Journal Posts

Stock is one of those things that seemed magical before I made it. I had purchased a few cooking books, and many recipes said to use ‘vegetable stock’, ‘chicken stock’, ‘beef stock’, or ‘fish stock’. At that time I was used to buying bouillon cubes to take the place of stock, but decided at some point to try making a homemade stock. Not only is making stock at home easy, but it’s a simple way to use up leftover pieces of vegetables and bones. I’ve grown accustomed now to making a chicken dinner on the weekend, and immediately afterwards putting the left over pieces into the pressure cooker to make a nice tasty stock for a week’s worth of soups and dishes. Ingredients Chicken carcasses, or left over bones from a chicken meal One yellow onion Several stalks of celery Several carrots Whole peppercorns Several bay leaves One or two […]

I was looking through some of my old posts recently, particularly with regards to COVID-19 and the first lockdown here in Spain, and realized I hadn’t done an update in a while. Strangely, it’s going on the one year anniversary from when this all started. I had friends visiting from Canada when this all began, and as each day went by more and more activities were suspended in Spain. The first inkling of trouble was that the tickets we had to a futbol match here in Valencia were ultimately cancelled. Thinking nothing of it, we decided to purchase other tickets to see Madrid play, and those too were cancelled. The final nail in the coffin, and the canary in the coalmine as it were, was the cancellation of the yearly Fallas festival here in Valencia. My friends managed to get out Europe the next day by taking a last minute […]

I realized this morning that I haven’t really given an update since I was smack-dab in the middle of our lockdown here in Spain. Most of us here spent 98 days essentially locked up in our apartments, only venturing outside to quickly get some groceries or to go to a pharmacy. It was one of the most intense and invasive lockdowns of any country anywhere, and many people here really struggled to cope with it. While I didn’t mind being at home, especially since I had many renovation projects on the go, the inability to even go for a walk or to get exercise was really difficult mentally, and most of us were extremely thankful when, after over three months locked up in our houses, that the rules were finally relaxed. Since that time, Spain has entered ‘the new normal’, which is a new state of existence that involves mandatory […]

Tomorrow marks the end of the third week of forced quarantine here in Spain, and unfortunately at this point there still is no end in sight. At the start of this week both the active cases of COVID-19 as well as the number of deaths seemed to be on the cusp of plateauing, but yesterday brought new highs for both. I normally try to stay up each night until midnight, mostly to see what the latest numbers are – while they aren’t complete, usually there is an update shortly after midnight that gives some indication of what the next day may look like. And so far many of those updates haven’t been very uplifting. I’d like to say that the streets are mostly barren of people, but it does seem like each day more and more people are starting to emerge. If the daily numbers were showing considerable improvement it […]

This morning I woke up and like most days since the quarantine started here in Spain, immediately checked the official statistics to see if the curve has started to flatten yet. Today’s update shows rough 5,500 new cases since yesterday with another 443 people having died. roughly the entire capacity of Surrey Memorial Hospital back home in the Fraser Valley. While these numbers are slightly less than the ones from the day before, I’ve learned not to get too excited with a low day on the charts since often the next day more than makes up for it. What these numbers mean, besides the obvious horridness of people dying daily, is that we still have no idea when things will get better or the quarantine will be lifted. After reading that I put my head back on the pillow and went back to sleep. Days have this weird duality here […]

On January 7th, 2020, I was on an airplane flying from Vancouver, Canada, to Spain, fully unaware of what was occurring in Asia with regards to a novel coronavirus, now known as COVID-19. Little did I know, in roughly two months we would be on lockdown here in Spain for the foreseeable future in an effort to curb the rapidly increasing countrywide death rate associated with COVID-19. Like many countries who now find themselves in a similar place, Spain mostly ignored the lessons we should have learned from Italy, and Italy largely ignored the lessons they should have learned from China. The end result for both Spain and Italy is a daily battle to prevent the collapse of the national health care system, and the continuing restriction of liberties in an effort to ‘flatten the curve’ and reduce the deaths that are occurring daily. I myself am guilty of it […]

I live a fortunate life. I have a profession that effectively lets me work from anywhere in the world, all while making an income generally in North American dollars. Popularized by such ‘visionaries’ as Tim Ferris, my lifestyle, and the lifestyle of potentially a billion people by the year 2035, is likely a new world norm. No longer are people like me stuck in offices – we can get on airplanes and work from anywhere in the world – from the remote jungles of Vietnam, to the beautiful mountains of Spain’s Canary Islands, to the wineries within a few stone’s throw from Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa. All it takes is an airplane ride and we are off visiting somewhere new. Over the last ten years, I’ve visited over 44 countries. It’s been a life-changing experience, and I’m truly humbled by all I’ve learned and encountered by traveling […]

Hey everyone, I’ve started a new website called TapasForever detailing my goal for living for a year in Spain. If you’re interested in the journey, or perhaps want to move to Europe for a year or longer in the future, head on over and check it out. I recommend visiting the Start Here page for information on the various resources that will be available. I’m looking forward to getting my visa and checking off a lot of boxes in terms of things I would to accomplish in life (Spanish language, I’m looking at you!). Cheers, Duane

So if you’re here, you’re likely thinking about moving to Spain at some point. I know this, because that’s my end goal as well. Maybe not forever, but likely for a year or more. One of the first hurdles you may encounter is opening a bank account. Once you have a long-term stay visa or a temporary residence in Spain, you can open an account as a resident. But there are certain advantages to having one sooner. For example, I thought moving larger amounts of money from Canada to Spain would probably be much easier when I am actually physically present in Canada, so I thought opening a bank account before heading back should make things smoother. Given that I was in Spain for a month recently, I decided to go down to the bank and try to open an account – you need to be physically present in Spain […]

I’ve been in the market for a new outdoor patio table for quite some time. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t really want to spend a huge amount of money on one, which is why I originally was looking at buying a used one. As I live in a cottage, I really wanted a wood table for my outdoor patio as opposed to a metal one. I spent the last few weeks looking at used offerings in the area, but everything looked pretty beat up or just in an older style that wouldn’t really fit in with my decor. I started browsing on Pinterest for some cool ideas for tables, and ended up really liking the look of a few different farmhouse/harvest tables. I decided then that the answer to my problem was to simply build a patio table myself. The Logistics In terms of style, I decided to construct a […]