“Is a groveling email offering to pay damages enough?” I asked Rich the morning after the party. “Or do you think this requires www.FakeMyDeath.com?”
“Let’s see how they respond to the email,” he said soothingly. “Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”
It all started innocently enough when an American friend here in Seville remarked that in a moment of insanity he’d promised his young boys he’d make a life-sized bull’s head that they could paint. “How do I even start?” he wailed.
“You’re in luck,” I told him. “There’s a local artist who makes papier-mâché bull’s heads; I’m sure he’ll sell one unpainted. And I’ve got crafts supplies you can use.” Two weeks later my friend threw a big party, and before heading to the drinks table, I handed over a box of paints and brushes to a group of ten kids, aged maybe six to twelve, who disappeared into a room with a life-size papier-mâché bull’s head and no adult supervision.
It wasn’t until late in the evening, around the time one of the guests was demonstrating how to remove the cork from a bottle of champagne with a sword, that I began to wonder uneasily just what the kids might be getting up to. “I’m sure they’re fine,” I told myself, applauding as the cork shot across the room.
It wasn’t until I woke up late the next morning that I began to focus properly, and with hideous clarity, on the amount of damage kids with paint brushes could inflict on walls, floors, furniture, lampshades … and did I remember that one of the guests had a white dog?
With some trepidation I emailed the hosts and received back blithe assurances that no damage at all had occurred, and everyone was delighted with the painting project. Whew! “I guess we don’t have to move to another city and assume new identities,” I told Rich.
Eventually those friends left Seville, and the bull’s head was passed along to another family, then another. A week ago, to my astonishment and delight, those currently housing the beast announced they were handing it over to me. As we (and by “we,” of course, I mean Rich) carried the bull’s head home through the densely packed streets around the cathedral, locals and visitors poured out of cafés to capture the one-man parade with their iPhones.
People often ask me why I enjoy living abroad, and for a start I cite the many zany moments like this one that pop up unexpectedly, keeping expat life so vivid. Yes, living in a foreign place can be challenging at times, but it’s also tremendously exciting, with astonishing surprises seemingly around every corner. You certainly don’t find yourself stuck in a rut, operating on automatic pilot, wondering when your zing faded to monotony.
In the past, nearly all my American friends and relatives used to think I was bonkers to live abroad. Not anymore. Nowadays half the people I know, and quite a few I don’t, are flooding my email inbox with requests for advice about resettling overseas — preferably somewhere with congenial company, good weather, and affordable wine. And fewer rampaging wildfires, mass shootings, and terrifying headlines.
I can’t respond to each email in as much detail as I’d like, so as my regular readers know, I recently put together
Enjoy Moving Abroad, a Three-Book Set of Insider Tips for Living Well Overseas
. It includes updated and expanded editions of two previously published guides,
101 Ways to Enjoy Living Abroad: Essential Tips for Easing the Transition to Expat Life
and my bestselling
Pack Light
, plus
How to Meet People on the Road
:
A Guide to Forming Friendships in Foreign Lands
, published here for the first time.
We live in an age of technological marvels that often outstrip the science fiction I read as a kid. When I’m in my home state of California, the atmosphere is a dizzying mix of thrilling futuristic visionaries and a dystopian landscape where whole towns can disappear overnight. I love my state and my country and spend time there regularly, but it’s always comforting to return to Seville, an ancient city that survived the Visigoths, the Moors, the Inquisition, and Franco’s dictatorship — to name but a few. Its past is a constant reminder that dark times don’t last forever and every generation somehow finds the strength and ingenuity to deal with the future.
In the meantime, Sevillanos have much to teach us about living in the present. Whatever else is happening, they never forget to enjoy family, friends, cold beer, hot tapas, and a one-man bull’s head parade. I can think of few better reasons for moving abroad that the lessons it teaches us about coping with uncertainty and embracing life’s small, quirky pleasures whenever they come our way.
Book Details
Enjoy Moving Abroad
is now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback.
If you have a chance to order it from Amazon and leave a review I would be very grateful. The more reviews I get the higher the book is ranked, making it more visible to those seeking this kind of information. Unfortunately Amazon is now quite strict about insisting you order the book from them if you want to post a review.
See in Kindle store
See in Paperback
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