December 31, 2024

So it’s New Years Eve 2024, and I am sitting here in bed, staring at this blank white screen, wondering if this is a good idea or not.

Which idea is that you ask?

The idea to write a daily “dairy” of my day to day happenings in Zaragoza, Spain. By now, it’s been almost 4 years since we moved to Spain- and in a lot of ways, things are not new anymore, but I am sure that if I wrote things down, the news things may pop out more and more at me.

This is the first year since moving to Spain where I can foresee living in the same apartment and in the same city this time next year, Lord willing. One thing that makes an adventure like this scary, is that we do not know the future. If I mentally commit to writing things down, who knows what I may end up sharing!

Here are the topics that I already know people are interested in:

• school life in Spain,
• medical access and cost,
• public transportation,
• cost of living,
• cost of rent,
• cost of groceries,
• paying taxes,
• building community,
• learning spanish,
• safety,..
• and to a lesser extent driving a car, getting a divers license, buying a car, etc.

What else would you add? Comment below to let me know your ideas.

And here’s another thing, if you like this idea, please encourage me by commenting, following me on IG, and subscribing to my youtube channel. I have 309 subscribers on youtube as of December 31, 2024, and I’d like to finish the coming year with 500. That is the first step is monetizing my channel, but not the only step!

Other goals I have this year are to:

• Finally get my Spanish drivers license,
• Survive our first year with my husband being autonomo (if you don’t know, he just became a Spanish citizen this year, so he has work rights now), and
• To submit the financial support paperwork for his visa to move to the United States.
• I would also LIKE to advance my Spanish level and grow my social media accounts.

I am going to set a daily alarm so that I can remember to write this out every day, so hopefully I will not fall beyond. I expect by using this method, I will end up sharing a lot about the products I use in Spain, how I manage our day, what types of activities I have found to busy myself with, and all of the other daily life things that happen.

Here’s to setting goals and maybe accomplishing them!

Ashley

Week 1 of 2025

January 1, 2025

I will say that the year is off to a good start. Although we have been sick, we are all getting better, slowly but surely. It might be interesting to know that at home covid test are around 3E here, with a fixed price. Thankfully, we don’t have covid, although I am hearing that a lot of people have it right now.

Today we decided to get the kids out of the house and go for a walk with no destination in mind. That’s a very easy thing to do here. Here is the video that came from that. I hope you will see from it a little bit about what Zaragoza, Spain is like.

Both of the kids did some school work today. By that I mean that they did some of my school work for them.

For my oldest, that means keeping up with some Language Arts work, which I hope will build his english proficiency. Many Americans who move to Spain worry about this aspect of their children’s education. Fortunately, there are lots of curriculums out there as a result of the homeschooling community in the United States. As such, we have access to many resources. So far, I am sticking to what he has used since Kindergarten, which is the free Language Arts curriculum from a company called The Good and The Beautiful. I download the files, print them out at home on “digital paper” (that’s what heavy weight paper is called here), and then go to a papeleria (“paper store”), and have them spiral bound. We print and work one unit at a time. It takes him a lot longer to get through these courses than it used it, but that is because he goes to school full time in Spain, so it does not leave a lot of time for homeschooling type of work.

Here is an outline of the Unit he just finished, Unit 5.

He also takes a weekly online German class through Outschool, which he really likes a lot. This link will give you $20 off your first class. We have used Outschool for many years now, and I highly recommend it. The company has grown a lot now, which is good for international students who may not live on the popular USA timezones.

For Lengua review (that is the name of the class for “Spanish Language Arts” at the schools here), we use these review books called “Puente”. They are very good for a basic review of concepts and were purchased from Amazon Spain.

My youngest also did a little math and letter sounds work. It was very basic stuff. Most of it is from Peaceful Preschool, along with some math montessori cards, which I have had for ages. I bought them online many years ago, downloaded, printed, and laminated them, and then moved them here with us when we left Mexico.

That’s all for today, see ya tomorrow!

Ashley

January 2, 2024

Today we went to the movies to see Mufasa in Spanish. When we first started watching movies in Spanish, I really could not understand anything. Now, two years later, I can understand quite a bit, and always here some new word or phrase in Spanish that sticks with me. They are a good addition to all of the other methods of learning Spanish.

