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Since our last post, very little has happened here. The government has been working hard to flatten the curve and we’re doing our part by staying home and out of the way. The prospect of a €600 fine for being out for any but an approved reason provides a bit more incentive. They aren’t kidding here but the death toll provides ample justification. We were excited to be able to buy facemasks last week — one each, N95.

Meanwhile, we’ve been acquiring key household items with selective purchases through Amazon — and my ambiguity about using them now is a whole other topic — and finding our rhythm with cooking and keeping ourselves occupied. We’ve found a supermarket about 10 minutes’ walk from the house where we can find about anything we want other than baking powder — evidently nobody bakes from scratch here.

Cindy has been learning about the Ottoman Empire, I’m still fighting my way through Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton, we’re both playing computer games a lot, in my case Battletech, Kerbal Space Program and Warframe, you’ll have to ask Cindy what she’s playing.

Weather was poor for the first couple of weeks and cold in this un-insulated masonry building but in the last two weeks or so it’s warmed up considerably and we’ve had a handful of just gorgeous sunny days that we can enjoy and even take off sweatshirts and hoodies.

Cindy is doing Zoom Pilates and using the building stairs to keep in shape; I’ve been doing…less. I would do almost anything to be able to just get out and walk around the city again.

The big news, though, is that last night we were treated to a little mini-concert by our neighbor. He’s evidently a pretty well known classical guitarist and teacher. He put on a Facebook livestream where he projected old silent films on the wall of the building acrosss the plaza and played music contemporaneous with the films. It was lovely.

He and another of our neighbors, a cellist for the opera, have put on little mini-concerts as well. Somebody else who we can’t see sings and plays what sounds like folk music. We’ve chanced into an awesome little neighborhood. While listening to our neighbor Anya practice sax and clarinet back when she was still in high school was delightful, this is something we never heard in our old neighborhood.

I recorded just a little sample. This website doesn’t allow me to embed it so I’ll toss it up on Google Drive and you can download and listen for just a little bit of a treat.

We’re still healthy or at least asymptomatic. They tell us they might start to loosen the rules starting May 10 depending on the breaks. I’m not saying we won’t get our hair mussed.

Hope you’re staying inside and healthy too.

Quick update to show you all how we’re living.

This is our living room. The chairs around the dining table are incredibly uncomfortable, which makes sitting around watching Netflix difficult. At least there’s enough seating that we can both sit at the same time, not always the case with an Airbnb.

Here’s our “view” from the back window. No balconies for us. At least we can see the sky.

The kitchen. I’d rate it as “barely adequate,” meaning we’ve been able to make it work but it’s not really set up for cooking all of one’s meals. For example there are no measuring cups. Hey, you’re vacationing in Valencia — you’re going to be eating out all the time, right? Right.

We spend our days watching movies and TV, studying Spanish, doing some Pilates exercises and reading. We’re able to sneak out occasionally to buy groceries or take out the trash / recycling. We sleep as much as we can. I’ve spent quite a lot of time trying to get banking set up here and get a little better organized for the time after the plague. It’s surprisingly difficult because we ported our phone numbers to Google Voice and gotten Spanish SIMs, which our bank at home won’t recognize as a legit cell phone — and everything uses two-factor authentication now through the cell. Ugh.

I managed to get my desktop computer re-assembled. I brought over the MB/CPU/RAM, video card and drives in their own static bags and bought case, PS, monitor etc. to rebuild here, just before the lockdown. Works like a champ and now I have a great photography processing platform and movie watching station. I’ve also joined folding@home, who are using my idle CPU/GPU cycles to search for an answer to Coronavirus, Alzheimers and other diseases. If you have the compute horsepower available, maybe give them a look.

I’m not crying. I know that others have it much harder, either worrying about or caring for an ill loved one or wondering how they’re going to pay rent or feed themselves. Our biggest challenge is boredom. Nonetheless, here we are. The highlight of today for me so far was taking out the garbage. I stayed out for an extra couple of minutes just to be in the open air (well away from any other people) and it was glorious.

Word is that they’re considering extending the lockdown here until the midle of April. We are not excited but we’ll adjust. Our current landlord has already agreed to let us extend our stay here if we have to but we’re both hoping it won’t come to that. It all depends on whether or not the owner of our new apartment can get himself moved out with the restrictions in place — and that’s far from a sure thing.

UPDATE: the Spanish government has just released a decree that no-one can leave their homes except to buy food or pharmaceuticals, get to financial institutions, go to/from work, get to health services or for “force majeur.” We’re locked down.

