Only 18 days late (starting this blog). Not too bad.

We (Morgan, Sofia, Tui, and Pippin) are moving/have moved (?) to Spain. We flew here 18 days ago.

It's confusing, because we've moved away from Seattle and we're in Spain. We haven't settled anywhere or even decided where we're settling. Because, unlike all the advice that one might get from expat groups, we haven't spent years traveling to Spain, scouting out locations to make an informed decision before arriving in Spain. Because, that's for wealthy, not-sick people who have the privilege of time, money, and energy to be leisurely and deliberate about such matters as moving across the world.

This move wasn't as precipitous as it could have been. We bought our first (refundable) tickets to Spain to fly here in April of 2025 because of some predictions about what could happen in the US in April that made us want to be able to leave if needed. That would have given us something like two months to drop everything in Seattle and fly across the world with very little time to research, connect with people, get our visa documentation prepared, etc. Moving has been intense as it is. Thank goodness we didn't have to move nearly that precipitously.

Regardless, we are still in Spain, having brought something like 13 suitcases, two mobility devices, two folding bicycles, a cat in a carrier, and four backpacks, with several weeks of lodging booked out but no place to set down our roots yet. It's like being on vacation, except with way too much luggage, I still have to work, and we're trying to decide where to live on a very short time table.

I'm hoping we can go back and share some about our adventures and misadventures in the last 18 days, as there's plenty to share. But here's the general overview.

We spent 10 days in Barcelona. We have no intention or desire to live there, as it is too hot and dry! But, Barcelona is a part of both Morgan and my family history, and also it's known to be an amazing city that we didn't want to miss spending time in. And, we got to get over jetlag and do some of our first on-the-spot cultural and language learning/practice before we got to a city that is actually on the table as a possibility of where we might choose to live.

We want to live in Green Spain, which is exactly what it sounds like: the literally greener part of Spain. Just like we used to live in what could easily be called "Green Washington", instead of the drier, browner Washington. Green Spain is the northern coast of Spain that gets plenty of rain to keep the forests green. We're not moving because of the weather!

We're now in Bilbao, which is in Basque country, part of Green Spain, close to the border between France & Spain on the Atlantic side. Basque are a distinct people with their own culture and completely unrelated language that continues to be an official language of the area. There's also an ongoing liberation movement among the Basque people to be free from Spain. Our plan is to spend two weeks here, and we're close to half-way through that time.

Next, we travel to Oviedo, a town further west close to the northern coast of Spain, to spend two weeks.

Currently, we're booked then to spend a week in A Coruña & a week in Vigo, which are both of the west coast of Spain, north of Portugal.

In all of these locations, we're working to connect with other American expats who are queer, neurodivergent, chronically ill, etc, so that we can learn as much as we can about what it's like living as an American family kind of like us in each location, as well as start to build relationships with the people who could ultimately be friends and lifelines for us wherever we settle.

There's so much to tell you about what we've experienced and thought and seen so far. I hope to get to that in the next few days.