We are Tania and Gaetano, two expats who moved our families to Spain for new adventures. We both moved here from the US, Tania (originally from the UK) in 2020, with her husband and daughter from Northern Virginia, and Gaetano in 2023 with his two daughters from Los Angeles. We all met in Valencia and got along incredibly well, but while we cracked each other up discussing our fun times adjusting to Spain, there were quite a few eye-rolls from our girls (tweens and teenagers anyone!). In an effort to give our daughters a little break we thought what the heck, let’s share our experiences with unsuspecting strangers instead. This podcast came to life and we hope you enjoy the pitfalls and joys of our experiences - we all have!
AI generated, please excuse any errors!
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[Music]
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Buenos diaz. Welcome to a Spain. How are you Tanya? I'm good. Um, sort of.
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Sort of. Is this an a Spain? Are you Are you trying to tell me you have an Ospain for me? I do have an a Spain. And it's a little
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both. It's good and bad. Well, not bad. It's good and good and good and not what we expected. So, we had a uh what we
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decided to do because it's the end of summer and the weather does kind of drop in September like as soon as the kids go
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to school where we'll have hot days, but it's not so beachy weathery, you know? So, we were we've been Go ahead.
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Can I just say something cuz I noticed this when I hate to go on a tangent so quickly conversation.
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Go on. But I was noticing yesterday as I was walking around this city, sweating
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my my brains out, that there was a chill to the 87°. There literally is a chill
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to the 87. It's not the same 87 from two weeks ago. You're like, "This feels chilly, but I'm sweating and dying, but
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it's not the same, right?" And that and that is exactly what I'm talking about. whereas it becomes less beach weather because that
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what comes along with that is this cooler weather and also possibly a little bit more wind and nobody wants
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wind at the beach because that's sand everywhere. So we were kind of like okay last last Saturday morning we me and my
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friend have been going paddle boarding. We paddle board and then the kids and we just hang out and and everyone just has
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a nice time and we just leave whenever and it's really nice because it's it's getting to the end of August and it was
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delightful. So we're now in September. We're like, "Let's do one last beach hang before school." And so we go, we
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take our paddle boards, the kids, we're all going down there. My friend and I go out and to to go paddle boarding, we're
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paddling out. We're not so great that we can stay on the board all the time,
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okay? We haven't quite reached that level, okay? We're jealous of those people that just
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like jump on the board and just paddle out and we're like, "Who are you? When will we be those people?" So, we might fall in every now and again. And we get
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up there and both of us had fallen in just kind of getting up the first time and then we look down and there's
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jellyfish everywhere. Oh my god. And I'm like I don't I like that.
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Was it like Finding Nemo? Was it like Finding Nemo? So, if anybody wants to look them up, they're they're they're
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affectionately called fried egg jellyfish, but let me tell you, they're probably
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like 10 12 in like in diameter. They're huge. They're not these tiny little
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things. And then they're like also traveling in packs. And I'm like, I don't know enough about marine animals
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at all to know like what jellyfish will sting you and what won't and like all this stuff. I just don't know. So, I'm
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terrified. I don't want to fall into a pack of what's a pack of jellyfish? A murder of jellyfish or whatever it is
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you call a a bunch of jellyfish a flock of jellyfish. I don't know.
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Please let us know what they're called. So, you know, I'm just like, "Oh my god, this totally ruined like the whole like,
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you know, reason that we got up at 7:00 in the morning to go to the beach when the water would be a bit smoother and do all this thing." But we come back in.
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Wait, so were you in the You were on the water. We were on the water at that point and I'm like I I'm not I'm now I'm
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going to fall in because I don't want to fall in and I don't want to fall into a whole bunch of jellyfish. So we like we
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sort of are like this isn't we're fair weather uh paddle boarders. I'm not I
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don't need to be out there with a bunch of jellyfish. That's not really my thing. So we paddle back in and then we start looking up the jellyfish and we
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find out actually they're not that they're not that stingy. But you don't want to be on the underneath of them
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because they're they will kind of give you a little bit of a like from a nestle or something like a little bit of a
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sting which of course is if you fall into a bunch of them that's what you're going to get. And I'm like that's not what I want this morning. So we stay out
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and of course the kids at that point are like oh this is fun. Let's go out and look at them. So the kids get on the
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boards and they go out and they go look at them and everyone. So we're having a wonderful Saturday morning before school
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and we hung out at the beach but I did not go back in the water. will say. Okay. I wouldn't either.
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No. And I do think there are apps for that. I just I So, I need to download the apps for for next summer and make
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sure I Is there a jellyfish reporting app? I think so. I think the apps that do the the wind and the the temperature of the
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water and all the things that people that like surfing and that type of thing do like will that those apps will also
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because I think I do think the jellyfish come in sort of waves and then then they go out like it's not it's not they're
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not here all the time. Let's put it that way. I don't know. No, but now I know. I know more about it than I did.
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But I don't. That's my Spain. We had a wonderful time at the beach. We had a wonderful morning of hanging out and
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everyone was sort of just enjoying themselves, but the but the jellyfish were an an uninvited guest. So, I think
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this kind of leads us into our episode because if you're coming from Iowa, this might be one thing you need to know
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before you move to somewhere like Blood Sea of Spain where you don't have jellyfish. We have jellyfish here. So, that'll be our first thing.
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But not often. I haven't I'm going to be saying I haven't seen that often, so I don't want to scare people. That was that was definitely a one-off. But yeah,
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the 10 things to do before you move. Download apps. Download apps. Yeah.
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I mean, there's a lot of things to do that you need to get done. So, we're going to sort of talk a little bit about
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just basic things. And I think the first thing, we're not going to tell you how to get your visa and your paperwork sorted, but we do have some advice on
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things that kind of need to follow a plan to make sure you have them in your schedule in the right place. Right.
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Right. Like what what to kind of like mentally prepare you so you can go out and hunt and find the resources and and
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and all this stuff is always changing. So, I mean, if we did tell you all the how-tos, it's not going to mean anything
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in it would be different tomorrow. So, I guess we're going to start with visas because you need those to get
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here. You do. We're not going to tell you how to do it, but some advice, right? We're not going to tell you how
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to do it um because it will change, but some things do not change, which is an apostle. And if you've never gone
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through this process, an apostle is a government double certification. So,
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and it's called a HEGL. A HG Apostle. the H Apostle. It's a worldwide kind of thing. So they there's a process to it.