Las Fallas has been “postponed” and we’ve just received word that all bars, restaurants, theaters and other places people gather are to be closed for 15 days “for now.” Given that the health minister just stated that he expects the pandemic to last three to five months, I’m not getting my hopes up.

Barcelona has quarantined three communities in an attempt to slow the progress of the virus. The region around Cartagena to the south has closed down, by one account because of the behavior of college kids who came as a result of schools in Madrid closing — they treated it like spring break.

What I’m saying is, it’s finally being taken seriously here and that is definitely going to affect us. Since we have no social circle yet, we aren’t losing a lot but on the other hand, it’s going to definitely put a crimp in our exploration. We’ll have to muddle along as best we can.

Before they canceled Fallas, it was shaping up to be quite the spectacle. In Russafa where our flat is, there was a neighborhood party last Sunday where they shut down some streets and lined up the paella pans to cook up a whole bunch of rice dishes — a competition, maybe?

There were brass bands playing, a variety of music from traditional-sounding oompah music…

…to something that sounded a lot more like what you might hear at HONK! Fest West.

The differences from Seattle street bands were pretty interesting. As you can see, they mostly faced inward (that’s three-for-three that I’ve seen) and there was no particular effort to engage the audience who to be fair were evidently locals who knew the band, mostly. Also, no helicons or sousas in sight, only standard tubas. There’s work to be done here. Gotta get everybody’s eyes out of the flipcharts too!

I did screw up my courage and talk to the tubist in the second band. He was very nice and had some English, much to my relief. Very welcoming and he told me that most neighborhoods have a band and that I could easily play tuba here. Hm, what’s Ebay got in the helicon line?…

As an aside, I was just told today that there is a festival in June where the bandas compete against each other all through the city.

The ninots, the puppets that are created and developed throughout the year with the intention of being burned on the final night, were shaping up to be beautiful and creative.

Now, however, they’re taking most of them down to be put back into storage until the Coronavirus problem works itself out one way or another. Rumors, of course, run rampant and I haven’t heard any definitive information on just what will happen.

The other day we managed to get out and climbed El Miguelete, a 14th Century octagonal church tower in the center of the old city. It’s quite a climb, up a spiral staircase which goes counter-clockwise up, the opposite of most towers. Someday allow me to bore you with the mansplaination for tower stairs. The view at the top is worth the climb, giving you a 360 degree view of the city and surrounds.

This is looking north toward the Torres de Serranos, which mark the location of the north gate in the old city wall and the road to Madrid. The greenbelt just beyond is the Turia Gardens and past that are what used to be towns that have been swallowed up by the city. On foot, it would be maybe a 10-minute walk to the towers. Assuming you didn’t get lost in the narrow, crooked streets leading that way.

This is looking south at yet another church tower and the “round square,” Placa Redona. We’re staying in a flat in the upper-left quadrant, just to the left of the two spires on the left, which is where the train station is. That’s about a fifteen minute walk from La Miguelete. Valencia is a pretty compact city and it’s easy to get from place to place. The Metro is pretty good when the people on the trains aren’t trying to give you the plague.

This is looking east. The things on the horizon that look a little like smooth barnacles are the buildings of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, or City of Arts and Sciences which the city built recently at the east end of the Turia Garden. The buildings are huge and loom over the landscape. They are quite beautiful in that super-sciency post-modern way. That will make up several days’ ventures for us.

We are healthy as far as we can tell and mentally buckling in for the ride for the next few weeks. We formally submitted an offer on an apartment in the city center today and assuming we hit no snags we’ll be moving in a couple of weeks. There’s extra bedspace for the adventurous among you. I mean, after the crisis and all.

Finally, the grafitists in Valencia are…mwah!

I mean, how do you top that?

Las Fallas lighting ceremony in Russafa

Hello to you from Sunny Valencia. It’s been a week now since we landed in Spain. It feels like a lot longer, I think because a lot has happened. We spent a couple of days in Madrid after we landed to get past the worst of the jet lag. Had to rent a car last Sunday to get to Valencia because no other transport would accommodate our luggage, each of us having two 50 lb bags plus carry-ons. We did the three hour drive down on Sunday and met with Issac, the owner of our Airbnb for the month.

We’re now parked in our sixth floor walk-up flat, getting the bags up was fun, and have begun the process of finalizing our paperwork and finding our apartment, plus familiarizing ourselves with the town. The flat is about the size of our living room back home but it’s comfy enough.

