Ahora Caigo

HOLIDAY! CELEBRATE! And other words that end in an A sound...

We recently returned from a week in a teeny, weeny, holiday bungalini. It's been the making of this month. I calculated before we went that we hadn't been away on a holiday, just the two of us, without any computers, wifi coverage, nor much in the way of mobile phone reception, for the best part of 16 months. We didn't even....shhh... take any conditioner. (Straggly, unruly hair is a small price to pay for inner peace.)

The truth is we've not had much time, or many euros to spare. Oh, eff off, you live in a sunny place, I hear you protest. You can walk to a beach, you lucky biscuit. ¡Callate, puedes caminar a la playa, eres afortunada! OK, I admit, we can see palm trees from the living room, but we have chirruping emails to answer, rooms to clean, laundry to dry, ironing to do and several weekly food shops just like everyone else. Add some recent life/family/health/job insecurities to the mix and well, Little House on the Prairie it ain't.

So that's why ditching the city for this place for a bit was much needed. See how it makes the Mister look positively catalogue-model winsome?

The best bit was that there were two best bits: we could walk to a choice of two unspolit beaches along a rocky coastal path pretending to be mountain goats, and also - we had a barbacoa to put chicken on, something that took us right back to gnawing on jerk chicken with blackened fingers in our beloved Brixton. 
Oh, and a bonus thing. We learned loads more colloquial Spanish from the truly alien pleasure of watching telly in our little bungalow. We haven't owned a telly in more than a year. Ahora Caigo (quite literally, Now I Fall, or Now I Get It! - a game show where competitors fall through a hole in the floor at breakneck speed if they answer incorrectly - and  Millonario Anónimo (you know the format, but did you know it would be even more tear-jerking in Spanish? It's la crisis, you see) - were our favourites. 


I tell you what, we needed that holiday. Because the real work starts here. You remember that New York job I went for two posts ago?

They only went and gave it to me.

That's right, we're moving to NEW YORK FFS OMG ETC ETC.

I'll go first in August, and the Mister will follow in a few months, so now we are on EMOTIONAL HIGH ALERT and are bobbing wildly up and down like crazed trampolinists, veering between elation and woe at the thought of separating our lives - the ones we've just spent 11 months soldering together in this live/work space that has been our business and our home and our adventure and our comfort blanket all in one.

This is pretty big, yo.

An Open Letter to Nigel Farage

Barcelona, 19 May, 2014

Dear Mr. Farage,

I am following your party’s rise in popularity with some disdain, because from what I see and read here (I’m living abroad as one of the millions of British citizens who do so, but we’ll come to that later), I am finding it difficult to associate UKIP policies with a fair and open minded society – in fact I am finding it nigh impossible to understand the function UKIP serves in modern Britain.

Let me explain.

It must be really liberating, fantastical even, for you and your supporters to live in a world where they suppose that crime did not exist in Britain before mass immigration. Immigration from the European Union and other countries around the world has been proven in no uncertain terms to bring massive benefits to Britain, and to its citizens. With many family members and friends who work in the NHS, it is evident everyday that the service could simply not run without workers from outside of our country who dedicate themselves to keeping one of our finest institutions afloat.

As someone born in the USA to an immigrant father from the Commonwealth, and a mother from Kent, who met in London, I am a proud product of a multi-cultural Britain. As well as being a British Citizen, I have been an immigrant myself, moving to the UK aged 11 and residing there for 20 years. The Britain I arrived to in 1993 was very different from the Britain we have now, and I have seen many positive changes as our society has grown, been enriched and been influenced by the movement and exchange of people, ideas, foods, cultures and customs. Sure, there’s tension sometimes. But having lived in one of London’s most diverse boroughs, Lambeth, for nearly 10 years (and during the riots in August 2011), I have witnessed first hand that it is the startling inequality that persists in plaguing people’s lives, and a sense of working increasingly hard for increasingly little gain, that leads to unrest, not someone’s nationality. As if that matters to the people of London, who have and make friends and family from all corners of the globe. 

Let’s move on to your assertion that we should leave the EU in order to be able to control our borders. Last year I moved to Spain to live and work. Even as an EU citizen, I was asked to provide evidence that I could support myself financially and that I had a healthcare package, so as not to immediately use or abuse public services intended for locals. Given the state of the Spanish economy, and the fact that I am still a visitor here, I feel those are fair requests. But I am still delighted that I am able to live and work here, and furthermore that local services benefit me, such as community centres providing subsidised classes (so I can study the language, for example, or exercise, or learn a new skill). When I go back and forth to the UK, my EU citizen status allows me freedom of movement, and I am reassured that if I were travelling more widely in Europe and I fell ill, I would be able to take out my European Health Insurance card, and be cared for, from France to Romania.

