…Or more like we bought the feeling of owning a place in the Hamptons. As long as that feeling is of a sense of a second home in a small seaside town where the zoning regs have evidently withstood the modern pressures to measure square footage in gold ingots.

  My anxiety about arriving in Rota for the fourth time in a year and a half is that the familiarity of the town would induce immediate boredom by there being “nothing to do,” because we’ve done it all already. Or worse, Rota had been discovered by a partnership of Carnival and Viking cruise lines, with the streets clogged with jaded pennant-following throngs of waddling endomorphs being angled toward the nearest Ale-Hop. To say nothing of crowded cafes and restaurants requiring two week advance reservations.

  Or perhaps we’ll enjoy a pleasant afternoon on our tropical plant-filled terrace where the wine and cheese is ennobled with the nearby crennelated top of the city’s medieval castle and the quarter-hour peals of church bells.

  Well, as it happens, this endomorph could waddle himself quite amiably down Rota’s near-deserted calles, noting that nothing had changed (save for which part was now being dug up and repaved in the town’s unyielding commitment to rerouting bus routes.)

  Happily, there was still “nothing to do” outside of plopping down in one of the still-opened beach bars (called chiringuitos) that hadn’t been pulled down following the summer crush (mostly locals escaping the horno that is Seville from June through August.) Wait-staff here all seemed happy to see us, with a couple of them remembering us as the ones who left a cell phone behind last spring or the ones who regularly traipsed from under their beach umbrella to fill their thermos with a bottle of vino blanco seco “to go.”

  It was all the same, this Hampton-like lifestyle we’ve managed to carve out here. (The only detail missing perhaps is unfurling the sheets covering the furniture and throwing open the shutters to let in the light and air into our winterized beach house.) 

  We fill our days with winding walks through town or straight along the ocean promenade, stopping along the way for a cafe con leche or other beverage of choice. (Locals seem fond of a cold cerveza or perhaps even a glass or two with their breakfast tortilla patata.)

  Or perhaps we’ll enjoy a pleasant afternoon on our tropical plant-filled terrace where the wine and cheese is ennobled with the nearby crennelated top of the city’s medieval castle and the quarter-hour peals of church bells.

  This frames the start to finish routine of our six weeks’ life-adjustment here, but that inevitable emotional plummet when it’s time to pack up is almost completely offset by the knowledge that four or so months down the road, we’ll be back again – health willing and our passports not being revoked. (Watching America’s descent into authoritarianism from 5000 miles away also brings a measure of solace of having to witness the end of the American Experiment first hand.)

  And who knows, the coming years may bring some change to our little Spanish Hamptons paradise. Maybe we’ll add a solarium and then a second solarium. We’ll stable a couple of  horses and name them Snoopy and Prickly Pete.

  One thing for sure. This version of a home in the Hamptons will not be existing only in our minds. We’ll have the familiar wave of our expanding legions of wait staff proving that this is all quite real and is spectacular.