House hunting near Barcelona

Little Ira George (1 years and 2 months old) and I have been house hunting for the past month or so. Surprisingly enough, we do so by train and bus. We try to be sustainable. There are some things we've learned about the house market in Spain to date.

If one has 150,000 euros or a permanent position that asures one gets a loan that brings their money to that level, buying a house within an hour of Barcelona is not too hard. There are some nice houses in that price range. There are not many. Most cost more. But around the Calafell area I have found a few that I liked.

I started the process in July with Esther -- a very good friend that is part of our extended family. I saw a few properties. She had a car, and I had a rental vehicle, which I left parked outside her house most of the times. The one I offered for was in the Bisbane des Penedes. They asked for 85,000 euros. It was a pueblo house with water and light that needed some repairs, but was really nice otherwise. I like it, but what I did not like was that the village did not have a train station. There was a bus that google had not heard off. They said it would go to the train station in El Vendrell, from there the train would take a little more than an hour to get to Barcelona Sants. Then I would take the metro for three stops and I'd be at work. I made a half harted offer for 75,000. I would have paid the money if they had accepted it, but they did not. They wanted 80,000, and the location was not great. I would have had to drive to work for 80 km. This meant driving 160 km a day with no real alternative for transportation. It is not horrible given that Barcelona is a large city and a centre of industry, but not great. The house also needed work. We stayed with Esther for a few days. She was clearly very tired at the end of our visit. The combination of house hunting, of her own family (she has two children), and us was taking a toll. It did help me understand the process.

What did I want? I was hoping for a house with a garden that also had public transportation to work. I can drive, but I wanted to have the alternative of a train + a short metro ride. I looked at prices up to 150,000 or so in the hope that Andy and I could use our savings plus a small loan. Some houses were lovely. One was called the Villa of God (in Spanish). It was up some hills in the middle of cactuses on a winding road that felt like one was travelling to heaven -- not always in a good way, but perhaps the trip to heaven is not pleasant either. It was surrounded by cats (first proof of heaven). The person who was showing it to us had a porche parked inside the yard. The house had a nice pool, three bathrooms, a garage and a nice enough number of rooms. Even though the plot was large, it did not really have a garden. It had the pool, and tiles and rocks and some cactuses on the side. Andy commented that neither I nor my mother would survive the winding road. I am uncertain if his statement was correct. But I reluctanly gave up on the house of God. It still had the 80 km drive to work, at 155 000 euros it was almost twice as expensive as the one I saw with Esther, it did not need repairs, but it was far from schools. It is sold by now to a person who surely has a larger ego than me. How did I get to the Villa of God without a car? The realtor drove us. They are not supposed to, but they made an exception. They are the only one who did that from all the realtors I have met to date.

why do I want a house with a garden? It makes it easier with the children. My mother is older now. I have work to do from time to time. So, if they have a place to play in that is not a park, it's much easier. One could cook or work a bit and still supervise them while they play in the garden.

Then there was a lovely house on the beach of similar size as the villa of God and slightly cheaper in price only in a more accessible location and on the beach. I made an offer on that one. There was another buyer, who had priority because they had been first, and so he increased his bid and got it. I am not sure what would have happened if my offer had been accepted. However, at the hotel Andy was worried and resentful and said that I was taking all his savings and buying a nice house on the beach for myself (and his three children whom my father supported for the past four years so that he could have those savings). The parenthesis is a part that he tends to forget. He also forgets that I have a job near here and need a place to live. Anyhow, it would have been a good purchase because it had several bedrooms, and a garage, a garden, and it was on the beach, and two to three kilometers from a direct train to Barcelona, but we did not get it. If our offer had been accepted, we would have found a way to pay for it. I am not sure what that way would have been, but we would have made it somehow.

Soon after that failed Andy left, and the one year old and I remained as the main house hunters. A few days later I had my NIE appointment. It was past the middle of September. The NIE is the number that identifies people in Spain. Without it, people don't exist here. I was litereally told that by several people -- one of whom was undergoing the NIE process himself. I therefore came into existence at the age of 39 (my children don't exist yet; they cannot for another month or so until I get an signed, electronic copy of my contract, which can only be obtained two weeks after I start work, and make three more NIE appointments). I will make 2674.08 euros per month. Out of these, I will pay 19% tax this year, and perhaps a little less next year. The children don't count even if they did exist because I will at first be a non-resident for tax purposes. I don't get any money for moving expenses -- other than perhaps a one way plane ticket. None of my hotel or other bills will be reimbursed. They amount to more than 3000 euros to date. The plane ticket is perhaps 100 euros.

