Living the Dream Part 2: Arriving in Spain

Click here to read the previous post, Living the Dream: My Story of Moving to Spain

Walking into baggage claim in the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport, I curse Past Selena.

Very quickly I spot my five suitcases (all with bright red ribbons tied to the handles — good call, Organized Selena!) coming down the conveyor belt. Then I look at the row of baggage carts. They are small and will only fit two, maybe three suitcases, so I’ll need two of them. Which means I’ll have to ask someone to help me push the second cart out to the taxi stand.

As it turns out, my discomfort in asking for help is stronger than my discomfort in hauling four 50-pound bags and a 25-pound bag one on top of the other onto a cart with a weak braking system. I am aware of people staring at me, probably because of the bodybuilder-type grunts I make with each heave.

Knapsack on my back and one hand steadying the leaning tower of luggage, I carefully push the cart out of the airport and over to the (thankfully) close taxi stand. The driver looks totally nonplussed at having to load all these heavy bags into his car and, once inside, I can hear him breathing hard. I know then that I won’t be asking him to help me carry them inside at the Airbnb.

I’m excited and nervous and uncomfortable in the way you are when you’re doing something for the first time. Something huge for the first time. Looking out at the landscape on the thirty-minute drive into the city, it occurs to me that I have no home. No keys, no address, no nothing. I’ve rented an Airbnb for two weeks, but other than that temporary stay, I feel a bit adrift in the world.

*El centro de Madrid — where I first stayed when I arrived.*

The Airbnb is in el centro, the historic center of Madrid, with narrow, cobblestone streets, and deliciously European-looking buildings. I smile like a kid on Christmas as we pull up to it. With cars waiting behind us, the driver quickly unloads my bags from the trunk, and then I drag my worldly possessions inside.

That’s when I remember: My apartment is on the second floor and there is no elevator. Shit. All right, Ms. Too Independent For Your Own Good, let’s see how you tackle this one.

After carrying the small suitcase and the knapsack up, I get to work on the other four bags. Even though they have wheels, they are still super heavy, plus I have to use one hand to hold onto the wall or bannister to balance myself on the narrow and slightly crooked stairs. The two flights of stairs contain 28 steps in total, which means that I hear roll, thunk! 112 times. Or, more to the point, the neighbors hear roll, thunk! 112 times.

As I’m dragging up the third suitcase, a neighbor lady opens her door and yells at me in Spanish, saying the same thing over and over and over: I’m disturbing the neighbors and ruining the stairs and it is the tenants who will have to pay. I apologize repeatedly (in Spanish!), saying I understand, but that I am all alone and the bags are super heavy and I don’t know what else to do. As she keeps yelling at me, tears fill my eyes, my face is red and sweaty, and all I can do is keep apologizing and lugging those fuckers up the stairs.

Needless to say, once I’ve rested and washed up, I go out to the closest bar and have myself a good stiff drink. Well, actually, a delightfully refreshing vermut (vermouth). Whatever. It does the trick.

Getting Myself Set Up in Madrid

That first night I sleep a deep and blissful 12 hours, wake up, and then set out to meet Julia, the relocation expert I mentioned earlier, to start viewing apartments.

A relocation expert or agent is a professional who specializes in assisting people with the process of moving from one location to another, usually long distance. Since I was moving by myself to a different country whose language I am not fluent in and customs I am not familiar with, I happily pay this woman to do all the hard work for me.

I got Julia’s contact info (Life on the Move) when I took James’ Move to Spain Masterclass, and these two – James and Julia – are the best investments I’ve made in ages.

Here’s what Julia’s going to do for me:

Compile a list of apartments to view (based on the questionnaire I’d filled out prior to the move)
Accompany me to each one (and act as translator between me and the landlord/lady/agent)
Read over and explain the lease to me (there are a few rules that are different from North American rentals)
Set up all utilities for me (these, as well as the rent, are all automatic debit deductions)
Accompany me to register as a new resident at city hall (empadronamiento)
Accompany me to open a bank account
Set up the appointment to get my TIE (Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero) card, which is the identification card issued to foreigners residing in Spain
Plus, she provides ongoing support for three months in case anything comes up that I need help with

And she says that she will find me my new home within two weeks, hence the mere two-week Airbnb rental.

