I’ve been blessed to have spent a lot of the winter of 2019-2020 residing along the southern coast of Spain. Occupying a leased casa near the center of an old city for an extended time, which necessarily involved engaging 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 place far from my New Hampshire home.

To be clear, I really do have a life outside of economic observation, however for purposes of this piece that I ‘ll focus on a small anecdotal contrast between how people conduct commercial exchange at a corner of Spain and at NH. To further set this up, notice that I deliberately lived with no car and had no information plan for 3 months, relying instead on public transport and WiFi (or even wee-fee since they cutely say there).

These near-monastic practices aside, let me tell you a little about my provisional Spanish hometown. Fuengirola, a small city of about 75K inhabitants, lies along the Mediterranean coast about 25 miles west of Malaga, the huge city in these areas. It’s in the autonomous region of Andalusia (such as a US country ), that’s the largest of those self-governing regions in Spain. Given that
this guy was controlled from the Islamic Moors for about seven centuries the architecture and culture is a unique mix of Christian and Muslim influences not seen everywhere in Europe. Andalusians have a reputation for being psychological and fun-loving. I concur.

What is most evident is the way old-fashioned 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 big box stores to buy our stuff, or as is increasingly the case, we order things online and have them sent to our houses. But here, acounting & Pop" stores are alive and seemingly well. networking , except Sunday, are teeming with people doing their everyday marketing of vegetables, fruits, medicines, clothing, breads/pastries, alcohol, and lottery tickets (really large here).

this guy have to admit that despite a clear inefficiency with moving to a shop for your bread, to another for your veggies, and also to the next for meat I enjoyed the quaintness and personal touch of getting to know the people who worked these establishments. Levels of private service always seemed high and I never felt rushed.

People sit with family and friends for what seems like hours chatting over coffee and beer during workdays and weekends alike. Cafes and pubs are everywhere spilling onto sidewalks. The jabber is lively and unkind and leaves a Yank with the impression that life really should be fun and dwelt with gusto. " But it does. visit here ‘s a highly functioning, prosperous, and safe feeling community. Police attendance is minimal.

The Euro is the currency. And now a fantastic read is just about 10% greater than the US dollar. However, prices for most commodities seem 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 prices of power and big-ticket things, but overall prices seem cheaper in Spain. Also, this a cash-based society. My pocket regularly is weighed down with these heavy coins (a First World issue, I know). Sure men and women use credit cards and telephone pay apps, but cash is still quite prevalent.