La Vida Nueva

Our balcony view - a world away from Vauxhall...

It's been a criminally long time since my last post, and that's mostly because we've been embarking on the aforementioned new life. But I just looked out of the window here and had a moment of catching up with myself, and knew it was time for an update.  Next week it will be four months since we moved into our flat in Barcelona, fondly referred to then as 'the beautiful wreck'. We've spent that time trying to make it habitable and a profitable sideline as a holiday guest room. That's what has consumed our days these past months, meaning we're well behind on our Spanish language learning (please, don't even mention our lack of Catalan)...

During that time, we have painted, plastered, learned how to fix ceiling cracks, scrubbed, bought beds, secondhand sofas, tables, and found chairs on the street, hauled all our furniture up 57 stairs, done 3 mammoth ikea trips, learnt to barter in the markets, started to use the dictionary a bit less, started intercambios, freelancing, a radio station, in the case of my other half (!), held our first dinner party and tried to keep up with the conversation, welcomed friends, family, paying guests, been to the beach a handful of times, thought very seriously about getting a little dog; and started eating dinner much, much later. It's adventure we wanted, and we're having it. And I wouldn't change a thing. (Except obviously having a teleportation device for our friends and family). But they've been coming to visit. And we've loved having proper quality time with them, away from the London hustle we'd become so accustomed to. 

Before, during, after: our living room

Looking back at my notebook from the summer, I can see how far things have come (you get an idea from the photos above, too). In August I was writing on the train en route to the airport to meet my mum, and panicking a bit: 

On my way to pick up mum at Barcelona airport. It's her first visit, and we have been rushing to make the flat appear more finished than it is; having had workmen in for the past couple of days doing everything from changing taps and painting ceilings to industrial polishing of the floor tiles. Just having the floors really clean makes a huge difference, but then so has 30 litres (so far) of brilliant white paint. We started in the huge living room (the ceiling cracks still need fixing) and worked our way to the guest bedroom via the horrid, ugly blue and green kitchen. I don't know how anyone could have countenanced preparing food in that dark, disgustingly dirty room, but it's bright and clean now. The guest room is looking great with a coat of paint and shiny floors; it really will be the jewel in the crown of our little holiday let.

The best thing we have done this week really is ask the upstairs neighbours if we could use their wifi for a week. This has meant we have met them all but also that we have managed to do some research on the building we are living in. We had been given hints of its stature by the owner, who is clearly very proud of the history of the building, but it wasn't until I googled the name of the building's architect that we realised that not only was it famous for housing the Picasso family when they first arrived in Barcelona, it was also the building that the very first photograph EVER taken in Spain happened to portray. And add to that the fabulous setting opposite the Llotja de Mar, Barcelona's centre of trade and industry, plus in later years the art school where Picasso himself trained, and you have a location so incredible we were sat open mouthed whilst reading. It's also wonderful news for our business. I hope these nuggets of history excite and tantalise our guests as much as they do us.

But first : let's hope it passes the mum test!


I'm smiling as I read that through again. Firstly because of the energy it took to be undertaking all of that work, and because we've over the worst of it now. But also because it was still so optimistic, and although I had no idea how things would turn out, or whether we'd ever manage to get the guest room operation off the ground, I put every ounce of faith I could muster into the plan, the one we'd been talking about for years, the one we'd worked so hard to leave our comfortable but ultimately unfulfilling London lives for. Watch this space, as there are undoubtedly more updates to come... and in the meantime, if you're wondering how the beautiful wreck looks now, have a look here. You can even come and stay with us here. I'd be delighted to meet you.

Violets, Books and Old Friends

A new way of friends keeping in touch, meaningfully and off facebook: http://fiveviolets.tumblr.com/

This is a lovely idea.

It’s going to be a novel way to start a conversation, keep it going, hear news and updates, and through a friend’s eyes, see a film, read a new book, or try out a recipe, and connect in a different way – a more meaningful way - than email or facebook. It means we can see the world through one another’s eyes every now and again. We can dip in or out; reading about friends’ lives in London, or on the road, wherever they happen to be. I am glad that we thought of it together, in an East London café on a sunny Sunday in early April of 2013.  I’m especially glad for the chance to stay connected in a new way, because soon the luxury of hopping on the tube and meeting up with friends for coffee and cake will be absent from my life.

