After two months visiting the U.S., we’re only a few days away from heading back to our other home in Alicante, Spain. I’m really excited to get back, though I’ve definitely enjoyed our time here this fall. But it has been endlessly busy! From playing in a soccer league and sand volleyball league, to two friends’ weddings and our own wedding reception, our annual Halloween party, fostering a cat, and watching the Chiefs games with family and friends, life here has looked a lot different from the Spanish lifestyle we’ve gotten used to.
But the lifestyle is one of the biggest reasons we love living in Spain, and it’s hard to believe we’re already coming up on a year since we moved to Alicante! While I had lived in Madrid for two years, life in Alicante looks a lot different, and I’m always excited when I get to experience new aspects of life in Spain.
So I thought it would be fun to share seven new experiences I’ve had living in Spain this year.
1. Attending Spanish class
In May 2025, it will have been officially 10 years since I graduated from college. Which means it had been nearly 10 years since my last formal Spanish class. I can get by during day-to-day life in Spain just fine (most of the time), but I still want to get better. When I lived in Madrid, I would have loved to take classes, but I just had no time (and no money). But now, I actually have the free time and the funds to take classes!
Within two weeks of arriving in Alicante, I had signed up for a local Spanish language school about a 5-minute walk from our apartment. I tested in to a B2 level class, and I’ve typically gone to class twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursday from 12:30 to 2 p.m. Sometimes we’ve had as many as five people in the class, and sometimes it’s just me. Between the wedding and being back in the U.S., I haven’t been in class in a while, but I’m hoping to sign up again soon when I get back to Alicante!
2. Ordering from the fish counter at Mercadona
The two years I lived in Madrid were the first time I really had to be responsible for feeding myself — in college, I always had the dining hall, and for the three years after that, I was a traveling consultant who lived in hotel rooms most nights and could order the fast food of my choosing thanks to the company per diem. So in Madrid, I pretty much survived off things like cereal, yogurt, chips, and pasta.
Since moving in with Matt in the U.S., we go grocery shopping pretty much every Monday and try to limit eating out to once a week or less. Matt’s a great chef who loves to cook, and we’re always trying new recipes. And we eat pretty healthy, too! So moving to Alicante together, we’ve certainly taken advantage of ordering fresh fish from the fish counter at our local grocery store, Mercadona. This is something I would have never done by myself in Madrid. (And I’ve also never ordered from a fish counter in the U.S… I mean, we live in Missouri. Would you?)
It’s kinda fun to go take your little number from the dispenser and wait for the attendants to call you up. We eat a lot of salmon in Spain, and we’re looking forward to trying out some different fish when we get back.
3. Visiting a bullfighting ring
I get that bullfighting is a part of traditional Spanish culture, but I don’t agree with it. And I would never ever want to watch a bullfight. For that reason, I’d never stepped foot inside a bullfighting ring — though I’d seen the outside of plenty. I’m sure you can get tours of the interiors, but that sort of thing just wasn’t something that was high on my priority list.
But in mid-July, the Spanish men’s soccer team made it to the finals of the 2024 Euros, which is basically like the World Cup but only for European teams. And Alicante decided to host a public watch party in the bullfighting ring! We got a group of friends together and made our way into the arena where we could look down at the screen from our seats in the bleachers. Honestly can’t imagine a better experience inside a bullfighting ring. 🙂
4. Getting my eyebrows waxed
When I had my bridal makeup trial in Barcelona, the makeup artist (kindly) told me that I should get my eyebrows waxed before the wedding. Yeah, point taken. I think it had been 15 years since the last time I got my eyebrows waxed. But that had been in my native language. And who hasn’t heard horror stories of eyebrow waxing or tweezing gone wrong? Needless to say, I was a little nervous.
