On Leaving Madrid

Onto The Next Thing (Albania)

(above video) Madrid Book Fair, first day, May 28, 2026. Incredible

*I’m excited to announce that my essay on my sober journey has just been published on Substack Sober App. (Read HERE.) Spread the word, tell friends, read and share!

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Unbelievably it’s June 3^rd and we permanently leave Madrid on June 27^th, flying with our three cats to Tirana, Albania. We’re likely going to be staying in various parts of Albania for the next year before—we think—moving back to America, almost certainly somewhere in New England, probably around the Berkshires or somewhere like that, away from the social and political madness of the cities. (But we could very well end up staying in Europe, too.)

Fourteen months it’s been since I stepped foot in The United States. Since April 3^rd, 2025. At that point only three months into Trump’s second term. (Britney has visited California once.)

It’s been a wild ride, for sure. In many ways it feels like we’ve been here for decades, eons. When I think back to landing in Madrid that first day, April 4^th, and walking into our Air BnB in the African-heavy Lavapies District, that feels like a whole lifetime ago. We’d flown from LAX with my then-18-year-old step-son (who helped us move) and our three furry boys. Before that it had been a monthslong whirlwind going through the visa process. While I do recommend moving abroad if you can pull it off financially and psychologically and practically, I do NOT recommend suffering through the visa process, especially if you have any snags, issues or skeletons in the closet (like my pre-sober criminal record). It’s exhausting.

We moved into our apartment—the one we’re still in now—in Universidad right by the trendy, touristy Hotel Riu and Plaza Espana sometime in mid-April. Though it had been fairly cool our first few weeks in Madrid, by mid- or late May Summer had already subtly announced itself, and by June it was not subtle at all. We got hit with 90s, first low and then mid- to high, and finally too many days of sticky, dry triple-digits by July. Everyone in Western Europe flees home for Summer so the streets were somewhat empty but the oppressive heat kept us at bay: I started doing walks in the early morning and at night around 9, 9:30. It stayed light until after 11pm at its satirical peak. (And most Madrid locals don’t use or “believe in” A/C!!!)

But we of course loved it, the whole experience: Being in a foreign country, eating new food, seeing new sites, engaging with locals in our rudimentary (now better) Spanish, observing the culture in myriad ways, exploring by foot endlessly. It felt good to be outside of the United States, to be and feel foreign and like an “outsider.” We’d put so much effort into getting the damn visa and that this all felt like a well-deserved victory.

In late September and early October Britney’s mom and aunt and my mom all came and visited us. We’d only lived in Madrid roughly half a year at that point. We were still discovering the city ourselves. (We still are now.) We explored during this time more vigorously: Many lunches and dinners out, The Prado museum with my mother (who happens to be a former docent at an art museum in California), live Flamenco dancing, Ubers and taxis and even once, just my mom and I, one of those touristy Tuk-Tuks feeling like little Roman emperors seeing the city.

Around Christmastime—which was gorgeous with the lights and the events in Madrid—we had the nationwide electrical outlet which scared the shit out of us and felt like some sort of conspiracy happening in real time. (A young Spaniard we met said he thought it was “Putin.”)

I explored walking around the various massive parks in the city, many with wide flat dirt trails which became my mainstay while here. I still do these walks. Long daily or nightly walks have always been the norm for me. As far back as I can remember, at lease once I left home at 19, walks were crucial for me, both generally, to clear my head, or conversely to think deeply about something, to blow off steam when necessary, and also as creative fodder. I’ve gone through phases in my life where I was into bicycling or else running, but walking has always been a throughline.

At 19 living on my own for the first time in a tin, cramped one-bedroom apartment with an old high school buddy and his girlfriend (I slept on the living room couch), I’d wander around the sketchy gang-infested streets at night. Ditto in Santa Cruz after that, and then in San Diego in my early twenties. When my girlfriend and I moved to San Francisco in 2008, when I was 25, I continued the walks. Ditto in various apartments all over Oakland (not always safe). In 2019 when I left the Bay Area for NYC I walked everywhere in Manhattan, constantly, including, almost fatally, in East Harlem during COVID. When my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2021 I came to Santa Barbara to caretake alongside Mom and I walked (and ran) all the time. Ditto after I met Britney and moved in with her in Lompoc north of Santa Barbara When we moved to Portland in September, 2024, walks were the norm. And when we moved to Madrid, same.

Winter in Madrid—December, January, February—wasn’t exactly harsh. It got cold sometimes. There could be occasionally violent wind. Rain, usually light, came and went. But overall winter was California-style; mild and easy. (Similar climate.)