That’s because this June, in my 31st year, I’m finally taking the leap of faith that I have wanted to since I was 17, and moving to Barcelona with my partner, E – a city I fell in love with even before we met; strangely enough, a city that my girlfriends took me to when I was getting over the breakup of the relationship that ended before E and I got together.

He has always loved Spain, and starting learning Spanish long before I did. On subsequent visits together, we did what everyone does in a city like Barcelona - we immediately imagined ourselves in a top-floor flat in the Barrio Gotico, looking out over the city’s pink rooftops, the sea air ruffling our hair. We could see ourselves eating tapas, suntanned and relaxed, shopping in the Mercat Santa Caterina, feeling plump tomatoes and sampling juicy olives. We stayed with some friends of friends who were sub-letting studio apartments to tourists using airbnb, a site we had no prior experience with, but have since grown to love and become passionate advocates of. We asked them how they enjoyed living there, and how their business was going. They told us that it had been the best decision of their lives. They had 95% occupancy in their 3 apartments year-round. They were doing well. And they said they thought anyone could do the same.

And like that, over a couple of bottles of Estrella Damm in the sunshine in August, it was decided. We were going to give it a go. Work-wise, we had to try to sort out other sources of income, because we know we’re not cut out to run a small empire of sublet apartments (it’s highly illegal, by the way). But then we thought: fuck it. Why not have at least a room that guests can stay in? Barcelona is a city that captivates all who visit her. It should be a good way to cover our costs and meet an assortment of interesting visitors. We’ve decided to try it out now because it feels like the right time for adventure, before we are tied to a city with a mortgage, or kids, or both. Right now, we can still choose.

The concept is to try out a few new things; namely, being self-employed, growing a new business, adapting to a different city and learning how to exist in a place other than London, and most crucially, moving towards some semblance of fluency in another language. It’s either going to be the best thing we ever do, or the most stupid. It means giving up full-time jobs, despite my mother’s worries and continual questions about how we’ll survive, given the current state of the Spanish economy. It means packing up our belongings, items that we have accumulated over the past four years; saved up for, even, and putting some up for sale, putting some in parents’ lofts, and throwing many away. It means we’ve been saving up and trying to live frugally, which in London is night-on impossible, but we’ve certainly been making a concerted effort to make packed lunches everyday, and deny ourselves the usual fripperies – coffees, magazines, takeaways; that expensive showergel has been used up; the Lovefilm subscription cancelled.

And it’s been good. It feels like we’re streamlining, picking away layers of needless expenditure, making things count more, last more, last longer. I’m actually enjoying eating up old tins of things in our food cupboard. Even if it does look like only quinoa, lentils, and risotto will be on the menu for the final few weeks. Actually – and this is a dark secret - I’ve always had a hankering to try to get my possessions down to a suitcase and a potted plant, à la Jean Reno in Léon. This is sadly impossible in reality as I struggle daily with a bona-fide addiction to buying shoes, and have a pathological aversion to throwing away old magazines and newspapers from momentous events - I still have a Newsweek from Obama’s first election victory. 

It’s the same with books.

As we packed up our possessions last week, I realised that between us we have a shitload of them. We must have had at least 300 or 400 of the little buggers in our small flat.  It’s been a busy few months and I’ve been reading less than I ought to, so in the last few weeks I’ve been playing catch-up, reading things that have been on the ‘to read’ shelf for years and I have been meaning to get around to opening. This is a crucial activity, as I need to know whether they will come with me on the journey.

Books that I love are like old friends to me and can never be thrown away. They sit on shelves gathering dust, occasionally opened to flirt with a favourite chapter, or passage, sometimes re-read on holiday, when they are usually left open and face-down, spine cracked, splashed with water from the pool or gathering fine grains of sand in between the pages. The best ones, the most loved ones, have faded in the sunlight and if you hold them in your hand, they open slowly to reveal the most well-thumbed pages. They smell reassuringly, comfortingly old. They are the ones that will never leave my bookshelves.

