I don't consider Bellingham all that small. Having lived in Seattle, Redmond (actually, now it's Sammamish), and Olympia, Bellingham isn't BIG, but it's bigger than Mt. Vernon, La Connor, Anacortes. And I'd love to retire back out there (well, I've already retired, but if we're ever gonna move somewhere), probably either in Seattle or somewhere in the rain shadow, such as it is. I loved Olympia, but it's too damn wet down there... If you move to Barcelona, you're gonna have to adapt your Spanish to Spain's lisp-y way of speaking, but you've got a great head start. I have a couple years of high school Spanish (Arizona, clearly the Mexican version of the language), but I left the vast majority of it in high school. I do remember sitting in a dive bar in Barcelona in 1981 and getting into a long involved discussion with a couple of Spaniards, which is probably the MOST I ever got out of that little bit of Spanish I knew... I think having kids here would probably preclude us from doing anything similar, but it sure sounds interesting.
Best of luck if you decide to go for it. And, to get back on topic, don't forget to take your X-10! I'd completely forgotten about selling you that camera. I had two of them, the first with the dreaded white orbs, which weren't an issue very often, but they managed to wreck a few shots I'd have really liked to have gotten. I sold that one before they'd agreed to fix 'em all, with full disclosure, to someone overseas. And then I bought one of the newer orb-free models which I had for a while, and I guess that must have been the one I sold you. I did really enjoy that camera but as sensor technology advanced, my shooting changed enough with it that I think dealing with 6mp EXR jpegs would probably frustrate me to no end these days. But it was a pretty clever solution to the limitations of the day. I guess you sold that one too, and have since gone back and grabbed another?
-Ray