The first apartment she takes me to is in the Palacio neighborhood, and I love it right away. It’s on a small, cobblestone street that leads to the Royal Palace and is very close to plenty of shops, restaurants, bookstores, cinemas, parks, etc.

The apartment is beautiful and has plenty of natural light coming in the two sets of French doors with small balconies.

It comes fully furnished, which is pretty common in Spain, but the owner has very nice taste (which not all of them do). Also, from what I’ve seen, most furnished places consist of basic furniture (not even linens on the bed) and sometimes a few basic kitchen items (cups, plates, cutlery).

But this place, my god, it’s got everything, down to a variety of specific alcohol glasses (snifters, tumblers, wine glasses, shot glasses), cleaning equipment (vacuum, broom, mop, iron/ironing board, detergent, Windex), bed linens and enough bathmats and towels of all sizes to run a hotel, and every type of kitchen paraphernalia that you’d ever need. Plus, it comes with a washing machine, which is pretty typical here, as opposed to a communal laundry room in the basement, but no dryer (also standard, though there is a clothes rack and clothes pins for air drying your laundered items).

The only reason I don’t apply for it right away is because it’s a one bedroom (I’d specified two bedrooms on the questionnaire – no, not for me and my split personality; so that all my family and friends can stay with me when they come to visit). But after viewing three more apartments over the next two days, I can’t stop thinking about the first one. As they say about love: When you know, you just know. (Actually, many people have no idea, so bad comparison. Whatever. Moving on….)

And it looks so European! Some of the other places we view are new and modern, and could very well be in Los Angeles for all you’d know. But I didn’t move all the way to Europe to live in a place that reminds me of the States.

Back at my Airbnb, I suddenly realize that I’ve lost my phone. My heart drops into my stomach for one dizzying moment, until I talk myself off the ledge. It’s just a phone, it’s not like I can’t survive without it! But the truth is: Our technological world has made that pretty hard. Half the websites I log onto send a text message to my phone as a security measure. My communication with most people is via text or WhatsApp and I don’t have anyone’s phone number memorized (except my mom’s, but that won’t help). I try downloading WhatsApp to my computer, but you can’t sync it up with your contacts and conversations without your phone.

Fortunately, I’ve been both emailing and texting Julia, so I send her an email asking for the address where we’re going to meet the next day to look at more apartments. I punch that info into Maps and then draw a crude representation of it on a scrap of paper with arrows pointing out the directions like I’m an eight-year-old making a treasure map.

The next morning when I meet Julia and her associate, she tells me that she called the rental agent from the apartment I saw yesterday where I think I may have left my phone, but unfortunately he hadn’t seen it. However, a little later, as we’re wandering through a snazzy two-bedroom in a high-rise, she gets a call from the agent. He had gone back and looked more carefully, and voila! he found it! (Resting on the bathtub ledge where I’d laid it to reach in and turn on the water to test the shower pressure. Which, by the way, is awesome.)

While I continue looking at the high-rise apartment with the associate, Julia races downstairs to meet the rental agent who drives up on his motorcycle, gives her my phone, and zooms off.

Is this a sign? Who knows, but I do know that I can’t stop thinking of that first place, so after day two of apartment viewing, I tell Julia to apply for it.

I also use the services of a colleague at Balcells to help me register for social security, which means paying taxes and enjoying universal healthcare.

Because Spain and the United States have a tax treaty to avoid double taxation, this means that I don't have to pay taxes on the same income in both countries. For instance, as a U.S. citizen living in Spain, Spain has the primary right to tax my income. And by paying taxes in Spain on my income, I can claim a foreign tax credit on my U.S. tax return.