Restricting movement for Europeans coming to the UK would go both ways. There is no picking and choosing, particularly if you decide to leave the negotiating table in Brussels altogether.  How on earth would you ensure that the millions of British citizens, who are living, working or retiring in Europe, would retain their benefits and their freedom of movement, rights to own properties, claim pensions, vote, or have a say in their communities? Under your proposals they would cease being citizens of Europe, and for the 1.8 million Britons living in Europe, I suspect this idea will be as hated as it is misinformed.

In your open letter published in The Telegraph today you said of Romania: "When I visited the country I was truly shocked by the living conditions and social exclusion of a large Roma minority. It is difficult to believe that such discrimination still exists in Europe today.” Indeed it does, as you have so aptly shown us by singling out Romanians as your target. There is nothing inclusionary about your ideas, despite being married to a European.

You go on to say that “The other huge problem in Romania has been the growth of organised criminal gangs for whom EU memberships has meant greater opportunities. Under free movement rules there is absolutely nothing the UK authorities can do to stop such people from entering our country. We should not be in a political union with Romania, with an open door to all of their citizens.  We must take back the power to stop criminals from entering our country by taking back control of our borders. The only way to do that is to leave the EU."

Increasingly as I look at what is happening in UK politics I feel a divide, not just between people within the UK (Scotland won’t agree with you, that’s for certain) but also between the UK and Europe that is in danger of becoming ever more pronounced. One day, if your ideals hold water with the people of Britain, I am afraid I will see a small island, floating away from trade, commerce and cultural growth on its own in the North Sea, flanked by neighbours who want nothing to do with its small-mindness and petty crowing about feeling hard-done by. I am afraid I will see a place where people have hardened against those unlike them and meanwhile whilst they were trying to find someone to pin the blame on for their social ills, their society degenerated to a point of no return. 

I see dark hearts, and anger, and no real answers in your policies, Mr. Farage. I see a return to rhetoric to match Powell’s rivers of blood speech, and no hope in the way you view the world, let alone Europe. If the day comes that I won’t be able to move freely in Europe because my UK passport won’t allow it, I’ll see that as the final nail in the coffin for Britain. If, under your watch in a brave new UKIP world, places then became limited to live and work in the UK, I’d withdraw, and someone else could have my spot. 

In fact, I’d gladly give my place to a hardworking Romanian.

Sincerely,
Burning Up in Barcelona

Earplugs for the Soul

This week was one of the first in a long time where I had one of those cold-sweat early hours awakenings, the kind where a nameless dread has you all aquiver before you even know why. Then your sleepy brain-fug clears and the things you'd worried about a little during the day rush back into your field of vision, only in the wee hours they loom large, much bigger than they did during the day. Why IS that?

A few nights later, our young and carefree (read: twattish) Spanish upstairs neighbours held a gathering on the roof terrace, which now that the nights are warmer means that with the benefit of a coating of alcohol one could conceivably spend most of the small hours outside. The party started around 4am - pretty standard as far as Spanish yoots are concerned - and I was awoken from a deep slumber by some rhythmic bleeping. Because it was two floors up, on the roof, and not in their flat directly above us, I was able to put aside my marginal hatred for their uncluttered brains and weed-infused revelry, fumble around in the dark for some earplugs and return to fitful, dark and detailed dreams.

It's the first time in 9 months that I've started to feel the expat blues; not for a longing for ye olde Englandshire or anything like that, god no, but more from a sense of responsibility being dodged somehow, as there's suddenly lots of crapula going on back in the UK that we're not able to be there for as quickly as we would like. Namely, family illness. More than ever we're feeling the ageing of our parents - something I'm sure has brought many back to Blighty prematurely. It's a timely and devastating reminder that we're not as young and carefree as we thought we were a year ago. Perhaps that serves to feed my dislike of the neighbours, living out a very present existence with not a thought for anything or anyone around them. But then I suppose that's the privilege of youth. Who gives a flying fuck at that age?

