Bonjhola

Ep 29 - FLASHBACK to May 2024 - What "Normal Life" Feels Like As An Expat in France and Spain FLASHBACK May 2024

• Rebecca West

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Welcome to Bonjola, a podcast about two women, Aimee and Rebecca, who each moved from the United States to Europe to become expats, Aimee to Spain and Rebecca to France. We're here to share the highs, the lows, and the logistics of this adventure, encourage you to follow your own move abroad dreams, and remind you that you're not alone when the going gets tough. Enjoy.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

Banjola, Aimee.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Angela, Rebecca,

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

Um, so here's what I want to talk about. I feel like. I'm what am I, two months in, I can't, first of all, I cannot believe it's only been two months. That blows my mind. And I also feel like things have become normal enough that it's almost like, well, I don't have anything to share. That's going to help people who want to go be expats. Now it's sort of becoming just regular life and you start taking things for granted because they become normalized. Have you felt the same? Thing, especially as we've been recording well into your adventures, or is there, like, what's your take on this?

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

every day I walk past stonework that is older than Jesus and it's no big deal anymore. You know, and I was for, you know, we all were for maybe two, three months. Those. Gawkers that just stood in the middle of the road staring that I now get really agitated by because they're so oblivious to people just trying to get home for the love of God. Um, so yeah, there are absolutely things that become normalized and I definitely have had weeks where I'm like, I don't really have much to say. Or people think that, oh, you live in Spain and that's so exotic. It's so interesting. No, it's, it's boring. I don't live like a Spaniard. I'm in bed by nine 30, 10 o'clock at night. When most of the people in this country are eating dinner still. And. You know, I get up and I go for a run and I have breakfast and I go to Spanish class where I feel like an idiot and I come home and I work and I make dinner and I take care of like domestic duties that are not much different than I was doing in the States, except that I do them on foot instead of via vehicle in an environment that is quite exotic to the American palette, but as you said, it gets normalized. And so it no longer seems like a big deal that we live here until we do something like, Oh, Hey, we've got a long weekend. Why don't we just take the train up to the South of France since it's a short trip. And then we're, you know, again, like brains exploding because this is, this is our life.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

And it's it's funny because there's this combination of both You know, you, you settle into a daily routine and you're doing the, literally you're brushing your teeth just like you would have back in the States. But there's also sort of this everyday magic that's almost hard to capture. And so for me, I mean, granted, I'm still only two months in, so we'll have to see when I'm hitting, you're at eight months now, where are you at You're at

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

We're at 10

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

months. So obviously I don't know how I feel then, but I'm still struck by. Like the bird song, and I'm still working my way through the seasons in Paris and, and delighting and reveling and the things I'm discovering, but They're kind of hard to express in a public format. Like let me tell you guys about this magical moment I had listening to the birds and then what now podcast is over like that What do you have to say? And I think it's also compounded in by the fact that I have transferred so much of my American habits here. I barely left my apartment this week because I'm working 60 and 70 hours because of some deadlines I put on myself. I might as well not even be in Paris except for the one I look up and look out the window and I go, well, that's amazing. And You know, and, and there is this feeling of, I have all the same stress. I have a lot of the same anxiety and I'm looking forward to settling into a more French way of living. But again, give myself a minute, it's only been two months, but the thing that I do recognize regularly is, well, I'd have the exact same stress and worries if I were back in the States. So if I do have to live my normal life. I would much rather live it someplace new where once I'm off work, I can go walk and get a fresh warm baguette or, you know, wander over to the sun and pass the Eiffel tower on my way. Like there is a daily magic, even in the normality, but it's hard to express.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

It is it is, I think, though, for anybody who's, I mean, there are certainly enough people who have taken working vacations where they can't actually vacation 100 percent because of what their job is asking of them who can relate to that experience

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

Good point.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

and, you know, to them, we say. It lasts months.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

It does. And I mean that in a good way and a bad way, because there is a magic. To getting to work from an exotic locale, and there is also a frustration to being in an exotic locale and yet being trapped by your daily life that you still have to live and the bills you still have to pay.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Yeah. Precisely. Precisely. I think too, one of the things that you speak very well to is that you can't just transplant yourself to a different location and immediately change your behavior, even if it's behavior that you want to change. What,

