 Julie Lokin in Seville early in 2020, the year he got serious about learning Spanish at age 77. A few days ago Rich bellowed “Karen!” with an urgency I haven’t heard since that time the pine tree in our front yard caught on fire. I raced down the hall to find him holding up a small, irregular piece of cardboard. It was the missing piece from a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle, which we’d recently assembled, with colossal mental effort, only to realize we were one short. Yes, we torn the house apart and on Friday, admitting defeat, we’d disassembled the 999 pieces and put them away. And now … ! As the Spanish would say, ¡Estaba feliz como una perdiz! (I was as happy as a partridge.)  Rich was as happy as a whole flock of partridges. To be honest, I am not convinced partridges are happier than any other creatures. But the phrase always makes me think of joyfully settling into a cozy nest, comfortably shaking out my feathers, and basking in the moment. So I’m sticking with it. One of the great things about learning a second language is that sometimes it provides a word or phrase so perfect (a bon mot, as the French put it) that you wonder how you ever lived without it. For instance, to emphasize they’re delivering the unvarnished truth, the Spanish say, “No tengo pelos en la lengua” (I don’t have hairs on my tongue). Another favorite is “quedarse en blanco” (literally to stay in the white, meaning to lose your conversational way as if you were enveloped in dense fog), which for me is so … wait, what was I saying? Learning goofy sayings is just one of the appealing reasons to embrace Spanish. Just look at the numbers: with 600 million people speaking it, you’ll have lots more amigos to chat with as you wander through life.  Even more usefully, studying a foreign language enhances neuroplasticity, the ability of your brain to change and adapt. It boosts memory, focus, cognitive skills, creativity, mood, and perhaps even your ability to keep dementia at bay. “Speaking more than one language appears to help the brain resist the effects of Alzheimer’s disease,” reported Alzheimer News Today.  Experts tell us the ideal age to learn a new language is when we’re ten to eighteen, and as soon as they invent a time machine, I’ll hop back and get started on that. Luckily for all of us, life isn’t about ideals, it’s about possibilities and what we do with them. Take my friend Julius — he goes by Julie — a lifelong New Yorker who visits Seville every spring for a couple of months. When I zoomed with him Saturday, on his 82nd birthday, I asked him how long he’d been studying Spanish. “Five years, mas o menos” (more or less). “Okay, I did have Spanish in high school, but I also had physics and chemistry; I don't remember a lot of that stuff. So say five years.” That means he got started at age 77, around 60 years later than the recommended timeframe.  Want to practice your Spanish, at home or abroad? Try selecting Español at the ATM. How has it gone? Julie talked about reaching the first milestone, known here in Seville as “bar Spanish,” which means he can order food and drink with a reasonable degree of certainty that he’ll be understood. “It's one thing to speak to another person,” he told me. “It's another thing to understand what they're saying when they respond. But, you know, it's not like I'm speaking on such a high level that the responses are too difficult. And also, there are a lot of workarounds; if you don't exactly remember how to say something, you find an alternative way to say it. And a lot of the vocabulary is almost the same as English.” In fact there are hundreds of words, such as taxi, radio, and mosquito, common to both languages.  Taxi is one of the most universally recognized words in the world, right up there with "huh?" and "coffee." So Julie has achieved what I consider the second milestone: accumulating your own little collection of workarounds and soundalikes that let you make your way to solid ground even in slippery conversations. Over the past five years, Julie has thrown himself into his studies with enthusiasm. Every week, he Skypes for an hour and a half with Sonia, his language teacher in Seville. They talk about his 40-year career running New Audiences, a concert production company for jazz, blues, and folk music, and about the jazz concerts Julie and his wife, Deborah, have enjoyed in Seville.  Julie (right) with world-famous jazz guitarist John McLaughlin (left) and singer-songwriter Elvis Costello (center) backstage at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2019. Every week, Julie also Skypes with a Valenciano named Dani who wants to learn English. They converse in one language, then the other, an arrangement commonly known as an intercambio (interchange). “He’s a young man, half my age, and very, very funny,” said Julie. “We have a good time together.” Valencia isn’t all that far from Seville, and visits have also been exchanged, giving the men and their wives a chance to become friends. “Two years ago,’” Julie recalled, “when Dani and Elena, his wife, were in Seville, we were out to dinner together, with some other friends. And I actually attempted a joke in Spanish, and everybody laughed. Deborah said the waiter was standing behind me, and he was laughing. So I said, ‘Are they laughing at the joke, or are they laughing at my Spanish?’” I’m guessing they were laughing at your joke, Julie. Humor is one of the most difficult things to pull off in a foreign language, marking that moment as milestone number three.  Julie served as a volunteer EMT with New York's Central Park Medical Unit and with the Fair Harbor Fire Department on Fire Island where he has a summer home. “You are officially a bi-lingual person,” I told him. “What advice do you have for people just starting on this journey?” “You should not be afraid to use whatever little bit of Spanish you've learned,” he said. “People are very kind and accepting… They will respect you more and thank you for making the attempt.” Your brain will thank you, too. Thinking in a second language always gives your cerebrum an invigorating workout, bestowing the same health benefits, such as neuroplasticity and boosted memory, no matter how polished the results may (or may not) be.  See? Doesn't your brain feel a bit more robust already, thanks to these flashcards? Photo: Etsy Of course, no matter how long you study Spanish, you may occasionally quedarse en blanco, feel your mind blanking out in the middle of a sentence. (Yes, it still happens to me, even after 20 years, although far, far less often.) That’s when speaking Spanish starts seeming like working a jigsaw puzzle that’s missing half the pieces. And you find yourself bewildered by the suddenness of the disaster, like a homeowner discovering one of the pine trees is on fire. (Which, if you’re wondering, was caused by an electric cable rubbing against a branch until the insulation wore off.) But then, there are the good days. You reach for a word and it’s there. Somebody gives you directions and you understand them. You crack a joke that leaves a tableful of friends and nearby strangers helpless with laughter. “I’m proud of myself when I’m understood,” said Julie. “And I’m getting better at it.” And that is something to be celebrated, at any age.  Celebrate your triumphs! THE AMIGOS PROJECT This post is part of my ongoing exploration of how living and traveling abroad can enrich our lives and help us find fellowship, avoiding the isolation that's become a global epidemic. See all my Amigos Project posts here. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POSTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. WANT MORE? My best selling travel memoirs & guides Best of Cheap & Cheerful San Francisco Cozy Places to Eat in Seville GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.
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 A sign-hacking prank by NHS employees in London How is 2025 treating you so far? I ask because my year’s off to an extremely dubious start. Minutes before midnight on New Year's Eve, I opened a can of the traditional 12 lucky grapes that MUST be eaten as the clock chimes ... and found 11 grapes. Hard not to read that as an ominous message from the Universe! Days later I finished the toughest 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle I've ever attempted ... and discovered it was missing the final piece. Oh the horror! And did I mention Rich and I both got Covid? (We’re fine now, thanks for asking.) Obviously there’s no point in lulling myself with false hope that this year’s going to be a cakewalk. The gloves are off, and 2025 and I are going toe to toe.  The zeitgeist of our times, from a poster for a concert by Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams So I’m in survival mode, taking stock of my resources. As I roll with the punches, I'm comforted to know that if the going gets tough, Seville’s first class medical system is standing by to patch me up for the next round. The fact Spain has an extremely modern, efficient healthcare system seems to stun my American visitors. That's because we’re raised on the myth that any medical services outside US borders must be hideously, dangerously substandard. Well, hold onto your hats, folks. In the most recent rankings, Spain’s health index score was 43 places higher than that of the USA (#26 vs. #69). Moreover, Spain is becoming a world leader in medical research; it just surpassed Germany for the top spot in clinical trials. “From face transplants to robot surgeons,” reported Olive Press, “Spain has achieved many medical discoveries and innovations in the last year.” I fervently hope I won’t need a face transplant or robotic surgery in 2025. But still, it’s great to know Spanish doctors are on the cutting edge of modern science.  