Our adventure started in October 2017. Exactly one year later we left for almost a year to travel through South-East Asia. After returning we decided that it was time to settle down and we got our rescue doggie Luna. We tried settling down, but after giving a lot of thought we decided the Netherlands is not for us. The crazy house prices, densely populated cities, lack of nature, the political climate and bad weather were enough reasons to look elsewhere. Not to forget the stress of working a lot, me as a nurse in homecare and Thomas as a software developer at a company with a stressful company culture. We realised that we spend a lot of time working, stressing about work and doing the things we love in the little time we had left in the week. And because we were stuck in this cycle it was hard to grow as a person and discover other passions we had. After realising this day after day the decision was easy to move somewhere else and begin a new adventure. We were longing for space, literally around us but also in our minds. The space to create a sustainable vegan life-style and share this with others.
We decided to make a road trip in the summer of 2019 and visit France, Spain and Portugal. Every country had something special and at first we were really leaning to Portugal. But decided on Spain because of all the different regions here, culture and the language.We decided to try Barcelona as there are a lot of job opportunities for Thomas here. We visited Barcelona in November 2019 for Thomas’ job interview and when he got the job we permanently moved here in January 2020.
From here on our plan was to travel through Spain and look at the regions the first years while enjoying Barcelona. But Covid ruined our plans only after two months of moving to Barcelona. We just started settling down and moved for the second time and were now staying in a long term stay apartment. So we were locked up for 4 months in this apartment with only two small windows, cockroaches and no balcony or outside space.
I just started Spanish lessons before the lockdown and we didn’t even have the time to look at houses. But during the lockdown we had nothing but time on our hands. For Thomas this was not really true, because he works at a company that builds a platform for doctors to manage their appointments and patient data. So it was really busy as they started a project that made it possible for doctors to video chat with their patients. Especially at the start of Corona this was really important.
Unfortunately we were not allowed to travel and this was extended through 2020. In 2021 when the rules got less strict we decided to take this opportunity and look at a house we saw online. Beforehand we were not expecting anything as this was our first viewing and didn’t know a lot about the house market and the process of buying a house. As you can read in our first post this place had everything we were looking for and now we’re proud house owners in Aragon!