So many stairs

We have decided to cheat by employing a “gestor” who will help us navigate the bureaucracy and language barrier while we set up a bank account, rent an apartment and acquire our TIE, the residency card we extrañjeros must get within a month of arrival. It’s all tricky enough that we’re willing to spend some coin to avoid screwing it up.

We’ve already looked at one apartment that would be very suitable and we like very much, in the Eixample area just outside the old core of the city. It’s very pretty with all we need within walking distance and close enough to the core that we can walk there in about 15 minutes. We want to see a couple more places next week before we decide.

Our neighborhood, maybe?

We have walked all over the inner part of the the city to get a feel for it and to see where we might like to end up. Valencia is a bit scruffy, attractive but not spectacular like some European cities. Most of the buildings are 5 or 6 stories tall which is a good human scale, and many have pretty facades. We like the place. The Turia Gardens, formerly the bed of the Turia river and turned into a 9 KM park, are a beautiful oasis in the middle of the city and utterly unique.

The old city core has just a handful of buildings dating back as far as the tenth century; they’ve rebuilt a lot of it in the 19th and 20th centuries. They kept the old narrow crooked streets from back in the day though, which gives it that feel. Much of the old city’s businesses are tourist oriented although there are many apartments and permanent residents. There is a fresh food market there that is spectacular and sells locally grown food year round.

Details of la Lonja de la Seda, the silk trading building from Valencia’s heyday

It’s the height of allergy season here so I’ve been sneezing and my eyes have been streaming but NO FEVER. I’ve found that wine does help with the scratchy throat. Very good table wine is available everywhere, for a very good price.

This being the month of Las Fallas, Valencia’s signature event for the year, the locals aren’t about to let a little thing like the plague get in the way of their celebration. Crowds of thousands gather daily for fireworks displays and street lighting ceremonies, standing cheek-by-jowl to enjoy the show.

Macleta (fireworks for sound) in the square outside City Hall

Street lighting ceremony in Russafa, where we’re staying.

It’s an interesting contrast to the news coming out of the US and the rest of the world, what with events being cancelled and a sense of panic in the reports. I don’t feel I can judge others’ response but I do kind of appreciate the Spaniards’ insouciance in the face of it all. I suppose I would change my tune if we were in a group having a higher risk level than we do.

Today was a down day for us. We’ve walked miles and we were tired so we took the day off. Which is why we wanted to move over here in the first place. A guy could get used to this.

Some first impressions of Valencia:

Even on a 22°-degree day people here are wearing puffy coats with scarves.

Lindo perro means cute dog, and will generate a smile every time.

A bottle of really good white wine cost me 3.5€ at the supermarket. I may develop a drinking problem!

Orange trees here are blossoming and bearing fruit at the same time. Is this normal?

For March we have a lovely flat (no view, sadly), with 101 steps to reach the front door. We are going to have buns of steel.

About 75% of the time we are utterly confused. All this problem-solving must be good for our brains, right?

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.

A mental exercise: go through every item in your household. Ask yourself the following questions:

1) Do I recognize it?

2) Do I have all the parts?

3) How long has it been since I’ve used / worn / seen this thing?

4) Do I want to take it to Spain?

5) If I don’t want to take it, do I want to store it?

6) If I don’t want to store it, is it worth anything? Do I have time / energy to sell it?

6) Failing that, can I give it away?

7) Can it be recycled?
8) OK fine, it goes into the trash pile.

Go on to the next item. Start over at 1). For every thing you own.

This has been our life for the last 6 weeks and we aren’t done yet. We have made many trips to Goodwill and the transfer station. We’ve been able to sell a few items, but really very few. We have filled the garage with…stuff…and emptied it out again multiple times.

I’ve cleared out over 25 years worth of old paint, most of which hasn’t seen a wall in ages.

We’re sleeping on the couch and a mattress on the floor, respectively, because we’ve given away all of our beds.

Soon the house will be empty, then we get to paint. Whee!

The end of the month is bearing down upon us like a freight train and I’m worried both that it’s coming too fast and it’ll never get here.

It’s been about 23 years since we last moved. We’re renting our house unfurnished and only want a small storage locker, so we are shedding many, many layers. Piano, motorcycle, scooter and LPs sold. Furniture given away. Carloads to the Goodwill every week. Several truck loads of stuff to the landfill.

I don’t want to lug recipe books to Spain, so am scanning my favorite recipes.

I’m swapping out my computer so transferring everything to the cloud (which I should have done years ago).

Chaos! It’ll feel good to get on that plane in a couple of weeks with just two suitcases each.