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And when you have a birth certificate, it needs to get apostled because it has a signature on it. There's other things
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you need to get notorized and then that will have to be apostled. And they're basically they're verifying that the
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signature on that document is a real signature. So even though your birth certificate might be certified and it's
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got a stamp from the county, this is from the governor's office saying
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this is what you need. And then some apostles in the America, the apostles will come from the states and then it um
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and it's certifying that that signature actually does exist in their register of people who are allowed to sign. So that
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hospital signature is correct or the notary signatures correct. Yes. And it's not like this is not a mailbox etc type of situation. This will
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have to be done through a government office like you said the governor or something like that and
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it's usually the department of state in each in each state. Yeah. And it's something that is like you said an internationally approved
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system that every country has a system that the other countries have agreed to abide by to say that this is true.
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So I never really fully understood why certain things needed to get redone but they will. So check with your check with
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whoever's helping you or check the latest list of directions from the Spanish websites of what you need
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because there will be a time frame which might be 3 months or 6 months for for different documents. So one document
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might be 3 months, one document might be 6 months, but if you run if that runs out, you will have to go back and get it
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done again. So if you come here and you're filing for a visa and you had your HG Apostals done 6 months ago,
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they're all over. you have to go back and do them all again. So, the recommendation that we have basically is
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get the get those at the last moment possible. I mean, don't run out of time to get them, but get make them as new as
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possible when you leave. Basically, from our point of view, we were doing residency, so we didn't do any paperwork
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in the States. We moved here with everything and then we needed to file. So, what we needed to do was have our
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paperwork done at the last minute possible there so that we wouldn't have to go back and get it done when we were
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still in in Spain. So, we got it done. You weren't coming here on a visa. What? No, we were doing residency.
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So, so that you were doing all your paperwork here. Nothing happened. Nothing happened there. Everything was happening here. So, what unfortunately
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for us because of co we did end up having to go back and get it done. It is not fun getting this stuff done in
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another country when you're not there. So, you know, figure out what it is that you need to be doing and then make sure
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that when you're ready to file your stuff that your paperwork isn't too old. These hostals aren't too old. So, when
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you came over, you're filing everything here. No, nothing gets filed. You're coming over here on a visa. Everything's
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happening in the United States. So it's like we're maybe we'll even do another episode more long about the difference
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between visa and people who are EU citizens or EU res you know people are coming on a residency thing because it
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is different because from the visa I would suggest to everyone every consulate's different in the United
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States so you have to go to the consulate because some of them will have different requirements of how old certain apostles can be.
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So like in California we're in LA at the time that I did this. probably feather
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me. It's all changed. The only thing that could be no older than 90 days was the criminal background
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check. So that was like the crazy one and but everything else was like 6 months and before your appointment like
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you you had time to get that stuff in, but I worked within a three-month time frame. So I knew nothing was going to be
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you just kept everything three months. So tell me something. So you had were you given an appointment like ahead of time that you that you could then go get
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the Hag apostles done or did you get all your HG apostles done and then ask for an appointment and you kind of got it quite quickly like what was the order
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that you did it and I know this might be different for other people and I I know it's different for different consulates for sure. So no, so this is one thing I
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think it's the same for all consulates. It's called praying for Jesus because there is no there is no
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so you are literally jumping into blind faith. There is there is you because the
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appointment appointments at the consulates it's it is I will I would like to tell our listeners that this is
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a a prelude a precursor to your life in Spain of trying to get important appointments the things that like you
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needed yesterday. There is no system and it is it is as you know when you're trying to get your tie appointments here
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like how do you do it and there's you just one day it happens and you get it but you'll search every day 24 hours a
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day and nothing. So it's the same with trying to get your appointments at the consulate. So you really are working
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backwards from the time you want to arrive in Spain and then and then you're
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you're praying every day that it works out. So your arrival in Spain, your appointment could only be so many days
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before your arrival in Spain, right? It's got to be then because they there's a time frame and you've given them that date. So
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theoretically, they would they should give you an appointment somewhere before that date. No, you're this is all in your in your head.
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Yes. This is all in your head. It's just between It's just between you and the airline at this point,
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right? So you're So you've bought a ticket to move to Spain in July. July
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5th, you're moving to Spain and now only so many days before can your visa be
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approved. So it's I think it's like 3 months before your visa can be approved. Okay.
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So you have 90 days like do that date, right? And then once your visa is approved, they put the date on it that
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you've put and then you have 90 days after that. So you can have up to like 180 days, but your appointment can't be
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more than 90 days before you want to arrive. Got it. So as far as getting the the things apart, you can sort of start
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doing that and getting that done is before you think about three months like if you
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for me I was like I wanted like three month the appointment 3 months before the date we had already booked the tickets to move because that was also
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like if there was any problem I would have enough time to fix anything on the application and still not lose the
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flight and the money for that. So do that and then you work from that. So then three months before that, so you're
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really looking at six months before that's when I started sending away for all my apostles. There you go. Okay, that's the
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information I think that that's helpful. And then if you're in if you're doing a residency,
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you have to just get all that stuff done as close get it all back as close before your flight that you come over as
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possible because you're going to need that stuff here. And as you just said, you don't know when your appointments are going to be and when all these
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things are going to happen. So you really need it. You don't want to be going in with all your HG Apostle stuff
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3 months old already cuz now you're already it's already messed up. It's already messed up. Yeah. And so
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this is the thing. You don't want to go to your visa appointment and really the criminal background check is the one that has caused most people the most
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headache. What I'd like to say also and then I'll go into that is so you have the date you would like your appointment
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to be and then you work three months before that to start getting your but really you want to start like two months
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before because getting the appointment they release them like it's there's no
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rhyme or reason and you're just checking all the time and there's all these people think had these different ways they did it and I was lucky to get one
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out of the blue after searching every day for two weeks and sweating being like oh no I'm not going to get it this
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time and all this other stuff is expired and now I'm like what am I going to do? It's really you just you got to pray like candles I don't know voodoo
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whatever you do just have all of that at your disposal.
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Right. Right. So that is so true. Oh but let me let me just say one thing
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so I can get that tangent out of my head. the criminal background check is only can be 90 days old and if you've
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lived in so in the LA consulate at the time and I've heard other consulates are
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different some want a full FBI check and some consulates say just your state is
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fine if you've lived in that state for 5 years or more you only need that background check but you'll get that information from the
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consulate directly so you know you don't have to guess that information right right but the the the difference is if
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you're only dealing with your state, you'll get your criminal report back that day and they'll send the letter within like a week and it's like very
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quick. But if you have to get a national FBI one, be prepared. That takes many weeks to get.
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Okay. So, that's good to know. That's where people are like, I'm not going to get this before my appointment
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even, right? That's kind of a stressor, right? That's what I'd like to add. So, be prepared and do your research on how
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to get the FBI and put that into your timeline before you start your timeline so you can kind of figure out where that
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goes in your timeline, right? And I said timeline a lot. And along with paperwork, I think
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probably one of the easiest things to do is to get your health care sorted out before your private healthcare sorted
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out before you move. That's super super easy. There's quite a few companies that do it. they know exactly what um what
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you need as far as coverage for your visa and that's very easy to do from from any other country. So that but that
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is something you also need to have sorted. So that goes along with all the visa paperwork stuff. So just remember
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to get that that will not be a headache. That will be the easiest. It won't be. But there is some thing that people need to prepare for for the
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for the the visa people. You an insurance company will not give you
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insurance or a quote for more than 30 days out. So they won't give you like, oh, I'm moving in July, but my
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appointment's in April. I want it to start in July. It's going to start May. It the the latest they can do it is like
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May 1st. So you'll be paying for health insurance for months that you're not using. And the health insurance is so
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cheap. But just put that in your timeline. Like also put that in your register. You're going to have to have 1,600, 1,000, 3,000 depending on what
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they what your quote is in your family size paid before you move and before your appointment because it has to show that
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it's paid for already. That makes sense. Yeah. It needs to be already in place because they don't want they don't want it that you then don't
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pay for it or something and like Yeah, we have a promise that it's not working on. Yeah, exactly.
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Um, I think that covers visa paperwork stuff since we started on the most stress. Well, I don't know. I think it's some of it's very stressful. So, I do
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want to also just say in regards to stress, it it does all get sorted. So, we're
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going to go through things and we're just sort of giving our advice on how we did it, but it's it you you know, it
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happens and you go through and at the end of the day, you end up in Spain eating tapas and having a nice time. So,
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just keep that in mind, especially when you're downsizing and packing and purging all of your stuff, which I think
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was probably the most stressful part because you really have to go through your things and make decisions.
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Yeah. Your your whole history and depending. I mean, I had 53 years or no, I was 50
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when I had 50 years of life to to go through. You had I did not I've moved a lot that I don't
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get that attached to things. I mean, my husband will say that differently. I like to have things, but I don't really
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necessarily have a problem saying, "Okay, yeah, I don't need this now." And we obviously decided not to move. We
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decided to move without any furniture, but still, we had a lot of things that we could have bought and we have to go
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through them. And especially when you have children as well, you're dealing with their emotions as well as yours.
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Now, we get attached to things, but they're really attached to things in, I think, a whole different way. And it's
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so we I did like I want to I I did a purge and then I looked around and I was
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like well that's too much stuff to take. Right. So then I took a break and then I did
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another purge. Let's remind And let's remind our listeners for people who are new who have maybe been listening to this from
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the get-go. Tanya arrived with suitcases. She shipped nothing. So we did not. We arrived with 12 suitcases
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and I came with it. I shipped stuff. So we have different very different. So, I had to purge a whole lot more than most people do cuz
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we decided not to ship anything. And we just came with our 12 suitcases. So, three, four of those were stuffed toys
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and and things probably, right? And the rest of it was like, we each get a bag and put your stuff in. We had we we had
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enough. We we had plenty of things as it turned out. But yeah, so I did I want to say three purges. gave some of my my my
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more treasured belongings to friends so that they could they could stay sort of in my circle and then I had we had in
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our area a buy nothing. Are you familiar with that on Facebook which I loved but I mean not every area has it. That's a
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great way to give away things that aren't maybe quite sellable or things if you try to doing it a bit quicker cuz
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and then anything or it needs to get done tonight and you're just putting it out on the door, just putting it out, taking a picture,
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posting it free, you know, and and then obviously there's donations for things that aren't quite sellable
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but are still good enough to for somebody to use. And then there's trash. So, it's like every time I purged, I had
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these these different piles. And then I just had to keep purging I want to say two, three, four times until I got down
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to kind of what we were going to have actually with us and and then you know
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by that point you're actually feeling quite like free and and kind of like well
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that's kind of cool you know you're feeling quite proud of yourself. So I think at that point I had a very good feeling about it afterwards.
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Yeah. I mean I wanted to move art. I I I'm attached to my artwork. It is a collection that I've been curating and
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stuff. So, and there's stuff I wanted to bring in. I did like kind of a a cost, risk, loss, benefit analysis kind of
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thing and talked to moving companies. And then they were, and I think I've mentioned this before, but I'll say it again. I was like, how much is it per
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square or per cubic foot to move? And then I looked at all the stuff and I said, it would cost me twice as much to
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replace it, so I might as well spend this much to move it. And right and I probably overpaid a little bit for
20:15
my moving, but I also did the white club surface stuff where they packed it up and they and then unpacked it and took
20:21
the boxes away and I had to do nothing and they handled all the paperwork. So for as a single parent of two moving
20:26
across the world to me it was worth probably paying an extra three grand for not having because I wouldn't have
20:32
been able to handle the paperwork and fill all that stuff out and so that was easy breezy.
20:37
I'm not sure anybody wants to do that part, right? I mean, I think it probably would have been possible for you to pack
20:43
and unpack, but al but to have them to pay them for the paperwork, I would imagine. Right. Well, they don't know what's in
20:49
the boxes, so they have to. Okay. So, they it's it's all or nothing in that regard then.
20:54
Kind of. Yeah. And like, and the boxes can be miscellaneous, miscellaneous, house good, kitchen stuff. There's not
21:00
like itemizing everything, but you know, they handled all the customs. I didn't have to deal with anything. And I know a lot of shipping, you can you pack, we
21:07
ship, they handle that stuff, too. I was just like I need someone to like I want to put it in a corner of the house which
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I did corner of the the corner of our house was the stuff that was going and when they arrived they just did it and
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then I said go into the kitchen if it's in cabinets it's because we had already purged the kitchen so everything that
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was in the kitchen was moving which was like plates and things and so they just packed it all and when they arrived they
21:30
were out of when they arrived they were out in 3 hours they had everything done unpacked in the shelves. Okay. How was your how was your
21:37
estimate? because I don't know if I would be very good at estimating how much cubic meters or square feet or
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whatever it is they're using to calculate by having things in cabinets and stuff. So like where was your
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estimate of what you thought you had versus what you ended up having? So I paid for a cubic footage, right? A
21:56
certain amount of the container and I literally measured it out in the corner of the house and I was like that's what
22:02
it is. But you still had stuff in cabinets in the kitchen and stuff you Yeah. But I could know I mean I know how much plates. It wasn't like I had
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hundreds of things. It was like it was our our plates that I wanted to move. Like there was certain like I I knew what it was. So I was like, "Well,
22:13
that's probably two boxes." So I had I could visualize that space in the corner of the room of that's how much cubic
22:20
footage we got. So you had everything in the corner of the room except for like the kitchen. So it was a really easy job for them
22:25
because they literally didn't have to the easiest job they ever had. Yeah. Oh my goodness. They literally were like, "Really?
