Next Up: Back to Seville, Spain

Happy New Year! Time for another round of 365, time for a new place to live. Technically, we landed here in Seville, Spain, in December. Alas, a lot of holiday busy-ness and settling kept me away from writing, so it took me a few weeks to log back in and attack a new post.

And with that, greetings from Seville! If you’re a reader of this blog, it may feel vaguely familiar. That’s because we were here two years ago. (Damn, time flies.) But why on Earth would you go where you’ve already been?!?!?!?!

That’s the question we get when we tell people we came back to a place that has previously been trod by the eight feet we own. I don’t really get that question at all. As in: We just don’t understand it. We have no bucket list. There is no requirement for all the things we must see before we die. We don’t have to visit every country, and last I checked, there’s no requirement that says every place must be some place new.

Yes, that question pops up all the time. Listen, people: We go where we want. We do what we want and we live where we want, because we only live once and we want to do what we want to do. And you should, too.

Right now, what we want to do is live in the glorious Andalusian city of Seville. When we were here in 2013, we only had two months as a sort of ‘in-between’ after five months in Montenegro and a (brief stop back in Germany before a) following trip to the US to renew some paperwork and head out on a road trip. We reached out to our friend Cat back then, and she said, “You should just come to Seville.” So, we did.

It just wasn’t enough! We have a few goals with the whole thing this time around. And we were and are willing to tackle these goals, despite having to fly from Vienna to Chicago for a stay of four freakin’ months, and then back to Europe in order to make that happen. Said goals:

1) Have the ability to stay somewhere longer than three months. As an American (or someone else in a similar situation), you may know about the Schengen Area and how annoying the 90/180 rule is. We don’t like it! So, we decided to apply for one-year visas in Spain, and to see where this journey takes us. Who knows, maybe we’ll want to leave before that (probably not). Maybe we’ll want to stay longer (probably). The key is that a visa gives us a bit of latitude, as well as the ability to explore the surrounding area and have a base for traveling around Europe.

2) Improve our Spanish and get some culture. We previously spent two months here, as well as six months in Mexico. We have a reasonable grasp on Spanish, but I just don’t feel like that’s good enough. We want to be comfortable in Spanish. So, we’re tackling the language with the help of our friends, our location, random strangers, and private Spanish classes. Not to mention learning history, culture, food, food, food, drink, drink, drink, culture, and history.

3) Spend some time with our friends, and maybe make some more. We have various friends and acquaintances here. We like them. They’re nice people and we enjoy being around them. We want to be around them a bit more. Because nice people are nice to be around, and we enjoy their company. We also like making new friends, and we’ve already been fortunate enough to meet some new people since we’ve landed.

4) Live. Like I said, we like living. Life is good. Life is better when you do what you want. So here we are, living in an environment we like and doing what we like. Because that’s how it should be.

We plan on taking advantage of and making the most of all of these things and more, including plenty of day trips and some road trips. If you’re in our neck of the woods or you want to be, don’t hesitate to send us an email or to stop by and say ‘hi’. We might even treat you to an [insert your favorite beverage here].

Vive bien, sólo vives una vez.