Settling in: Our First Week Living in Spain

Spain gave us what some would call a “warm welcome” – if you consider 100+ degrees F warm! Uber and Bolt here in Zaragoza are not very reliable, so after our arrival at the Delicias train station from Barcelona, we waited for 2 taxis to take us and our belongings to our new home. It was less than a 15 minute drive and about 10€ per taxi- significantly cheaper than either of the ride share options anyway.

Due to getting new phones and running into some issues transferring our eSIMs, neither Edward nor I could get a signal, so Jay took over communication with our awesome apartment hunter/helper, Arturo, who was unfortunately stuck in Italy with a virus. We arrived at our piso as planned around 3:30 p.m., but we weren’t actually able to get our keys until close to 4:30. So there we were, sitting on the street in the heat with all of our belongings, to the point that complete strangers started asking if we were okay! 😂 Luckily, Arturo’s friend was able to break into his apartment, retrieve our keys, and get them to us so we could finally move in!

The First Impression

The city is just what we remembered. Quaint, lively, and very Spanish. We feel safe here and are starting to have a good sense of what is where. The apartment was smaller than Jay and I remembered, most likely because when we toured it there were not 6 people inside!

Unpacking

I like to unpack quickly – after a vacation or during a move, it doesn’t matter, I want things sorted as soon as possible. We got right to work putting our clothes away in drawers, our toothbrushes in the bathrooms, and what little other things we had somewhere so we could put our suitcases away and relieve ourselves of the initial clutter. The kids almost immediately started making their rooms their own which is still quite the treat. This is the first time for all 4 of them to have one all to themself (well, except for Edward up until George was born!). Having so little made the unpacking process very quick and painless. Looking back at what we brought, I feel like it was just right other than the dang winter sweaters I regretfully found space for. Those will come in handy eventually.

Exploring & Favorite Finds

Every day we’ve walked to different grocery stores to buy food for that day and to check out the selection. We’ve taken the “long way home” to explore different streets and shops. Fiona has taken on nightly trash duty and we look forward to taking a little walk afterwards to see what’s out there.

So far we’ve found several cafes, pharmacies, produce markets, and restaurants that we have either already checked out or are on our list to visit soon.

Ikea was the first stop for getting some missing items for the piso, so that turned into our busiest shopping day yet on the outskirts of the city at a large mall area. While it’s not a part of the city where we see ourselves visiting frequently, it is nice to know it’s there for when we need it!

Practicing Spanish

I have come to be okay with sounding like a kindergartener when speaking Spanish. It’s just the way it is and most of the time the person I’m talking to appreciates the effort and helps me when they can. I find it so much fun to learn a new language – it requires a certain kind of creativity and confidence that is unique to learning other things (in my opinion). I have received almost always smiles and encouragement when speaking to someone and it gives me great excitement for getting better at it with more practice!

Quick story: This morning I was getting trying to order an iced cappuccino and knew I was going to get “ice” wrong. Every time I try to pronounce it, it’s so bad that they cannot understand what I’m trying to say. The barista could tell I was struggling and when I finally said “por frio” (for cold), he understood, helped me say it correctly, and then exclaimed “good effort” with a smile while ringing me up. I just had to laugh. For reference, it’s “hielo” and pronounced kind of like “e-YAY-lo”…but different. The “e” is barely there at the beginning. I’m not a linguist, I’m probably writing it very wrong…It’s truly the word I’ve had the worst time with so far!!

Getting Around

It blows my mind every day that we can actually walk to almost everywhere we want to go. We couldn’t have picked a better location. We have only taken the tram and bus a couple of times for the long-haul trips like Ikea, but everything else we can simply walk to. It makes me giddy I love it so much.

Edward and I went to mass on Sunday. I just looked it up, it’s about 44 meters away from our door. The closest grocery store: 78 meters. A huge sports complex and also the entry to a beautiful park: 800 meters. All this proximity and yet we can still hit 10,000 steps a day without trying because we are outside exploring and doing all the things without a car. No parking to deal with, no gas or insurance to pay for, no inspections or repairs. It feels more freeing then when I decided to stop dyeing my hair!!

New Routine

With school still on the horizon, we are not yet on a normal routine, however having finally unpacked into our new home in Spain, we are now able to enjoy the basics like meals together, siesta (it’s necessary especially in this heat!), and are pulling out some hobbies as well. It even feels refreshing to be able to have a cleaning and laundry routine after a year of travel.

