She Moved To Seville For A Year… 20 Years Ago

Intro

Kat

Hello and welcome to this edition of the Live and Invest Overseas video podcasting. Today I am joined by Karen McCann. I’m Kat, this is Karen, and today we’re going to talk about Seville, Spain. Spain is one of the top retirement destinations in the world. Of course, it’s close to my own heart. I love it there.

Kat

But Seville is a place that I have never been personally, and so I’m excited for Karen to share some of her insights about it. So, let’s go back to the beginning, first of all, though, and just tell us a little bit about your background prior to your move and what prompted that.

What was your life like before moving to Spain and what prompted the move?

Karen

Well, I am a fourth-generation Californian, which is a sort of rarity. My great-grandparents came across by covered wagon, and I think it’s given everyone in my family a little bit of a sense of adventure. We tend to go places and do things.

Karen

And so, I have always traveled, even when I had zero money and it was all backpacking and, you know, hostels and so on. Now I am a writer. So, what I do is I organize trips around things that I think would be interesting to write about, to talk about, to explore a little bit more deeply. And it makes it much more interesting for me. My husband loves to travel too. The first thing we talked about on our first date was travel, and it’s been that way ever since.

Karen

We have been to over 60 countries and we enjoy the process of travel. We enjoy learning about new things, new people. About 20 years ago, no, almost 25 now, we happened to have friends who were in southern Spain, and they wanted us to come visit. And we organized to do that and just fell in love with this area. We thought it was just the sort of romantic, charming lifestyle that we’d always envisioned in Europe.

Karen

And so, we thought, well, let’s just spend a little more time here, and then let’s spend a little more time here, and why don’t we spend a little more time here? And then it’s, why don’t we come here for a year? And then that was it, you know, 20 years ago.

Kat

Yeah. And that’s such a common story. You know, somebody ends up someplace on vacation, and then they fall in love and end up either never leaving, which I’ve heard that story as well, or doing as you did and spending more and more increased time.

Kat

And that is such a good strategy as well, to get to know it kind of slowly, to enjoy the dating period, if you see what I mean.

Karen

Well said, Kat. Well said. Yeah, absolutely.

Karen

And moving abroad is one of the most interesting things you can do. You get to hit the reset button on your life. You know this. You’ve done it. All of a sudden, I mean, it’s the best chance to reinvent yourself outside of the witness protection program. Everything is new, everything’s fresh, everything’s different. Couldn’t be more exciting. Sometimes it drives you crazy, but everyday life does as well.

Kat

Right, exactly.

Karen

And here we have cafe society. We have a vibrant community that’s always interesting, and it’s just different.

Kat

Yeah. And every day is a little adventure, even if it is a kind of, you know, knocking your head against the bureaucracy.

Karen

Well, sometimes it’s still an adventure.

Kat

So, I’m curious, you’ve spent so much time in Spain now. And yet you’re still in the same first location that you originally identified. It must have changed over the years. You must have done so much more exploring of the country in those interim years. So, what has held you to Seville?

Why did you choose Seville, and have you ever considered moving elsewhere?

Kat

And have you ever had that idea or that thought to spend more time elsewhere, maybe make another move within Spain or elsewhere?

Karen

Well, we actually split our time between Seville and California. So, every six months, we move from one to the other. It’s just a lifestyle that we’ve evolved. We have, you know, friends, family, doctors, business interests, stuff in the States that we like to keep in touch with. And America itself. America has something that you have to stay in practice for, and I don’t want to lose my touch.

Karen

So, we go there on a regular basis. We enjoy it, it drives us crazy, you know, like anything.

Kat

Like anywhere. Yeah.

Karen

Like anywhere. It can be challenging. It is challenging. But it’s something that is part of our life, and we don’t want to walk away from it. And it’s something that I often advise people to try. People seem to get the idea that it has to be an all-or-nothing situation. You know, they’re going to bet. It’s like, you know, they’re not crossing in a steamer ship in 1812. They’re crossing in an airplane. And if things don’t go well, you can pack up, give in gracefully, go back home, try something else. But we never looked back.

Karen

I never looked back. I really love it here. The city has changed enormously. When we moved here, there were hardly any tourists. There were no tours. There was nothing commercial, in a touristy travel way. And now it is full of tourists, to the point it’s driving everybody crazy. They’re having some demonstrations about it and things like that. And I agree, something needs to be done.

