Something you may never consider when considering a move to Spain – And that’s the People
And not Spanish people. Just people in general.
When we dreamed of moving to Spain, we thought about quiet, lazy days beside our private pool, strolls along the beach, a walk down to the local restaurant, and walking our dog on the beautiful, small roads and avenues of Pueblo Bravo, Ciudad Quesada.
We never gave a second thought to the people or the neighbours. We already had explored the Spanish culture and knew that the Spanish people were culturally different to Irish people, but not as culturally different, for example, to Asian people.
So why would we have given this a second thought? We had lived in various neighbourhoods all our lives. I grew up in a terraced home in the heart of Dublin suburbia, with amazing neighbours, not only next door but throughout the entire cul-de-sac. As I grew older, I moved to a semi-detached house in a secluded, quiet neighbourhood of Dublin. I then moved to a detached home located on a busy main road, and still the neighbours were quiet, respectful, and kind.
Later, we moved to the country, to Gorey in County Wexford, into a detached home where the closest neighbour was around 4000 metres away. Yet the neighbours greeted each other with smiles and courtesy.
I have experience with living in close proximity and not so close proximity to other people.
Then we moved to Spain.
Dog Lovers
My first mistake – I assummed that anyone out walking a dog was a dog lover. This came as a surprise, as Tilk, our Golden Labrador, and I would go for our morning walk. Tilk was a friendly dog. He loved people and therefore gravitated towards them, especially people with dogs. It only took a week for us to realise that not everyone with a dog, loved dogs. They may have time for their own dog, and that was where the line was drawn.
Despite my lifelong career in hospitality and, later in life, psychology, I am by nature an introvert. Meaning, I do not generally gravitate towards people, and I would never be the first person to start a conversation. Yet, in that first week of learning about dog lovers, I also learned that not everyone who spoke my language was pleasant or friendly.
English Speaking
My next mistake – I made such an effort to be friendly, when I heard people speaking English, my native tongue from Ireland, I would smile and say hello. Yet the level of unfriendliness was overwhelming. So much so that, after that first week, Tilk and I would simply walk together, completing our 10-kilometre walk while ensuring we spoke to nobody. It was a strange experience.
Admittedly, the odd person would interact, but I remained cautious, which already created a boundary.
Then came the neighbours.
Our next mistake – We had moved into a gated community of twelve villas. When we arrived, there was no gate and no other neighbours. Slowly, the villas filled, with six becoming permanent homes and six remaining holiday homes.
The reason we chose Ciudad Quesada was because of its diversity. The population here is Nordic, European, Spanish, British, and Eastern European. The mix is remarkably diverse.
Within our small, gated community of twelve villas, we had property owners from many of those backgrounds, with three villas being owned and occupied by Spaniards. What we encountered was a mix of friendliness, rudeness, envy, disrespect, aggression, and, sadly to say, homophobia. I found this remarkable. I would never have considered that these traits could be present within such a small and diverse community.
To express the levels of friendliness, concern and empathy, I recall the morning Tilk passed away, he lay on the terrace and died after our walk, I was devastated. I recall kneeling beside him screaming and whaling in emotional pain, every heard, nobody came. I wrote an article about this, which can be read here.
Noise became the greatest scourge.
I found myself repeatedly visiting the neighbours behind our villa to request that they turn down the thumping music. It would start at 9am and continue all day until 6pm. I understand that people may be on holidays and want the holiday vibe, but this is not a holiday resort, people work and live here and a little respect seemed to be asking a lot.
As a child, my father always gave out to us if we had the radio too loud while sitting in the garden. He would say, “The neighbours don’t need to hear your music,” and indeed he was right.
The difference between Ireland and Spain is that here, there is very little to absorb sound.
In Ireland, we had grass, trees, soil, and gardens. Every house had curtains, carpets, and fabrics that naturally absorbed sound. It never crossed my mind when we purchased our villa that there would be very little to absorb noise.
Every villa had a tiled terrace and a pool. Concrete walls, no wood, lots of glass, and steel railings. Villas have blinds, rather than heavy curtails. There are few trees along the footpaths or in gardens and little or no grass. Who would have thought that this could create amphitheatres everywhere?
COVID
During COVID, the negative atmosphere that lingered along the little calle became intolerable, and so we decided to sell and move. We did not move far, literally to the outer villas within the same urbanisation.
