnishing and setting up our new apartment. Our address is: Plaza Músico López-Chávarri, 5, piso 3, puerta 6, Valencia, 46003. That’s a lot to remember and spit out when someone asks about our address.

The priorities for getting our new place set up are: 1) setting up a place for Ed to work and 2) having a place to sleep. I’m working on the sleeping situation. There is a bed in the apartment, so you’d think this would be easy – buy bedding, wash it, assemble, lie down. Not so fast. I measured the bed to be sure I knew what size sheets to buy. My little tape measure told me the mattress is 55” x 78” which is not quite a U.S. queen (60×80). OK, maybe we can work with that if Ed remains on his 1/3 of the bed per our long-standing arrangement. Next, my handy-dandy calculator on my phone converted this mattress size to 139 x 198 centimeters. I Googled “bed sizes in Spain” and here’s that I got: “In Spain, standardized lengths are 180, 190 and 200 cm. Standardized widths are 80, 90, 105, 120, 135, 150 or 180 cm.” Seriously? Do we need so many options? As you can see, a width of 139 and length of 198 isn’t an option. UGH! It turns out the mattress is a not-so-comfortable IKEA product which resulted in the purchase of a new mattress – 150 x 200 cm (59 x 78 inches). This better – a more comfortable mattress and 4 more inches. I’ll even split those extra inches evenly with Ed!).

Who new that opening a bank account could be so hard?

EXPAT DAY #17

A NEW HOME

On Friday, we signed a contract for along term rental in Valencia! Next step, set up accounts for the utilities – gas, electricity, phone & internet. No problem. we’ve done this a few times before. Over the weekend, we went to buy a SIM card for our cell phones, so we’ll have a Spanish phone number. The cell phone company (Moviestar) will also be our internet service provider and we figured out that to set up the billing, it would be much better to have a Spanish bank account. No problem. We put “open a bank account” on our to-do list for first thing Monday morning.

BANKING ADVENTURES

At 8:30 this morning (Monday), we were on our way to the bank. The bank we chose is a little over 1 kilometer from our apartment, so a nice morning walk. Except, it was nowhere to be found when we got to the address Google provided. Google gave us another option and on our second attempt, we found the bank, but were told that we could not open an account without our residence card which we won’t have until around mid-May. (Never mind that the bank’s website and a few of our expat friends said otherwise.) Our third bank attempt also failed because we didn’t have an appointment (a Spanish phone number is required to make an appointment).

Our fourth try was looking promising. After waiting a few minutes, we were escorted to Desk #8 where a friendly man invited us to take a seat. He spoke no English, so we communicated via our very limited Spanish and help from Google Translate. We presented all the documents that we knew would be required. Then, he asked for proof of income and said that our 2021 U.S. Tax Returns, proof of my Social Security payments, and Ed’s Helix income would suffice. It was amazing to watch Ed access our personal server using his phone and produce these documents within about a minute. I’m impressed! We were feeling hopeful until he asked for our Spanish phone number. UGH!!  Then, he agreed to let us use a friend’s number and were thrilled for a moment until he told us that he had other clients waiting (they had appointments) and we’d have to come back tomorrow.

Time for a café con leche and a good laugh.

GOING IN CIRCLES

Over coffee, we decided to go back to Movistar and get a Spanish SIM card with our U.S. credit card and then change the billing information later. We were in luck! A very friendly English-speaking young woman suggested we buy a pre-paid SIM card, so we’d have a Spanish number to give to the bank and then come back and transfer the new phone number to a phone and internet contract. (Seems like we could have thought of that or, maybe one of the dozen or so expat websites we researched might have suggested it.)  I’m not exactly sure why, but she said we’d need to come back tomorrow to do this. Oh well, laugh and move on. Mañana it is!

A FRENCH CAFÉ ALWAYS HELPS

We stopped at a favorite bakery and bought a loaf of bread and almost 5 kilometers and 4 ½ hours later, we arrived back at our apartment without a Spanish phone number or a bank account, but we did have a loaf of bread! We decided we’d earned a nice lunch. We walked to a little French café near our place and treated ourselves to a bottle of wine along with lunch. We made it home just in time for siesta. “Open a bank account” is on our to-do list for mañana.

A few simple and familiar things can mean a lot while adjusting to life as an expat. It’s not always (usually?) easy, but the effort is worth it.

EXPAT DAY #10

We’re back in Spain! This time, we’re figuring out how to live here rather than being in tourist mode. I’ve read that living abroad is an enriching experience because it forces you to adapt to things that are unfamiliar. This means being open to new, exciting, or even terrifying challenges that you would never have encountered at home. The reward is the opportunity to learn and grow as a person. So, here’s some of my recent challenges (none have been terrifying) and what I’m learning.

