A few days after wrapping the Dear Me letter for The Expat Diaries, Vivian invited me back for something different: a live conversation with two women building long-term lives in Spain — me in Madrid since 2010, and Asia Dawn in Barcelona since this past March. This is part of Vivian’s Expat Diaries Live series this August, featuring women who left one life to build another in Europe.
So on August 14th, 2026, we sat down (virtually) to talk about it.
What if You Moved to Spain?
Kay Fabella (Edgewalkers Collective) has called Madrid home since 2010, after falling for the city on a study-abroad semester in 2007 — and later for a Spaniard.
Asia Dawn (The Next Chapter) landed in Barcelona this past March after a decade of building lives across Latin America and Italy.
In this Expat Diaries Live conversation, Vivian takes you behind the scenes of what it actually takes to move to Spain and stay: the visa bureaucracy nobody prepares you for, the moment “for a little while” quietly became permanent, and what ordinary life looks like years (or months) into the adjustment. If you’re considering a move to Spain — or you’re already here and still figuring it out — this one’s for you.
Topics we covered:
Why Madrid (a two-country coin flip in undergrad) and why Barcelona (chasing “near the water” after a year of scouting Italy and Spain)
The sliding-door moment: how a study-abroad choice in 2007 quietly became a 17-year life
Spanish bureaucracy, demystified: the NIE, the TIE, and why “dot your i’s, cross your t’s, and be patient” is the only real advice
What’s different about moving to Spain solo vs. moving with a child and co-parenting across countries
The moment “trying it out” became “building a life” in Spain
Timestamps:
00:00 — Welcome + intros: Kay (Madrid, since 2010) and Asia Dawn (Barcelona, since March 2025)
04:00 — The Beginning: choosing Barcelona to be near water; Kay’s “sliding door” study-abroad choice between Madrid and Buenos Aires
08:40 — The Move: first encounters with Spanish bureaucracy — visas, NIE/TIE, and “dot your i’s, cross your t’s, be patient”
15:00 — The Reality Check: falling for a Spaniard without being fluent, machine-gun Madrid Spanish vs. textbook Spanish, and juggling Catalan
27:00 — Ordinary Life: no-car living, Spain’s public transit, and daily commutes with kids
43:00 — Unexpected Joys: vermouth culture, tortilla de patatas debates, and grocery-store food discoveries
51:00 — Becoming Someone New: sobremesa, spontaneity vs. American scheduling, and why Spain feels family-friendly
58:00 — Housing Reality: the Barcelona housing crisis, apartment-hunting horror stories (including a literal crucifix in a rental), and rent vs. buy culture
1:02:00 — Looking Back: “What have I done?” moments and honest reflections on the sacrifices of building a life abroad
Clips
The sliding door moment of how I ended up in Madrid:
Learning to love (and fight) in a multilingual relationship:
The “final boss” moment of making it in Spain
When it stopped being a holiday and just became… life:
The real cost of choosing to build a life elsewhere:
An honest reflection on almost two decades living in Spain:
If you want to go further
Sometimes it helps to have your experience witnessed; you don’t have to make sense of it alone:
I hold a small number of Expat Orientation Conversations each month — 60‑minute, one‑to‑one, non‑clinical sessions for sense‑making and orientation, not therapy or coaching.
Together we look at how long‑term life abroad may be shaping your inner experience, find language for what has been hard to name, and gently sort what’s contextual from what’s personal before you decide what, if anything, you want to do next.
Let’s keep walking the edges together.
Onward,
Kay✨
Who’s behind Edgewalkers Collective?
I’m Kay — Filipina American TCK (Third Culture Kid), 17 years in Spain, and a counsellor‑in‑training (CPCAB, UK). I spent over a decade working in inclusion and cross‑cultural strategy, helping organizations bridge cultures. I was good at it. I was also quietly burning out from being the bridge. Now I’m training to offer something different: recognition‑based support for expats and global citizens who are done being told they should feel lucky to be here.
If you’d like a sense of what working together could look like, you can read more on the Work With Me page.
If you want to access to the guided audios and quarterly pattern reports from my long-term life abroad research I send to paid subscribers, you‘re welcome to upgrade your subscription at any time.
