Notes

A View From Spain

I've been fortunate to have spent a lot of the winter of 2019-2020 living along the southern shore of Spain. Occupying a rented casa near the center of an old city for an extended time, which necessarily involved participating with sailors, such as commercially with shop keepers and the like, gave me a great opportunity to see how daily economic life is lived at a location far from my New Hampshire home .

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To be anchor , I really do have a life outside of financial monitoring, however for purposes of this piece I'll focus on a tiny anecdotal contrast between the way people run commercial trade at a corner of Spain and in NH. To further set up this, notice that I deliberately lived without a vehicle and had no information plan for 3 months, relying instead on public transportation and WiFi (or even wee-fee as they cutely say there).


All these near-monastic practices aside, let me tell you a little about my provisional Spanish hometown. Fuengirola, a little city of about 75K residents, lies across the southern coast about 25 miles west of Malaga, the huge city in those areas. It's in the autonomous region of Andalusia (such as a US country ), which is the biggest of those self-governing regions in Spain. Given that it was commanded from the Islamic Moors for approximately seven centuries that the culture and architecture is a unique blend of Christian and Muslim influences not seen elsewhere in Europe. I concur.


What is most evident is how conservative things look, at least to a guy in his late sixties. In NH needless to say we get in our cars and drive to big supermarkets and large box stores to purchase our things, as well as is increasingly the case, we order things online and have them shipped to our homes. But here, the little &quot;Mom &amp; Pop&quot; stores are alive and apparently well. The sidewalks every day, except Sunday, are teeming with people doing their everyday marketing of vegetables, fruits, medicines, clothing, breads/pastries, alcohol, and lottery tickets (really big here).


I have to admit that despite a clear inefficiency with moving to one store for the bread, to another to your veggies, and also to the next for meat I liked the quaintness and private touch of getting to know the people who worked these institutions. internet of personal service always seemed high and that I never felt rushed. Sure Amazon.es and big box stores like El Corte Ingles exist, but little brick &amp; mortar retail is hanging on here fairly well.


Folks sit with family and friends for what seems like hours chatting over coffee and beer throughout workdays and weekends alike. Cafes and pubs are everywhere spilling onto sidewalks. The jabber is lively and boisterous and leaves a Yank with the impression that life really should be fun and dwelt with gusto. &quot; But it does. Police attendance is minimal.


The Euro is the currency. And now its worth is only about 10% greater than the US dollar. But, prices for most commodities seem lower here. I'm frequently struck by how much value I'm getting for this little money. Granted, gasoline is greater than in NH and I don't have a good sense of the prices of energy and big-ticket items, but overall costs seem cheaper in Spain. Also, had me going -based society. My pocket often is weighed down with these heavy coins (a First World issue, I know). Sure blog and women use credit cards and telephone pay apps, but cash is still quite prevalent.


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