What I Miss About Living in Spain

There’s still not a whole lot to write about around here… though as COVID cases keep decreasing here in KC and vaccinations keep increasing, it’s getting easier to feel hopeful! Matt and I are both vaccinated now, as well as my parents and sisters, so we are ready to get moving again! Though, of course, it’s going to take some time for other places to catch up.

But it seems like I’m dreaming about my life in Madrid — and traveling in general — more than usual lately. So while I wait for the day when it’s safe to start traveling again, I thought I would make a list of all the things I miss about living in Spain.

What I Miss About Living in Spain

Being in Europe. Europe feels so different from America. Also, it’s really far away! It blew my mind every day that I was living so far away from home. Plus, being so close to so many other countries.

The lifestyle. Even in the capital of Madrid, life isn’t the rat race that it is in the U.S. People eat slow (2-hour lunches… that’s one thing I never quite got used to), move slow, and live slow. They don’t work too hard because they’re more concerned with enjoying their lives. What a revolutionary idea.

Madrid’s location in Spain and Europe. Madrid was a great place to snag a flight to any other major European city — being a major city itself, there were usually plenty of direct flights available. But also, Madrid is located almost exactly in the center of Spain. That meant it was pretty easy to get almost anywhere else in the country within a reasonable amount of time — like Granada, Sevilla, and Bilbao. I also took a ton of day trips from Madrid.

Walking everywhere. I can’t overstate this. I was in great shape just due to the fact that I walked everywhere. Like 3 miles or more a day, without even trying. Also, walking everywhere is a great way to experience the place where you live.

Café con leche. Café con leche is one of life’s small joys that is readily available for the low price of somewhere between €1 and €1.50. It’s espresso with scalded milk served in a cute little teacup — and sometimes with a bite-sized pastry.

Menu del día. Have you ever wished you could get a three-course meal with a beverage — sometimes an entire bottle of wine — for about €10? Well, Spain is your place. Most places offer Menu del Día, menu of the day, on weekdays for lunch. And you get an appetizer, main course, and dessert along with bread and a drink. It’s so cheap!

The cafe down the street. Every day I didn’t have to work, I would get breakfast at Bakers&Coffee cafe which was like a 15-second walk from my apartment. For less than €2, I could get a Spanish breakfast (bread and jam) along with coffee. There was WiFi. Life was good.

Using Euros. When’s the last time you used paper money? I kinda loved having a wallet full of bills and coins all the time. Plus, they’re so pretty compared to dollars.

Taking the metro. I am a public transportation stan, and I’m a huge fan of the Madrid metro! It’s one of the cleanest, most well-organized subway systems I’ve ever seen. Even when I returned to London and my beloved London Underground, I had to admit that the Madrid metro was better. (Less confusing, less crowded, and less expensive… by a lot.)

Free health insurance. Considering that in the U.S. I’m paying almost $300 a month for health insurance I’m not even using, I’m SURE missing the days of having free health insurance. Through so many doctor visits and trips to the ER, I never paid a single penny in Spain. Life was better then.

My balcony. Especially in the COVID days when I literally COULD NOT go anywhere (if you think you were locked down in the U.S., you probably weren’t. We were on house arrest.) my balcony was one of the places I could enjoy the outdoors. When every day was the same for months on end, I would sit out the table and read, listen to an audio book, talk to my family on FaceTime, or just look out at the street below.

Trying new things. Yemas of Santa Teresa in Avila (those are CANDIED EGG YOLKS), a Vietnamese supper club in Madrid, making paella… I always feel a little braver when I’m abroad.

Always feeling a little bit like a fish out of water. I think, when you live abroad — and this is probably more true when you haven’t lived there for years and years — you always feel like you’re different, and that everyone else can tell. Just the way you carry yourself, the way you talk, the way you dress. You’re always just a LITTLE bit uncomfortable because this isn’t your home society. It was a weird feeling, and it never bothered me much, but it was actually enough to keep me constantly in awe of the fact that I was really in Spain.

Constantly talking to myself in Spanish. It’s not because I was so ~fLuEnT~ that my internal monologue changed… no, it was because I was always practicing what I might need to say to the next person I was coming in contact with. Whether it was trying to plan how I would explain the symptoms of my sickness to the doctor, or ask the bus driver if he could turn on the air conditioning… I was always practicing. And then trying to anticipate the response I’d receive so I could respond to that. Exhausting, but practicing definitely helped.

My school. A lot of language assistants get placed in horrible schools where they don’t care about them, or make them teach entire classes by themselves. While I was initially upset about my school’s location in very rural northern “Madrid,” it took me about 5 seconds of being in the school to immediately feel at home. They had realistic expectations for me, they were extremely nice, and they let me change my schedule all the time if I had plans to take a trip or a friend coming to visit.

My students. Every time I think about those kids, my heart breaks just a little bit — especially because I never got to say goodbye to them. When school was canceled for “two weeks” in March 2020, we all went home like it was a normal day. None of us could have imagined that it would be the last day of school altogether. Those little 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders were like my little siblings. Even though they were Spanish native speakers and I only spoke to them in English, I felt like we were best friends. We would tease each other and have fun. And they were SO SMART! I want to see them grow up and become more and more confident in their English. Oh my GOD I MISS THEM.

Daily breakfasts in Buitrago. While taking a 6:45am bus for two hours to get to school wasn’t my idea of fun… school didn’t start until 9:30. Which meant I was there 45 minutes early. So I would head to “Capricho de Mari,” which was owned by a sweet Romanian lady, for a barra and café con leche.

Rainbows. I’ve never seen more rainbows in my life than I did when I was at work in Buitrago. Maybe it was the unpredictable weather from being in the mountains, but I feel like there was a rainbow at least once a week. If I saw a good one, I would sometimes quietly leave class and sneak into the bathroom where I could open the window and get a good photo.

The feeling of accomplishing my dream. During my very first visit to Europe in 2011 (Germany), I fell in love. I would spend the next few years trying to figure out how I could go back as often as possible. After a study-abroad semester in London in 2013, I was determined to live in Europe after college graduation. Unfortunately, it’s really hard to live in the EU as as non-citizen. But after three years in my traditional, corporate job, I quit — left everything behind — and made the big move. I was finally doing what I’d always wanted to do.

Having picnics. I’ve never had so many picnics in my life as I did in Spain.

Learning funny Spanish expressions. I learned that when you have a hole in your sock and your big toe pops out, they say you have a tomate… a tomato. When you look like you’re sick, you have a mala cara… a “bad face.” And I learned it’s even funnier when someone says those sayings in English thinking it means the same thing.

Staying up late and waking up late. This is another part of the lifestyle I appreciated. No one goes to work by 8am… 10am is the normal start time. No one in Spain would ever wake up that early unless there was a really good reason. They go to bed late and get up late. That’s my kind of place.

Having friends and family visit. There is nothing better than having someone you love come see you! You get to spend time with someone you’ve dearly missed, and you get to share your new home with them.

American, Irish, and Spanish friends. The place where you live is only as good as the people you surround yourself with. I had a small circle of close friends in Spain, and I can’t imagine my time there without them.

Weekend trips. My first year in Spain, I made a commitment to travel to another country at least once a month, and I did. It was so cheap and easy. One time I got a direct flight to Brussels for €12.

Raging about Spanish bureaucracy. I spent a lot of time raging about Spanish bureaucracy in the two years I was there. But when you get it right… DAMN it’s satisfying.

Churros. No explanation necessary.

 

If you’ve ever lived somewhere else, what do you miss about it? Let me know in the comments!

–Cathy

Originally Published on March 27, 2021.