2022 World Tour – Barcelona, Spain
Hello from Barcelona, my fifth stop on the trip. Below is the standard summary:
– Cool Ranch Doritos: No
– Thai ATM Card Works: Yes
– Thai Debit Card Works: Yes
– Thai Internet Purchase Works: Yes
– USA Credit Card Works: Didn’t try
– Worldwide Telephone/Data/SMS eSIM Works: Yes
– Magic Jack Works: Yes
– VPN Works: Yes
– COVID Compliance Chronicles: Only masks required on public transport
– Internet Works: Yes
– Drone Flights: Only with local license
– Cost of Living: $$$
– Currency: EUR â¬1 = USD $1.07
– Language Issues: Easy
– City-Wide Wifi: No
I have less than a week left in my stay in Barcelona before I fly over to Nice, France for 3 days in an AirBnB yacht in the marina. Livin’ la vida loca baby!
I have had a mindbogglingly great time here in Barcelona and I’m going to jump straight to the news that I’ve put a lot of thought and planning into it, and I’ll be moving here in January! :^)
I wasn’t really on the hunt for a new place to live but being in this city, it feels like this is really where I belong. Let’s make a list of what’s good: a thriving bustling city, 4 seasons with great weather, on the Mediterranean, the architecture, the history, the nightlife, the food and drinks with 10,000 restaurants and sidewalk cafes everywhere, ice cream shops, the incredible public transport system, parks, walking paths, roads peacefully shared by pedestrians, cyclists, electric boarders and drivers, world-class sports, music, the marina & cruise ship port, the beach, affordable socialized medicine, high speed fiber Internet and 5G, an easy trip for my visitors, easy travel for me to anywhere in Europe, Middle East and western Asia. Whew!
Now the bad:
– Smokers: Wow, just really, really bad
– Inefficiency / bureaucracy
– Limited store hours
– Cost of living: Higher prices on most things than Thailand except wine, and definitely higher net taxes
So I decided that after enjoying Thailand for 8 years I can look forward to living here for the next phase of my life. Due to the overwhelming bureaucracy I’ve hired a relocation expert, a Brit who has lived here for 14 years, to navigate the Orwellian visa and property purchasing processes for me. I’ve booked the week of January 16, 2023 (after the Three Kings Holiday…) with her to find a flat to buy. The housing market is such that if you see something you like you sign the contract on the spot or somebody else will take it in an hour. It also looks like I’ll be able to import my stored-for-8-years electric Porsche 914, build a new battery system for it and cruise the city with the targa top off! There are two visa options, depending on if I want a lot of restrictions, earn money or buy a property above a set value.
I first want to say thanks to my wonderful AirBnB host Toni, and the three “kids” I’m sharing the apartment with. Jussi (Dutch), Magda (Polish) and Vanille (Bulgarian) are work-from-home professionals who all booked here for the month of May like I did, and we’ve become like family – going out for food & drinks, picnics in the park, hanging out at the beach, seeing the touristy things and walking all over the city. They have really made my time here even better than if I had been in a hotel room by myself.
Our small street has a bakery, a pastry shop, a fruit and veg shop, a laundromat, a mom & pop grocery store, two Greek restaurants, a phone/computer shop, an ATM, two bars, two nice sit-down restaurants and a Metro station – all within 50 meters. My high-school Spanish is coming back nicely, I just need to build my vocabulary and tune my listening skills to handle the rapid-fire delivery. I also need to learn a bit of Catalan, the local not-Spanish-but-close language. Most signs are in Catalan, Spanish and English – a bit of a handy Rosetta Stone for me as I pick up new words.
OK with all of that news out of the way, let me summarize the things I’ve done since my arrival. I started by taking the Big Red Bus to give me an overview of the city and bought a large map for the AirBnB so we could figure out where everything is and plot our expeditions.
I got a Spanish SIM card for â¬30 as I knew I was going to use a lot of data with Google Maps here and didn’t want to burn through my travel SIM.
This city is designed for walking – wide tree-lined boulevards like Las Ramblas and just about everywhere else. I’ve crisscrossed the city and walked over 400,000 steps and enjoyed every one of them. So much to see, just walk and walk until you see an empty table at a sidewalk café and have a drink and some tapas while you watch the world go by. There are several neighbourhoods in the city, each with its own distinct character. Every time I turn a corner and go down a new street I’m struck by the beauty.
I booked a rental car and drove north through the mountains to Girona, then onto Andorra. It’s my country #49 and I’ll make a small post about it later. Summary: Meh. The next morning I came back down and stopped in Montserrat – wow! Breathtaking mountains and views, a cathedral with the Black Madonna and a great museum with pieces from artists even I’ve heard of like Picasso, Dali, and Monet.
Back home I went to the Sagrada Familia church, the still-under-construction masterpiece by Gaudi. Advance tickets are required and some were sold out so I had to go with one that included a “tour” of the Passion Tower. I got in the elevator, which worryingly just kept going up. Check out my pictures of the church and imagine me in the tippy-top of one of the tallest towers, going into mild “Height-Induced-Oh-Shit” mode. There’s no tour – you just spiral down the ring of hundreds of shoulder-width stone steps forever, wondering how it stays upright and not looking out the side holes until you get to the bottom and get on your knees and kiss the sweet sweet ground. I celebrated still being alive with a double bacon cheeseburger and a chocolate shake at 5 Guys across the street.