When we moved into our new Villa, more drama ensued, the people behind us were part of a religious sect, and are homophobic, this I felt was a problem, then we realised that Gospel music was playing on their terrace 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, whether they were home, on holidays, or out. The music was low enough that we could not complain, but loud enough to waft on the balmy warm air of the Spanish nights. It slowly ground us down, until we installed terrace surround sound that filled the air with the beautiful sound of a water fall, which drowned out the gospel music. Then there were the cars blocking access for emergency services on the small calle, and more importantly, a general lack of consideration for other human beings.
Garbage Bin Wars
This was a phrase coined by our American friends. We have lived here for seven years, and the garbage bin has lived opposite the post boxes for our urbanisation for that time. People expect the bin to be where it is expected to be and oddly, if the bin is not where its expected, some people leave their bags of garbage on that spot anyway.
The post boxes are located within the boundary wall of Villa 50, which was a show house and sold very recently.
I was walking Tino, our new puppy last week, when I noticed the Garbage Bin had moved from the post boxes on Avenida de Argentina to Calle Numero Tres. But it was not on the corner where everyone could see, it was out side Villa 49, which incidentally is the new showhouse.
My Experience
I like to mind my own business, but the observations of the dirt and filth left behind by lazy visitors prompted me to roll the bin back around the corner to its original space.
I was greeted by a man, holding a bag of rubbish, looking completely lost, as he stood at the bin spot with no bin. He saw me pushing the bin around the corner and up the street towards him, his body language changed, he became visually annoyed, and demonstrated great anger through his body signals. He had assumed I had borrowed the bin, for whatever reason. As he and I do not talk, for fear that I may infect him with homosexuality, I left the bin beside him and opened the lid for him. In silence, he threw his rubbish into the bin without a word. I slammed the bin closed and said “De nada”, to which he became uncomfortable.
With that, I could hear above me, an angry woman, screaming in a foreign language. I believe she is East European. The gist of the screaming was, she did not want the bin outside he property. I looked at both him and her and shrugged my shoulders and went home.
It transpired that she had pushed the bin around to Calle Numero Tres earlier in the morning, after the binmen had emptied it. Then I moved it. Then my homophobic friend moved it further up the road away from her. Hers the interesting thing. People still came and deposited their bags of rubbish on the sport where the bin is supposed to be. Fascinating.
Why am I Sharing
Why do I share this particular story. I share it because, if there is a practice in existence before you purchase a property here, you are NOT going to change it after you arrive.
Just like the people parking their cars preventing emergency service vehicles access to the small streets, this is what they have bean allow to do, You or I are not going to change that. The Garbage Bin is no different.
Difficult people exist everywhere. In one of my restaurants in Ireland, we have served almost 3 million guests since opening. In hotels I have managed and owned, I have looked after hundreds of thousands of guests. Yet, I had never encountered this level of pettiness, entitlement, arrogance and lack of regard for others.
Perhaps, times are changing, or perhaps, a cultural mix is difficult to meld. I don’t know the answer. Other than to offer advice and say. Be aware.
Living in Spain
We have lived in Spain for seven years now. It has been a great experience, and we certainly do not want to return to Ireland. We pay our taxes here and comply with the law. Fading into the culture, we have tried to learn the language, albeit difficult, but we try to fit in. We don’t bring our Irish logic or practices to everyday life here because they don’t fit the Spanish way of life and that’s ok too.
We are migrants living in a foreign country, and we respect the Spanish people, their way of life, and how they do things, even when those things may differ from how we would approach them in Ireland. Yet, there is a learning.
But we are not in Ireland. We are here in Spain, and that brings me to my final observation: entitlement.
It is often suggested in psychology that younger generations can display a greater sense of entitlement than previous generations. However, the majority of the population in Ciudad Quesada consists of Baby Boomers and Generation X. Yet that same sense of entitlement can sometimes be overwhelming.
Allow me to be clear. I am not referring to the Spaniards.
Rather, it appears that many immigrants arrive, carrying expectations of how things should be done, based upon how its done in their country, while forgetting that they have chosen to live in somebody else’s country. At times, that can become exhausting to witness and experience.
For all the lessons learned and all the diversity we have experienced, we would not return to Ireland. Apart from the fact, that while living here, we have found some amazing people, and we have been privileged to embark on some truly great friendships. Which is difficult as an introvert.
I thought it was worth sharing our experience because everything I have mentioned above was something we never considered before making the move. There are so many aspects to consider, when moving to a new home in a foreign country.
But when we are aware of what may lie ahead, we are better prepared. And when we are prepared, there are fewer surprises.