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The 25-Year Persuasion: Yvonne's Unconventional Move to Spain · Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences

• 0:00
  No, never. I did not even particularly like
• 0:03
  Spain. Am I allowed to say that?
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  For 25 years there was not a single day that I didn't say so
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  when do we leave? People are always complaining
• 0:12
  and never getting their asses up to do things.
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  Think I I really never had that moment of desperation because
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  this is something that doesn't come to my mind.
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  It's it's not in my DNA. One year ago we began a journey
• 0:42
  to find the world's most beautiful places.
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  But today in episode 61, we're heading to Spain to meet Yvonne
• 0:50
  and Carsten. At the time, I thought we were
• 0:52
  talk going. At the time I thought we were
• 0:55
  going to talk about the logistics of running a bed and
• 0:58
  breakfast. But listening back to our
• 1:00
  conversation, I had realized we actually found the blueprint for
• 1:03
  something much deeper. The difference between searching
• 1:06
  for a place and searching for a feeling.
• 1:10
  Over the last 12 months I've spoken to dozens of explorers
• 1:14
  and if there is one thing I've learned is that you can move to
• 1:17
  the sunniest coast in the world and still feel cloudy inside if
• 1:21
  you haven't filled the gaps in your own soul.
• 1:24
  If one says something in this episode that hit me different
• 1:26
  this week, people should search for the feeling, not for the
• 1:30
  place. It changed how I view my own
• 1:33
  permanent stranger status. With the world feeling
• 1:37
  increasingly fast-paced and great, I wanted to bring you
• 1:40
  back to this very easy jet. Whether you're listening from or
• 1:44
  any office in Germany or a commute to New York, this is
• 1:48
  your invitation to disconnect from the noise and reconnect
• 1:52
  with what actually makes a house or a life feel like home.
• 1:59
  I'm Paul. This is whereabouts stills.
• 2:03
  Enjoy. Good evening and welcome and
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  thank you for clicking this episode.
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  Today in Whereabouts Tales I have Yvonne who decided to leave
• 2:18
  Germany for Spain. If it's for weather, if it's for
• 2:22
  social habits, we will find out. Yvonne, good evening and well.
• 2:25
  Hello, good evening. Thanks Paul for inviting me on
• 2:28
  this podcast. You are more than welcome.
• 2:31
  Happy to took the time. Yvonne, nice to have you first.
• 2:35
  First thing first, I know that you are from Germany.
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  I want to know where from exactly in Germany.
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  Well, I was born in in Aachen, which is quite close to the
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  Belgian border, Belgian Dutch border.
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  Most people know Cologne, so it's that area and but I grew up
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  in Belgium near Antwerp and then when I was already grown up I
• 3:00
  went back to Germany, to Hamburg for an apprenticeship and I met
• 3:05
  my husband and I never went back to Belgium.
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  That's a, that's a nice start for the story.
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  But I, I, I have to, I have to say this is a, this is a pattern
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  that I see quite often when people are moving outside of
• 3:20
  their home country when they are small.
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  And then even if they are moving back, they're not staying for
• 3:25
  long. Do you think that that was the
• 3:26
  eye opening for you when you realise, OK, I have the option
• 3:29
  to see something else except Germany?
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  I think it was already when my parents took me to Belgium.
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  I think it was my first step into what I always call my nomad
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  life or my Kitana. So even when I was living in
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  Germany, I still love to move around.
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  And if it wasn't between cities, it was between apartments.
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  So I I I think rather than deep cleaning my house, I would like
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  to move. I love that.
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  I literally love that. So you are always you're always
• 4:12
  culture. You're trying different culture.
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  I do guess right? Was pain always in the in the
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  back of your mind? No, never.
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  I did not even particularly like Spain.
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  Am I allowed to say that? No.
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  So I as a as, as if you live in Belgium, obviously your every
• 4:35
  holiday you have, you will spend it in France.
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  So I spent my whole childhood at a beach in the area of Bordeaux,
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  and to me it was always clear that one day we would leave
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  Germany and go to France. So my husband and I even always
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  took French classes privately once a week, just to stay in
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  that language and just to keep moving because we didn't need it
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  for work. So we were afraid to forget it.
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  And it was always clear that we would move to France.
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  And when we finally decided to leave, my first attempt was
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  France. So I looked at houses in France
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  and everything, and then we went.
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  So I was in the wine business at that time and a friend who was a
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  winery or who had a winery in southern France, he invited us
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  for my birthday, which is in February.
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  And he said, oh, then you can come and you can already smell a
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  little spring and have a coffee in the sun.
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  And it sounded so tempting to me.
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  So we went to southern France in February to get sun and a coffee
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  in the sun. And we ended up standing in the
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  snow until our niece and it was so freaking cold and no house
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  had heating. It was a lovely holiday.
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  We had lots of fun drinking too much alcohol to warm up.
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  But it was not what we expected. So we realized that, you know,
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  if you are retired and you go and open AB and B somewhere in
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  this world and you already have your pension, it's nice to top
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  the pension up. But we were still young, so we
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  still had to earn money. And I said to, Casper said well,
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  I guess the season here is too short to earn money to live on.
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  And that's how suddenly Andalusia came into the game.
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  Nice. OK, so it's somehow it was
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  somehow triggered by necessity. Let's say it like this, you
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  didn't want to postpone. It, yeah, literally when we
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  first thought about it, I was like, oh, Spain, I don't know, I
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  there were so many holidays, or not many, but a few holidays
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  where things were not what I expected.
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  So I was not really fond of the idea of moving to Spain.
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  OK. So you were speaking French, I
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  would guess after your experience in Belgium, right?
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  So you're you, you did learn France there.
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  Did you also spoke Spanish when moving to Spain?
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  When we decided to move to Spain, we quickly took some
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  Spanish classes. You switch.
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  You switch the teacher from French to Spanish.
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  No, funny enough it was the same teacher because she taught
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  French and Spanish. So we just told her next week
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  we'll just do Spanish and she looked at us like we were nuts
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  and I said well that's the idea now.
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  So we we just swapped. We didn't even have to swap the
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  teacher, we just swapped the language and then we learned
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  Spanish. But honestly the time between
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  decision and moving was only half a year.
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  So our Spanish was not really good when we came here.
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  I have to say that I live in Germany since more than 10 years
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  and I have to say the the fact that you are speaking so good
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  English, I have to compliment your English because it sounds
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  amazing and it's also really, really good.
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  And the fact that you speak French as well and you speak
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  Spanish as well. Now I think it's for someone
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  that lived in Germany not so common, I would dare to say.
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  And I have to ask you did this multilingual month?
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  Multilingual culture comes from the family one.
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  No, well, no, not really. My my parents spoke German when
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  they were young. They just went to a very normal
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  school. They didn't even have higher
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  levels because at that time in the 60s there, you know, they
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  had to earn money when they were 14.
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  So no, actually they spoke German and then they went to
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  Belgium, obviously learned Dutch because we lived near Antwerp,
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  which is the Dutch area and and my dad very much later took
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  classes for English as well as my mom did because they needed
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  it for work. But I went.
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  So my background is really the European school.
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  I went to a European school. So I was raised in many
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  languages and we didn't Even so we not only had like English
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  class or French class, but we had like geography in English,
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  history in English. I had economics, I think if I
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  remember right, in Dutch. So it was all a bit of a
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  mixture. And we were a multi culti
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  school. So I think this is actually
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  where my where my thing with languages comes from.
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  Also, I can adapt to languages quite easily, so it's not very
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  hard for me. And I think that's a result of
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  that school. Absolutely, absolutely.
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  I think when you're exposed to that many languages when you're
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  young, then when you grow up it's just a different, better
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  way in understanding the languages.
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  As a child, you absorb like a sponge.
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  Everything that comes, you absorb it.
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  Correct. 100% correct. What was Carsten?
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  So you met Carsten, Hamburg said.
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  You both decided that you want to leave.
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  Was he also on the foot of living or that was something in
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  his mind? Or was all you?
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  No. So when I met him, we were both
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  in the same company. Obviously this is what happens
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  when you're young. You work in the same company and
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  then you fall in love. And no, Carsten was never on the
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  verge to leave Germany. He is German, German from
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  Hamburg, very, you know, no, very different to me.
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  So it was never his idea when. But The thing is I never felt
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  really comfortable in Germany. So even though I was born
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  German, but I was raised in Belgium, mentality wise it's
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  quite different. And I never really could adapt
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  to Germany and I didn't feel very homey.
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  So for 25 years, literally he still says for 25 years, there
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  was not a single day that I didn't say, so when do we leave?
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  When do we leave? So in the end, it was probably
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  just me bugging him all the time.
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  And then after 25 years, we just had an amazing opportunity.
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  And, and I said literally, I said I stayed in Germany for you
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  25 years now let's grab this opportunity.
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  And then he couldn't really resist anymore.
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  There is a limited amount of years when you can hear, OK,
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  when we leave, when do we leave? I mean, I think it's normal
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  that. Him into it over the years, I
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  talked him into it. I got I would have been fired
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  after 25 years that he's starting to ask you a question
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  so evolved, when do we leave? No, he would never have left
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  Germany if it wouldn't have been for me.
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  But he's just that kind of person who normally does not
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  like or is not looking for changes.
