Mapping Spain Monthly Recap:  November 2024

Mapping Spain Monthly Recap:  November 2024

I’m sitting on an Iberia jet as I’m writing this after spending most of the month of November in Mexico. On my last monthly recap I went on at length about the 36 hour delay I incurred leaving Spain – well, the great thing about having a blog is that there are some very smart people out there and Leo told me about his own experience going through the same thing (several times). Thanks to him I have a 600 Euro claim going against Iberia right now. I’ll tell you about that a bit further below.

But I usually start these monthly recaps by talking about the weather over the past month. Since I’ve been in Mexico over the past month, I asked Lissette to recap it for me: ¨It’s been mostly warm and mostly sunny. We had a spell there “Dana” where it was gloomy and dark but that was just a few days. Our little office gets really warm but as soon as the sun goes down it gets very cold in the apartment¨.

There, that’s your weather recap for November from Granada. We heard things about the weather in Granada, people telling us that it’s either too hot or too cold or too rainy. Honestly, since we moved to Granada in May our only complaints were that July and August were unbearably hot. Otherwise, most days are sunny (with some exceptions) and temperatures have been just fine. And we’re not afraid of the coming winter months, in fact we like coolish weather. We actually have a lot of travel around Spain planned for the next few months (both day and weekend trips in the Granada region and a longish trip in Alicante province in the new year).

One thing though: I came back on the 30th to see the first snow in the Sierra Nevada.

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A short recap this month given that I was away the whole of November…

Mexico Vs Spain

For anyone curious, a few years ago I wrote this post comparing Spain and Mexico as places to live. My mom lives in Mexico and she’s been very happy there.

I actually really like Mexico and enjoying visiting. A couple of things make me hesitant to live there. At the top of the list, as Canadians, it’s healthcare. Canadians lose their Canadian healthcare after a certain period of time (depending on the province) when they’ve left the country. So we have no healthcare to come back to, unlike the many Americans living in Mexico who have Medicare coverage and can go back home when they need an operation. So options in Mexico are private healthcare (a US style system that can leave you bankrupt if it’s something serious) or a not-so-great public system where you can wait months to get something fixed. The 2nd is security, though it is distant 2nd. Mexico gets a really bad rap. It’s a huge country and while some regions are dangerous (mostly for locals) others are much safer. For perspective, my mom got mugged once when she lived in Thailand. Nothing has ever happened to her in over 10 years in Mexico. That’s not to say you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time but…

But like I say, I really like Mexico. I haven’t been to any country with friendlier people. It’s vibrant, colourful and the food is great. And there are some beautiful cities built by the Spanish. With my mom getting older I’m prepared that I may have to spend more time in the future going back and forth between Spain and Mexico.

A few photos from Mexico. I’ve explored much of the country over the last 10 years of visiting my mother…

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The Tipping Post

Sometimes people confound me.

I wrote a post last month entitled The “Tipping Protocol” in Spain. It got incredible traffic everywhere which surprised me: it was meant to educate people new to Spain as to how people tip in Spain. Ie. the norms or “protocol” around tipping. I wasn’t trying to stir the pot, I did this post for informational purposes and I figured most of it would be obvious (well, at least for people who’ve been living in Spain a while).

But what surprised me most was how some people reacted with anger. Expats/immigrants saying that it’s “not right” that people don’t tip more generously and that “I won’t have anyone tell me how I’m going to spent my money and I’m going to tip as much as I want to tip“. It got certain people fuming.

It made me reflect that as much as we all intend to “integrate” or “fit in” to another society, many of us are hell-bent on doing the opposite through our actions. And they won’t be told otherwise. As a Spanish friend of a friend said “it’s nice that people want to be generous, but they’re setting up a situation where staff is going to be more attentive to foreigners just because they pay more in tips. It’s not good for us”.

I state as much in the article. I also say that this is how we ruin places. For many it fell on deaf ears.

Honestly, people baffle me sometimes.

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Our Claim against Iberia

I’ve mentioned off the top my Iberia story. It was basically all I wrote about in last month’s newsletter. You can read about it here if you’re not familiar with it.

Leo left me a comment on the post which you’ll see at the bottom. We emailed back and forth privately and he gave me more information as well as a template to write to Iberia.

The regulation:

Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 gives passengers the right to compensation when their flights are delayed by more than 3 hours to the final destination. The amount depends on the distance of the flight(s) and can vary between 250 Euros and 600 Euros. It only applies to EU airlines. You can find detailed information here.

The template (with changes made to eliminate personal info):

Compensation Claim for Flight Delay – Flight IB9505 on October 31st, 2024

Dear Customer Relations Team,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to request compensation for a flight delay that I experienced on October 31, 2024, while traveling with Iberia. I was a passenger on Flight IB9505, which was scheduled to depart from Madrid and arrive in New York.

Flight Details:

Flight Number: IB9505
Departure: Madrid
Destination: New York
Date: October 31, 2024
Class: Business
Ticket Number: 

Regrettably, the aforementioned flight was delayed by over 3 hours, causing significant inconvenience and disruption to my travel plans. According to EU Regulation 261/2004, passengers are entitled to compensation for flight delays exceeding 3 hours, which applies to my situation.

In light of this, I kindly request that Iberia provide me with the compensation of €600 as stipulated by the regulation. I have provided my bank account details below for the refund to be credited:

Bank Account Information:

Bank Name:
Account Holder: 
IBAN:
BIC/SWIFT Code:

I kindly ask for your prompt response and confirmation of the compensation process as specified by the regulation. Failure to do so within 30 days will mean that I will assume that this claim is not being processed and I will report the delay and the lack of compliance to the regulation to the Spanish Aviation Safety and Security Agency which is charged with enforcing the regulation of passenger rights in Spain.

Please feel free to contact me via email if you require any additional information or documentation to process my compensation claim.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in resolving this matter. I look forward to a timely resolution of my compensation claim.

Sincerely,

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Again, some great and helpful people out there and I really, really appreciate it. I hope it can help others who face long delays.

I sent my letter to Iberia, received an automatic confirmation of receipt from them, then, about 10 days later, received a personalized email from them apologizing, saying how on time service is priority blah, blah, blah. I haven’t yet received the money. I will update the status of my claim on my next monthly recap and tell you the next step in the process if I end up having to go down that route.

Related: Avoiding tourist trap restaurants in Spain

Related: The “Tipping Protocol” in Spain