Weekend in Valencia

With three and a half months under our belt, we have realized just how fast two years is going to fly by.  Initially I had given myself permission to use the first six months as a "settling in" period, giving us some slack if we didn't travel as often as we would have liked, with the perspective that anything we did manage to see would be a bonus.   Now, looking ahead towards a very busy summer, I realized it's time to start being a little more proactive in our approach.  What do they say? If you don't have a plan, you plan to fail...Though, Chris and I never seem to have plan...we figure it is never too late to start.  So last week we decided to sit down and "map out" what we wanted our travel plans to look like over the next 6-12 months.  It was a blast! 

Mia being cute. 

Once we DID start to plan, that's when we realized -- summer is BUSY.  Business trips, trainings, little weekend getaways, and visitors...all capped off with a two week trip home for the whole family to the US in August!  It feels like the whole summer is planned already, but definitely not in a bad way...it's all good stuff!  We have our first wave of visitors (hooray!!!) coming almost back to back.  Chris' father, John, and Lynne (aka Granddad and Meemah) were the first to arrive-- pulling into port (literally) at the end of a two week long trans-Atlantic cruise earlier this month.  It was so wonderful to see some familiar faces and to share our day to day excursions and adventures with family.  Sadly, the kiddos had a stomach bug for a chunk of the week they were here, making it a little challenging to do a lot of the bigger excursions outside the city we had planned to do together as a group, but our guests were understanding and had a great week regardless.  They saw a huge chunk of the Barcelona city sites, and were happy to spend some time staying local, strolling the streets of Poblenou enjoying the bocadillos, pastries, and local charm. 

Next up is Chris's mother, Judie, set to arrive in one week!  And just three weeks after that, my mother will be here for the first half of July...we are beyond excited for all these visitors.  

Then there are the things you do not plan...As I sat at the dining table drinking coffee after breakfast one morning last week, I saw a new groupon email pop up for a discounted hotel stay in Valencia.  I get groupon emails daily, and read them mostly for a daily Spanish lesson to see if I can understand what they say, but lately have been seeing some great deals on hotels in various places we are looking to go.  I already passed up one offer for a super cheap hotel in Budapest which I should have grabbed, so when I saw this offer for Valencia -- a place we had talked about wanting to travel-- I thought, NOW is the time.  It's time to stop talking and start doing.

"You wanna go to Valencia this weekend?  It's 32 euros for a night with this Groupon..."  I asked Chris, knowing full well what his answer would be. 

"Yeah, man." 

And that was that. 

Within one hour we had a rental car booked, the hotel booked, Molly's doggie sitters booked, and a weekend trip to look forward to. 

We had one night of hotel, so we decided to drive down to Valencia Friday night after Chris got out of work, then spend all day Saturday in the city and come home Saturday night.  It is about 3.5 hours south of Barcelona, right on the coast...there is something about having a car that just feels "normal" again.  I can't really explain it. 

One night, and we still can't travel light

"We're in a CAR!"

We got on the road around 7pm Friday night, and flew through the city...shocked by how little traffic there was.  Here we are, it is rush hour and we are heading south on a Friday before a long weekend (Monday was a holiday here in Spain too).  I had to wonder what 93 in Boston would look like heading south to the Cape at rush hour before Memorial Day weekend....not the same, I would imagine. 

Leaving Barcelona

Yet, as soon as my haughty-little "isn't Barcelona so great" remark came out of my mouth, the traffic stopped dead.  And I mean, DEAD.  Like, not moving in 45 minutes dead.  Yet, in typical BCN fashion, everyone got out of their cars and started milling around the highway chatting it up with other people and catching some rays.  Me?  Not super happy, and I didn't take a picture of that, as it was an hour of my life I'd rather not remember.

We made it to our hotel around 11:30pm, and checked in, got some sleep, and were up and out around 9am the next day.  I have to say, we were pleased with our groupon hotel.  When we arrived, I could see why it was so cheap.  We were about a 5-10 minute drive outside the city, and our check-in involved someone checking off our name from a penciled in list of "guests" and then handing over one card key with the room number and a remote for the TV, not a word said.  OK, nothing fancy, but it was clean and cheap and we were in Valencia.  Plus, breaky the next AM was free and really, REALLY good.  Also important to note, the restaurant inside the hotel was decorated with huge, life size photographs of nude people in yoga poses.  Boobs.  Butts.  It was all out there.  Have your OJ, and enjoy some nudes.  Chris suggested we take a picture, but I had to refuse that one...the American tourists with the loud crazy kids running around are snapping photos of the nudie pictures on the wall...not the look I'm going for :)

So, Valencia. 

