© 2011-2024
I am now a proud Madrid homeowner, post to tell what I think I know about buying a home in Spain (or in the capital, at least), and how the process compares to the equivalent in California. At the outset, I caution once more about plunking potential life savings on the counsel of a lone…
I’ll bet you haven’t heard of the Spain-USA tax treaty. A safe wager to offer, you may think, to stateside readers who may visit transitophile only in search of hotty train photos, who harbor no interest in moving abroad. Alas, I will with grim confidence extend this wager to my fellow U.S.-to-Spain expats, to emigrants…
I have been busy with other things of late, haven’t taken time to post, and admit I write today mostly to keep this URL from oxidizing, or sprouting green fungi. I may have more to hold forth about later in the year. In the meantime: another installment of favorite words and sayings in español: Mas…
Tarragona is a Catalan port city near the high-speed rail route linking Barcelona and Madrid. The ancient Romans called it Tarraco, built a shore side amphitheatre and a circus for chariot races. Tarragona has beaches, a touristy old town and a cathedral, one of Catalonia’s largest. I hankered for a visit, and also craved a…
I visited the capital city Vilnius and Kaunas, about ninety kilometers northwest. While there, I thought: LITHUANIA IS STRONGLY PRO-UKRAINE Expect to see the Ukraine bicolour on stickers, buttons, donation boxes, even on a mini-flag worn like a cape around a resident’s shoulders. Vilnius ❤ Ukraina declare the head signs of Vilnius buses. Putin, the…
About Madrid buses I have remained mostly silent, despite this blog’s fetishistic name and despite many past gushes about Madrid’s rail network. Why? Blogger bias! Blogger emotional bias. I lived without wheels for over a decade in car-centric Los Angeles, may suffer a straphanger’s PTSD from so many occasionally torturous slogs in buses there, as…
I did, almost seven years ago. My personal knowledge is limited to my 2016 move from the U.S. to Spain, but I’ll dare to parlay that experience into guesses about expatriatism elsewhere. My opinion feels stable. This post is slanted toward those contemplating long-term or lifetime moves, and not toward those who intend only to…
I’m free to write an ‘Ode to the Prado‘ post — and eventually might, as I’m now a card-carrying Amigo¹, visit often — but Spain’s flagship art museum hardly needs publicity. Three and a half million visited the Prado in pre-pandemic 2019; a million more descended on the nearby Reina Sofía. These are world-famous bucket…
As in Alphabet, Inc., the Nasdaq-100 corporate parent of Google. I bought my first shares a month after the Hadron Collider opened (just to help you place the date), never thought when CERN started zinging particles in there that I’d one day regret my status as a fractional Google corporate owner. But, I did. My…
As photographed at the Príncipe Pío mall on December 26. I was surprised, too. Spain’s little ones see Santa on TV, explained one Madrileña, clamor pitilessly to lobby the Bearded One for merch east of the Atlantic, too. Still a relative novelty in Spain, and not uncontroversial. What was so terrible about waiting for gifts…