Salaries are not large in Spain -- unless one has a fancy position, e.g., ICREA or some named investigator, which I do not have. Fancy positions are rare, and not awarded to women with small children. The children don't matter per say, but career breaks are not really considered as breaks in the academia. One is supposed to work through them, and publish, and give seminars. When one does not do enough, they are judged accordingly.

What houses in Spain have in common is the concrete. Very few have gardens that are not full of tiles and concrete. This is because here it does not rain much, and unless one has big trees, which most have cut, you cannot have vegetation that is not cactuses without watering it daily. Of course, it would be good for the environment to have trees everywhere but it's easier not to for practical resons. Trees have roots that might ruin the foundation of the house. Also, trees have some form of leaves, which produce trash that has to be cleared away. So, it's much easier to be surrounded by rocks and concrete with perhaps a few cactuses in-between. I did find a few houses with nice gardens with trees, but they were all over 100,000 with one at 85,000, but that one does not have water or power. It says a solar panel and a water tank would have to be installed. I have not seen it since I do not have a car yet. It has a beautiful building with thick rock walls. It looks very pretty, but I doubt it is close to schools or to the train station.

Empowered by the knowledge my vast salary, which is less than I earned in graduate school at Cornell, I chose a house for 58,000 euros in El Vendrell. It has not been updated for the past 100 years. This means it has no refrigerator or washing machine, but they promissed it is possible to turn the power and water on. The electrical installation will have to be updated. The roof leaks, and the leaks have temporarily been fixed with some pieces of furniture under the roof by the current owner. It's lucky Spain is a relatively dry country. Other than that, it has three small rooms upstairs, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room downstairs. It also has a tiny garden with a barbeque at the back. The elctrical installation is old. Overall, it needs some work, but it is not a ruin, which one often gets for such money. People have lived in it, and can live in it again. It does not have furniture, but that might be the least of its problems. So, I paid the 10% and I am waiting to hear from the realtors when I can sign the contract. I called today, and they said they'll let me know perhaps tomorrow. In the end, I did not spend Andy's money on a nice house on the beach for myself. I spend it on one (assuming the paperwork works) that is not so nice, and it's not on the beach, but it might do with a bit of work. It is ceilings are not very, very high, and we are tall, but I'll learn to make do. The advantage is that I do not need a loan, which I might not get as an imigrant with a poorly paid temporary position. And Andy has a permanent position, but does not do paperwork well. He almost always forgets to file paperwork to get reimbursed for his work expenses and has lost many thousands of pounds this way.

I hope I will sign the papers this week. I am afraid. I am less afraid than I was before coming to Spain. The men around me (from work and home) repeatedly turn me into an unwilling hero. I will be moving alone with three small children and a mother who has recently aquired heart issues after the passing of my father into a house that might have water and power. Of course, there are apartments that can be rented if this does not work out. None of the brave men in my life take risks themselves, but they are happy to have me do it. My brother complains I do not invest time and money in his future children. He does not have time to help and does not turst me enough to sign the papers for what we own in Romania. Andy is unhappy we've had the children we do, even though he does love them and he loves me, too, in his own way. They seem a bit like old dogs -- in that they are grumpy, but they are never grateful independently on how much I do or get done. Most dogs know how to be grateful. But what I do is never enough either for the society I live in or for the men in my life, and my children (the older ones I've already raised, for the younger it's too early to tell) take similar paths. They do as little as possible, and expect me and my mother to do a lot, and take us for granted. At work, the salary itself shows I am regarded as someone of little value and no consequence. I've always tried to do my best. Yet when I can't sleep at night I wonder what have I done wrong and why my best is never good enough for those around me. It never has been and perhaps never will be - at work or at home. I also feel very guilty: my mother is 74 and I can't offer her a nice, quiet old age. I know how hard she worked up to this point, and yet I ask for more and offer so little in return. The men I see are never plagued by this form of guilt or if they are, they never show it.

