My story started way before I even knew there was a story to tell. I have been talking about moving to Spain for years and didn’t realize until I finally moved and a couple of friends of mine sent me email exchanges between us from TEN YEARS ago. In the emails I wrote so vividly that when I read it back I remembered envisioning my life there as I stroked each key. It brought me to a very happy place. At some point and I don’t remember when exactly I knew my happiness was no longer in America and although I was in LOVE with my hometown of NYC and my heart will always be there, but my soul was no longer…
Let’s start at the beginning. Working and going to school full time is no easy task, just ask anyone living it. But my plan was to not move without having finished school. I felt I needed to wrap up everything so I wouldn’t be left with regrets. Part of wrapping things up there's thoughts of will there be resentment, well at least for me there was. It was resentment on why I hadn’t done this sooner. I was ready to go like yesterday and this was taking up way too much of my time and wearing on my patience. I practice Nichiren Buddhism which is a wonderful practice and has helped me through really tough times in my life when I just needed to sit still, quiet, and figure it all out. After chanting everything would be clear to me. As time passed I found peace in the fact that I would be moving abroad but it didn’t give me the patience I was looking for because I still felt like I had to flee quickly before I lose it. I found myself getting more and more radical and upset with America's treatment of Black people and I had enough. 2012 rolled around and I decided to country hop in Europe as I always felt this would be the place I’d live.
My first stop was Paris France. I love this city and have been before but I didn’t feel completely sure about it, next stop Berlin Germany another beautiful city but it didn’t speak to my soul, on to Madrid Spain. In the back of my mind I knew it would be the country I’d move to even though I’ve never been before and I didn’t realize I spoke about it ten years prior. It wasn’t even a complete 24hrs of landing sick as a dog that I knew this would be the place I would call home. I woke up stepped out on the balcony and screamed out “I’m in España B*tch!”. I was there sharing an apartment with friends and we decided to hit the streets and see what this city was all about. We walked just about everywhere for hours and settled at a tapas bar where we laughed so hard and wide-mouthed that you could see my porcelain fillings and the back of our heads hurt. The laughter was so great and loud that other patrons laughed along with us. In the middle of this, I shouted: “Shut Up!, I have an announcement!”. My friends looked at me like I was crazy and then I “Shouted next year I will move here, mark my words”. They laughed but they knew I was serious. That date was July 13th, 2012.
I would apply to art programs to finish up school because I knew I could no longer stay in the states. One of those programs happened to be in Madrid. Although that was the school I wanted so desperately to go to I applied to every school I could think of even if it weren’t in Spain it was going to be in Europe until I figured out how to get to Spain. The plan was to really just get out and figure it all out once I get there. I met with my psychiatrist once I returned to the states after galavanting around Europe for a few weeks. I asked him to write me a note so I could go out on mental health leave. This would ensure I get my full 6 months pay I had left. I started the process of preparing myself for the move. I officially quit my job on December 18th, 2012 even though I physically wasn't there, I mentally checked out of it before returning to the states.
I got accepted to a program via my School of Visual Arts in NYC for a painting program in Barcelona. The final day of that program would be July 13th, 2013. It was an intensive painting program that required 11 pieces of work for submission. I’d never painted anything but my nails. But I thought “I am an artist, I can do this”. Submitted my paintings and in less than 24hrs got an acceptance letter for the program. I packed up my things several weeks later and hopped on a plane to Spain. Although my school was a visiting university and would have off-campus housing in a hotel I still secured a room in a shared flat. I also planned on moving to Seville since the program in Madrid I initially wanted to attend the application wouldn’t be open until the next year. I figured I’d keep myself busy or maybe even find a better program and apply to that. Touch down in Barcelona was June 23nd, 2013. It was very beautiful, hot and humid which I’m not a fan of, but I was here and that's all that mattered.
