Our first night in Castellón April and I found ourselves by accident walking down the beach just as the moon climbed out of the water in full bloom. It was beautiful, romantic, and mystical. The moon lifted lazily into the sky like a helium balloon, and the realization sunk deeper inside of us that this place we were calling our new home was still odd and unfamiliar. Shadowy figures stood along the beach with flashlights behind lines of fishing poles anchored in the sand. The tops of the poles glowed like Christmas lights, which we could only guess indicated when there was a catch. Who were these people? What were they fishing for? Was the tide bringing the fish to shallow waters? These men were fishing for something, and so were we.

April and I don’t look Spanish. No olive complexion. No brown hair. No brown eyes. No mullet.

Yesterday we went to the supermarket to get some food to stock our mini fridge at the hotel. As we were waiting at the meat counter to buy some cheese, an older lady walked up and asked the woman behind the counter if she needed a ticket to mark her place in line since April and I were standing at the counter, but we didn’t have a ticket. I took a look around, and sure enough, there at the end of the counter was a ticket machine with a red ticket waiting for us. I’d never seen a meat counter with a ticket machine before.

The woman behind the counter said, “The immigrants don’t have a ticket, but I’ll help them first.” She pointed at the two of us.

April looked at me and said, “Did she just call us immigrants?”

April and I checked into our hotel yesterday, and in the afternoon met two students from the Masters program, Leah and Tim, as well as Tim’s three room mates.

Today as we were waiting in line to get on the bus to the beach, I noticed someone on the bus waving to me through the glass window. It was Colin, one of Tim’s roommates who we had met the day before.

It’s been two days, and we’re already running into people we know on the street.

The problem with small towns is they always want to be bigger. Even big cities usually have a big brother they look up to. Of course they’d never tell you that, but that’s the way brothers are. I get the impression here in Spain that it’s like this: Barcelona wants to be as big as Madrid, Valencia wants to be as big as Barcelona, Castellón wants to be as big as Valencia, and so on. Just like people, cities are never content with who they are.

Castellón may be the capital of its province, and it weighs in as the largest city in the province with over 160,000 residents, but the fact is, it’s still small. Nevertheless, I’d like to stick up for the little guy. I don’t know my new home very well yet, but I can tell you this: April and I went hunting for Se Aquila (“for rent”) signs today and as far as we wandered in any direction, we were never more than a ten minute walk from our hotel. I think life will be very manageable here. Everybody and everything a person could need is close by.

After over a year of planning and waiting from Madrid, my wife April and I have finally arrived at our new home, Castellón de la Plana, where April will be doing a Masters degree in Peace and Development. We’ve been at a hotel for two days, haven’t even begun to start looking for an apartment yet, but here’s my first impressions of our little town on the Mediterranean: