Tag: spain

On December 7th, David and I became Alteans. Officially becoming two of the 23,000 people who live here was as simple as filing a paper with City Hall. It was an almost instantaneous process. Oh, how I wished that becoming part of the Altean community could be as easy!

We had barely moved in to our charming, village house before Paco had thrown us out, leaving us wondering whether all Alteans were as reserved as he, but, more importantly, instantly changing my whole vision of what life would be like in Altea. No longer would we hear the quiet voices of pedestrians walking by

In the United States, December 25th is a magical day. Children get excited about Christmas and put out milk and cookies for Santa Claus. In Spain, it’s January 6th that’s of utmost importance and Santa takes backseat to the true bearer of gifts: three kings—Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar—who travel by horses and camels laden with presents for all the boys and girls. And, in anticipation of their arrival, kids lay out their slippers filled with hay or dried grass for the kings’ animals.

David had told me many times about Three Kings Day, but it had never really held much significance for me, for I had yet to experience it for myself—until this year.

Robert Burns once wrote, "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry." Oh, how very true that statement is. Life is unpredictable. You may try to create the blueprints and lay the groundwork to make it happen, but, at any moment, life can throw you a curveball; and when that happens, all you can do is take a swing. It happened to us in New York. One of us getting laid off would have been a fastball. But both of us getting laid off within a week of each other turned out to be a curveball—one that sent us for a loop and dropped us off in Spain.

Moving day is just around the corner! We’re excited to settle into our new house and thrilled that we’ll soon be able to call Altea home. How great it feels to finally be able to focus on the future because, for a while, it felt as though we couldn’t escape from the past. The fact that the restaurant project with David’s dad didn’t work out quite as we had hoped had filled us with disappointment and it took most of the summer to come to terms with how things had panned out. But we have officially put the regret of Al Cante behind us and have wholly turned our attention to the future.

On November 15th, David and I will be moving and we’ll be taking our two cats and our 22 boxes with us. Torrevieja, with its close proximity to David’s family and its cheap rent has been a good transition place for us. But it isn’t our home, and we’ve known for a while that we don’t want to stay. We just didn’t know where we wanted to go. But now we do, and I’m excited for what lies ahead.

But the decision didn’t come easy. In fact, it was only after days of talking and examining our lives, including our past, present and future that we were finally able to come to a decision. The two contending locations? Altea, Spain or Paris, France.

A good thing about having a scooter that's made in China is that it’s such a no-name brand that it’s not even worthy of stealing. In the beginning, David was so overprotective that he would check on it regularly to make sure it hadn’t been stolen. Now, he’s so underprotective that he has actually removed the anti-theft lock for a day to use on our bikes instead. In fact, we’ve gotten so laissez-faire about our scooter that, twice, we’ve forgotten to move it for market days. Something that used to send us into a panic because our scooter would get lost in the crowd and have who knows what happen to it.

One of the best things about living in Spain is the fields and fields of crops. We pass by them when we’re on our way to see David’s family in their small village, or getting lost trying to find the water reserve, or when we’re simply just out and about exploring our surroundings. It’s refreshing to know that fresh produce is being harvested, that nature is being valued and preserved, and that the people here are still able to live off of the land.

We’ve seen everything from peaches and pomegranates to kale and medlar and my chef husband opens my eyes to all of these, for without him, I wouldn’t be able to tell one crop from another. I also certainly wouldn’t have a clue what type of fruit a medlar is. (For those unfamiliar like me, David ate this fruit when he was a kid, check out Wikipedia’s definition.) And the best indicator of what’s in season are the outdoor markets—as the persimmons replace the artichokes and the peaches overflow in an abundance. Even the date and olive trees that occasionally line the streets are bulging with fruits soon to be enjoyed.