While we were out, I made this video of us walking to the movie theater. We save time in getting to the movie by buying our snacks and tickets in advance. If we were to wait until we arrived, it would take a lot longer, even if there was not a line.

Actually today when we left, the line to get in was VERY long due to so many people NOT buying tickets online. I wonder if they even know they can do that?

Here is the video:

My oldest son finished his Puente 4 Lengua review book, so he will be starting the 5th level soon. This is a huge step in progress, because it takes him out of the “catching up” category, even though he still has a lot to learn in this subject. He has improved so much, thanks for the books and some serious use of the internet on my part. I have had to learn as much as I can about all of the Lengua concepts, and that is WITHOUT being fluent in Spanish, nor educated in Spain. It is a huge ship to sail, so to speak!

See you tomorrow!

Ashley

January 3, 2025

Today we went out to get some home education materials bound. If you are familiar with homeschooling and using digital materials, then you probably know that in some cases, you want to print out the units and have them bound into a notebook, so that they can be easily written in and kept track of. It helps a lot with organization. In the USA, it is not uncommon for homeschooling families to have their own printers and binding machines. Here however, I have not found an affordable binding machine, so while we do have a nice printer, we have to go to an office supply store, sometimes called a papelería or a copiaría to have things bound. In Zaragoza, we go to a place called Folder to have this done.

Here is a video of that process today, including me speaking a little spanish haha.

One of the many things I find endearing about Zaragoza is that people are generally helpful when it comes to the Spanish language. They like to see foreigners learning Spanish, and they will help you along the way. They will rephrase things, speak slower, or try to use whatever english they might know. In this case, the lady just rephrased what she was saying, to make it a little shorter, so that I could better understand what she was saying.

Afterwards, we got an amazon dot es delivery. In this delivery we had some supplements which are on auto subscription, just like in the United States. We also received the 5th grade lengua review book, which I mentioned yesterday, so my son went ahead and did the first page of that book. He also did a complete lesson from our English Language Arts curriculum. This is actually the curriculum that I was having a unit bound of today.

Well, that’s all for today

Ashley

January 4, 2025

If I’m being honest, I almost forgot to write tonight! But what the heck, I decided I better get out my computer and get it done. It is the last day of the first week of January, so at least I will have that first week completed and behind me. Moving forward, I may not write on the weekends- I can see that it’s just going to be a lot to keep up with.

I new hobby of mine since moving to Spain has been learning how to make sourdough bread. I now have a solid routine of baking two loaves of sandwhich bread every week, which I freeze about 3/4 of, and keep the remaining portion on the table. I use this bread for sandwiches, which the kids take to school.

In Spain, it’s normal for your parents to give you a snack of a sandwich, fruit, etc to eat during recess (recreo). I have written fairly extensively about schools in Spain already, and I believe I have mentioned that there already.

Per the usual, as soon as I fed my sourdough starter, I realized that I didn’t have enough honey to make the bread with, so I grabbed the kids and we went to the store just after it opened. Here, the normal opening time for most stores is 9:30am. That is pretty late by American standards!

If you’d like to see the inside of a grocery store in Spain, or hear what my two big tips are for shopping in Spain, along with the names of flours and gadgets that I use for baking sourdough bread, you can find that here:

The last thing of significance for the day, which I think is unique to Spain, was that the sun finally came out, and when it did- a few kids and parents gathered in the community patio. It’s as simple as looking outside and seeing them, and then my kids take off independently to go play. We did join them this time though, mostly for the sunshine, since it’s been cold and dreary for a few days now!

I guess I could add that I stayed home for the rest of the day, trying to get completely better, baking bread, and doing that “start of the year” cleaning race, which I know I am not alone in feeling right now! Did you know you can buy Shark vacuum cleaners here? I recommend getting them on a prime day or black friday sale on Amazon dot es. This is when the come down to an affordable price.

Tomorrow is the first of the week in the USA, a Sunday, while it’s the end of the week in Spain. We have the Three Kings Parade tomorrow, which I am going to try to get some film of to put together a video of the day in Zaragoza for.. but I may not write. Let’s see!

Ashley