Mapping Spain Monthly Recap: September 2024

Happy beginning of October!

A few things I touch on in this recap: September weather / the underrated highlights of Granada / Another company on my Spanish ¨Shit list¨ / How much time do you actually have to be in Spain? / People responding to you in English / Funny labelling and signs.

September Weather

September was a great month here in Granada. It was almost on cue – the minute we moved into September the weather got cooler, especially the evenings. We actually had to get our blankets out. Days early in the month were in the low 30’s, towards the end of the month in the high 20’s. Skies have stayed blue. September was a perfect month.

The truth is that we didn’t do much in September – we felt that we slept a lot, it’s as if the cooler nighttime temps put us into hibernation mode. After lots of shitty sleep in July and August, we did a lot of sleeping in September.

Underrated highlights of Granada

When people think of Granada they think of the Alhambra, the Cathedral and the Royal Chapel.

In early September we finished our free visits to a bunch of Granada highlights (I wrote in my last recap how you can see many highlights in Granada for free). After having seen the Cartuja Monastery (wow) and Royal Chapel (ok) in August, we saw the Granada Cathedral (impressive), the San Jeronimo Monastery (spectacular!) and the Abbey of Sacromonte (ok). We still have to see the Church of Saint Nicolas which I was finally able to get free tickets for*.

*I had a frustrated reader tell me that dates for the sites weren’t coming up on the free entrances website. Like I told her, this is Spain, just keep checking and trying. They will eventually show up.

But my point: There are some spectacular highlights in Granada that people don’t know about. The Jeronimo Monastery wasn’t on our radar and we were blown away by the church in the Monastery. Just amazing. Same goes for the Cartuja Monastery and the Church of San Juan de Dios. All very much worth visiting if you come to Granada.

Another company on my Spanish ¨Shit list¨

I’ve previously written about my frustrations with Spanish customer service. It’s shit, pure and simple, especially if dealing with a big company.

The main company I wrote about in that post was Movistar, the largest internet provider in Spain. So when we moved to Granada I told Lissette that, out of principle, I would never do business with Movistar again. Despite having one of their stores a block away.

So when we went to the Sierra Nevada Shopping Center, we dropped by Vodafone. I’ve always liked Vodafone having dealt with them all over Europe when travelling. We both have rechargeable SIM cards in our phones from Vodafone. So it made sense to go to Vodafone.

It turned out they had a special: home internet plus 2 phones for 40 Euros. So we could get our home wifi and get our 2 rechargeable SIMS included in one package deal. Great.

From there it got complicated. They could put the first telephone number on the package right away but the 2^nd number could only be included after 30 days. Ok, we said we could come back for the 2^nd number after a month.

Vodafone came by and installed the wifi and, a month later we went back to the store where another employee, who didn’t seem to know what she was doing, added the 2^nd number to the account.

A few weeks later we got our 1^st billing: 64 Euros.

I wrote the Vodafone store and the same employee who had helped us the first time said she would handle it and that we would be credited the difference.

2 weeks later we happened to be back at the shopping center and popped into Vodafone to speak to our favorite girl. She hadn’t been able to get the situation fixed because of ¨system issues¨. She would let us know when it was resolved.

A few weeks later I got our 2^nd billing: 57 Euros (remember, the contract was for 40 Euros).

I wrote the girl back. No response.

Then last week we had to go back to the shopping center for other things. Again, we popped into Vodafone. This time the girl was unfriendly, giving us ¨you’re putting me out¨ vibes. She filled out a ¨Hoya de Reclamaciones¨ form for us and had us sign it. She said someone from Vodafone would call us within 4 working days to look into our situation.

That was 2 weeks ago. Since then, no phone call, no credit on our account, nothing.

So again, it looks like we’ll have to take matters into our own hands and escalate things which is a pain in the ass and a time-sucker.

At this point I’m thinking of just cancelling the contract and going with Movistar.

Somebody on our FB page (Andrew) said it well:

¨…I really think this whole boss/worker, “the rich are out to screw us” mentality holds the country back. The current government is looking at reducing hours. I feel that if there were more mature and enlightened parties involved, this could be a win/win. Studies show that flexible working creates more productivity and happier workers. In Spain I feel that bosses think workers will shirk off and workers just see an extra few hours at home. At my own business we could easily be at the workplace 1 hour a day less and get the same amount of work done. I think Spain’s productivity could be higher with a collective new mentality and drop this “sides” approach. Much easier said than done¨.