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

is so true and it's highlighted this month because it turns out that May is a month full of holidays. I don't know if it's the same in Spain, but in here we're having a 40. Well, I guess I'd be, I don't know. The world is off from Wednesday through the weekend. So I guess a five day weekend followed by next week, a three day weekend.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

what is the weekend this, like, what is the holiday in France, because we don't have it, we had Labor Day last week, which resulted in my son being out of school Thursday, Friday, um, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, he had, he had a very short week. Oh, it was Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Yeah. So two days school week and many people, you know, Labor Day is May 1st. So you always get that day off and they do what they call a puente or a bridge where it's like, well, the holiday is Wednesday, so let's just take the rest of the week off and then they'll go out of town or what have you. So. I mean, that was here last week. Next week is Temp de Flores, which is a Girona specific festival. It's, it's not even a holiday. It's just a, the, the city will be exploding in flowers and it will be the most tourist ethic week of the year. Which I am scared about, um, with so many people coming into the area that the narrow alley slash road that I live on, which is already where all the tours go through is actually going to be, um, limited to one direction traffic because of the amount of people that will be going through the No,

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

your recent sub stack, you talked about the graffiti was the, is the graffiti. Was that sparked by this particular festival coming up? Because in the graffiti pictures you posted, they didn't seem to name that festival, but they're specifically interrelated.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

I don't think they were related. It was, it was a lot of graffiti all at once, whether it was just a group of, you know, a small group that went all over town in the middle of the night or whether it was a coordinated effort for something that I'm not certain of. I'm not sure. It did come less than a week before a big political meeting in town, which I ran into on Sunday and only discovered because I asked a cop because the entire building that this meeting was taking place in was completely quarantined off by, cops and squad cars blocking the roads, no riot gear, no automatic weapons or semi automatic weapons, I should say, no intimidating artillery, just cops in bulletproof vests standing guard. And this is the most politically charged area of the country. So So, perhaps the graffiti was in advance of that meeting coming. I don't, or maybe it's just like, they decided when I, hey, let's do it, you know, again, targeted at, Uh, tourists coming in and killing the neighborhood as as 1 message said, and also cyclists who are the dominating both tourist demographic as well as the dominating expat demographic in this area. Most of that graffiti has already been cleared up.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

I was wondering, because I was looking at it, I'm like, you know, it's on, it's on these thousand year old walls. And so they are able to clean it up and there's no trace.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

several of the cycling shops had already gotten paint and painted their walls again, the ne by the end of the next day, then I can't, it's all gone now. It's, and I don't know whether that was private efforts or public efforts, you know, that, that did that

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

It's funny because one of the things I was just thinking about, Damien and I have been binging Star Trek. We started it with the original series and we're about halfway through the next gen right now. And being an expat feels a lot like all the episodes where they land on a planet and weird things are happening, but you don't really know why. But then you have to make sure to keep yourself out of trouble or help a friend, but you don't know the rules. It's like that every single day. It's like, so to answer, yeah, to answer your question, I have no specific idea about the holidays. May 1st is Labor Day here as well. And of course the French are all about workers rights. So the nice thing on May day was they, um, there's lots of pop up vendors that all sell lily of the valley. bouquets, these little

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Ooh.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

flowers. They only last like a day because they're just ephemeral spring flowers. And apparently it's to mark the start of spring, but also because May Day is Labor Day, it's also kind of a symbol of workers rights and stuff like that. I didn't figure it out in time to bring myself a bouquet home. So I'll do that next time. And I don't remember how you say it starts with an M in French, but I'm not going to murder the French language at this moment. So that was, but I don't, I'm not aware that people really had that day off, but I may just not be aware that they did. It's quite possible. Um, this week, I don't, I don't know. My calendar says that tomorrow is World War II Victory Day.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Oh,

