Immigrant Life

Chapter 23: What Will We Eat in August?

“Will you be closed in August for vacation?” I asked the woman behind the counter at the artisanal bakery. She looked like both an artist...

Kay Diaz

Aug 24, 20225 min read

As we made our way home from the DELE A2 exam on our “walk of shame,” the numbness subsided enough to both commiserate and comfort each...

Kay Diaz

Apr 14, 20219 min read

–Part One– It Wasn’t My Time The DELE A2 guidelines stipulated that we were to have 12 minutes to prepare for the 12-minute “oral...

Kay Diaz

Apr 1, 202111 min read

Peering at us through the Skype screen, bookcase behind his right shoulder, our new teacher Hernán reminds me of a bespectacled Ralph...

Kay Diaz

Mar 17, 20215 min read

Being risk-averse lawyers, readers of history, amateur political prognosticators, and heeders of science, we have come to Spain to live....

Kay Diaz

Feb 25, 20214 min read

“I never get bored; I just think like a dog,” I said one late-June morning to my table partner Jayne as we sat sipping coffee. It was the...

Kay Diaz

May 24, 20204 min read

“It’s time to get stressed,” said Kate. Or so I thought. “Why are we getting stressed?” I asked. “I didn’t say that. I said, ‘It’s time...

Kay Diaz

Apr 22, 20203 min read

Grandpop — never Grandpa — was the only grandparent my brothers and I ever knew. Andy, as he was called, was born Andrés in Spain in the...

Kay Diaz

Apr 15, 20203 min read

It wasn’t my best idea. But having a glass of wine while hanging bedsheets outside, thirty-six feet up in the air, seemed reasonable at...

Kay Diaz

Apr 8, 20203 min read

New Yorkers often say that small town life is alive and well in America — it just happens to exist in a city of 8.5 million people. In...

Kay Diaz

Mar 18, 20203 min read

We quickly settled in to a one-room efficiency near Plaza de Antón Martín, a V-shaped plaza near Atocha, one of Madrid’s major streets....

Kay Diaz

Mar 17, 20202 min read