Spring was, again, lovely. March, April and May. More people. Warmer but not insanely hot weather. The relaxed Spanish vibe we’ve come to enjoy. We had our slow morning routine, full of tea and reading and writing for me, coffee and working out with weights for Britney, and then late breakfast. After that I’d go on a lengthy solo walk. Headphones: Podcast, sometimes music. Aimless, random exploration.

I went into every bookstore I saw in Madrid. Most of them had only a very small English-language section—unfortunate but of course understandable—and yet I did find some gems, including, recently, the brilliant 1990 debut novel by Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia, which is about 1970s punk rock theatre London told from the POV of a teens and twenties half-white half Pakistani kid named Kamir and is so incredibly similar to my own debut coming-of-age novel THE CREW that my mouth was perpetually ajar. (Punk rock and literature in 1970s London vs punk rock and literature in early 2000s Southern California.)

And I discovered Desperate Literature, a new/used bookstore in the city which has been there about a decade or so and has a huge English selection and is run by a nice Brit in his forties and his wife. I went into that place many times and chatted with the owner, walking out with books. And recently I went to the Madrid Book Fair (see video at top of post), in Parque Retiro (probably the most glamorous and famous park in Madrid) which was absolutely shocking and incredible: There must have been half a mile or longer of booth after booth after booth (“blocks”) of books from every bookstore and small publisher in the city. Sadly, I found only the smallest English section. But still: It was a wonder to experience. I felt as if I were in the Disneyland of Books!!

I like living in Spain: talking to locals in basic, clipped Spanish; wandering around the plaza and the Royal Palace (five minutes’ walk from our apartment) and Sabatini Gardens and the wide park trails; seeing the young locals openly making out in public (none of that American puritanism here!); wandering around the trendy areas such as Malasana; passing endless trendy vintage stores; eating delicious food, from Spanish cuisine (patatas bravas!) to Greek to Italian to Lebanese to Persian and so much more. Locals are almost always deeply friendly and kind, which is rare in a big city, at least in America, to this degree anyway. People here will go out of their way to be kind and to help if they can.

And we loved the lazy, slow days: Late breakfasts, lunch around 2-3pm, everything closed down between 3:30/4 to 7:30-8 in the evening, and then late dinner around 8:30, 9pm. When you finish eating at a restaurant it’s not like America: They don’t try to rush you out. Actually, they basically ignore you completely until you wave your hands and say “La cuenta, por favor” (check please). It’s a relaxed, very European vibe. The youth are sexually liberated. Cops are friendly and also omnipresent, which seems annoying but isn’t at all: You feel safe. And you are safe; Madrid is one of the safest cities in Europe. The whole nation of Spain (we looked this up) is safer as a whole than solely the city of Chicago. Think about that. And the cops here aren’t ever menacing or angry like U.S. cops.

The president of Spain is a raging socialist and refugees have flooded the country…but we didn’t really notice any of that except for the high number of Latin Uber drivers and locals we kept meeting. We got to know our apartment doorman who spoke not a lick of English (for a while every time he smiled at me and said “Que Tal?” I froze in fear); the local fruit grocer (the “fruteria”) and meat butcher (the “carniceria,”) in the early months, anyway) and I started going to English-speaking AA meetings which were fantastic. Later, Britney joined a yoga group which she loves. She even did a 2-day yoga retreat recently a couple hours outside of Madrid.

And I wrote, of course. I had work published in The Republic of Letters and in Futurist Letters and in Sober App Substack, and my short story collection AMERICAN FREAKS was published and we traveled tirelessly (East Africa, Finland, Poland, Hungary, Italy, France, etc) and I wrote about all of it.

It’s been really interesting living abroad, living outside what is normal for us. Of course living in Madrid, Spain isn’t radically different. It’s a western Democracy, not like living in the Middle East, Asia, South America, etc. But still, it is definitely different and in myriad ways, from the local culture to the food to the (sometimes frustrating and dysfunctional) bureaucracy to the language and much else. I can’t tell you how fulfilling it’s been moving here, just in the sense of Britney and I having a dream (which at first seemed unrealistic), following the prescribed steps, and actually moving to another country. I can’t explain how validating this feels: To actually follow through on a dream and achieve your goal.

And now, in less than a month, Britney 40 and me 43, with our cats, we will be moving on to Albania, to a whole new frontier and chapter. We plan on traveling a lot again, of course, to most of the Balkan states, and of course Greece, but also Turkey and, also, India, which is only a seven-hour direct flight from Istanbul. (Mumbai and New Delhi, anyway.)

As we have done since we first started dating, in late August of 2022, we will be moving yet again. June 2^nd was three years since my father died. August 22^nd is four years writing on Substack. August 24th is four years we’ve been together. September 24^th will be 16 years sober. October 14^th will be three years of marriage. In October my mom turns 76, and on the final day of December I will become 44.

Spain has been good to us.

Onto the next chapter.