Workation In Sunny Spain: The Future Of Work

We started calling it “Spanish hair.” Ever since we’d arrived, my son’s hair had grown big and tall, pointing this way and that. It was unapologetic. It was hair with an exclamation point at each side.

The first breakfast after our return home, I noted its conversion back into “Finnish hair”: smooth, subtle, fluid. The side partition he’d had from birth had made a reappearance and all was back to normal, like we’d returned from Wonderland.

The best thing ever in Spain was:

• Surprise ball machines, if you are a five-year-old boy
• Green parrots and tall, green palm trees if you are a sun-starved parent of two five-year-olds who loves green

The boys started saving one euro coins for Spanish ball machines months ahead. I must hand it to them, they were thinking outside the box for ways to gain more of them. Toys were thrown on the floor, then the room was tidied up to the pleased delight of a grown-up in possession of said coins. Park benches were crawled under in inspection of possible forgotten treasures. Tedious multiple layers of morning routine outer clothing were applied with self-confidence. They had earned their surprises.

The surprise balls bring me back to a time when cereal boxes had toys and even the smallest freebie was appreciated. Summers were eternal back then, and perhaps this is how our month in Spain felt like for my kids. It was clear they were living in the moment, not missing home. As we walked, they chatted away, waving a happy ¡Hola! to dogs we passed, collecting sea shells, and jumping in the waves. And checking every surprise ball machine.

I was more relaxed, too, but it wasn’t a holiday. It was the future of work: I was finally able to do something that people always laughed at when I suggested it 10 years ago. I packed my laptop into a bag and worked from a rented flat in Spain, instead of my home in Finland.

I always said, I want to work under palm trees and why can’t I? What’s the difference? Covid emptied our offices and thankfully, my employer now decided they trusted us enough to let us work from abroad. I jumped at the opportunity and cherished every moment. With thank yous to my mum for babysitting, it was business as usual in the mornings, and adventure in the afternoons. The winter weather in Benalmádena was even nicer than I dared to imagine.

I felt reborn. Until it was time to come back, yesterday. Until next time. I’m already envisaging what my kids’ hair might look like in France or Croatia.