22:31
Really?" I mean, they were definitely like, "Wow, this was the best." cuz they were out of our house in LA in 2 or 3
22:37
hours it was done. And then we were still in the middle of purging and I was like, well, if it didn't make it on the
22:44
truck now, it's definitely a purge, right? Yeah, that's true. And I think as far as like for other people that are doing it,
22:49
I think I just want to point out too like think about where you're going. Like so we were moving, CO was about to
22:55
start. We didn't know how bad that was going to be, but we were pretty confident that shipping things was going
23:00
to be a complete nightmare. And that would have been I don't know we might still not have our stuff if it probably
23:06
would have been pushed over the side of a boat several years ago if it had if we had actually shipped anything. And think
23:13
about where you're going. Like are you moving from a massive house into an apartment in the city? Like so you also
23:18
like think about how much stuff you actually need and how much room you're going to have here because you might very easily be going from a house in
23:24
America. Apartments are bigger. Everything's bigger there generally. So you're probably bigger. I mean, just
23:31
just the rooms. You're probably going to be moving to a smaller place in some regard here, right? Like, it might have more square
23:37
footage, but your bedroom's going to be a lot smaller. You're like, that's true. I mean, our apartment is twice the size
23:44
of our old place in LA, and our bedrooms are a third of the size. So, we could never have fitted any of the furniture.
23:51
So, I also like I didn't move furniture and I did exactly that. I was like, where are we moving and what do I want? I don't want the furniture. It was all
23:56
old, you know. And you rented a place before you moved. Some people are coming here and they haven't rented a place yet, so they
24:02
don't even know what they're going to be getting. So then you really need to purge down, I think, to make sure. I've
24:07
definitely seen I've seen posts of people being like, "Yeah, we've we got all our stuff and these are the things
24:13
that don't fit in our apartment. Who wants some?" Well, you know, they've paid to have those shipped over, so that's kind of a waste, right?
24:19
So, have a good think about that. And if you're going to move a container, look at the cost because it really was
24:26
it was a it was a decision. It was it was it was not that hard of a decision, but it was a it was something that if I
24:32
had more things would have been deciding factor from the price of renting like a third of the container to the whole
24:38
container was only a price difference of like 4,000. And if I was going to know I was moving into a big place, I probably
24:45
would have spent the 4,000 and moved so much more stuff over because I would have I would there's so much I had to
24:51
that I rebought here that I'm like, not a lot. But for that extra 4,000, you're like, "Oh, and I can fit
24:56
some couches or grandma's antique thing that I really don't want to get rid of and it will fit into the place we're moving." Those are that kind of cost
25:03
risk analysis. But also I will say and I think you would I mean you obviously have proved this to be true as well is
25:09
that when you get rid of so much of your life it is so freeing.
25:14
[Music] I brought this up that I wanted so glad
25:21
I did and I am so glad I let go of all the things I did. There's nothing here I wish I would have purged. And there's
25:28
like three things I wish I would have kept. And that's a that's a wonderful mix of, you know, that is really nice. And you you're
25:34
right. I mean 4,000 if you were to spend that, you might not be able to buy those items like that many items again. So you
25:42
will be spending more than 4,000 to to refernish a place if you haven't bought that over for sure.
25:49
And and I think to that to that point, let's talk about like the actual traveling and the the time like we
25:54
obviously did that very differently because we traveled with our we did not travel light. So we did not reduce the
26:00
stress of the traveling part. We had 12 massive suitcases. If you imagine those we're not talking about like we're
26:05
talking about that they were gigantic duffel bags that I had got on Amazon that I don't know what they're designed
26:11
for but that's what we used. Oh, like the ones that like hold Christmas trees, like the ones that they were both size or several bodies depending on what
26:17
you're doing with your life. So, we had 12. There's a lot of holes in her backyard.
26:24
Her yard isn't even. I'm just saying we know where those bodies are. So, we had those with us. So, we did not
26:30
travel light, but I would imagine that if you are actually shipping things that
26:35
to try and travel with as the little I mean, you're going to need things while you're waiting for your shipment, but
26:41
you know, travel with as little as you can because that's going to be stressful to travel with tons and tons of
26:47
suitcases if you're also also shipping things, not necessarily. I mean, I came with we came with what,
26:53
seven suitcases, three backpacks, two cats, two kids. So, it we just had
26:59
enough that we could manage. Any more than that, we were we ran out of arms and things to stuff, right? Think about how many arms you
27:04
have. Yeah. I mean, if you're traveling with little kids, you probably have um
27:09
you probably have a lot of stuff that goes with little with the little kids as well. And I don't know, I've seen people mailing things and I I don't know like
27:18
how whether that's something that you can do as well that maybe gets to you a little quicker than the shipment. Just
27:23
little boxes of so maybe kids clothes or something. You know what I mean? like something maybe you don't need that right away. Um so that's also
27:30
but it is very expensive to ship things on their own versus cargo shipping. And
27:35
also we should know and is that you have a year to bring your stuff over. I don't know about for you but for the visa
27:41
people you have a year to bring stuff over. I don't know because we didn't do it. Yeah. So you didn't you didn't look into it
27:47
but you have a year. Um, so if you can have like more cargo sent or you know
27:54
other ways to send stuff by cargo, right? If you you can still send one box by cargo shipment versus using the post
28:01
office, which would be much more expensive. You can do it at cargo and wait two months for it. Um, and you have a year to get it here.
28:07
So, that is something else to think about. I'm not suggesting I'm not suggesting shipping loads of stuff, but I'm thinking like if you've got little
28:13
kids, for instance, it might make sense to sort of once you once you've landed to have someone in your family or
28:19
something sort of ship you a few boxes with kids clothes and things that maybe you don't need to be dragging all of
28:24
that with you through the airport if that's something that's helpful. You know, there are other ways, right? I think I see a lot of people use
28:31
something called like ship my bag or something like that. That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. Yeah. It's like
28:36
it's like the the airlines bring it over. It's so it's kind for a suitcase or something.
