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ADVICE FOR WOULD-BE EXPATS.
My long, roller coaster of an expat experience is coming to a close.
Very soon, “Sal’s Virtual Tapas Bar” will morph into “Fat Sal’s Smoking Lounge” and my twisted tales of life in Spain will cease.
In fact, this may be my final Spain-centric post before closing this volume of the book and opening the next. The next most likely to be heavy on Q, pick-up trucks and Merle Haggard.
That email being, “Hi! I live in the US and I want to be an expat. I so, soooo want to be an expat. How can I do it?”
Well, my young and idealistic friends, here is the best advice I can give you. And trust me, this the voice of experience talking here.
ADVICE #1: FORGET ABOUT BEING AN EXPAT. JUST BE A TOURIST.
Countries like Spain allow you visit the country for up to three months without a visa. So…if you so desperately want to leave your native land and live somewhere else, then come to Spain for three months and then go back. Trust me…three months will satisfy 90% of your expat fantasies.
But if that’s not good enough, then stay the three months…go back home…do your laundry and water your plants…then come back for another three months. Trust me…a combined six months abroad will satisfy 99.9% of your expat fantasies.
But if you *still* insist that it’s not enough, then you take the next step at your own risk. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.
ADVICE #2: THAT NEXT STEP.
If you insist on living abroard for more than (for example) a summer or a college semester, then here’s the important thing to remember.
ALWAYS HAVE AN EXIT STRATEGY!
Know exactly when you will return home for good. And stick to it.
Do *not* move abroad with an open-ended return date–or, worse yet, with the idealistic notion that your move will be permanent.
Have an exit strategy! Know exactly when you will return. And stick to it.
Then–and this is the hard part, but the important part–don’t do anything that would complicate or jeopardize that return.
Don’t ship all your earthly possessions to your new country. Don’t buy a house. Don’t tie-up your savings in local investments that will be difficult to transfer back to your native country. Don’t do any of those “grown-up” things that you would, as a matter of course, do if you lived in your native land. Just think of yourself as a wandering nomad–travelling light. As light as possible.
Why? Because every expat is like a carton of milk. There will be an expiration date stamped on your forehead. And when that date passes, you WILL start to curdle.
I know a lot of expats. I’ve seen it happen a million times. There is this syndrome amongst expats called “The Seven Year Itch.” Few are immune.
You’ll spend the first couple years in your new country being fascinated, charmed, mesmerized by the new culture.
You’ll spend the next few years trying to make that culture your own.
By about year four, all those little cultural quirks that you once found so charming will begin to grate your nerves like an emery board.
By year five, you’ll find yourself watching Fox News on satellite television each night and fantasizing about strolling down the “Lawn & Garden” aisle of Walmart. Any Walmart.
By year seven, you’ll suddenly find yourself standing naked on the roof of your house–cloaked in a dusty coyote pelt–howling at the moon.
Trust me. I’ve seen it a million times.
Now, I’m sure that there are a couple of keyboard warriors out there who are reading this and positively frothing at the mouth. I can just see them–sharpening their talons and ready to pound-out a venomous message telling me how arrogant and wrong I am…and how THEY have been an expat for 897 years and it was the best decision of their lives, and yadda, yadda, yadda.
To those people I say, “Congratulations.” You’ve achieved something that few people I know have managed. I am deeply, sincerely happy for you. So save your email. This VTB is neither a forum for debate nor a democracy. It’s a dictatorship, and I’m Ming the Merciless. Your email will never see the light of day in the VTB Chat Lounge, so save your energy.
And that, my friends, is the best advice I can give on the expat issue.
And that, my friends, is also the end of my Spanish adventure.
This blog will continue (and it will continue to be funny), so keep checking in. But its focus is going to shift to other areas.
Spain was a great muse for a long time. But you know what what happens when a man gets the seven year itch.
He goes out and finds a new muse.
MEET MY NEW BABY.
What can I say? Some men collect stamps.
Hey! Since we’re on the topic, I have an important announcement to make. My official BBQ name shall heretofore be…”Fat Sal.”