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  And yeah. But if one what was what was?
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  If you would have to pinpoint one thing, what was that one
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  thing? Would that you would say, OK,
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  that's why I couldn't get used to living in Germany?
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  Oh there were so many things, but overall I just think people
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  are always complaining and never getting their their asses up to
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  do things. Sorry I'm so direct but it's so
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  easy to complain and then not change even the things that you
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  could change yourself. I mean, there is stuff we can't
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  change, obviously, but Germans are.
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  So yeah, they are complaining all the time, but they're not
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  doing anything. You put me in a different
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  position because I work through colleagues which are Germans,
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  right? And I, some of them are also
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  watching and, or hearing this. But I have to say what's all
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  right I'm. Sorry, I don't want and I don't
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  want to. I'm just joking.
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  Everybody, anybody's toes. And it's not all Germans, but
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  it's a general thing. And a general thing is if you
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  need help, if you go to the town hall or whatever, if you need
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  help, they talk to you about problems.
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  I don't want to hear about other people's problems.
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  I want solutions. And Germany is a country where,
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  and it's even worse now I live abroad and I watch TVI think
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  they are making life so hard for themselves.
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  And I sometimes wonder, do they not look at other countries how
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  they do it? And they could have it a lot
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  easier. But Germany is very, it used to
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  be big Germany, and I think they forgot that life goes on.
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  And then somehow they stopped back in the 80s and that's where
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  they are still are. My feeling, it's just my feeling
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  that sometimes I see a kind of entitlement that people are,
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  they think they should have. And whenever that entitlement or
• 14:29
  their rights are not there, they just say, no, no, we cannot go
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  on because I deserve this and that and that and that just
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  because before just because I exist, not because I've done
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  something just because I exist. And I think that's that's why
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  we, we have this. I hear one of my favorite shows
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  since I moved in Germany and I don't know if you know it, it's
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  this hearts and herds list. I don't know if you know the the
• 14:53
  show, it's a, it's a stupid show, but it says it's following
• 14:58
  a lot of social cases from Germany.
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  I always keep hearing the same thing that the, the country is
• 15:03
  not giving us enough. We don't work, but we we deserve
• 15:06
  money for it. And this, of course, this is
• 15:08
  extreme for sure. This is something which is
• 15:10
  extreme, but it's extrapolate. And also on the other case in
• 15:13
  which you think you because you have a job or no, because you
• 15:16
  have studied, for example, if you have higher studies, you
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  deserve a good paying job. And this is.
• 15:20
  These are not connected unfortunately.
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  No, I, I think I mean this there, we could start a
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  political discussion now, but I think indeed, I think the state
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  also pampered people for a long time and now they don't have the
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  money to pamper anymore and the people have lost a bit of their
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  responsibility to take action themselves.
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  So and in Spain, literally if you don't take action yourself,
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  you're lost because all the social net system is not
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  existing like in Germany here so.
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  And it's limited, even everywhere is limited.
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  And I think this limitation is not that bad to tell you guys,
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  OK, we support you for, I don't know, 2-3 years, five years and
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  so on. But we cannot do this forever.
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  And I see in that, in that show people that are living since
• 16:16
  3035 years on social support, This is crazy.
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  This is unimaginable. This, this should not be
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  possible. And I can from our perspective,
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  I can say that we went through that Corona time in hospitality
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  business. So we know what real problems
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  are and we know what fear is and we know that we got, you know,
• 16:40
  we got state money to support ourselves, but we didn't get any
• 16:43
  money for the company. So we had to cover all those
• 16:46
  costs ourself. But here after COVID, everybody
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  really took sleeves up and said, hey, come on, we can go, so
• 16:53
  let's go. And it was, I mean, spanads are
• 16:58
  really used to crisises and getting out of crisises.
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  And that's a little, that's something we lost a little in
• 17:06
  Northern Europe. Correct, because this of the
• 17:09
  safe living that we have this pampered, I think pampered the
• 17:12
  term that you that you mentioned is quite correct.
• 17:15
  I think this, this focusing on the things that you are able to
• 17:19
  influence, this is something that should be, I don't know the
• 17:22
  first lesson in every school and I mean it and not, I'm not
• 17:25
  talking about Germany, I'm talking about everywhere,
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  because we are focusing a lot on the things that we cannot
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  contract, you know, but the politics is there.
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  But the ruling party did that. And I don't know that nobody
• 17:35
  cares. Mind your own life.
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  And if you try to make the best out of it and sometimes it
• 17:40
  doesn't work and then you take another way, so.
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  Hey, but isn't that life that not everything always works out
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  perfectly, that you have to take or find another route to get to
• 17:52
  your vision or idea or wherever you want to go?
• 17:56
  I keep mentioning this quote. I don't know if you know Jimmy
• 17:59
  Carr, the stand up comedian from from UK who said, you know, they
• 18:03
  are not bugs. They are features though they
• 18:06
  are not they you have to have them because even if you get
• 18:10
  the, I don't know, multimillionaire, you still have
• 18:12
  problems. But they are different.
• 18:14
  Yeah. Like they are not box, they are
• 18:15
  features. You have to try to fix it
• 18:17
  because that's what push you over, that was motivated to move
• 18:20
  on and so on. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:22
  Coming back to Spain, Yvonne, it was Spain because you said OK,
• 18:27
  it was triggered by necessity. And I'm asking you, why Spain?
• 18:31
  Why not Portugal? Why not Italy?
• 18:33
  Why Spain? OK, so I can say why not Italy?
• 18:44
  It's I think I'm. Really being present such a such
• 18:49
  a pleasant discussion. I love it.
• 18:50
  I, I had such AI had such a hard day at work today and I I was so
• 18:54
  tired that I came into this, you know, like you've just made my
• 18:57
  day half an hour. You've made my day.
• 19:01
  So we make each other's day. Absolutely.
• 19:04
  Well, Italy is a thing. I, as I said before, I used to
• 19:08
  have a wine shop and Italian salesman, if they want to sell
• 19:14
  you wine for example, or grappa or whatever, they would come to
• 19:19
  your shop, but they will not talk about the wine or the
• 19:23
  grappa. They will say like, oh you with
• 19:25
  your beautiful eyes, you need to my product in your shop and
• 19:31
  honestly that's not my cup of tea.
• 19:34
  No, Italy was out. You know, in a crazy way, I know
• 19:45
  what you mean. So it would never have been
• 19:51
  Italy, although I love the food, but it could never be Italy
• 19:55
  because I was always thinking about Italian salesman.
• 20:00
  And Portugal, I have to say, Portugal for was for the weather
• 20:04
  because it's Atlantic Ocean and I definitely did not want to
• 20:08
  have hard winters. That's also one reason why we
• 20:12
  are not on the Costa de la Luz in Andalusia, but on the
• 20:15
  Mediterranean coast of Andalusia, because I wanted mild
• 20:19
  winters. So that was literally a weather
• 20:22
  thing. Makes sense, makes sense.
• 20:25
  And if you can choose, why not? So you said you had an
• 20:27
  opportunity for Spain. Can you elaborate a bit on that?
• 20:33
  Yeah, it was very easy. So I there there is a family
• 20:37
  thing. My daddy when I was small he
• 20:41
  always said if he would retire we would create a champridot.
• 20:46
  The champridot is the French version of AB and B and we would
• 20:50
  have animals and goats and sheep and pigs and hens and eggs and
• 20:56
  everything. So one evening we were just
• 20:59
  sitting at a family dinner and my dad told my mom and us that
• 21:04
  he that day told his business partners that he would go like
• 21:09
  retire within the next two years.
• 21:13
  So we had some wine, we had some chatting about his retirement
• 21:17
  and maybe we had one glass too much wine, I don't remember.
• 21:20
  But suddenly he said, what about our Jean Brigade?
• 21:23
  And that's how it all came running.
• 21:26
  And that's why we were always looking at France because that
• 21:30
  has been the dream all my life. And then all together it then
• 21:35
  ended up in Spain. But it was the initial idea was
• 21:38
  really on that night where my daddy said that he would resign
• 21:42
  like within the next two years. That's a that's a cool start.
• 21:47
  And especially if you get to do this like with the with the
• 21:49
  family together, I think makes a lot of fun, a lot.
• 21:53
  Yes, my parents are here a lot. I mean, they are not here all
• 21:57
  the time. They still have their place in
• 21:59
  Belgium but they are here a lot and especially the first years
• 22:05
  they still really helped hands on.
• 22:08
  They are now a little older so not so much hands on anymore,
• 22:12
  but they still help if there is necessity and it's still nice
• 22:17
  when they are here and we can enjoy some more family time than
• 22:21
  we could when I was a child and my dad worked his bums off.
• 22:25
  So yeah, it's good. I can.
• 22:31
  I can understand the part with work with his bum software.
• 22:34
  I can. I feel it.
• 22:36
  Yes. So you took the decision, you
• 22:40
  said OK, you start to search. Were you already searching for a
• 22:44
  place that was selling or did you just went around and say,
• 22:47
  OK, I like this area especially and I want to focus on this?
• 22:51
  I don't know villages area. Yeah.
• 22:55
  So initially we were looking at a certain area.
• 23:00
  Why? Because there was people of
• 23:04
  children of friends of my parents who had AB and B there.