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

then Thursday is Ascension day. Ascension day sounds like something Catholic.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

it does. But that's August 15th. in the world. In the world,

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

And then next Sunday says wit Sunday, which also sounds like something Catholic and wit Monday. So I'm assuming that's part, I have no idea. I don't know. I just know that may is. So the reason I know may is a holiday filled month is because I went to a networking event. In April that they're going to host quote every month. And by every month, I mean, not May because nobody's here in May and like, you would never plan something in, in August in France, because nobody will be here. So, like, there's these, there's these again, cultural things where everybody knows something and we're just landing in our Starship going, um. Not me. I have no idea what's going on.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

exactly. That reminds me so much of, last year, just as I was arriving, I was in conversation with with someone who was a potential colleague referral, you know, practitioner. And we were going to, you know, he's like, uh, reach out to me when you get settled in Spain and we'll set up a time. And so I reached out to him or I told him my response was like, yeah, we, you know, we arrive early July, you know, so maybe four, six weeks, we can do it as early as August. And he's like, ah, let's do it in September. And this was his, like, I quote, August is the month of vacations and

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

Truly. Oh,

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

is like, what do you mean? Vacation and month, those two, those two words don't go together. They don't belong together. That is an impossibility. That's not a thing. No, no, no. My dear child. It is a thing. It is a thing.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

and you said, uh, La Puenta for the bridge. We have that in French too, the Le Pont. So the, again, it's just a cultural norm. Your boss kind of assumes you're just not going to show up, I guess. And it's, yeah, it's because of the priorities, the cultural priorities in terms of. What matters and work is not the thing that matters most. It's like in one of our last, most recent episodes, you were talking about how one of the vendors in your area can just make enough money. One day that they just simply don't open the next day. That makes my brain like smoke a little as an American. It's hard for me to get my head around and I love it. And I will get there. It's like,

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

such. Different. It's such a different perspective of what you're supposed to be doing with your life that we do not have access to in the United States, possibly in Britain as well, possibly in Australia as well. It's just not. Yeah,

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

I don't, I'd be curious about it in, in the UK because to me it feels very Puritan and the Puritans of course were running away and they came to establish our country and I don't, I certainly don't feel that from Australians when I meet them. So I think it's a, it feels. Like something that we get to claim for ourselves as Americans.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

but Americans like to claim everything for themselves. So, you know, and then, and then we export, we export our best and worst to the rest of the world, and then get to claim how great we are. Cause we did that or how ashamed we are of ourselves because we did that, but whatever it is, we're the best and the worst in the world. You know, it's.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

We want a medal one way or the other. We want our medal. Well,

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

That's right.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

have to admit, I have I have, brought my American work habits with me. This week, this last week was 70 hours. The week before that was 62 hours. And, and it's, it's nobody else putting the, the, the expectations on me. I set my own deadlines, but these are my. My habits, we all have habits and they don't just go away because you transplanted yourself.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

But I don't imagine you expected they would.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

I think I know I didn't expect that they would, but I think I hoped that they would. And I honestly think that they will. You can't. You can't be surrounded by people that think you're a three eyed monster. Every time you tell them that you have to work constantly and not have that remind you, Oh yeah, I didn't want to be doing that. And so, you know, I got myself into the situation. I have obligations to meet. I am, I really want to try to be more, I call it more French, but more, more human. I want to be a human being sometimes instead of a human doing, and it's just going to take practice.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Yeah. I hear you say you want to try and that's two steps away from doing it. It's not I'm going to try to do it. It's that you want to try to do it. And that to me just reveals how deeply attached you are.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

To accomplishment.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Yes.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

Yeah, it's, it's, um, I would actually kind of describe it as an adrenaline addiction, rush of checking things off of a to do list and the rush of pleasing people with how fast I can be at things. It's very real.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Yeah.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

It's a trade off that almost has like, you know, I get the instant gratification from the adrenaline and dopamine. Whereas. Allowing myself to breathe and have space that will keep me alive longer and healthier, and it will keep my relationships stronger. But that is not instant gratification. It's hard.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Yeah. It is. It is hard for sure. I almost wonder if the way through this for you is to make the checklist of the goals about undoing this process, right? Like you get, you get two gold stars every week that you work 40 hours or less. And then when you get 10 gold stars accumulated. you get to go out to a fancy restaurant to celebrate.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

I love how you're talking about incentivizing good behavior, and I'm a long way away from that.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