The overriding feeling I always get dealing with employees in large Spanish companies is that it’s just not worth their while to help you. Maybe they don’t get paid enough, maybe they work long hours, maybe there’s just no incentive plan to reward employees who work harder than others. The end result is that many just don’t care and that comes through in customer service.

It’s frustrating though if you’re a customer.

How much time do you actually have to be in Spain?

We’ve mentioned it before: our principal reason in coming to Spain was to get Permanent Residency somewhere in Europe. I wrote about it on the very first post that I published on this blog: Why Spain? How we got here.

Before settling in Spain we had been full-time nomads without a base for 6 years. We travelled the world, staying a month or two somewhere before moving on. Some of the places we called home over those years: Prague, Budapest, Cape Town, Kyoto, Brasov, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Lisbon, Seville, Tbilisi, Krakow, Kiev, Lviv, Yerevan, Split (where we actually lived for over a year). We stayed almost always stayed in Airbnb apartments. For the most part we loved the lifestyle because we are nomads at heart and – after many years of building a life in Canada – we just enjoyed the freedom of not having a home. And for those of you thinking ¨you must be millionnaires to live that lifestyle¨ the truth is that our nomadic lifestyle cost us about the same as what it costs us to live in Spain. More here: How much does it cost to have a nomadic lifestyle?

We’re now 1 year away from getting permanent residency and have been thinking a lot about ¨what’s next?¨

On the one hand, we really do miss the nomadic life we led and sometimes we want to get back to a semblance of that while maintaining our Spanish residency.

So what are the rules on that? Could we do that even if we wanted to?

As a permanent resident, you have freedom to spend more time outside Spain: ¨ As a temporary resident, you cannot surpass more than 6 months in a calendar year outside of Spain, or a total of 10 months over 5 years. With Permanent Residency, you should be in Spain 6 months/year and should be in Spain no less than 30 months total during the 5 years*¨

(*note: permanent residency is renewable every 5 years which is why 5 years is mentioned above)

But is there an actual law that states you HAVE to be in Spain 6 months of the year when you have permanent residency?

Per our lawyer: ¨ You should be living in Spain at least 6 months per year, as always to be considered resident in Spain. However, to be honest, with the permanent there is no regulation on the law stablishing the minimum or maximum time you must be in Spain to renew the permanent residency¨.

The 6 months rule is a technical rule for tax purposes. Spain wants you in the country 183+ days so that you’re subject to paying Spanish taxes. But there’s no actual law telling you how little time you actually have to spend in Spain. I have one American friend (a permanent resident) who told me that as long as he spends 1 day in Spain a year that he’s ok. He’s absolutely right. You can lose your permanent residency in Spain if you are more than 12 months out of Spain consecutively. But as long as you can be in Spain 1 day out of every year you’re not breaking any rules or laws.

I know most people aren’t like us, they’re not pondering a Nomadic lifestyle and wondering about how the Spanish immigration laws will apply. But if you are, or are thinking of living some variant of that, then the above information might be useful to you.

What are we going to do?

We’re not sure yet. On the one hand, we’d love to go back to travelling full-time. But the world isn’t the same as it was pre-Covid (in many ways) and we’re 5 years older. That’s created doubt. We’ve also found the perfect base and apartment here in Granada so that’s also a factor. And finding a nice apartment anywhere seems to be getting more and more challenging. Right now we’re leaning towards a compromise solution, travelling half the year and keeping our base in Granada. But we might change our minds tomorrow so we’ll see…

How do you feel about people responding to you in English?

We live in a very-non touristy part of Granada. And we see very few Western expats/immigrants.

So it’s always strange to me when we go to a bar or restaurant and the waiter sees me and says ¨Hello! or, when I order, ¨”OKAY!¨

It used to bother me, especially if we’re somewhere on the coast in a place filled with foreigners. I’m speaking to you in Spanish, why are you answering in English? Is my Spanish that bad?

In a way I felt that I was being labelled and put in the same box as all those white tourists that come to Spain not speaking a word of Spanish.

But in Granada it bothers me less because I can see that people are just being friendly. They see we look different than most and are just being accommodative. Guy last night ¨Sorry my English not good¨, me ¨No problema, mi Espanol no es mejor¨. We just had a laugh about it. The people here have actually been super accommodative and friendly and it doesn´t bother me if they respond to me in English. I still don’t (generally) like it however, especially if I’m in a more touristy part of town or a touristy part of Spain.

Thoughts?