I just finished the last book on the ‘to read’ shelf.  It’s called Almost French and tells the story of an Australian writer coming to live with a Frenchman in Paris. She struggles with the move, to fit in, and to understand French society. The story itself is nothing special; it won’t make the cut and won’t join the beloved pile of faded, faithful old friends. But the final sentence in it struck a chord. It made me hopeful, and excited, and strengthened my resolve to keep searching for adventure.

I am happy I finally found an excuse to work my way through that shelf of unread books. Let no stone remained unturned, I say. I’ll just keep reading.

This post was originally written for Five Violets, re-posted here for your reading pleasure!

The Quarter-Life Crisis, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Failure

The plan is coming along nicely.

We've identified the city (check), come up with a business plan (sort of) and started tucking away savings (erm...yeah. I am putting that shoe fetish on hold, as of next week. Promise). We've sorted a date to leave our London flat. In February we're moving in with my mum for 6-8 weeks while we squirrel away our rent money. (Eeep.)

All that remains is to get driving (ok, so that's a fairly large undertaking, but my 19 year old cousin has  already beat me to the wheel in Wood Green, so I should bloody well be able to apply myself). It's getting embarassing. My US family members already think I'm some kind of idiot-savant who just about manages to hold down a job and feed myself without being able to drive to Walgreens. Not that we have a Walgreens to drive to. But you get my meaning.

Oddly enough, even with all this change coming, there's a strange feeling of calm about my future washing over me. Even though I have absolutely no idea what the next year will hold, I feel like I'm really working towards something. And even if it turns out to not be a sustainable business, at least I will have tried something independent, and been my own boss. It's not quite 'do what you love', because, as this very clever lady rightly says, what we love changes all the time. So I'm taking what I consider to be some very good advice and doing what I am. What I am is someone who needs a challenge. Someone who has always wanted to be fluent in another language, and do something I feel passionate about. Passion is everything, after all.

I spent this Saturday at the Nordic Study Abroad Conference, as a speaker alongside some very learned professors from the Universities of Cambridge University, Brown, Georgetown, and Copenhagen. 250 young Danish, Swedish and Norwegian students assembled at PWC's Copenhagen offices to hear from those who had done something different, and were all the better for it. I was possibly the least senior person on the billing, with no letters after my name, no ivy-league degree under my belt, and a mere 6 years' experience of working in the field of international student recruitment. To tell you the truth, I was pretty petrified of putting on that little microphone headset and owning the stage in the way some of the more seasoned professors had. Many of the other speakers had been truly inspiring, and they had managed to captivate the audience in that way that only those who have inbuilt charisma, and a true passion for what they are speaking about, can.  But watching the talk preceding mine, from Professor Sudhanshu Rai at the Copenhagen Business School, I was impressed by some home truths in his speech, which was all about not being afraid to make mistakes, or "fail". I was struck in particular by one statement he made, which put the whole 'failure is not an option' culture into a new light. He simply told the audience of very high-achieving, driven students that when we succeed, we experience a state of euphoria, but that when we fail, we experience a state of reflection. It's therefore only with reflection, and true consideration, that real successes are born.

Hearing that actually helped me to make a better presentation (I suppose the pressure of failure was lessened a bit!). I spent the rest of the conference being pretty inspired just being able to speak to these young people, who had such big plans in their sights. I'm not much older than many of them, and they were so committed, so eager to do something memorable, to chase their dreams that it made me stop for a minute to consider why I'm feeling something very similar now. I might be a little late to the party, but I've realised that we all need to do something that scares and exhilarates us once in our lives. 

A tiny me, onstage (bricking it).

I guess now that I'm not as scared of getting up and presenting alongside the great and the good, in front of an audience who will achieve more in their 20s than many of us will in our entire lives, I'm on the right road. There's still loads that I am scared of: getting a phrase completely wrong in my fledgling new language; running out of money; having to live at my mum's again for a few weeks, or months. I'm scared that I might really miss the security of an office job. I might miss London terribly. And I think I still have a lot to learn, even from those 18, 19 and 20 year-olds who haven't figured it all out yet. And basically I think, if I were younger, I'd run at the opportunity to gain new experiences and try out something new.  I'm not getting any younger, so today is the youngest I'll ever be. So I'm going to bloody well do something cool before I'm old.

