To the first and second “why” questions, there are so many answers. But, the easiest responses are, because we can and because we want to (or vice versa). We have talked for years about living in Europe.
I thought of moving to England in the late ’70s.
Jerry and I considered the Netherlands in the ’90s (those “Bush the First” years). Coming from San Diego at the time, we decided we could if we had to, but the weather would be an adjustment.
Then in the “George Jr.” years, we considered Ireland (a job prospect in Dublin for Jerry) but again decided the weather would be an adjustment, along with some social/political/religious issues. Not to mention the fact that we weren’t a legally recognized couple and I, therefore, would have no legal right to go/stay with him.
Our next thought during the George Jr. years was Norway. Specifically Bergen. We thought, well, we love Seattle. And Bergen reminds us in so many ways of Seattle. We figured, we can tolerate the weather in Seattle (well, no, we really can’t), so how difficult could Bergen be? Our family in Bergen loved the idea of having us as neighbors (no, really, they did). But they thought we were nuts if we believed we could tolerate the weather.
We then did some research and learned that Seattle gets 37 inches of precipitation a year. The total isn’t significant except that it’s continual drizzles. (Seattle Rain Festival: January 1-December 31). But, Bergen, hold onto your hats, gets EIGHTY-NINE INCHES OF PRECIPITATION a year. And it’s almost all rain. And the rain falls sideways. There’s no escaping it.
Southern Spain is a popular and easy-to-reach tourist destination for Norwegians. So, we thought we could spend half the year in Bergen and half in Southern Spain. But that still meant at least, unscientifically speaking, 45 inches of rain. And, as I just mentioned, in Bergen it rains sideways.
So, we’re still here.
Until we had our hotel in Palm Springs from 2000-2003 (that requires another post), we had talked a lot about retiring there. And when we returned to Southern California from Vegas last year, that was back as the top possibility.
But the problem was that Palm Springs, although beautiful, just didn’t excite us anymore. There isn’t anything new for us. So, we bought “Retirement Places Rated” for the U.S. and studied. And we still couldn’t find that spark.
A few months passed and we started to talk about Europe again. We decided to list out our requirements in order of priority and then narrow down to regions, countries, and cities based on those factors.
The top priority (I’ll admit to being a bit shallow on this one):
THE WEATHER.
We realized a pleasant climate — a la San Diego — was what we required. That knocked off a whole bunch of countries.
The second priority was political/social climate:
Admittedly this went hand in hand with weather. Cuba’s sunshine and ocean breezes can be quite charming, but we’re not rushing off to live there.
Other requirements (and no longer in order of priority) were:
An interesting culture and history; a population that welcomes outsiders; safe and secure living conditions; a language we could learn; national/nature parks; good healthcare; good public transportation–local, regional, and national; easy/cheap access to other parts of Europe; and I can’t remember what else right now.
That led us to Southern Spain–Andalucia. But we didn’t want to end up in an expat community surrounded only by other non-Spaniards (and Andalucia has a number of beautiful communities filled with expats). So, we did more research, talked to more people, and finally narrowed down to Sevilla. After deciding on Sevilla, we re-opened the discussion (we re-open discussions a lot) and decided to look in the outlying area for smaller cities where we could more easily relax (and where our money would go further). We decided to follow the train line down from Sevilla to Cadiz. And there it was, Jerez de la Frontera. Home to sherry, the horse, and the flamenco. Also home to the Motorcycle Grand Prix (not really on our list of interests).