Ah Spain!

AI generated, please excuse any errors!

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[Music] Welcome to our Spain I'm Gano and I'm Tanya and together we are two expats and
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Friends sharing our experiences and observations about living our lives and raising our families here in Spain we
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hope you will find our podcast useful and perhaps funny hopefully
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hopefully hey Tanya how you doing good morning good morning um well I guess
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this is our first episode so where the Do We Begin I don't know this is exciting we'll see our audience we have
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a we have many guinea pigs listening to
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us I hope so I guess you know so we're doing this podcast about our our our life in
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Spain so I guess we should probably talk about how we got here yeah moving
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initially because we both had very different experiences different experiences and and different times
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you've been here longer than me you're here now 5 years five years wow yeah
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it's been a while it time flies it does I've been here it's only been a year and a half but it feels it does feel like
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forever it feels like forever I'm sorry it feels like I've known you forever yeah I know a little but you know I'm a
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martyr so but like I feel like I mean I was talking to my kids I have two kids by
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the way I was talking to my kids and we were just saying the other day how it
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feels like it was yesterday that we moved here and it's also forever and
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we're from Los Angeles before here and it's like we don't even remember it anymore right like it's it I and I mean
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that in a good way too that like this is really our home we have definitely come home to Spain so yeah I think that after
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it was a very different experience when we moved because we moved during Co before Co so I mean just to kind of jump
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into that we moved I mean when people are posting on Facebook and they're like we're nervous we don't know how it's
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going to go I'm like we moved during Co and brexit and we were trying to get our residency through my British citizenship
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even though you can't tell from my accent I am actually originally from England but I lived along tell I don't
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you say that as an American but the British will be like no they you can't tell so it's I'm I'm from this place now
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in the middle of America the island in the middle of the Atlantic um anyhow so
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we moved um 5 days before the Spanish lockdown here in Spain so we were like
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we got here we were actually contemplating changing our um flight
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because I was getting nervous cuz I was like if we get stuck in America after planning everything and when we were
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going to move and school and everything we will be very screwed because we are
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not we are not situated in America anymore we've already kind of moved we're just waiting for our flight you know everything's packed everything's
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gone the house is empty and then our flight might have got cancelled can I ask you a side note question because
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you've moved right before Co so it how long were you planning this move before
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you were waiting for your plane to take off how long was your plan quite quick
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um probably we had been talking about moving for a while for a few years
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probably like just as like maybe we should you know there were a lot of things that were sort of coming up Co
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obviously wasn't but I mean we didn't know that that was very quick but we were talking about schools and getting
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into public schools where we we came from Washington DC but I had also lived in Los Angeles I didn't know you then
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but I lived in Los Angeles for many years before and I moved to DC met my husband there had my child there and we
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were she was about to move into public school um she was like six and and so we
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were like we need to move into public school and I was very fearful frankly of doing that and we started thinking about
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well healthare all these things that we were used to CU my husband's Moroccan I'm from England we know how things can
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work in those areas and as you get older you start thinking about these things more yeah yeah of course so so so but it
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was before you had actually put wheels had you already put Wheels in Motion
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before December 19th which is like December 2019 which is when Co officially hit the scene right like when
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Grant we know it was March 20 when the world shut down but the news started popping up in December of 19 so yeah I
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think I think we started really thinking and planning sort of yeah before before
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that maybe September October we started thinking let's maybe so the co was really a coincidence and not an impetus
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right was right okay I think what happened was is we planned we bought the tickets at some point when Co wasn't
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existing I had actually gone back to England that Christmas and we were then
