My Nomad Diary, Week 4: It’s adventure time!
Moments from the week:
Exploring more of my immediate neighbourhood and further afield
Eating the best paella I’ve ever laid eyes upon
Witnessing the strength of the Spanish people uniting together in the face of DANA
What I’m reading this week:
Still reading: The Vagabond’s Way: 366 Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel
It’s a new week ladies and gents, which means no school and complete freedom! I started Monday late, headed to try out the dog-friendly café MESTIZO, where there were unfortunately no dogs, and then cycled back home. Quite a busy day today; two private Spanish lessons online and a call with a client.
I did general housekeeping most of the day, I’m making some minor updates to my blog and still toying with the idea of a redesign, but I have a long list of content to write and that must take precedence… focus James, focus.
I had my first “wobble” today, probably the result of too much time with my thoughts but, I focus so much on controlling ever little aspect of my life and not having a routine is a personal type of hell. So yeah this life choice is probably a really bad idea right?!
But to my point, I said I’d be honest about every step of this “experiment in living” and I’m not going to cut out the negative parts to try and paint some perfect picture of what my life is, even if the weather is magical, and my major worry is where do I settle down next year? I’m effectively a citizen of nowhere, I can’t return home due to 1. there’s a never-ending housing crisis and 2. I would rather walk barefoot on Lego. So I do have a big task of figuring out where to base myself again, as being on the move like this will eventually impact my ability to do business and manage finances, besides I want to be reunited with my pooch.
So my head is in two minds… I would like to base myself somewhere in South America, the nomad visas (DNV) are really easy to attain, there are a lot of options, cost of living is really low and I just love the melting pot of cultures. But, I think it might be hard to do business with my target client base if I’m based outside of the EU.
So, the more sensible option seems to be Spain, but the horror stories (slight exaggeration) I keep reading about their DNV application process, which keeps getting harder, is definitely keeping me up at night.
Who knows… I could be in South Korea this time next year, but I like to use this blog as a way to keep me honest and to get my thoughts on paper. Maybe you have thoughts on the matter? Feel free to reach out!
Aaaanyway, I digress, it’s Tuesday. I’ve enlisted the help of a second Spanish teacher. I’ve been working with the same Spanish teacher since February, who is amazing, her name is Yuri and you can book a class with her here: https://www.fiverr.com/yurikonakagawa/be-your-spanish-teacher
Yuri is teaching me through a structured curriculum from A1 all the way, eventually, to C1 or C2 one day, but I need to get to use what I’ve learned more and just going to cafés and ordering a café con leche y croissant de pistacho every day is not stretching my language muscles, just my waistline. With that in mind, my second teacher, Sandra, focuses purely on casual conversational practice using what I’ve already learned, Sandra is from Ecuador and has a really neutral accent, so it’s quite easy to converse. It’s a really useful way to learn and I’d highly recommend it!
After my lesson I headed to the metro for the first time to make way for L’Eliana. I’m using this week as an opportunity to explore towns outside of Valencia City.
If I do end up settling in Spain, I’m more likely going to go with Andalucía, near Granada or Sevilla, but I do like Valencia, so it’s a good opportunity to explore nearby towns. I couldn’t live long term in the city here, it’s too busy, touristy and full of matcha latte-drinking hipsters wearing fisherman beanies, but it’s good to have the city within reach.
I arrived to the metro, bought the wrong ticket, got absolutely schooled in Spanish by the attendant (still no idea what she said), got the right ticket and then headed to L’Eliana.
From what I understand, a 10-trip metro ticket is €5, which by my books, is a Brucey-bargain.
45 minutes later I arrived in L’Eliana, a town highly recommended to me by ChatGPT after asking it to recommend me somewhere traditional, free of hipsters, a bit quieter and within arm’s reach of Valencia.
But what I hadn’t considered was the fact that, outside of major cities, the siesta is alive and well. L’Eliana is a beautiful clean town with immaculate paved streets and lots of outside spaces but I’d arrived onto the set of 28 Days Later, there wasn’t a soul around and everything was closed.
Back to Valencia then… short visit aside, I’ll put L’Eliana on the “would like to live here” list and revisit this thought next year.
As we finish the day, what better way than to finish with a Civil Protection Alert and an amber weather warning? It’s time to meal prep some pasta, get the heating on and call it a day.
