Emigration Fair

Back in Holland, we attended the annual emigration fair.  Such an event sounds a little strange, but the Dutch love to travel and so many decide to leave their little country for good, that there´s always a big attendance.  

We were already planning on going to mid-southern France next but thought we might take a peek at what other countries had on offer.  The exhibition halls were full of stalls representing various countries, housing developments, moving companies, insurances and other services.  We had been warned to watch out for the Finns.  Michiel´s sister told us that in the past, they were so eager to have Dutch people re-populate the emptying small villages that if you passed by their stall, they´d nearly grab you and pull you in for a conversation.  This year, the torch had apparently been handed over to the Swedes, who stepped into the aisle, looked Michiel in the face and said "would you like to live in Sweden?"  We escaped quickly.  I´m sure Sweden is beautiful but we are looking for a place with a climate less like Alaska´s.

If that´s the case, why did we stop in at the Norwegian stall?  Was it because we´ve been watching a silly reality program with famous Dutch and Flemish TV stars competing against each other to reach 71 degrees latitude in Norway?  Well....not really....but we DO love Alaska and really miss the nature, the long summer days, the wilderness and the space.  We also have a feeling that in terms of culture and mentality, the Norwegians are probably more of what we´re looking for than small-town Frenchmen or Spaniards.  But to choose to live in one of the most expensive countries in the world and learn a difficult language that is spoken by only 5 million people and has NO official spoken form (meaning everyone speaks a local dialect) is a little nuts.  However, it was hard to deny the very upbeat, energetic young Dutch woman staffing the stall, whose sole job is to encourage and assist Dutch people in moving to and getting started in a region of Norway called Telemark (where that type of skiing originates).  To make our resistance even weaker, she enticed us with a seemingly perfect opportunity - running an operational hostel with a view to increasing appeal to foreigners and adding guided tours and other extras.  It sounded right up our alley.  Sadly, the business owner was already in discussions with 2 other couples who had started to learn Norwegian.  Easy come - easy go.

Elsewhere at the fair, the Massif Central area of France was very well represented and had an impressive offer for people looking to relocate there.  They have a dedicated English-speaking representative who can assist matching up businesses for sale with appropriate buyers.  They also offer free lodging and financial assistance to people who are coming to the region to seriously look for homes or businesses to buy.  We took copies of the abundant literature available on the region and noted down web addresses, etc. so that when we head off to our first host in France, we´ll know what´s available and where we should focus our energies.

A Break from the Search

We returned to the Netherlands in early December to spend Christmas with the family.  This is the reason after all why we are looking for our perfect place in western Europe - to be within a few hours travel of Michiel´s family.  We had a great Indonesian feast (isn´t that what EVERYONE does for Christmas??!!) and enjoyed the snow and sun of a good old-fashioned Dutch winter.

After the holiday, we spent several weeks in the States with family in Huntsville, Alabama and then in Terlingua, Texas near Big Bend National Park.  In both places, they were experiencing record cold temperatures and even snow (in Alabama) but that didn´t dampen our enthusiasm.

It was wonderful to be able to spend lots of quality time with Jon (my brother), Aor and Jake and my mom, who made the trip from Florida to be with us.  Not returning to Antarctica this season meant that I haven´t played drums in a while so I especially enjoyed playing Rock Band with them - plus my 6 year old nephew is a killer singer, drummer, and guitarist, my brother rocks the guitar and vocals and Michiel made his first semi-public appearance as lead singer.   Going to the Space and Rocket Center (Huntsville is home to NASA´s Marshall Space Flight Center), showing Jake his first stalagtites at the impressive Cathedral Caverns and getting to be a part of their lives for a couple of weeks were really wonderful.

 

   

In Texas, we did lots of hiking with our friends from Alaska, Todd, Barb and Liam and got to experience desert life in low-key, hippy style in Terlingua.  The highlights (aside from the company, of course) were the wild animals, which included roadrunners (they don´t really say "meep meep"), coyotes, mule deer, wild boar (javalinas) and a MOUNTAIN LION from far too close by. Having a mountain lion run between us while we were watching deer at the Chisos Basin campground was one of our top ten moments in nature ever!

   

El Bueno, El Malo y El Feo

We had reached the end of our six month journey of discovery in Spain and it was time to retreat back to the comfort of "home" in the Netherlands to get some distance and perspective.  We´d met some wonderful people and visited some beautiful places but we we weren´t tourists - we were looking at the country with a more critical eye.  Could we live there happily?  Could we find people we could call real friends?  Could we picture a successful future for ourselves there?

