We are back!

It has been long time between blog posts! We are slowly settling into a new rhythm: working and living in our caravan.

The past few weeks have thus been very different from the preceding weeks.

First of all, we have not moved the caravan since our last post. We are still in Beceite at the same campsite. Second, Alba has had to start work again after a few weeks of vacation.

A small break: we just came back yesterday (Tuesday the 28th of March) from Andorra, where Alba voted in the Andorran elections for the first time and Jochem had to… do a good trail run in the mountains?

A new routine

Monday to Friday, we are more or less following a new routine. I (Jochem) usually wake up first to do some yoga. Our yogamat kind of just fits on the floor space inside the caravan. It’s tight, but it works!

After that, I go running with Juna while Alba does some yoga and prepares for work.

When I come back from ‘running’ Juna around 8:30AM, Alba is usually already working in our little ‘office’ space: a corner of the caravan that used to contain a bunkbed, and now has a table, screen, and exercise ball to sit on.

While Alba works, I shower, refill our caravan’s water tank, and sit at our dining table to work on courses on programming or to work on our business plan.

Around 1-1:30PM I prepare lunch for us and Alba rounds off her day’s work. We take Juna for a short walk and work on our business plan for an hour or two. In the evening, we walk Juna a bit longer again, Alba cooks and we spend time chatting, reading, or working; whatever is necessary.

Some afternoons, we go into Beceite or its neighbouring (bigger) town, Valderrobres.

And how do we survive living in such a small space with two people and a dog? I will tell you all about that in our next post!

Yes, it is a small space indeed. So we are sometimes a bit cramped – but do you see anyone complaining in this picture? 🙂

Our plans

As I type this, we are getting ready to pack again. Tomorrow, we are leaving Beceite behind to go to Valencia for two weeks. After that, we will finally head to the really interesting area for us: the Pyrenees.

Because, oh yeah, we were here for something? Something we (half-jokingly) nicknamed Mission Paradise? What’s up with that?

Well, I would like do dedicate a whole post to this sometime soon as well (after the ‘surviving the small space of a caravan’-post), but here’s where we are with that:

  • It will take a LONG time before we are able to take serious steps in this. The more we do research (by both Googling and talking with people here), the more we see how big of a challenge we are taking on. Money is a concern (will we have enough & will we be able to ‘bridge’ the gap between investing and earning enough money from that investment to live?), but also the bureaucracy here. From what we have been told, it can take anywhere between two and seven(!!!) years to get all the paperwork sorted out.
  • We are currently thus exploring WHERE we want to realise our dreams, WHAT exactly our dreams will entail (i.e. what is the real, tangible, end goal here) and HOW we will get there: what are the easiest steps at first to generate an income, and how will that help to get us closer to our goal?
  • Needless to say, this takes a lot of time and energy. But we are not worried, as we have both for now. And besides that, we are meeting a lot of very positive people that inspire and inform us about our future ideas.

The next post will follow (much) sooner than this one did. Thanks for reading!