Meet Da Vinci, the robot performing surgery (under human control) in Seville's Hospital Quirónsalud Sagrado Corazón. “OK, fine,” I can hear certain friends muttering to themselves about now. “The care may be great but how do I access it? Where do I go? How do I manage when I don’t speak a word of Spanish?” I’m so glad you asked. To dig deep into this question, I sat down this week with María Moreno Verd of the International Department at Seville’s premier private facility, the Hospital Quirónsalud Sagrado Corazón, now part of the German company Fresenius-Helios, Europe’s largest healthcare system. The facility was honored for emergency care and surgery in the 2024 Best Spanish Hospital Awards.  María Moreno Verd takes care of international patients, serving as translator, coordinator, and support person. María is a professional medical translator who is thoroughly familiar with every aspect of the health system. Her first job, she says, is to calm the fears of patients. “You get anxious when the situation is new, when you are outside your comfort zone. People feel better when I approach them in their language, and I tell them that I am going to be with them all the time. I am there to listen, translate, and explain everything.” The first thing she explained to me was the best way to access the hospital system, which is via G24, their 24/7 call center in Madrid. The number is 901123456; I’ll wait a moment while you jot that down for future reference. G24 translators, fluent in 11 languages, will send your information to María, who makes the appointment or organizes the ER visit and arranges to be present when you arrive. G24 works with you on a Guarantee of Payment letter, based on your insurance; without it, you have to pay up front, and by European standards, care at Sagrado Corazón is not inexpensive.  "This patient has a rare form of health insurance." Last February one of my visitors required medical assistance to remove half a hearing aid that got stuck in his ear. (And yes, the poor guy will never hear the end of that little misadventure!) He was so flustered that he walked out of his rental apartment without grabbing his wallet, arriving at Sagrado Corazón with no ID, no cash, no credit card, no insurance card, nothing. Luckily he did think to bring me along. I didn’t know about G24 back then, so we were ER walk-ins. While I paid the 400€ ($413) deposit, a relative back at the rental apartment found my friend’s ID and texted us a photo of it. Paperwork done, we waited nearly an hour. The actual procedure took ten seconds, and the doctor, nurse, my friend, and I all cheered mightily when the deed was done. The staff refunded 70€ ($72); they’d rounded up, just in case. My friend was reimbursed by his insurer when he got home.  It's no coincidence that the English language does not contain the phrase "As much fun as filling out a health care insurance form." You can never prepare for every medical emergency, but when traveling abroad — or staying home, for that matter — it’s a savvy move to keep everything on this checklist easily accessible on your phone. Prescriptions, which in Spain may be available over the counter. Medical records of major health issues, such as recent surgeries and chronic conditions. Pictures help, in case of a language barrier. If your records are on a health portal, make sure you know the password. Verification of your travel and regular health insurance. Travel insurance is a very good idea, and remember, Medicare doesn’t cover you outside the US. The local emergency phone number. In Europe it’s 112 for everything, like our 911. For more far-flung trips, we have the Emergency Call app. The name/location of top hospital(s). A public ambulance will take you to the closest facility; G24 can dispatch a private ambulance that will take you to Sagrado Corazón. The name/location of a reliable clinic. I have insurance with Sanitas and often take visitors to their clinic for minor stuff. Even without membership, it’s much less expensive, around 60€ ($62) for a walk-in exam or prescription renewal. If something’s beyond them, they’ll send you to Sagrado Corazón. Bonus tip: Get receipts! Usually these will be in Spanish, but that doesn’t matter. You’ll need them for reimbursement later.  This is not a photo of my brother's bike accident in Seville in 2020, but it does capture the spirit of the moment. From a video by Devin Graham “Be sure to tell your readers how nice everyone is at the hospitals in Seville,” my sister-in-law said, when I mentioned I was writing this post. Deb should know; in 2020 my brother tumbled headlong off his bicycle and wound up in the public Hospital Universitario Virgen Macarena. Mike had a CT scan, X-rays, and extensive first aid. Total cost: 199€ ($205). Although Virgen Macarena doesn’t normally provide translators, they found someone to assist. “I cannot express how ginormous this place was,” Deb said. “And yet everyone was incredibly helpful. They seemed to really care about us. We were real to them.” When the last test results confirmed Mike was OK, everyone around them burst into applause.  Being surrrounded by people who care makes all the difference. I suspect it boosted Mike’s ability to bounce back from his scrapes and bumps — no small consideration for a man of 70. A meta-analysis conducted by the National Institutes of Health showed that “Higher levels of psychological stress experienced by hospital inpatients are associated with poorer patient outcomes.” To feel good is to heal better. It pays to be prepared — especially in 2025, which is bound to include plenty of shocks and wallops. But we don’t have to take them lying down. When my New Year’s grapes numbered 11, Rich sprinted to the kitchen, found another can, tore off the top, and returned with the extra grape just in time for midnight. Whatever good luck I have this year, I owe to him. Now, if he could just find that missing puzzle piece…  Long-time readers will recall we had another missing puzzle piece case back in 2021, one with a happier ending. Click here for details. THE AMIGOS PROJECT This post is part of my ongoing exploration of how living and traveling abroad can enrich our lives and help us find fellowship, avoiding the isolation that's become a global epidemic. See all my Amigos Project posts here. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POSTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. WANT MORE? My best selling travel memoirs & guide books Best of Cheap & Cheerful San Francisco Cozy Places to Eat in Seville GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  Here in Seville, the holiday lights are major extravaganzas, like this light show in the gardens of the Alcázar palace. What holiday songs do you find teeth-grindingly irritating? Is there one that makes you want to clap your hands over your ears and run screaming out of the department store? The public-spirited editors of USA Today compiled a list of the worst of the worst, the top ten most horrible yuletide carols of all time. I was pleased to see one I particularly dislike, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, earned the #2 spot on the grounds of sniggering cruelty. I’d never heard of #8, the heartwarming Don't Shoot Me Santa by the Killers. “If ever a Christmas song deserved a ‘what drugs were they on when they recorded this?’ reaction, this is it,” said USA Today, quoting the immortal lines “Don’t shoot me, Santa Claus, I’ve been a clean living boy, I promise you” to which jolly old man replies, “The party’s over, kid, because I’ve got a bullet in my gun.” Egads, when did Santa become such a badass?  Have you been a good kid this year? Well, have you, punk? Image: AI generated If that doesn’t unleash your inner Scrooge, there's always the #1 all-time worst holiday tune, which is (drum roll, please) The Chipmunk Song (Please Christmas Don’t Be Late). Back in the 1950s composer and singer Ross Badasarian (stage name Dave Seville) was down to his last $200 when he purchased a tape recorder that could vary recording and playback speeds. He released the Chipmunk Song on November 17, 1958; by New Year’s Day it was at the top of the charts and has been a bestseller ever since.  Mike, Melissa, Steve, Karen We kids thought it was the funniest thing we'd ever heard, and serenaded our parents with it day and night every holiday season. It's a wonder any of us lived to adulthood. Trying to remember how annoying this song sounds? Just listen. A few days ago I heard The Chipmunk Song (an instrumental version, gracias a Díos!) playing over the loudspeaker in a Seville department store and thought, not for the first time, that globalization has a lot to answer for. Nowadays you rarely hear the Spanish carols, known villancicos, but I was lucky enough to catch one that same day in a small, backstreet boutique. It was Los Peces en El Río (The Fish in the River) in which the fish “beben y beben y vuelven a beber” (drink and drink and return to drink some more” in celebration of the occasion, while nearby the Virgin is washing out the Child’s diapers. It sounds a lot better in Spanish. And then there are all the songs about being home for the holidays; there’s no place like it, according Perry Como and Bing Crosby, while even Elvis grew sentimental about going back “if only in my dreams…” Right now at least half the expats I know are packing up to return to their home countries for family gatherings.  Traveling at the holidays is not for the faint of heart. But Rich and I are staying put. We love spending the holidays here in Seville. The city is madly festive, with extravagant light shows on the Guadalquivir River, in the gardens of the Alcazár palace, and against the back wall of the Ayuntamiento (City Hall). Overhead lights shimmer and dazzle, cafés and shops are open until all hours, and although it is extremely cold by Seville standards (9 C, or 49 F), heaters are everywhere, enabling people to “beben y beben y vuelven a beber” in relative comfort. I got to wondering how expat friends in other countries were faring, so I asked two American couples living in Montpellier, France, about the celebrations taking place in their home-away-from-home. “Paul just got an email from his brother, who lives near Seattle, WA, bemoaning the intense commercialization of Christmas in the US,” said Paula; she and Paul settled in Montpellier five years ago. “Here in France we find Christmas celebrations very low-key, in comparison. Now, in mid-December, there are still stores that are just beginning to decorate for Christmas.” I know, right? Can’t imagine that in the US — or in Seville, for that matter. I started seeing Papa Noel peering from shop windows in October. “A few years ago we went to Annecy, France around Christmastime,” added Paul, “and really enjoyed their small but heartfelt Christmas market.” “Black Friday sales are getting increasingly popular,” Paul said. “We always find that a bit strange. Here in France Thanksgiving is not a thing; as we like to say, the French call it jeudi (Thursday!). But still, the day after our Thanksgiving celebration, stores hold Black Friday sales, even though no one here knows why! (The French always love a proper sale.)” And who doesn’t? We see this in Seville as well: many shops post signs for Black Friday, which sometimes gets extended for weeks. Note how this pharmacy’s display is thoughtfully paired with digestive medication for those whose tummies are already suffering from an excess of jollity.  "Discover our promotions inside," says the placard, using the word "dentro" that also applies to your insides. Well said, farmacia. Well said. Of course, in France food is the centerpiece of any celebration. My friends Maer and Mark go to Montpellier’s markets to eat something called “aligot, which is a regional specialty of mashed potatoes, tons of cream, butter and tomme cheese, served with a sausage,” explained Maer. “You don’t need to eat it more than once a year. Also, vin chaud (hot wine)!” Thus fortified, they brave the cold and wander about looking at the lights. “Christmas Eve is the big deal here,” she added. “French families will do a late dinner called le réveillon, classically with seafood. There’ll be a bûche de Noël, which is a rolled chocolate cake, dressed up to look like a log (bûche means log) and attend midnight mass. I have to wait to get my favorite dessert, galette de trois rois (Three Kings cake) which is puff pastry filled with almond paste. It’s for Three Kings Day [January 6], but it’s so popular that now you start seeing them at the end of December.” Here in Seville, the pastry shops have been displaying our version of Three Kings Day cake, known as roscón, for weeks already. It’s bland, soft pastry filled with whipped cream; I asked Maer how it compared with the French edition. “The galette de rois is a thousand times better tasting than your rascón,” she said. “But yours is more visually entertaining, like a bunch of kids got to design their best cake ever. Sprinkles! Gummies! More sprinkles!”  Seville's roscón de reyes In these shortest, darkest, chilliest days of the year, we need all the sprinkles and twinkle lights we can get. It’s all about creating a sense of what the Danes call hygge (hoo-ga), a sense of warmth, safety, and comfort, a kind of emotional coziness of the soul that is sometimes defined as “cocoa by candlelight.” Now that I know about hygge, I realize that whenever I gather with friends, hygge is in the room. And with all due respect to Bing, Perry, and Elvis, that means wherever we are this time of year, we're home for the holidays. OK, it's possible there is something more annoying than the Chipmunk Song. SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE I think we can all agree it's been a hell of a year. I'm taking a few weeks off to rest up for 2025. Whatever you may be celebrating this time of year, enjoy! See you in January. THE AMIGOS PROJECT This post is part of my ongoing exploration of how living and traveling abroad can enrich our lives and help us find fellowship, avoiding the isolation that's become a global epidemic. See all my Amigos Project posts here. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POSTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. WANT MORE? My best selling travel memoirs & guide books Best of Cheap & Cheerful San Francisco Cozy Places to Eat in Seville GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  For medicinal purposes, Rich and I ordered the dark chocolate cake at Vineria San Telmo Friday night. “Chocolate is the first luxury,” says actress Mariska Hargitay. “It has so many things wrapped up in it: deliciousness in the moment, childhood memories, and that grin-inducing feeling of getting a reward for being good.” And now you can add another: reducing your chances of getting diabetes. Yes, you read that right. A massive 30-year study showed that regular consumption of dark chocolate lowers your risk of diabetes considerably. When he heard this, Rich exclaimed, “There is a God and She loves me!” He and I are both card-carrying members of die-hard chocoholic families, but like so many sensible people, we’ve grown a trifle concerned about the ridiculous amount of white sugar in the modern diet. For instance, I learned recently the baguettes used for Subway sandwiches have such a high sugar content that Ireland’s Supreme Court has reclassified them as cake.  The "flour" in Subway bread is 10% sugar. The good news? The British Medical Journal reports that after tracking 192,000 participants for three decades, researchers determined that dark chocolate (and only dark, not the milk or white varieties) contains so much cocoa, with its health-boosting flavonoids, that it actually helps break down sugar and protect insulin-producing cells. A mere five ounces a week (in layperson’s terms, that’s slightly under one and a half Lindt bars) reduced participants’ chances of getting Type 2 diabetes by 21%. And it doesn't have to stop there. “For every ounce of dark chocolate that a person consumed per week,” reported the Washington Post, “their risk of developing diabetes fell by three percent.” Eat more dark chocolate to stay healthy? I’m all in!  “This calls for a celebration,” I told Rich. “Let's go to Juan’s for some dark chocolate cake.” Our amigo Juan runs one of Seville’s most popular eateries, Vineria San Telmo, located at the northern tip of the lovely park Jardines de Murillo (Gardens of Murillo). His cozy restaurant has been a regular haunt of ours for twenty years. And in addition to excellent cuisine and an extensive wine list, it offers the finest cakes and pies in Seville, prepared by Juan’s wife, Reyes, at her Pastelería Gollerias. I always tell newcomers, “There are Reyes’ desserts, and then there are everybody else’s. Don’t settle.” I once asked Reyes to tell me her secret. “I cut the sugar in half,” she said. That lets the flavor emerge, which is why her cakes and pies are such standouts here in Seville, where bland, sugary desserts are the norm.  Irresistable desserts from Pastelería Gollerias As it happened, a few days earlier Rich and I had spent the morning talking with Juan as part of our Amigos Project research. I was curious to know how he’d arrived in Seville as a 20-something expat, launched this beloved restaurant, kept it going for two decades, and still found time for adventures such as motorcycle rides through Eastern Europe and hauling medical supplies to Ukraine. Born in Argentina, Juan is a citizen of the world; on one side he’s Spanish and Italian, the other Russian. At 21 he moved to New York and then Washington, DC to work for Marriott. “That was my real university,” he said. Later an airline catering job took him to New York, Washington, Paris, London, and Madrid. Eventually he left to backpack around Europe, fetching up in Seville in 1996 at the age of 27. After holding various odd jobs, he decided to open Vineria San Telmo in 2004.  Juan in front of Vineria San Telmo He attributes much of his success to choosing the right staff, many of whom have been with him a decade or more. “Your attitude is more important than your aptitude,” said Juan. “I can teach you how to put out a cup of coffee, but your attitude comes from within yourself.” The red tape wasn’t as difficult to navigate as he’d expected. “It’s not that crazy and not that complicated. Once you turn in your papers, you can open up. It took four years to get my license, but I was open the whole time.” Inspectors visited, saw he was following the filed plans and local regulations, and left him in peace. Today Juan’s menu includes classic Spanish dishes such as salmorejo (cold tomato-based soup), and pluma (the fattiest, yummiest cut of pork), along with squid-ink seafood pasta and other original dishes. He was experimental back in the days when Seville served nothing but traditional fare, and it won him loyal customers among locals, expats, and international visitors. Juan has resisted all suggestions that he expand into additional locations. “My day-to-day life is much more important than having a few more thousands of euros in my bank account,” he told us. “We have our needs completely covered, my wife and I. We don’t need more.” Having a manageable work life makes it possible for Juan to take off from time to time on travel adventures, including long, unstructured solo trips on his motorcycle. In the summer of 2016, when our itineraries brought us all to the Baltics, Rich and I met up with Reyes and Juan for a lively lunch in Riga, Latvia.  Reyes and Juan took a professional interest in the delicious food we shared in Riga, Latvia, in July, 2016. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, Juan set off on a different kind of road trip. He and Ukrainian friends Isabel and Vladmir rented a van, filled it with medical supplies, and drove to the Poland-Ukraine border. That’s when they discovered their rental van couldn’t be driven outside the EU. “So I picked up the medicines and walked across the border with them,” he said.  