Learning to be Laid Back: August in Spain

​We’ve packed away our three giant suitcases, made two agonizing trips to IKEA, purchased the wrong size sheets for our bigger-than-a-full-but-smaller-than-a-queen mattress, and successfully planted a mini herb garden. Just now, about a month after moving in, we’re starting to realize (holy s$*#!), we actually live here. Like, we have refrigerator magnets and own furniture and pay electricity bills and everything. This is happening. 

It’s no wonder it has taken so long for this obvious fact to settle in. We moved into our new apartment right before the beginning of August, the mother of all Spain shutdowns. Move over siesta, step aside, Sundays. For four weeks each summer, Spaniards (and many other European nationalities) shut down their businesses, close up their apartments, and go on vacation. 

​What does this mean for all the newbie expats who didn’t get the memo and can’t afford to vacation for a month at a time? It means everything is closed. Even more so than the regular Spanish everything-is-closed schedule. All of those things we’ve been putting off until our summer work was finished and we were settled in the new apartment… closed. Even the swimming pool is closed for the month. Of August. Go figure. 

And the good ‘ol lack of efficiency is brought to a new level. Nothing can be accomplished in August. Government buildings and post offices have “summer hours,” meaning they leave early for siesta and just don’t come back. We have tried to go out to a few restaurants that we’ve been meaning to try, only to be faced with a “closed for August” sign. Our refrigerator is running at sub-arctic temperatures and our landlord told us it can be fixed in September. Evidently this is par for the course.

So, here we are. The people who haven’t had a normal life - home, routine, etc. - in over a year, in somewhat of a forced vacation scenario. We’ve taken our 5-day vacation to the Costa Del Sol (a perfectly reasonable vacation length by American standards) and have returned home ready to get our daily life on. For the past three weeks, we’ve been somewhat successful at setting our own routine: working from cafes, running in the park (no laps in the pool, it’s closed), squeezing in a little beachtime, planning our upcoming wedding, and cooking at home. We can’t lie, the August shutdown forces us to relax and not feel obligated to figure out how to go to the dentist, schedule residency meetings, and attend Spanish class. But we’re also hyper aware that all of these things will need to happen, all at once, in about one week. Then there’s a slight chance that we may go from laid back to a frazzled all at once. 

Now that it’s the last week of August, the city is starting to wake up. The park is full of landscapers, workers wading in the fountains cleaning out the August beer bottles, and teams wearing orange vests painting bridges. It’s very much like those last few days of summer before school starts when you’re a kid. We think we want it to happen, but we’re not entirely sure.