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then we were like we need to maybe you know speed this up a little bit because it started looking a little crazy and we
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I mean nobody was expecting a full-on lockdown like what happened in Spain but
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when we got closer to our to our flight things were they think there were
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murmurs of them maybe starting to cancel flights and things like that so I was like oh my God so I was freaking out but
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we didn't change our flight we got on the flight we got to Spain we had 5 days
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we visited the school we went to Media market and got a printer thank God and
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then we that was it we literally had that was all we had what we brought with us and a printer and that's what we had
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through the whole of lock cuz then we went into lockdown 5 days later and so when did you arrive in that March of we
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arrived on March 9th we went into lockdown on March 14th ah cuz I think I think America went lockdown like the
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20th right it was a few days later I guess but very different your lockdown to our lockdown we were how was it
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different we were 100% not allowed to leave the house all the shops were closed one person could go shopping for
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food but you couldn't have more than one person in a car and you were you were not allowed to leave the house unless
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you were like a nurse or a doctor that was it you were in the house so we were
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in the house it was a house arrest it was a house arrest for 3 months it turned out and it was going to be
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initially a couple of weeks so we were house arrest in the house they they started loosening it up a little bit
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towards the end where they had times that people could go out but again you weren't allowed out with your whole family one person could go out it was
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very weird right so this was the this was how we moved was it was not stressful at all
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and you just brought suitcases right you didn't bring any furniture or lamps or anything right you didn't ship anything
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we decided that we didn't love any of our stuff that much so we were you know we didn't have a sort of family alarms
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or anything so we were just like let's just bring our stuff we bought 12 massive suit cases like like giant um
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bags and we didn't really think of the logistics of that because going through the airport with that amount of bags was
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actually not ideal um but it it worked and it did mean that we did have
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everything with us and because of Co had we shipped everything God knows where it would have ended up and when it would
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have ended up somewhere because that would have been completely uncontrollable at that point I mean for people that have shipped it's already
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kind of a miscellaneous thing oh yeah yeah mhm but if with the a lot of things got shut down including the immigration
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services so that was the other thing we were dealing with during lockdown is they closed down the immigration system
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because a lot of the government non non-essential government closed down and we were trying to get our residency
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before brexit which was happening in 2022 2020 as well not 2022 2020 as well
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right so it was fun it was yeah it was it was exciting um so if you're you know
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for people that might be coming over on under nor normal circumstances um it's
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super fine totally I mean so you but you were came over so brexit so you didn't
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have visas and stuff to worry about when you moved over no we didn't yeah we didn't need to do that you were still a
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part of the EU and you're a British exactly so so long as everything yeah so long as everything went according to
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plan then we were fine and we didn't need to do that so I I do admire the people like you so you came over and had
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to deal with visas before you arrived correct yeah so I similar to you I mean we moved
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here in we arrived July 16th 2023 and I that day Forever on my head um you know
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and and for me I similar situation we had been living in Los Angeles and I was
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I was I had lived in Los Angeles I mean but when we left I lived there for 22
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years and I for the last 10 years I had been wanting to leave because I was Raising I had two daughters and I wanted
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a house and I wanted a bigger life you know I wanted a better life and things were just getting expensive and we were navigating schools and I was doing
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private schools and Charter Schools we did public school one year so it was just a lot like you I'm like well this
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isn't the life I want to have for my kids constantly in this kind of like struggle and then so I had been looking
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at other places in America and then Co happened and we were stuck on our couch
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and I started this fantasy play of looking at real estate around the world for cheap and and all of that and then I
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started I remember summer of 2020 I started fantasizing about Italy living in southern Italy and a in a house with
