Expat Depression

I’ll admit: one of the reasons I’ve been spotty with my posting at times is because I was feeling too depressed to write a happy post, and writing a depressing post scared me. I know there are those out there who would call me a snotty, ungrateful brat for not shooting rainbows out my ass about how awesome this is and how lucky I am and how wonderful and amazing everything is for me.

I have no interest in being bashed for my personal experiences, so I stayed quiet and read some books instead because reading has always been able to transport me away from my thoughts.

But now that I have some perspective on the situation, I thought I’d write about my experience because I’m in a better place now.

1. I gave up my independence.

Giving up my independence was very hard for me. I’m used to being able to do everything for myself. If I needed something, I’d get it myself. If I wanted to go somewhere, I would go. Moving here eliminated that option for me because I don’t have a car. I depend entirely on Mike to take me places, and staying in the house all day was making me stir-crazy. I felt worthless and anxious all of the time.

To combat the feeling of worthlessness, I started actively trying to think of ideas for personal projects. I fleshed out ideas for possible business ventures. I created an awesome version of my resume on Photoshop. I’ve learned more html and css. Instead of giving in to my feelings of being trapped in the house, I tried to turn it into a time for me to focus on myself and focus on my goals. It’s worked. It has given me something to focus on and I’m building my skill set up for when I reenter the workforce after this experience.

I still have my days of feeling locked up in the house without anywhere to go, but having more goals has definitely helped.

2. It’s not as romantic as I pictured.

I pictured Under the Tuscan Sun meets Eat, Pray, Love. I pictured running into town to chat with the locals who made fun of me for my horrible Spanish, taking bike rides and perhaps rediscovering a love to paint. I pictured sowing a garden in a little patch of rustic earth. I pictured eating great food every day at new and fun restaurants. I pictured the movie-star version of myself (Ms. Anne Hathaway, if you were wondering) living here. It’s not like that.

But living here does have its quirks and movie moments, so I try to remember that most people’s lives are not film-ready and I’m no exception. I can’t run into town, and I can’t carry on a long enough conversation in Spanish for anyone to make fun of me in the first place. The hills where I live are nearly impossible to bike without some serious training, and the art supplies I brought with me are sitting in the guest closet untouched. The rustic patch of earth that I plan to sow? Well, it’ll take quite a lot of manual labor to get that ready. And the restaurants here all serve exactly the same thing, which is great, but I don’t want it every single day.

So things aren’t quite as romantic as I pictured. It’s okay though…I’m readjusting my vision to a more realistic outlook.

3. Loneliness.

I love Mike. I can talk to him for hours and hours. We’re perfect companions. But he can’t be the only human being that I interact with. I had a hard time accepting that Mike could go off to work and get social interaction from his English-speaking coworkers while I was in the house, trying to learn Spanish on my own without anyone to talk with. And yes, we tried to go to our local bar so I would get more language skills, but I’m not exactly going to be BFF’s with the much (much) older crowd that frequents the place.

I’m still working on my loneliness. Some days are hard. I have met a woman recently who has been nice enough to take me into town to go to the market and go for coffee. She lives right down the road from me, so I can walk over if I need some human interaction. She’s been absolutely wonderful and I’m so grateful to her for being so kind to me. I’ve also grown much much closer to Wrigley and Zoe since I’ve been here. My relationship with my dogs has changed completely. They are absolutely everything to me–I love them so much more today than I ever have. They’re wonderful companions and I never could have moved here without them.

4. Things are just different.

Of course things are different. I knew that things would be different. I thought I would LOVE that things were different. No chain restaurants, no big box retailers, fresh markets daily, a smaller, simpler life was what I wanted. But when adjusting to a new place, sometimes just those little familiar comforts from home are sorely missed. A recognizable brand or store is very welcome to me as I’ve been battling homesickness. Sometimes, you just like the option to go to Target if you need something instead of simply not knowing where to go to get what you need.

But that has been getting easier as we get more used to our surroundings. We’ve found suitable substitutes for many of the things we miss, and have been appreciating all of the things here that we will miss terribly when we go back home. It’s still hard sometimes because I do miss home and many things about it, but I’m loving this lifestyle more and more for what it is. No, I don’t want to live here for the rest of my life, but while I’m here, I’m appreciating it more and more.

5. The Language Barrier.

I don’t know as if I’ll ever be fluent in Spanish. Learning a language is harder than I thought it would be. I can understand much more now and can usually follow a conversation if it is slow enough, but I don’t yet have the vocabulary to be able to string any sentence I want together. It can be isolating and frustrating to not be able to say what I want to say, or understand someone else. Going to the market with my new friend is helping, but I have a very long road ahead of me.