Sounds easy, right? Ha! That’s why I need to keep my American tax accountant and hire a Spanish tax accountant, and both need to be familiar with this whole ball of wax.

My lawyer’s colleague also helps me register as a self-employed freelancer (autónomo) in Spain — which is the main criteria of this Digital Nomad Visa — so I need to tell send him:

Copy of my NIE ("Número de Identificación de Extranjero", or "Foreigner's Identification Number," which I got when I received my visa)
Copy of my passport
Activity I will be doing in Spain
Address in Spain for the activity
Address of residency in Spain
Spanish mobile phone number
Name of father / name of mother (this feels like a “which one doesn’t belong?” item)
Spanish bank account number
Expected monthly net income as a freelancer in Spain

Needless to say, I have gotten quite diligent at “exploring” some of Spain’s finest wines….

Renting My Dream Apartment

A couple days later, I visit Parque de El Retiro, a big park in the center-ish of the city, to attend the Feria del Libro de Madrid (Madrid Book Fair).

As it turns out, I wind up speedwalking through the crowded fair (too many people and I don’t understand Spanish well enough to attend any author events) and then go sit on the grass in a quiet spot to read my book. Ahh, so relaxing and delightful. Does it get any better than this?

Then I get a text from Julia: I got my dream apartment!!!

Landlords are often hesitant to rent to freelancers who usually have inconsistent income, since the fear is that they won’t be able to pay rent. (And, apparently, here the courts tend to side with tenants over landlords.) Knowing this, I supplied Julia with more than the required paperwork. In addition to my last three months’ of invoices and bank statements, I also provided my tax statement for the prior year, my savings account statement, a contract from one client securing me work until the end of this year, and a letter from my previous landlord (the one who hugged me goodbye and said he’d miss me) stating that I’d been a perfect tenant for sixteen years.

Julia accompanies me to my new home where we do a complete inventory (especially important for a fully furnished place) and I sign the lease. Afterwards, she and I go to a nearby coffee shop to go over the lease (i.e. she translates it into English and I nod and go “Mm-hm.”) My move-in date is three days hence, but the landlady’s agent gives me the key and allows me to start moving my things in right away.

That afternoon I go back to my Airbnb and send two money transfers from my U.S. bank to my new landlady’s bank: one is the fianza, a mandatory deposit of one month’s rent for damage or unpaid bills, and the other is the guarantía de pago, an optional (by the landlord) additional payment guarantee, which in this case is two months’ rent. I will get this all back when I move out.

The first transfer goes through no problem, but I receive a notification that my bank canceled the second one (“you’re welcome,” the notification practically said). I call the bank and they explain that with two money transfers back to back to a recipient I’ve never used before, they just assumed that I was dumb enough to send all my savings to a Nigerian prince (living in Spain). After they ask me a zillion security questions, send a security code to my phone, and have me explain at length what this money is for, they cheerfully tell me that I can now send the transfer. I do, and then go out for dinner.

When I get back, I have a new alert: This time the bank not only canceled my money transfer, but they locked me out of my account, too. I call them again and explain again and answer their security questions again and receive a security code on my phone again. And send the transfer again. And then I live happily ever after, right? Nope. This ☝️ happens for a THIRD time. The only difference is that on the third call to my bank, I am crying. I explain that if I can’t send that money, I’ll lose the apartment. I ask them what the hell all those security measures are for if they don’t actually mean anything and this is my hard-earned money and I should be able to send it to whomever I please, foreign sham princes and all. This time the bank tells me that they will not try to send this transfer again — ever.

“Well then what’s your solution for how I can pay my new landlady in Spain?”

“Write a check,” she says.

I hang up on her, angry and tearful.

Here’s the happily ever after part: I tell Julia this story and she offers to send this money to my landlady, and I can PayPal her back. This works like a charm and I decide then and there that Julia is really an angel in disguise.

