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Chapter 24: Back to the Wall
After a long hiatus, I recently decided to start playing tennis again. It is the game I love most, and I had missed it very much. But...
Kay Diaz
Oct 19, 20226 min read
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
Chapter 20: Danger and Delirium
When I found out that the Spanish proficiency exam would be on the morning of September 11, I sighed. As much as we love Madrid, New York...
Kay Diaz
Mar 25, 20219 min read
Chapter 18: Grace Under Pressure
We confess our plight in the face of the grueling DELE A2 exam to Pilar, a recent acquaintance in Madrid. She offers to help. It is...
Kay Diaz
Mar 9, 20214 min read
Chapter 17: Oui, Je Regrette Something
Though the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests and Biden’s rising numbers in the polls made us more optimistic about the situation back...
Kay Diaz
Mar 6, 20216 min read
Chapter 15: Preparing for the Worst
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
Chapter 14: Thinking Like a Dog
“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
Chapter 13: Who Knows Where the Time Goes?
“¡Buenas tardes!” exclaimed the cheerful radio announcer as I made the bed in our Madrid apartment. I did a double-take at the radio, and...
Kay Diaz
May 1, 20203 min read
Chapter 12: I Beg Your Pardon?
“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
Chapter 10: Airing Dirty Laundry
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
Chapter 9: ¡Salud!
“I miss Greg,” said the ancient woman with a walker, gazing towards me but not particularly focusing on me, and I knew exactly of whom...
Kay Diaz
Apr 3, 20203 min read
Chapter 8: Happy as a Pig in . . . .
“I can only eat so much jamón,” is a refrain Kate and I have often heard over the years from friends in the States when sharing stories...
Kay Diaz
Mar 29, 20202 min read
Chapter 7: Love in the Time of Coronavirus . . . or, The Wedding Registry We Never Had
We settled quickly into our new apartment in a 150-year-old atrium building, located in the Malasaña neighborhood within the original...
Kay Diaz
Mar 24, 20203 min read
Chapter 6: Seriously Driven
We left the hotel in separate taxis, as required by the lockdown laws. The streets and sidewalks were eerily deserted. Under Spain’s...
Kay Diaz
Mar 22, 20202 min read
Chapter 5: The Shining
Following the coronavirus lockdown in Spain last Sunday, Kate and I became the only tenants of our residential hotel. No other guests...
Kay Diaz
Mar 19, 20202 min read
Chapter 4: New Neighbors
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
Chapter 3: A Walk in the Park
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
Chapter 2: Arrival
Flying past the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range into the City of Madrid, peering through the oval airplane window, one is struck by...
Kay Diaz
Mar 15, 20202 min read
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