There's also been a drive here to broaden our income streams, not relying solely on the B&B but also on using the skills we had before, and there's always a creeping worry that my brain will go soft, or that I'll be left behind within my sector, which has this week seen me throw my hat into the ring for a job in New York. (I know, pretty wacky, hey? Not any closer to family, but perhaps with a sufficiently large enough paycheque that trips back to the UK could be more regular, or I could contribute more to the family purse in times of difficulty). Our life abroad has just begun, but the first relatively carefree 9 months have morphed into something different. Something to test individual mettle. "What is it you really want?" the universe seems to ask. "Because if it's selfish responsibility-abandonment and sunshine, you've had enough now."

Back to facing the music. I don't know how long I can keep the earplugs in for.

The Short Month

Just a short one, this month. The month and the post. Short because I'm aware that I've already broken my new year's resolution to post once per month, if you count that I'm an hour and 18 minutes into March already. (OK, for you in the UK it's only 18 - wait, no, 19 minutes in.

Well, what is there to say about February? It came and went, as February is wont to do. I had a week back in London for work. It was more than a little stormy that week, as roof tiles and garden gnomes went flying, and the news was full of politicians wearing waders and wellies and looking pointedly at huge expanses of dirty water. It was the UK's wettest January in more than 100 years, they said. It made me quite glad that we weren't spending another biblical winter in a small, damp basement flat in Vauxhall this year, with the Thames barrier being deployed and the river threatening us a few metres away. I felt quite guilty for our relatively painless winter here. But the nice thing is, we're also a haven for our friends and family now. And boy, do we know it. The mums are booking trips over in March quicker than you can say 'easyjet'. Long-lost family members are suddenly looking us up, they've heard we have a guest house in Barcelona, what's availability like, over the spring?

The truth is we're booked up well into May and June - something we never expected, at under six months of being open. But we're enjoying what we do. We're getting good reviews, so we aren't bad at it. And we genuinely enjoy making people feel at home, comfortable, cared for. We enjoy making someone's holiday - that precious time we know all too well from working long hours ourselves in London -better.

Tomorrow (well, later today), we have a couple arriving who have been referred to us by a friend, and they will be celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary here. We've booked them into the best restaurant in town, will have flowers and cava awaiting them, and will enjoy watching them stroll out each day with some foolproof recommendations under their arms. A year ago, I was packing up our flat. I just mentioned this to the Mister, and he reminded me that we put everything in boxes and held our last dinner parties this time last year. And here we are, a year on, entertaining again. And it makes me happy.

January, Day 8

Feliz Año Nuevo! 

One of my new years' resolutions for 2014 has been to write at least a post a month on here, something I didn't manage last year with the upheaval of moving country. So I'm going to try to get January's post in nice and early. 

So far, 2014, you're all right, you are. It's day 8 and it has only rained once so far here (on the 4th). January days in Barcelona are bright, light until half 5 or so, and the evenings are clear and chilly. We still need duvets and slippers; our tiled floors are unforgiving. We still need a cosy blanket on the sofa. But the temperatures encourage action, so a walk is a good excuse to warm up and see the ocean. The beaches are deserted, except for weekend afternoons when they are teeming with families taking their abuelas out for a stroll, usually accompanied by little white dogs being promenaded in their jumpers or hats (I'm not kidding). It's wonderful to see the sun as high as it is, and skies are generally blue. Having said that, I'm ferreting away with organising visits to schools around the country for work, and so by day 8 I'm already suffering screen burn. The difference here is that when I go out for a walk at lunchtime, I get to go with E, and the sun just happens to be shining. This feels very different to any other January I've known in the UK.

Another new thing has been the feeling that the season of Christmas lasts longer here, largely due to the fact that the 6th January is a national holiday as well (El Día de los Reyes), with a whole set of traditions formerly unknown to me. It has been a beautiful festival to witness, with a fabulous parade around the city on the night of the 5th, incorporating live music, bright costumes and uniquely decorated floats. They transport each of the three Kings (Gaspar, Balthasar & Melchior) and their helpers who throw huge quantities of sweets (12 tons, apparently!) to the crowds as they pass by. The parade offers the opportunity for children to give their wish lists to the Kings, in the hopes that they will receive the gifts they have asked for. If they’ve been good, they might, but if not, they end up with a lump of coal. 

Here are some of the floats, including these mesmerising horse dancers - which were my favourite illumination of the night. They floated gracefully past our window and I felt myself watching openmouthed, so beautiful and ethereal were they. It's a pure kind of magic, that feeling of seeing something new and unexpectedly wonderful for the first time.

Here's wishing you a very happy, healthy, prosperous new year full of childlike wonderment and new things to make you go all slackjawed. Here's to 2014.

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!