Mapping Spain Monthly Recap: July 2024

Mapping Spain Monthly Recap: July 2024.

With July having been the first month of us living in Granada, I thought maybe I should do a monthly recap of “Things Spain” that don’t really fit on any proper post. Experiences, observations, tips, odds and ends, and random thoughts on living in Spain.

Some of the things I write about might surprise people who’re just thinking of moving to Spain. Others, already living in Spain, might have their own thoughts on some of the things I bring up. Feel free to comment*, adding some of your own thoughts or experiences if you wish.

(*Note: I always prefer that people comment in the comment section below. I know people like to do it on FB but the problem with that is that other people reading this post won’t see your comments. So, if you can, please comment below)

A few things I touch upon in this recap: Our first month in Granada / Cockroaches / delivery of appliances / Tapas / Heat and AC / Cable TV in Spain / Americans & Canadians coming to Spain / The importance of the Padron / Understanding the Spanish in 17 seconds…

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A first month in Granada

We both agree that we’ve already enjoyed Granada more than any other place we’ve lived in in Spain (the other places being Nerja and Antequera). We’re living in the Zaidin neighborhood of Granada and it’s great, we have everything here: lots of grocery stores (Mercadona, Mas and Lidl are within a block), we have a panaderia, two carnecerias, three fruterias, a whole bunch of tapas restaurants. There are two stores that sell roasted chicken. We have a favorite little café/restaurant where we go for tostada and coffee in the morning.

This is a real Spanish neighborhood, we haven’t seen any obvious expats here (there is a distinct Latino population though, some Blacks, some Orientals). It in some ways reminds us of some of our favorite neighborhoods in Montreal, a vibrant middle-class neighborhood with an ethnic mix. We like that. There’s a Peruvian restaurant (with Peruvian tapas) down the street which is very popular, a Latino grocery store run by Dominicans (I think). We have a Sushi place a few blocks away. We’ve got the typical China store you see in every neighbourhood of every city and town in Spain – a store run by Chinese that basically sells everything you could ever think of and which is always open when everything else is closed. Need Allen keys when the Fereteria is closed? Go to the China store. Need a cheap curtain, a plastic stool, pots or earth for your plants, or cold beer? They have it all in those China stores. Note if you’re new (or coming) to Spain, the China store might be something new to you. Just know that it’s the place where you can find everything and that they work crazy hours.

We’re also right next to a tram stop (Hipica) and have a few bus stops by our door which can get us downtown in about 10 minutes.

All the say that it’s a great neighbourhood that has everything.

Our neighbours are interesting and middle-class Spanish. The man across the way told me that he likes Canadian lumberjack shows and that he’s learning English. We spoke a few words of English. I ran into the lady to our right and she asked, when I told her I’m Canadian, if I spoke French. She’s learning French so we spoke  a bit of French. We haven’t met many Spanish who speak languages other than Spanish so our experiences with neighbours have been a surprise. Very welcoming and very friendly.

We previously mentioned in passing (and maybe subtly) that we didn’t find people in Antequera very friendly. They’ve been total different here in Granada, so much so that you wonder how that can be. My thinking is that it’s just bigger and more cosmopolitan here in Granada. A whole different mentality.

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Cockroaches

One of the things you have to get used to in Spain is cockroaches. I remember our first major trip to Spain when we spent 2 months in Seville back in the summer of 2016. The streets were full of big cockroaches. You’d see them coming out of the sewers. I’d never seen anything like it and it’s one of the reasons Seville was crossed off my list of potential places to live (in every other respect we loved Seville). Maybe the summer of 2016 was a fluke.

We had cockroaches in Nerja and every so often a large one would make it into the house (despite us sealing everything). The ones you see there are the huge American cockroaches – they’re big and fast and they make my skin crawl. My last memory of the day we moved in Nerja: I was standing with the movers just outside our door having a drink. We had just finished moving the stuff into the truck. Suddenly I see a huge roach running out of nowhere towards the front door. I smashed it with my foot.

Funny enough, we never saw a cockroach during our year in Antequera. We heard however there was one restaurant in town which had lots of them (which we avoided). But otherwise never, ever saw a roach in Antequera.

Which brings me to Granada. We had just moved into the apartment. That first night, going to the bathroom, I see a cockroach by the front door. It was a different kind of cockroach, a bit darker and a bit more beetle-like than the ones we saw in Nerja. I grabbed a shoe and killed it. “Fuck, here we go again”. I wasn’t happy.

After that first day we bought screens for all the windows. In the 6 weeks since, we’ve never seen a roach in the apartment. I have seen a few dead ones in the stairwell though – and they’re very good about cleaning everyday in this building. So the cockroaches are around somewhere.