And if/when I should form a competition BBQ team, the team name shall be…”A Smoke & A Twelve-Pack.”
As you might suspect, there’s a story behind that team name. But as for today, at least…I ain’t talkin’.
RAMBLIN’ MAN.
Yep, there is.
Now that we’ve resolved that…let’s dip a pewter flagon into my stream of consciousness and take a little drink, shall we?
FIRST THINGS FIRST:
Happy Halloween. It’s my favorite holiday.
CHICKEN KIEV:
I can’t say I was looking forward to my recent business trip to Kiev, Ukraine. I envisioned it as being a drab, dour place–much like East Berlin when I visited it in 1988. Or K-Mart when I visited it in 2005.
Beyond that, I really didn’t know what to expect–except that the trip would end with my lifeless body being stuffed into a industrial drum and tossed into the Black Sea by a neckless, hairy ogre purporting to be my taxi driver.
Well, I was a bit hasty in my pessimism. Kiev is actually a very nice town–even if my taxi driver (who, in fact, had a neck) did point down-river as we passed over a bridge and said, “Cherynobl.”
Kiev’s buildings were clean and brightly painted. Golden minarets shimmered. Highways were lined with old growth white birch trees. And the women?
O! M! G!
Guys, come closer and listen carefully. If your life’s “To Do” list has an entry that says, “Find a tall, thin, ridiculously beautiful eastern European-ish babe,” then go buy yourself a ticket on the first available flight to Kiev.
She’s there. In fact, she’s everywhere.
AND FINALLY…PUTTING THE “EX-” IN “EXPAT”:
Yeah, it’s true. More on that later…
HAPPY FIFTH BIRTHDAY, PUMPKIN!
And many more.
Love,
Daddy
THE BEST INDIAN RESTAURANT IN MADRID.
TANDOORI STATION
Jose Ortega y Gasset, 89
Tel: 91-401-2228
Hands-down, the best in town!
Of course, I’ve told you this before. But the chicken vindaloo with roti that I had for lunch today compels me to re-confirm.
BYE, BYE…POLISH-AMERICAN PIE.
Adding to my confusion is the fact that the good people of France–a nation that borders Spain to the north–will dump just about anything into a pie shell, bake it and snarf it.
Having meditated on this curiosity for nearly eight years, I can only assume that the Spanish don’t bake pies because they’re using all of their pie plates to make paella.
Determined to lead the Spanish populace by example, I bought two Pyrex glass pie plates during my last trip to Chicago and brought them back here. My assumption, however, was that they would sit unused in my cabinet until such time as I moved back to the US or my home was burgled by a Frenchman–whichever came first.
But then I got a call from my neighbors yesterday suggesting that my daughter and I join them to pick wild blackberries.
Whoa! I saw an opportunity. Having recently picked MacIntosh apples with friends in Michigan, I was feeling quite in touch with my inner Grizzly Adams. Plus, I knew that six cups of blackberries would be enough to make a blackberry pie. So Pumpkin and I accepted the offer.
Little did I know, however, that picking six cups of blackberries is a task requiring six hours’ labor and two pints of blood loss.
But we did, in fact, return with six cups of blackberries and today set about baking a pie–the first pie that either my daughter or I had ever attempted.
Now, I consider myself a pretty above average cook–especially when the menu is heavily skewed in the direction of dead animals. But baking has always been the weakest link in my armour. And today’s project was a fitting example.
I used the pie crust recipe of a Polish-American grandmother whose baking skills I can vouch for–from third helpings of first hand experience. She makes a pretty mean czernina, as well.
But, unfortunately, her recipe was for one layer of pie crust and I needed two.
Simple enough, one would assume. Just double it.
Yes…but for me, doubling a recipe is a form of math. And for a lawyer who really wanted to be a gym teacher, math of any kind is fraught with danger.
And so it was that in the process of doubling this kindly Polish-American grandmother’s cherished pie crust recipe, I remembered to double most of the ingredients–but not quite all of them. And to make matters worse, the ingredient that I forgot to double was milk.
Our end product was a gorgeous, gooey, deep-purple berry filling encased in…a sand castle.