• 23:07
  There was like a little link to that area.
• 23:11
  Then we found a young Belgian couple who were helping people
• 23:14
  to settle everything with the documentation.
• 23:17
  And you know, so we were looking in that area.
• 23:21
  And The funny thing is I had some alerts on some Google sites
• 23:26
  about selling businesses in Spain.
• 23:29
  And this house literally showed up in the right hand corner of
• 23:35
  one hand side every time I was on it.
• 23:39
  And it was a little advert to photos, not a lot of text, just
• 23:44
  a little advert and looking at the photos, 2 photos we always
• 23:49
  said for two years we said this looks like the perfect place.
• 23:54
  But it mentioned. The price for two?
• 23:56
  Years but it mentioned the price.
• 23:59
  Oh my God. That was because I did this.
• 24:02
  Yeah, I know. I do things like this all the
• 24:04
  time. I'm.
• 24:09
  Sorry, so the price was far too high, that's why we kept on
• 24:15
  searching in that other area. And then one day the price
• 24:18
  dropped but not enough. So we waited a little longer,
• 24:23
  still looking in the other area and then the price dropped again
• 24:26
  and we were like hmm, this could be suitable now.
• 24:30
  So my mum and I, as I had sold my wine shop already, my mum and
• 24:35
  I jumped onto a plane and said we'll quickly have a look
• 24:39
  whether this really is what we were looking for or not.
• 24:43
  And we came here. The funny thing is I didn't know
• 24:49
  where it was. I mean I didn't know my way
• 24:50
  here, but I found the house literally immediately.
• 24:54
  And then when we were here, it was a matter of seconds that we
• 25:01
  knew this is our home and it was the views that sold the house.
• 25:05
  So I always say to guests, we didn't find the house.
• 25:09
  The house found us and the views sold it because the house, to be
• 25:13
  very honest, was sort of a disaster.
• 25:18
  Typical Spanish house. Gosh, it was not.
• 25:21
  It was not in a good state and we had to repair a lot.
• 25:24
  And anyway, but the views sold it because we said we can change
• 25:30
  everything inside, but we can never change the views.
• 25:33
  So that made it very intriguing. How was so you, you arrived, you
• 25:40
  saw it, you found I think this is this.
• 25:42
  I have to I have to say something, but I think this
• 25:44
  match that you, you are mentioning this, oh, this is my
• 25:47
  home. This is a feeling that that it's
• 25:49
  always there when it's the right place and when you don't have
• 25:52
  that any advice as a device for everyone that wants to buy.
• 25:55
  If you don't feel that, don't go.
• 25:57
  Don't go for it. That's such an important thing.
• 26:00
  I cannot explain it as well. I, I, I don't, I don't know if
• 26:03
  you can explain it, but you can't really.
• 26:05
  I I couldn't ever explain it. I can't.
• 26:08
  I can't explain it. I just knew this is and I still
• 26:12
  know this is the place where I want to get old.
• 26:15
  That's so nice. That's so, so nice.
• 26:17
  I'm a huge fan of your Instagram account, which I will link in
• 26:20
  the show notes description as well.
• 26:22
  And I'm checking the views and I'm and I'm so sad always when
• 26:25
  I'm not, I'm here. But for the sake of honesty, you
• 26:32
  watch, you saw the place you discussed, you negotiated, I'm
• 26:34
  pretty sure then you signed the deal.
• 26:36
  Tell me, how was your first date with the German, with the sorry,
• 26:41
  with the Spanish authorities? So my first meeting with Spanish
• 26:48
  authorities was nice because I had to change our license.
• 26:54
  This house already had a license for rental, but I had to change
• 26:59
  it because we wanted to change the name, and the responsible
• 27:04
  people for that were too. I always called them the
• 27:09
  grandfathers. So there were two elderly men in
• 27:12
  a tiny little office, and I went there every time I was in Spain.
• 27:18
  So in that half year between buying and moving, I was here
• 27:22
  every month for one week to organize everything.
• 27:26
  So every month I kept going back to those grand path asking for
• 27:31
  my license and they always told me that I still have to wait.
• 27:35
  It's still not finished typical Spanish way.
• 27:39
  But they always said your Spanish is better than last
• 27:44
  time. So I think they really liked me
• 27:47
  for for trying so hard and, and actually my first step into
• 27:52
  authorities wasn't that bad. So everybody would expect a
• 27:55
  Horror Story, but it wasn't. It only takes time and space in
• 28:02
  in Spain. Everything here takes time.
• 28:05
  And another thing is when I had to get my residency, that was a
• 28:10
  different story because you get a sheet of paper and it has like
• 28:14
  5 numbers and within 5 numbers it has different pieces of
• 28:19
  paper. You could choose but you need to
• 28:21
  bring one of every number. So I grabbed what I had from
• 28:27
  every #1 and that's good. Not in Spain.
• 28:31
  I arrived and they said where is the escritura?
• 28:34
  And I said there it says escritura or this or this or
• 28:38
  this. So I brought this.
• 28:40
  Oh, but nobody does this. Yes I do.
• 28:47
  We had a very lovely girl but it took took her two hours and a
• 28:51
  half to convince her boss to accept those papers, although it
• 28:56
  was from the list. But that's pain.
• 28:59
  You always go 3 * 1 time you bring the papers you think they
• 29:04
  need. Second time you bring the papers
• 29:07
  they told you that on the first date that you still need it and
• 29:11
  the third time you go because they told you something wrong
• 29:14
  and it was a different paper you needed.
• 29:16
  So that. Is quite normal here.
• 29:18
  This is this is exactly like how you described in front you try
• 29:22
  to make the best of it. This is really because I have to
• 29:25
  say, I've talked to so many people in Spain and everyone
• 29:27
  said, Oh, it's awful. It's awful.
• 29:29
  It's oh, you have to go and wait and then you go again because
• 29:32
  they didn't had they didn't requested what they done.
• 29:35
  And then you find a different guy who has different needs and
• 29:37
  then this is not working. That is not working.
• 29:39
  And but I like you had lower expectation.
• 29:43
  You thought, OK, I know it takes time.
• 29:45
  So why should I worry? Why should I complain about
• 29:48
  this? I think that's the right thing
• 29:50
  to do. And I think you should always
• 29:52
  plan going to some institution and you should plan to have a
• 29:56
  nice lunch somewhere. So you go there for the lunch.
• 29:59
  And the other thing is only a side effect.
• 30:02
  That's a nice piece of advice. You can handle things better.
• 30:08
  That's a nice piece of advice, absolutely.
• 30:13
  When you started this this family project, were you knowing
• 30:18
  what you were getting into? Somethings yes, somethings no.
• 30:35
  So I think job wise it turned out to be the way we thought it
• 30:40
  was. I would not have thought that
• 30:47
  things always change so quickly, that you need to adapt all the
• 30:51
  time in respect of things you don't want to do.
• 30:53
  Like Google has a new algorithm every year, so your website has
• 30:58
  to be all this sidekick is really sometimes working on my
• 31:03
  nerves because I'm like, I'm I, I didn't choose a computer job.
• 31:07
  I chose a job with guests, with hospitality, with chatting,
• 31:11
  having fun, making, giving them a good time.
• 31:14
  And then sometimes you feel like, oh gosh, we're always
• 31:17
  stuck to the computer because there is so much necessary on
• 31:22
  that side that sometimes kills it.
• 31:26
  OK. That makes sense.
• 31:28
  I mean, you have to cover a lot of things.
• 31:30
  You have to cover a lot of marketing things that you don't
• 31:33
  think about upfront, for sure. And yeah, this, this C, this C
• 31:38
  optimizations are awful, crazy and awful in the same time
• 31:41
  because they change it every year.
• 31:43
  And I think they change it on purpose, affairs maybe, because
• 31:46
  otherwise it would do. Yes, sometimes I think so.
• 31:49
  And the European Union is very good at new making new laws as
• 31:53
  well, and Spain is even better at making new laws.
• 31:57
  So there is always something going on.
• 32:02
  I like the fact that they want to help always, but it gives you
• 32:06
  a different feeling, right? Let me think, help.
• 32:10
  I'm not sure I'm definitely I'm out the last three or four
• 32:17
  years. I wonder what they are all
• 32:19
  doing. I think they need to prove that
• 32:22
  their jobs are worth it. I don't know.
• 32:25
  But honestly for a small business like ours it is an
• 32:29
  absolute overkill of bureaucracy.
• 32:33
  And if Missus von der Leyen or whoever ever listens to this
• 32:37
  podcast, this is killing small businesses and it it makes it
• 32:42
  unpleasant and UN unproductive. And we cannot do the job we
• 32:48
  literally want to do because we are filling out forms and
• 32:53
  sending sheets somewhere and sending files somewhere all the
• 32:57
  time. And I think, I think they are
• 33:01
  just on the very, very wrong path here.
• 33:05
  That's a, that's a good piece of that's a good, a good thing that
• 33:08
  you said. I think the focus is less on the
• 33:12
  smaller businesses and the focus is a lot on the big weaknesses
• 33:17
  to, I don't know, to, to put rules in place for different for
• 33:21
  big businesses without thinking on those other small businesses
• 33:24
  and then they are affected by the same.