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views of the Mediterranean and we've all seen that movie yeah so exactly it's
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easy it's easy to fantasize about that isn't it it is and then but then Co
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lifted up and um it was still in the back of my head and I was like no let's start really researching this and
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um and then I started looking and because we're in the process still it's
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a very long process but we're in the process of trying to get Italian citizenship and I and so I was like we
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could move to Italy and become Italian citizens and and be good but then I
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started doing the Deep dive then I started doing the real research of what would it be like for us to live in Italy
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and where I wanted to move in Italy would not have made sense because the the the school system was not good they
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didn't they did not have um many private schools I think they only really had one
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where I wanted to move and it wasn't appealing and it was very expensive for the private school everything else was
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cheap and so I well that's not going to make sense I was like but I want to live in Europe um and once we get Italian
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citizenship like we could live anywhere in Europe so I started doing the research of like France and Spain and
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other parts of Italy and Spain came top of the list because
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there are so many international schools here there are so many private school options and compared to around the world
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very reasonable and especially in you know in some of these smaller cities very reasonable compared to what they
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are in definitely Los Angeles and in Italy and France the private schools were were prohibitively expensive for
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yeah I mean they're ridiculously expensive in America but I mean over here it varies greatly even between the
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cities in in Spain when you start looking at different cities and then different countries for sure yeah so
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that's definitely an aspect yeah I mean Italy and France they're about on par with American private school prices and
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here um you know like Barcelona's about half price of what La one and but in
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Valencia is a lot less than that so right and Madrid is more expensive becomes a real sorry um you know the
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real estate becomes an issue but anyway so I was like let's really look at it so I was like it's going to be Spain and so I just started I just it kind of just
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stayed in the back of my mind and then unfortunately my my dad had passed away
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and I looked at my kids and like well you know why what are we doing here I don't really have like I don't have a
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tie to this country I wasn't really working um I'm an actor and stuff and I was like I'm not really working I'm not
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I don't really have something keeping us here so let's do it and and that's how
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we did it and then I had to then really did the Deep dive into what
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it mean like visas what I need what visa I needed to get and I will say so in my
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research what I found out was these like Facebook groups and I had no idea about
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Facebook actually being a useful tool and that kind of changed my life because to me Facebook was just to rile up the
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the masses and show pictures of food and then there's like Americans in Valencia Americans in Spain Americans and so I
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got this wealth of information and then I was like oh I can do this oh wait did you get your wealth of information from
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me cuz that's how we met well you know I don't want people to necessarily know
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all of our journey details but um that is exactly how we met Tanya gave me a
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ton of information useless information as it turns out I mean I got our
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apartment through Facebook but anyway yeah so when so when you were moved you did it very differently we just flew
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over at the end of the day um but you have a much more creative way that you did it and you were bringing a cat and I
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know that is a whole different oh two cats I'm sorry that's a whole other can of worms is when you have to move with
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animals so I think and I think the way you did it was such a lovely experience for your girls and for you as well so um
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yeah share that yeah so so we jump start so we we got our visas I will say the
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process didn't take long it was about three months of getting the paperwork it wasn't stressful I did it but a year
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before we moved is when I made the decision we're moving it was you know it
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was July 2022 I said we're going and I said how can I do it and look at these
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Facebook groups and I'm like how do I move pets what are flights like what are the laws about how long they could be on
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and I decided that we were going to take the Queen Mary to over because it's the only boat at see that you're allowed to
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have your pets on such a great idea it was so amazing it really was it was the