I don’t know why cockroaches are such an issue in Spain. This year I’m hearing from people in Valencia and they’re describing all the cockroaches (cockroaches usually worse on the coast where it’s more humid). And it’s the big ones. When we lived in Croatia we never, ever saw a cockroach. The weather isn’t too different – Spain is a bit warmer, more humid – but it shouldn’t account for such a difference.

Maybe there’s a cockroach expert out there who knows why there are so many roaches in Spain?

In any case, we’ve just come to terms with the fact that any place you end up in (in Spain) you will likely encounter cockroaches.

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When appliances are delivered..

Our landlords (what nice people they are!) had a new washing machine delivered. When the day came, the owner came over. We went downstairs together to meet the truck.

To my surprise: the truck came. A single driver comes out of the truck, takes out a dolly, and hoists the washing machine out of the truck and onto the sidewalk. He takes it off the dolly. That’s it, he’s not going to do more. The owner goes over and signs the paper acknowledging receipt of the washing machine.

From the sidewalk, he and I bring  the washing machine into the building and into the elevator. It’s a small elevator so he goes up with the washing machine. I walk up to the 10^th floor. There I see him struggling trying to get the machine of the elevator. We do it together. We get the machine into the apartment and install it.

I’ve never seen anything like it. In North America when you have appliances delivered they do everything from A to Z. “Delivery” doesn’t mean to the sidewalk.

I’m sure the driver would have done it if we had offered 20 Euros. Maybe.

I’m curious about other people’s experiences. Was what I experienced the norm?

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Tapas in Granada (and what people should know about tapas in general..)

Having lived now in 3 different places we’ve learned that the tapa experience is different everywhere you go.

In Nerja we always had a tapa included with a drink. They come together and it would usually be about 3 Euros for a drink/tapa combo. In some places you can choose your tapa (Lissette is vegetarian so she likes to choose her tapa), in some places they just bring you a tapa of their choosing.

In Antequera every place we ever went to had drinks separate from a tapa. You’d pay for your drink and would order a tapa from the menu if you wanted one. For this reason, a drink/tapa combo was always more expensive in Antequera.

Granada has a reputation as one of the best places for tapas. It really is. Our tapa experiences so far have all been in the neighborhood. No tourists here. You get a tapa/drink combo and it’ll cost you 2.50 – 3.00 Euros. In some places you get to choose your tapa, in some places they choose it for you. And it’s usually a big drink (in Nerja we would usually get a caña-sized beer with a small tapa – here we get a full beer with a good-sized tapa). A pet peeve: if you are two people, they’ll often serve you a double-sized tapa on a single plate. The issue with that is if Lissette says “I don’t eat meat” then we’ll both be served a no-meat tapa dish. I feel a bit cheated when that happens.

We have 5 Tapas places within a couple of minutes of our place. They all seem to have slightly different tapa rules. I like the places where we can choose our tapas individually. So the best thing is to try them all out and see which is the best for you.

The point I’m making is that rules are often different from place to place and from restaurant to restaurant.

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Heat… and No Air Conditioning

This is the one apartment we’ve had in Spain where we haven’t had Air Conditioning. It was a bit of an oversight when renting the apartment (as I wrote, finding an apartment in Granada was difficult).

Since early July the average high have been around 38C (in the 36C – 40C range generally). It’s been hot. So we’ve been taking it easy and staying indoors. Despite the high temps, nights cool off and are tolerable. There’s usually a little breeze coming off the Sierra Nevada and it can actually feel beautiful sitting on our balcony (on the 10^th floor) at night.

Despite everything, we don’t regret not having AC. In Nerja and Antequera we lived the summers in our AC’ed apartment and felt that we had no fresh air. On one hand we absolutely needed it…but at the same time we hated it (plus our electricity bills were by far the highest in summer).

Here in Granada we have big windows and a breeze. It’s hot but we’ve adjusted to life without AC (I might change my mind in August if it hits 45C….)

BUT for anyone thinking of visiting Granada (or much of Spain) in the summer, I really advise against it. It’s too hot and dangerous. Same thing for Croatia, when we lived there we heard of people getting heat stroke lying on the beach. With climate change, the heat has become dangerous in southern Europe. I actually think governments should rethink “summer holidays” and make school holidays earlier or later in the year.

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Cable TV in Spain

We have a nice big TV set in our apartment in Granada and we briefly considered getting cable with our bundle of wifi/cellphones with the Cable company. We’re glad we didn’t.

*After my story about the shitiness of Movistar, we’ve moved on to Vodafone. We have a 40 Euro plan that covers wifi and cellphone service (with internet) on 2 phones.