Karen

The city needs to pull back on Airbnb licenses and all that stuff. And they are, they’re doing a lot of stuff to try to control it. Will it be enough? Is it too little, too late? Well, that’s for historians to decide, but it’s, you know, it’s still a wonderful and livable city. It’s a safe city.

Karen

And it still has shopping. You know, in America, everything is turning into shopping online.

Kat

Yeah, it’s very hard.

Karen

The stores in my area are disappearing fast, and it’s delightful to be able to come here and actually walk around a shopping district, try on a dress or something once in a while. So, it’s great.

Karen

It’s, and the vibrant street culture, because of the weather, people live outside way more here even than in California. And that’s really exciting. And that has not changed.

Kat

Well, yeah.

Do you own a car in Seville?

Kat

I’m curious, do you own a car there? Because that’s, no. Yeah, one of the big pros, I think, of living in a European city is the fact that you can go carless, which is just, for me, it’s freeing. I grew up kind of without a car, so I’ve never really gotten used to car culture. But, as you say, it promotes not having a car. It promotes living outdoors. You’re walking everywhere. You’re, you know, becoming healthier, maybe even losing weight without realizing it.

Kat

Plus, you’ve got that different diet. You know, you’re eating far fewer processed foods. Everything is much fresher, that Mediterranean diet, it’s, you know, supposedly even beats Alzheimer’s. So, yeah, I love that idea of living outdoors so much more. And the fact that so much of life takes place outside of a car or a home or an office.

Karen

Yeah, it really is wonderful. And it feels healthier. And I pay a lot more attention to food when I’m here. Yeah. I’m from California in a very foodie area near San Francisco. But this area, people really have a tradition of sitting down and enjoying meals. Not inhaling fast food in their car. They think that’s an abomination. They cannot understand why anybody would even have a cup holder in your car. It is something.

Karen

Of course, you’re going to stop and have coffee. Every expedition I’ve ever been on, every road trip with Spanish friends, we go about an hour and we stop for coffee. It’s just a given. It’s just automatic and it’s really delightful. And the idea that every meal should be an experience, a wonderful experience, convivial company, great food, healthy food, and maybe a little wine with it. Why the hell not?

Kat

That’s great. All right, so your experience coming into this part of the country 25 or so years ago would be very different, I imagine, from somebody who’s just coming in now. I imagine the path is a little bit more smoothly paved. It might be a little bit easier to integrate, let’s say.

What’s the biggest challenge or culture shock in Seville?

Kat

What do you think the biggest challenges, the biggest culture shock, might be for somebody coming into today’s Seville?

Karen

Well, I think one thing is you do still have to learn Spanish. When I moved here, nobody spoke English. Not a waiter, not most of the hotel staff, everybody, they spoke Spanish because, hey, we’re in Spain.

Kat

Right.

Karen

This is their language; if you can’t keep up, that’s your problem. And of course, that was long before we had Google Translate, all that handy stuff.

Kat

Yeah.

Karen

But if you, you know, in order to integrate into any society, you really need to learn a little something of the customs and a lot about the language. And I think that even now, with all the changes, it is really important to focus on getting some background in the language so that you can interact with people. It just seems friendlier and more courteous, but it is way easier now.

Karen

The number of people who speak English, the number of ATMs, the number of, I mean, just everything is easier. Everybody takes credit cards, everybody has gluten-free options on the menu. It’s a different world. But if you get outside of the main area, it starts to go back to the old ways. And that’s sort of wonderful for me because I love the old-fashioned ways.

Karen

So, my husband and I frequently, particularly on Sundays, we’ll just start in a direction, wander out into some area around Seville and try a new cafe or bistro that looks really old-school to us, and we’ve had amazing meals for really inexpensive amounts. So, that’s kind of a nice thing to still have at our fingertips.

Kat

Yeah. That’s lovely. I mean, the cafe culture alone is another one of those big changes that people don’t realize unless it gets less. You’re coming from Manhattan, perhaps, or another kind of small city in the U.S. where people kind of walk more than they drive. But the cafe culture really is something to enjoy. So, give us a little tidbit of a day in the life for you.

What does a typical day in your life look like?