Maybe it's a bona-fide quarterlife crisis. But hell, I'm enjoying it.

Pizza Pazza

I am pleased to say that a third of my foodie interviews with Vauxhall eateries has been published on the hyper-local South Lambeth blog, Tradescant Road. 

This time around I interviewed Pino & Françiane, the proprietors of the area's newest Italian restaurant, Pizza Pazza. They were warm, welcoming and chatted happily to me about everything from home-made salsicca to pizza ovens, fresh seafood and the lure of a great aperitivo.

If you've ever visited the strip of restaurants located on South Lambeth Road, you'll know why it's such good news that a non-Portguese eatery has opened. We are in need of variety here, and the addition of an authentic stone pizza oven stumbling distance from my house can only be a good thing. It's also one of the few places I know of, locally, where you can eat one of these bad boys: a Panuozzo (a giant sandwich made from pizza dough).

 You can read the interview in full here (and do let me know what you think if you happen to visit)!

Growing Up

Ma & Pa getting hitched in NYC, 1975. How cool is that hat?!

I've been thinking a lot about getting older recently.

Being at my mum's house a few weekends ago and seeing some old photos of her and my dad has got me thinking a lot about my roots. Mum was excited at having found old photos, mainly because we lost so many precious ones to the swirling, destructive winds of Hurricane Andrew in 1992. She showed me photos of my parents at my age. At my age, my mother had already done two huge life moves, from London to Trinidad and then to Miami. I wondered at her bravery, and at her ability to adapt.

As I get older, and hurtle towards my 30th birthday in August, I'm finding that I feel rather reflective. I start to notice my face changing - the smile lines are just a little bit more pronounced around my eyes, and I can see my skin is changing. New freckles I hadn't noticed before begin to appear. But I'm trying not to indulge in too much gazing in the mirror, and it doesn't consume as much of my time as it did in my early 20s, that's for sure. A cursory once-over is enough in the mornings, mostly to make sure I haven't got toothpaste all over my chin. No, the days of high-preening are probably behind me now.

I challenge anyone to spot any wrinkles from here...

I have started to notice a common theme amongst friends and colleagues who are all approaching this pivotal age - they are all planning to change their lives somehow, whether it's new house, new job, new partner, new baby, or new business. 30, unlike 18 or 21, or even 25, is the beginning of real adulthood, it feels like. We all have some urgency to our plans now. For some of my female friends, this is even more true, especially where relationships are concerned. Two out of four of my closest female friends are now married and thinking very closely about having children. The other two are well into their 30s and seem much less panicked about making babies. They know it will come. They've gotten over the hump, as it were.

For me, it's only when I have time to sit down and think that I start to make some headway towards deciding what the heck it is that I want. Most of the time, working a full-time job in London feels like playing continual catch-up: with your friends, with your work, with your life admin, with your laundry, with sleeping. It's only by being away from the melée that I start to commit myself to the next thing I want to do. And on holiday a couple of weeks ago, I decided. We decided. We're going to start a small business and rent rooms to weary city-travellers, and put our combined skills of being good hosts (or so we are told), creative marketers and being people-people to use. We need to do bags more research of course, not to mention finalise the city in question, as well as create a business plan, and save up lots of our hard-earned money, but the wheels are in motion - we plan to leave London in March 2013.

It's basically beans on toast from here on in for a while, but I feel so very empowered. A new sense of freedom and the scent of adventure in the distance has completely motivated me. Learning a new language will be part of it, but the ability to work together towards a common goal, in a new place, for our own profit (or possibly loss, in the first few months, I'm not going to shy away from being realistic here) is driving me forward towards the biggest and most frightening, exhilarating step towards adulthood that I have ever taken.

I think that's a good place to be, aged 29 years, 10 months, and 5 days.

The Cautionary Tale of the Fat Grey Seal

I've been quiet for the last month, but that's a good thing, because any posts would have been fantastically dull. I spent much of March applying for a new job (I didn't get it, sadly), working my arse off and earning myself a holiday.

The holiday part is quite good, though. We went to the beautiful West Highlands of Scotland, bathed in sunshine upon our arrival and with temperatures in the high teens (on the first day, anyway). I wore waterproofs and hiking-type shoes almost nonstop, and actually enjoyed it, despite looking frightful in all our holiday snaps.