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bougiest thing in the world but the it was also the most wonderful experience
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for the girls and I and so we we flew to New York so here it is I'm a single
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parent and I have two kids we had seven suitcases three backpacks and two cats
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and just one adult and how I did this trip to this day I have no idea I didn't
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know how I was doing it when I was doing it I how we we we ridiculously decided
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to travel with 12 giant suitcases and as it turns out when we got to the Valencia airport the security guy there like the
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immigration what Customs guy he was helping us with our with our carts this
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is just to show you how nice the Spanish people are he's looking at us we've got two people and one tiny tiny like she
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was seven at the time child and we've got like three C two carts with all
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these bags on and he's like let me help you you and then he's like you know oh do you have anything to declare and we're like well
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this but we couldn't even manage those CS I mean we did end up managing but it was quite funny because the Valencia
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Airport's really a small nice kind of Almost Family Place my favorite airport in the
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world so I can imagine you as one adult trying to do that it was insane and so
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we you it's like we get to LA to the airport and then they're like the bags are overweight and she's like you could repack them and I'm like I've got do you
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see what I've got around me repack them yeah I should repack them distribute the weight and they charged me like $400
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extra dollars for the suitcases and I was like I'm going to lose it but I have like whatever we got to New York spent
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two days in New York we got on the boat and I will tell you what was great about that for me and for the girls was we had
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seven days at Sea no stops and it allowed me to decompress for my life in
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America and arrive in Europe free and clear and
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I hear your story and it kind of gives me a panic attack I was like if if I was going to do a Redeye flight from LA to
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Spain it would have probably taken me months to calm down that would have been a nightmare and also how how was it for
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the cats being on a boat they were oh well they they had the time of their
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life I mean they so there's a kennel you don't get to have them in your state room or anything like that but but it's
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on the top floor they have the best view and they get the top floor they get the top floor yeah the kennel's on the top
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of the boat oh crazy and sorry ship cuz if there's any Canard people yell at me for saying boat get it right ship and we
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were on a we were on a Crossing not a cruise and so um um they will let you know that in
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Facebook groups to will just beware yes if anyone listens to this I'm sure they'll correct us they'll correct
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us U and and but you get to go visit them up to like four hours a day now mind you we were up there for like five
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minutes and we're like all right there they are but no they got the cats they fed them fresh like uh like pop salmon
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sushi Sashimi chicken and beef oh yeah they were feeding them like all this like oh
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do you mind if your cat has like as your cat allowed to have this as it you know and I'm like sure well when we got here
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um they didn't want to eat the kibble that I was serving for like two weeks yeah forever to ad our one cat we have a
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black cat named raven and a great one named Asher Raven the whole trip just just hid he did not like it and Asher is
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my troublemaker and he was like he was in it all and the Kenn was lot there's big dogs in there barking and stuff so
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it's a scary space that could be a bit stressful bit stressful and then we got to England and then we stayed with our
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friends for two nights and it was actually their their godmother came flew to New York and did the did the The
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Voyage with us which was great for me because it allowed me to really just decompress and she could take the kids
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off my hands for a little bit or be a buffer you know as we were all kind of changing our lives and kind of going
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into this unknown for sure and then you were basically taking all your luggage to their house and then getting it to
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the airport and getting it to Valencia then getting it to Valencia well yeah so what we did is we flew then from London
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to Madrid because you can't fly animals from London to Valencia so so we had to
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do Madrid and then take a train from Madrid and we had three hours I had
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planned so we'd have a three hour later over between the plane landed and the train took obiously plenty of time and
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everything's going smoothly but we get there and the suitcase is lost I was going to say you decided to take a train
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rather than like transfer your stuff to let them transfer your stuff to another
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plane that's Brave yes well the reason why is we had we had come a year before
