We Now Have an Apartment in Spain
Street art in Spain — Photo by J. Sharland Day
This is an adventure story, not a political statement. But the meaning behind ‘All the Bullshit at Home’ should need no definition or explanation. I think that everyone living in the States at this time has got to be sick of all the grumbling, demands, changes of policies — right or wrong — the dissention and bitterness felt, the name calling, the daily questions, the uncertainty of nearly everything, except death and taxes, as the saying goes. What happened to ‘agree to disagree’ and move on? That can’t happen in today’s atmosphere. Silence is golden until someone makes an idiotic statement that starts an explosion of ‘WTFs’.
My husband and I are no longer among the youth of our nation. Growing older, we see things in a much different light because of our maturity and experiences. Throughout our golden years, we have realized that anything that does not make us feel at peace with ourselves, our lives, and our surroundings, needs to be changed. Since we cannot change other people’s views, words, and deeds, we decided to move to a new country to seek peace of mind, and chose Spain.
The reason for Spain was that it was a known entity. We came to Spain two years ago with our daughter and son-in-law and became familiar with many parts of the country, staying in VROBs in some major cities we wanted to explore. We flew into Madrid, took a bullet train to Zaragoza for a night, and then Barcelona for a few days. The bullet train was an amazing experience, going as fast as 300 km per hour. And when we took a slower train to Valencia, that was a drag with its constant stops in smaller communities. The stay in Valencia was interesting because the river had been rerouted to the outskirts of town instead of in town because of the constant flooding problems. The old riverbed was made into a large city park. Even though it was a beautiful city, it didn’t trip my buttons. It wasn’t comfortable to me, although I couldn’t say why. We met with friends who were staying for a year there, who loved the city, and knew a lot about the area.
One surprising and fun piece of information I learned from those friends was about the graffiti that was literally everywhere we went. There were colorful painted doorways, walls, fences, highway guardrails, bridges, alleys, sidewalks, sides of buses, trash cans, fence posts, and signs. Abandoned houses or buildings, too, were brightened with colorful expressions of someone’s talented artistry. I was told that it all was considered ‘folk art’, which made my first negative impression and question of ‘why was the defacing allowed’ as I turned up my nose at such destruction, taking a 180-degree turn. That information made me look at and appreciate the different styles of each mural as a true art form. I now love seeing the colorful graffiti.
We rented a car and traveled to Grenada to see the fascinating Alhambra and then southwest to Seville for a week. We rode a bus to Cádiz and later took a train to Lisboa, Portugal. I loved it all. The experiences were extremely fulfilling and joyful, the food tasty, and the people surprisingly accepting of us Americans.
We flew cheaply from Lisboa back to Barcelona, where we flew back home after our five weeks of touring. It was an adventure of a lifetime, especially since I’d never been out of the North American continent. We have been to Canada several times; had a winter home in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico for nearly 20 years, and traveled through all 31 states plus the Federal District of Mexico City. But to venture outside of our comfort zone of the North American continent was like flying to the moon for me. I was apprehensive and worried about what we would find when we first flew into Madrid.
It was a huge city, for one thing, but the taxi driver was friendly and accommodating. Because he knew, or seemed to know, Madrid like the back of his hand, or it could be that he had a good GPS, we felt confident we would arrive at our destination timely and safely.
All the experiences we had while in Spain those few weeks made us want to return and explore it further.
We flew to Madrid last October with a return flight for the end of December, rented a car, and proceeded to follow the map toward the northwest corner to Santiago de Compostela. We stayed five days.
Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the Northwest Galicia region, but is better known for its famous Catedral de Santiago de Compostela, where the supposed remains of the apostle Saint James are kept, and is the reason for the famous pilgrimage route Saint James Way, which originated in France hundreds of years ago. Today, there are many hiking paths to follow to get to the Cathedral for spiritual and personal fulfillment. We kept seeing many signs that showed us we were on or close to a designated route, and saw many hikers with their backpacks and walking sticks trekking along the paths. The original route started as early as the ninth century and was 320 km or 199 miles long. Today, some of the newer paths are over 800 km or over 500 miles long.