• 33:27
  But how much, how much? This is a out of curiosity
• 33:30
  question. You want how much of the of the
• 33:32
  paperwork that you have to do is digitalised in Spain and how
• 33:35
  much do you still have to do by hand?
• 33:38
  Oh, in Spain we are very digital.
• 33:40
  That's one big advantage to Germany.
• 33:44
  Actually, I never fill out a paper form.
• 33:49
  Wow. Never.
• 33:51
  It's all digital and even very often you get papers you need to
• 33:56
  sign, but you can sign it digitally.
• 33:59
  And also we have a file on our computers which is our
• 34:04
  certificate and we can do most state stuff with this.
• 34:10
  So I can check my my pension or I can book an appointment at the
• 34:15
  doctor's or I can renew my M Padro Damiento at the town hall.
• 34:22
  So we have our driving license as an app.
• 34:27
  We've got our passport as an app.
• 34:31
  I think in that respect, Spain is so much ahead of Germany.
• 34:37
  No, we are very digital. We even have an hour.
• 34:40
  So in our little hotel, we are totally digital.
• 34:45
  Our bookkeeping is digital. We don't have files anymore, we
• 34:48
  don't have boxes in the storage room with tons of paper.
• 34:53
  So no, everything is digital. That's really nice.
• 34:57
  In the meantime, there is the app in in Germany as well for
• 35:01
  the driving license and so on, but only for German citizens.
• 35:05
  So they kind of, yeah, yeah, I, they, you think you are kind of
• 35:09
  because you can authorize every payment payment with the, with
• 35:12
  the housewives, like you can authorize a digital as well.
• 35:16
  But as I'm an European citizen, I don't need an, an Alphonse
• 35:22
  height, you know. And that's why because of this,
• 35:27
  I'm not able to get the document in here.
• 35:29
  I only have my passport and that's.
• 35:31
  You cannot use that for authorization.
• 35:35
  Funny, I, I, I don't have an alpha tight side loudness
• 35:38
  because I'm European, so I can stay here for as long as I want.
• 35:42
  But I just scanned my driving license and that was it.
• 35:47
  Nope. Passport indeed.
• 35:49
  For the passport we need to go to an institution because
• 35:53
  Spanish passports have a certain number on it that we don't have.
• 35:58
  So we go to an institution and they will give us that number to
• 36:02
  then again have a digitally so. But I think the, I think what
• 36:08
  you said the, the, the thing that the, the fact that you can
• 36:11
  do all of those things digital is really helping on the long
• 36:15
  term because it avoids the painful contact with anyone like
• 36:19
  you as long as you can do everything.
• 36:21
  I think that's, that's a huge step.
• 36:22
  And I think that's happening some of the Nordic states as
• 36:26
  well, as far as I know, Eastland, Littown and so on, but
• 36:31
  not everywhere in the Central Europe.
• 36:33
  And I think that's a, that's a huge step if they manage to do
• 36:36
  it. Yeah, I think the Baltic states
• 36:38
  are very far ahead. Holland is very far ahead,
• 36:41
  correct. Yeah, yeah.
• 36:45
  What was the what was the biggest cultural shock Yvonne,
• 36:49
  even though you I think you have visited Spain before, right?
• 36:52
  Yes, yes, but what was the biggest culture shock when you
• 36:56
  think about OK, this is not an holiday anymore.
• 36:59
  This is I'm I'm here for good a. Cultural shock.
• 37:06
  I think it's very hard to say this about Spain because Spain
• 37:11
  is so terribly big. I can only talk about Andalusia
• 37:17
  and actually about the part in Andalusia I live, which is the
• 37:21
  province of Almeria. And so the biggest cultural
• 37:27
  shock to me really was, and maybe maybe it is a Spanish I, I
• 37:31
  don't know actually, but a thing that I couldn't relate to in the
• 37:36
  beginning is that people don't want to decide and they don't
• 37:41
  want to take responsibility for their decisions.
• 37:44
  So very small, very small. I think we started off with a
• 37:49
  local cleaning lady for the rooms.
• 37:52
  And I always asked her, what do you need for cleaning material?
• 37:58
  Which products do you like? Is there anything you would
• 38:00
  need? Additionally, is there anything
• 38:03
  we need to change to make your life easier?
• 38:06
  And she always said, you're the boss, you decide.
• 38:09
  And I said, but you do the job so you can tell me how to what
• 38:14
  you need and how you want to do it.
• 38:16
  And you know, and then when she did something but she didn't
• 38:21
  want, she always asked me if it would be OK to do it like that
• 38:24
  because she wouldn't like me to be complaining afterwards
• 38:28
  because responsibility. And then through many, many
• 38:31
  talks with then, you know, you learn you, you get to know
• 38:35
  people, you get friends, you talk about more deeper feelings.
• 38:42
  And I found out, yeah, this is a thing of this very long
• 38:47
  dictatorship because they were not used to making decisions.
• 38:51
  They were not used to being holded accountable for their
• 38:56
  decisions because nobody wanted them to have an own mind, an own
• 39:02
  brain and own own decisions. So whereas in Germany the
• 39:08
  dictatorship is long behind, well, long, but at least 25
• 39:13
  years longer than here. So that was something that was a
• 39:17
  real shock to me because I never thought about it.
• 39:20
  I never, I couldn't relate. And then ever since then, I, I
• 39:26
  do feel I always, if people here complain about the Spanish, I
• 39:30
  very often, you know, put myself in front and say, no, no, no,
• 39:34
  they aren't like this for a reason.
• 39:36
  And I try to explain it to other people because I couldn't
• 39:39
  understand it in the beginning. This is so interesting that you
• 39:43
  mentioned because of the dictatorship, because we have
• 39:46
  the same thing in Romania. So this, this, this fear of
• 39:50
  responsibility that someone else should decide for me that this,
• 39:53
  I don't want to be responsible for my life because someone else
• 39:56
  has to do the things for me. The, the government should give
• 39:59
  us that. And that of course, extrapolated
• 40:01
  from what you're saying, but the same, the same mentality where
• 40:04
  you think I'm not responsible for my life.
• 40:07
  I don't have to be responsible for my life.
• 40:08
  And I think absolutely this comes from a dictatorship
• 40:11
  because you were not, there was not the wish from the government
• 40:14
  that you have opinions, that you have wishes, that you have
• 40:19
  decisions to make. No, no, no.
• 40:20
  You are just the soldier. And and still now sometimes I
• 40:24
  feel that the Spaniards are far too obedient.
• 40:30
  So during COVID and all this Spanish do, they do talk a lot
• 40:38
  about how shit this country is politically.
• 40:41
  It is a problem at the moment, but they don't go onto the
• 40:47
  streets and they don't, you know, they don't sit and say I
• 40:50
  don't do this anymore. So Spaniards are very obedient
• 40:54
  due to that very long dictatorship I guess.
• 40:57
  So sometimes I would wish that they would shout out a little
• 41:04
  more. Again, it's it has something to
• 41:09
  do with the with the dictatorship.
• 41:11
  I had the I have a really, I think I have AI have a thing
• 41:16
  that I said a few times in the some episodes.
• 41:18
  And I, I have to say I love some of the German words because they
• 41:23
  are not translatable from my point of view or not, not even
• 41:27
  not with the word. And I think one of these cases
• 41:29
  is meet Dinkin. And I think meet, meet Dinkin is
• 41:33
  something that you cannot translate in one word in
• 41:35
  English. Maybe you can try to make an
• 41:36
  expression to sound it somehow to, to, to understand what is
• 41:41
  meant by that word. But that word is golden.
• 41:44
  To be able to think with the situation, to think with the
• 41:48
  with the exact situation that you are in is something that you
• 41:51
  develop in years. And I think this 25 years that
• 41:53
  you are mentioning the difference between between
• 41:55
  Germany and Spain. You can see it here, right?
• 41:58
  And we talk about what almost 100 years ago, but you can still
• 42:02
  see this. And I think you need two or
• 42:04
  three generations to learn this meeting and to learn that you
• 42:08
  are allowed to things and you should take the the the fate in
• 42:12
  your hands and go on with it. Yeah, coming back to that first
• 42:17
  leading lady, her daughter at that time was like 40.
• 42:21
  The youngest daughter was 14 years or so.
• 42:24
  She's the 1st girl in that family that I recognize as us
• 42:31
  when we were young, like Northern European girls being
• 42:35
  young. She is not obedient.
• 42:38
  You know, she has her ideas about life.
• 42:40
  She goes her way very straight. The older sisters were actually
• 42:46
  doing what they were expected to do, literally.
• 42:49
  So it is, yeah. And this, this, this sentence
• 42:54
  that you said at the end of when I want to connect to it, they
• 42:56
  what they were expecting, expected to do this searching
• 43:01
  for acceptance. This, this striving for the
• 43:04
  confirmation from the others that you are the right.
• 43:06
  They're doing the right things and trying to make everyone else
• 43:09
  happy except you because you don't know what you want.
• 43:12
  You are not teach to, to, to have opinion, to have wishes for
• 43:16
  yourself. No, no, I have to do it because
• 43:17
  everyone is doing it around me. So it must be good.
• 43:20
  It doesn't matter. I don't have to.
• 43:22
  It's musnish midden. I love this and I love this word
• 43:25
  I have to say. There are, there are funny
• 43:27
  words. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 43:28
  We we would in English we would say common sense, but it's not
• 43:31
  the same. It's not the same.