So it hasn’t been easy. The holidays were especially full of tears and sadness because I missed my family. Video chatting is always helpful and I’m so happy that we have technology to keep us connected. Things are finally getting easier, which I’m very grateful for. I do really love the fact that this experience is teaching me so much about myself and the world. It’s valuable experience that I’m sure will help me in life.

They aren’t always easy lessons though, and I will have days where all I want to do is go home. I will still have days where I’m frustrated and overwhelmed and lonely. I’ll probably NEVER understand why some Spanish customs are what they are, and I’ll probably always be a little confused by a lot of things. I’ll probably be very glad to get back to some aspects of my life in the States and mourn some aspects of life here. This experience is probably not movie material like I thought it would be, but it’ll be an essential part of who I become.

Don’t Mess With My Dinnertime

So, we’ve been living in Spain for nearly a month now. In that time, our schedule went like this:

• 6am-Mike wakes up, Mandy’s in bed
• 7am-Mike leaves the house, Mandy’s in bed
• 8am-Mandy makes her way out of bed and hangs out with the dogs/on the computer/around the house
• 12 noon-Mandy is hungry so she eats a snack
• 3:30pm-Mike comes home for the day, they eat lunch together
• 4:30-Mike works out
• 6pm-They aren’t hungry
• 7pm-They aren’t hungry
• 8pm- Kinda hungry, but not sure if they want to spend an hour cooking, then eating, then going to bed
• 9pm-OMG Starving, need food in my face now. Since dinner was never cooked, look in cabinets and refrigerator for 20 minutes, hoping something delicious and quick tackles me. Settle for something quick and healthy, like nutella on cookies. Or, if we do cook dinner at 8pm, finish eating around 9:30
• 10:30pm-Bedtime. Feel terrible because we just ate dinner and don’t sleep well, or feel terrible because my dinner consisted of Nutella and cookies for the third night in a row.

Besides the bedtime at 10:30, this is the way most people live their day-to-day lives here in our region. They don’t eat dinner until 9:30 and then go to bed maybe around midnight or one.

But…Mike gets up at 6am to get ready for work. Most people don’t start their days here until 9am. That makes a big difference! We aren’t night owls by nature, and staying up past 11 isn’t for us on a daily basis when he’s getting up early. I also really loved the ritual of cooking dinner around 5 or 6 oclock, eating and having the rest of the night to do whatever we pleased, be it run errands or hang out at home.

The Spanish schedule was making my days feel so off. I thought I would adjust after a couple of weeks, but we found that we just didn’t like the way this schedule was making us feel.

So here’s what we decided. Mike’s going to eat lunch/snacks at work. I’ll eat lunch/snacks at home. He’ll come home at 3:30, work out, and then be ready to help me cook dinner by about 6. We’ll cook dinner, and be happy having the evenings to relax before bedtime.

It will be very difficult to go out to eat on a regular basis. Here, many restaurants don’t even OPEN until 9pm. Add to that the fact that eating dinner out here usually takes a MINIMUM of 2.5 hours since the service is slower and no one is ever in a rush. Add in there about 20-30 minutes of driving to said location both ways and it’s impossible to get home at a decent hour on weeknights.

Saturdays are the best day to go out to dinner since we can carve out however much time is needed for a meal. Sundays…everything is closed. Only some restaurants are open for lunch on Sundays, but most of those places don’t have websites and you don’t know that it’s closed until you get there and you’re fire-breathingly hungry.

Now, the way a lot of the Spanish offset their eating/sleeping schedules is by taking a siesta in the middle of the afternoon, aka: taking a nap.

I think that’s stupid. I don’t want to break up my day with a nap unless I’m sick or if I’m so tired I might just pass out standing up. Further south in this country, it might make more sense because it’s literally too hot to think in the middle of the day, but here, it remains a steady 50-70 degrees at all times. You don’t need a nap in the middle of the day if you eat and go to bed at a decent hour, now do you?

So…we tried the Spanish way of eating. We agreed that it wasn’t sustainable for the long-term, and since we’re eating at home all of the time now anyway, we might as well do it on our terms. When we do decide to go out to eat, we’ll plan that day accordingly.

Do you think you could adjust to this kind of eating schedule? Would you take a nap in the middle of the day just to make it work?

Spoiled

Hi, my name is Mandy and I’m spoiled. I’m not going to say I’m spoiled rotten because I don’t think I am. At least, that’s what my mom tells me, and she’s pretty much the authority on these things.

