What I'll 'Miss' About America When We Move To Spain

Sometimes you feel like you're living in the future here, on both the good and bad

The other day

Shawn Forno

and his wife, Lainey, did an excellent video countering their love of life in Spain. I'll embed it at the end of today's installment. They discussed what they miss about the United States of America.

It's worth your time. It got me thinking and even freaked me out for a minute before ultimately reminding me about part(s) of why I want to make this move so badly.

So, today part—(sort of uninformed!)—response to Shawn and Lainey, part what i think I'll—(sort of)—miss about the United States of America and Los Angeles specifically.

Starting with—

---

The other day I took my second trip in a self-driving car, here in Los Angeles. The first one was a couple months back in San Francisco. You see them all over the place in both cities.

As my wife and I were driving ourselves over the weekend, I noted how it’s pretty crazy to see so much seemingly futuristic stuff all around you—commonplace—all the time, every day.

Self-driving cars everywhere. Those ugly Cybertrucks from Tesla littering the landscape alongside endless numbers of (they’re) old school (now!) Tesla electric vehicles.

Not to mention the cute little robots on wheels that make food deliveries around the city. According to my daughter, they don’t even have these in San Francisco … yet.

You don’t have to leave the country to not see this stuff. So this might apply to leaving the state of California for most other parts of the US. But there’s something cool about living in a place where it—whatever it is—happens first.

That said—there’s something equally as or more annoying about living in what is really a shitty, soulless future that reminds me of part of the reason why we’re moving to Spain.

While you might not see all of this technology throughout Spain, they’re hardly behind the times. For example, I found paying with your smartphone just as easy as it is here. More importantly, it’s incredibly easy to do things like buy tickets for public transportation.

Even more importantly, society in Spain—and elsewhere around the world—appears to have advanced in more meaningful ways. When you walk into a grocery store in Spain—as an American—you feel like you’re living in the future. Self-serve juicers and bread slicers. A space to lock up your grocery cart on the way in. Send your kid to school and—for a nominal price—they get a cooked and healthy three-course meal each day of the week for lunch.

I could go on all day.

But I’ll take this type of stuff—from the small day-to-day conveniences that actually matter to big stuff like how we take care of our people (big and small)—over seeing some douchebag driving a Cybertruck or ensuring some asshole gets their tacos delivered without having to interact with another human. I call bullshit on myself. I can certainly be an asshole. I prefer Waymo over Uber for those moments when I don’t want to risk dealing with an overly-talkative, over-sharing Uber driver.

I prefer to get my social life on the street—when I want it—which is something that’s much more difficult to do in a country intellectually paralyzed by technology and obsessed with the wrong type of convenience and technological advancement, which typically matters more to the consumer economy than the good of society.

In the end, I’ll be happy to see fewer cars and way less of a focus on and space made for automobiles. This is something I have been longing for for the better part of 25 years. Even when I lived in San Francisco.

Along similar lines, when a movie comes out or a show comes through town, the town it most often comes through first, second or third is Los Angeles. Again—sort of, kind of cool, but I am not a huge moviegoer and you’ll only find me in the theater two, maybe three times tops per year. I’m excited to broaden my entertainment horizons in this area, which should help me better communicate in the Spanish language.

Which leads me to the thing Shawn and Lainey brought up that concerns me most—communication. I might do an entire post on this soon. They lamented the reality that because they only speak limited Spanish, they have a difficult time authentically communicating with Spaniards. It’s tough to be yourself and project your true personality in a foreign language, especially if you’re only at the beginner or very, very long intermediate stage.

There’s funny quirky stuff like Shawn’s conchistador joke. It’s worth watching the video just for that. And more intimate concerns such as feelings of loneliness simply because you can’t really be part of a real Spanish conversation. Not to mention navigating basic tasks and customer service.

But—here again—this reminds me of one of the reasons why I’m doing this. To truly, pivotaly and profoundly challenge my brain, my muscle memory, my comfortable status quo as I enter the second act of my life. While I’m taking relatively extreme measures, I consider the move to Spain part of a process of truly challenging myself as I attempt to remain physically and mentally vibrant and engaged. To face obstacles like this, deal with them and—no doubt—one day overcome them is the type of thing I feel like I need as I get set to turn 50 in Spain.

While I have an advantage in that my wife’s first language is Spanish, I don’t want to fall back on her. I have asked her to not let me. She inspires me in a countless number of ways, but, in this case, I know she had a similar experience when she moved from Puerto Rico to New York 19 years ago.

One thing I can’t wait to see—and report back to you on—is how I actually deal with and experience all of this stuff and more. Maybe I’ll crush it. Maybe I’m blowing smoke up my own ass discussing how I think I will deal.

Vamos a ver. ¡Juntos!

Shawn and Lainey are fantastic. I encourage you to subscribe to their YouTube channel. They have dove into life in Spain fully, hard and headfirst. Speaking of inspiration, they are one!

Anyhow, expect more on what I might miss about LA—and California—specifically. Though, honestly, I am already out the door psychologically. Especially as the election nears. Also anticipate more on this communication angle Shawn and Lainey articulated so well.

We're livin' in the future

And none of this has happened yet—

Bruce Springsteen