I Went to Barcelona In Search of the American Dream

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How the Traveling Writer Ended up Living in Barcelona

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

This week I tell you the adventure story of how I ended up living in Barcelona after a year in Paris. 

It started with Paris in winter. On November 1, it was as if some celestial being put a hand on a dimmer switch and steadily, then increasingly rapidly, reduced the amount of light. 

Paris is a lot more north than New York City, which means summer evenings are much longer and winter days much shorter. I was accustomed to things getting lighter at about 6:30. and the sun being up, shining through my commuter train window, by 7. In Paris, things don’t start getting light until 7:30, and the sun doesn’t rise until 8. That extra hour of darkness in the mornings just about killed me. 

And in Paris, once the sun is up, it’s usually blocked by huge thick clouds. Also, the light is dim because the sun is low – not even rising above the roofs of two-story buildings. I was so starved for light that I would watch for a sunbeam to strike the ground outside my studio apartment window. When it did, I learned I had to run out and bask in it immediately because it wouldn’t last long. 

Sometimes I was in the library in Le Marais and had to dash out to the street, stand on the corner with my face to the weak sun. People would bump me in annoyance, but I didn’t care. I was doing a survival tactic. When the sun came out, it would only last a few minutes. Then moisture from the earth would rise, or the clouds would shift, the sun would be blocked, and a sunlit moment wouldn’t occur for another couple of days. Or weeks. 

By December 1, I felt ill with lack of light. People told me to take Vitamin D-3 and to burn candles all day indoors. “That’s how the Swedes get through the winter,” said someone who had lived in Sweden for two years. Candles didn’t cut it. Vitamin D-3 didn’t either. Standing in an occasional sunbeam for five minutes didn’t do much for me. I was suffering. 

I decided that I would never be able to live through a winter in London or Dublin or Stockholm or Copenhagen or Berlin. Nothing further north than Paris. Not ever.

Tres elegante! The skies were rarely clear in winter, however, making for feelings of desperation for light.

There are no right-angle intersections in Paris. Instead, delightful buildings like this one perch on odd-shaped corners.

Just outside Notre Dame, a woman dressed like a bride.  She wandered off, and so did the horseback- mounted policeman and the child.

Paris winters aren’t bitter cold usually—the temperature held steady at 33 degrees the winter I was there—but the lack of light makes life difficult. What to do to feel better? Go someplace sunny in the south. This is why Northern Europeans have been going to Italy and Spain and the South of France for centuries. 

I got on that bandwagon. I decided to check out Barcelona in January. A bright spot of sun to look forward to halfway through the winter would help me make it to spring. 

I took the Train Grand Vitesse (“Very Fast Train,” literally) to Barcelona on my birthday. I stayed in a hostel not far from the main tourist attractions. The city was sunny! It was in the low 50s in daytime! I sat on a bench in the sun and basked.

Serendipities while in search of the American Dream 

Now comes the Higher Power / serendipity part of the story. In the hostel I stayed in, I sat at the row of computers one evening to check email. A handsome young guy sat next to me to do the same, and we got to chatting. I said my one-year creative writing sabbatical in Paris was half over, and I needed to start planning my next step. I wanted to stay in Europe, but I had no idea how I could do that. 

“Check out Workaway.com,” the kid said. “In exchange for room and board, you give a certain number of hours per day to a farmer or a family. Check out the jobs. They’re all over the world.” 

He was right. There were hundreds of jobs. I could work on an organic olive tree farm on Crete, or a kangaroo ranch in Australia, or be a nanny to kids in Spain--in Barcelona to be exact. 

One ad said that the three boys in the family were in school nine hours a day, and I would have weekends free. That meant I could keep my writing life going! I could write while the kids were in school. 

I looked for a similar job in Paris, but the winter there had been so difficult for me, I didn’t look all that hard. I wanted an adventure in a sunnier location. I checked for a Meet-up in Barcelona of a writers group in English, and there was one! I had what I needed! 

I got in touch with the Barcelona family immediately, and after a few months the whole thing was in place – the nanny job, the Spanish visa, the Very Fast Train reservation to Barcelona in July. Here's a few scenes from Barcelona:

A mysterious Catalan courtyard

Exquisite wrought iron and architectural details.

A narrow doorway onto a narrow walkway. Perhaps a Catalan princess mourned her true love here?

Don't you wish you lived here?

 Next week: the challenge of being a nanny to three Catalan boys.

In Search of the American Dream: a coffee shop, a new but forever friend, and...

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How I Gained a Sponsor in France

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

I'm hoping you'll come on a journey with me, the Traveling Writer!

Here we continue the story of how I got to live in Paris for a one-year creative writing sabbatical...

I was hoping so much to get to Paris. I carefully calculated expenses, then converted everything to euros. At that point, the exchange rate was steep: 1.35 US dollars to buy 1 euro. It caused me some anxiety. I could just barely make it at that rate. What if it went up?

It was serendipitous when it finally changed to 1.15 to 1--and stayed there.