• 43:33
  It's not what we mean by midden, yeah.
• 43:36
  Yeah, so I, I love. It's a thing that definitely was
• 43:40
  not something a dictatorship would want.
• 43:45
  So you were not allowed to midden.
• 43:48
  Absolutely agree. 100% agree Yvonne.
• 43:53
  How was the switch bit from employee into employer?
• 44:02
  I was not an employee since I was 30 because I run my wine
• 44:06
  shop before for 13 years. So I I was not employed for a
• 44:11
  long, long time. And I always used to say when I
• 44:16
  created my wine shop, like five years later, as I said, if you
• 44:20
  have ever worked for yourself, you can never go back to being
• 44:24
  an employee because your boss will hate you because you have
• 44:31
  too many ideas you. Me dinkin, because of me dinkin.
• 44:35
  No, probably You're me dinkin too much then.
• 44:37
  Because that's not what they want.
• 44:41
  Yeah. So I always say you can't go
• 44:42
  back. You.
• 44:43
  It's very hard to go back, Yeah. You mentioned a few times the
• 44:47
  Corona period if on when and I have I want to go a bit back
• 44:51
  when, when have you opened it officially when you when you
• 44:54
  took it over officially the the business we.
• 44:56
  Opened. So we bought in 2013 and we
• 44:59
  opened in June 2014. OK.
• 45:03
  So you had let's say around about 6 years of of time in
• 45:06
  which you are building up the business because nothing
• 45:09
  something like this needs needs time to build up to, to make
• 45:12
  your, to get your clients to come back and so on, to get your
• 45:15
  regulars and so on. So you build, you build it up
• 45:18
  until the spring of 2020 and then it was a complete closing
• 45:26
  of the business. Yes, 1 1/2 years.
• 45:30
  Oh my God. So we were in in March, it all
• 45:35
  started and we were closed down, literally closed down because we
• 45:39
  we were not allowed to leave our houses for three months.
• 45:43
  So then we could reopen, which then was July.
• 45:46
  And we had lots of bookings because everybody hoped it was
• 45:52
  over. So we had lots of bookings for
• 45:54
  July, August, September, October and then, I don't remember
• 46:00
  exactly, beginning of August. I think it was the Brits first
• 46:06
  that implemented a current hand when you come back from your
• 46:11
  holiday that you had to lock up for 10 days or whatever.
• 46:16
  And the evening we got that notice, I said to Castlewell
• 46:20
  tomorrow all the English will cancel and that's what happened.
• 46:24
  And then bit by bit every other country was implementing the
• 46:28
  same. So we went from fully booked to
• 46:30
  0 booked. We had one couple in October for
• 46:33
  10 days because they were working remote anyway and that
• 46:37
  was literally all we had that that summer.
• 46:41
  So from March till end of October we had that one couple
• 46:48
  and then in I think December we got a total close down again
• 46:57
  until probably February and then we could open for all Marian
• 47:03
  people. No, first Mohaca, so it was the
• 47:06
  the village could travel freely, then the province could travel
• 47:11
  freely, then the Comunidad Autonomoso Andalusia.
• 47:15
  But I said to Carson, this all doesn't make sense until the
• 47:19
  flights don't start. We are not opening.
• 47:23
  So then suddenly the European Union said they would reopen on
• 47:28
  the 20th of June. And Sanchez said no, no, no, no,
• 47:31
  no, not for Spain. It's too early.
• 47:33
  It's too no, we we don't join. OK, So I said to Cosm, you know
• 47:38
  what, if we cannot open now, let's renovate all the rooms so
• 47:43
  at least we can try to do business all over the winter and
• 47:47
  we don't have to stop for renovations.
• 47:50
  So we started renovating on the 10th and on the 14th Sanchez
• 47:56
  changed his mind and said yeah, we will open.
• 48:00
  And I was like, oh for fuck's sake.
• 48:02
  So I got went to the builders and I said, guys, now we need
• 48:06
  some real power. We need to finish by well we
• 48:12
  knew if we open the 20th, the first flights will be around
• 48:15
  22nd, 23rd. So I thought we need to finish.
• 48:19
  And they did. They did.
• 48:20
  Everybody joined forces because they knew we had not been able
• 48:24
  to work for 1 1/2 years. So they really supported us.
• 48:29
  By the way, people here are very supportive.
• 48:32
  Anyway, everybody helps each other.
• 48:35
  And yeah, so we could open with the first flight coming in. 1
• 48:40
  1/2 years, That must be not easy to hold your mental health.
• 48:51
  Was there a moment in that time when you thought this will fail
• 48:56
  completely? No, lucky enough I'm not that
• 49:01
  kind of person. So when I realised this is going
• 49:05
  to take longer than I thought, I took two decisions.
• 49:11
  One was going on to an education for marketing because I would
• 49:16
  never have that time without a lockdown.
• 49:21
  And the other thing was what can we do in order not to lose the
• 49:26
  contact to our guests? And we started establishing
• 49:32
  apparel hours. So we met with our guests, we
• 49:37
  had an apparel hour in on a Friday evening in English, next
• 49:41
  Friday in Dutch, next Friday in German and we invited all our
• 49:45
  guests to join us online to have an apparel together.
• 49:50
  Then for Christmas we made it a Christmas coffee and cake.
• 49:56
  And when we realized that we still could not work, beginning
• 50:01
  of the next year, we started to send packages with two wines,
• 50:07
  two different cheeses, two different harmones, some
• 50:12
  almonds, some olives and we made online wine tasting.
• 50:17
  I explained the different harmones and the different
• 50:21
  cheeses and later that evening we all prepared.
• 50:26
  They got a recipe for tortilla. We all prepared Tortilla
• 50:30
  together online and then at the end of the evening they got a
• 50:35
  little link with a Spotify link for some Andalusian music.
• 50:40
  So we always try to invent things in order for not losing
• 50:46
  the contact. Yvonne this is amazing.
• 50:49
  This is I have to say I have no words to say how how
• 50:53
  unbelievable I find this because most of the people were going to
• 50:57
  desperation, but to use it productive.
• 50:59
  Use this time to to make your customers your friends.
• 51:05
  Yes, I think I, I really never had that moment of desperation
• 51:12
  because this is something that doesn't come to my mind.
• 51:14
  It's it's not in my DNA, in my DNA.
• 51:18
  I said earlier, I said I hate it when I go somewhere they should
• 51:21
  help me and they tell me it's all problematic.
• 51:26
  I don't like that. It was it wasn't COVID wasn't a
• 51:29
  problem. It was it was a what did you
• 51:33
  say? It was a feature, which feature
• 51:35
  exactly? And it was one of that roads
• 51:38
  leading somewhere and I didn't know at a time where it LED us,
• 51:42
  but we, So what I learned during daytime in my marketing course
• 51:47
  cast the next day did this on our website.
• 51:51
  So we completely renewed our website, our newsletters, our
• 51:56
  pre and post day mails. Everything got changed and we
• 52:00
  would never have had the time to do this.
• 52:02
  So rather than being desperate, I was trying to make the best of
• 52:07
  it. And this does not mean I mean we
• 52:13
  didn't get as much money as in other countries.
• 52:16
  I, I know some Belgium's who told me I wish Corona went on
• 52:20
  for 10 years because they had more money than ever before.
• 52:23
  That was not the case here. But what did we need?
• 52:26
  I mean, we couldn't go out anyway.
• 52:28
  There was no restaurant. And so literally I spent 1 1/2
• 52:33
  years in my jogging trousers. I didn't need it.
• 52:36
  An awful lot of money to be honest.
• 52:38
  So no, I think, I think it's, I don't know, no complaining is
• 52:46
  not my DNA. I've did your your I have no
• 52:52
  words, Yvonne, I really have no words.
• 52:53
  Your positivity is impressive and it's it's it's contagious.
• 52:58
  Like I feel it. I don't know if you if you can
• 53:00
  understand, but it's contagious. I I feel this and this is
• 53:03
  amazing. Like in that, in that period
• 53:04
  where everyone was scared everyone to find that positivity
• 53:07
  to move on. That's impressive.
• 53:09
  And I have to say, Chapo, if I would have, I have you.
• 53:11
  Very much. Thank you.
• 53:15
  This is, this is, this is really because I'm, and I'm not saying
• 53:18
  I'm not praying or something. I'm just being honest because I,
• 53:21
  of course I can understand your jogging, jogging pants, the
• 53:24
  jogging holes, jogging pants discussion because I'm mixing up
• 53:28
  the languages in my head. And I'm pretty sure you know
• 53:30
  what I mean because I, I did the same.
• 53:34
  I work from home for two years. I, I never had anything else but
• 53:38
  my short pants on. It doesn't matter which season
• 53:41
  was it. And when I went back to the
• 53:42
  office, it was such a difficult problem because I had to get
• 53:45
  normal pants on. It's not, doesn't feel normal
• 53:48
  anymore. But on the other side as well,
• 53:51
  my son was, my son was born in 2018.
• 53:54
  So I get to spend 2 years with him, which I wouldn't have had
• 53:58
  the chance in in any other situation.
• 54:00
  And if I managed to, I'm trying always to see the positive.
• 54:04
  Of course, we had some, some sad events in our family as well.
• 54:09
  It happened as well. But we have to try to see the
• 54:11
  positive out of it. And I think you're mastering
• 54:13
  this. Even I.
• 54:14
  Can tell you talking about bad things that happen.
• 54:20
  I'm very honest now. The first wine tasting night we
• 54:24
  had, we were doing the tortilla. It was supposed that we do this
• 54:29
  together, Carsten and I. So Carsten would do the tortilla
• 54:33
  and I would film this to go to show it online.
• 54:37
  I then had to do everything myself because Carsten was
• 54:41
  talking to his sister the whole night.
• 54:43
  So the first of these nights went until 5:00 in the morning
• 54:49
  because really people were you could feel people were having an
• 54:52
  amazing time to do something else.
• 54:54
  We had lots of wine together. We but that night 1 stare down.
• 55:01
  My husband was talking to his sister because his mom died that
• 55:05
  night. So talking about bad things that
• 55:08
  happen and still keeping it positive.
• 55:12
  I will never say it's always easy, but it's always a decision
• 55:18
  at the moment. And I just don't know.
• 55:22
  I would, I would want, I could give people some advice on how
• 55:26
  to do it. I don't know why.
• 55:27
  But rather than focusing on the bad thing that is happening, I
• 55:31
  first tried to focus on the good thing.
• 55:34
  And when at 5:00 at the in the morning, everybody was happy,
• 55:38
  everybody was finally tired. I went off and yes, we had a cry
• 55:43
  and but I think those people who joined that night and who paid
• 55:49
  for that, they deserved a good night.
• 55:51
  And I knew was what was happening down there.
• 55:54
  Nobody noticed it, I think. And it's not that I'm putting a
• 56:00
  mask on. It's just at that moment I'm
• 56:03
  focusing. I'm focusing on that what I'm
• 56:05
  doing. It's not a mask.
• 56:07
  I'm not being not me or non authentic or whatever, but I'm
• 56:12
  just trying to focus. And I think that's something
• 56:16
  that, yeah, I don't know, I wish I could explain it or give it to
• 56:20
  other people. But it's enough that you're
• 56:23
  seeing it because I think most people are not realising it.
• 56:26
  I'm not even trying it. And this is, I think the the
• 56:29
  most important thing to understand that there is an
• 56:32
  alternative, that there is an option to, to focus on something
• 56:35
  else. And of course you went there and
• 56:36
  knew you were there for Carson. I'm pretty sure when you're
• 56:38
  finished, because this is normal, but also you also focus
• 56:42
  on on what was the good thing and you had those people which
• 56:44
  you managed for which you managed to make good evening in
• 56:47
  that crazy situation that everyone had.
• 56:49
  So I think that's. It's just a we knew, we knew it
• 56:52
  was coming. We just didn't know it was
• 56:54
  coming that night. So how could we plan it?
• 56:56
  So it was just, it was just a bad coincidence, you know?
• 57:01
  But it's, yeah. So it's not always easy.
• 57:07
  It's not that I'm in always in a good mood because my life is all
• 57:10
  rose and, and, you know, roses and I don't know.
• 57:13
  How do you say this? Milk and toast and honey.
• 57:16
  Yeah, it isn't, but you still have a choice.
• 57:20
  And yes, sometimes it looks like in Corona, sometimes you get a
• 57:23
  feeling like, oh fuck, I don't have a choice.
• 57:26
  Yes, you do. You do, you do.
• 57:29
  And I think this is so important that you are saying it and you,
• 57:34
  as I said, you made from from the clients that were visiting,
• 57:37
  you give them a taste of Andalsia from distance and you
• 57:40
  said, OK, let's try to see each other when it's possible again.
• 57:42
  And I think that that made your clients come with much more
• 57:47
  pleasure back to you because they knew you and they always
• 57:50
  have this in mind. She was there when nobody gave a
• 57:53
  rat's ass because everyone was thinking of they are not coming
• 57:57
  there. We close the hotels.
• 57:58
  I don't care about them because they are out of sight, out of
• 58:01
  mind and that's it. And I think that's the important
• 58:04
  piece. You spiked out of Corona and you
• 58:11
  said in June, you said June 2021, the business started
• 58:15
  again. Was it a rough start?
• 58:18
  Was it a good start? What was your feeling?
• 58:22
  So on booking side, it was an amazing start because everybody
• 58:26
  wanted to travel for fun. We said we will drive to IKEA
• 58:31
  and get those beds for children on top of each other and put
• 58:35
  them in the garden because we had more inquiries than we could
• 58:38
  ever handle. The rough thing was you had
• 58:44
  people who wanted to forget about Corona and you had other
• 58:48
  people still having breakfast with a mask on, taking it off
• 58:54
  for a bite, putting it back up, you know, and I was like,
• 58:58
  horrified. And we had this disinfection
• 59:03
  stuff everywhere. I, I, I, I still have, I still
• 59:07
  have so much disinfection stuff that I could do 3 pandemics more
• 59:11
  probably. Oh gosh, it was everywhere.
• 59:15
  And you know, some people were relaxed and others were still,
• 59:18
  oh gosh, they were so crazy, bone crazy.
• 59:23
  And in Spain anyway, they make people, they did a lot of
• 59:27
  scaremongering. So a lot of people that drove in
• 59:30
  their car all by themselves with a mask on.
• 59:34
  Incredible. I've seen that in Germany.
• 59:36
  I've seen that in Germany so often.
• 59:38
  I always thinking yeah, meet Dinkin like.
• 59:41
  Yeah, yeah. Sometimes there is a lack of
• 59:44
  meeting, so yeah. But it was so on the booking
• 59:49
  side and on the financial side, it was amazing.
• 59:53
  But on the other side, the start was really rough because nobody
• 59:56
  really knew how to behave. And I still, we were not allowed
• 1:00:00
  to do buffet. So we made a buffet and then
• 1:00:04
  guest by guest had to come in, tell me what his choice was.
• 1:00:07
  And then I put this on a tray and brought it out.
• 1:00:10
  It was, it was really a different way of working.
• 1:00:15
  So yeah. But anyway, we survived this so.
• 1:00:21
  That's, that's really nice. That's, that's the most amazing
• 1:00:24
  thing. Yeah.
• 1:00:28
  What do you think? Do you think the Corona time or
• 1:00:31
  I'm pretty sure you still have contact with with someone from
• 1:00:34
  Germany? I, I think, do you think the
• 1:00:37
  Corona time from the business perspective was easier in Spain
• 1:00:40
  or harder than it was in Germany?
• 1:00:44
  I think financially it was harder, but I think it was
• 1:00:48
  easier because people have a better social system here.
• 1:00:51
  So everybody hangs together even though it was not allowed, but
• 1:00:55
  every everybody was clinging together helping each other.
• 1:01:02
  I think the social strength here is a lot better and I think this
• 1:01:07
  makes it makes sense meet even though financially it's a bit
• 1:01:12
  rougher. I I know a case where talk about
• 1:01:16
  community, I always have to smile when I think about it
• 1:01:19
  because I know a case when our neighbor made the police claim
• 1:01:23
  that we are too many on our on our terrors because we had some
• 1:01:27
  friends over. Oh yeah, yeah, my parents also
• 1:01:31
  had this in Belgium. They had a BBQ with friends and
• 1:01:35
  the neighbors called the police, but they miscounted.
• 1:01:39
  So they were exactly the amount of people they were allowed to.
• 1:01:42
  But the neighbors for somebody else that wasn't there.
• 1:01:47
  This is something you don't know here.
• 1:01:51
  Also for a party. I mean, we, we, we are living in
• 1:01:54
  the campus, so it's really silent here.
• 1:01:56
  But if there is a party once in a while, because it's somebody's
• 1:01:59
  birthday, nobody cares how hard the music plays, how long it
• 1:02:04
  plays. We're just saying, oh, it must
• 1:02:07
  be the birthday and that's it. Nobody.
• 1:02:10
  No, this is something Northern European I don't like.
• 1:02:17
  Did did Spain change you mentally even, or you're always
• 1:02:22
  this positive? No, I'm always positive and when
• 1:02:28
  I get up and I'm in a good mood, this is probably my DNA, but it
• 1:02:34
  changed me to. So one thing is probably that
• 1:02:39
  family got more importance again, I learned from my Spanish
• 1:02:43
  friends that it's not a weakness to say that you prefer spending
• 1:02:50
  time with your family rather than earning money or so.
• 1:02:56
  So like, for example, my dad got very ill two years ago and from
• 1:03:02
  then I decided that when my parents are here and it's their
• 1:03:06
  birthday, we will close for two nights and we will just
• 1:03:09
  celebrate their birthday. In Germany, I would never have
• 1:03:13
  done that because you work, you always work, you don't question
• 1:03:17
  this. And in Spain I started to
• 1:03:20
  realize that sometimes there are things that are more important
• 1:03:23
  than work. And I can live with a few €100
• 1:03:28
  less less. But I don't know how many years
• 1:03:31
  we still have together. So my priorities have changed
• 1:03:36
  and I got a little bit calmer. I'm still very perfectionist.
• 1:03:42
  I am very German. Did Spaniards always say we have
• 1:03:46
  a Cabeza quadrata? Squared.
• 1:03:51
  Squared. Yeah, And I definitely, I'm a
• 1:03:54
  nerd in some respect and I'm very perfect, but I learned to
• 1:04:00
  or I still, I am still in the process of learning that if it's
• 1:04:06
  80%, it's also OK. So I still have to learn this,
• 1:04:11
  but I see this at my friend's life and I really like this.
• 1:04:17
  And another thing is being more grateful because people here are
• 1:04:22
  really suffering financially because the salaries here are
• 1:04:27
  very, very low. Costs have exploded over the
• 1:04:31
  last years, but there's no real salary adaptation to that.
• 1:04:37
  So also my friends who are mostly middle class people have
• 1:04:44
  really suffered A downgrade and and this is something where I
• 1:04:51
  would say if people complain in other countries, maybe they
• 1:04:55
  should come and work here for a while and see how life is in
• 1:05:01
  other countries. So again, it's that complaining
• 1:05:06
  thing that doesn't. Yeah, people here don't
• 1:05:09
  complain, although their life is pretty tough at the moment.
• 1:05:15
  Do you have that feeling of or do you, do you think that the
• 1:05:19
  saying is lived where in Western or in Germany you would work,
• 1:05:23
  you would live to work and in Spain you would work only to
• 1:05:26
  live? Yes, yes, they so the Spaniards
• 1:05:38
  are not lazy. I cannot sign to this.
• 1:05:41
  They all say Manana all the time and they never come.
• 1:05:44
  I I cannot relate this. I have never had this.
• 1:05:48
  They work hard, but family first.
• 1:05:55
  Not particularly friends first, but family always first.
• 1:05:58
  So if something happens in the family, if grandmother needs to
• 1:06:04
  be driven somewhere or whatever, that comes before work.
• 1:06:09
  And yes, they don't work themselves nuts, so they keep
• 1:06:16
  it. You know, people here actually
• 1:06:19
  work more hours than Germans. Is the efficiency the same?
• 1:06:24
  Maybe not most time of the year. It's also very hot.
• 1:06:29
  My efficiency is not very good when it's very hot because I get
• 1:06:33
  a lot slower than yes. People still do a morning break
• 1:06:38
  here. So even if you go to your lawyer
• 1:06:41
  or bookkeeper, you might arrive and they would say, Oh no, your
• 1:06:45
  girl is just out for her breakfast break.
• 1:06:48
  So they go out, have a coffee, eat something.
• 1:06:52
  And then sometimes this annoys me, being German.
• 1:06:57
  Work, work, work, why are they not here?
• 1:07:00
  And then I have my learning process where I say how good
• 1:07:05
  they are, not having a coffee to go.
• 1:07:07
  Nobody here has a coffee to go. Starbucks in Almaria had to
• 1:07:12
  close down because there is no market for coffee to go.
• 1:07:16
  We still like to sit and if it's only 5 minutes, just have a tiny
• 1:07:21
  little coffee, have a little chat over the counter and off we
• 1:07:24
  go. But, and I think this is
• 1:07:28
  something we really don't know because this does not happen in
• 1:07:33
  our countries, but it's something I really like and I
• 1:07:37
  really try to learn this for myself.
• 1:07:41
  I think that's an important lesson for everyone to to be
• 1:07:45
  able to understand that, that a few €100 more or that few €1000
• 1:07:50
  more maybe doesn't make you, doesn't increase your happiness.
• 1:07:55
  And if we get to a limit, then everything that you you get over
• 1:07:59
  that limit is just less nice. You save it to put it on the
• 1:08:02
  side you invested something or whatever, but it doesn't
• 1:08:05
  increase your level of happiness.
• 1:08:06
  And I think this spread this valuable time that we have now
• 1:08:10
  in our 30s, forties, 50s when we are still young, 60s when we are
• 1:08:14
  still young, still in power, still able to do things and we
• 1:08:17
  are decided to sell that time for another 200 or more.
• 1:08:21
  That's something that everyone has to learn, I think.
• 1:08:25
  Yeah. And I can say, I mean all my
• 1:08:27
  friends work hard because they all, most of them are in
• 1:08:30
  hospitality business as well. They all work hard.
• 1:08:33
  But if they have some time off, there is a restaurant where we
• 1:08:38
  would always meet or where we would sit and have our pie on
• 1:08:41
  the beach. And it's just sometimes it's
• 1:08:43
  only an hour and a half, but that hour and a half you
• 1:08:46
  enjoyed. But I have to ask Yvonne this.
• 1:08:49
  You said your friends who also work in hospitality and you meet
• 1:08:53
  them. That means the places that are
• 1:08:55
  around you. You know the owners of the
• 1:08:57
  places that are around you and you are friends with them.
• 1:08:59
  I know everybody here. I'm I have a Spanish friend who
• 1:09:03
  always tells me I am more Mojaquera than the real
• 1:09:07
  Mojaqueras. Yes, I I know a lot of people.
• 1:09:12
  I feel very homey here. It's I'm so happy for you.
• 1:09:18
  I'm, I'm, I think because I'm a positive person, because I
• 1:09:22
  always try my best to speak Spanish.
• 1:09:25
  I mean, my Spanish now is really good.
• 1:09:27
  But you know, I, I always tried from the very first beginning.
• 1:09:30
  So I think that gave me a lot of credits here in this area
• 1:09:35
  because we have a lot of people who live here as residents and
• 1:09:40
  don't speak a word of English, although the Spanish, although
• 1:09:43
  they've been living here for 30 years.
• 1:09:45
  So I think that was very much appreciated and and yeah.
• 1:09:51
  But that's a matter of respect. This is something which I said a
• 1:09:53
  few times in, in this in this podcast, because every time when
• 1:09:56
  you're living in a country, it's a matter of respect to trying to
• 1:09:59
  speak the language. And even though if it's, I don't
• 1:10:01
  know, Spanish, Italian, German, which is not easy.
• 1:10:05
  And I mean Schwabeland, and you know how Schwabeland is.
• 1:10:08
  Oh yeah, that's that's even more difficult.
• 1:10:10
  I had my neighbor. I told the story again my
• 1:10:13
  neighbor for sitting in front of me, he was 95 as he moved in and
• 1:10:16
  the lady was 92 and they were born and raised in this village.
• 1:10:20
  Oh my God, Yvonne. Six months I.
• 1:10:22
  Understand a word. I was smiling and nothing, there
• 1:10:26
  was nothing like nothing. But I tried to do my best, try
• 1:10:32
  to understand, try to do my use my VBT generously and to ask
• 1:10:38
  them, OK, what they mean. And then they were realizing,
• 1:10:40
  OK, But I think this is a matter of respect.
• 1:10:42
  It's only a matter of respect and that we are not native in
• 1:10:45
  the language of the countries that we moved in.
• 1:10:47
  That's clear for everyone and. And that's no problem at all.
• 1:10:51
  You don't need to be perfect, but exactly, yeah, you have to
• 1:10:54
  show respect. And I think nobody ever called
• 1:10:58
  me and said, hi, Yvonne, don't you want to live in Spain?
• 1:11:01
  We would really love to have you here.
• 1:11:03
  It was my decision to come here. So for God's sake, at least I
• 1:11:07
  should do everything that is possible to integrate.
• 1:11:10
  That's a really good one. Makes sense.
• 1:11:13
  Even one of the big discussions that we had in the previous
• 1:11:15
  episodes with people living in Spain was the the up and down
• 1:11:19
  discussion about Siesta. And I want to ask you, you
• 1:11:24
  cannot imagine the mode of hate I got for that one.
• 1:11:27
  Always bring it up because I think it's fine.
• 1:11:33
  Based on your experience. Yes, with siesta.
• 1:11:36
  Describe the siesta process for me.
• 1:11:39
  OK, so I know nobody who sleeps. At Siesta.
• 1:11:44
  Oh, we cannot get any hate for this now.
• 1:11:47
  I So what people generally would do, they would go home to have
• 1:11:53
  lunch and then maybe after lunch sit like 15 minutes and then
• 1:11:58
  suddenly you'll realise your eyes are falling down.
• 1:12:01
  But literally it's not a sleep, it's like a nap, a power nap.
• 1:12:05
  Probably. Most women I know, they do the
• 1:12:09
  laundry during siesta time, they cook, they cook for the evening,
• 1:12:14
  so they go shopping. I I don't know, nobody really
• 1:12:20
  does siesta. Honestly.
• 1:12:22
  I do siesta sometimes because in the hospitality business that we
• 1:12:28
  work in a restaurant, you work in the evenings, but you can
• 1:12:31
  sleep in a little longer in the morning.
• 1:12:33
  Now we have to get up to make breakfast, so we need to get up
• 1:12:36
  pretty early. But if we have a dinner night,
• 1:12:38
  it might be two or 3:00 in the morning that we go to bed.
• 1:12:41
  So our nights sometimes are really short and then I
• 1:12:46
  personally do a siesta because otherwise I can't survive.
• 1:12:52
  So and the heat makes you really drowsy.
• 1:12:56
  So in in summer, you sometimes find yourself sitting at the
• 1:13:01
  computer and just falling asleep while you're typing because the
• 1:13:05
  heat is so exhausting. And then you're not as
• 1:13:09
  productive as the other months. That's just a matter of fact.
• 1:13:13
  You are describing perfectly this because I think this this
• 1:13:16
  two things are to take in consideration.
• 1:13:18
  We talked about here is the one that you go home and spend the
• 1:13:20
  lunch with your family again family time again priorities,
• 1:13:23
  priorities set correctly my point of view and 2nd is the
• 1:13:27
  heat which in the southern part of Spain, it destroys you during
• 1:13:31
  those those peak hours from midday.
• 1:13:33
  So I think that's those two things factoring in, I think it
• 1:13:36
  absolutely makes sense. And you don't have to sleep.
• 1:13:38
  You just have to go home, take some cold, take some energy from
• 1:13:41
  your family and then go back. But for that.
• 1:13:44
  Air con on at home, you know, you can, you can really recover
• 1:13:48
  a little and everything you do outside is so exhausting because
• 1:13:53
  of the heat. So yeah, I, I, I do perfectly
• 1:13:57
  understand people who take a siesta.
• 1:14:00
  Yvonne, we, we talked a lot about, about your BNB and I have
• 1:14:06
  to, I want to ask you, I want to try to make it as spontaneously
• 1:14:12
  as possible because we haven't talked about this before.
• 1:14:14
  But if you would be to invite someone to your BNB, what how do
• 1:14:21
  you would you try to sell them? Not because of their eyes like
• 1:14:23
  you said, as the Italians would do, but how do you, how would
• 1:14:27
  you sell the experience at your place?
• 1:14:31
  Oh oh, so this place is perfect if you are totally overworked,
• 1:14:40
  if you want to escape all that hamster wheel rushy thing,
• 1:14:44
  because here everything is really slow.
• 1:14:47
  I don't know what it is about this plot, but people always say
• 1:14:52
  when they come here they immediately relax deeply.
• 1:14:56
  Everything here is really, it's really dark, there is no noise
• 1:15:01
  pollution, it's only 7 rooms. So even if we're fully booked,
• 1:15:08
  we're still just a little gang and.
• 1:15:12
  And what I love most is if I would have a dream guest or
• 1:15:18
  dream guests. What I love most is when we have
• 1:15:22
  a dinner night and every couple is from a different country
• 1:15:26
  because you never, ever get so many different stories of life.
• 1:15:32
  And these are just. For me, the most amazing
• 1:15:36
  experiences are the dinner nights and drinks by the bar and
• 1:15:41
  everybody chatting and suddenly you have people with different
• 1:15:49
  incomes, different backgrounds, different culture, different
• 1:15:53
  beliefs, different religion and they all are together and, and
• 1:16:00
  celebrating that moment. And sometimes I just draw back
• 1:16:04
  then and look at it like from a perspective and this makes me so
• 1:16:09
  happy. This is what I do it for.
• 1:16:12
  So I like people. If I would have to to sell this
• 1:16:16
  I would say if you are open hearted and open minded and you
• 1:16:20
  want to slow down then then I'm your go to.
• 1:16:26
  We are, we are somehow on the same mind, mind frequency
• 1:16:31
  because the reason why I started this is because I love talking
• 1:16:34
  to people and meeting people from all over the world and
• 1:16:37
  getting to know their experiences.
• 1:16:39
  And I have to say 1. I, I met a lot of people and I
• 1:16:43
  met a lot of people through this through my private trips.
• 1:16:45
  And but I never met someone that loves so much what they are
• 1:16:49
  doing like you, I have to say. OK.
• 1:16:54
  I I'm a bit jealous to be honest.
• 1:16:56
  I. Feel sorry for the world if they
• 1:16:58
  don't laugh because literally this world is pretty ridiculous
• 1:17:01
  at the moment. So we if we if we don't laugh
• 1:17:05
  anymore, I think we will be very close to depression.
• 1:17:08
  So I can only say it helps and maybe maybe just not take
• 1:17:15
  yourself too serious. I think that's one of the big
• 1:17:18
  things because we are just a tiny little thing in this big
• 1:17:23
  thing here. So I think literally we have
• 1:17:27
  none of any importance in this universe if you know, if you
• 1:17:33
  look at the whole of it. But for our little bubble, we
• 1:17:37
  are important. And outside of that.
• 1:17:41
  For for some people, you are a name.
• 1:17:43
  For most of the people, you are just a number.
• 1:17:46
  So I think that's it's important to make the difference between
• 1:17:49
  two. It was such a huge pleasure to
• 1:17:52
  talk to Yvonne before we wrap it up.
• 1:17:54
  I have usually always a list of five rapid fire questions that I
• 1:17:58
  like to ask. They are I'm trying to tailor
• 1:18:01
  them on every guest that I have. Sometimes I manage to, sometimes
• 1:18:04
  I don't. I'm not a professional on this.
• 1:18:06
  Do I have a joker? Having fun.
• 1:18:08
  Yes. Do I have a joker if I don't
• 1:18:10
  want to answer? Yes, that's of always the always
• 1:18:14
  the situation. Yvonne, tell me one thing that
• 1:18:19
  Germany is doing better than Spain.
• 1:18:22
  Datif sorry. OK, that's an inside joke for
• 1:18:34
  whomever is speaking German. But it's true.
• 1:18:37
  It's really I wish Spain had Datev.
• 1:18:39
  I wish everybody had Datev because it links everything
• 1:18:43
  automatically, which we don't have here.
• 1:18:45
  Every bookkeeper works with different software, which makes
• 1:18:48
  me crazy. So I would love Datev makes.
• 1:18:51
  Sense one thing that Spain does better than Germany.
• 1:18:57
  Oh, social life, being there for your friends and family, yeah.
• 1:19:05
  What's the biggest myth of the of the expert life?
• 1:19:09
  The biggest? The biggest myth Myth.
• 1:19:13
  Oh, that you don't have to work anymore and lie in the sun and
• 1:19:16
  have gin tonics all day. This is what the fucking social
• 1:19:22
  media is selling or everyone everyone is thinking oh I don't
• 1:19:25
  I just will go to as an expert or a no but and I have to do
• 1:19:29
  nothing. Yes, big myth.
• 1:19:35
  One sentence that you've tell your younger self before the
• 1:19:39
  move to Spain. It's very hot in summer.
• 1:19:44
  Be aware of that. It's too hot in summer.
• 1:19:52
  Is home, a place or a feeling? Home is a feeling.
• 1:20:00
  Slowly I get there with every guest, I have to be honest.
• 1:20:03
  And as much as everyone is searching for that place, I
• 1:20:06
  think they should search for the Philly, not for the place.
• 1:20:09
  Yes, Yvonne, thank you so, so much for your time.
• 1:20:14
  I appreciate it a lot. Thank you for having me and
• 1:20:20
  yeah, thanks for a lovely evening.
• 1:20:22
  For a very easy chat, although we were both rushing into the
• 1:20:26
  chat. So I think it was a lovely
• 1:20:28
  evening. I enjoyed it thoroughly and I
• 1:20:32
  hope our ways cross somewhere else.
• 1:20:36
  I hope as well. Maybe we have a new idea of what
• 1:20:39
  we could do, I don't know. Absolutely.
• 1:20:41
  Maybe we, we, I, I love your positivity.
• 1:20:44
  I love your positive. I think this, this positivity
• 1:20:46
  should would cure this this awful world that we are living
• 1:20:49
  in. OK, so I'll send you not so
• 1:20:54
  sunny regards anymore because it's meanwhile it's also very
• 1:20:57
  dark here so but. I link all the social media, all
• 1:21:02
  your website in the show notes, the description.
• 1:21:05
  I will put it also on the screen for whomever wants to take some
• 1:21:08
  time to to disconnect from everything.
• 1:21:12
  I do recommend the BNB I'm I'm I'm their Instagram follower and
• 1:21:17
  I'm I don't, I'm not happy about it to be honest because I'm in
• 1:21:20
  Germany and it's cloudy and I haven't seen the sun since
• 1:21:23
  November. I'm just saying.
• 1:21:28
  You must take those pills. Vitamin D3 we don't need.
• 1:21:36
  Thank you so much, I wish you an amazing evening.
• 1:21:38
  Yvonne talk to you soon. Have a lovely.
• 1:21:41
  Evening bye. Bye.
• 1:21:42
  So before you head back into the world, I have a quick word about
• 1:21:45
  Gem Update. I reach out to Yvonne and Carson
• 1:21:48
  this week to see how the sun is treating them in Spain.
• 1:21:50
  They are still hosting travelers from Coastal Group, reminding us
• 1:21:54
  all that hospitality is a cure for a fragmented world.
• 1:21:58
  Yvonne wanted me to remind you, if you're feeling that winter
• 1:22:01
  slam, don't forget your vitamin D, but more importantly, don't
• 1:22:05
  forget to keep searching for that feeling.
• 1:22:10
  I've linked their social media and BM BS websites in the show
• 1:22:13
  notes so you can see the sunshine for yourself.
• 1:22:17
  If this episode shifted your perspective, subscribe to our
• 1:22:20
  channel and rate or show on Apple bot.
• 1:22:23
  This helps us a lot. Until next time, keep exploring,
• 1:22:28
  keep wandering, and remember home isn't the map, it's how you
• 1:22:32
  feel the space. I'm Paul.
• 1:22:35
  This was over about stairs. See you in two weeks.