Work, and Life.

Ah, yes – those aspects of life we are so obsessed with balancing, whatever that means. It means different things to different people, of course.

Work to live, or live to work – it’s a choice we must all make. I know I personally have to be careful about spending too much time in the office. But that may be the result of financial hardships: in 2016, I had to put my 24-year old company in bankruptcy, which dragged me down into personal bankruptcy. It was a helluva way to enter my fifties!

I could’ve gotten depressed, or angry…just wallow in misery; but how would that have helped? I rolled up my sleeves and got back to rebuilding.

Work provides us with the means to live, to essentially climb Maslow’s first step of his pyramid. We exchange time and skill in return for remuneration, which we in turn exchange for what we want or need.

Sundays in Sevilla are special: they are meant for family; most stores are closed. We are only a few minutes’ walk from Parque Maria Luisa, a huge urban park where families flock to spend time together.

It is an unbelievable sight: mothers, fathers, sons and daughters – all spending time together!

My wife and I were in a restaurant back home a week or two before coming here; at the table beside us was a family of four. Mom and Dad were both on their cell phones while the two kids were bored and getting restless. No presence, no sense of family. Empty. Vacuous.

The complete opposite of what we see here; no cell phones in sight. Parents talking, kids playing.

What have we done to ourselves?

At the entrance to the park – or the exit, depending on which direction you’re heading – stands a monument that reminds us:

“El trabajo” – work. There is time enough for that, but Sundays are for family.

¡Hasta luego!

40 years. That’s how long I’ve been wanting to come to Spain. Although I’ve had many opportunities to travel across North America (and a 2-week stint down in Sydney, Australia!), I’ve never had the chance to visit Europe, apart from a quick trip to Ireland, which led to us actually moving there in 2020. The pandemic, however, put an end to that 6 months later.

Why Spain? 40 years ago, when I was in CEGEP (for those outside of Quebec, CEGEP is normally 2 years of school between high school and university, or as many people say, “two years of your life you never get back”), I took a beginner’s Spanish course. Can’t remember why. At all. But…I liked it. I really like it! So, I took Spanish for two years – got to a point where I was perfectly fluid with the language: speaking, reading, writing, etc.

After 2 years of CEGEP, I went to work. Unfortunately, I did not know any Spanish-speaking people, and there were no readily-available resources: no Internet, no YouTube, no Amazon to order books, etc. I know, that’s really hard to fathom for some of you young ‘uns.

It doesn’t take long to lose a language when you don’t use it.

During those two years, I also learned a lot about Spain, Spanish culture, music, etc. Authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, poets like Pablo Neruda…beautiful!

This year, sometime late spring or early summer, I decided, “That’s it! I HAVE to go to Spain!!”. I had started getting back to studying Spanish, and I felt I had to go. I told my wife, Claire, that we were going to Spain. No objections on her part, so that was cool!

When I think of Spain, I think of Andalucía, and when I think of Andalucía, I think of Sevilla. So, that’s what I aimed for as “home base”. I didn’t want to rent a car for three weeks (that’s how long I wanted to go for, as it’s so easy to work from anywhere, now!) and drive around every day, lugging suitcases around, checking in and out of hotels, etc. It was also meant to be a vacation of sorts; I say “of sorts”, because consultants who work on their own, like me, can never fully stop working – we have customers to take care of! And I DO love my customers, and appreciate them immensely, because they are the ones who provide me with the revenue to do this!! So, a Big Shoutout to my customers – I love you!

There are no flights from Montreal to Sevilla, so of course that meant a connection somewhere. I always use Expedia to look for these kinds of things, as it will present you with many options. The least expensive one was with Royal Air Maroc through Casablanca! Really?! I never would’ve thought of that – Claire and I LOVE the movie, so we thought it be an added “Cool!” to actually be in Casablanca, even if only for a few hours.

We arrived in Casablanca at midnight, local time, and our flight to Sevilla was only at 10:40 the next morning, so RAM put us up at a hotel for the night (hotel was nothing to write home about, but hey – free, and we got a few hours’ sleep!). A quick breakfast and then back to the airport, arriving in Sevilla at 13:15, local time.

A short cab ride to our AirBnB, and we settled in, showered, and then went off to explore the neighbourhood. We’re situated a fairly quiet, residential area. The first thing we did was stop at a terrace for something to drink and eat. A nice, cold cerveza, of course, and (OMG I was looking forward to this!)…some jamón ibérico, or Spanish ham; it’s a cured leg of pork that is cut into very thin strips:

I’m old enough to not have much pride or shame left, so I admit it brought tears to my eyes. Literally. I couldn’t believe I was actually – finally! – sitting in Sevilla, España, eating jamón ibérico!!!

Our lodging close to some cool things, like for example, the Plaza de España:

Built in 1929 for the World Fair, it is a spectacular sight! There are sections along the balconies that represent all of the provinces in Spain:

After spending a bit of time in the Parque Maria Luisa, across from the Plaza, and at the Plaza itself, we went back to our apartment and took a nap (siesta).

Spaniards are not on the same schedule we are: supper is nowhere near 6PM; it’s more like 9PM. So, we headed out at that time.

Life!! OMG, so much life!!!

The sidewalk cafes were packed: people drinking, eating, talking, laughing – it was amazing! We stopped at a taberna and had some wine, a small pizza,  espinaca con garbanzos (a warm spinach dip with chick peas – delicious!), and…yes, jamó ibérico (I have a feeling I will rid Spain of an ample amount of this in the next 3 weeks!). All of this in tapas portions that we shared. I noticed I do have to be careful with the pricing – we ordered 2 glasses of wine @ €2.80 each (about $4.22 CAD), glasses which, back in Quebec, would be at least $11-13! I then noticed that a bottle of the same wine was only €13, or about $20CAD – try to find anything under $30 at a restaurant!

Should’ve ordered the bottle…

Next time.

Bedtime, to get some good catch-up sleep after the travelling.

¡Hasta luego!