Making the decision

We have lived in several places in the US, but after 25 years in California, we had a well-established life. We had a home and a routine, good weather and good friends, access to parks and hiking trails, shopping and everything a modern couple might want. If you knew Ulla and me closely, you’d understand why we thought it was time for a radical change. Leaving our comfortable lifestyle to go to Spain was hardly a decision many would make. At first, it seemed like an idle dream, but Ulla and I are not afraid to take charge and solve any obstacles in our path. First, we needed some momentum. So we started by donating things we had not used for more than a year. There was a lot of that, to be sure. Soon we were going to the local Goodwill donation facility twice a day.

Little by little we had to confront this question: “are we really going to do this?” Perhaps, being people of action, we did not want to admit any weakness or fear of the overwhelming number of tasks in front of us, so we kept going. Soon we had to actually donate things we valued most. For me was my microscope that I had been using for my Pathology consulting business since the early 90’s. For Ulla was her organ (the musical instrument, that is), which she had owned since the early 80’s. It was a dear part of her life. We were slowly being confronted with daily decisions that started to pressure our determination to go through with this. More and more we showed each other that we wanted the change, especially the idea of a nomadic life in Europe. This is how we gained momentum in our determination.

How does one move to Spain, legally?

There were obstacles to overcome, however. For example, how does one move to Europe? Spain in particular? Since Ulla was born and raised in Finland, she is a European citizen. She can travel to any EU country and simply declare her wish to become resident. It follows that I, as her spouse, should be able to get my residence soon thereafter. What we read from official documents and instructions in the internet, explained how easy it was. However, for the Finnish authorities, Ulla was single, even though we have been married since 1984. This opened a big can of worms. We had to contact the authorities in Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada), to have them send a version of our marriage certificate, which was not digitized, to the Finnish Embassy in Ottawa to have it authenticated so that she could be issued a Finnish passport under her married name.

This took weeks and several Fedex fees, but she got her passport issued on March 26. We also had a EU-recognized marriage certificate we could travel with, but in the Finnish language. Now all we had to do was to travel to Spain and declare her residence as EU citizen, right? Wrong. We had merely completed the first of a series of interminable obstacles we are still dealing with, even today, more than 6 moths since our original decision to move to Spain.

What about Covid-19?

Since the news of the pandemic, we have lived a sheltered life, so we had no intension to proceed with plans, such as selling our home, until we were properly vaccinated. We only went out shopping for food once every 2 weeks, play tennis almost every day, and hiking once or twice a week, but our exposure to anyone else was minimal. The very idea of letting anyone in our home was scary. As scientists, we do believe 100% in vaccination, especially the modern mRNA vaccines. We soon found out that Spain was closed to tourism or anyone outside the EU except for rare exceptions, but surely, that would change quickly. In our estimation, that was likely to change by the 1st of May. This became our target date although we knew there were no certainties. One uncertainty was our vaccinations. I finally got my last dose on 4/21.

Our obstacles just begun

Many more obstacles were to confront us in the weeks to come. The main ones were selling our home, dispose of our belongings such as furniture, and decide what to do with out little dog, Genie, which we considered our baby in many ways. Don’t miss the continuation of this series as I describe all the difficulties in traveling in the middle of a pandemic, through Mexico and the US to finally take a plane to Madrid.