Valencia is a beautiful city, the third largest behind Madrid and Barcelona...and surprisingly not as touristy as I would expect on a holiday weekend in May.  While we do do our research before we travel, I'm not one to write a ton of facts and history on the places we will travel -- I'll leave wikipedia to that.  I will say that it is a gorgeous city, full of a mix of old and new architecture that was the most impressive I've seen in my life so far.

There is a lot to see and do there, but we decided to focus our efforts this time on the Arts and Sciences section of the city, home to the Aquarium - known as the best in Europe.  We had planned to spend the morning walking around there, then head over to the "old town" for some famed Paella (invented in Valencia) for lunch and do some wandering around the market until early evening (or until the kids started to lose it --which ever came first) then head home.

The Aquarium was beautiful -- huge, with lots of outdoor spaces and, shockingly, not crowded at all!  The kids loved it.

My little Mia surrounded!

They loved this -- Evan especially. A little child-sized tunnel into a little room. Every minute or so a wave would break over the glass, Evan was in there for at least 30 mins.

We spent about 4 hours walking around the Aquarium, then headed down the rest of the strip to see all the architecture and let the kids nap a bit in the stroller...The Arts and Sciences area is about a mile long, lined with incredible sci-fi looking buildings (I'm sure there are lots of architects names I should be dropping).  Some of the most awe inspiring buildings I've ever seen. 

We stopped to sample some horchata - a Valencian drink made from Tiger nuts, unique to this area.  It tasted a lot like iced chai, delicious super refreshing on a hot day...

Tiger nuts

We ended our day in the old town...wandering the streets around the huge fresh market.  There were live street performers, and plenty of street vendors with huge pans of paella serving folks sitting at street side counters with cold draft beers and fresh olives.  We peaked inside the fresh market, then settled into a outdoor table to enjoy some paella for lunch and take in as much as we could before heading out. 
An electric guitarists came by, playing some Hendrix, and wooing our kids out of their seats and onto the street for some dancing. 
Sadly, my picture taking had slowed at this point, as I was more concerned with my fork getting to my mouth, then capturing everything on film (something I need to work on), but here are a few from our afternoon stroll in old town.

All in all, a great visit -- a place we'd love to come again.  Spain itself has so much to offer, so it felt good to "keep it local" for this one, and have a little family adventure close to home yet a world away from the everyday.

Lessons Learned

Prior to our arrival in Barcelona, I had heard from many folks who had either traveled, or lived, abroad that I will find Spain to be a relaxed, slower way of life. They sit down to drink their coffee, they take a long 1-2 hour lunch complete with three courses and cocktails, and, most importantly, they work to live, not the other way around. Who wouldn't want this? Sign me up! I had assumed when I arrived here in Spain, that mindset would wash over me, instantly creating an easy-going more relaxed version of myself.

This did not happen.

I think it was that expectation -- that I would seamlessly slide into a completely new persona-- that made my transition as difficult as it was. Because it was difficult. The first two months here were really more about survival than anything else, as evidenced by my extremely sparse blog entries :) I am happy to say that as of the last two weeks, I have eased into a happier, more settled lifestyle and mindset. My chest no longer aches when I think about our old house and town (well, maybe it still does a little), I no longer wonder what we were thinking coming here, or feel like everyone here is silently judging me for being an American in Barcelona. The folks in my neighborhood seem to now realize we are here to stay...the ones I pass on a daily basis who smile warmly and greet us with a wave. I have the confidence to find what I need, ask for what I want, and attempt this all in Spanish. I have a network of wonderful new friends who offer comic relief, tips, and insight into this experience. All of this has allowed me to look back on what was a rather difficult first 2.5 months here in Barcelona. Yes, we were also all ridiculously sick this whole time, and yes, moving anywhere comes with its own truckload of stress, but ultimately I think it was the pressure I put on myself to assimilate that caused a lot of my unrest.

I've heard it before -- you can't run away from your problems. This is not to say I have problems to run away from, but rather it was coming to terms with the fact that a person does not change simply because their environment does. I was a multitasking mother of two very young children coming from the suburbs of Boston. My day was about efficiency. Coming here was like shoving a square peg into a round hole. Yes, Barcelona is an incredible city that I wish everyone has the chance to see and experience, but that doesn't make it any less difficult to realize that you need to completely change your approach to life if you want to a.) enjoy this experience, and b.) grow as a person.

You have to change. You have to slow down. You have to embrace this new lifestyle, and stop trying to live your old one. This is not vacation, this is us, here for two years, trying to raise a family in a completely unfamiliar environment. If I was going to survive, I had to stop the endless mind spinning -- the "shoulding" myself to death. I needed to let go of the expectations, open my eyes, and see what was in front of me. Because I was missing it. And I don't want to miss another second.