In hopes of someday being in Paris, I studied French online – “Learn French with Vincent.” It was a terrific course of study. I learned that the French do not have a word for “ninety.” Instead they say, “four times 20 plus ten.” It seemed a bit cumbersome to me, but it was their language, who was I to judge?

I was filling out the forms for the French visa – they were in French, so I had to use Google Translate to make sure I was filling out the blanks correctly.

But there was one big hole in my visa application: I still needed a French sponsor. All my networking with church friends had not provided one. I’d been told by my one contact in Paris, the pastor of a start-up Protestant congregation in the Latin Quarter, that I needed to find a homeowner in France.

How does one go about doing that, exactly? Even in our miraculous age of technology, it would be impossible to find a trustworthy landowning French person who would trust ME enough to write a letter to their government that basically guaranteed that, if I became destitute, they would keep me off the streets and out of the French government’s hair.

It was a sticky problem I couldn’t solve on my own. So I asked HP for help. Weeks went by. 

I explored coastal Connecticut on occasion and went back to New London, Stonington, all the picturesque places that reminded me of my mom and dad's twenty years in Mystic.

Mystic has tons of adorable houses and gardens.

It wouldn't be coastal Connecticut without whaling vessels.  Here's the Charles W. Morgan, restored as a whaling ship, docked at the public pier in New London, CT.

People swarmed over the ship.

19th Century sailors added to the festivities.

An 19th century sailor scooting back to the pier.

The ship's wheel, a rather important feature.

It wouldn't be an 19th century ship without tiny bunks and people saying, "How did they fit?"

More pics of coastal Connecticut here.

On Memorial Day I took a break from cleaning out my mother’s condo and went to the Green Marble Coffee Shop in Mystic for elevensies. 

I was sitting at the outdoor tables, sipping the best coffee ever – Sumatran Italian Roast – when I saw a woman approach the door of the coffee shop.

“She seems like an exceptionally nice person,” I thought. “It would be nice if we had a chance to chat.”

The Search for the American Dream Takes a Twist

She came out a few minutes later with coffee and a newspaper. She “happened” to pick the table and chair next to mine.

“America in Denial” was the huge headline.

“What’s America in denial about?” I asked her. Seemed like a great opening gambit.

It turned out well for me.

“Gun control,” she said, and we so easily started to chat. I really liked this person! She was a wonderful human being. We were enjoying great rapport, trading stories and jokes. So when she asked me what I was up to, I answered honestly.

“Well, my mother just died two months ago. I’m cleaning out her condo for my brothers and sisters – her home is unbelievably jammed. Anyway, I’m working on that but I found this book. A Writer’s Paris. It says if you’re an American writer, you really have to go live and write in Paris. I want to very badly. I have the opportunity now. But I need a sponsor, and it has to be someone who owns property in France.”

There was a bit of a pause.

“I own three properties in France,” she said.

I felt as though the sun stood in place for an hour. I sensed that HP was on the move again!

We talked about it, and I knew it would be a huge risk for her to trust a total stranger to uphold her reputation with the French government.

I invited her and her boyfriend to meet me for dinner for three nights later.

We met at the Captain Daniel Packer Inn in Mystic and talked some more. Once again, my impression of Hope was that she was an exceptional human being, that she was very much considering sponsoring me.

During dinner she said that her former husband, a Frenchman, and she had been divorced several years ago but that they still jointly owned a house in the Paris suburbs, a chalet in the French Alps that was inaccessible five months a year, and some other land. She laid it all on the line and said that at her word, he would be willing to sponsor me for my visa to France!

It was a night for lots of thank you’s to HP.

I went back at it with the French paperwork. I asked Hope’s former husband to provide a copy of his mortgage, his gas or electric bill, his French ID card, and a signed letter that he’d keep me off the streets.

The leap of faith both these people took is still stunning to me. Would I have done the same for a stranger? Hope and her ex are very fine people and set a high example for me.

Needless to say, I’ve kept in touch with her and sent her an honorary copy of The Paris Writers Circle. It probably wouldn’t exist except for her and her ex.

Next week: my favorite pics from Paris, and how I ended up living in Barcelona after a year in Paris.

In Search of the American Dream -- an American Writer Wants to Go to Paris to Write

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How a Traveling Writer Ended Up in Paris -- Part II

by Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

I was living with my frail, tiny, 84-year-old mother, cooking for her, trying to tempt her to eat by making foods just the way she liked. After breakfast, which she picked at, her aide would arrive, and I would be free for a few hours.

So I explored coastal Connecticut. My mother lived in Mystic, which in itself is mystical. Route 1 went through Mystic and over its iconic drawbridge. Strung along Route 1 was a series of towns that were historic, interesting, beautiful: Stonington, Niantic, Madison, Old Lyme.

The Charles W. Morgan was refurbished in Mystic, then sailed--for the first time in many decades--to New London for tours by the public.

Arriving by ferry into New London one evening, I caught the Charles W. Morgan silhouetted against the sunset.

The lighthouse just outside New London.

One of the lovely historic homes in Stonington, CT.

More pics of coastal Connecticut here and here.