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to make sure we wanted to move here right and so we done the train before and I to me for the cats and all of us
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to sit 3 hours at layover for for an airport for a flight to Valencia when we could already be on the ground there and
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the cats having to go up in the air again um I was like it would just be too much this way we'd be on the ground we
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can get settled and the train station's right in the middle of town and our where we were moving isn't far from that
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so I was like this just it just made easier sense and um but they had lost
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our suitcase so we were spent two and a half hours at the airport dealing with the Lost suitcase
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so when we arrived to the train station in Madrid which thankfully is like not
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far from the airport odds it was like a s minute cab ride but we now only was down to six suitcases so you know oh you
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never got the suitcase no we didn't get the suitcase by the suitcase did not arrive at that
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moment so that's no it did not arrive so here I am now we have like five minutes
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to get on this train and I'm lit I kid you not I am literally chucking our big suitcases down the escalator down to the
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the track and then I cut my leg on the escalator and I took a bandana and I
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turned a tourniquet around my leg and we got on the train and then I had two hours on the train to be like and then I
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was like what did I just do oh my God that's insane I do and did you have they have carts at the at the Madrid Air at
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the Madrid train station to move your luggage I mean I wasn't paying attention
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to that cuz we had five minutes it wasn't like I was like oh can someone help me like cuz you have to go through security with all your luggage at the
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the train station yeah oh my God I don't know how you even manag that well those bags that's insane well I did have two
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kids so they had two hands each and we could put a cat on top of the big suitcases and backpacks on our back I
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mean it was it was a lot it was it was also it was very good we lost that one suitcase cuz that would have been harder
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to deal with granted we would have had more time to deal with it though so there is that no that's true so we're
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checking it down we get here and we were lucky again thanks to the Facebook groups and another uh family that we're
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still very good friends with found us our apartment before we moved so we already had our place lined up so we
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moved into our home the day we arrived so I didn't have to deal with hotels and
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and that kind of thing that's that's very lucky because I think it's quite hard to look for a place from afar I
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think there's a lot of people that can get can get scammed and things and it's a bit nerve-wracking to do that we came
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over and our plan was to spend like 2 weeks in an Airbnb and then look for a
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full-term like a long-term apartment once we got here and we were then going to get like a year's lease and then
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while we did that we were going to look around in order to buy a house and stuff that was our plan we ended up in the
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Airbnb for 4 months wow did they give you like a discount because it was four months and they couldn't rent it out to
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anyone anyway I think we were very lucky because neither of us spoke Spanish very well and the person that we were renting
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from turns out her husband was from a place in Africa that spoke French so he
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spoke French which my husband speaks so we were super lucky that we were in a place with somebody that we could
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communicate with cuz they lived downstairs and we had the middle floor and we actually had a Terrace and we
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were in this tiny tiny village out in the middle of nowhere near Suunto in the middle of the orange Fields so that was
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also Super Lucky so we kind of had an apartment there we didn't just we did
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actually end up in a place that had a you know a kitchen and bathroom and everything to ourselves and then we had
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access to a roof which during the lockdown here we were very lucky to have
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cuz a lot of people were stuck in apartments like yours which your apartment's gorgeous but if you can't
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leave for four months you're starting to lose your mind oh no no that's what I was going to say so even um to backtrack
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during that that three months of lockdown could you even go to the beach with your family oh the beaches were closed no you weren't allowed anywhere
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you were not allowed out of the house like literally not allowed out of the house one person could go food shopping
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but you couldn't like media market like you know Leroy Maryland all these places were closed everything CL deliveries at
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least could you order stuff online no no I mean then you looked out cuz we had a roof and we could see the main like road
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that runs down the the beach from there and it was just there were no cars on it just trucks that were delivering food
