Pause and Wander

Date: November 8–11, 2025 

Places: Spain – Arcade, Pontevedra, & Madrid

If there is one lesson this stretch of our family gap year keeps pressing into us, it is the quiet art of readjustment. Not dramatic reinvention, not big crossroads, but the subtler daily practice of letting plans bend without breaking. Meals, lessons, outings, health, travel, even our sense of home—everything seems to be whispering the same reminder: expect the shift.

This is the part of long travel no one glamorizes. The part where the ideal itinerary bumps into weather, strangers become guides to unexpected experiences, a body rebels at the worst moment, and the Airbnb you imagined turns out to have a front door practically kissing the sidewalk. But these four days, stitched together, have shown us that there is a strange, steady trial and error in learning to pivot as a family.

Here are the moments that taught us that this week.

Arcade & Pontevedra — November 8

We started the morning with our usual rhythm of coffee, fire, breakfast, and schoolwork, but we weren’t planning on a slow day at home. The plan was simple: grab groceries, cook up a soup, and head to Pontevedra for what we thought was a local festival our ukulele instructor Rubén had invited us to.

The grocery run was quick, but once we got home and Max began the soup, it was clear it wouldn’t be ready in time. Rather than rush it or risk missing the train, we switched gears and reheated the chicken empanada we’d planned for later. We tossed in a few slices of cheese and prosciutto alongside a fresh baguette, and lunch was handled.

We headed to Pontevedra expecting a village-style festival with food stalls and music. What we found instead was a full neighborhood block party. A big one.

There was a live band setup, a grill loaded with sausages, a traveling chestnut roaster, a bagpipe-and-drum group, and a dessert competition with twenty-three homemade entries. Families filled the tables. Kids raced through the street. It was loud, friendly, and completely unexpected.

Rubín spotted us immediately, brought us into the fold, and made sure we had beers, sausages, and a spot at a family table. Only one person there spoke English, which made for fun Spanish practice and plenty of laughs. It wasn’t the event we pictured, but it turned into one of those memorable afternoons you can’t plan for.

We caught the last train back to Arcade, the girls finished the last of their schoolwork, Max finished the now-ready soup, and we wrapped up the day with a homemade blueberry apple crumble and movie. Not too shabby. 

Arcade — November 9

The next morning was quieter. Max continued his mission to master the fried egg. Not in general, just on this particularly stubborn gas stove in our cozy stone house—a tiny project that somehow becomes worth the effort during long travel.

With a break in the weather, we walked to the park. Sunny Sundays in Arcade bring out half the town, and it’s always a good opportunity for the girls to meet other kids. They eased into the social scene and eventually took off playing with new friends, including a younger girl who toured them around the entire playground.

We gave them a bit of independence and left them to play while we ran errands. When we came back, they were inventing a game with two boys involving the merry-go-round, fallen leaves, and sheer chaos. No rules, just fun.

When a new wave of rain came in, we wandered home. Max got a fire going and a bolognese started on the stove. Dinner was easy and comforting, and the night stayed low-key.

Arcade — November 10

The next day began predictably: breakfast, schoolwork, and a train to Pontevedra for our 10:00 a.m. ukulele lesson. Unfortunately our teacher had misread the message thread and thought it was at 11. With the next train back to Arcade several hours away, waiting didn’t make much sense.

So we improvised.

Down in the cramped, sound-dampened basement of the music shop, surrounded by instrument cases and spare cords, the four of us held our own little workshop. Scales, chord progressions, strumming patterns—no teacher, just each of us with our own instrument, learning together in harmonic cacophony. A misfire of timing became an hour of unexpected family rhythm.

Back home, though, the day’s improvisations took a heavier turn. Shaina developed a rash—first a few patches, then a wildfire of hives after a hot shower. Her joints ached, her muscles throbbed, and the pace of the day shifted abruptly from packing logistics to health triage.

Cold shower. Loose clothes. Benadryl. A long, uneasy night.

This wasn’t the kind of “adaptation” we wanted practice in, but it was the one handed to us. When you’re far from home, the margin for uncertainty feels thinner. Even small medical mysteries seem larger. But we handled it together—cautious, concerned, talking through possibilities, reminding ourselves to breathe through what we couldn’t control yet.

Arcade to Madrid — November 11

The next morning the adjustments continued, only this time wrapped inside the machinery of travel day.

Shaina was exhausted from the night before, still itchy and sore, and just barely moving. The girls settled into their schoolwork without prompting, giving us the space we needed to pack and recheck everything. We ate the last of our soup, closed the door of our little stone house in Arcade for the final time, and accepted a ride from our Airbnb host to the train station.

The train ride was long—three and a half hours across Galicia and Castile—but calm. We read. We talked. We let the landscape pass like a slow movie. But by the time we reached Madrid, Max was starting to feel a similar ache in his joints and muscles. Nothing dramatic, but enough to make us wonder whether something was circulating among us.

Madrid greeted us with Metro lines, city noise, and a neighborhood that did not immediately feel welcoming. Our new Airbnb sat on a ground floor just steps from a busy sidewalk—close enough that voices and engines might as well be in the living room. Not unsafe, exactly, but not comforting either after the tranquility of Arcade.

And yet, even here, we adjusted. We found a pharmacy for some much needed ibuprofen. We bought empanadas for dinner at the grocery store. Back at the apartment, we figured out the quirks of the apartment, the complicated front door locks, and the new rhythm of city noise. Max overate, the city stayed loud, but we settled into the night as best we could.

Not glamorous, but real. And survivable. And part of the whole.

Conclusion

Nothing during these four days went exactly to plan. Meals shifted, lessons shifted, outings shifted, health issues showed up out of nowhere, and arriving in Madrid was more stressful than cozy. But each time something changed, we found a workaround. Not dramatic, just practical.

This seems to be a big part of long travel as a family: constant small adjustments. Plans bend, and we bend with them. These days weren’t perfect, but they were full, they were real, and they were exactly the kind of days that end up defining a trip like this.