Ukrainians fleeing across the border into Poland in March 2022. Photo: Reuters After multiple trips the van was empty, and the trio went and collected a Ukrainian family of six. They'd crossed the border into Poland and were now attempting to reach the island of Mallorca off Spain’s east coast, so Juan and his amigos gave them a lift. “They were scared at the beginning,” Juan recalled. “But after an hour in the van, we were like friends. I’m still in touch; I spoke with them a week ago.” “What’s your next big adventure?” Rich asked him. “I don’t know. I just go. I think that's the best thing of Europe. Right now it’s midday; in ten hours, the three of us could go through fifteen countries. Yeah, it's phenomenal. It's amazing. The fact that you can jump onto your motorcycle and head to Germany, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, the Czech Republic — just like that.”  Map: Worldatlas I can only hope that wherever his wanderlust takes him next, Juan will be packing plenty of dark chocolate. In addition to fighting hunger and diabetes, dark chocolate lowers cholesterol and protects the memory. And it’s a powerful, feel-good mood enhancer. In fact, researchers have discovered that thanks to a compound called anandamide, chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana. I've heard the researchers also discovered other similarities between the two but can't remember what they are. So there you have it, folks. Eat more dark chocolate! Doctor's orders!  THE AMIGOS PROJECT This post is part of my ongoing exploration of how living and traveling abroad can enrich our lives and help us find fellowship, avoiding the isolation that's become a global epidemic. See all my Amigos Project posts here. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POSTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. WANT MORE? My best selling travel memoirs & guide books Best of Cheap & Cheerful San Francisco Cozy Places to Eat in Seville GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  Lee Kramm has lived abroad and worked remotely for 11 years. Commuting to an office five days a week; I still shudder when I remember how many hours of my youth were spent crammed into subway trains and buses, navigating crowded transit hubs, and hurtling along freeways, pedal to the metal in the 8:40 Grand Prix, trying to comb my hair and put on lipstick using the rear-view mirror. Looking back, I'm amazed that I — and the drivers around me — survived long enough to reach the office every morning.  Just wondering how many commuters have crashed trying to read this sign. Like most Americans, I usually spent nearly an hour a day in transit. That's 232 hours a year — the equivalent of nearly six 40-hour work weeks. Do I miss it? Are you kidding? I’ve worked from home for decades now, and I still feel the thrill of playing hooky. Cooking breakfast, I listen gleefully to traffic reports so I can revel in the fact that snarled off-ramps and blocked bridges won’t slow down my morning commute from kitchen table to home office. Thanks to the pandemic (a phrase you don’t often hear from me!) millions discovered the convenience of working at home, and today around 32.6 million Americans (22% of the workforce) are still doing their jobs remotely at least part of the time. Not all of them are working from the USA.  We all have different reasons for moving abroad. According to Reddit, “There are 17.3 million American digital nomads or people that travel freely while working remotely.” My math isn’t great, but doesn’t that add up to around 11% of the US workforce? No wonder I've had so many enquiries about this lately — like the visitor who recently asked, “How do people manage their jobs remotely? Think I could do it?” To answer him properly, I sat down this week with Lee Kramm, an American amigo who has spent the last eleven years working remotely in Seville and, more recently, in the Algarve region of Portugal. I asked him to share his family's story.  Lee with his wife, Emily “I'm trained in engineering and medicine,” Lee explained, “I worked in the FDA for five years, serving as a medical officer for the regulation of ophthalmic medical devices and drugs.” His job was to determine what scientific evidence needed to be gathered to ensure that a clinical trial provided definitive proof. He liked the work, but neither he nor his wife, Emily, felt at home in Washington, DC. “You go on long walks through the neighborhood and you talk about moving. It's more like a fantasy at that point,” he recalled. “We were fed up with living in DC. Emily had lived in Barcelona, studying. She told me if we could ever find a way to move to Spain with the children to learn the language, it’d be a great opportunity. But how to make it happen? What are the logistics of it all?”  First, Lee left his government job and spent a year in the US setting up a private consulting practice. Instead of evaluating clinical trials presented to the FDA, he now advises companies how to design clinical trials for new products they want approved. He joined a consulting group with an international reputation and soon had plenty of clients. “Then Sandy Hook happened,” he said. As you probably remember, that was the deadliest elementary school shooting in American history; 26 people were killed including 20 first graders — little kids about the same age as Lee’s two children. That’s when Lee and Emily, then in their mid-thirties, got more serious about living in Europe. The following summer they moved to Seville and enrolled their kids, aged seven and eight, in a local public elementary school. “A lot of expat families we know send their kids to bilingual schools as a soft landing,” said Emily. “And we just threw our kids in, as hard as you can do it. But they learned Spanish down in their souls, and they'll always have it.”  The Kramm kids walking to school in downtown Seville, 2013 Family life is very different in Spain. “One of the things people enjoy here,” Lee said, “is not to have a whole life that’s centered around driving among different activities, like sports. That change is like a breath of fresh air. And kids don’t have to think about things like wearing clear backpacks for weapons checks or training to hide under their desks [from a shooter]. You transition to a more sane way of living.” I asked Lee about his work-life balance. “I'm disciplined about getting my work done. What I'm not disciplined about is taking personal time. My clients are all over the world, in different time zones. So my work bleeds into Sundays, into night, into early mornings. I enjoy what I do, but I need to segregate my work life better. But that's one of the beauties of working for yourself, right? It's all within my control.”  As for Emily, she started a nonprofit called Diálogos para Construir (Constructive Dialogues or “DPC”). “I founded it with some Spanish aid workers, heroes with capes. We provide legal aid, housing, educational, and basic needs support for refugees and migrants who are already here.” She mostly works with African and Middle Eastern youths who reach 18 and are no longer eligible for state services. To help fund the nonprofit, she and some friends launched Uprooted Theater, Seville’s first English language live theater. It’s been a huge hit in the community and a personal delight for me.  Cabaret night at Uprooted Theater This nonprofit and the people they support will benefit enormously from last month’s Spanish legislation reforms that will provide them with work visas and encourage them to assimilate into society. “Spain needs young workers,” Lee explained. “And these young men want to work. Spain said, ‘We’re going to look at this as a practical matter. We are going to fulfill the labor needs of Spain and the production demands from Northern Europe; we cannot segregate refugees and migrants away from the work.’ This is big news. And it’s good news.”  As a future expat, how might you find work? Lee has used Upwork to hire freelancers for various tasks and projects; some consultants say it is useful for finding jobs online. Other sites Lee hasn’t tried offer similar services. What about navigating the transition? Lee recommends Jackie “the Fixer” Baxa’s Family Move Abroad. Got teens approaching college age? More and more Americans are opting to get quality, affordable degrees in the UK and the EU; the consulting group Beyond the States can help you research options. Spain began offering Digital Nomad Visas in 2023 — just one of the reason it’s often ranked among the top countries for remote workers. Beyond that, Lee pointed out, “You pay less for housing, health insurance, basic needs, and you don't need two cars…” In fact, you may not need a car at all. Rich and I have lived in Seville for nearly 20 years without a vehicle, walking everywhere, enjoying the city’s exuberant nuttiness every single day. Where I come from, you don’t find entertainment like that on a city bus or crowded freeway!  SPAM ALERT! Lately I've been flooded with spam comments, sometimes 200 or more per blog post. Each has to be removed individually. I'm experimenting with ways to block them, which may result in some delays in posting legitimate comments. Don't worry — your words will appear! In the unlikely event they don't, write me at [email protected]. THE AMIGOS PROJECT This post is part of my ongoing exploration of how living and traveling abroad can enrich our lives and help us find fellowship, avoiding the isolation that's become a global epidemic. See all my Amigos Project posts here. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POSTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. WANT MORE? My best selling travel memoirs & guide books Best of Cheap & Cheerful San Francisco Cozy Places to Eat in Seville GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  To artist Bettine Flesseman, it all sounded like a grand adventure. “Grab your toothbrush,” said Rich. “We’re getting out of town.” Reeling from weeks of harrowing headlines, Rich and I realized we needed some serious attitude adjustment to pull together the tattered shreds of our mental equilibrium. It didn’t take us long to choose the geographic solution favored by so many great minds from Marco Polo to the fraternity brothers in Animal House: road trip! Rich and I each threw a scant handful of toiletries and a change of undergarments into a single, shared backpack and left our Seville apartment on foot early the next morning. Rich had made some mysterious arrangements — he loves the element of surprise — so I had no idea where we were headed until we arrived at the train station and I heard him ask for tickets to Jerez de la Frontera. Just an hour south of Seville, Jerez — or as the Moors called it, Sharīsh — gave the world the fortified wine we know as sherry. (Thanks, Jerez; nice work!) Bodegas are dotted about the landscape, and the streets are redolent of rich, damp fermentation, the scent wafting out of open windows and tasting room doors.  Sipping sherry at the Taberna Jerez The food was extraordinary. At Bar Juanito Rich and I sampled sherry, artichokes poached in fino (dry sherry), and bluefin tuna fresh from the nearby Atlantic. During the day we explored ancient monuments and little backstreets. In the evening we joined what seemed to be all 212,879 of the city's residents crowding the downtown plazas, celebrating the simple pleasure of being together on a warm Friday evening with the holidays just ahead. I returned home to Seville the next day feeling a renewed lightness of being thanks to thirty hours free from news headlines and from the burden of extraneous possessions. “Less is more,” architect Mies Van Der Rohe famously said in 1886. But how much less stuff can we have and still live full, rich, reasonably comfortable lives? My Dutch friend Bettine Flesseman tested those limits to the max when she and her husband, Eric, impulsively moved to rural Portugal in 1969. “Our friends in Holland said we were crazy,” she told me. Those friends might have had a point.  In the mid-twentieth century, Portugal still did things the old-fashioned way. Photo: Clarence W. Sorensen Collection, University of Wisconsin Bettine and Eric were in their mid-twenties with babies one and two years old. Fed up with their native Holland’s predictability, the couple had decided to emigrate to Canada. But first, they took a two-week vacation in a country they’d never visited: Portugal. They fell in love with the people, climate, and countryside. Before the two weeks were up, they’d bought five acres of land with a roofless cottage for the equivalent of $18,000. They had absolutely no idea what they were going to do with it.  Bettine and Eric's cottage, known as Caliço, was missing a roof and only accessible by donkey track. Painting: Bettine Flesseman I’ve watched people make similar moves in Spain, and I can tell you, it nearly always ends in tears. Amazingly it didn’t this time. The intrepid couple returned in May with their babies and a rented caravan holding basic bedding, kitchenware, and tools. Before they could drive up to Caliço, as the cottage was called, they had to widen the only access: a kilometer-long donkey track. Cars were an exotic rarity there at the time; everyone was illiterate, so they couldn’t pass the test to get a driver’s license. The only three cars in the district belonged to Bettine’s family, the taxi driver, and the doctor. The only others who could read and write were the couple running the tiny village shop. They handled correspondence for the villagers, kept accounts on an abacus, and didn’t bother to stock toilet paper, sanitary napkins, disposable diapers, or toothpaste — because who needed that fancy, costly stuff? “Nobody brushed their teeth,” said Bettine. “When children got married, a standard wedding present from their parents was a denture.” As for more basic functions, she added, “The Portuguese had no bathrooms but did whatever they had to do behind a certain tree or bush and cleaned up with grass or leaves. The hot sun took care of drying the stuff and the wind took care of the rest.” Yikes! Kind of puts things in perspective doesn’t it? But 200 years ago, that’s how 85% of human beings lived; by 1980 it was 40% and today it’s just 9%. Whenever I feel gloomy about the state of the world, I look up these statistics on the website Gapminder. Right now, 85% of the world population has access to food, water, basic toilets, electricity, schooling (for girls too), and health care. It may not always feel like it, but humanity is making progress. Yes, we are!  Not all girls and women (shown here in blue) get equal opportunity, but overall we're making progress toward closing the gender gap. Source: Statistic 2024 Bettine and Eric didn’t adopt the local lifestyle completely. They traveled to nearby cities for toothpaste and other modern essentials, painting supplies for Bettine's fledgling career as an artist, and conveniences such as a chemical toilet and a bucket-style shower. The children made their own games and toys and played with the family menagerie: cats, a dog known as Mosca (“fly”) because he couldn’t resist chasing flies, chickens, rabbits, and a donkey that appeared docile until the bellyful of wine the seller had given him wore off and his surly nature emerged. “Kloris the Rooster always sat on my shoulder,” recalled Bettine, “and helped me to stop smoking. He hated the smoke and snatched the cigarette out of my mouth. He won the battle...”  Evidently Kloris had taken up the challenge of this 1970 poster from the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Portugal's progress took a giant leap forward in 1974 when the Carnation Revolution brought the socialists into power. “Before that,” Bettine told me, “it was really a very right-wing dictatorship. And as you know, with dictators, they are not very interested in schooling." In 1964, the dictatorship had opened schools providing education through fourth grade, but the sketchy literacy acquired there was soon forgotten. "The girls all became seamstresses and the boys bricklayers or fishermen." After the revolution, kids stayed in school until the age of 18; years later university educations became available. Portugal’s literacy rate is now 96.78%. (By comparison, America’s literacy is 79%; worldwide it’s 86%). Overall, the lifestyle has improved so much that Portugal ranked in the top ten on InterNation’s Quality of Life Index 2024.  From left, Bettine, her daughters Meinke (an artist with a gallery in Portimão), Pauline (who runs the Earth Shop and Café in Praia do Carvoeiro), and Meinke's daughter Sancha (a carpenter and welder) in 2024. “After the revolution,” Bettine added, “the people got the right to have a holiday. What sort of holiday does one plan when one has no money? A camping holiday of course!” This was a stroke of good luck for Bettine and Eric, who had decided to turn their property into a holiday campsite, which they ran successfully for nine years before moving on to other adventures. I asked Bettine if she had advice for readers who might be considering a move to Portugal today. “Well, I wouldn't wait too long to come here, because it's become very popular. And especially with the situation in the United States, lots of Americans are looking around. It's still one of the cheapest countries in Europe, but when there's so much demand, prices are going up. So if people are interested to come, they should not wait too long.” WANT TO KNOW MORE? Bettine is kindly offering my readers a free download of her memoir The Path to Caliço (in pdf format) about moving to Portugal in 1969. It's a delight and a real eye-opener! CLICK HERE FOR YOUR FREE DOWNLOAD OF BETTINE'S MEMOIR  This shrine in downtown Jerez invites you to leave tokens of appreciation for miracles received or to ask for divine intervention. Got any concerns you'd like to take up with the Almighty right now? THE AMIGOS PROJECT This post is part of my ongoing exploration of how living and traveling abroad can enrich our lives and help us find fellowship, avoiding the isolation that's become a global epidemic. See all my Amigos Project posts here. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POSTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. WANT MORE? My best selling travel memoirs & guide books Best of Cheap & Cheerful San Francisco Cozy Places to Eat in Seville GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  Alan Campbell (left), US Consular Agent of Seville, and his husband, Juan. “You’re the first Americans I’ve ever met,” a Spanish friend confided one night at my dinner table. I was so gobsmacked almost dropped the bowl of cranberry sauce I was handing her. The occasion was a Thanksgiving meal Rich and I had prepared for the members of my Seville art class. I’d learned my new amigos were fascinated with the exotic ritual feast so frequently featured in American movies and thrilled to experience it for themselves. The Spanish don’t tend to be adventuresome eaters, and this was years ago, before the foodie craze brought international cuisine to their attention, if not their dinner plates. But I knew everyone at my table had eaten turkey (although never in whole bird form), a stuffing-like cubed-bread dish called migas, and pureed potatoes. I figured they’d be fine.  In Seville's butcher shops, whole turkeys are less common than game birds and rabbits fresh from the country. My amigos could barely swallow a bite; it was just too strange. In vain I pointed out the familiar ingredients; they nibbled, nodded, smiled politely, and pushed the food around on their plates. But they loved the cranberry sauce. So I just kept refilling their wine glasses and passing around the cranberry sauce and baskets of local bread, and everyone had an uproarious time. No doubt they have been telling the story for years, just as I still describe eating pig brains at a party in საქართველო (the Republic of Georgia) back in the nineties. Many Georgians at that long-ago party had never met an American, and I shouldn’t have been surprised that in the days before Seville was overrun by tourists some of my Spanish amigos hadn’t either. Most of their knowledge about America was gleaned from TV shows like Dallas and Dynasty, and they seemed a trifle disconcerted to find Rich and I were not ruthless, gun-toting, adulterous billionaires tortured by dark secrets and family scandals. (I know, right? Suddenly I feel so boring.) Whenever we’re the first Americans someone encounters, Rich and I feel honor-bound to provide a more positive image of our national character and to serve as ambassadors of goodwill.  