A View From SpainPosted by Dalton Skovsgaard on July 16th, 2021 right here 've been blessed to have spent much of the winter of 2019-2020 residing along the southern shore of Spain. Occupying a rented casa near the center of an old town for a protracted time, which inevitably involved participating with locals, including commercially with shop keepers and the like, gave me a great opportunity to see how daily economic life is lived in a place far in my New Hampshire home. To be about his , I really do have a life outside of financial monitoring, but for purposes of the piece I'll concentrate on a small anecdotal contrast between how people run commercial trade in a corner of Spain and in NH. To further set this up, note that I intentionally lived without a car and had no information plan for 3 weeks, relying instead on public transportation and WiFi (or wee-fee since they cutely state there). All these near-monastic practices aside, allow me to tell you a bit about my provisional Spanish hometown. Fuengirola, a small city of about 75K inhabitants, lies across the Mediterranean coast about 25 miles west of Malaga, the big city in those areas. It's in the autonomous region of Andalusia (like a US country ), which is the largest of those self-governing regions in Spain. Given that it was controlled from the Islamic Moors for about seven centuries that the culture and architecture is a unique blend of Christian and Muslim influences not seen elsewhere in Europe. top article agree. What's continue reading this is the way old-fashioned things look, at least to a man in his late twenties. In NH of course we get in our cars and drive to large supermarkets and big box stores to purchase our stuff, as well as is increasingly the case, we order things online and have them sent to our houses. But here, look at this now & Pop" stores are alive and apparently well. The sidewalks each day, except Sunday, are teeming with people doing their daily marketing of fruits, vegetables, medicines, clothes, breads/pastries, alcohol, and lottery tickets (really big here). I must admit that despite a clear inefficiency with moving to a store for the bread, to a different to your vegetables, and also to the next for meat I liked the quaintness and private touch of getting to know the men and women who worked those institutions. Levels of personal service always seemed large and that I never felt rushed. The cafe culture of Europe is legendary and it is in full swing in Fuengirola. the advantage sit with family and friends for what seems like hours chatting on coffee and beer throughout workdays and weekends alike. Cafes and bars are everywhere spilling onto sidewalks. The jabber is lively and boisterous and leaves a Yank with the impression that life really needs to be fun and dwelt with gusto. more.. must acknowledge I've wondered more than once, "How does any work get done ? " But it does. It's a highly functioning, prosperous, and secure feeling neighborhood. Police attendance is minimal.
The Euro is the money. And now its value is just about 10% greater than the US dollar. However, prices for most commodities appear 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 energy and big-ticket items, but total costs seem cheaper in Spain. Also, this a more cash-based society. My pocket regularly is weighed down with those heavy coins (a First World issue, I understand ). Sure men and women use credit cards and phone pay apps, but money is still quite prevalent.
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