28:42
Exactly. It's some kind of discounted like bag shipment. And I think something like that could be helpful to if you
28:49
feel feel like you need some extra things but you don't need them right away or you don't know where you're going to be. You know, you're coming
28:54
over and you you're what we did. We went into an Airbnb while we looked for a place to to rent. So, if you're doing
29:00
that, you don't necessarily need all your stuff in that Airbnb. You know, maybe you have enough stuff for a month,
29:05
which is basically all you needed for like a vacation and then once you move, you need your actual stuff,
29:11
right? Stuff stuff. All right. So, now we've talked about moving your stuff. You got to put it.
29:17
So, what about housing? What do you have to say about what are you Well, as I just mentioned, we did Airbnb and then we and then we
29:24
rented. So, that worked for us because I think it's nice unless you've spent a lot of time where you're moving to. We
29:31
didn't know the area that well to be like, "Oh, this is where we want to live and all this." So, we we did the Airbnb
29:37
and then we looked for a place to rent and then we rented for a year and then we bought a house. So, we wanted to feel
29:42
more, you know, in tune with what we were doing in order to do that. So, that was that was what what we decided to do
29:49
and what you did it slightly differently. Slightly different. I mean, we're still renting, but I wanted to We just were
29:56
lucky that we through Facebook, someone knew someone that knew someone that was leaving cuz I had made a post. I need an
30:02
apartment. Anyone got real and it worked. And now my dear who's now a dear friend
30:09
Melissa had who was a stranger then said, "We know a family that's leaving
30:14
and there that apartment's going to be available when you're arriving. Do you want the info?" So, we got that. We were
30:20
very lucky to have this place sorted out and I had a lease signed in April for a place that was we were moving in in
30:26
July. It was a very lucky situation. But if you don't I'm also going to say if you don't put yourself out there, nothing is going to nothing good's going
30:32
to come back to you. Yeah, that's true. It sounds like a pipe dream, but really it happened. And if it happened for me,
30:38
it it's going to happen for somebody else, too. I mean, that's how the world works. So, and you can definitely come and you can definitely come here and and
30:46
buy buy something immediately and maybe you do that from abroad. Some people do that. If you need a mortgage, you're
30:52
going to have a hard time getting a mortgage without showing a local income. So, you will need to probably be here for some time
31:00
before that is a possibility. So, that might be also another reason depending on how you're coming here, if you're
31:06
going to have income. That's and I will say that's part of the reason why we haven't bought or I haven't
31:11
bought yet is because the visa we're on and my income and all of that stuff here
31:17
the banks are also if you have relationships it's kind of old school in the olden timey days. So my bank is like
31:22
we don't even give loans to people until they've been you know for foreigners until they've been with us for three years and a lot of banks it's until
31:28
you're a tax resident. But my bank was also like, you know, wink wink. We're more liberal at that three-year mark
31:34
because we know you. So you you may not have in like you may not have a job, but you have this income that we can't look
31:41
at before, like passive income, but we can look at it now because we see the money coming in out of your account. We
31:46
have our eyes on you and know what kind of risk we're going to we can take. So that was kind of what happened. That's
31:52
what's happening with us. So hopefully next summer we'll be putting money down on something. So that's where we're going to be.
31:57
Which is good. That would be exciting. So, we And also read the contracts. Read contracts for your rentals. There's
32:03
short-term rentals and long-term rentals. And there's contracts for everything. And I've seen some I've seen
32:09
some funny things on contracts. So, make sure you take those contracts. If you don't speak Spanish, translate them and
32:14
make sure that everything on that contract looks reasonable. And they do have a thing here, and I don't know,
32:21
especially in more touristy areas of Spain, where they can move somebody out of a long-term rental to rent it higher
32:28
in the summer. Now, I don't know that that's happened to anybody, but I've seen it on contracts. So, we had a rent
32:33
we had a contract for a for a rental that we were interested in. When we read that contract, we were like, "No, we
32:39
don't want to move in the summer if you find someone that will pay more because we're living here." Right. That's weird. That's weird that
32:46
that's legal. I wonder how that is now. But I know that when you do sign a long-term contract, so people should know it's for five years. So your rent
32:54
will go up every year. That's decided by the government, but they can't kick you out for five years. And at five years,
32:59
your lease is renegotiated. So the land like you could say, "Hey, there's an economy crashing and I'm paying less."
33:04
And your landlord could say yes or no. The landlord says, "I'm going to charge more or we're going to keep it the way it is." That but that's at 5 years. So
33:11
that's it becomes a new lease at 5 years and all the terms can change at that point. before then you're where you are.
33:18
They can't kick you out, you know. Yeah. So, just just have a definitely have a plan for what you're going to do. I think all the mishmash of the
33:24
different things that we've done is all both have worked quite well for both of us. So, um just whatever everyone feels
33:30
comfortable with. And my plan was I didn't know I would wanted to try to find a place before we
33:35
moved, but if not, my plan was we run an Airbnb for a month and we figure it out. You know, that's what people can do. You
33:42
know, it's it's easy to do. So, since we're talking about since we just talked about mortgage and stuff, we can just dip into
33:48
um finances, I guess, quickly. Dip into dip our toes into the jellyfished waters of finances. So,
33:54
exactly. This is really more about getting bank accounts and and things
34:00
like that. So, this is everyone's finances are different, obviously. Just make sure I think there's a a little bit
34:06
of a preconceived idea that Spain is so cheap that you don't need any money to live here. And I just want to say it is
34:11
a you will have your life here and you need money to live here. So, you know, you need to have a very long-term plan
34:17
if your plan is to live here long term. It's my advice. I know that sounds stupid, but it is. You know, it you're
34:23
if you're working if you're coming here and you're allowed to work, you might make a different you might make the same
34:30
amount of money or you might make less money or whatever it is, but your taxes are going to be high. So, it cuts into a
34:35
lot of the money that you make. So, you know, just just, you know, check exchange rates and all these things and
34:42
make sure that you're actually making the money that you need to to live the way you want to live, right? And the exchange rates change and
34:48
and right now they're a lot they're a lot different than we were when we moved here and and that's affecting my finances,
34:54
right? I mean, it really is. So, you and I didn't even think about that, right? That was one thing I didn't think about is how important the exchange rate is.
