Time. It can feel fast. It can feel slow. 2018 has been a rush of leisure for us. We have hurried through days and lounged for weeks, nicely adopting our new country’s attitude on savoring the moment and living a slow life.

One of the great pleasures we have had this year is showing our new home to our families. Dan’s mom has visited several times and different members of my family came and went for an entire month during the summer. Watching them experience our day to day life was fascinating. In such a short period of time, our routines and attitudes molded to Spanish culture and it wasn’t obvious to us until we were sharing our new life with our loved ones. We already take things for granted. It was eye-opening. (You will also notice some guest stars in some of the pictures).

Being an expat is “difficult”.  We live in such a beautiful country and our list of “must-see” places is ever growing.  On the other hand, we want to see the entire continent of Europe too.  When planning our travels, our attention often feels divided. We have the privilege of being able to travel frequently and the question always is: Explore Spain or a new country in Europe? Most of the time this year, Europe won, and I will catch you up on those travels in a week. But today, I want to show you the tiny portion of our new country that we have traveled to so far. There is still so much to see!

Bilbao

If you have ever traveled to Europe or even researched traveling to Europe, you know that Europeans love trains. While airfare between countries is unbelievably affordable, trains are still a very big deal. (When I say affordable, think 25% of what a plane ticket from Indiana to Missouri costs). So, we decided to take the train to the northern coast of Spain, Bilbao.

Bilbao is in Basque country. It is known for beautiful architecture, excellent food and a Guggenheim art museum. The city is easily walkable and comfortable. It is divided into two areas by the Nervion River. And you can tell a difference too! One side has been completely overhauled into a modern European city and the other side is, well, a little dirty.

During our two-day trip, we toured the Guggenheim and took a funicular to the top of Artxanda Mountain to get in the views.

Check out Bilbao…

Tenerife

This is in my Top 3 for the year. I still find my mind going back to our short little getaway to the tiny Canary Island of Tenerife. There is an endless supply of activities you can do here or you can relax.  Both seem to be equally encouraged.   In just a few days, we…

• Went whale watching
• Went on a star-gazing tour
• Dan rented a jet ski for an afternoon
• Visited an 18th century winery
• Spent a day at the pool
• I read an entire novel and Dan, of course, read two books 😊

It was beautiful, relaxing and English friendly. I would go back tomorrow…
(Tenerife will also always hold a special place in my heart because it was where I felt Squirms move for the first time).

 

Toledo

There are several cities near Madrid for day trips or even afternoon outings. Wanting to escape the city for an afternoon, we rented a car and drove an hour to Toledo. I knew nothing about Toledo, Spain.

The hubster LOVES an ancient walled city.  Toledo is surrounded by a river on three sides and a nicely preserved wall on the other.  In the city centre, the streets are so narrow that driving them is impossible. The town is full of twists and turns, giant old cathedrals, stunning architecture and it is remarkably easy to get lost. 🙂

For literary buffs, Toledo is near La Mancha, where Don Quixote’s adventures take place.

We were all surprised at how beautiful and interesting we found Toledo.

 

I love sharing our adventures with all of you.  Next week, I will show you where we have spent our time outside of Spain this year.

Love,
Nan

Man, am I behind! As it turns out, keeping up with a blog while traveling is challenging. Add in the joys of growing a human and you will find that it makes for a lengthy absence :). I found myself thinking about you a lot. I took many pictures in the last few months, some of which I took specifically to share with you.

So… I am going to work backwards to catch us up.

Last week, we decided out of the blue, to take one final trip, just the five of us, before Baby Girl arrives in January. We loaded our pups into a rental and drove to the east coast of Spain… Alicante!

Alicante is located about an hour and a half south of Valencia and about five hours from Barcelona. Both of which are on our list for future exploration :). But we were seeking a quiet and relaxed getaway this time and Alicante provided just that!

We stayed in a tiny hunting lodge, surrounded by the mountains. The accommodations were, to be polite, rustic.

Our heat was a wood-burning stove, the 20 square foot kitchen had countertops 30″ off the ground and we had a very interesting shower situation with no hot water (Check out the rock!) The lodge is located at the top of a fruit grove and surrounded by the almost constant sounds of donkeys, roosters, and virile cats. As with most places in Spain, there were no restaurants open late to cater to our hunger and the city of Alicante went dark around 6pm, right along with the sunset.

We spent our first two days reading and walking the pups, who seemed to enjoy the getaway as much as we did.  We even caught Ruby watching the sunrise on our first morning.

On the third day, we went into town and visited a bodega. Our tour guide, the owner, spoke beautifully broken English and was so proud of his wine, he may have tasted more than Dan. :). After, we found a restaurant that was open until 4pm to have paella. While the food was fine, our scenic views were what our lunch conversation centered around. Not surprising, Valencia orange trees ripe with beautiful fruit were all around us and we felt safely hugged by the mountains. If you are looking for quiet and slow living, this is the place where you find it.

Our final day before heading back to Madrid, we took a half hour detour and found the Mediterranean Sea for Jezza.

What a life!  Up next, Bilbao!

So good to be back,

Nan

Man, I have A LOT to catch you up on…  I promise that I haven’t forgotten about you! This summer has been UNBELIEVABLE and its not over yet.  😊

So I don’t overwhelm you, Dan and I did a metro stop last week that I can’t wait to share.  We traveled to Chueca, an alternative area of Madrid and finally found a great pizza.  Pizza is a love of mine and Madrid, well, doesn’t have good pizza at all.  In fact, our real estate agent bragged that the best pizza in town was Dominoes.    Not exactly exotic.

My appreciation of Instagram continues for leading us to Roostiq, recently named best pizza in Madrid.  Wanting to get out of the house for an evening, I coaxed the hubster into pizza for dinner and a Flamenco show for dessert.  Neither disappointed. The pizza was cooked in a wood burning oven.  The ingredients were from a local farm.  Dan had pork cracklings for an appetizer and they were amazing.  And for dessert, apple pie that tasted like home.  This may be my favorite date night so far in Madrid.

The Flamenco show was in a brick-walled cellar.  The stage was just big enough for five chairs and two dancers.  It was authentic Spanish flamenco.  Beautiful and loud.  I didn’t know that much about Flamenco before this evening and I exited the show with a desire to know more.  Expect more Flamenco shows in the future 🙂

June and July updates to follow…