After reading some reviews, I tentatively made an appointment at a place that I thought I could trust — two months before the wedding, so they’d have some time to grow back in if needed. When I showed up at the appointment, it turned out I had no reason to worry. Fernando, the salon owner, started out by marking my brows according to the Golden Ratio and promising he was going to give me the best eyebrows for my face. Over the course of 90 minutes, he carefully threaded — rather than waxed — my eyebrows to absolute perfection. And the final cost was €8. I tipped him well and scheduled another appointment for 10 days before the wedding. (This is something else I really need to do when I get back.)
5. Eating at the El Corte Inglés food court
Our first weekend in Alicante after securing our apartment, we took a wander through El Corte Inglés, Spain’s most famous department store, in search of home necessities. Most Spanish cities seem to have two El Corte Ingleses, typically fairly close to each other, and one is more for clothing while the other is more for home goods. We didn’t know which was which, so we checked out both, and knowing that El Corte Ingles typically has a rooftop restaurant with a view, we decided to head up and see our new city from above.
I think in Madrid, the Corte Inglés I typically went to had a “gourmet” experience on the top floor, so I never ordered anything. But in Alicante, it’s just a food court with lots of selection, for a really great price. Salads, a grill, a stir fry station, a station where you can get rice or paella of the day, desserts, pizza, sandwiches… they have it all. Also, it’s super cheap to fill a carafe with wine and grab a couple of glasses. So we had lunch for the first — but certainly not last — time. In fact, we take all our visitors there now, because the food and the view are both worth it!
6. Using the public healthcare system
Language assistants in Madrid are provided with a private health insurance plan through the NALCAP program, so every time I went to the doctor — which was a lot, because I was ALWAYS sick — it was through the private insurance. But now, with our digital nomad visas, we became eligible for the Spanish public health system due to the fact that we are Spanish taxpayers. And while we also bought private insurance that could cover us when we are back in the U.S., I finally had the opportunity to try out the public insurance for the first time.
Public health insurance in Spain is administered at the community level, so for me, that’s through the Community of Valencia where Alicante is located. Apparently you can make an appointment online, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that for the life of me, so instead I walked into the health center in the city center and asked a scheduler to make an appointment for me. She printed me a piece of paper and wrote down the floor and suite number where I needed to go — in the same building.
When the appointment finally rolled around, I arrived to the third floor, which had a large hallway full of doors and chairs outside them. Naturally, it took nearly an hour after my scheduled appointment time for the department I needed to call my name, and then when I got inside and talked to a nurse, she told me she couldn’t help me.
“The doctor doesn’t work here anymore, and we don’t have another one on staff. I wonder why they scheduled you an appointment with us.”
A great first impression. 😂
7. Making Spanish friends
You know what they say… low quality pic, high quality friends
As a language assistant in Madrid, the best friends I made were other language assistants. We were all there for the same reason, we all knew that we were there temporarily, and we all could relate to each other due to our shared experience. Also, we all spoke English — two friends were American, and one was Irish. (Sarah!) The only Spanish people I was interacting with regularly were the teachers at school, and we became close with one of them who was kind of like a “cool aunt” figure to Sarah and me.
Making friends in your 20s or 30s can be hard enough in your native country, especially when you’re not in school and you work from home. And I think Spanish people can be even harder to make friends with — while they’re super friendly, I feel like a lot of them have had the same friends since they were young and it can be harder to break in as anything more than a friendly acquaintance (obviously this is a huge generalization).
But we’ve recently made some actual Spanish friends in Alicante! Carlos and María are from Madrid, and just moved to Alicante from the U.S. in October of last year. It was so easy to relate to them because they were also new to Alicante, and they’ve experienced what it’s like to live abroad, and to live in both the U.S. and Spain. I have to admit that some of our American friends, Rod and Rebecca, did the heavy lifting on making friends with Carlos and María and introducing them to us, because Rod and Carlos work together in Elche, outside Alicante. But they are all great friends and it’s awesome to have someone we can ask questions about random Spain things. And having good friends is so important to feeling so settled in our life in Alicante. 🤍
So, there are seven new experiences I’ve had living in Spain this year! Did anything surprise you? What do you think? Let me know in the comments!
-Cathy
This site contains affiliate links. I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links at no additional cost to you.
Leave a Reply