35:01
Yeah. So, yeah. And then if you're a credit card
35:06
person that that uses credit cards for miles, I think that's not really a thing here so much. So if you're trying to
35:13
keep your credit cards in your American bank accounts while you're here, you need an address in America to keep all
35:18
that stuff functioning there. So that's something you just need to plan for and make sure your credit card has no
35:25
for transaction fees. And I'm going to give a little a little side note. Um, make sure you check your statements every month because I had a credit card
35:31
just last month change its terms without me knowing. Oh, wow. And I got I got a whole month's worth of foreign transaction fees. Thankfully, I
35:38
cried on the phone and they reversed it, but I will never use that credit card again. And they're like, "We sent it in your e
35:44
statement." I'm like, "Who reads an e statement?" Right. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And then you can open a you can
35:52
open a Wise account which is sort of an international account and a great way to to transfer money from from different
35:58
countries to to euros. But if you're going to but you won't be able to open a bank
36:05
account in Spain without being here. So if you come here, you can open it while you're here visiting and then go back and stuff, but you need to you need to
36:11
be here to open a Spanish one, right? And if you're going to open an account here before when you come like
36:17
for a visit before you moved here, it's going to be a foreign account. It's going to have completely different terms. It's going to have different
36:22
fees, but once you've arrived and your visa and you have all your your numbers from the state, your your IDs and all
36:29
that stuff, they can flip that to a local account, which then changes terms and fees and stuff. So, it can be done.
36:36
But Wise is a great way, especially if you're trying to run a place before, because you can just transfer the money into the bank accounts of the people
36:41
you're dealing with without having a bank account here right away. Exly. And we didn't see any difference
36:47
between our non-resident and resident account when we switched it. So, it's going to that's going to change bankto
36:52
bank. What the difference was is that we couldn't open a bizoom account, which is how you basically text people money
36:59
here. Um, it's the zel of that type of thing. It's bizoom here. we couldn't have that on a
37:05
on a non-resident account. So that that was what happened. So we switched it and we were like, "Oh, we didn't even know."
37:11
And then it didn't really change much, but that was something you couldn't do on a foreign account. Um, so I think that covers finances.
37:17
Everyone on their That's enough. I got hives. I don't want to talk about finances anymore. No.
37:25
So I I I guess we should talk about we've we've purged. Now we should talk about the humans. It's not that we're
37:31
purging humans, but like we are we are abandoning people, right? So, we're abandoning our
37:37
lives. So, I think that, you know, you have to you have one a goodbye list
37:44
of what your life is going to be, right? Like what what you're leaving, your friends, your holidays, your tradition,
37:50
all that stuff changes. You bring you can bring your traditions with you. But it was, you know, we had we had going
37:55
away events or made sure I had I don't even want to say events. I there was a whole checklist of people that I hadn't
38:01
seen in years that I'm like I need to have lunch with this person before I leave. So there was a bunch of people that I was like over the next three four
38:07
months I'm making sure I have lunch with X Y and Z's and maybe where you want to have lunch
38:12
and all these things because you can combine the friend with either a place that you do that you've gone to together
38:18
or something else that you want to do and and start combining things a little bit as well.
38:24
Make it easier. I totally did. I'm like I haven't eaten that restaurant. Do you want to leave that? I want to go there because I'm leaving in like 3 weeks and I want to
38:30
say I've been there. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And then we did sort of I mean because because of Zena, we
38:36
did obviously we we said goodbye to people sort of separately, but we also ended up having a couple of big
38:41
gettogethers in various places as well. So yeah, I think it's I think it's nice. We also moved some of our friends here
38:48
with us, so that was nice. Uh that's not always an option, but yeah, I didn't bring anyone with me.
38:55
I will say family and friends that are not on board or getting their emotions because they're going to miss you. You
39:01
kind of have to put you have to put your blinders on and not hear that. And also respect that they're going to miss you.
39:06
But don't let them get inside your soul and heart and second guessess what you're doing. Yeah. take it as an indication maybe
39:12
that they love you and they're just going to miss you like you said rather than taking offense because we we had a lot of hard goodbyes you know and it was
39:19
like it was all good while we were planning but when it really got down to the wire it was like oh like I'm really
39:24
I'm not going to see this person maybe ever again or for a while it's hard and it it it is it is really really
39:31
that is a hard thing to do so it's good to plan those events so that it's maybe
39:36
a little easier on everybody I think yeah I think so I have a funny side note
39:41
my my dear friend Aaron who's like I don't cry I don't cry and she's like I don't know I was like emotional the night before we were staying with her
39:47
right before we left and so she was you know saying goodbye to us as the big suburban Uber came with our to collect
39:54
our our suitcases and bodies right and she's like yeah you know don't get upset if I don't cry tomorrow I don't cry and
40:00
as we were pulling away tears were coming down her face and I was I was like oh she's crying which made me cry
40:05
even more oh my god of I'm I'm like crying thinking about it now but if you also If you have kids, you're going to have to
40:12
put on a bit of a cold heart at that moment. I mean, not with your kids, but watching your kids say goodbye to their
40:17
friends, it's like, oh my god. Like, you that's the point where you'll be like, I think we should cancel this whole thing. Like,
40:23
right. My oldest was so so stoic trying to be like, I'm for this
40:31
move. When we got in the Suburban, we saw Aaron crying and we're going to the airport and she was just looking out the
40:36
window and there was like tears and she refused to look at me and I was like, "It's okay. You you don't have to be
40:42
like so excited. Like, you don't have to be happy. Like, you're allowed to be sad. Like, we're doing this,
40:48
right? But have your emotions, girl. You know, you can be sad now and then happy later, too." Because I think what was hard I
40:54
think what was hard for all of us, like you said, was all of our friends crying. And then, you know, Zena had a couple of friends that are much more um overtly
41:03
emotional in general. And those kids are not hiding it to try and keep anyone's feelings together, right? They're kids.
41:10
And we were like, you know, her friends were six, seven years old at that time. So, I mean, they're just like flat out in tears and you're like, "Oh my god,
41:16
like this is terrible, but what are we doing?" But then you can be then you can get you get over you know then you can
41:22
be excited later and your kids will keep those friendships going because those are the good friendships and they'll keep them through their you know
41:29
communication methods that you have now that we never had years and years ago. Right. I was going to say when that goes
41:34
into you have to rebuild all this when you arrive and so you know building a network when you get here. I mean it
41:41
seems scary every move seems scary and you know what your life will rebuild and
41:46
it rebuilds very quickly. I mean before these Facebook groups, LinkedIn, all that stuff. And then when you get here,
41:53
the schools may have WhatsApp groups that they can lead you into, but Facebook people will tell you what
41:59
groups and there's groups for like meeting teenagers and expat hangouts.
