The Bubble of Denia
Moving to Valencia was actually quite unexpected. But then again, most things in my life are.
My life has never been a carefully planned sequence of well-organised events. Things usually happen because they are supposed to happen. Because something has run its course. Because suddenly, somehow, it is time.
And I guess with Dénia, it was time.
Dénia was our soft, cosy, sunny, azure-coloured bubble. A beautiful little bubble filled with retired expats living what looked like very happy and satisfied lives, speaking mostly Dutch and German, enjoying Spain from underneath a soft, fuzzy blanket.
My son used to look at all the expensive Mercedes and other beautiful cars driving around and ask me:
“Mom, why are all the people with nice cars here old?”
That sentence somehow stayed with me.
Of course, Dénia isn’t only old people. But after a while, it can start to feel a little… stuffy. A little too comfortable. And, dare I say it, quite boring when you are still 45+, still curious, still wanting to feel some excitement in the air and see life happening around you.
Not that Dénia had no excitement. It did. In fact, I only really understood what Dénia gave us after we left.
When I first moved there, a Spanish friend told me, “You moved to Dénia? Don’t do it. It’s a bubble. It’s not the real Spain.”
I didn’t believe him.
Two years later, now living in Valencia, I understand exactly what he meant.
But I don’t think one is necessarily better than the other.
Dénia felt incredibly safe. Protected. Easy. I never heard anyone telling foreigners to go home or saying they didn’t want expats there. That part of life felt very different from some of the things you occasionally hear in a bigger city like Valencia.
For two years, we lived in an apartment with a sea view, and some days my biggest problem was deciding whether we should go to the pool or the beach.
Usually, we went to both.
The kids were permanently brown from the sun. We laughed a lot. Their school was next door. The beach was next door. The pool was downstairs.
Bubble.
A real, soft, cosy bubble.
And some people could happily live inside that bubble forever.
But at some point I started thinking: my children are still young. They still have time to see more of the world around them.
I wanted them to see different kinds of people. Different cultures. Architecture. History. Noise. Street life. Politics. Art. Diversity. People who live differently, think differently and come from completely different places.
Spain has so many layers, and Valencia has a lot of them packed into one city.
Here, there is movement. There is beauty, but also mess. There is history next to modern architecture, tourists next to families who have lived in the same neighbourhood for generations, beach life next to city life, Spanish next to Valencian next to a dozen other languages on the same street.
It doesn’t feel like a bubble anymore.
And it definitely doesn’t feel like a soft, cosy blanket.
Comments