a year gone by

Last year we arrived on December 26 (2023) for the beginning of our lives as residents in Spain. We weren't done with all our paperwork, but the biggest hurdle was behind us- our initial visa for entry....  We arrived in time to see how things were decorated for the holidays - and we had a one week rental in Santa Cruz before we moved to our two month place on January 1st... on Calle Monsalves near the art museum.

We learned of the New Year's Eve tradition of eating twelve grapes one for each month of the new year to create good luck...

We went to Cadiz with Lee our first houseguest- 

Nick arrived and then Larry arrived and then Megan & Christian arrived -  Larry stayed on and we went to Cordoba for the day to see the Mesquite/Cathedral.

After Larry, we had many guests - first  Mike, then Jean, then my brother and his family, then Claus & Evi. We moved out of our holiday rental and into our apartment at the end of February  - here is the intersection closest to where we live  - at Carlos Canal and Calle Bilbao 

 

We began exploring our new area of the city and found a new place for coffee- LOL

some of the exploring led to discoveries of new places nearby - like the Cabildo (below)

After two and a half weeks in the new apartment we went off to Valencia for a month.  While we were there, we went to Madrid to visit Megan & Christian and Oscar. One day we went to Segovia and saw the aqueduct and castle...

We loved exploring Valencia and had many many meals that included the famous local dish: paella...

We also went to the Bioparc and the City of arts & Sciences.  Angela & Lee came for a long weekend to visit... and we enjoyed living by the Mercado Central for a month!

 

We returned to Sevilla in later April and came back to our new apartment for the remainder of our time here in the spring. We found a surprise as they had hung sun shades all over town for the hot weather...

And our local park (Plaza Nueva) had come back into full greenery with the plane trees coming  back and the orange trees budding with the next crop of oranges...

We got a chance to see what the late late sunsets looked like when out to dine- the photo below was taken at nearly ten o'clock at night and the sky was just turning dark from the deep blue of the violet hour.

 

Our last guests for the spring, John & Stephanie, arrived in May.  We started the next step in our residency process by applying for the empadronamiento. 

We left Sevilla arriving in Chicago May 28.  We spent our summer traveling and seeing friends. I returned to Sevilla October 17- after four and a half months away- having missed our beautiful city.  I returned to our wonderful building and unpacked a lot of household items that I brought from Chicago, where we have been overloaded since closing up the Florida home.  The sun shades were still up on Carlos Canal  (our nearest intersection)  and it felt like coming HOME.

I made a quick trip to Portugal and when I returned, Oscar came to stay for eight days as our first guest of the new season.  Phil arrived three days before Oscar left so they did get to spend a bit of time together. Oscar was here until the 2nd of November. 

The following week we had two, more or less surprise visits. Friend Lori and her husband David came for coffee. They were just embarked upon a ocean cruise around Africa, before heading home to Sydney Australia.  The next day, Christian came for merienda because he had gig for two or three nights here in town, with a band he sometimes joins.   That led us into the guests on the regular calendar- starting with Jenny in mid November for five days - overlapped by a non-guest but foodie friend Frank who ended up being here November 15 to the 22nd. By December we had a five day visit from Mike followed immediately by a visit from Lee who was here December 8-13.  On the 13th, we all went to Madrid to visit with Megan & Christian and Oscar. We returned to Sevilla on the 16th. Lee stayed a couple of more days and then headed home to Chicago.  

We had a quiet holiday and marked our one year anniversary of living in Spain with dinner at AMARA.  Larry arrives the first week of 2025 and after a couple of days here, we three head off to Tenerife, and then meet up with Jeremy.   We return by the 22nd - with no one in tow...LOL

Then our houseguest season hits full swing starting February 1st. In February March, & April, we have 10 confirmed guests (some for multiple rounds) and 2 more unconfirmed - to date. We also have three more in country trips planned between February and May.... so I doubt Year Two will be any less busy than Year One. 

A peek at history

So perhaps you have heard about various cities in Europe (especially Barcelona in Spain) and I think this is illustrative (from my own adopted city) of the genesis of at least a part conflict faced by both sides. In the first photo (which I took in April 1999) you see a building near our apartment. It is called Edificio Adriatico. It is the same building as in the second photo which I took in the spring of 2024. Twenty-five years later. You can see the changes.

You may not have a way of interpreting the changes. In the first photo you can see that people were living in the apartments in the building and had potted plants they tended on their balconies. This is still a common practice in the neighborhoods here.