I know Because you want to try.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

because I want to

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

You're not going to live like a French person. You just want to try.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

Yeah. Truly.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

So let me know when you're ready to try. And then,

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

try.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

yeah, we can brainstorm some ideas.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

I know. And I have solved habits like this before. You know, I used to reach for a lot of Oreos and those kinds of snacks in my life, and I simply don't, I don't keep them in the house. I recognize my own habits. And so I create an environment that helps me have better habits. I'm, I'm good at manipulating my physical environment, but manipulating your mental environment. It takes a, it takes a different kind of remodeling.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Well, there's a lot of sneaky characters in there who are really good at outsmarting our best intentions.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

are. So if we're going to share this podcast episode with people, what I would actually want to give people is. Um, a little heads up that things will normalize. So first of all, if you're not in that phase yet, and you're like super overwhelmed, know that quiet and calm is coming sooner than you'll, you could even imagine, I didn't think I would already be feeling this at two months.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

I didn't feel it at two months.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

I think it's, I think it's helped by the fact that we had that three month practice stay here.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Yeah.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

So, we'll call it five months, you know, but about, you know, within months, things start feeling normal. In addition, the magic doesn't go away, but don't forget to look up and see the magic because just like paying attention to magic in our regular non expat lives, it's a choice. You have to train your eyes to hear, well, you know, train your eyes to hear the birdsong. You get my point. Train your ears. To tune into the bird song, maybe turning off your phone, right? Tune your eyes to seeing that incredible sunrise. Because it is easy to miss the everyday magic where you're not going to miss it during the early days of, Oh my gosh, everything's new. I have no idea what's going on.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Right.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

Um, and it takes the same practice that it would at home. So you can actually start today. Hey, you can, you can want to try, or you can actually try.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

With that said, since you haven't left your apartment in nearly a week and you are working 70 hours a week, how are you going to find the magic today, Rebecca? I mean, it's as of recording, it's only 2 p. m.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

Honestly, it's so easy. Because number one, it's the fact that our apartment, as I've said, is on the sixth floor and it has these beautiful French windows that look out onto Paris in morning light. So every day I look up and I'm just astonished by the light and the skies and that has, and of course the bird song that starts first thing in the morning. So that hasn't gone away. And then moving here with Murray, with my cat, Murray, Was one of the most brilliant decisions I've ever made. One, he will let me know when I have neglected him too long. And so I have to actually get up.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

He's the sole reason you aren't working 80 hour weeks.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

might actually be true. But yesterday I literally stared at my cat for 10 minutes. I was maybe four inches away from his little face. And I was, I was basically doing a meditation, like a visual meditation and watching him. His whiskers move and watching his little nose twitch, and he's developed the cutest little snore. He's 13 years old now, and I was just mesmerized by it. So I'm, I am working way too much. But I am definitely still noticing things, and when I eat here, eating here is such a pleasure. Okay, do you, Aimee, in your grocery stores there, do you have those on demand orange juice squeezing machines?

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Oh, yes. The fresh orange juice. Yeah. Yeah.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

is actual magic in a bottle. So we bought some two days ago and you can't, I mean, I can chug it, but you can't drink this stuff without feeling like the essence of life. It is so amazing. So drinking, I got to drink a little bit of that yesterday. And it just makes you pause. The cheese is so unctuous. It's harder to eat mindlessly here. So while I need longer moments of magic, um, oh, and I'm still walking Damien to school, so I'm still getting my time in with him and then my, my fresh air time. So despite my long, long hours, I couldn't have had, except for staring at my cat, which honestly, I didn't even do that in the States. I know that is a new habit. These things are. In my life in a way that they didn't used to be and I would call them seeds that if I water them will grow into the plants I want

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Nice.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

future.

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

I don't know. I think that you? just finished the podcast episode. That was just a perfect wrap up.

squadcaster-g9ab_1_05-07-2024_133509:

we can tell everybody. Uh, I have no French in my head. I haven't seen French people in a week. À la prochaine!

aimee_1_05-07-2024_043509:

Hasta luego.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Bonjola. If you did, the best thing you can do is share it with another person brave enough to move abroad. See you next time!