Basic cable in Spain is very good. We have about 30 channels including a 24-hour news channel, a few sports channels, and a lot of movie channels.

We’re not big TV watchers, we lost the habit when we travelling full-time for 6 years, getting most of our entertainment from Netflix and Youtube. But since moving into this apartment we’ve watched every game of UEFA Euro 2024 and we’re now watching the Olympics. On some days we have up to 3 channels dedicated to Olympic coverage. We like watching the news in Spanish and will sometimes watch a movie on one of the movie channels (usually dubbed American movies).

So unless you’re a big TV watcher and really want international channels, just know that you get very good basic cable in Spain.

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Canadians and Americans

I’ve noticed more and more Canadians and Americans joining our FB Group. And I always read the reasons why they’re joining the group. Reasons such as this:

“Gay couple looking into relocating to Spain if things in the U.S. go tits up in November”

That made me laugh.

It used to be that people came to Spain for the “pull” factors. It just seems to me that it is increasingly the “push” factors that drive Americans/Canadians to come to Spain.

For Americans it’s usually the politics. For Canadians it’s that everything is going to shit: healthcare, crime, inflation. We left Canada in 2014 and have been back 3 times since then so we haven’t seen it firsthand. But we’ve gotten a lot of Canadian visitors and everyone is depressed in the direction the country is going. Canada was always the place where you paid a shit-load of taxes…but it was safe, friendly and the public healthcare was still decent. People say that’s no longer the case. Cost of living has exploded and the dollar has gone to crap – when we left Canada in 2014 the Canadian dollar was at par with the US. CAD is now 1.39 to the USD. The country is a mess.

Spain’s not perfect but we consider ourselves lucky to be here: Spain has among the lowest cost of living in Europe, is safe, has great infrastructure and friendly people. Healthcare is good, the sun is always shining, wine is inexpensive…There are many great things about living in Spain.

My very first post on this blog I wrote about the reasons that we chose to take a break from full-time travelling in order to get Permanent Residency in Spain. With everything going on back in Canada and the US we feel it was the best thing we’ve done.

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The importance of the Padrón

We learned something important earlier this year.

We were bored in Antequera and were ready to move on. We had completed 3 ½ years of the 5 years required for permanent residency and started thinking “wouldn’t it be great to travel around Spain for the next year and a half without a fixed address?”. I mentioned that we had previously travelled full-time for 6 years – our thought was we could do the same in Spain, staying in Airbnbs and travelling around….

Our lawyer quickly shot down that idea:

 “In order to apply for the permanent residency, you will have to show a 5 years of empadronamiento to confirm you were living in Spain. This is a mandatory document and without it, you will not be able to get the PR”.

THAT is what led us to finding an apartment and signing a lease in Granada (you need a lease to register at your local town hall and obtain the Padrón certificate). Once you have your Permanent Residency, rules become much more relaxed…but until then you should be registered at a local town hall. And if you move around in Spain, you should try to have as little gap as possible between empadronamientos.

I mention the above because one of our readers mentioned to me that he was coming on a Non-Lucrative Residence Visa and that he planned to rent short-term when arriving in Spain.

There’s 2 things wrong with that.

The first is that a Non-Lucrative Visa grants you a “provisional” stay in Spain and is only valid for 90 days. When you arrive in Spain you have to make an appointment at your local Oficina de la Extranjeria (foreigner’s office) where you apply for your Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero (ie. your Foreigner Identity card, or TIE) which will be your residency permit for your 1-year stay. You should be making your appointment at the Oficina de la Extranjeria within 30 days of entering the country. And what do you need to apply for your Foreigner Identity Card? You need empadronamiento which requires a minimum 6 month lease…

You’ll also need empadronamiento when you renew your Foreigner Identity Card after years 1 and 3. So again, you should have a lease and be registered somewhere in Spain.

We knew the above but we hadn’t realized that empadronamiento was the proof used by the authorities to determine that you’ve actually been living in Spain the time required for Permanent Residency.

As you see, we all learn (sometimes the hard way) through the process. But just know that empadronamiento and the Padrón certificate are important in Spain…and that unfortunately you are restricted in some ways in terms of mobility when you come to Spain with temporary residency.

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Understanding the Spanish in 17 seconds…

I shot this mini-video on our Costa del Sol trip earlier this year.

There’s no malice in this video, if anything it makes me laugh because exemplifies the casual disrespect that the Spanish have for rules.  Sometimes it’s infuriating. Why can’t they pick up their dogshit? Why can’t they queue for anything? I sometimes think that if there’s a rule they will do their absolute best to break that rule just to make a point of saying they did. Sometimes it’s so absurd that it has to make you laugh.

Related: The best things about living in Spain

Related: Why you should get Permanent Residency in Spain