We walked. A lot. We sailed (well, someone else drove and parked the boat. I know I'm using the wrong words, and I don't care - I know nothing of boats). We watched birds! We saw enormous grey seals! They looked ridiculous! I wouldn't mess with them, though. Those blubbery blighters. Look at that one there, giving us stinkeye. He knew. We would have been happier on his turf. No wonder it was being guarded so carefully.

What?

There was a lot of whisky and cullen skink and Lorne sausages. There was no TV aerial in the flat where we stayed and so we watched some Hitchcock films and - fittingly - the DVD extras on Braveheart. There was also no phone reception to speak of, so it was pretty darned relaxing. I managed to read a lot and the days seemed longer, something I often long for in a normal working week.

It made me think very hard about city living. Without exception, every local we met in the sleepy little Argyll village we stayed in seemed to pity us for living in London. Some had lived and worked here themselves, and had great stories to tell, but none missed it. One couple in their sixties had come back for a holiday and enjoyed themselves, but for the most part the men hated cities and the women got their cultural fixes in Glasgow or from holidays in other places.

I don't think I'm quite ready to live in a place where no shops are open past 6pm (or indeed on Sundays) but it did make me consider what one really needs from the place they live. Something I seem to do regularly each time I leave the city, whether for a couple of days or a couple of weeks. I keep hearing that little voice beckoning me away. And I do wonder if I'd be more productive; maybe writing more, maybe spending more time talking to friends, less time exhausted on the sofa, less time travelling, less time worrying about money.

I know, I know. It's been two years of this love/hate shit with London. Even I'm bored of it now. I'm like a woman scorned who keeps telling her friends he'll change. 


So, definitely time for a new record. This is the last time I say this. Promise. 

It's all gone a bit quiet round here...

That's mainly because I have a new favourite thing, namely: instagram. A little photo-sharing app that lets you run pictures through a series of retro filters, tag them, and share them with online friends. It's insanely addictive. I've probably come to it quite late, as I'm one of the last people I know to have an iphone. But it has certainly been keeping me from blogging. Maybe I can claim I've been micro-blogging, in a way. Oh no, wait - that's twitter. Or maybe I can consider it photo-blogging. Anyway, if you happen to want to follow my feed, you can do so here and find me as @bittersweetcity if you happen to use instagram too.

A new life manifesto, courtesy of instagram?

The other reason it's all been a bit quiet is probably because this is the start of my 30th year and I've become much more focused on the future. There's a pressing need to shake things up this year, which if you've been reading previous posts, you will know has been on the agenda for the Mister and I for almost 3 years now. Careers have really taken over our lives for the past year, but the continued stresses and upheavals felt by changes at my place of work, and the sector itself, are spurring me on to do something different. And I mean it this time. I'm hoping to be able to quit my job by August and with savings, attempt the long-awaited travelling and working abroad scenario I've been going on about on here for years. I'm working on the plan in earnest now. Here are my prequequisites: 

1. Must be French-speaking. I've been sort-of speaking well-ish for coming up to 12 years. It's time to get bloody fluent. Oui, je voudrais parler couramment, quoi.

2. Must be warmer than Britain. 

That's not a lot to ask for, surely(!) I'm considering anything from training for a TEFL course to pouring café lattés in Bordeaux. Or preferably, rum punches in Mauritius.

The thing that scares me the most is waking up on my 30th birthday on August 25th and thinking, "I know exactly what the next 12 months will be like." I am frightened of having everything all planned out, and yet I want to know what I won't be doing this time next year.

It means having to take risks. Scary, but good. It's the last time in my life I think I'll be able to, before I need to consider if, or when, I have children; before I need to make plans to be near my mum, as I'm her only child and she is on her own. I know being free of responsibility sounds selfish, and it's never truly possible. 

But just once I'd like to try it. 

Surely I'm not alone in having thoughts like these. People of the interweb: do you also have them? Have you acted upon them? Better still, have any success stories or tips you can share? I'd be ever so grateful. 

Til' next time (stick around, I feel an increase in productivity coming on ;)...