Oh well. As I’ve so often told my niece and nephew, you have to screw up a recipe three times before getting it right. I’ve got two more shots at this pie crust before I’ll get it right.
And when I finally get it right, who knows? Maybe I’ll just dump a bunch of czernina into it, bake it and snarf it.
AS A MATTER OF FACT, I *DO* GIVE A FIG.
I planted a fig tree in my yard four years ago. To date, it has produced nothing but fig leaves.
Now don’t get me wrong. Fig leaves are lovely. I’m told that some folks have even used them to make clothing.
But as my Poppie used to say, “If I can’t eat it, I don’t want it growing in my yard.”
I couldn’t agree more, and had begun contemplating what pulled pork would taste like if smoked over smoldering fig tree chunks.
But just as I was about to pull the string on my chainsaw, I saw it. I mean, them. That seemingly infertile fig tree was bursting with figs.
Tonight, I harvested a basket–a mere fraction of what’s still hanging from the branches.
Yeah…I’ll take the fresh figs with jamón iberico and a glass of fino sherry.
You take the Fig Newtons.
CHICAGO…CHICAGO…THAT BLOGGIN’ TOWN (Installment One).
I’ve just returned from a six week stay in Chicago—which seems like a lot, but passed uncomfortably quickly.
Half the time was spent trying to keep-up with my four year old daughter and her insatiable appetite for play. The other half was spent working at Acme Low Carb Tongue Depressors, Inc.’s corporate headquarters—an experience that has me seeing putty-colored fabric walls in my sleep.
The six week stint was low on blog-worthy experiences. That is, unless you are one of the few who have a fondness for reading about shopping excursions to Target and Borders, or my endless hours spent vegetating in my parent’s Jacuzzi.
But there were two outings that are long-overdue for describing here on the VTB. Why? Because they involved other bloggers.
BREAKFAST WITH THE NERD:
Pam the Nerdy and I have enjoyed a Master Po/Grasshopper-type relationship for nearly two years. It is the evangelical Pam to whom I attribute my newly found, all-consuming passion for the ukulele.
Nerd was attending a women’s-only blogger convention in downtown Chicago during the weekend of my arrival.
We met in her hotel lobby at 8am on a Saturday—a proposed meeting time that I had assumed was a joke. It wasn’t—and I was naïve to think otherwise. After all, she lives in Seattle—the birthplace and headquarters of Starbuck’s Coffee. Presumably the caffeine content of the city’s water supply is on par with its fluoride content.
Nerd—like her blog—was great, quirky fun. We skipped across the street to a breakfast joint—where I ate blueberry and cashew pancakes, she ate a heap of eggs and mushrooms covered with cheese, and the rest of the patrons stared perplexedly at the ukulele that was the centerpiece of our table.
Yes, I brought my ukulele. My brand-spankin’ new, lava black, Flea ukulele. I had, for months, felt that it was time to upgrade Felix—who served me well as a starter uke, but alas…lacked the warm tone for which I yearned.
Nerd wholeheartedly recommended a Flea. She has one. Then again, she has about 29 ukes lying around her house. But she seemed especially bullish on the Flea. So I bought one. A black one. It rocks! It matches my shirt.
Nerd claims to be an introvert; and I, most definitely, am one. Yet we chatted non-stop for three hours.
We finished breakfast and commenced crossing the street back to her hotel. It was at that point when she stopped in mid-traffic, grabbed my left earlobe, twisted it until I dropped to a knee and—with crinkled brow—growled, “You WILL play your Flea for me.”
Minutes later, we found two cushy chairs in an abandoned corner of the hotel basement—where I made a good-faith effort to wrap quivering fingers around The Beatles’ “In My Life” and Joe Brown’s “I’ll See You In My Dreams.” It was the first time I had played in front of a live audience—albeit an audience of one.
IN RESPONSE TO LISA’S QUESTION OF WHETHER I CAN DO A “CHINESE SPLIT.”
The Answer: Close, but not quite.
Maybe it’s better this way. Those ceramic tile floors can be pretty cold.
[It’s Ok to turn forty, as long as you do it with attitude.]
