Expat Travel Mom

We arrived in Valencia at 1am, dogs in tow, somewhere so far past exhaustion we'd lost all sense of up or down. There we sat in the airport at one in the morning, waiting on residency verification at the police station upstairs, and somehow, in the middle of all that fog, this was already home. Three taxis set off into the darkness of the night, no idea where we were going, let along which way was North, arriving at our hotel which would be home for the next week.

Fourteen Hours In, and Straight to Carrefour

We'd been in the country fourteen hours, running on every emotion at once, when we knew we had to do something familiar. So we did what any UAE veteran would do, we went to Carrefour. It was a familiar name, and that's what we needed at this point. We just needed snacks, and what we found instead was something close to paradise, affordable, and stacked with more meat, cheese, olives, and wine than we knew what to do with. The girls lost it over finding Takis on the shelves (didn't have them in Singapore), plus a full chocolate aisle and actual gum (another no-no in Singapore). In that moment, you take the small wins wherever you find them. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, my Spanish started coming back to me, whether I was ready for it or not.

A Car, Finally

Day two brought a car, and after eight years without one in Singapore, that feeling is hard to describe. We went to lunch, found a massive pet store that felt like a proper PetSmart for the dogs, and tried out another grocery chain, one with euro wines and, notably, CBD cream on the shelves right alongside everything else. Life in a new country reveals itself in strange little details like that.

Meeting a Friend Who Understood

Day three brought something we genuinely needed, meeting another expat mom in Valencia we'd only known online for months beforehand. (I actually had a few of these...meeting people online is kinda my thing.) She understood exactly what we were going through and insisted we come up to her home in the mountains for brunch. Eleven hours later, we finally left. Wine, bubbly, homemade food, a walk, even laundry, and conversation that felt like it had been waiting for us. Exactly what we needed at that exact moment. Another online friend invited us over that week as well, meeting a few other couples. She was instrumental in us even getting here (answering my 10,000 questions via WhatsApp), and I'm so thankful to her patience. But I didn't want to be the photo taking creep my first night amongst her friends, lol!

House Hunting and Sneak Peeks

The days that followed blurred into house hunting and long drives through neighborhoods we didn't know yet, punctuated by one incredible storm and a sneak peek up in the mountains at the school we hoped our daughter would attend, an area so beautiful it reminded us of Pebble Beach or Carmel back home. We played a little bit of stalker checking out a house and neighborhood we had our eye on, and somewhere in there, found the Spanish equivalent of Home Depot, which after years without one, felt like a genuinely emotional discovery. It's funny what triggers emotions as an expat. Our daughter even got invited into the city by a girl she'd been chatting with online for months, already making a life here before we'd even settled.

Settling Into a Temporary Home

We moved into an Airbnb for what we thought would be two weeks while house hunting continued, and it delivered its own strange little world: giant rabbits waiting for us at 1am, two peacocks that genuinely startled me on the patio, and a slow, lazy stretch of late summer days. 

Small Wins and Big Feelings

An outdoor mall gave us our first Taco Bell in twelve years, though our kids, raised without the same nostalgia, couldn't quite understand what the fuss was about beyond social media hype. And I will say, it wasn't the same and let me down. But, when you move to new countries, you search for anything that reminds you of anything.

We drove past the City of Arts and Sciences for the first time, its curved white architecture rising up out of nothing like something from another planet, and I couldn't wait to actually go inside. 

Back at our temporary home, my husband and daughter played tennis while I sat with a glass of cava on the patio, and somewhere in that quiet moment, it hit me: I finally felt alive again, after eight years of waiting for exactly that feeling.

Passports for the Dogs, and a First Day of School

Our daughter had her first high school orientation, students sent one direction, parents the other, an early lesson in letting go. The dogs, meanwhile, got their own European passports, genuinely essential paperwork here, along with registering them with our local ayuntamiento, the town hall. Small bureaucratic milestones that somehow made this all feel real.

Learning Spanish the Hard Way

Some of my favorite early memories came straight from my daughter's first days of school. One girl sat next to her in advisory, chatting away rapidly in Spanish, until my daughter finally admitted, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Spanish." The girl looked at her, confused, and it turned out she was from New York. International life has a way of humbling you in the most unexpected places. Days later came another gem: "I'm warning you, I might fail Valenciano, because she's teaching us Valenciano in Spanish. But I'll try."

My own brain was working overtime in Spanish. I had taken Spanish for eight years of high school and college, lived in Mexico for a month where I took intensive school, lived in Spain for a month doing the same a year later. My dad even took us to Mexico every spring break growing up. But it had been almost thirty years since I had taken, or needed Spanish. It was flooding back in some ways, and creating frustration in others. I'd go to bed translating every conversation I'd had that day, dreaming in Spanish and having restless sleep. I was on overdrive.

We also discovered the local answer to Daiso, a massive shop the locals call a Merca China, though we both agreed there's probably a better name out there waiting to be found.

Mercat Central and La Lonja

A little bit of heaven arrived at Mercat Central, one of Valencia's grand covered markets. We spent time chatting with vendors who patiently walked us through unfamiliar cuts of meat and handmade chocolate, discovered craft beer and a stand carrying Latino staples, Tapatío included, a genuine relief to find.

Ducking out of the rain, we wandered into La Lonja de la Seda, Valencia's old silk exchange, and its Gothic stone columns and vaulted ceilings stopped us cold, one of the most gorgeous interiors either of us had ever walked into unplanned. 

On the walk back, we even found a bao maker, mochi included, a small, unexpected taste of home for a family still homesick for Asia.

Errands, Architecture, and an Old Friend

The days that followed were a blur of errands stitched together with sightseeing, two American import shops (one clearly worth the markup more than the other), the best empanadillas we'd had yet, and gorgeous architecture around every corner we hadn't planned to turn down. 

In the middle of it all, I met up with another online friend I'd only known for a couple months by that point, and started touring aerial gymnastics schools for our daughter, one more piece of building an actual life here rather than just visiting one.

Somewhere between the peacocks, the Merca Chino, and a market hall that felt like heaven, Valencia stopped being a landing spot and quietly started becoming home.