We do our best to serve as ambassadors of goodwill. Or at least project a more wholesome image than the families on Dynasty and Dallas. We are strictly amateurs, of course, and I’ve developed deep respect for those who represent our nation on a professional basis — like our friend Alan Campbell, America’s official consular agent here in Seville. This week, Rich and I met up with Alan in the café La Gata en Bicicleta (Cat on a Bicycle), and as he sipped what’s arguably the best hot chocolate in Seville, I asked him how he came to live abroad. “I was born in Atlanta, Georgia,” Alan said, “and grew up in Brentwood, Tennessee. In high school, you had to take a foreign language, so I took Spanish. I was working at a restaurant at the time, and it was the first time in my young life that I realized you could use something from school outside of school. I was able to talk to the folks that I was working with.”  Brentwood, Tennessee is a quiet suburb of Nashville. Photo: City of Brentwood Alan joined the US Army in 2002 and served as logistics officer on a NATO mission embedded with the Afghan National Army from 2008 to 2009. Afterwards he went to college on an ROTC scholarship and eventually earned a BA, two MA degrees, and later, in Spain, a PhD — all in subjects such as Spanish, linguistics, and international communication. Nothing prepared him for the quirky dialect spoken here in Andalucía. Moving to Seville in 2010 for a job as a language assistant in a public school, Alan struggled to understand speech riddled with missing syllables. To locals, for instance, the Andalucían dialect is Andalú. It’s as if everyone’s in such a rush to reach the punchline they can’t be bothered to enunciate every syllable along the way. The attitude is, “Hey, do I really have to spell it out for you?”  Standard Spanish classes are essential for the basics, but many find online courses in Andalú to be really helpful as well. This is Rich's favorite. “The language was hard,” Alan recalled, laughing. “I remember having this moment where I'm like, Okay, I have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in this language, and I don't think I can communicate with these people. This is a lot of wasted years of education. And then it was a challenge, it was fun... You have these wins where you finally figure something out, you can communicate something, and that feels like the success of the week. It is thrilling. And I think it's healthy, good for my mental agility.” By now he's so fluent friends have nicknamed him Alandalú. Alan's next job was in a language academy, where he met his husband. Juan grew up in a suburb of Seville then studied in the US and UK; both men are fully bilingual and are raising their adopted son to be equally comfortable in both languages. Until 2019, Alan was still in the Army reserves, serving in Madrid a few days a month. There he got to know people in the US Embassy and heard about a job opening for Seville’s consular agent. “So I applied for it and got hired.” If you’re a little hazy on the ranking, it goes ambassador (one per country, living in the capital, interacting at highest diplomatic level), consul-general, consuls, vice-consuls, and consular agents; this last is usually a part-time job.  “So what do you actually do?” I asked. “Routine services include passports, reports of birth, reports of death, anything related to citizenship. Everything else is special services: prison visits, anything that might involve a victim of crime or someone in distress abroad; we get international parental child abduction cases.” He explained US law requires him to visit Americans in the Spanish penitentiary system at regular intervals. The jails here don’t provide uniforms, so Alan brings US prisoners clothes, and also books in English, eyeglasses, toothbrushes, and the luxuries of seeing a friendly face and speaking their own language.  Prison would be bad enough. Prison without books and reading glasses? Nightmare! “A lot of stuff too, comes from the States,” Alan said. “People reach out to our emergency line in Washington and eventually it gets to us: ‘Hey, my son's studying abroad. I haven't heard from him in two weeks.’ Or, ‘Hey, my sister's traveling there, and she lost all her stuff.’” That’s when it truly hit me how tremendously lucky we are, as Americans living in Seville, that Alan is here to help us. So much of his job isn’t particularly glamorous or newsworthy, but it’s done with kindness and meticulous care. Because it all matters. Bringing mystery novels and reading glasses to a prisoner. Reassuring a mother that her son is alive and well, if a bit hungover. Making sure a child’s birth is registered properly, so she has the chance to become an American citizen, even an American president if she chooses. This is what it means to be an ambassador of goodwill. “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people,” said President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who steered the US through WWII. “A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” Performing small acts of service and compassion, even in the darkest times — especially in the darkest times — has a ripple effect, touching others, reminding us that we are not alone and that we all matter.  My spiritual teacher Thich Nhat Hanh viewed dish washing as a Zen exercise and an act of love. Just look at all the love in my kitchen last Thanksgiving! THE AMIGOS PROJECT This post is part of my ongoing exploration of how living and traveling abroad can enrich our lives and help us find fellowship, avoiding the isolation that's become a global epidemic. See all my Amigos Project posts here. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POSTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. WANT MORE? My best selling travel memoirs & guide books Best of Cheap & Cheerful San Francisco Cozy Places to Eat in Seville GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  Jimmy and Cristina lived and worked all over the world before retiring in Seville. Do you ever have days when your tech devices gang up on you, taking fiendish delight in frustrating your efforts to perform the simplest task? I’ll take that as a yes. When that happened to me Friday, along with the teeth-grinding exasperation came the nagging feeling of familiarity. What did this convoluted, time-devouring, mind-numbing quagmire remind me of? And then I had it. Spanish bureaucracy.  Here in Seville, Rich and I once had to close a couple of moribund bank accounts, one with a balance of 10€, the other with 20€. To terminate, the clerk explained, required a zero balance. “Fine,” I said. “We’ll take the cash now.” She looked at me as if I’d requested a dodgy sexual favor. “No. We do not keep money here.” But … this was a bank! Where the hell did they keep the money? In a shoebox under the bed? Rich asked soothingly, “What would you suggest?” After furious tapping and screen-scowling, she said, “I could transfer the 10€ to a charity. Perhaps …” more furious tapping. “UNICEF?” “Fine.” The transfer took twenty minutes. First account: closed.  Fool that I was, I said, “Now we send the 20€ to UNICEF?” She gave me her trademark dodgy-sexual-favor look. “Impossible.” Naturally I asked why, but the answer was so long-winded my eyes soon glazed over; it’s possible my ears may have been bleeding slightly. All I can tell you is that there are two types of accounts, and this was the other kind. Forty minutes later, we agreed the bank would keep the money, the account would never be closed, and Rich and I would never darken their door again. Opening a Spanish bank account isn’t any easier. “I didn’t realize it at the beginning,” my Romanian friend Cristina told me Friday, “but here someone has to introduce you to your banker."  In Seville, you rely on amigos to clue you in about how things work. Here we are with Cristina, Jimmy, and Sevillanos Isabel and Julio, who have kindly explained countless times just where we have gone ridiculously wrong. “At first, we couldn’t get anything done,"Cristina recalled. "We had found a place to buy, and needed to put down a deposit. To do that we needed a bank account. But to open a bank account we needed a fixed address. And an NIE.” That’s the Número de Identificación de Extranjero (Foreigner Identification Number) the Spanish authorities give you. “And to get an NIE,” she continued, “we needed a bank account. And a fixed address. We went around and around. Finally our lawyer intervened. He knew someone who worked at the bank, introduced us to them, and somehow it all got arranged.” “Patience and persistence,” said Cristina’s husband, Jimmy. “That’s what you need.” And Jimmy should know; he’s an American who has lived all over the US and Eastern Europe, including Romania, where he met Cristina in 1999.  Bucharest is an impressive city. Rich and I stayed in this wonderfully atmospheric apartment building there in 2014. “I was born in Bucharest and lived there all my life,” Cristina said. “In 2004 Jim had a job in Jordan and I went with him. I left everything behind: my job, which was great; my cats which I loved with all my heart; my dad; my friends; my language.” “In Jordan we learned a few words of Arabic, to get around,” said Jimmy. “But it was complicated. There were lunar aspects and sun aspects of the language. Egyptian Arabic was different from Jordanian Arabic. Of course, it’s not Roman characters, and it reads from right to left.” After that job and a stint in the US, they retired to Seville in 2016, where learning Spanish proved less daunting than Arabic but was still no cakewalk. “Take language classes,” Jimmy advised, “but be careful. We went to one school, and they assured us that there was a wide age range of students. There was not a person there older than 24. I felt like everybody’s grandfather.” (Jimmy is 75, Cristina 62.)  