Why We Are Going to Live in Spain?

In the first days of my 2016 walk from St Jean Pied de Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain I was prepared to be impressed by the beauty of the mountains, of the architecture, of the history and the people along the way.

But I was not expecting to be impressed by the healthy life I was experiencing. In fact, I was expecting sore muscles, joints and blisters. Pain. And sleepless nights listening to strangers snoring in the Albergues, the hostel-like facilities where many pilgrims sleep each night.

But much to my surprise I became aware of how healthy I felt not only in the morning but also at the end of the day.  I loved the food which was simple, fresh and low-cost.

I have to say that a good part of the joy were the other people at the table - folks from around the world who were in this place for various internal reasons, but in actuality were all in one accord - walking westward each day and taking care of one-another. So it was not only healthy physically but also spiritually and emotionally.

With the exception of a stinging nettle in my right knee while taking a photo of some flowering plant alongside the path, I was not aware of any pain in my joints or muscles or feet.  It was amazing.  The ibuprofen I carried in my pack remained unopened for the entire 5 week walk.

When Ann met me in Santiago at the end of the walk it was hard to use words to describe this state of well-being after a walk that during the planning stage I had viewed as torture to my old body.

One of my reasons to go was to figure out why anyone would do this pilgrimage journey more than once - and many seemed to be doing it yearly.  What was the attraction?  I found my answer, and for each of us it is different, but for many it seems to be rooted in the spiritual concept of love.

As time went on I found that it was not only the walking and the good, simple food that contributed to that feeling of well-being.  It was the supportive people, both pilgrims and local residents along the Way.  It was the lessons learned each day.  It was good sleep.  But it was more, something that resists words.

Months after we returned to life in our lovely mountain home in Virginia this idea of retiring in Spain came to me.  Ann was still working but had spoken of a retirement date.  I was a little timid about proposing the idea, but one evening I felt the mood was right and I blurted it out.  Ann responded in a positive way, mentioning apartments she had been researching on the internet.  She was having the same thoughts herself.  So the idea grew, and the research started on how we could get visas to become residents of this land we had come to love.

Las Fallas in Valencia

A couple more trips followed, enjoying the Las Fallas festival with Camino family member Pablo and his mom in Valencia, then walking the Portuguese Camino from Porto with our son Jack in 2018.  On that trip I took Ann to see my choice of a first place to live, Astorga, and she loved it.  More about that in the next post.

Ann retired in July of 2018 and the process went into production mode.  We began the process of gathering all the paperwork to apply for residence visas and to sell our home and other tangible property.  In the end we found great owners for all of our stuff, and a wonderful family to enjoy our home in the woods.  Not everything went according to our desired timeline, but all worked out well in the end.  God’s timing is perfect and we had no need to be in Spain on any particular day.

As I write this we are visiting family in Kansas and Oklahoma in memory of two great men who died rather unexpectedly and catching up with family members Ann hasn’t seen in a long time.  Had we been in Spain when all this happened it would not have been easy to be here with the family.

Some other benefits include having our kids and grandkids spend time with us experiencing another culture, being able to interact with pilgrims walking the Camino, helping at the albergues and seeing the rest of Spain and Europe as opportunities appear. And of course friends from all over the world having a place to stay with us when visiting Northern Spain.

In summary, we look forward to experiencing the well-being benefits that walking, healthy food, good healthcare and learning a new language and culture will provide.  We will make lots of new friends, enjoy our current friends visiting us and our hearts will be open to learning new lessons we can’t even imagine today.

The next post will be about why we selected Astorga, a small city in northern Spain, as home base for the first chapter of our new adventure.

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The Jew of the Day today is Harry Houdini (1874-1926) American magician and escapologist. From Hungary, his father was Rabbi of the Zion Reform Jewish Congregation.