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Galicia is a Hawaii-sized state autonomous community on Spain’s northwest corner. I asked Spaniards if I should visit. “¡Por supuesto!,” said they, while suggesting that Galicia would be: (♦) Beautiful! Woodsy green hamlets fronting windswept Atlantic coastlines. Like that. (♦) Rainy! Maybe not as wet as San Sebastian, but up there. (♦) Relatively isolated. Spain’s high-speed…
Riga is the capital city of Latvia, a small-by-American-standards country in northern Europe. Now you know. I boorishly posted A Day in Minsk without telling you what, where or when a “Minsk” is, likely spurred irritable searches in browser address bars. Sorry. As if you didn’t already have enough grief in life without my bungling!…
Attractive, clean, safe, livable. Minsk deserves those adjectives. I was surprised. My parents would have liked it. I hesitate to flatter it this way. “Inside Europe’s last dictatorship” cries the 2012 Guardian headline about Belarus. “Better to be a dictator than gay,” responded leader-for-the-past-quarter-century Alexander Lukashenko, when criticized for his rights record by an out-of-the-closet…
(♦) Kyiv is 1,500 years old, give or take a century, and boasts an enviably deep line-up of historical draws. Tally ’em up: two UNESCO world heritage sites, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra caves monastery and St. Sophia’s Cathedral, both tracing roots to the eleventh century. St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery. St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral, St. Andrew’s Church,…
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” a native Spaniard might tell me, “to book a tourist trip to inland Andalucia in August.” True. I’ve lived in Spain three years, know better. Andalucia cities regularly rack up summer scorchers north of 40° Celsius. (104° Fahrenheit. Ow! Ow!) I’ve listened wide-eyed as natives swapped anecdotes on surviving…
The Bernina Express tourist train trek through the Alps is: “one of the most scenic train rides in Europe, or for that matter, the world.” … train guru Mark Smith, The Man In Seat 61 “…an incredible excursion … very tough to beat” … Everett Potter, Forbes “Is this the most spectacular railway journey in…
Or, more specifically, how a Spain driving license can be acquired by an American, non-EU expat like me. I have the temporary license now and anticipate receipt of the permanent Permiso de conducción Reino de España by summer’s end. I’m here to offer juicy details. WHY BOTHER, IF MADRID HAS GREAT TRANSIT? (♦) To explore…
Bad news. (Or good news, if you think Americans ought to live within broadcast range of Fox News, and want expats like me to suffer.) My second visa renewal was significantly tougher than the first in 2017. I had to visit three extranjerías four times before I even knew what steps to take, had to…
A regretful update, 4/9/2021: rec.redara.es seems to have firmly closed this door for submission of visa docs, if it was ever open to expats in the first place. Citizens and companies only. Sorry. As for the information on getting a digital certificate: I believe and hope that it still holds true. My cert still works…
2024 Update: Please see a more recent post on the Spain-USA tax treaty. Must we? Didn’t we Yankees endow earthly civilization with the Big Mac, Love Boat re-runs, the Chia Pet? Isn’t it enough that we grace Spanish soil with our Stetson-crowned, Buckaroo-booted presence? Must we submit to the indignity of expat taxation, too? I’m…