November [noviembre] 2025

Ok, so the communications thing was kind of a nightmare for the first couple weeks. We finally got the internet and I finally got a Spanish phone number so I can actually talk again! Texting costs money, but email is free! Or there is Whatsapp.

It's 11am here when I'm sending this, so it's 5am there.

Settling in, it's a lovely old town. People notice us constantly because they know we are not from here before we even open our mouths. There have been several times when we were out and talking and I'd see someone notice us speaking English and suddenly their group was definitely talking about us. I loathe being noticed, but I get it; we're weird. It's a small town and everyone knows or is related to each other, so we definitely stand out. So far, most people have been pretty nice. Knowing ahead of time that pretty much everything shuts down between 2 and 5 and actually living everything shutting down between 2 and 5 has been interesting. We're catching on though. There is a castle in town, it's an easy hike. Everyone smokes, everyone drinks. I went from almost never drinking to having a Rosé at lunch time almost daily. I haven't picked up smoking cigarettes again.

Our apartment is interesting. It was built about 130 years ago and it's very rustic. It has a mildly salacious recent past! The last tenants were growing weed on the top floor (the whole house still smells vaguely of it). They found out they were going to get arrested and stole some of the furniture and art from the owner and left. We are still working with the owner to get some things replaced, but we have a kitchen and a couple TVs, 3 beds, a washing machine, a recliner and a dining table with 4 chairs, and a good fireplace. The basics. Kind of like being a broke kid in their first apartment with milk crates lol. All in all, not bad. 3 floors, so LOTS of stairs, but we feel good. Most of the streets are colorful little alleys and your view is of another person's building, but we got lucky. There is an old ruin across from us and it has a tree that is absolutely and ridiculously filled with birds. At dawn, they make a massive ruckus, chittering away, asking each other what their plans are for the day, and again at sunset, getting the gossip about where they have been and what they have been eating and if they shit on anyone's head today. We can see the street above and the buildings above that, a little bit of the castle wall, and the sky beyond.

The food is AMAZING. Everything seems to come out delicious.  And I haven't really been disappointed by a meal yet (just one place served what looked like frozen pre-packaged hamburgers, and I'm pretty sure she hated us so... no surprise, but I won't go back there again). The wine doesn't make me feel like shit, and we walk everywhere... Lots of exercise. We're looking into getting a car, but we need our NIEs first, which is sort of like a SSN I think. We applied, but we're still waiting on the appointment. In the meantime, we borrow our friend's car if we have to go to the big grocery store in the next town, Graus, which is a little bigger and I'd definitely entertain moving there if the rental we want is available. A 5 bedroom stand alone house would be a DREAM. There is a guy in it till spring, maybe summer, so we will wait and see if it pans out.

The weather has been nice. In the 40s at night, 60s in the day. Sunny. Low humidity. Fall colors! Not many reds, but yellows for days. It reminds me a lot of California, actually. We've been on a couple hikes, but some of the signage is hard to read so we've ended up in some weird places that we may or may not have been allowed in lol. There is an old cobblestone road that leads down to this giant basically concrete vat where people used to come to do their laundry up until about a hundred years ago (probably less, actually, whenever they got washing machines lol). It's all mossy and slimy now, but the water is clear and still flows.

It's so incredibly quiet here. There has been this sort of electrical hum I think we've been living with for our whole lives and it just doesn't exist outdoors here. It's like that kind of quiet when it snows and everything is insulated and hushed. 

Work has been slow to pick up, but we're doing ok. Beau should be able to start some stuff next week and I've been doing my little bits online. Trying to get the kids school transcripts so we can put them in school has been harder than I hoped, but we have several weeks to get it sorted so I'm not that worried. The town is safe enough that they can just roam to the playground and back and no one bugs them, but I make sure they go together. They've met some of the local kids at a Halloween party, but so far have no deep connections. Fortunately some of the younger kids speak a fair amount of English, enough for them to be able to get by. There are a few adults that do too, but it's mostly hand signals, me apologizing for not knowing the words, and Beau doing his best to translate, or our friend Patri, who has been infinitely helpful, doing all the talking. 

Anyway, that's all for us for now. Stay Tuned.

Don't forget to check out the picture Album.