In Search of the American Dream Takes a Twist

One day, I took Route 1 to New London. It has lots of history as a whaling and fishing town. It's suffered hard times for many decades, but it’s now gaining ground slowly with some recovery downtown.

I wandered among the historic commercial architecture downtown and suddenly spied something that I’d never noticed before: an independent bookstore!

I dashed in. It was a cold January day, with freezing blasts of bone-chill air off the Long Island Sound. The bookstore’s huge picture windows were steamed up with the temperature difference between indoors and out.

I was delighted with what I found inside: a grand piano covered with an eclectic collection of antiques and memorabilia. A café with chairs and tables along the huge storefront windows. New Londoners sat talking, discussing their latest projects. 

I hunted for the owner. He was holding his nine-month old son on one hip and writing inventory with one hand.

“I love indie bookstores, and I support them by writing about them on my blog,” I said. “Can I take some pictures?”

“Sure,” he said. So I poked around with my camera.

"Buy a Book! You'll still be cold...but at least you will have a book!"

I stepped out of the bookstore later, into the cold air, with a book that changed my life.

The owner with his baby son.

Where the family hung out during long days in the shop.

I love the old tin ceilings.

The piano: piled with books!

The cafe, where New Londoners discussed their latest projects.

The owner made coffee, bobbled the baby, and sold books.

Creative collaboration?

As I left, the owner snuggled his baby.

The bookstore was quiet and lovely. I thought I really should support the bookstore with more than just a post on my blog. Especially one owned by a family. But I had to be really careful with money, so I poo-pooed that idea.

I snapped a few more pictures. And I heard a still small voice say, “Norma, put your money where your mouth is. Buy a book.”

That’s Higher Power, my heart said.

So I went back to the owner and asked where the writing section was. He directed me around the corner of a bookshelf, and there I saw a little brown book. A Writer’s Paris, by Eric Maisel.

“Thanks a bunch, HP, I’ll never get to Paris. You’re just making me jealous,” I thought. But I took the book off the shelf, opened it, and read a random paragraph.

“If you’re an American writer, you need to go to Paris to write. Go for 1 month, or 3 months. Better yet, go for a year. Paris is one of the more affordable great cities of the world. You can do it! Just go!”

Well, I thought to myself. Am I qualified? Am I a writer? I didn’t have an exceptional track record of being published, not by any means. But I’d persevered for years in a writing apprenticeship. I'd graduated from New York University's creative writing program magna cum laude. It has all been a ton of work. But I'd persevered. For years. Yes, I decided, I certainly could count myself as a writer.

But could I actually go to Paris? And live there?

The idea exploded in my mind. I bought the book.

I would not go as long as my mother needed me, which I hoped would be years.

But when I got home, I Googled “French visa” and was led to the site of the French Consulate in New York City, which serves New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. I studied the documents I’d need, which included a letter from a French sponsor.

I cared for my mother, and while she was resting began to network with people for contacts in France.

I emailed a French pastor in Paris that one of my friends in New Jersey knew of. He told me that he would be willing to write the sponsorship letter, but that he rented an apartment, would be moving soon, and the French government wouldn’t be impressed with him as my sponsor.

“You need someone who owns property in France,” he said.

I tucked that thought away and continued to care for my mother. I wanted her to thrive and enjoy life for as long as possible. She had cared for me as a helpless infant and small child. She had borne with me during the years when I was a rebellious, moody teenager full of scorn for her stupid, old-fashioned, protective ways. I owed her my very life, and I would make hers as enjoyable, comfortable, and fulfilling as I could.

But overnight she declined so steeply that we asked hospice to come in. A few days later she was in bed around the clock. A week after that she was on morphine. She died a few days later.

My siblings, my whole family, were in deep mourning over the rather sudden loss of this extremely adorable and wise little person. The funeral, the burial, all felt distant, unreal, impossible.

While still grieving (and I still miss her daily), I began to help my siblings by organizing and cleaning my mother’s condo to get it ready for sale. In between emptying closets, I returned to my research on being an American writer in Paris.

It seemed like something that would be too good to come true for me. Life had been very tough for a long time. After a heart-wrenching divorce, I’d raised two children alone. I’d worked to support them by holding down jobs in tough corporations in New York City. I’d lost jobs to corporate bullies and to mergers. I’d been hunting for a job for three years already in the non-profit realm without finding one, with all the rejection that entailed. Was something as glorious as Paris possible for me?

I talked to my pastor. “Should I go to Marfa, Texas, or Taos, New Mexico, instead?”

“Emily Dickinson had her Paris—her bedroom,” he answered. “Thoreau had Walden Pond. You just need to find your Paris.”

I loved that he was giving me support, and a sense of freedom, to decide.

I decided I’d worked so damn hard for so damn long that I deserved my heart’s desire. I decided Paris was my Paris.

My kids were adults and on their own. My mother didn’t need me anymore, God bless her. No job required me to show up every day. I had the rental income from my house and a small pension. If I was extremely careful with money—not buying coffee in cafes more than once a month—I might make it in Paris for a year.

I just needed a sponsor.

The story continues…come back next week! Or sign up to follow--in the righthand column.