42:04
And we had friends, we had dinners out with someone named Tanya right away. We
42:09
had my friend Mal, we had a bunch of people right away that we're still friends with and still get with and and
42:15
it and it continues to grow. So, don't be scared by that. You will you will rebuild unless you're a hermit. And I'm
42:21
going to Well, that's true. We can't can't help it if you're a hermit. But, I mean, we had already connected with the school WhatsApp group and had been invited to a
42:28
birthday party for the Saturday after we arrived, which ended up not happening. But we did we were and that's that was
42:35
something that gave us, I think, a lot of comfort before we left to have some of these things set up before we left. So, we didn't feel like we were moving
42:42
into a void. We were moving into things that were already set up to do. And if if you don't if you can't figure out
42:48
people to meet immediately, which I I think is very easy nowadays, set up activities to do like you're already
42:54
planning to go to this museum and this thing or visit this town and just have stuff that you're doing so that you're
42:59
not just landing. Buy the tickets to a museum be Yeah. Buy the tickets to the museum before you've left so you know you have something to
43:05
do on Friday. Exactly. That's exactly it. Yeah. And then so to that point, number seven, by
43:11
the way, because we haven't been numbering them, but this is a top 10 list. So number seven is something that will help you to get acclim acclimated,
43:18
excuse me, is to learn Spanish. It doesn't have to be a lot. Learn some basic phrases like where is can I have,
43:24
you know, just some basic things if you don't have any Spanish. That would be my advice. I agree and I've said it before
43:30
depending on where you move in Spain, the level of English varies. And I was warned that in Valencia, no one speaks
43:37
English. And the reality was once I chose my five broken words that I
43:42
arrived with, my hideous words, they found someone that spoke or suddenly they spoke English or they had some
43:47
words, right? It became it opens them up because they're like, "Oh, you're trying. So I, you know what? I'm
43:53
comfortable to try with you because they're also feeling self. It's not that they don't want to speak English or they
43:58
think you need to learn their language. They're also embarrassed about how they sound." Just remember that, right?
44:04
And they're also embarrassed by how you sound in Spanish. They'll be like, "I'll speak English with you." But don't don't
44:09
assume people are going to speak English for sure. So, just learn some basic phrases. I mean, this is what I do when I travel to other countries if I'm on
44:15
vacation. I mean, just learn your basics. Um, and that goes as well to just kind of having a little bit of a
44:21
understanding of the the local culture and the etiquette of where you're going so that you feel like you're ready to
44:28
jump into that. And I think that all has to do with the comfort. So, number eight is understanding some of the Spanish
44:33
culture, which is what we're basically moving here for. So, everybody probably already understands all of that,
44:39
right? So, you know, that's the basics. Siesta, what seeing people drinking wine at
44:46
10:00 a.m. Um, knowing that, you know, the restaurants,
44:51
um, it's not bad service. It's just not the service you're used to, right? They're not going to give you a check. They're not trying to get you off the
44:57
table. And if you want a check, you're going to be waving your arms around and they may ignore you. And that's not
45:02
service. You're you're weird to them. thinking that you would want your check so quickly. Like it just
45:08
Yeah. Absolutely. Because it's absolutely fine for people to sit at a table all day. Like they're not coming to you to be they're not not giving you
45:14
anything to be rude. They're thinking that you just want to hang out there, which is what everyone's doing. So table
45:20
hovering just as a PSA is not a thing here. Like if somebody wants to sit there after they finished their meal and
45:26
they're going to sit there for another two hours, totally fine. Right. Right.
45:31
So that's okay. And then also, if you're coming to the Valencia area, we must prepare you if you haven't listened to our Fiestas episodes.
45:38
Fireworks and firecrackers are a humongous thing here. So, just get on
45:44
board. It is loud, right? It is loud. So, that month is loud. But then there are like fireworks
45:51
and mascotes year round on random days. We've said it a million times and we'll say it a million times more because
45:57
there's a random day. And I'll be like, Tanya, what again? For what reason? do you know what the holiday is? And she's
46:02
like, I don't know. There's no holiday. Because we can literally we can see the fireworks going on in various parts of
46:07
the city and the suburbs around from where we live. And I'll be like texting Gatana. I'll be like, "What's going on
46:13
today?" And he's like, "I don't know." But you have the insight into the websites that usually will tell me
46:18
what's going on. I love it from here, but it is it is constant. I would say every Saturday
46:24
night, no, there's at least a fireworks display somewhere and then you've got kids, you know, running around with
46:29
things. Um, right. So, number nine, phones. I What did you
46:34
do? And then I'll tell you what we did. So, what we did is because my oldest had
46:40
a phone, so we had two phone numbers. So, I her phone number was immaterial to the to the world. So, I
46:49
so I ported my phone number because my phone number was important because I was keeping American bank accounts because I
46:54
have to I have to keep American credit cards. So, I needed an American number and and I needed relatives that don't
47:00
have cell phones since I still have relatives that don't have cell phones and things that are using landlines. So, I needed a number. So, I ported my phone
47:07
number with Google and we kept my daughter's cell phone plan and then once
47:12
we arrive and also what I did is I already had WhatsApp. So, I have my regular WhatsApp is still on my phone
47:19
and that's my American phone number. So, that is still there. And then when we
47:26
moved to Spain, I then got my phone because we also needed her phone because
47:32
once we arrived, we needed to call Ubers. And so I mean, I just wanted to be connected as soon as not looking for
47:37
Wi-Fi. I think that's the important thing is that you have some form of communication when you land. There's a there's a
47:43
myriad of things you can do once you're here in regards to phone, but getting yourself in a situation where you are
47:49
semiconnected here when you actually land at the airport, right? And that was that was important.
47:55
So then, but the funny side story is when we ranted, I didn't have the cab apps on her phone. So I was like, "Oh,
48:02
how are you going to I forgot to move apps." So then when we arrived here, we you know, day two, I got my Spanish
48:08
phone number on my phone. And and then and then what you can do on your phone,
48:13
people don't know on WhatsApp, you can have two WhatsApp apps on your phone, one business and one the personal one.
48:21
So my the the regular people one is my American number and the business one is my Spanish number. So I have both
48:27
WhatsApps on my phone and or both numbers on my phone as well. They need to be a business and a personal. You can't have two personal
48:34
numbers, right? Well, because your phone won't load the app twice, right? So they have two separate apps that you load. Got it.
48:40
So that's how that's how that was worked. Then then we then I canceled my daughter's I will say it was a pain
48:46
cancelling my daughter's phone number from overseas. It happened, but I was on
48:51
hold several times to several people forever to get it done. Yeah. Yeah.
48:57
So, we had we had a we came and we weren't really we were planning on just getting here and then
49:03
going somewhere and getting a chip, but CO happened and we ended up not everything was closed and we couldn't do it, right?
