JanisU - To Spain

A Peek Under the Hood

It’s been a year since I moved to Spain with my son and husband. I imagine most people think the past year has been about travel and cultural immersion. While this is true, there’s another part of the story. Some Things You Might Not Know Most people don’

language immersion, letting go, self growth

Who Am I?

If I asked you who you are, what would you say? Would you say you are an American, an Italian, or a Spaniard? Would you tell me you had kids or grandkids? Would you tell me you were a doctor, an engineer or a programmer? I’ve lived abroad for

Year End Reflections

I can't believe the end of the year is upon us. 2017 has been quite a ride. I am sitting in the living room looking out the window at the still night outside. The sky is full of clouds, making the sky seem a dark gray. A couple of nights

Our First Thanksgiving Abroad

John said something today that reminded me about our blog. I realized I hadn’t written for a couple of weeks now. Eek! As we were enjoying the sites of Nantes for the last time before our flight, he mentioned the fact that we'd only had our residency cards for

The One Month Mark

We've been in Barcelona for a little over a month now. Daily life is coming together, we have less interruptions to our daily routine and that feels nice. It's also been two weeks since we were approved for residency. We've been using the receipt they issued us on October 26th

Residency

It has been many days since I've written a blog. Let's just say there's been a lot going on in our little world. This week we've been sorting through our residency requirements with the immigration attorneys we hired back in September. After the long process with the Consulate and relocation,

Bottoming Out Days

I have noticed that as a family we have what I call "bottoming out" days. These are days we all feel sluggish and a bit on edge. They seem to occur every 4th or 5th day. I attribute it mostly to sleep cycles and I can only imagine

Our First Week in Spain

We've been in Spain for almost 6 days now. Unpacking our stuff was easy. We arrived with 3 medium sized luggage and 2 carry on bags. Each one of us had our laptop backpack on us. I've been pretty impressed at the amount of stuff we didn't bring. We were

Finally in Spain

Our flight from Austin to Frankfurt took to the air on Tuesday, October 3rd around 5:30 pm. As we waited in the airport, I couldn't help but think about all the years I had lived in Austin and all the things I had accomplished there. For as much as

Flight Delay

We were supposed to fly out from Austin last night but our flight was delayed until this afternoon. After a long weekend of packing and shuttling objects all around town, we were ready for our overnight flight to Frankfurt. Yesterday morning my SUV was picked up and we enjoyed a

5 Days to Lift Off

Thought I'd write while I wait for John to get home from work. I don't want to forget how hard these days have been. This week has been filled with a lot of big ticket items. John and I have been working on selling both vehicles this week. I am

Oh, the Stuff, so much Stuff

I am sitting here on a Saturday morning waiting for people to show up to our garage sale. John is sitting outside and I am sitting inside, waiting, waiting, waiting. While we have downsized several times over the past few years, we still seem to have so much stuff to

9 Days to Go

It is Friday mid afternoon in Austin. Nick just left to spend some time with his dad. John is at work. I am on the couch wondering what to do next. My sister came to see me on Wednesday night. It was so much fun. I am going to miss

Ready, Set...GO, GO, GO!

I thought I'd write before I jump back into "do all the things!" mode again. It's been a whirlwind! Today is September 19th, 18 days since my last post, and so much has happened. Where to begin... Let's start with the first week of September. We had a phone conversation

The Month of Waiting

Today is the 1st of September and I am happy. We are only 6 days away from our follow up appointment with the Spanish Consulate. While we don't have warm and fuzzy feelings about the upcoming appointment, I am looking forward to having this phase of the project over. Moving

Releasing Expectations

Relocating as a family to another country is no easy feat. We have been very proud of ourselves for the ability we've had to keep our cool in stressful situations. The communication hasn't always been easy, but we've managed to stick together as a family unit whenever things in the

Reflections from the Other Side

For months we've been focused on August 1st. August 1st would be the "big day." It would be the day we would finally travel to our consulate appointment in Houston to submit our documents. It would be a huge milestone for us, getting us one step closer to

A Hard Week

I have to say, this week has been one of the hardest weeks of our project. It seems that time has started speeding up since we lost our apartment option in Barcelona. One of the hardest requirements to get our visas is to provide a contract or property address for

Finding a Place to Live

Okay, by far one of the scariest decisions we'll need to make in the coming week is where to live. We reached out to the Wagoners last week because we were in a panic. We couldn't seem to navigate through all the leasing web sites without a sense of overwhelm

Decluttering Has Begun!

As it gets closer to our appointment with the consulate, it's easy to feel overwhelmed with all the things we need to get done before we leave. It used to be that September seemed comfortably far away, but these days we feel a slight panic about all we need to

Oh, the Paperwork

Our 90 day time window started on May 20th. We have been fortunate that most of the document items have been completed within short time frames. We've been pleased to see that correspondence from government agencies we were cautioned would take many weeks have only taken a couple of weeks.

First Step Completed

Today we submitted our background check requests. We got up early and made it to the post office, just in time to get it on its way today. I was worried the paper work would get wet as dark clouds loomed about but it didn't start raining until we got

Reflections

Today is Mother’s Day. Happy Mother's Day! It was just 2 months ago today we were in Barcelona. I remember our trip fondly. Memories of our trip still bring a smile to my face. Nick was the happiest I’ve ever seen him. We all felt very close. To

Yes, we are.

Why, yes, we ARE moving to Spain. This morning we had a short conversation with Alan of the Wagoners Abroad. He was very personable and knowledgeable. He helped us sort through the visa process in a way that left me feeling empowered. I needed that kind of boost because the