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back and forth you know cuz the only people that could that could move around was anything to do with food or medical
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you know so there were no cars on the road um you know Jad got stopped a few
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times going to get food because we had to leave our little village he did all the food shopping and he had to leave
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our little village to go to the next village where the main Supermarket was we only had like a tiny Corner Shop which was also closed so the pharmacies
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and the food shops were open so he would get stopped by the police like where are you going and of course he didn't even know the names of of the villages we
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were going between right and and we were like this is crazy and
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we actually got lucky that um our Google Maps was working even though we didn't have a phone plan for some reason Google
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Map must have some kind of plan with everybody where they work even when you don't have a phone service and then we
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signed up for lobster which is a which is a english-based um phone plan where
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they they just mail the the phone chip to you and they have all and they also have all their customer service in
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English and everything and so they have a good plan and that you can have those chips mailed to you which that was
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something that we could do during Co so we ended up getting that sorted but it was you know even Amazon there was
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nothing on Amazon when we first got here and I don't know if that's because Amazon hadn't really picked up yet in
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Spain or whether it was covid related it's hard for us to know since we got here so close right I will say on the
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Amazon um level what the year and a half we've moved here the the the scope of
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what's available has drastically improved when we first arrived I was like there's not that much on Amazon and
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now so it could be it was didn't have maybe a little bit of both it didn't it didn't have the footprint and it was as
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the lock down because I mean it's still not as like amazing as like Amazon in America right where you can just get
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every single thing you could ever think of on it yeah it's definitely improved a lot if that's kind of what you want to
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have and you know I think like everybody we try not to use Amazon too much and try to use the local shops but you know
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that's a whole other discussion about local shops and where to buy stuff and when they're open and things like that
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that'll be episode four people yeah but also deliveries I mean all these things kind of make it a little easier to
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sometimes go to a local shop but another the shops weren't open so we could you know we would we' got printer paper for
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the printer and of course our daughter went straight into you know virtual school and you know she spent the most
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of lockdown we were playing Minecraft with friends in the States and so that was kind of a nice transition for her
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that when we moved here all her friends were also stuck at home somewhere else but it was like she got to sort of stay
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in touch with all of her friends in a way that was nice because we actually adjusted our time frame to be more like
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DC time frame because it didn't matter to us whether we were up at 9:00 in the morning or up until 4:00 in the morning
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it just didn't matter so we kind of adjusted our time frame a little bit but that was very unique [Music]
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so when you first arrived how was the transition for your girls because it was obviously a very different situation than when we first arrived and for when
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I think yours is more normal yeah I mean it was you like I
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said how we had planned the trip I think really helped we had this you know the girls had a time at Sea to decompress
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when our our apartment is gorgeous I'm very grateful to have it it fell into
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our lap just I had put something on Facebook group saying this is what we're moving if anyone knows of anything and
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there was another family leaving the week you the the month before we arrived so the apartment just that's how we got
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the apartment so when we arrived after this chaotic day that was the worst day of our trip was getting from London to
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to to Valencia that was the most hectic of the entire of the entire move process
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but that's what most people's move looks like completely I think they getting getting on a with all their whatever
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stuff they've decided to take with them and some people can manage to come with a small amount of stuff but bearing in
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mind you're probably not going to see your ship things for a while you're probably bringing a lot of things so you are and we did and we did ship so we had
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stuff that was coming whenever it decided to come exactly but you need to bring something and you need to bring enough you know yeah we had and and I
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will say we got rid of a lot of our clothes CU I was like we'll just buy new I had young kids I'm like you're going to grow by the end of the summer so