We made our lists:

The Good (El Bueno)

• Cheap food (the menu del dia!) and wine (and MUCH better Spanish wine than what you get outside the country!)
• Free tapas in certain parts of the country
• Warm, generous and friendly people who love to have fun and provide assistance
  Several times, when asking for directions or just looking at a map, people would actually walk us to  where we needed to go.  We also spent many nights staying in the homes of wonderful people we´d met at our Pueblo Ingles programs.
• Lots of sunshine (very handy since we´d like to use solar panels to produce electricity)
• Charming and picturesque white-washed villages that would make excellent tourist destinations (should we decide to start a tour company - which is one of our possible ideas)
• Lots of opportunities for English teachers (another possible job idea)
• Stunning mountain scenery in the north of the country
• A beautiful and useful (in the world) language - but with MANY regional dialects
• Because Spaniards are so socially focused, they consider living remotely and quietly in the country as something only poor peasants do.  Therefore, the demand for property is mostly within the villages.  Land in the countryside (outside of Catalonia) is relatively cheap (unless the prior owner is a foreigner!) 

The Bad (El Malo) - otherwise known as The Irritating

• If I had to use one word to describe Spanish culture, it would be "adolescent".  We got the sense that drinking, smoking, being with friends (and family), making lots of noise, ignoring laws and restrictions, being overly dramatic, and focusing on one´s appearance (or talking about the appearance of others) were the hallmarks of life in Spain.
  
  [Of course, not all Spaniards are "adolescents".  We certainly met some thoughtful, intellectual, mature, introspective, well-travelled and well-informed Spaniards who certainly don´t fit the cultural observations we´ve made here.  To those special people (and they´re probably reading this!), we hope you understand that we are making generalizations based on our interactions all over the country.]
  
  
• Lack of world view.  Travel abroad is a fairly new concept to Spaniards and many haven´t even seen much of their own country.  There seems to be little interest in knowing what goes on in the rest of the world unless it´s to be able to say that Spain does it better.
• In a similar vein, insular, regional pride that in some areas has led to separatist movements and violence.
• The lack of foreign travel means that there is a corresponding lack of interest in foreign food.  Even large supermarkets in most places have a meager selection of food items.  For example, since they don´t use fresh basil or cilantro in their cooking, there´s no demand for it and, therefore, the farmers don´t grow it. It is also nearly impossible to find ingredients to make "ethnic" foods in any place other than the big cities or in expat enclaves (and I´m not just talking about coconut milk, but also something as simple as pesto).  
• Rigid compliance with the way things have always been done (ex. meal times, recipes, taking the evening promenade).
• The lack of customer service in just about all business situations.  Spaniards haven´t learned the art of dealing with customers, but instead see them as a nuisance and interruption.
• Automatic timers on the lights in restaurant/bar bathrooms that are ALWAYS too short! (this is merely an observation, not a real issue...but strange nonetheless)

The Ugly (El Feo) - otherwise known as The Things that Really Make Us Think Twice

• Corruption in some political offices especially with regard to land and property
• Lousy economy.  With 1.5 million empty new homes and close to 20% unemployment in some areas, is this a country we want to make our future in?
• Extreme climate.  The summers are really too hot and the land too dry in most of the country.  In what we think is the most beautiful part of the country, we could expect to experience as much rain and as many cloudy days as England.  In the rest of the country, getting enough water is or will be a real issue.
• Much of the countryside isn´t very attractive.  The interior of the country is a high, dry and dusty plateau.  In the south, much of the land has been overgrazed by goats and has very few trees, with the exception of rows upon rows of olive trees. And on the coasts, rampant overdevelopment has resulted in communities of soulless concrete apartment blocks.

In a nutshell, we wholeheartedly recommend Spain as a place for your next vacation.  It has a fascinating history, beautiful cities and villages, friendly people, cheap food and wine and (in most places) lots of sunshine.  However, when we look at the lists above and consult our hearts, we don´t feel like we found what we are looking for.  This isn´t to say that we won´t revisit the idea of living in Spain, but we know that if we DO choose Spain, we will struggle daily against the irritations of Los Malos and the real issues of  Los Feos.

In the meantime, we´ve decided to continue our search for our perfect place in mid- and southern France.   After a brief hiatus, we´ll be back on the hunt.

