Why I moved from the US to Spain
Many people on both sides of the political spectrum swear they will move if the other candidate wins. Almost no one ever does. We did. The morning after November 8, 2016, I announced to my husband, “Get me the fuck out of this country.”
It wasn’t just the election that broke my heart. I knew there was only the most meager of chances that Texas would turn blue. It was the ugliness I saw burst forth from so many unexpected people in the town where we lived. As small Texas towns go, ours was on the more liberal side, so the sheer amount of hate and ugliness was more than I could bear.
It was especially depressing to witness it being the Native Texan and Flaming Liberal that I am. Yes, I know that sounds oxymoronish, but there are more of us than most people realize. Just not enough to save Texas from insanity.
We had, for the past two decades, travelled all over Europe and had already talked about buying a “holiday home” (to use my now-adopted European parlance). The election instantly changed my thoughts from a few months a year in Europe to full time and permanent.
After my post-election-morning pronouncement, Eric asked, “Where do you want to move?” My answer was immediate, “Valencia, Spain!” When I said this, we had actually never been to Spain. My choice came as the result of one of life’s little synchronous moments. Always pay attention to those “odd coincidences” and chance encounters — they just might hold the key to your future.
It was late October 2016 and we were attending the Leoš Janáček Music Festival in Brno, Czechia. We were staying in an apartment above a hostel. After an evening performance, we ran into another older couple at the tiny elevator that led to the private apartments. We chatted about the festival as we rode to our floors.
For the rest of the 17-day festival, we met Rosalind and John for breakfast every morning and enjoyed several dinners together. They lived in a small village a couple of hours south of Valencia. From Rosalind, I learned many wonderful things about the area and its culture and history. She assuaged my concerns about bullfighting by telling me it was losing popularity, and was even outlawed in Catalonia (the region where Barcelona is located) as well as almost a hundred other cities and towns. Rosalind convinced me that a vacation to Valencia should be in my future.
The 2016 election was one week after we returned home. Valencia was still fresh on my mind and I still felt the love and excitement exuded by Rosalind. It seemed appropriate to tell Eric that’s where we should move. When I announced to friends the next week that we were moving to Valencia, they expressed surprise at the sudden decision as well as the location. (I don’t think anyone took me seriously when I said for all of 2016 that we would move if Trump won.) “Have you been to Spain?” I was asked a dozen times. My “nope” response raised more than a few eyebrows.
We headed to Spain in April 2017 after conversing online for four months with a realtor in the Valencia region. (You may recognize the name Nick Snelling if you’ve watched any House Hunters International shows featuring Spain.) He wasn’t their realtor when I found him, but he had written an excellent book, which I ran across through Google searches.
I figured one of two things would happen: we’d either fall in love with the area and find our new home, or we’d have a lovely vacation. It was a win-win.
As it turns out, the Valencia region of Spain is everything Rosalind said it was. We fell head over heels. During our two-week stay, we looked at 20 houses in a dozen small villages within an hour’s drive of the city. We found our dream home in a tiny mountain village south of Valencia, near the lovely medium-sized city of Gandia. I was both excited and terrified when our offer was accepted.
The real challenge happened when we returned to the US: retiring, selling our ranch and vehicles, organizing paperwork to apply for long-term visas, arranging for pet transport, and more. That’s a topic for a future article.
Suffice it to say, we completed the tasks, in spite of sometimes feeling overwhelmed, and stepped foot in Spain from our one-way flight on September 1, 2017.
Was it worth it? Am I happy? When we moved, we knew two people: Rosalind (John had since passed on) and Nick. We sold almost everything and left behind friends and family, deep roots, the security of knowing a place since childhood, and more. But I can say it’s the best decision of my life.
It’s not just the gorgeous setting. It’s the quality of food thanks to EU food standards and regulations, the lack of a “gun culture” (there were 282 (.58 per 100,000) gun-related deaths in all of Spain in 2017), the escape from feeling the place I live is constantly on the verge of a civil war (Spain is a “been there/done that/never again” country), the amazing healthcare (Spain rates #7 — the US is down at #37), the concept that life and family are more important than working 60+ hours a week, the festivals (oh, the festivals — Spain definitely knows how to celebrate holidays), and the fact that the rest of Europe is my “backyard” so a quick trip to Paris, Krakow, Rome, or a thousand other places is affordable and easy.
Even after four+ years, I still feel like I’m living a dream. I truly believe Spain saved my life. It certainly saved my sanity. If you’ve ever imagined even for the briefest moment about moving to someplace amazing and exotic, come see Spain! You’ll discover the truth for yourself.