After some heavy rain:

No longer noticing life around us

Since the pandemic, people became more addicted to their devices than ever before. One answer I heard as to why a person dear to me watches so much youtube is "there needed to be some voices in my (empty) house". While I was impressed by the answer, I don't agree that we should all become youtube or TV addicts just to hear somebody else's voice. FYI: the person is about four years older than me, and was not around when the dinosaurs walked on Earth whatever my four year old might tell you.

When I see people on the street walking with headphones in their ears, it seems wrong. When I go out I have to make sure that my one year old does not kill himself. But even if I went out without the baby, I would still like to hear the various noises around me. Hearing makes me feel safer. When one goes out in nature, shouldn't they listen to the birds? even when there are only sealgulls and pigeons around, I like to hear the waves. I don't like unnatural sounds like those from cars, but often one has little choice. However, everyone else around has headphones and listens to some pre-registered music, while I try to listen to the music of the life around me.

Both my principles and I feel old. I use my phone to talk to people, and when I don't talk to somebody I put it down. But if we no longer listen to the life around us, can we really live life in full? It seems obvious that we'd at least be more more likely to prevent accidents if we open our eyes and our ears when we walk on the street. When I sit in the train, I look out the window. My kids still fight over the window seat in the plane or train, but few people look out the window today. They all look at their phone. Some listen to the news, some look at videos of themselves, some look at movies, some look at videos of their friends, etc. I've even seen a few people reading books on the train, but I don't see people looking out the window any more and I see very few people looking around them when they walk on the street.

Am I the only one who is crazy and does not appreciate progress? Perhaps... but I still think there is so much beauty and so many troubles around us that we no longer notice or try to fix because we forget to look around.

The game of make believe

Children should play games of make believe, but they should also be allowed to do things that matter. The latter is where our society fails them and us. Not allowing a child to do things that matter is like telling them that they are good for nothing and doing so every day of their life. After destroying our own children we attract immigrants to do the jobs for us. It only works for a generation or so because the next generation is likely to be destroyed. So, then we take more immigrants and the cycle continues...and, yes, we hate them and our reliance on them. We hate them because they do what we cannot. Because they are stronger and better than us -- for a short while.

The people who are best at playing the game of make believe often end up in charge. Some are our politicians. Since games are similar throughout the world, the political class is like a group of related white men. They are the ones selected for their ability at make believe and so they are all similar. They sometimes appear trustworthy, but they almost never are. They are like actors only their looks matter less than their ability at game playing.

This game was most obvious during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our politicians took strong action to show that they were doing something. It was is the kind of action taken by weak people because action without thought of consequences destabilizes an already frail society. They first applied the zero-COVID-19 policity: a game where they aggresively isolated the few detected cases of a virus that spreads like a cold, knowing that there were more cases out there that they could not find or isolate. They put patients without symptoms that caried the potentially deadly virus in hospitals and in old people's homes. Then because even they figured out the virus has spread, they closed hospitals, they closed schools, they closed all institutions, and even stopped people from walking on the street unless they knew the hours at which we went out. As expected the virus could not tell the time. Some of the measures hastened the spread, some slowed it down, but only temporarily. The results are surprisingly similar throughout the world: the excess death for 2020 is about 0.2% of each country's population for most countries -- with some exceptions that include Sweden who had less draconic measures. Now we have a vaccine, but the virus has always been a moving target. It mutates like most cold and flu viruses. So, we are told we should live with the virus, which was obvious from the beginning given the rate at which it spread. We could have never isolated all COVID positive cases unless action was taken when they were very few, i.e., long before it got to Europe and the US. I will take the third vaccine soon. I want to do everything I can to protect myself and my family, but while the vaccination program works, I feel the rest of the response is and has been woefully inadequate and has blissfully taken us to untested territory.

So what do people want from life today? To do as little as possible and to continue playing the game while spending as much time as possible on our mobile devices. The latter seems to have harmful effects, but we are all so addicted that we no longer notice. We prentend to care about the environment. Yet we cut the grass every two weeks to keep it neat and tidy. Cities even fine those who forget the grass cutting. We cut trees that have lived for hundreds of years. In the name of the environment, we, sometimes, replace a few of them with baby trees. We have concrete everywhere and then complain about the lack of biodiversity and the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In our game of make believe we take obviously inadequate action: we ban straws, we recycle through very energy inefficient processes, and we complain a lot about the weather. The latter is done to such an extent that it almost seems like doing something.