The Inspiration

With a sigh of relief, we left the institution and made our way back to Madrid and beyond to stay with our last hosts. They were a Spanish/American man and his Finnish wife who were just about the same age as us. They had had a busy summer with volunteers and weren't looking to take on anyone but they read our profile and email and were intrigued enough to take us on for 10 days. It worked out perfectly for us as they were just an 1.5 hour bus ride west of Madrid, where we were to fly out of on the 10th of December.

The couple lived outside of a small town down an unpaved road. Like us, five years prior, they had been searching for a perfect spot to live lightly on the land and embark on the road to self-sustainability and off-grid living. This particular part of Spain appealed to them because the land was cheap and there were a good number of trees (something that is hard to find in the high plateau of central Spain) and, perhaps equally important, it was close enough to mom and dad to use their washing machine once a week.

They designed and built their own house, used solar panels for electricity and pumping water and had a small wind turbine to supplement the solar panels. They used mobile phone technology for internet access and harvested vegetables from their garden. Heat for the house came from a super-efficient Tulikivi soapstone stove which kept the majority of the house warm with just two fires per day with a total of 6 kilograms (13 pounds) of wood.

  

Our host was working hard digging a partially below-ground greenhouse but we did less strenuous work clearing out the raised garden bed for winter, chipping wood, treating trees for caterpillars, pruning, collecting wood and prepping downed wood for either the stove or the wood chipper. The work wasn't particularly exciting but the discussions and meal times certainly were. Our hosts were absolutely wonderful people with a great sense of humor. Our hostess was particularly sweet, caring and charming and our host was a walking encyclopedia of self-sufficiency.

  

When we weren´t learning from our host, talking about the world or doing our volunteer tasks, we enjoyed borrowing from their extensive library, checking out the surrounding countryside and trying to win the trust of their four big and lovable dogs.

   

Sadly, our time here passed far too quickly but it was absolutely inspirational to see two people doing what we hope to be doing in the future and living quite comfortably on about €6,000.00 ($8,000.00) per year. We left Spain on a high with new friends and new-found hope.

The Institution

While we were in the deep south of the country, we came upon our next host´s posting.  The details of the site were intriguing:  a former thermal spa that has been transformed into a health education and sustainable living project in the Spanish Pyrenees.  The location is exactly what we were looking for:  nestled in the Cerdanya of the Pyrenees, a unique east-west oriented valley that receives over 3000 hours of sunshine per year.  The project was less than an hour from Andorra and very close to excellent mountain hiking terrain.  Furthermore, the very attractive website for the project made it sound like there was a functioning community - with a medical professional, a groundskeeper and a vision for like-minded individuals to buy into the cooperative.

Even the application process seemed to be professionally managed.  We were required to fill out a two page form asking about our skills, interests and philosophies.  No other host had such an in-depth process and we were impressed at the organization and also optimistic about this being a possible home for us.

Soon after our applications were approved, we received an email requesting that we phone immediately.  The host wanted to let us know that due to the fragile mental condition of his wife (who had recently been diagnosed as bi-polar), we might make the trip to his home and find that she would not accept us.  Apparently, she had recently gone through a "bad spell" and was quite volatile.  A long term volunteer had just decided to leave and it was possible that she would not accept the disturbance in the household that we would cause.

As there were no other hosts in the direct area, we worried that our long and costly travels would be for naught.  We arrived late in the evening and our host, a 70 year old British man, picked us up at the bus stop in town.  He informed us in his rambling, mumbling, unintelligible way that his "dear wife" had left the house and wanted nothing more to do with him - at least that´s what we think he said.  Over the course of the two weeks, we grew so exasperated with his unclear manner of speaking (and this was even after explaining to him that we were having difficulties understanding him) that we fought amongst ourselves to not sit across from him at dinner or in the front seat of the car so we could feign deafness.  Before you decide that we are really intolerant, let me point out that the majority of his "talking" was actually a sort of sing-songy repetition of words like "buuuuueno, bueno, bueno, bueno, buuuueno".