I booked a sunset jazz cruise that goes out of the marina into the Med, across the city shoreline and back. It was on a huge catamaran with about 50 people and was just amazing. Warm ocean breezes while watching the sun set over the mountains from the water was great, with a sax and guitar player entertaining us. During a break I talked with the guitar player about where to go in the city for live music and he gave me the names of three jazz clubs.
I’ve been to the beach 3 times. It’s really, really long and just a hive of activity with people laying out in the sun, playing volleyball and hanging out in the boardwalk cafes. It just can’t get any better! I bought a large cotton blanket from a beach seller and used it on the beach, in the park and at the Formula 1 race, the best â¬15 I’ve spent here and I’ll leave it for future AirBnBers. There are also sellers walking through the beach touting mojitos, beer and sangria, Chinese massage ladies and hair weavers. I saw an amusing turf war play out between two hair weavers.
I discovered the practice of stores closing for most of the afternoon, then closing early on Friday and not bothering to open at all on Sunday. I get it – work/life balance and all but jeez I just need some chocolate or a pair of pliers on a Sunday afternoon right?
I suggested that we go to an FC Barcelona football (soccer) match and we all agreed. I booked the tickets online and on the day we got on the Metro and walked into the stadium. This is where the inefficiency first hit me – 100 people in line with two servers, pouring individual beers as each was ordered. Wow. I saw much more of the same, especially as you will see in my Formula 1 race report. I accurately predicted a 3-1 score. After the match we missed the last subway (why not stay open a bit longer on match night?) and found it impossible to get a bus or a taxi or an Uber. We ended up walking halfway across the city until we jumped into a taxi that had just let out a fare. That was a 23,000 step day! Beware anything that involves big crowds in this city / country!
Bicycle and motorbike sharing systems are really big here – everywhere you go you see racks of rental bikes and lots of electric motorbikes with half a dozen rental company logos on them. I decided to sign up for one so I installed the app, set up my credit card and scanned the barcode of a nice Seat “Mo” machine. It automatically unlocked the cargo box for the helmet and entered drive mode. I’ve taken two rides across the city so far and it’s a perfect mode of transport here. I also talked with the staff in the showroom for Niu electric motorbikes, just like the one I have back in Thailand. He said it’s impossible to bring a new-ish scooter here due to the homologation rules (ugh) so he says it’s best to sell mine there and then buy a new one here that meets Euro standards. The government is giving a e1000 rebate on electric scooters so that will help. I will use the Metro as my primary transport, then the scooter as needed, then the 914 for pleasure or when needed for larger cargo transport. It’s great to have transportation options.
I read online about how bad banks are here, requiring lots of paperwork coupled with really high fees. I went to a nearby BBVA branch as my department at IBM wrote some software for them and I was told I had to make an appointment just to talk with them, one week from today. Well you just lost a customer! Later that day I saw a Santander branch that also included a co-working space. I talked with a very nice guy who signed me up for an account on the spot, only needed my passport. Fantastico! I can avoid the â¬20/month fee by using the debit card, making deposits or buying 1000 shares of Santander stock. Their app and web site work really well, despite the 2 Factor Authentication I have to go through each time. With this set up, I can start making SWIFT transfers of funds from Thailand and America in preparation of buying my flat.
I tried to donate blood, got all the way through filling in the form and medical check until they realized I live in Thailand – instant 2 year ban on donation. I get it, so I’ll just wait until I become eligible.
I randomly walked past a Chinese massage shop so stopped in for a 30 minute session. She somehow managed to upsell me for a higher rate for a strong massage rather than a medium strong! At â¬60/hour let’s say I’ll miss paying â¬8 in Thailand!
I developed what I self-diagnosed as a sinus infection a couple of days after the massive tree pollen blooms triggered my allergies. Went to the local medical clinic about 300 meters away at 11am. Got booked into the system as a foreigner, appointment made for 2pm for â¬75. Doctor checks me out, says I have the flu. Um, I didn’t go to Med School but I have no flu-like symptoms and my head is draining disgusting things. He prescribed two boxes of powder that I have to mix up in water, total cost of â¬8. It has helped the symptoms but I don’t think the underlying cause has been cured.
I did a day exploring for things to support my geeky hobbies of 3D printing and electronics design. Found an electronic parts shop that had literally every little teeny tiny part I could ask for, far better than ordering from China and waiting for 3 weeks. I also found a Maker Space associated with a university architecture program with a room full of 3D printers, laser cutters, robotic arms, CNC machines, woodworking tools and welders.
One of my house-mates and I went to see a live performance of “Company”, the Stephen Sondheim Broadway show from the 70s that was playing just around the corner. It was directed by local boy Antonio Banderas. I had my fingers crossed about preserving the original language in dialog and song, but nope, the whole thing was in Spanish, and fair enough. I was able to pick out a few words or sentences here and there but mostly I just enjoyed the excellent acting, singing and dancing.
And finally, I went to the local Tesla showroom, twice, because yes. The second time they had a new black Model Y and the staff guy said it’s one of the first ones built from the new factory in Berlin! In weird-coincidence news, Tesla has just announced that they’re opening for business in Thailand! Cars, solar power and battery storage. Well isn’t that just great. I waited for 8 years to buy one and then literally days after I decide to move away, they’re coming in. Well, in the big picture its a good move for Tesla and Thailand and I wish them luck. :^(
So that’s about it! On Monday I’m off to Nice and my AirBnB boat. I’ll take the train into Monaco for the day, which will be right after the Formula 1 race this weekend so most of the track should still be in place and I can pretend that I’m there on race day with none of the lines and crowds! Wish me luck!