I would spend the summer doing what I wanted when I wanted and how I wanted. I went out and met as many people as humanly possible. I knew at this point I would not go to Seville and I would have to network to survive. Catalonia wasn’t the easiest of places to do this as Catalan people are very closed off. I would go on to live in different areas in Barcelona which helped me learn the city neighborhood by neighborhood. Most of the people I met were other expats non-Americans. I tried my hardest to avoid other Americans because I was trying to expand my circle of international friends. If I wanted to hang out with Americans I would have stayed in the states. As hard as it was to meet new natives, some would be the first people to help me with my transition when deciding to stay in Barcelona. August 1st, 2013 was the day when I was to leave for Seville.
I was invited by someone I met two weeks of being here to join him for 10 days on holiday to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria since I would not be moving to Sevilla. He was a "stranger"- a man (a Catalan man)…that I met at the Juan Carlos at a cocktail party back in June. So I was cool with this. Also, Catalan men are a bit soft, so I don't feel threatened by them. To be honest I've had cotton balls harder than them. That summer during the day he would take me to the most amazing beaches up and down Barcelona’s coastline where we would dine at beautiful restaurants or bring picnics and I would lay out topless and get so brown that my hair turned blonde and I looked like copper and then partied well into the night. I told him I decided not to move but to stay in Barcelona and figure things out. The first order of business was to figure out where I would live since I just decided that day not to move. He told me not to worry and that I could move into his flat that he owns that’s near Sagrada Familia. It was a three-bedroom apartment with a balcony that also faced Torre Agbar. I had the place all to myself. I would stay there for a little over a month until I found another place to live.
I found a shared flat in the district of Sarria- Sant Gervasi Galvany. Running out of money as the dollar-euro exchange was a killer I was offered a job teaching English and I took it. I can honestly say this was the worst job I have ever done in my life and couldn't stand teaching but it helped pay the bills and I’d gotten surprisingly good at it.
This transition wasn’t going so well for me and I found myself suddenly hating being in Barcelona. It was extremely lonely and closed off. It was around the 4 month mark and it wasn't getting any easier. Although I knew a lot of people, none of them were my friends. It was no wonder I latched onto a 48-year-old British man with 2 teenage boys. He’d been here for over 25yrs, owned multiple properties in Barcelona and a successful reform business. The only good thing about him was sex other than that we had absolutely nothing in common & genuinely didn't like the same things. Needless to say it lasted all of 3 months and I was on to the next. The trailer park American from Seattle who stalked me after the breakup whose grandmother was a prostitute. He had the largest penis I've seen in years!!! I'll save that tragedy for another time.
Dating Here is a Nightmare at Times
Catalan men are very different than any other men I have dated & this is not in a good way. They often expect for you to pay your own way and for you to chase them. I do neither. I’ve had plenty of discussions with women of all ethnicities/backgrounds and everyone has said the same thing. Which is to bring your wallet. I just bring my lipstick. I also found that I’m not attracted to Catalan men and I rarely find any that are attractive looking. They often looked unkept. I few of them on rare occassions were super hot, but then after talking to them it would just go back to talking to a bag of marbles. Of course beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder, but meh.... There’s one thing I found in my experience to be true. Spain for Black women is gold. We're novelties and the attention we get unlike say London, Paris etc.. where there’s so much of our reflection already there, that here the attention to us is INSANE!. Here we're the new Tall, Blonde Hair, Blue-Eyed Chic that just walked in the room. It's crazy! Of course just like every other place in the world there are challenges when it comes to dating. However here you have a lot of variety and in some cases, better quality goes along with quantity.
I now spend my time with my ginger boyfriend from London who lived here until the end of summer. He returned to London as the job market here is scarce. He asked me to move with him but I’m still figuring things out. I’ve never been in a long-distance relationship before, but honestly I’m ok with it as he flies me out to London every two weeks and I actually really love him. So far so good. I’m looking forward to the future and of course other destinations to live. To be continued...This is your blog post. Blogs are a great way to connect with your audience and keep them coming back. They can also be a great way to position yourself as an authority in your field. To edit your content, click Manage Blog. From the Dashboard, you can edit posts and also add brand new posts with ease.
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