We'd like to have a future but only as long as we do as little as possible for it. We forget that every time we choose to do nothing we choose death over life. The only beings that do nothing are dead ones. So, it's not surprising that when we do that over and over again we approach an end. We are ill, we are depressed, we are overweight, and we can't easily get out of the cycle because all our lives we were told we are good for nothing. We write articles and tell ourselves that children who work are abused. Of course, child labour -- the backbreaking, toxic kind -- is wrong. But some resposibility for keeping the house clean, for feeding the animals in and near the house, resposibility for one's sibilings, for the elderly in our homes and in the neighborhood, for planting and watering plants, for painting one's room and even the house later on, for fixing things that break around the house, and for building some things that work and help those around us, etc is good. This responsibility used to be there in previous generations. It's gone today for most and it's replaced by screen time because both the adults and the school system are dysfunctional.

We choose our living conditions so that there is as little as possible to do. We should want to do as much as possible while we are young and can do it. Now instead of having teens that change the world for the better, we have teens that need to live in assisted living because they don't know how to change a light bulb. Yet migrants are the evil ones. When they cross the sea in plastic boats beacause of the damage done to their countries and to the environment and because our politicians like the game of not noticing the boat or their needs, we either emprisson or send them back because they are evil. They are our problem. And when we can't blame the migrants, we blame minorities since they are evil, too.

The one and only

I have read in the news that Miss Ireland is black. I think it's wonderful to celebrate diversity. However, after a long day of doing paperwork and of achieving nothing, I am so very tired of being "the one and only" -- that I find difficult to appreciate that I stand out. If I had a good sense of direction things would be better. But I don't, and tomorrow morning I still have to go all the way accross Barcelona to submit an electronic signature that our secretary has printed off. The bureaucrats here don´t have the concept of electronic, and I don't mean our secretaries. They are wonderful. They are the backbone of every institute and the ICC is no exception. But here I go again tomorrow with an unvaccinated one year old to submit an electronic signature on a piece of paper, ie., a paper that should have been sent as an email.

While I do this I am being helpfully reminded by my colleagues here that everyone goes through this. It takes about a month they say. A month of going back and forth and achieving nothing. Will this mean it will take three months for me since I have three children or four if I count myself? why can't this be automated? why are we risking sanity and lives while doing things like it's the 18 century? Because the society likes to sabotage those who work, and to particulaly sabotage those who stand out. Women should be able to do it all. The temporary positions and the lack of rights are just part of the package. Oh, and each child needs a different appointment and a different set of papers. My one year old can't get his special NIE number in the same time as me even though he is present, and getting an appointement takes at least a week. Why do they do this in person? Why? because they like to torture people, and people submit to this type of torture, and nobody screeams at them loud enough to get them to change things.

When I decided to have my first child, it was late 2009. This was more than ten years ago. I remember being four or five months pregnant with Edward (my pregnancy was evident, it must have been 2010), and attending a meeting by a panel of our faculty on how to succeed as a scientist. I was told I had no chance -- that no woman they have ever met who has chosen to have a child before getting a tenure-track position has suceeded. Where they right? They just said what they thought. And perhaps they were correct! Here I am more than 10 years later dragging a child with me and leaving two other behind for a position similar to what I had back then. That I've started dragging them one at a time is due to my mother who looks after the other two at the age of 74 with some unkown heart issue. I do know some talented women who have had children before having tenure. They had very supportive partners who made plenty of sacrificies in their place. However, by now, most colleagues from my year either made it to the permanent realm or quit.

In 2010, I remember being told I was the first woman in the building to have a child. I heard the same comment today from our secretary. I am the first woman with a child the university has ever done paperwork for, and so they did not know how to proceed. I asked if they just meant the physics department and not the whole university, and it seems the university lacks the expertise, but maybe I misheard. However, I do need a "Miss one and only" crown.

I sometimes wonder if I know when it's time to quit. Perhaps I don't and I keep persevering in lost causes with few other survivors. No survivors are to be reported locally as of today.

Rentering dracula's castle

I am going to be a bit dramatic in this post, but I feel I can afford to. It´s my birthday today.