But I am spoiled. Yes, I was fortunate to have a wonderful childhood and the ability to go to a nice university, but more spoiled in that…if I wanted something, I’d mostly just go and get it. Not extravagant items, but if I thought I needed a new sweater, I’d go buy a new sweater. I’m definitely the spender in our household, but never to the point of spending beyond what we can afford. I’ve grown up with the attitude of “Oh, we don’t have that? Life would be easier/better with it? Let’s get it.”

I’m just now realizing how spoiled I really am. I’m used to cooking and eating an enormous variety of dishes. I’m used to going to the farmer’s market that had everything I needed and more, sold to me by the people whose work produced the product I purchase. I’m used to going to the large, beautiful Wegman’s grocery store to pick up supplemental items for that week’s groceries. Wegman’s has an enormous international foods section. A fantastic organic section. Every product needed for the kitchen and home that I could fathom. Maybe if I was feeling particularly impulsive that day, I’d buy a Reese’s cup pack in line at the checkout, but feel guilty about it and split it with Mike.

And if I couldn’t find what I needed at the grocery store, I could just work my way down the strip Wegman’s was located in, including Target, Petsmart, Bed, Bath & Beyond, DSW, Joann Fabrics, Sports Authority, TJ Maxx and many many more stores that would inevitably end my day’s errands.

When I got home, I came home to a nice programmed thermostat that keeps the house my perfect temperature of 71 degrees. I don’t know how our heat works, I just know that it does and a bill comes every month, and we’re toasty throughout the winter even if the prices are ridiculous for gas heat. While I’m cooking dinner that night, Mike will probably turn over the laundry, and all of the clothes, sheets and towels in the house and will be warm and dry before we go to bed.

After dinner, we’ll turn on the TV and watch one of only three or four shows we ever watch but enjoy immensely. That night, we’ll flip the switch to the fan above our heads and climb into our bed, knowing that we’ll stay warm and comfortable throughout the night. We might talk about going out for sushi or going into Philly for a fun night on the town the next day, where we could shop and eat and see friends.

I’ve been spoiled by convenience. I’ve also been spoiled by the fact that usually, if we need something, we’ll just determine if we have enough money for it, then get it if we do.

Transitioning to a world where the same conveniences don’t exist is hard for me. Yes, I can find some of what I’m looking for if I go to multiple stores across town, and I can order some things online. I can survive even though our house is one of two temperatures (boiling hot or freezing cold). I’d be more comfortable with a fan circulating the air at night, but I’m not suffocating without one. I can live without a car and I can live without TV and I can live without the markets that don’t have exactly what I need of everything. I can cook with what I have for a year. I don’t have to go to exotic restaurants with the hottest chefs in town. I don’t need to go to Coruña every week to try something new considering restaurants don’t even open until we’re about ready for bed. I don’t have to go out and buy a new sweater when I think I need one. I can live without my beloved Discount Shoe Warehouse where I’d be left alone to try on any shoe I wanted without pesky salespeople badgering me. I don’t need these things, and certainly others live without them.

It’s just…different. It requires a different mindset. It requires me to set aside frustrations over these things and think about the bigger picture. It also makes me think about how much I never appreciated just how much I had in the States. What I wouldn’t give to have my entire spice and baking cabinets shipped to me…

I’m definitely spoiled. Every time I feel frustration over something not being available to me, I immediately feel guilt. I signed up for a “different” life. I signed up for a world that was guaranteed to not be like South Jersey. I shouldn’t get frustrated over what I should have known was inevitable.

But I do. A lifetime of thinking “Oh, we can just go pick X up” or “Oh, is it cold in here? We should just reset the thermostat so it’s at 71 degrees” is hard to break out of. It’s gotten me thinking “yes, I can live without X, but do I want to?” It’s still too early to tell.

Do you consider yourself spoiled by convenience?

The Food of Galicia

Since I got two requests yesterday to write about the food here, today seemed as good as any other day to address this topic. Truly, your wish is my command, readers!

Many of you may be aware that tapas restaurants are all-the-rage in Spain, but where we live? Not really. Galicia is in the Northwestern most part of Spain, which means that it’s very rainy and the temperatures here never get too hot. We’re also right on the Atlantic ocean, so our waters are much colder than the side of Spain on the Mediterranean, like Barcelona.

Via A to Z Maps Data

Our area is the green area at the top left of the map. We’re between La Coruña and Ortiguera.

Basically, it means a lot of seafood is eaten here. A lot.

When Mike and I traveled around Spain before coming to live here, people would tell us without fail “Galicia? The weather is terrible, but you’ll eat the freshest seafood in the world.” So far, the former has been very rainy, but not terrible, and the latter is very true.