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let's just buy new stuff but it was a lot of paperwork a lot of those kind of things jewelry those kinds of things
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were in the suitcases but when we arrived in we opened the door to the apartment and this apartment is so much
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better than what we could have had in La so for what I was paying in La we have our apartment now and the kids were like
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oh this is where we get to live they get their own bedrooms and our quality they just saw that the reason why we moved is
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because I wanted a better quality of life for us for what I could afford and it showed on their faces the moment I
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opened the door they were like oh this is okay nice we're on board we're on
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board and and you're in a nice neighborhood and a cute neighborhood so even just walking to the apartment is a
29:05
lovely experience exactly I mean that first night we went out we had our we were lucky our the real estate agent who
29:11
facilitated the deal did Ikea delivery for us so we had a mattress on the floor and and we had four forks and four
29:18
plates we had stuff to get us through until we could go Furniture shopping that week but um we had KFC and I'll
29:24
tell you I missed that first night of having a bucket of KFC
29:30
yeah yeah cuz there's one like two blocks from us oh my God you're Amic and we' actually planned that before because
29:36
I looked at Google there's a KFC and and my youngest plomo was like can we get KFC on our first night like we had
29:42
planned that so that was already the plan because we moved here on a Sunday so it wasn't we didn't know what was going to be open because we knew things
29:49
were different in in Spain but um so we had that summer and then there's this
29:54
woman I met on Facebook who said oh no you have to have a play date this week and I said I don't know it's our first
30:00
week and she said no you need to it'll help um your daughters acclimate to um
30:08
their new life here if they meet another kid their age and that woman's name was Tanya who I'm talking to right now so
30:14
like three days after we arrived we're up in the mountains for a pool party well that's true yeah and and in all
30:19
fanas we were going to meet you when you first came for your little um you know scouting trip but you got all got Co we
30:26
all got Co thanks for reminding me of that little tree yeah so I was like um we'll catch you next
30:33
time yes but it was really lovely because our girls got along like immediately I think
30:40
and and I and I have you know for me personally in the times that I've moved in my life without family and kids and
30:47
everything the soon when you as soon as you meet people it does make you feel much more at home and I think for the
30:54
kids where you're wor you're worried and wondering how they're going to just as soon as they have friends they're good
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like they're just golden so it I think it makes a difference and obviously it would it help that we all got along a
31:07
little yeah it did did and I will have to say you know part of the transition
31:13
too is there was other people through Facebook that I met that were moving here the same week that we did and that
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we're still friends with um I will say that you know it's a question many
31:23
people have asked is how are your how are you assimilating how are your kids getting along are you finding friends at your social life like and I have to say
31:31
it's better than it was in America because there are a lot of expats here and we're a desperate Bunch we we're a
31:38
desperate bunch to meet people so everyone is much more outgoing now because they're not set to their lives
31:44
right they don't have they don't have their they don't have their bubble right oh you mean everyone's desperate not
31:50
just you right every all the X Community is like oh here's this person here's this person here's this this there's 50
31:58
and what's apps I mean it was so quickly that people were like come on over we're desperate to meet you right like it's
32:04
like it's it's just because they we we need people with our our similar and not even similar backgrounds we're just not
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Spanish and so breaking into that Spanish bubble is harder but it would be just the same as if we moved to Atlanta
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we're probably going to facilitate to people who are newer to Atlanta versus someone whose whole life and Community
32:23
is there and if we're not part of that it's hard to break into it right and we were lucky with the school I mean
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especially I think everyone just felt really really sorry for us so we had that going for us at the time but people
32:36
from the school were like super nice and were connecting with my daughter on on sort of WhatsApp and and zoom and things
32:43
sort of cuz everyone was stuck at home and I mean we were the we were the sad like people that had moved right before
32:49
lockdown and were just stuck at home in a country where they didn't know anybody and we didn't know anybody I think like you we didn't know anybody when we moved
32:56
here we didn't have family here or anything so we were like you you know
33:02
initially coming and very excited to build our community here with new people
33:08
all new it was going to be all new people I'm surprised that that part
33:14
never seemed scary to me because when you hearing it hearing you say it out loud God that sounds really scary and
33:21
that was not the thing that was scary to me I mean nothing was really scary about moving here but
33:26
um it didn't hold me back for sure you know like I said my actually both my my mom had died right before we moved as
33:33
well so we had I had no like like nuclear family to take care of to think about so but you're not very outgoing so
33:40
I could see that that might be I'm a little bit of a Hermit yeah I think it does you know I think if
33:47
you've ever moved you know that it's important to get out and meet people and that is very easy here to do and it's
33:53
easier obviously too if you have kids like I know people that come and they have bit of a harder time because they
33:59
don't have the kids automatically making friends and you don't have the excuse to with the kids to get together and things
34:05
like that so I think kids does make it easier for sure I think for you it definitely made it easier though because
34:10
she was younger when you moved here you we moved and you know as the kids get
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older parents are less involved in the school so for like like for my daughters like their friends I've met their