Twenty-five years later both the Edificio Adriatico and the building behind it have been spiffed up, but people don't live there anymore. They have been pushed out by tourism and development - both in holiday rentals and hotels as well as infrastructure developments. About eight years after my 1999 photo the city installed a tram from Plaza Nueva (the large square in front of City Hall) to the Plaza España (site of the 1928 Hispano-American Exposition).

It now runs right in front of the Edificio Adriatico. Which in 1999 had a bakery on the ground floor but today houses a Hagen Daaz ice cream shop for the huge numbers of tourists now roaming the streets of that part of town between the Cathedral and Plaza España especially. Today only the very wealthy would be able to think about living in such an historic building but likely they would not be interested, given the congestion (not to mention the horrible restaurants along the same route all catering to tourists and selling paella to the same fools that think "it's Spanish" but not knowing it's from Valencia not Andalucia)

So their cities have been changing. There is good news and bad, but having drunk bachelor party goers urinating on your doorstep as Barcelona has been experiencing, or as we had last spring multiple nights of drunk football fans singing under our living room window at 2 am having been closed out of the bar across the street is not a way to win over the locals. (As well as being very poor form in general.)

So don't be put off by the over blown news stories, but do visit a country, you want to learn more about, in a way that respects the traditions and culture. And maybe think about the family who once lived above the bakery around the corner and tended their balcony plants each morning.

And now back to the holiday week... 

Holiday Week 2024

So we are to the holiday week now:  It's Sunday night - Christmas is Wednesday (as is Hanukkah.) Here, of course, the big celebrations with family are on Nochebuena! Christmas Eve. And then, for the kids gifts - Three Kings day in January is the big holiday. We are coming up on our one year anniversary of being residents of Spain 12-26. What a year that was! So, we headed to the end of 2024. Sent out the holiday letter - but in case you missed it - here it is. 

Holiday Down Time

So we got home Monday night from Madrid and have settled into a non-guest routine of sorts for the holiday period. Working out with Leslie twice a week and spending quiet time catching up on paperwork, balancing credit card statements, paying tax deposits etc... And each evening when we are out for dinner we walk around our beautiful city to see the lights.  We went to Triana for dinner with Lauren Tucker and saw some cool things on the river where they are preparing a light show... 

Dinner overlooked the river - at Betis 7. 

Earlier in the week we dined again at Casa Juan Palomo

our walk home took us through Plaza Nueva and to our front door - only one window in our building has anything that resembles holiday lights - and here it is:

the remainder of the week we have Manolo Mayo and a new place around the corner and then back to MING for Chinese for the holiday tradition - we will dine at home for the actual holiday - which here is Buena Noche (Christmas Eve) then back to dining out on December 26... 

Dinner at what's become a favorite for cool weather food. Mayo.  Phil has meloso (creamy) Arroz with partridge. I had the seco (dry) Arroz with ibericos. We shared the foie and the bellota jamon and the cantabrian anchoas. They had house-made vermut which was served in a tiny bail bottle inside a little galvanized tub. Tasty and cute!

Yesterday, I went to help Phil with getting into the building when his hands were full carrying gorceries. When I opened the front door, I was taken by the Sevillaño blue sky. So I went to snap a photo of the view from our building's front door of Plaza Nueva - and heard the clip clop sound of a horse carriage (or it could have been coconuts 🤣) a few seconds later the horse and his carriage came around the corner and into view. This is the first time I have seen them in the area. They are usually found by the Cathedral or the Alcazar where the tourists are to be found in substantial numbers. #surpriseinSevilla

Near us, off the other side of Plaza Nueva is a restaurant that is highly rated but I had stayed away from reserving for a dinner there. It's located in a high end hotel. (Autograph  Collection) So two things steered me away from it. 1. hotel and 2. high end.  We don't tend to dine in such spots at this point, as we have found plenty of one off, neighborhood places, we like. However, it was the Saturday night of the start of Christmas week and things were busy so while searching for places to dine I decided to check out the menu. Two more things 1. the food was local (not potentially overreaching haute cuisine) and 2. the prices were on par with other places in the city center. So we tried it. The food was very good. We especially liked our starters of gravlax and steak tartare. The wine was reasonably priced and the service was pleasant. The room was beautiful and the table service - china especially - was elegant. That's why there are photos of plates and wall coverings as well as the food. 

So we are to the holiday week now- It's Sunday night -= Christmas is Wednesday (as is Hanukkah.) Here, of course the big celebrations with family are on Buena Noche! Christmas Eve. And then, for the kids gifts - three kings day in January is the big holiday. We are coming up on our one year anniversary of being residents of Spain 12-26. What a year that was! So more to follow as we head into the end of 2024.