The specialty of this region is Pulpo a la Gallego, which is Galician style octopus. Mike and I have had it many times and have both truly enjoyed it. The octopus is boiled, then cut into bite sizes, tossed with oil, salt and paprika, served over boiled potatoes.

Sorry for the cellphone pic, but you get the idea.

Speaking of the potatoes, everything here is served with boiled potatoes. They’re soft and buttery tasting naturally, but add in the oil and they’re very good! Only…I really don’t want boiled potatoes with EVERYTHING, know what I’m saying?

This past Sunday, Mike and I were invited to our new friends’ family lunch and we accepted. It was a very good opportunity to speak more with people here, and everyone asked endless questions about us. During that time, Louisa’s (the English speaking friend of ours) cousin fired up a couple of grills FULL of meat.

There were sausages, beef ribs, pork ribs, and a couple of cuts of meat I wasn’t familiar with. This was served with fried potatoes and fried croquettes.

Overall, the food here is very homey. It’s not terribly creative, they rarely use a spice other than sweet paprika, and they don’t use any sauces on anything. The fish is very good and fresh, so it doesn’t need too much dressing up, but if I’m being honest, the Gallegans could spice it up a bit.

We’ve only been out to eat a few times, and the story has been the same. Fish, still on the bone, mostly, served with boiled potatoes. Hunks of meat or sausage, served with boiled potatoes. There are certainly restaurants that break away from this, but if I’m talking about the food on a wide scale, this is what you’re likely to find here. I’ve been cooking up a storm since we like a variety of different things, but I’ve made a point to cook Galician style food when I can. So far, I’ve cooked berberechos, which are little shellfish that are very sweet and yummy, which you’ll remember I already showed you:

I’ve also cooked tiny little camarones, or shrimp.

And last night was the first time that I’ve ever cooked a fish whole! Mike asked if I wanted to take a picture of it, and I didn’t. Now I regret it, of course. The fish was very very good, though I’m not quite sure what kind of fish it was. We have two more that I didn’t cook last night, so I’ll take pictures when I cook those up.

We’ve really made a point to stay in and cook for ourselves as much as possible. Eating out here is expensive and takes HOURS. Especially since other people aren’t eating until the time we have to go to bed, it’s not worth it for us to go out on the weekdays. I’m happy cooking though, and I’m trying to make new things all of the time!

As for wines here, they are cheap, cheap, cheap. We’ve found decent bottles in our grocery store for 3 Euros! I have no idea how those winemakers make any money, but I’ll take it!

The coffee here is almost always divine. No matter what bar you walk in, they’ll have a shiny and expensive espresso machine, their beans are freshly ground, and we looove it.

Desserts?? Blah. Blah, blah, blah. The churros here are never very fresh (that’s a more southern thing anyway) and we haven’t really found a signature dessert for this area. I feel sorry for these people, honestly!! I’ve been all around and haven’t seen even a glimpse of cocoa powder, and as a result, no chocolate cakes or cookies. Their cakes are very plain, and flavored with a bit of licorice, which I don’t particularly like. I also haven’t seen brown sugar anywhere, or molasses for that matter to make my own brown sugar. Powdered sugar is also missing from the shelves, so I’ll have to make my own for that too (though cornstarch is something else I have yet to find). Candies, brownies and cookies just don’t seem to be done here at all, and even worse, I’m having a hard time getting my hands on the ingredients to make my own. My amazon shopping cart is just growing bigger and bigger.

So there you have it! The food here in Galicia is certainly good enough to keep us going, and we’re more than thrilled about the freshness of the seafood, but we’re not too thrilled with the traditional style of cooking. We’re used to a lot of variety when it comes to the places we eat out in Philly, and everything is cooked differently with it’s own interpretation. In Galicia, there’s no room for interpretation I think with ingredients like they have (the fresh fish) we’ll be able to create a lot of dishes ourselves that make us happy. As for the sauces, spices and baking ingredients we can’t find, we’ll just have to order them online.

WTF Moments

Happy Halloween everyone! Since Mike has today and tomorrow off of work (tomorrow is All Saints Day here in Spain), we’ve decided to take a short road trip to Santiago today, which is a Holy city about an hour away. I’m hoping that somewhere along the way, I’ll be able to find my favorite Halloween candy-Reese’s Cups!

To celebrate this holiday, I’ve compiled a list of strange, WTF moments we’ve had here so far. I’m sure this list will keep growing and growing!

• People here do not use clothes driers. It is the wettest area in Spain, it’s rained about half of the time we’ve been here, and people still just hang their clothes outside. It is very, very rare for someone to own a drier. We bought one within our first week here because seriously?? I don’t want to wait three days for my jeans to dry inside.
• People don’t start to eat dinner here until about 10pm. We arrived at a restaurant a little after 8 oclock, only to find the lights were still out and the heat wasn’t turned on. We were the only ones at the restaurant until about 10 o’clock. We were about ready for bed at that point.
• When people realize we don’t speak Spanish, instead of speaking slowly and using large gestures like we Americans do with foreigners, they tend to speed up their speech and speak even more to us.
• Our neighbors have seven dogs, at least 4 cats, three chickens and a rooster. Spaying and neutering is a foreign concept here. Everything stays outside 24/7 and they’re all very loud animals!
• Speaking of loud animals, dogs here are all outside creatures and are allowed to bark all day and all night long without any “hushing” from their owners. Inconceivably annoying.
• A woman at the market was annoyed with us for not being able to speak Spanish. So she ripped us off on the eggs we bought from her–she charged us 5 Euros for a dozen and when we took the eggs home, I saw that half of them were obviously laid by a very young chicken since they are wrinkly, misshapen, and the eggs don’t separate easily from the shells. Argh, I hate being ripped off! Egg lady lost a customer.
• Chocolate chips don’t exist here. Holy. Crap.
• Fresh milk is in the minority-most stores carry UHT milk, which isn’t refrigerated and can be left on the shelves for months. We haven’t tried it yet- we just keep buying out every store’s meager supply of fresh 1% milk (skim doesn’t exist here either).
• M&M’s taste different, as do Oreo’s and Honey Nut Cheerios and everything else because they’re manufactured by different companies over here.
• Waitresses do not survey any of their tables to see if someone needs something else. They’ve even skipped over seeing us as we’re waving our hands and speaking to them from three feet away.
• Nutella is even more amazing than I remember it being. I hope I’m never able to read the nutritional label.

While I’m willing to accept many of these things, I simply cannot understand how a human being can live without chocolate chips. What does one snack on casually when craving some chocolate? That jar of Nutella better watch out.

Hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Halloween!

What’s the craziest WTF Moment you’ve had when traveling?

New Friends

Yesterday, Mike and I went to our most local bar (a little less than a mile away) in hopes of getting a cup of coffee and maybe to see if we could converse with any of the locals. When we came through the doors, we were pretty intimidated since the owners were older and obviously spoke no English. Mike and I drank our cups of coffee and talked amongst ourselves. We were about to leave, but I prompted Mike to at least TRY to tell these people that we just moved in down the street.

Well, Mike tried. The owner (Miro) understood a bit of what Mike was saying, when his wife (Mari) came out and told us they have a woman who works there who speaks English. Mari promptly got on the phone and called this woman to come help us understand each other.

Guys. Never, ever, ever did I think that walking into a bar for a cup of coffee could change things so much for me. A few minutes after placing the call, a woman and man walk in the door, and the woman, Louisa, speaks perfect English with a British accent. Turns out, she was born in Spain, grew up in Britain, and moved back to Spain as an adult.

Mike and I stayed at the bar for hours last night. We were kind of a novelty to everyone since it is very very rare for a foreigner to stop at this little bar on the side of the road. All four of them would ask us questions about why we were here, and how we liked Spain so far. They also filled me in that I could get my local bread from their bar, as well as fresh produce.

Louisa then proposed the most amazing offer: she said she’d be happy to take me into the town of Miño any time she was going to get fresh fish. She also offered to come pick me up to bring me to the bar if I was lonely and it was raining too much for me to walk there. Never, ever, ever did I expect a real offer like this just by going out for some coffee.

I feel silly getting so excited over new friends, but meeting anyone who is so willing to talk to us and be patient with our halted Spanish is very valuable. Even more valuable is this woman who recognized that I might need help now and then getting around since I don’t have a car, and offered to take me shopping with her if she was ever heading out.

A part of me fears that this might have been an insincere offer…an empty promise like so many acquaintances I’ve known where we say in passing “we should definitely get together!” and never intend on doing so. I think the only thing that I can do to try to prevent this from happening is if Mike and I keep going back to that bar on a fairly regular basis and get to know the people there. I very much hope that the offer was sincere, as the prospect of having someone to help me navigate these foreign waters means so much to me.

Also, as a side note, we received a letter in our mailbox from our neighbors (in broken, Google Translate English) saying that they don’t speak English, but that if we need anything at all, please give them a call or send an email. I wrote back this morning (in broken, Google Translate Spanish) thanking them for their kindness and introduced ourselves.

So, nearly two weeks in, and we’re trying to reach out to people, and so far have had some success! I know that once we get a better grasp of the language, many many more doors will open up to us in terms of meeting new people. I gotta get cracking on Rosetta Stone!