Daily life in a foreign language requires creativity. A few years back, I added drawings to my hotel laundry list in Katowice, Poland to avoid misunderstandings. Everyone asks them about Spain’s medical care. “Don’t be afraid of it,” Jimmy said. “The health system is wonderful.” Cristina nodded. “Last year I had a small foot fracture. The doctor said I needed an MRI. I talked to the clerk and she said, ‘Yes, you can have one in half an hour, just wait here.’” You’ve gotta love the service. Taxes are always a delicate subject, but I felt I owed it to my readers to inquire. In years that they spend more than 180 days in Seville, Cristina and Jimmy qualify as tax residents of Spain. “There’s a huge difference,” Jimmy said. “Our non-resident tax is about 100€ to 200€. As tax residents, we pay 6,000€ to 7,000€. My advice: Get a tax lawyer.” Professional advice is also essential, he said, for getting your Spanish drivers’ license, which is required after six months of residency. (Unless, like me, you never drive here.) Jimmy passed the written test — now available in English — on his own but wisely worked with an instructor to get insider tips for the driving test. “Everything you think you know, it’s totally the opposite,” Cristina said.  Spanish driving conditions often require a special set of skills. Jimmy summed it up: “If you are thinking of relocating, remember it’s not the same as a vacation. And it’s not the same as the US. You’ve got to be open.” Being open to new ways of doing things isn’t always easy, and some newcomers crash and burn. CNN recently published an interview with Joanna McIsaac-Kierklo who retired to France with her husband in October 2023. Now they’re back in San Francisco, saying their dream life had become a nightmare. “I honestly don’t think we could have put in any more effort to acclimatize to the French way of life,” said Joanna. Really? She avoided her fellow expats — “that’s not exactly why we came on this adventure” — but never learned any French. “I have been so busy packing, unpacking, assembling furniture etc. that I haven’t really found time to hunker down and start.” Small wonder that she eventually told her husband, “I haven’t talked to one person here in three months.” Was she waiting for les Français to learn English and show up at her apartment?  Joanna in her San Francisco apartment. Photo courtesy of Joanna McIsaac-Kierklo/CNN Joanna complained that procedures for setting up a bank account and finding a doctor were annoyingly different from those she knew in America. “You talk to the French, and they just shrug their shoulders. And they go, ‘Well, this is France. That’s how it is.’” Yes, and isn’t that the whole point of moving abroad? To try new ways of doing things ? Even the food disappointed her. “People go, ‘Oh my God, the French food is so fabulous. Yeah, if you want to eat brie, pâté, pastries, and French bread all day long. But who eats like that?” Well, yes, that does sound like a nightmare.  “You go to the supermarket, and the produce is terrible,” she says. Photo courtesy of Joanna McIsaac-Kierklo/CNN. As the Buddhists remind us, wherever you go, there you are. So much of how we experience the world depends on our attitude and the narrative we wrap around our experiences. The French like to say, En tout pays, il y a une lieue de mauvais chemin (In every country there is a stretch of bad road). The question is whether we’re going to spend every minute searching for bumps and potholes or roll down the windows, step on the gas, and lean forward to see what adventure awaits us around the next bend. The Five Things Cristina & Jimmy Learned Cultivate patience and persistence. Take language classes but choose wisely. Trust the health care system. Work with a tax lawyer. Hire a driving instructor. Bonus tip: Be open to everything.  Jimmy and Cristina, dressed for Seville's Feria de Abril (April Fair) THE AMIGOS PROJECT This post is part of my ongoing exploration of how living and traveling abroad can enrich our lives and help us find fellowship, avoiding the isolation that's become a global epidemic. See all my Amigos Project posts here. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POSTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. WANT MORE? My best selling travel memoirs & guide books Best of Cheap & Cheerful San Francisco Cozy Places to Eat in Seville GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  At Seville's Feria de Abril with my friend Lynnette, who caused quite an uproar one memorable night. It’s not easy for anyone, let alone a foreigner, to cause a sensation at Seville’s Feria de Abril (April Fair). The whole event is already wildly over the top, with half a million women dressed in gaudy, ruffled gowns, beribboned horses and carriages weaving through the crowd, and everyone dancing day and night all week. They say the average Sevillano gets two hours of sleep a night, and I’m surprised it’s that much.  Seville's Feria de Abril is held two weeks after Easter and requires a flouncy dress, a rose in your hair, and incredible stamina. Feria perfectly embodies a favorite expression of some bad-influence friends of my youth: “If you’re going to do something, you might as well go too far.” And then one year my American friend Lynnette showed up at Feria in an outfit that had Sevillanos pouring out of their tents, roaring with laughter, and begging to have their picture taken with her. A howling sartorial success. I felt lucky to be there when it happened. As is so often the case in Europe, it all came down to fútbol — or as we Americans like to call it, soccer.  Here Real Betis celebrates a victory. Their checkerd history inspired their slogan "¡Viva el Betis manque pierda!" (Long live Betis even if they lose!). This city has two teams. Sevilla Fúbol Club was launched in 1890 by aristocrats who made it clear that lesser mortals need not apply. In 1907 the city’s scrappy underdogs formed their own team called Betis, from the old Roman name for the Guadalquivir River that runs through town. The word Real (Royal) was added to the Betis name seven years later when they won the patronage of King Alfonso XIII. Take that, Sevilla FC snobs! Both play in the top-level La Liga, and the years have done nothing to dim the intensity of the rivalry. One of the first things you learn here is that Sevilla FC wears red stripes, Real Betis wears green ones, and there are plenty of bars in town that you’d be extremely unwise to set foot in wearing the wrong colors. Trust me on this. So when Lynnette strolled through the Feria de Abril in 2007, eight-and-three-quarters months pregnant, wearing a traditional Feria dress in bold green Real Betis stripes, wrapped in a shawl with the team’s logo, Betis supporters cheered and raced over to take selfies with her. For me, it was like walking into a party as Marylin Monroe’s wingwoman. Heady stuff. Lynnette had come a long, long way from the life that was expected of her in the conservative small Missouri town she once called home. Like so many expats, she didn’t move here as part of carefully constructed strategy. “It was all a whim, with zero plan,” she recalled, laughing, when we were reminiscing recently about our early days in Seville. She’d lived in various parts of the US — Oklahoma, Texas, New York, and finally Las Vegas — but she felt her life wasn’t moving in the right direction. Or really any direction. Then she went to Spain on a ten-day vacation, not expecting much beyond a little good weather and affordable wine. “I’ve got to be honest, I was clueless. When I came to Spain, I just fell in love with the country. It knocked my socks off. The Mediterranean, the mountains … it was just so beautiful to me.”  Playa del Postiguet in Alicante, Andalucía Lynnette moved to Seville in 2002 and survived by teaching English and sewing Feria dresses (or trajes de flamenco, as they’re properly called). Eventually she met and married a Spaniard named Fran, and they had a son, Andrew. And that’s when things started unraveling for Lynnette. “I had considered myself bi when I moved here,” she said. “I felt it was equally possible that I might have fallen for a man or a woman. I loved Fran dearly. But after I had Andrew, there was something like a biological shift in my body; in the course of the next few years, it just became more and more clear to me that I was just not interested in [marriage to a man] anymore. I was raised in a very traditional home; even though I consider myself a liberal feminist woman, there was expectation in my head that I needed to be a good wife and a good mother. Your kid needs two parents.” She stuck it out until Fran finally said to her, “This isn’t working.” And they agreed to call it quits. “I was devastated,” she told me. “It took me about a year to say, ‘I am a lesbian.’”  Lynnette in August, 2024 “How did your friends and neighbors react? Was there any pushback?” “Oh, God, no. Never.” She considered a moment. “Here there’s a close family bond, and I feel like it's reflected in the acceptance of people who are different. You've got so many different kinds of people in your family and you accept them. People who are queer or have disabilities are really welcomed into every part of society. People are more empathetic.” I’ve often observed this during Sunday lunch, when many generations of a Sevillano family will gather at long tables in neighborhood bistros. Everyone is expected to converse with everyone else. Yep, even the doddering ancianos, the kids with Down Syndrome, the awkward teens, the grumpy dads, the distracted moms, the shy cousins, and the tiniest babies.  