With his poor hearing, lack of listening skills, mumbly Spanish and total absorption with the idea that he was going to cure his wife with the use of foods with proper enzymes, we found meal times (which were required to be family style) to be unbearable.  A long-time volunteer (6 months?) joined us only for lunch and dinner.  This volunteer was a 60-something year old Italian, who was on the run from the mafia for testifying against them in a court case.  I swear I don´t make this stuff up.  This guy was trying to make a new life for himself in Spain as a cook but hadn´t had any luck finding work in Barcelona.  He was a terrifically difficult person who also mumbled when he spoke, smoked like a chimney, did whatever work he felt like doing and didn´t do any work when the boss was away.  He spoke no English so meal times were a ridiculous attempt to try to understand each other.

You´d think that a guy who wanted to be a cook would be eager to cook for us, but we couldn´t get him to agree to a cooking schedule.  He could only prepare food when he had "inspiration".  This meant that neither Michiel nor I (who absolutely CANNOT cook by inspiration) could plan on cooking a certain meal and if we had planned on doing something, we would come into the kitchen to find him marinating a rabbit or who knows what.  Yes, we ate well and enjoyed his hand-picked mushrooms, but, unfortunately, he often used too much salt and ruined the food.  At times when we did cook, the host informed us during the meal that we should leave some food over for some guests he had neglected to tell us about.  Needless to say, nothing ran as professionally as the website or application process led us to expect.

We lived in the old hotel of the thermal resort, which had big holes in the roof and a top floor that was structurally unstable.  The hotel had been restored to the point that the ground and first floors were inhabitable and neat but very, very cold.  The hotel had no heating and very little, if any, insulation, so we were enormously grateful for the terrific orientation of the building to the south.  The glorious sunshine (and there was lots!) warmed up our room during the day and the many solar panels out back ensured that we could take nice warm baths maybe 60 percent of the days.  Since it was November, though, the sun dipped early behind the mountains and we had a few days of beautiful (but cold!) frost and snow.  Thank goodness for the electric heaters (I know....not very sustainable but much needed before bed and in the morning).

The view from our bedroom

Speaking of sustainability, there was not much sustainable about this project except for the solar hot water and the wood stove.  The host complained of very high electric bills but didn´t want to take the steps to identify the problem appliances. Food came completely from the supermarket or from health food stores in Barcelona (over an hour away), though there were still some herbs and potatoes in the nearly frozen soil. Sadly, the thermal waters were far cooler than advertised on the website and the pool was far too cold to swim or soak comfortably.

But despite all of this, the landscape was gorgeous and the work was generally fun.  We had great views of a small mountain range to the south and the Pyrenees to the north.  Our work hours were spent with a paid employee, a local man, who managed the property.  He was a terrific guy with a great sense of humor, a ridiculous amount of energy and total patience with our Spanish.  We worked with him cutting down trees, removing fallen leaves, putting manure in the garden beds, and building a rustic fence from tree branches.  He and the beautiful views and sunshine were the only reasons we were able to last the two weeks we had committed to.

 

When we arrived at this host, we were asked to read and sign a sheet of house rules.  Amongst them was the expectation that if we stayed for less than two weeks, we might be asked to contribute money for our weekend food consumption.  We were also notified that we were not permitted to have coffee from the espresso maker except on weekends and that we had to ask permission before eating anything as the food might be for the restaurant (which received almost no guests at this time of year).  When we followed the rules and asked permission, our host looked incredulous.  We realized that he had no intentions of actually enforcing these rules.

Outings:  hiking to Andorra and biking in the neighborhood



 

Our time at this host was often very trying.  When dining with the host and the other volunteer, we kept our sanity by telling ourselves "this will be funny...later".  We had to leave as soon as possible. Physically, the place reminded me of one of those old tuberculosis recovery spas and mentally, well, I couldn´t escape the feeling that we had landed in a mental institution.   As the two weeks crawled by, we frantically searched for one last Spanish host who could re-affirm our lifestyle choice and help us get over our disappointment.

As for the area, we had some interaction with the locals in the small town below the "spa" but found the whole region to be dedicated to the summer tourists from Barcelona.  Many of the small towns were mostly deserted as they are made up primarily of summer houses for wealthy Barcelonans.  Also, as promised, the locals spoke Catalan with each other and all signs were only in Catalan.  It felt like we had crossed over into a new country - a country that felt a little abandoned but with here and there touristy ski resort towns.  This new country had land prices way beyond our reach.    So despite the exceptionally attractive mountains and sunshine, we had to cross this region off our list.

My all-time-favorite vending machine:  fresh cow´s milk.  The machine on the left dispenses clean bottles. The people are standing in front of a machine that dispenses full or half bottles of local milk

At our next host we find inspiration....