49:08
So, that's how I ended up on I ended up on Lobster, which was it's they'll mail
49:14
you the chip, which is quite useful. And then that's actually an account for me, which is good because I go to England a
49:21
lot and that one works in England. So you think about what you want to do as if you're not just going to stay in
49:26
Spain. Some people might want some kind of service that I mean I can call to America for free as part of my plan. I
49:33
can call to England as part of my plan. My phone works in England, but it doesn't work in America. So, but I'd get
49:39
free calls to America. So that's a good that was a good plan for me. And then Jawad's phone we got as part of our
49:45
Wi-Fi um his plan we got part as part of our Wi-Fi scenario. A lot of the Wi-Fi can come with a free with a free phone
49:52
number. And so he always has or vice versa. Yeah. And vice versa because our cell phone is
49:57
our Wi-Fi, our cable, everything. It's kind of connected. So whichever one you get first, you might end up with the
50:02
other one. They're like they can't be basically. But when we first arrived, we didn't have any service at all. And
50:07
thank goodness the the um the Google Maps was working regardless of the fact
50:13
that we had no plan on our phone, which was thank goodness because it was somehow working. I don't know how. So,
50:19
right. And I tried to port my American number, it didn't work. And when my number got bought, I think by somebody else, it
50:26
disappeared. So, that was a short-term badly done situation for me. You didn't plan ahead properly for that.
50:32
You do definitely plan ahead if you're trying to keep your US number. Make sure it's ported properly. Yeah, the porting
50:38
the number has to happen on US soil. I've seen people said they were able to do it with a VPN, but you have to have a
50:44
really good VPN for it to work, I think, because they they know all these they know all the VPN address.
50:49
Just make sure it's done properly. I I turn my phone number into a Google number. Like I I put it there, but I
50:56
obviously didn't do something correctly because it ended up getting getting thrown away. You probably didn't like click the
51:01
confirmation email or something. I don't know. like it worked or you had to go into your Google account or something. There's something
51:07
you have to do. It worked for like a year and then and then it and then it stopped working. So,
51:12
it was something something weird happened and but I didn't really need it by then. So,
51:18
well, if you weren't using it too, they will cancel it if you're not using it. I've I had another Google number that
51:23
got cancelled that um uh for like a business that I was doing and I didn't use it and they had sent me an email. By
51:29
the way, we canceled that number because you haven't sent one text message. Okay. So, that's good to know, too. like make sure you're using the number that
51:34
you've ported. Um, so number 10, finally, preparing emotionally. I mean,
51:39
this is I think we would expect to have in the process of moving and once you're
51:44
here, some kind of you're excited and then you're stressed. And I have found personally that those emotions feel very
51:51
similar. And it's hard to know sometimes when you're having both whether what's going on. You're just in a very high
51:57
emotional state of like doing everything and planning and excited but then you got so many things to do but then you
52:03
got things to plan and you're just like you're gonna explode you know right and and and before it is so
52:09
stressful and so crazy and stressful allen as it's crazy stressful right I mean I wasn't like pulling my hair and
52:15
I'm never going to accomplish this stressed out I was like are all my crossing all my tees and eyes and oh my
52:20
god and I can't believe we're doing this like stressed out and then you know once we got on the boat to come here like it all washed off of me and then just
52:26
smiles were on my face and I do see a lot of people post like they have a honeymoon period that wears off and I
52:34
see people I see people you know struggling with that. So be prepared
52:39
that you know you might six months if you've left a family and friends you're going to miss them. You know for some
52:45
people like for me we didn't have a lot that we had friends that were leaving but my parents had passed away so I wasn't I wasn't stuff to bring me tied
52:52
to anywhere. So I still like think I'm in a honeymoon period but reality does
52:58
set in. So you did it in a very interesting way if people haven't listened to our how we moved here. I mean you spent two weeks
53:04
on a boat which I think is a very good decompressing scenario. That's not how most people are going to do it. But I
53:10
think that was a really smart way to do that because you've left and you're decompressing. You know, we were moving
53:16
here and we were leaving really good friends, but most of our family is over here in this side of the world. So for
53:22
us too, I feel like we're also kind of still in the honeymoon period because we're feeling very happy and lucky to be
53:27
here. And that that emotion for me has has always stayed. And I' and I've also
53:33
moved a lot. So I wasn't I'm not I mean I'm American, but I'm I wasn't from America. So, you know, that also for me
53:39
is something where I'm also moving back kind of to where more closer to where I grew up. So, it's different. But I've
53:46
also heard people having that emotion. And I think if you're leaving family, just make sure you're prepared for some
53:52
emotions once you've got here and you've been here for a little bit that you might start to miss home a little bit.
53:57
That also, I think, does go away a little bit, too. You know, definitely we've talked about how the things that
54:03
we missed initially have kind of started to wayne and we're like h whatever, right? So, it does your emotions change
54:09
and the world is much smaller. Don't forget that you everyone's facetime I mean I have friends I FaceTime all the time and it's like they're in my living
54:16
room and one of my friends has a white like a white house and my house is very white you know all the walls. So when I'm talking to her on FaceTime I'm like
54:22
it looks like you're in my room because it's still a white background behind my phone and behind you. Yeah. So keep up
54:29
with your you you'll find also you will I I hate to say you will find out who your really good friends are because those are the people that really do stay
54:35
in touch and people will come visit because you're in an exciting place as well. So
54:40
yeah, you'll get a lot of visitors and also the people you you find out who who's going to stay in touch but also remember time zone the time change
54:47
affects how you can communicate with people as well. So friends that I used to talk to all the time I don't talk to
54:52
that much at all and they're still really good friends but like they have jobs and when they're going to and from
54:57
the schedule we can never like it's just so you came from the west coast so that does make a difference. If you're coming
55:02
from the east coast you might find that aspect of it a little bit easier. You still have the weekends. But anyway, I
55:08
think I think moving abroad is is is a big step I think for a lot of people and
55:14
for everybody it's going to come with a lot of organization and planning regardless of whether it's a big step
55:19
for you or not. So have have a sense of humor about it. That's my final advice. Have a sense of humor.
55:25
I agree. And whether or not it goes smoothly, it will get done and it will be over and you will be there. You will
55:30
be where you're going eventually. You'll get where you're going. Yes. At least.
55:37
So, those are our 10 tips, I guess, for for being prepared. A little a little
55:42
boy girl scout situation here. Well, Tanya, uh, it's time to say
55:47
goodbye yet again, but I will talk to you in a couple days with some Poco Poco. Yes. Asago
55:54
asgo. Ciao. Bye. Hey, can't get enough of us? Follow us
56:00
on Instagram and Facebook at Ospain Podcast and on our website.com which we will be
56:05
updating with exciting new things as we grow. We would love for you to message us with any topics you would like to
56:11
hear about. See you next time. Bye.