Note: Once my Spanish bank is set up, I then sign up for a Wise account (recommended in the Moving to Spain Masterclass), which is free, super simple and quick to transfer cashola internationally, and offers the lowest currency exchange rates. Fuck you “never sending a transfer ever again” bank!

Julia also goes with me to buy a Spanish phone. (I find it hard enough understanding all the specs of a piece of technology in English, so she’s as much my moral support as my translator.) I need a Spanish phone number while I’m living here, and my U.S. phone only has one SIM card tray. If it’d had two, like a normal goddamn modern-day phone, I wouldn’t have had to buy a whole new mobile for my Spanish number; I could’ve just bought a new SIM card with that number and popped it into my American phone. So now I carry around two phones like a pretentious businesswoman from 2005.

By the way, I sign up for a package from service provider Movistar that includes two mobile phone numbers (i.e. SIM cards, one of which I pop into my new Spanish phone; the other I can loan to my out-of-country visitors), high-speed internet, and basic cable — all for half the price of my one mobile phone plan in the States.

Anyway, Julia sets up the internet installation appointment and, miracle of miracles, the guy comes that day. When he calls on the apartment intercom, I answer awkwardly: “Uh, hola?” I don’t understand anything he says except the word “Movistar,” so – thanks to all the Seinfeld en español that I’ve been watching – I know to say “sube” (“come up”) and buzz him in.

Later, by the way, I ask someone how one typically answers the telephone in Spanish, and she tells me “Dígame” (formal) or “Dime” (familiar), both of which mean “Tell me” or “Talk to me.” It’s still weird for me to answer the phone that way.

At this point, you’ll probably not be surprised to hear that I transport my five suitcases to my new home all by myself like an idiot. Because my street is so narrow, even if I can get someone to pick me up, I can’t figure out any way not to block traffic while this person and I lug five bags down the rickety stairs. So for the three overlapping days that I still have the Airbnb, I take a cab with two partially emptied out suitcases (so I can carry them and not roll, thunk! them down the stairs) to my new apartment, walk the 15 minutes back to the Airbnb with one empty suitcase, and repeat this for three days until everything is at my new home.

And then, finally…

I am sitting here in my oh-so-European apartment working in a beautiful room next to the French doors and listening to the rain falling outside (yes, rain in June – ooh, thunder and lightening, too!). It’s hard to work because I can’t stop looking up from my computer and grinning. And when I go down the hall to the bathroom, I skip and sing, “Walking down the hall in my new apartment in Spain!”

I send a message to my dad: “Cheers!! My first night in my new home in friggin' Europe!!!!”

Dad: Your very own apartment in Madrid! A citizen of the EU. I can barely believe it.

Me: Just before I took that picture, I was sitting here looking around at my new home, most of the stress of getting settled gone, and suddenly it hit me what I had accomplished and I burst into tears. Happy tears! But I could definitely use a big, fat hug from you.

Dad: Oh, Selena, you'll make me cry! When I was writing the previous message I was thinking similarly: What an astounding thing you have accomplished. Something requiring great courage. I'm so proud of you.

I sent that “cheers!” photo and message to the rest of my friends and family, and all of them responded similarly. I had already known it, but to hear everyone tell me what an amazing accomplishment and a courageous feat this was really made me see even more clearly that, yeah, this is one of the biggest things I’ve ever done in my life.

When I quit working for the day, I sit in my comfy armchair, legs draped over the arm, gaze out the window and enjoy living the dream I have imagined for so long.

But even though I’ve made the move to Spain, the work isn’t done. My goal is to become fluent in Spanish, make friends, explore the city and the country, and live life like a Spaniard as much as possible.

CLICK HERE TO READ adjusting to life IN SPAIN: A “Foreign Film” at Cine Doré

Bookmark this blog to read about my ongoing adventures as I adjust to life in Spain!

Note: All photos taken or created (using DALL-E) by Selena Templeton, unless otherwise noted.

If you enjoyed reading this travel blog, check out some of my other adventures: