This Global Walk Outside | Day 22: Spain
While Spain has recovered fairly quickly, it faced a lot of suffering at the beginning of the pandemic. We spent 46 straight days inside our flat… which has no private outdoor space. It’s just a three bedroom apartment; no yard, no patio, no terrace, no balcony. So, I try to create a sense of the outdoors with houseplants.
We actually lived in a 3 bedroom condo in the states, so the size of our apartment is not much different. Our condo had a balcony and there was much more accessible green space around it. For the most part, we’ve made it work in Spain by spending time outdoors in public or shared spaces. We’re used to it now. During the quarantine I really had to fight for contentment and battle jealousy and frustration. A balcony would have made the whole thing much more bearable. I would love to drink my coffee on a terrace in the morning and wake up with true fresh air.
Our downstairs neighbors have a patio that is fairly common for flats on the zero floor (that’s the 1st floor in the US). However, they sacrifice indoor space, as well as privacy, to have this.
There are parks we can walk to, and we do, but we also have some favorite places we can escape.
The thing I miss the most is an outdoor space for dining al fresco. Spain has a super late night culture, especially in the summer. We sometimes don’t eat dinner until 10 pm, which is when it’s finally cool enough to be outside. I long for a space to invite friends to eat and chat outside.
We don’t have air conditioning and our home is simply not a welcoming or enjoyable place to be for most of the summer. It is truly a lonely time, unless we can go out and meet others, which we do. But I really enjoy being a hostess, so that’s a bit sad for me. When we come back after our home assignment next year, we will be looking for a place with at least a tiny patch of outdoor space.
We have a lot to consider, though, because if we want a bigger outdoor space, we’ll have to consider moving away from our target community and into a pueblo, a small town, nearby.