So, why the parallel between academia and dracula's world? Everyone in academia dreams of a permanent position. The dream does not make sense, and yet we dream it and convince all students and postdocs to dream it, too, and create a form of dracula's castle from our buildings and research groups. They all look the same and feel the same with some differences in beaurocracy. In every place you see the students who seem to never graduate. They lost the funding from their first position or did not get along with their advisor or they do but the advisor does not have the knack of picking projects that can be finished. It's difficult to envison my kind advisors as dracula. In fact, I can't, it's the system that forces the blood suckling. The students and postdocs split in two categories. Those who are strong enough to give blood, walk around, and later hope to become permanent in the system, and those who are't. The permanent positions are few and far between. So, the system relies on those who are strong enough to give a lot of blood, and walk around without being able to find a permanent post.

The castle has plenty of myths and because of them we are afraid of light. We simply can't let light in. What if it kills us all? Some myths are true and some are clearly not. One obvious example is the garlic. It does not keep academics away especially when one wears masks.

Of course, the blood needs to flow. Otherwise, there is no system, and the community does help you to accomplish many things. Humans would all be dead if they did not help each other. So, I get that. I just don't see why we can't let light in, and why each castle has to be so isolated from all others and even from its own branches while preaching interdisciplinarity. Of course, if we let light in, the myths would disappear, but it would also make it safer to see where you walked.

We prefer to stay in the dark and dream of permanency. Every one wants to be dracula, to get lots of blood, and do so forever and ever. It's a fake celling because the only thing that's certain and might be permanent is death - or at least permanent for our current incarnation if one believes in that. Yet the dream sustains enough of us to keep the system going. I have a certain reluctancy to start the blood letting every time I go back. It´s normal. I sometimes wonder why I go back. I think it's because the castle gives me a certain sense of security. It's also fun to explore things in the dark. I always hope that I'll be able to open a window, and convince people that it's ok to have a bit of light. There enough corners to explore where the light can´t penetrate. Or I have Stokholm's syndrome. I probably do.

Problems in vacation-land

I have started my move to Barcelona. Before coming here I heard many positive reports. It's a city that's loved throughout Europe. When I accepted this job, I had several reasons behind my acceptance. The first one was the research group. The professors who hired me seemed extraordinarily talented in the same way my Cornell advisors were talented, and they also seemed kind. The second was the weather. I know Germany has over 80 million people, and the UK over 60 million, and that they have plenty of left-over talent in their respective aging populations, but I wanted a place that had summer every year, not just occasionally. The third is that I was not ready to retire at 39. I've always loved science. I know I am the default caretaker of the family, and I feel guilty for wanting more, but I want more.

I've been in Barcelona for a little over a week now. It is just as frustrating as any move and any day I am almost ready to give up. I am helped by my one year old son. My responsibility for him is what keeps me sane when dealing with pointless bureaucracy. I have not accomplished much. Andy is with me until Friday, and then he leaves. He is happy to leave. It tiring and expensive to move from hotel to hotel with a young baby. George Ira is one. He just started walking two days ago. He is adorable, but he sleeps little, and makes hadvoc in any room by pulling everything within reach to his level. The first thing one needs here is a NIE -- a kind of registration number that any person who wants to move here has to get from the police, but it's not easy to get. The university made an appointment for me for September 15. It's quite hard to get such an appointment on a resonable timescale. After that if I move from the area I might need another such number or so I am told. By then I would have had a bank account. I have not made it past step zero yet.

My salary is low enough that I cannot afford to rent with three children and make a positive income. This is common in science. They preach that they want women, but they really don't or at least they don't want the live versions of us who live and breathe and have needs. So, paradoxically the only way to make my work non-negative is to buy a house because loan rates are lower than any rent would be. The price of a ruin near Barcelona is around 100,000 Euros. So, if one buys a functional house near that price they might get a loan rate of 300 euros per month and be able to sell it for as much as they got it for. It's like getting a used car. If one buys a new car, it's price will drop by a factor of 10. For a used car, it's at most a factor of 2 if the car is kept running. We've seen a number of houses. I've made two offers. One was for a house on the beach, which was bought by another person. My offer simply helped clinch the deal. In Spain, the first person who makes an offer to the property has priority and the right to increase it until a deal is clinched. The second offer is still pending. The house is about an hour by train from work. It feels a little far, but I can't seem to do better. People judge me for wanting to take a loan and buy a house for a position that is temporary. That they put me in the position for which this seems to be the only way other than not taking the job or working from Romania, which they don't accept, is irrelevant. I also hope that the loan will work out.