Two months more or less
Some notes on our lives in Barcelona, now that we have been here a bit over two months:
We still 100% feel this was the right change for our lives. The grass is not always greener on the other side, but sometimes, it is. Simply put, this is a great city for gay people, and our previous home of Phoenix, not at all. Phoenix is a cesspit of bigotry and violence, something you really do not completely understand the scale of until you have lived somewhere that does not have those overwhelming issues.
Our phone number solution is working brilliantly. With the physical sim from T-Mobile for our American phone number, and the e-sim from Vodafone for our Spanish number, we can have both numbers simultaneously active. This makes receiving two-factor text messages from American companies simple. If we do have to call the United States, we avoid using T-Mobile as that costs $.25/minute, but we have 300 international minutes with Vodafone. Our Vodafone service is very cheap - 15 Euros for every 28 days, with 300 international minutes and 50GB of data, 5G. More than we need. The catch to the cheap service is we bought unlocked iPhones, which meant paying full price for the phones up front. We bought these in the US, where they probably were much cheaper than had we bought them in Spain.
A huge question mark for citizens abroad is what to use for a US address. The pat answer we get most often is “use a family member’s or friend’s address” but that is not always a solution available to everyone, including us. We are using a private mailbox with US Global Mail, and whether that is a good solution, we are not certain yet. Some people have great luck using a private mail box but our experience has been a disaster. So this is still an open question.
Drinking culture is different. Breweries and beer bars with thirty taps are less common than in the United States, but no-crap-on-tap appears to be the universal standard - we have not seen a single place serving Budweiser, Bud Light, Coors, ad nauseam. (Yuck, nausea indeed.) Also, generally, you can go in a place and simply ask for “a beer” without specifying what kind. In the United States, if you tell a bartender “I’d like a beer” they will give you an exasperated look and say “What kind?”. Most places will have a variety of Estrella Damm or Moritz beers. Drinking wine is similar: you can just order a glass of red or white, and they’ll bring something that is always good and cheap, but you usually will not know what kind it is unless you specifically ask. Some places do have wine lists, but that is much less common here. The upside is, you will rarely get bad wine, and the wine is incredibly inexpensive, if you stick to drinking Spanish wine. And why wouldn’t you, right? Cocktails: this is where Barcelona lags behind Phoenix, and the United States in general. Phoenix boasts some amazing cocktail bars, and we have not found any equivalent in Barcelona. There are a lot of tourist-oriented bars with cocktails that are low-effort and awful: if you see a bar advertising Sex on the Beach, run. ¡Corre, Toto, corre! We are still on the prowl for a great cocktail bar.
We still have not adjusted to the low cost of food. Now and then I catch myself, still, thinking they forgot to put everything on our bill when I see the total. Yesterday we had lunch at Molika Cafe, and the total was €18.30 (about $19.90 USD). This was for two cafe con leches (which are always great, we have not experienced any low-quality, bitter, nasty coffee), two whole-grain croissants that were fantastic (again, not low-quality, pre-made, Costco/factory products - actual fresh made croissants), and two jamon and brie sandwiches (again, quality ham and cheese, and great fresh bread). I thought surely he had forgotten to add something in the total, but no, that included everything. This is a regular and refreshing experience here, for those of us used to the high cost of food (and low quality of food) in the United States.
Something that turned out to be a mostly non-issue was dealing with streaming services. We signed up for NordVPN before moving over here, having read various advice on what VPN services are best for streaming. Well, turns out most of our streaming services work here anyway. Our “smart” tv (not meaning actually smart, but “spies on you” tv) is on the building wifi, but not our VPN, and Netflix, Apple TV, and Spotify all work. They detect our ip is in Spain, and the interfaces appear in Spanish, and Netflix features lots of Spanish content. The only service that will not work is Max, but we can watch it on my laptop through the VPN. Regardless, since we use wifi that comes with the apartment, a VPN is still a must. After a few months of use I can say NordVPN is working quite nicely.
Voting from abroad is tricky, as you would expect. We found an organization that can help with this: Vote From Abroad. Something we did not know is you must request a ballot annually, as citizens living abroad may be wiped from the voting rolls every year. Fingers crossed we can get this straightened out to do our part to avoid four years of Orange Horror. We know one American living here who has told us “why bother, you don’t live there anymore” - but friends and family still live there, and we are concerned especially for our gay friends back there, along with anybody else considered “other”. Not to mention, even if you live abroad, you are still a US citizen so the Orange One’s bullshit can still reach out and make your life less pleasant. I do not understand that “you don’t live there, why care” attitude.
Barcelona is an amazing place for gay people. Contrast with Phoenix, where we were always the odd ones out, and often when socializing or working with mixed groups of people, we would hear a lot of ridiculous garbage. One example being a coworker of mine who went out of his way on my first day on the team to declare his anti-trans point of view, implying that trans men are pedophiles; while the other team member referred to me as “someone who lives an alternative lifestyle” and clearly thought of me as “other” and not a part of humanity like we all are. Here, we will hang out with mixed groups, and we keep being surprised to unexpectedly meet other gay men - we have been used to being the only ones in social situations so often in Phoenix that it is a nice feeling to not always be The Other, the Token Gay Couple Of The Group. And we can hold hands without being called “motherfucking faggots” or getting funny looks, as we did in the land of the free™.
This memorial is in the park close to us and reads: “In memory of gays, lesbians, and transgender people that have suffered persecution and repression throughout history - Barcelona 2011“. Notice there is no vandalism, no protesters, no pro-bigotry pamphlets? This memorial would not last 24 hours in Phoenix, still now, in 2023 - notice this memorial is dated 2011. Things are very, very different here.
And since I earlier used some naughty language: people are a lot looser here with swearing. A lot looser. The f-word does not have the impact here it does in the United States. One of our favorite restaurants here is called “My Fucking Restaurant” and they have a fixed price menu called “Fuck Your Diet”. And nobody bats an eye. I find it all rather amusing, but still now and then get caught off guard by a casual expletive.
Jim in front of My Fucking Restaurant during our trip to Spain in the spring of 2022.
They love animals here, and have strict laws in place to protect animal welfare. Farrah had to get an EU-compatible microchip before she could enter Spain, so if she gets loose, we can be identified (and duly punished). And recently, Barcelona has passed new animal welfare laws imposing large (as in, hundreds of Euros) fines for having your dog-off leash outside of approved off-leash zones, and for leaving your dog unattended outside a shop while you are inside (the Barcelona version of leaving your dog in your car in Phoenix), among other things. Spain has also recently passed an animal welfare law that imposes over a year of imprisonment for animal abuse. And if the abuse results in death, you can get three years in prison. They seem to actually care about animal welfare here. (Although, critics point out that bullfighting is still legal.)
To repeat, they love animals here: we went down the street to the butcher a few days ago, and I told Jim I would wait outside with Farrah on the assumption the butcher would not want me to bring a dog inside. Next thing I know, I see the butcher smiling and motioning for me to come in with Farrah, and he gave her some scrap beef to snack on. He told us about his dog Otello, and was so happy to meet Farrah. Our language school even insisted we bring her to class today, where she naturally behaved very naughtily but everyone loved having her there.