Kat

Are you fully retired? I guess you’re still writing, you’re freelance, so you’re not fully retired.

Karen

You pretty much summed it up. Yes, I am a writer, so I will never be fully retired. And in fact, every couple of years I put out another book. I have books about Seville, books about railway travel through Europe, a recent one about San Francisco, my home city.

Karen

I like to write books and I like to write my blog. And what I’ve discovered is that writing compels me to get out there. So, I never want to give it up. But at the same time, I am older and I have a little bit less physical energy, so I try to take that into account. But luckily my husband loves to travel as well, so we still get out there a lot and then we use the blog to give us sort of a focal point, a purpose for the travel.

Kat

So, good for you guys. Yeah, yeah. So, I never know how to answer the question about whether I am retired. Do I have a paying job? Oh, God. No. A 9 to 5, right.

Karen

Yeah, I don’t have a 9 to 5 thing. I don’t have a boss. I don’t have to worry about any of that stuff. So, in that sense, I am retired and I’m completely flexible in terms of my hours and what I do. So, usually I write in the mornings because I’m a morning person.

Karen

And one of the huge advantages of living in Seville is that we still follow the siesta culture, which means that I have 14 mornings a week. It’s fabulous for me. So, I have that get-up-and-go and that energy twice rather than once.

Kat

Oh, I love that. I never heard it put that way before, but that’s such a good way to look at it.

Karen

It’s really great. I mean, for morning people, it’s really something, the psychology of it. And I don’t take long sleeps at siesta. 20 minutes is sort of the standard and, you know, but it’s that complete break in the middle of the day, and I really miss it when I go to the States. I still take siestas there, but somebody is always ringing my doorbell or calling. The rest of the world doesn’t take their siesta. I know. What the hell’s wrong with them? You know, I try to let that go.

Karen

So, I’m a morning person, and I write and then, around the middle of the day, around noon or so, my husband and I go out and take a walk. It’s been curtailed somewhat lately. We have had more rain in the last month than we normally get in a year. So, it’s been like living in London or Seattle. Everybody’s going nuts, but normally you can get out all the time. I mean, we often eat outside at lunchtime in January. We are extremely blessed with good weather here.

Karen

So, we walk and we explore and we sometimes, we just do mundane errands, but we always get an hour or so of walking in, maybe two, and we often eat out in little favorite cafes and then take our siesta, and then we get up and do it all over again. You know, I do my writing and my emails and my whatever.

Karen

And then it’s a very sociable culture. So, we go out a lot in the evenings. For example, last night we were out, we started this thing called the Ideas Club. It’s like a book club. Only instead of talking about books, we talk about ideas. And so, for us, that was really an interesting concept. And we just concluded a series of five workshops, the Ideas Club.

Karen

And so, we went out to dinner with everybody and we were celebrating somebody’s birthday. It’s very typical to gather with people in groups here. It’s a very sociable environment.

Kat

You’re probably finding that in Paris, too, I would imagine.

Kat

Yeah. But yeah, it is. And it is so important to embrace that because being an expat, it can be a little bit isolating at times, especially in those beginning stages. So, whether it is in the very beginning, at least, whether it is only expats or only other foreigners or other English-speakers that you’re, you know, making a community with, that is your community, you know, so you should try and embrace it.

Kat

And then slowly but surely, I’m sure you found over decades there that it’s easier to make local friends once you’ve been there a while and you speak some of the language and you seem like more of a part of the community rather than just this new addition.

Kat

Yeah, I am curious, though, because if you’re splitting your time, are you officially resident…?

Is Spain your official residence?

Kat

In Spain or tax resident even, or is your home base still the U.S. in terms of that?

Karen

I am a permanent resident of Spain, which means I can stay here, pretty much, you know, year-round, indefinitely. Whatever we want. However, in order to avoid becoming a tax resident, that’s part of why we do the six-month and six-month thing. So, we are not technically required to become tax residents unless we spend more than six months here.

Kat

Right. And in order to maintain your residency, you’re supposed to spend six months here.

Karen

So, it’s sort of a, you know, we’re hitting that sweet spot, and it works out really well for us. It is a very revitalizing process to pick up your entire life, twice a year. We move it to another place, and we have great friends on both sides of the Atlantic. And we are just so pleased and feel so fortunate to have this lifestyle that we’re able to pursue.