Finding Temporary Lodging

I chose March 10 as my departure date and now I wonder if that was too soon to get everything done that needs to get done.  But this is my last week of work and then I will have all my days free.  Five full weeks of nothing to do but to get ready (plus visit friends) should be enough time to get everything taken care of.

Of course, one of the first things I need to do is to secure temporary lodging in Barcelona until I buy my place.  I feel I need to be very conservative about my spending until I am settled and have a good sense of my cash flow with my new pension payments.  So, hotels will be my last resort.  For this short period, I think I would be fine in a private room, as long as it is comfortable and secure and has internet service.

I have looked at various websites that I used in the past, but the most reasonable listings are with a new website that I have heard good things about - airbnb.com.  After perusing a number of places, I decided to go with a private room in the Sant Antoni area of Barcelona, the neighborhood where I would like to purchase my condo.  It's a very large room, which will fit my large suitcases that I will take with me.  And the host, Jesus, seems to be a very down-to-earth guy.  We exchanged messages back and forth and it's now set.  I now know where I will be in Barcelona for the first 20 days.  That's progress!!

Retirement Visa Approved!

On December 9 I submitted my retirement visa application to the Spanish consulate in Washington DC.  To get to that point, I had to work with an official Spanish translator to translate my pension estimate document, a letter from my doctor that I am in good health, a letter from my health insurance company that I am covered in Spain, my police record that I had to request from the state of Virginia, and my last quarterly statement of my 401K holdings (just for good measure to show that I had more than enough money to live in Spain without having to work there).

Exactly 1 1/2 months later, on January 22, I received word that my visa was approved and that I could pick it up at the consulate.  I thought that was quite quick, since there were the Holidays during that period and I was told that it would take one to four months.  Today I picked up my visa and I requested that they make the start date March 1.  This is my initial visa and it only lasts 90 days + 15 days to fly to Barcelona and to do two things within the first month after entering Spain:

• Go to Barcelona City Hall to register (or "empadronarse")
• Present myself to the National Police Group (Cuerpo Nacional de Policia) with the proper documentation

Although these two steps seem simple, I have read horror stories about how long and how difficult it is to go through this process.  So I'll be prepared for the worst and just stick it out.  This process then will extend my visa to one full year.  At the end of the year, I can renew my visa in Spain.

I am looking at booking my flight to Barcelona the week of March 10.

Background - What Brought Me Here - Part II

View from the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Barcelona

So, having lived in the middle of the Iberian peninsula (Valladolid) from 1978-81, right after Spain emerged as a nascent democracy after the Franco dictatorship regime, how did I end up devoting my time and energy to plan my retirement years in Barcelona?  Well, first, it's important to know that I continued to stay in contact with my friends in Valladolid, at least for the first few years.  But over time, as I got more involved with my career, my 18 year involvement with the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, and my first long-term relationship with Joe, I began to lose the vision of one day returning to Spain to live there. Joe and I did take a few trips to Spain, visiting Valladolid, exploring the southern half of the Iberian peninsula by car, enjoying the sun-drenched beaches of Ibiza and later the Canary Islands.  Each time I visited I felt I was back in my element.  Yet, I no longer thought or planned for a way to return permanently to Spain.  That is, until I met Tom.

Tom and I started our relationship in 1995. After a few years of establishing our relationship and our life together, in 2003 we decided to take a Mediterranean Cruise with the gay cruise group, Atlantis.  Since Barcelona was our home port, we decided to spend time there after our cruise.  This was Tom's first time in Spain and it was really my first time in getting to know Barcelona.  We both loved the city.  And upon seeing Tom's enthusiasm for Spain I later asked him if he might at all be interested in the possibility of living in Spain one day.  Happily, he was thrilled about the idea.  And thus my dream to move back to Spain was reborn.

Park Gruell - Barcelona

Since then we have taken many, many vacations to Spain, visiting a number of cities including Madrid, Valencia, Sevilla, Cordoba, Granada, Malaga, Sitges and of course Barcelona.  Even though Tom enjoyed our stay in each of these places, he felt the most at home in Barcelona.  In 2006 we decided to spend a month renting an apartment in Barcelona to get a feel for what it would be like to live there.  We loved it and in that trip expanded our network local friends in the city.  We continued to cultivate these friendships and in 2013 I celebrated my 60th birthday and hosted a dinner party in Barcelona for our local, American and other international friends. It looked like Barcelona would be our future home town.

Sadly, soon after that celebration, Tom and I decided to part ways.  There are many gifts that I received from my relationship with Tom.  One of those precious gifts was reviving my dream to move back to Spain and one other was influencing my desire to make Barcelona my new home.

Background - What Brought Me Here - Part I

Plaza Mayor in Valladolid

I thought that this first posting should describe what motivated me to pursue living in Barcelona.  This desire to move to Spain was not a spur of the moment decision.  I lived in the city of Valladolid from 1978-81, during my mid 20's.  I was there as an evangelical missionary working with university students.  Yes, it was another life, but it introduced me to this beautiful country that I fell in love with.

After my three year stint in Spain, I returned to the greater Washington metropolitan area, where I had grown up and where my parents were still living at the time, with the intense desire to somehow go back to Spain.

I decided to get my Masters degree at the University of Maryland in English as a Second Language with the idea that my degree would give me the teaching credentials to be hired in Spain to teach English there.  However, in readjusting to life in the U.S., I also came out as a gay man and got involved in a long term relationship that lasted 14 years.  Life intervened with a 33 year detour to returning to live in Spain.  Between then and now, I traveled many, many times to Spain, and explored many new places in this diverse and culturally rich country.

So, what made me decide to live in Barcelona?  You'll have to read that in Part II of  "Background - What Brought Me Here - Part II".