Never Retire: We're The New Ones In The Neighborhood

And we feel like we are slowly, but surely starting or about to fit in

Son los nuevos en el barrio. They are the new ones in the neighborhood.

That’s how our new Spanish friends introduced us to some of their friends at a recent gathering outside a tapas bar in a plaza near the Russafa market. I like the sound of that because it nicely illustrates how we’re experiencing life as we make the rounds in the neighborhood and throughout Valencia on a daily basis.

Finally, we’re living an urban social life I have dreamed about ever since I got a taste of it in San Francisco, often while pushing my daughter through the streets and sidewalks in her stroller. People started to recognize our faces, eventually know our names and, in some cases, form some level of social connection with us.

It only happens like this in great cities. Places you can easily manage by foot. In neighborhoods where everything you need and—to a significant extent—could ever want exists within a 1-to-15 minute walking radius. Break that 15-minute barrier and you’ve scored yourself a ticket into exciting new worlds.

At the neighborhood level, here’s a representative snapshot of how it has been feeling.