A View From SpainPosted by Lewis Krause on July 14th, 2021 I've been blessed to have spent a lot of the winter of 2019-2020 living across the southern coast of Spain. Occupying a rented casa near the center of an old city for an extended time, which necessarily involved engaging with sailors, such as commercially with shop keepers and so on, gave me a great opportunity to see how daily financial life is lived in a location far in my New Hampshire house. To be clear, I truly do have a life outside of financial monitoring, but for purposes of this piece that I 'll focus on a tiny anecdotal contrast between how people run commercial exchange in a corner of Spain and in NH. To further set she said up, note that I intentionally lived without a car and had no data plan for 3 months, relying instead on public transport and WiFi (or even wee-fee since they cutely state there). These near-monastic practices aside, let me tell you a bit about my provisional Spanish hometown. Fuengirola, a little city of approximately 75K residents, lies across the Mediterranean coast about 25 miles west of Malaga, the huge city in those areas. It's in the autonomous region of Andalusia (like a US state), that's the biggest of those self-governing areas in Spain. Given that it had been controlled from the Islamic Moors for approximately seven centuries the culture and architecture is a unique blend of Christian and Muslim influences never seen everywhere in Europe. this contact form have a reputation for being psychological and fun-loving. I agree. What is most evident commercially is how conservative things seem, at least to some man in his late twenties. In NH needless to say we get in our cars and drive to large supermarkets and large box stores to buy our stuff, or as is increasingly the casewe purchase things online and have them sent to our houses. But here, the little "Mom & Pop" shops are alive and seemingly well. The sidewalks each day, except Sunday, are teeming with people doing their everyday promotion of vegetables, fruits, medicines, clothing, breads/pastries, alcohol, and lottery tickets (really big here). have a peek at this web-site have to admit that despite a clear inefficiency with moving to one store for your bread, to another for your veggies, and to the next for meat I enjoyed the quaintness and private touch of getting to know the people who worked those institutions. Levels of private service always appeared high and that I never felt rushed. Sure Amazon.es and big box stores such as El Corte Ingles exist, but small brick & mortar retail is hanging here quite well.
jobs of Europe is legendary and it is in full swing in Fuengirola. Folks sit with friends and family for what seems like hours chatting over coffee and beer throughout workdays and weekends alike. Cafes and bars are everywhere float onto sidewalks. go now is lively and unkind and leaves a Yank with the belief that life really needs to be fun and lived with gusto. I must acknowledge I've wondered more than once, "How does any job get done ? " But it will. look here is minimal.
The Euro is the currency. And right now its worth is just about 10% higher than the US dollar. But, prices for most commodities seem lower here. I'm frequently struck by how much value I'm getting for so little cash. Granted, gasoline is more than in NH and I don't have a fantastic sense of the costs of power and big-ticket things, but total costs seem cheaper in Spain. Also, this a cash-based society. My pocket regularly is weighed down with those heavy coins (a First World problem, I understand ). Sure men and women use credit cards and telephone pay programs, but money is still quite widespread.
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