34:22
friends parents I think most of them by now but it's not like I saw them in the schoolyard my kids take up bus to school
34:29
and the schools you know unlike America I don't know cuz we go to different schools our kids go to different schools
34:34
but our school there's no parental involvement in the school and they made it very clear like no like when I I I
34:41
was laughing is when I was interviewing schools the year before I was telling them oh I I do the gala committee I do
34:48
all these things I'm trying to sell myself like I had to do back in America that does ex and she looked at me like I
34:54
was speaking a language like Klingon she's like what do you mean help out with the school but we had yeah
35:01
and we had like initially when we moved we um she had already been invited to a
35:06
birthday party you know which didn't happen because of Co but that was really nice we got most schools if you're going
35:13
into the private schools we'll probably have like a a WhatsApp group for your class and that's what we got on before we even moved and through that and
35:20
through being added to that WhatsApp group for her class somebody invited her which like you said at that age she was
35:26
seven yeah they inviting the whole class to a birthday party mostly so we got invited she got invited to a birthday
35:32
party so we already had that scheduled before we even moved and that was sort of that made me feel better that she had
35:38
something coming you know social so right yeah but I think
35:46
overall you know all the things that we might have been I think I was most nervous about the actual Logistics of
35:53
moving not getting things done and and assimilating once we got here that for
35:58
me I think was how I felt about it um it's all the things you have to do and if you have to get visas and getting all
36:04
that stuff together and we still had to gather a lot of paperwork for our
36:09
residency paperwork so and that would again everything needs to be only the
36:15
most 3 months old right so so it's the same as that too your documents can't day expire like your birth certificate
36:22
it expires right after three months so it's like did you have to get your birth certificate like a like Apostle like did
36:28
like that double stamp we had a friend that was willing to drive it down to
36:33
Richmond and get it done but unfortunately because it was Co everything was closed so everything had to be done VIA mail and then we had to
36:39
get it to Spain during Co when things weren't functioning properly so just that was very stressful because it was
36:45
like it could have taken us a month to get it apostal in Virginia and then it had to come over to us and you know what
36:52
I mean so the logistics of doing that but I think normally those things are much and it is stressful to get all
36:57
those things done but I think with when everything's functioning properly it's totally feasible you know and if you
37:03
have a friend that if you get if you're in Spain and you have a friend that can go and get something apostal for you or
37:08
something over there and send it to you those are some good things to have I think right
37:15
right yeah we for me because I had decided a year before that it was
37:21
definite I plotted out I had time to plot it out yeah so it
37:27
wasn't the moov it like the the before wasn't so stressful for me it was I was
37:33
more excited by it because this was really happening and I knew what the timelines were and I was lucky to live
37:38
in Los Angeles where the state department has an office and everyone had an office so and the Spanish
37:44
consulate had an office and yeah I've seen people like I they don't answer the phones they don't R emails I need
37:50
information I was able just to drive down there and like stand by the window until speak to me get on my yeah and we
37:56
were in DC so we had everything but I think that both of us were quite lucky some people are doing
38:01
it in more remote places where it's and have to buy airplane tickets and then find out they don't have the right applications the right stuff filled out
38:08
or it's expired so I was looking at I think they just gave us the Visa because they were sick of seeing me I think they're like I think so you know what I
38:15
don't want to see him anymore we would spot we would pop into the to the Spanish conso whatever they had in DC
38:20
not the embassy but yeah it was probably the embassy but it was a part of the embassy where you can go and ask questions and stuff and I think they got
38:26
a little sick of us they're like just could you just give these people what they want exactly but it's nice to have that
38:33
and I think they're you know not to oversell Facebook I mean we also I got a lot of information too you know it
38:39
wasn't just you like I was getting all the information but by the time you were coming around we had already been here for a couple of years so and we I felt
38:47
quite more I felt a lot more confident about that I could give advice that would help be helpful you know hopefully
38:53
right and you did you were you were fantastic and and and there are other people that have been Fant fantastic too
39:00
and and yeah again not to oversell it but it was a world about Facebook I never knew existed I never knew about
39:07
these groups and I don't even know how I even entered into that Wormhole of
39:13
Facebook groups to find this information I don't know if I Googled it or what I don't know how it came about I don't
39:19
think you need to Google things because as soon as you started Googling and looking at videos about Valencia
39:24
Facebook was popping up suggestions you might want this grou but like we be a
39:29
group who knows go back in this instance the groups are very helpful and people are and you can search the groups I mean
39:36
we'd search the groups for information and then and then you know but people are very helpful and I think everybody
39:42
understands how stressful it is but I also want to say I think it's hard sometimes to distinguish between stress
39:48
and excitement right and you have both in Mounds when you're planning a move like this and it's hard to know am I
39:56
feeling stressed or am I just super excited is a little bit of both but I think it we tend to think that it's all
40:02
stress but I think a lot of it is is excitement and it's important to be also excited while you're
40:08
stressed right I agree um I think we're probably running out of
40:16
time for our listeners but we got to pick this up next time um so stay tuned we hope you like our show we have a lot
40:22
of crazy stories so L one just a few
40:28
all right bye y'all hey can't get enough of us follow
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40:40
new things as we grow we would love for you to message us with any topics you would like to hear about see you next
40:47
time bye

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