METRIC CHALLENGES

Let’s start with measuring stuff. A liter is close to a quart. A meter is about the same as a yard. So far, so good. However, a centimeter isn’t even close to an inch. Walking for two kilometers isn’t as impressive as it sounds; it’s just a little over one mile. Buying a kilogram of fish means we need invite some of our new friends over for dinner!

PEANUT BUTTER ADVENTURE

Once I figure out how much I want, the next challenge is finding words. Google Translate can be helpful but is not always reliable. We were in a Supermercado (Supermarket) the other day and I was hoping to find peanut butter. After walking up and down all the aisles, I decided to ask for help. Before approaching the clerk, I asked Google to translate “peanut butter” and I got “mantequilla de mani” – OK, I know mantequilla is butter, so mani must be peanut. Perfecto! I’ve got this! When I approached the eager to help clerk, I said, “Donde es mantiquilla de mani, por favor?” Nope. He shook his head. Next, I showed him Google’s translation on my phone, he shrugged and shook his head again. So, back to my phone. I found a photo of a jar of peanut butter with peanuts scattered around it. When I showed him the photo, the clerk nodded, smiled, and said, “crema de cacahuete!” as he summoned another employee to guide me to the proper aisle. I made a mental note to sort this out later and when I finally found my treasure, the label on the jar was “PEANUT BUTTER.” Fifteen minutes after starting my search, I finally had one item in the cart. I felt so proud of myself!

GOOGLE COMES TO THE RESCUE

Another recent adventure was purchasing a sewing machine. We found a tiny little shop where the only person there spoke zero English. She had a couple of sewing machine brands that I am familiar with, and it was easy to point and hold up my credit card to indicate I wanted to purchase it. Then, I remembered I needed a couple of special accessories that must be purchased separately. Imagine the Google translate scenario above. This time, however, I needed to ask for a “walking foot” and a “quarter inch quilting foot.” What did we do before smartphones?

Para llevar (take-away): Slow down. Enjoy the process. Savor the journey. Laugh.

Best wishes for a wonderful 2023!  It’s been a while since we last sent an update and there’s a bit to share. Embracing change seems to be an essential life skill these days! So, with that in mind, here comes 2023. It’s going to be a big year for us, starting with the fact that it is our 50^th year together! (You’re all invited to celebrate with us in September.) Ed is planning to fully retire by year end (a transition about which we both have some trepidation) and we’ve made the very difficult decision to sell our Sacramento home after a lifetime in California. Corresponding with that decision, we’re planning additional improvements to the Pennsylvania house. 

And, oh yeah, we’re planning to move to Spain! Just another year . . . 

ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

First, let’s talk about the big September celebration. We’d love for you to join us in New Wilmington, PA the weekend of September 22 – 24 to mark the anniversary of our wedding 50 years ago. The agenda will likely start with a cocktail party on Friday evening, Amish country tours on Saturday, dinner Saturday evening at Matt & Maggie’s new restaurant (The Tavern – https://www.thetavernonthesquare.com/), and Sunday brunch. Of course, you are welcome to come earlier and stay later. We’ve arranged lodging at local inns for anyone who can join us so just get on a plane and meet us in PA. We’ll take it from there. Mark your calendars and expect to hear more details from our sons in the coming months. We’re eager to share something of our life in rural Pennsylvania with you.

NEW WILMINGTON UPGRADES

Last year, we remodeled the interior of the New Wilmington house – completely new kitchen, flooring, remodeled primary bedroom and bathroom, new furnishings, etc. This year, we are turning our attention to the exterior and garage. We’ll be planning and scheming over the first quarter of 2023 so that when we get back there in the spring, we can hit the ground running. The home sits on 2/3 of an acre that we are hoping to transform into a verdant natural environment of native plants, grasses, and trees. It is an exciting prospect for us in part because we face a steep learning curve to master gardening in an ecosystem radically different from California. Learning new things is what gets us both out of bed each day!

RETIREMENT COMING SOON

Speaking of which, by year end, getting out of bed is going to look very different for Ed. 2023 marks his 50^thyear in the electrical construction industry, and, well that seems like enough. Despite a challenging economic climate, we’re going to take the plunge into a post salary lifestyle. It’s emotionally daunting to give up the security of a weekly paycheck. Five decades of doing a thing tends to make it a hard habit to break. Wish us luck!

A BIG MOVE

And just to be sure we don’t get bored; we’ve decided to turn a long-time dream of living abroad into a reality. Spain, here we come! Why Spain? Well, we love the lifestyle and culture. One of our new expat friends has described it as a gentle life. It’s marked by a communal sense of tolerance and acceptance. The shops, cafes, restaurants, public squares are the social heartbeat of a life centered on human interactions. The people we have spent time with while in Spain are baffled by the violence, inequality, and incivility that most of us in the U.S. have accepted as “normal.” As we plan for the next chapter in our lives, we are hoping for a new normal both here and abroad.