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Sometimes, retirees don't spend long in what they believed would be their “forever home.” After retirement, Al Salas and Carlos Torres moved to, what was, their vacation home in the small seaside town of Lewes, Delaware. They soon realized the place they loved going to on weekends was not where they wanted to settle. Additionally, as young retirees, the couple had to pay for their own health insurance, a hefty price in the United States. Al and Carlos soon discovered that Alicante, Spain, a small city on the Mediterranean Sea, would be their true “forever home.” They purchased a penthouse apartment with a sprawling patio and incredible views. Find out more about this lesser known jewel of a city, on Episode 69 of Retire There with Gil & Gene.
Al Salas was born in Washington DC, and raised in what was then the Maryland countryside, about halfway between DC and Baltimore.
Al has a bachelors in microbiology from the University of Maryland and a Masters in landscape architecture from the University of Virginia. Though he worked in landscape architecture for a few years in both DC and Westchester, NY, most of Al’s career was at the Association of American Medical Colleges, in DC, where he worked in a variety of positions, from medical education to I.T. to organizational development. The AAMC is a not-for-profit association dedicated to transforming health through medical education, health care, medical research, and community collaborations. Probably most known for administering the MCAT and managing the universal application to medical schools, it represents and supports all 172 accredited U.S. & Canadian medical schools and 400+ teaching hospitals & health systems, including Veterans Affairs medical centers.
Carlos Torres was born in Cuba, immigrated with his family through Spain to the US at the age of 7. He and his family lived in Union City, NJ for 5 years but after his parents took a short trip to Miami, they packed the car and moved south two weeks later.
Carlos received a bachelors in economics from the University of Florida, Gainesville. For the first two decades of his career, Carlos was in banking, most of it as a foreign exchange trader, first in Miami and then for 14 years in New York. The last two decades or so he worked first as an economics reporter and then economics editor, for Bloomberg News in DC.
Their obsession is gardening. But they also love traveling and biking. Since moving to Spain, they've developed a new hobby, hiking, with new friends they met in Alicante.
They have been together since November 2002, so they’re closing in on their 20th year together next fall!
