The non-EU expat who logs five legal years in Spain can reach for a glittery brass ring at the end of year five: a “larga duración” residence permit, either for Spain alone or for both Spain and the rest of the European Union. I opted for the second, got it, post today to share juicy…
All posts in Spain
Recommended Madrid Businesses
I am or was a client of all of the businesses listed below and recommend them to others. Services range from the short-term (at the century-old Peluquería Moderna, which cut hair I no longer have) to the life-transforming (at ICUA, which relieved me of 117 grams of prostate tissue). I receive no compensation from any…
Trips to Catalonia
Catalonia is the triangular, Maryland-sized “autonomous community” that defines mainland Spain’s northeast corner. Its capital, Barcelona, attracts visitors from around the globe. Girona, Figueres, Lérida and other Catalonia urbs get less international attention. Catalans speak Spanish, even if some wish they didn’t, and a language of their own: Catalan, the mother tongue of roughly a…
Ruta de las Caras in Cuenca, Spain
One unheralded day in 1992, among the young pines on the southern banks of Spain’s Buendía reservoir, Madrileños Eulogio Reguillo and Jorge Maldonado hoisted chisels to sandstone to commence the sculpture shown above. La Monja, they called it; they started a second sculpture, and a third. Twenty sculptures and bas-reliefs now grace the woodsy, 1.5…
South Coast: Spain Covid Road Trip #3
Three days, 9/29 – 10/1, from Madrid to Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz, Marbella, Almería, Cartagena, Alicante, Valencia, then back to Madrid. All behind the wheel of a rental car. “But why didn’t you take the AVE train for part of the trip?” Spaniards may wonder. “It goes to Sevilla and Valencia. 300 km/h!” Good…
Picos & North Coast: Spain Covid Road Trip #2
Covid-19 has now killed more than thirty-one thousand in Spain and nearly a million worldwide. Borders have closed; I can still travel freely to some countries, but would have to navigate various hurdles to get into others, and see no guarantee that the number and nature of these hurdles couldn’t change before trip day. It’s…
Extremadura: Spain Covid Road Trip #1
Remote, poor, sparsely-populated Extremadura is the unrespected Rodney Dangerfield of Spain tourist destinations. It didn’t make Planetware’s top fifteen list for the country, or, for that matter, U.S. News’ top twenty. Rick Steves’ Spain ‘at a glance’ map represents the autonomous community’s 41,000+ square kilometers as a big blank area between Portugal and Toledo. Transit…
Spanish Loanwords: My Nominations
What follows is an incomplete list of Spanish words and sayings that might rate utterance by English speakers. The German weltschmerz, zeitgeist and schadenfreude get occasional play in the U.S. media because no English words so ably cover the same turf. Why not pagafantas and hombretón? I have discussed all candidates below with Spain born-and-raiseds,…
Madrid Quarantine
Once a week I shop. This is the only time I leave the building during the coronavirus quarantine in Madrid, practically the only time I leave my apartment. If I have to tote trash and recycling to the bins by the stairs I hold my breath until I’m back in the apartment with the door…
Coronavirus in Madrid
I first wore a mask on the Madrid metro on March 3, on the way home from our Tuesday Spanish/English language exchange. This was about four months after the coronavirus emerged in China, and one week after the first cases were diagnosed on mainland Spain. Before the statistics skyrocketed, before the fear set in. I…