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Another Bureaucratic Update: The Waiting Worked!

For those of you who’ve been following along, lighting candles, sacrificing toner cartridges, or simply shaking your heads knowingly, I’m happy to report a small but meaningful victory in our ongoing Social Security saga. Kristie’s account is now showing as ACTIVE. No fanfare or trumpet blast, just a quiet status change on a website. Which,…

Bureaucratic Update: We Have (Partial) Lift-off

For those of you who have been following along (and possibly lighting candles for us), a quick update on our Social Security Suspension Saga. After a full 90 minutes of redialing, followed by five minutes of actual ringing (during which I refused to hang up on principle), I finally reached a human being at the…

Suspended in Bureaucracy: Our Social Security Saga from Abroad

When you move abroad, you expect some red tape. Visas, taxes, and bank accounts are the standard dragon quests of expat life. But once you’re settled in, you’d think the basics would stay … well, basic. Kristie and I made that exact assumption when we moved, confident that our previous experience had prepared us. After…

Curtains Up: Discovering Valencia’s Live Performance Scene

…or, Why We’re Still Constantly Surprised by This City One of the things we’ve loved most about living in Valencia is how much of life happens outside the apartment. There are things constantly occurring in plazas, parks, markets, and, excitingly, on stage. We knew there’d be paella. We knew there’d be beaches. But we didn’t…

Healthcare Update: Good News, Bad Scheduling, and a €553 Meniscus

Time for an update on the ongoing saga of The Knee. When I wrote the last post, I was somewhere between hopeful, frustrated, and heavily medicated. We had just entered what I assumed would be the next phase of the adventure: lining up with the Spanish national healthcare system to start getting answers. Well. Things…

A Crash Course in Spanish Healthcare (Literally)

It’s been a while since my last update, and that’s not because I’ve run out of things to say. Quite the opposite. It’s just been… a lot. Some of it has been joyful. The arrival of our new cat Rea was wonderful, and we travelled to the US for some family time at Thanksgiving. Some…

Getting Around Valencia: How Do We Get Where We’re Going?

In Lisbon, we had three modes of transportation. We used the metro a lot; we had monthly passes, and got our money’s worth out of them. We combined that with walking. Our general rule of thumb was if the total journey was less than 15 minutes by foot, or if the destination was within 10…

A New Sister for Lexie: Welcoming Rea

This post is only peripherally about Valencia, or Spain, or being an expatriate. It’s mostly about the #1 subject on the internet – cats! Even before we left Portugal, we’d talked about the idea of getting Lexie a companion. She’s a sweet, quiet cat who gets a little bored at times when the humans aren’t…

“What Time Do We Eat?” Adjusting to Spain’s Meal Schedule (Sort Of)

One of the trickier things about moving to Spain hasn’t been the language, the bureaucracy, or even the humidity. It’s been the clock. Or more specifically: the meal clock. “What time do we eat?” is a surprisingly complicated question here. In theory, the Spanish answer is beautifully structured with a schedule built over generations to…

Life, Interrupted (and Restarted)

It’s been a minute since the last update as life caught up with us for a bit. A combination of dental surgery, major festivals, and a lovely family visit meant things were less about writing and more about just living. Let’s catch up. First up: I had dental surgery. Nothing glamorous, just the removal of…

Replacing Portugal’s Liquid Gold: Finding Wine We Love in Spain

One of the absolute best things about living in Portugal (right after the people) is the wine. It’s fantastic. It’s affordable. And it was one of our regular pleasures for the five years we lived there. Portuguese wine rarely makes a splash abroad, and there are two big reasons for that. First, production levels at…

Old Friends, New City: Hosting Our First Visitors in Valencia

One of the best parts of starting a new chapter in a new country is getting to share it with the people who know you best. This past week, we had our first visitors: our dear friends David and Sarah, flying in from Lisbon. They were our closest friends during our years in Portugal, and…

Cheese Expectations: Spain’s Dairy Overachievers

Let’s get one thing out of the way: I lived in Portugal for years, and I love Portuguese cheese. I do. From the soft and runny decadence of Serra da Estrela, to the salty firmness of São Jorge, to those lightly aged sheep cheeses that land somewhere between a custard and a dream, there’s some…

The Cure for Everything: A Deep Dive into Spanish Charcuterie

One of the first things we started buying regularly at the Central Market was charcuterie. Not because we were planning elaborate tapas spreads (though we’ve had a few), but because in Spain, charcuterie isn’t a luxury, it’s just food. You slice off a few pieces, put them on a plate, and suddenly your meal is…

Thursdays at the Market: Getting to Know Valencia, One Stall at a Time

It’s one thing to live in a city, but it’s another to have your habits in that city. One of the ways we’ve started to feel at home in Valencia has nothing to do with paperwork, language classes, or learning how to buzz delivery people into the building. It’s this: we go to the market…

Pizza vs. Coca vs. Pinsa: A Mediterranean Flatbread Throwdown

Let’s talk about flatbread. Specifically, let’s talk about how every Mediterranean culture seems to think they invented it, and everyone else just copied it with too much cheese, not enough olives, or some other culinary crime. In fact, after living here a while, I’ve started thinking about flatbreads the way I think about Mediterranean empires:…

Southern Soul: Why Italian Food Feels So at Home in Valencia

In my last post, I shared some of our early food discoveries in Valencia. Where to go for paella, tapas, tacos, and even a sushi place with go-go dancers. (Yes, really. If you missed that, it’s worth a scroll back just for the video.) But there was one category where I intentionally held back: Italian…

Tapas, Tacos, and Toothpicks: Our First Food Finds in Valencia

When you move to a new city, your first impressions often come on a plate. It’s still early days, but we’ve already begun building a shortlist of favorite restaurants here in Valencia. And like any good list, it starts with the local hero. In this case, it’s paella. We’re in the land of paella. Valencia…

Early Days in Valencia: Finding Our Way

We’ve arrived. Not just physically, although yes, we did literally arrive in Valencia with all the requisite suitcases, boxes, and a surprisingly non-judgmental cat. We’ve also arrived mentally and emotionally. Having visited Valencia before, we had pretty high hopes that we’d feel comfortable here. And I’m happy to report  we were right. It’s like slipping…

Bureaucratic Adventures (But Made Surprisingly Efficient)

Now that the moving portion of the adventure is more or less complete, it’s time to start examining life in Valencia! If you’ve ever moved countries, you probably carry a certain emotional scar tissue, inflicted not by the packing, not by the flights, but by the paperwork. Forms you didn’t know existed. Appointments that need…

Unburying, Unboxing, and Unpacking the Madness

There’s something oddly archaeological about unpacking after an international move. It’s like excavating the ruins of a long-lost civilization. In this case, though, the ruins are your own belongings, mummified in bubble wrap and cardboard, and labeled with cryptic runes like “Ornaments” or “Decorations.” Armed with box cutters and a cautious sense of optimism, Kristie…

Delivery Day: Stair Drama, Missing Boxes, and a Cat on Patrol

We skipped our last glorious breakfast at the Only You August 4th because the movers were scheduled for 8:00 AM. This was a mistake. At 10:00, two guys finally rolled up… and immediately went for a half-hour coffee break. Not exactly the high-energy start I’d imagined. Only two movers? For 222 total items, including furniture?…

Ten Days of Limbo: Living Between Two Homes

Arriving in Valencia felt like the hard part was over. We’d made the drive, survived a day in the car with Lexie and the birds, and had the keys to our new apartment in hand. All that was left was to wait for our things to arrive. In my boyish optimism, I thought a week…

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