Rich and I don't have relatives here, but we hold big, noisy Spanish-style meals to celebrate the holidays. This is Thanksgiving 2021. And this, I believe, is one of the truly remarkable things about Spain. The word nosotros (us) means everybody, the whole mad mix of humanity that makes up the nation. That’s the basis of a socialist society — and theoretically of our democracy as well. “We the people…” is supposed to include all of us. Not just the ones we agree with about sex, religion, and politics. Not only those who look like us and live in a “nice” house. Not exclusively folks who are free from illness, strife, or bad luck. Everybody. Of course, human nature is human nature; get a few Sevilla FC and Real Betis supporters in a room and you’ll see sparks fly. But you’ll also see Sevilla FC fans grinning along with everyone else at Lynnette’s famous Betis dress, which she wore to Feria again when the team won the 2022 Copa del Rey. Only this time with the waist taken in and her hair in an asymmetrical bob, shaved on one side. And people still cheered and rushed to take selfies with her. An influencer shot this TikTok video of her, and it went viral. Open-heartedness begins at home and spreads out into the world. “Knowing that your parents, your grandparents, your family supports and loves you no matter what — I think that that really does make a difference in how people behave in general,” says Lynnette. Mother Teresa agreed. "What can you do to promote world peace?” she asked. “Go home and love your family." Amen to that.  Our family and amigos at a party in 2024. Ya gotta love them. THE AMIGOS PROJECT This post is part of my ongoing exploration of how living and traveling abroad can enrich our lives and help us find fellowship, avoiding the isolation that's become a global epidemic. See all my Amigos Project posts here. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POSTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. WANT MORE? My best selling travel memoirs & guide books Best of Cheap & Cheerful San Francisco Cozy Places to Eat in Seville GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  A Seville coachman takes his siesta during a lull on a warm afternoon. “Nothing is permanent in this wicked world — not even our troubles.” — Charlie Chaplin “I always feel younger here in Seville,” Rich said at breakfast Friday morning. My husband looked remarkably chipper for a man who had been out till all hours watching live cabaret in an old warehouse on one of the city’s more obscure back streets. And why wouldn’t he? According to recent research, novel experiences abroad fend off the effects of aging. If so, I’m all in. The researcher, Edith Cowan University’s Fangli Hu, says it all comes down to entropy. Digging deep into my hazy memories of high school science classes, I recalled that entropy refers to the tendency of the universe to unravel into chaos then hurtle inevitably towards death. How does that help us exactly? According to Hu, positive new experiences build physical, emotional, and psychological resilience. More resilience means we’re less jittery. And when we’re calmer, she explains, “Organs and tissues can then remain in a low-entropy state." Meaning we aren’t plunging quite so rapidly into the whole chaos-hurtling-toward-death scenario. And if I say so myself, Rich has a gift for throwing himself into novel experiences ... and carrying me along with him. The health benefit of novelty is excellent news for those of us who live abroad. Because every day our brains are stretched like Silly Putty. Rich often illustrates this point with the Screwdriver Story. During our very earliest days in Seville, he needed this simple tool for a minor repair and looked up the Spanish word in his dictionary (this was in the dark days before smartphones). He then walked to the hardware store muttering to himself, “destornillador, destornillador, destornillador,” ignoring all the odd looks he was getting from fellow pedestrians. Stepping confidently through the door, he strode like a lion to the counter. And that’s when his mind went completely blank. Groping desperately, he found something that sounded almost right and blurted out, “Ordenador!” The Spanish word for computer. Confusion reigned. His attempts to elucidate and pantomime only made things worse. Eventually he fled, returning home to consult the dictionary before trying a different hardware store. He never showed his face in the first one again.  Now, a pessimist might consider this a high-stress, entropy-boosting situation. To an optimist like my husband, it was exhilarating. “In these situations,” he explains, “you’re not on automatic pilot. Everything is a challenge. Every day is full of accomplishments.” Eventually, he did manage to return home with a screwdriver. And by now this small purchase had taken on mythic significance: it wasn’t just something to check off on his to-do list, it was a triumph. Filling your life with such modest but thrilling victories helps you feel more confident, less stressed, and — according to Hu — better able to fend off that old devil entropy a bit longer. So if stress is bad for our longevity, where in the world can we go to find a relaxing, life-prolonging haven?  I decided to look up the Global Peace Index for 2024. (Find the entire list here.) Even in these troubled times, some nations still manage to achieve stability and tranquility, starting with these standouts.
This is Iceland’s 17th year in the top spot, thanks to a small, close-knit population, a robust economy, and so little crime cops don’t carry guns.  Icelandic police officer Heiðrún Huld, shown here with Buster, never carries firearms. "We’re such a tiny country, we have an excellent support system and zero tolerance for violence within the community." Out of 163 countries on the list, Spain came in at a respectable 23rd, while the US showed up at 132nd — just above Iran and Lebanon. I suspect if the poll was taken this week, we might score even lower on the tranquility scale. Don’t get me wrong — America is doing lots of things right these days. We have the lowest unemployment in half a century, slower inflation, a manufacturing boom, record-breaking gains in the stock market, and crime plummeting to historic lows. “The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust,” says Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist. “A relentless dynamism is the essential characteristic of the American economy and the ultimate force propelling it forward.” But while relentless dynamism is great for our economy, it does nothing to soothe our collective nerves, frayed by constant upheaval at home and abroad. American’s organs and tissues are clearly in a high-entropy state right now.  Is it any wonder that the latest polls show 50 million Americans (15% of the population) are currently planning to move overseas? Not everyone will follow through, of course. But it’s easy to see the attraction of a less stressful environment. I don’t know how life arranges itself in Iceland, but I can tell you that in Seville, the pace is slower and far more civilized. Here, very sensibly, the day revolves around the twin pleasures of food and conversation.  Second breakfast at El Castillo, a café in Rota, Spain, last January First breakfast is at home with family and typically includes café con leche (a small, strong coffee with milk) and toasted baguette with a drizzle of good olive oil and slivers of jamon (cured ham; prosciutto's toothier, more flavorful cousin) and possibly a slice of tomato. Second breakfast takes place mid-morning. If you’re working, you put in a solid hour or two at the office then repair to the nearest café for another round of toast and coffee accompanied by lively conversation with colleagues. Lunch is a leisurely and substantial repast at 2:00, if possible taken at home with the family and followed by a siesta. Merienda (afternoon snack) may be enjoyed with family or friends and often involves coffee and a sweet roll — yes, essentially a third breakfast — around 5:00 pm. After that you head back to the office for another three hours. Dinner is served at 9:00 or 10:00 and may be just beer and tapas or a full meal. If you have friends around, it can last until 2:00 am or later.  Rich in our Seville kitchen, making paella with amigos Julie and Lonnie Spanish healthcare experts insist five meals a day are essential to keeping your weight down, as it prevents overeating at meals or — horrors! — snacking. “To lose this traditional schedule,” warned a MujerHoy article darkly, “is to throw open the doors to indiscriminate nibbling.” Egads, not that! In ways too numerous to mention in one post, I find life in Seville encourages me to pause frequently to smell the orange blossom, sip espresso, ponder the meaning of life, and enjoy the companionship of amigos from around the world. You may discover that you resonate best with the daily rhythms of Iceland or Portugal or Singapore. Or some less frenetic corner of America, for that matter. Finding or creating a peaceful sanctuary, with an unhurried pace and congenial company, can sustain us through even the most turbulent times. “We need, above all things,” said philosopher Alan Watts, “to slow down and get ourselves to amble through life instead of to rush through it.” Or as Mae West put it, “Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.”  Einstein was right; time is relative, as this Seville clock shop demonstrates. So why hurry? THE AMIGOS PROJECT This post is part of my ongoing exploration of how living and traveling abroad can enrich our lives and help us find fellowship, avoiding the isolation that's become a global epidemic. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POSTS? If you ever miss a post announcement, please check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. WANT MORE? My best selling travel memoirs & guide books Best of Cheap & Cheerful San Francisco Cozy Places to Eat in Seville GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. |
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Karen McCann
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