A month from now will be a different story and while we are still feeling that summer break vibe, we are all looking forward to a more structured day-to-day after so long living on the go.

Making our apartment our home

There is no easy way to make AirBnbs and hotels your home while traveling full-time. As much as we wanted the things that made us feel at home (favorite foods, throw blankets, cookware, books, you name it!), we only had so much space! Now that we are here, you can feel the excitement as we pull out photos to display or talk about buying real, live plants we can care for.

We are loving more variety but are still committed to living with less stuff. The limited space in our city apartment keeps us in check!

Bureaucracy

Living in Spain with or without kids means dealing with the government. One of the big items we checked off our list this past week is the empadronamiento aka “padron” which is essentially registering our new address at the town hall. It will allow us to do things like register the kids for public school someday, access public healthcare, apply for residency cards (coming soon), and more. This requires multiple forms of ID and documents all of which need to be copied. It seems simple, and it really should be, but AUGUST.

Here is what went down:

The night before our planned visit to the office, Jay and I walked around the area looking for copisterias (copy shops) that were going to be open on a Monday morning. Several had “closed for vacation” signs in the windows so we felt great doing this reconnaissance ahead of time to prevent any issues on “the big day”. We found one close by and planned to be there right at opening to get everything prepared.

The next morning, George and I arrive at the shop to find it closed, with no evidence of a human in the shop. We waited a few minutes and by 9:25, I decided to see what other options we had. Just 2 blocks away was another one – I called the number on Google Maps and someone answered! I didn’t actually understand what they said, but I took it as evidence they were open. Turns out that was not the case. Closed. From there, we hit 7+ copisterias within a 3-4 block radius and have zero luck. At this point, we are past our scheduled appointment time to meet our friend Arturo who was helping us that morning. Jay and the other kids were waiting at the government office for me to arrive…

Arturo sends a link to a shop near the university (very close to home/where we started but in the opposite direction of the office we were headed towards) and I could not believe that it was actually open! I had nearly lost all hope. George and I enter a large room covered in promotional signs and posters, of course all in Spanish. I had no clue where to start, so I tried the line of computers along the wall. Google Translating the screen, and several two-step authentication circles later, I got into my email and “printed” the files. Really, I thought I was saving them to a drive where the attendant could access and then print. At this point, Jay had arrived (via a Bizi bike) to help. The kids were still in the plaza waiting for us to return.

I go to the counter and wait in line for my turn. I had done it wrong. The files were in the abyss. I had to email them to the store and the computers were for thumb drive use only. Sweat dripping off my brow and down my back, I scramble to get them sent, halfway through realizing that the attachments weren’t going through. Start over. Finally I get back to the counter and the files are there! They get printed, Jay and I sign what needs to be signed, and then I get to copies. Passports, birth certificates, lease agreement & receipt…so many pages.

With relief we pay and head to the tram to hopefully make it back to the office quickly. Halfway to the tram Jay says “I have my passport too if we need it”…um…yes we probably need it why did we not make copies 5 minutes ago? The heat does that to you!! I go ahead to the tram and Jay runs back to the shop to copy his passport.

I run from the tram stop to the plaza to find the kids chilling by themselves. Arturo had to run they said. No problem, at this point I had the papers, we were at the office, Jay was on his way…we walked inside. The woman at the desk was informing me that they were not processing empadroniamento that day just as Arturo walked in and was able to translate what she was saying to me.

Guess what office was open that she directed us to? The one BACK near the university about a block from the copy shop!!! This time we walked (we had a Spaniard with us this time – he was in no rush), got coffee along the way, and found the office. The man at the desk looked over my paperwork and I somehow missed one document. I emailed them to the copisteria and Jay ran to grab the printouts.

Finally, 2.5 hours after I left the apartment, we sat down with the gentleman (Jorge!) and got through it all. It took nearly an hour, but it’s done and it felt like such an accomplishment. I won’t bore you with the details of changing a single utility bill to my name but let’s just say it was over an hour on the phone.

A large part of the reason that day was so difficult was because it is August and most of Spain is on holiday. Many businesses are closed for several if not all weeks of the month. We definitely take the 24/7 mindset for granted in the states, never worrying about if we will have access to a particular product or service. I can understand both business strategies – for one, being available to customers to make money and grow a business, but also to value time off and quality of life. There is more than one way to do things and guess what? While it wasn’t ideal, we still managed to check it off our list.

What’s Next

So here we go – walking into week two with a little experience under our belts, more adventures ahead, and more paperwork to be tended to. But best of all – a big cool down!! Yay!

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