We have landed in Spain. After two months of heads down effort to move, clear out, clean and paint our house so we can rent it out, we have done it. We’ve moved to Spain.

Our entire lives have been whittled down to two 50 lb bags each plus carry-ons.

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to our friends who put us up (and put up with us) for the two weeks between moving out and flying away. We were not really fun guests but you were all generous and graceful and most of all helpful. Thank you.

We flew ten hours, Seattle – London – Madrid, on BA. They aren’t what I remember from flying with them in the ’80s but who among us is what they were 30 years ago? We touched down in the early afternoon and after walking what felt like miles through the gigantic, empty Madrid airport we found the taxi stand, where the first driver tried to fit our luggage, but not too hard because he wouldn’t allow bags on the seats, then dumped them back out, muttering “no cabe” – it won’t fit – and pointing us to a larger can. That guy wasn’t that happy to see us either but our bags caben and he hauled our weary bones to our hotel.

Thanks to my eagerness to demonstrate my tech savvy by porting our numbers to Google Voice and T-Mobile’s first-ever back office efficiency, we wound up here with no cell service provider. Hey guess what? After enough time using Maps your brain turns to mush and it’s easy to get lost in Madrid with the streets that go off at all angles. However we have found a paygo service provider to get us plugged in until we get settled. I have maps! I have data!

Contact with us will have to be via WhatsApp and text messages to our US numbers. It’s way too expensive to call anyone in the States but WhatsApp works great.

After half a day in Madrid I already have a few takeaways. It’s a vibrant, lively city. March is much warmer than December here. We are going to struggle to communicate for a long time – Duolingo is a starter but it won’t get you fluent. Trying to do something as simple as buy bananas is an exercise in frustration.

We have very far to go before we get comfortable in this place and the challenges on the first months will be enormous.

On the other hand, highs today were in the mid – sixties today and it was sunny. Challenge accepted.