I think one of the big turning points for me was talking to an old friend on Skype one day -- one who is facing her own challenges in life -- who told me "when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change".

And so that's what I did. I think it's a realization every person must come to at one point or another in their lives.

How did I do this? I came to some logical conclusions pertaining to our daily life here. Granted, it took me about 3 or 4 times running into a brick wall before I finally stopped what I was doing, but once I did, life became a whole lot easier.

#1 -- KEEP IT SIMPLE. Eat local, fresh food. Better yet, get what is in season. Fresh fruit, bread, veggies, olives, cheese, wine, and, of course, ham are amazingly fresh and cheap. If you can stick to these most days, you will save a lot of hassle (and money). If it is something that exists outside of Poblenou, ask myself "Do I really need this?". Yes, it is important to leave my part of the city for entertainment and exploration purposes, but it was the trips across the city for things like maple syrup and sound machines that were causing more stress than it was worth. These excursions were never enjoyable and were often met with more frustration than anything else. If it is hard to get here, you probably don't need it.

#2 -- SLOW DOWN. OK, the stores here open at 10am, close around 2pm, and don't open back up until 5pm (most days more like 5:30, or whenever folks feel like moseying back to work). Everything closes early on Saturday (usually around 3pm) and nothing is open on Sunday or the 100+ holidays here in Spain. Basically, whenever you need a store to be open, it's not. The was frustrating at first, but it really helps you shift your focus -- errands are always secondary here. If you can do it, great, if not, go back to your life which doesn't involve running to and from stores. I've learned not to get coffee to go, you won't enjoy it, and it will probably end up spilling down the length of the mall (see previous blog entry). I sit down outside, in the sun, with my baby girl and enjoy a cafe con leche. Look around. Listen and see the amazing things around me. The ten minutes I would save balancing that coffee in the crook of my arm isn't worth it. On the same note, if all I end up doing during the day is getting milk and bread at the store, I'm not going to sweat it. My happiness isn't worth a night of self loathing because I didn't cross everything off my to-do list.

#3 -- LIFE IS NO LONGER DEFINED BY MY CAREER. This one is hard. I grew up in a generation of folks that was extremely competitive and career focused.  I spent a lot of time and money in order to realize my dream career.  It was, and is, the perfect job for me, and I felt lucky every day when I went to work -- no joke, EVERY DAY at work I sat down at my desk and smiled, still amazed that I was finally doing what I had dreamed of doing. Now, I very willingly came to Spain, knowing full well that I could not work as a nurse practitioner here, but never anticipated the shift I needed to make in my own mind in order to be OK with that. And even though it's not like I'm sitting around drinking wine with my feet up all day -- two children are plenty of work (often TOO much work), but you still have to come to terms with the feelings of inadequacy that creep in when you leave your career behind. I can no longer define myself in terms of achievements. My sense of purpose, and feeling of accomplishment, needs to come from within now. My experiences will define my day. That's not an easy shift to make. I have found some freelance medical writing work to keep me involved in the field and provide a thoughtful outlet to my week, and do have some plans in the works for some other women's health related work here in Barcelona, but it is no longer who I am. I'm on a new path now, and I need to trust that it is where I need to be.

# 4 -- IF YOU START TO FEEL DEPRESSED YOU AREN'T DRINKING ENOUGH. An important point made by my new ex-pat friends, and I think speaks for itself. Let's not jump to any worried assumptions that we are turning into drunk, belligerent parents...Just simply embracing the European attitude on drinking which basically incorporates a drink into anytime of day. Beer for breakfast? Why not. (This one I have not yet attempted) Beer at the zoo? Of course. Wine with lunch? A given. Why have a glass of sangria when you can get a pitcher? Which also leads me to the next lesson learned...

#5 -- IF YOU MUST GO TO IKEA IN SPAIN BE SURE START THE TRIP AT THE CAFETERIA WITH A BEER. Again, a vital suggestion made by an ex-patter which has made all the difference. Chris and I had to bring both children to IKEA this past weekend...which is a blog entry in itself. Moral of the story, we kicked the trip off with two soft serve ice-cream cones for the kids, and one beer a piece for us, and the trip was exponentially more enjoyable for all. Well, the kids enjoyment ended when the cone was finished, but we had successfully numbed the pain for the rest of the 2 hour walk through. We smiled through two screaming fits, laughed at a complete soak through pee-in-pants session, and shrugged off dealing with sketch ball delivery men. Highly, HIGHLY recommend this tip.

So there you have it...my lessons learned. Now, with all the deeps stuff behind us, it's time to start livin' it up!