On Wednesday morning, I woke up to disaster, my phone was full of messages checking if I was alive and well, the news was full of reports of mass flooding as the death toll in and around Valencia approached 50 (it surpassed 200 by the weekend). I couldn’t believe what was going on around me but I also couldn’t believe my luck that I was just a mile or two away from the worst affected areas. If you’re reading this and you can spare even a small amount, please donate here.
The effects were clear in the city today; a lot of closed stores and those that were open were short-staffed and a lot of bare shelves. I felt a bit helpless, a little scared but also relieved to have not been directly affected, I looked online to see if there was anything I could do to help and managed to find the following two links, if you’ve got this far, please consider donating, hundreds of people are missing feared dead and this is the deadliest storm Spain has seen in living memory.
Red Cross
JustGiving
I spent most of the day purposefully exploring the old city’s back streets and taking pics of monuments and old buildings. All-in-all, a pretty quiet but relaxing day, as tomorrow I’m on an all-day excursion to Peñiscola, although that may no longer be on the cards.
A busy day planned for Thursday, I’m up early for my excursion to Peñiscola, but shortly after waking up it’s cancelled last minute due to the floods. Not entirely unexpected, so, determined not to have an unproductive day, I headed to the bike shop, hired a bike and made my way south to L’Albufera, I cycled almost 30km through dedicated cycle paths, it’s actually amazing how bike-friendly Valencia is.
I cycled for about 90 minutes until I reached L’Albufera and that’s when I started to see the damage done by Storm DANA for the first time, the beach was covered in thousands of broken branches stacked a metre high, the river dark brown from the tonnes of mud, trees obstructing paths and countless instances of flooded fields.
Once I arrived to the town of El Palmar, I could see that the town had been affected but they were working to get back to normal. The town was beautiful, a traditional Spanish pueblo, absolutely packed with arrocerias (rice restaurants, the best kind of place for a paella) – I settled on Arroceria Maribel for a traditional Paella Valenciana, which is made with chicken and rabbit – oh my god, it was a top 5 meal, if you’re ever in Valencia, make the trip out here to Arroceria Maribel, sensational.
After a fantastic meal and, yes, a couple of Aperols to wash it down, I cycled back to the city, just before the weather started to turn again. As I finished up cycling for the day, I realised that was the most exercise I’ve done since my operation, a whopping 50KM on the clock and on a city bike no less. I’m able to walk for a good 10K steps a day now, which is great, but still having issues with pain from the pins in my heel, probably still a couple of weeks away from starting up running again.
Friday is All Saints’ Day and a public holiday, nothing much to report today, Spanish lessons, some mooching around and sunbathing… yes, sunbathing, in November. 💅
Ah, the weekend, and my last weekend in Valencia too! I woke up feeling a bit sluggish today and just, I dunno, lacking motivation. So I decided to grab my laptop and head to the café just around the corner, and well, it worked, I smashed out a few LinkedIn posts, scheduled a potential client call and wrote a blog post – all in about an hour. Happy days! I then went for a wonder around my neighbourhood (Jésus) and found that there was a flea market on, and it was huuuuuge, didn’t buy anything, solely for a mooch. Finished the day with reading a book on my roof terrace for another spot of sunbathing – 22 degrees and clear skies, got to love November in Spain, right?
Last day of the week and into my final few days in Valencia, the realisation of what has happened outside of the city is really starting to set in, shelves are bare, streets are empty and the city is full of people covered in mud returning from helping in the nearby pueblos that have been wiped out by the storms, I wanted to help but a combination of not knowing enough Spanish, having no appropriate clothing or equipment, all of which is sold out across the city, I figured I’d be more helpful steering clear and donating to charity, from my research, these two seem to be doing the most good, but as always, research yourself.
Red Cross
JustGiving
Please, if you are reading this, even just donate the cost of a coffee, this is one of, if not, the most devastating natural disasters to happen in Spain in living memory. What is fantastic to see, however, is the spirit of the Spanish people, thousands upon thousands of people all volunteering to help, united by “Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo” which translates to “only the people save the people”. A beautiful phrase, but also a staunch reminder that Spain’s government have done too little too late to prevent the deaths of hundreds of people, and to help with the aftermath.
Anyway, wrapping up, I had a productive Sunday, working from the café near my apartment, I’ve finally figured out my offering for my freelance marketing services, so I’ve been busy putting together a brand, a big thank you to my friends that helped me decide on a colour scheme, hopefully I’ll get quite a bit done on that over the next week and you’ll be the first to hear of it.
That’s it for this week, but next week I’m moving onto a new country and I can’t wait, catch you next week!