Artwork on stairs in Spain — Photo by J. Sharland Day
I kept wondering if the mileage those determined devotees would end up putting in from their exceptionally long walk would be worth it at the end when they received their certificate that told of their accomplishment. I guessed that the satisfaction came from their determination and hanging-in-there, as much as the religious aspect of the journey. The religious basis for the trek would not excite me as much as being one with nature and getting physically fit from all those miles on foot, or bicycle. But I was impressed by the number of people we kept seeing on the designated paths, so we waved at them and their determination.
Since our plan for driving around Spain was to seek the most desired spot to settle, we kept driving, stopping at places we thought had potential but moved on when places didn’t feel ‘right’. We were enamored by a few cities like Salamanca, which was a beautiful college town on the west central part of the country, where most of the people spoke English…a big plus in our minds and continued our drive, putting an asterisk on the map by that city in case there was nothing better.
We went through many cities with historical sites that intrigued us, and smaller towns that had good vibes, but nothing spoke too loudly in our inner ears that said, ‘This is the place.’
Our trip was long, wonderful, and educational. Much of the country was no more distinct than areas in the states, like Kansas with its flat fields, or Colorado with its snow-capped mountains, but when we came to the vineyards and the olive groves, we were mesmerized by the subtle colors of the olive trees and the many crooked tee-shaped grape vines dormant after the harvest going into winter. All plants in fields were so straight in their planting that I thought we could hold a level to each row and come up perfect. Straight as an arrow, as my dad used to say. I was enthralled by the master farmers and their care for their crops.
We had planned to stay a few weeks at different tourist stops like Alicante, Marbella, and Málaga, but we had a week we needed to fill. I chose a dot on the map near the edge of a large bay on the Mediterranean that looked intriguing called Aguilas. It was only a couple of hours away from one of our planned week’s stays, so we checked on VROBs in that area for something that had a sea view for four days. We found a small one-bedroom apartment on the third floor of an apartment building that had parking and a nice view from the balcony of the sea and the marina. We were only a half block from the malecon, so we were able to walk along the edge of a big beach, see what the town had to offer, and enjoy the restaurants that were scattered along that stretch of walkway near the road.
We were impressed by the clean, quiet atmosphere of the town as we discovered more interesting places to eat and sit.
There was a large, lush with trees, plaza that was flanked by two huge banyan trees, which we discovered when venturing further into the small city. The place was magical. We sat at a table to drink a beer while we watched locals meander around or sit and eat beneath umbrellas at the eateries available with friends and children. The atmosphere was so laid-back that we couldn’t help but feel peace, rather than turmoil, like we had experienced at other plazas we’ve visited in our travels. Plazas were always fun for us, no matter the crowds and their purposes, but this one was different from all others we had visited. Here, we felt a sense of calm from the beauty of the place, the choices of places to eat and drink, and how the people seemed to love the plaza, also. We kept going back.
As we explored what we thought was the city — we were later told that it wasn’t considered a city with only 30,000 population — the more we saw that it was a community embraced by its inhabitants, not tourists, even though it had all the things a tourist would love. It even had a castle on a hill that separated one beach from the marina and another beach. The beauty of the water had us mesmerized, and we wanted to stay. Perhaps because it was off the beaten path, most tourists didn’t know about Aguilas, which was a good thing, I determined.
After our four-day stay, we drove west to spend two weeks at more well-known tourist resorts, Marbella and Malaga. But we decided to cancel our last week in another tourist hotel to go back to Aguilas. We realized we were not liking the hustle of the large crowds and the planned times to eat at themed dinner nights. We craved the peacefulness of the town we determined was ‘the one’ for us.
Aguilas would be inconvenient because there were no train stops there — another reason for fewer tourists — which meant we’d have to have a car and a place to park. Yet we began looking at apartments anyway.
The third apartment we saw was a blank canvas, since it was in the middle of a remodel. But when we saw that it faced the beach and the sea and was above a walking path rather than a noisy road, our eyes lit up. The price was a bit higher than we hoped, but considering everything was all brand new, we said, “Yes!”, made an offer, and ‘voila’, we had an agreement on a new home in a beautiful foreign country.
We got all the information from our realtor on who to see and what to do about buying in Spain, hired a recommended attorney to help us with the process, and got everything signed before we left to go back to the States.
It is now April, and we are here again for a month to get the place furnished and ready for our six-month winter stay. We are very happy to have our spectacular view, access to bars, restaurants, and shopping, all just a few minutes’ walk away. What an amazing experience! Especially now, feeling at peace with the world without newscasts to make us cranky.