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What's different?
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Language
I think that many British people who live on the Costa Blanca, know enough Spanish to
make themselves understood in simple situations.
Those who cannot must find it difficult in shops, markets, restaurants, answering the
phone etc.
I have a couple of holiday phrase books (one is in my handbag all the time) a couple
of dictionaries a tape I can listen to when I take the dog for
a walk and a CD rom when I need to be able to read the words as well as listen to them.. This is the least
I would feel comfortable with.
I can vividly remember my first visit to a Spanish supermarket. I wanted to buy milk,
but the skimmed variety. Skimmed was not
in the phrase book and I spent more time than I needed to walking up and down the
aisle trying to work it all out.
I needed to learn numbers, days of the week, colours, greetings and at least how to
order a coffee or a bottle of water in a cafe.
There was also the visit to the local dentist for the replacement of a lost filling!
(but that is another story!)
The pronunciation of letters in Spanish words, we are so familar with in English, is
also a stumbling block."h", not pronounced at all,
"e" is always pronounced as in the English word "hello". What about "j"? this is
pronounced like the "ch" in loch.
I needed the tape and cd rom to help with this!
The Berlitz phrase book and the
BBC "Get by in Spanish" were very helpful to
me in the first few months.The first thing I did was find out what the emergency
telephone number was and write on a card next to the
phone our address and "es urgente; necesito una ambulancia". Asking for help in
an emergency is a worry when you have only just arrived
in Spain with very little Spanish.
This is one of the best sites I came across when I was a teacher Enchanted Learning - Spanish
Make sure you have enough paper in the printer!
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Security
The way we have to secure our home in Spain, came as a shock. We have been very fortunate
and in the 5 years we have been owners, we have not had any security incidents. We do however, take security seriously. We have a dog and an alarm.
We always lock up completely when we leave the villa and when we go to bed. We lock the gates when we are enjoying a spot of sunbathing
and keep valuables under lock and key. There have been instances of bag snatching so I take special care when out
and about with my handbag. The urbanisations have grown so large and numerous over the
last few years they have outstripped the ability of the Police to deal with the crimes.
Quesada has an active Neighbourhood Watch Scheme. I am the incident co-ordinator and maintain their website.
You can see the types of crime reported in Quesada, download our informative leaflets and read our minutes
at http://www.rojalesnw.info Many thieves are opportunists,
so lock up and look after your property.
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Food
To enjoy life in Spain, I think we have to be flexible...willing to try food we have not tried before
I was so used to cheese made with cow's milk, that I wondered what the combination of
cow's, goat's and sheep's milk would taste like...pretty good! Vegetables, again a little different.
Plenty of broccoli, courgettes, artichokes, cabbage, green beans...but if you want a
cauliflower prepare to pay for the privilege. Spanish Tortilla either with or without onion is so tasty
and what about the alli oli, garlic mayonaise...but Where is the stuffing?
and the gravy mix? and as I am vegetarian, where are the "Quorn" products. I can make stuffing...
but I can't find any sage. I now grow my own. I can make my own gravy from vegetable cubes but I do miss
the vegetarian protein.I know I can get it "at a price" at the English supermarkets but we are here for years
so would prefer some local options.
Brian loves fish...tuna, prawns, crab; lots of choice either fresh or frozen. Bread is so tasty and as in the UK,
you can buy it just baked or sliced in plastic bags!I have a bread maker now too. What can I say about the fruit?...such a variety of melons,
oranges for eating, marmalade and juicing,lemons for marmalade or gin! but grapefruit is not so plentiful.
We have just planted a grapefruit tree so we will have our own at the end of the year.
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Shopping
Where we live, no Marks and Spencer or Littlewoods!
There are supermarkets such as Carrefour where you can buy everything under one roof.
This is great when you are a newcomer to Spain but shops in your local town should give better value for money.
Large supermarkets seem to stay open all day e.g. Mercadona but smaller ones on the urbanisations,
tend to have a siesta.
The siesta takes some getting used to! Most shops and businesses close at 1 or 2pm and open again at 4 or 5pm.
This effectively means, no shopping in the afternoon. If you buy a piece of furniture and delivery is promised
for the afternoon, this means between 4 and 7pm. All towns and villages have a weekly market. These are great places to
buy cooked chickens, bedding, sandals, plants and secondhand books. In my experience, they are not good places
to buy electrical goods and vegetables have to be carefully chosen. Some markets are huge and claustrophobic; my favourite
is a Sunday market on the road to San Miguel and a Thursday market in Rojales.
They all seem to close around 2pm. The furniture shops are excellent
and have goods to suit all purses. When you buy furniture and white goods,
they are delivered and fitted and the empty boxes removed. An excellent service. It amazed me that shops would only
require a small deposit and the balance to be paid in cash to the driver on delivery.
Those drivers must be handling hundredso of euros each day.
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Telephone
Telefonica initiates the expat into the ways of Spain quite quickly! Helpfully,
they provide an English speaking service; phone 1004 and say, "Hola, habla ingles por favor?"
Telefonica have a "Europa 15" service...for a monthly charge (9 euros) you can use 15 mins calling the UK each evening after 8 pm.
If you use more than this, they bill you at 12 cents a minute. There are also other companies that offer a cheaper call rate to the UK
and also for local calls, we connect to their system using a number prefix.
By far the cheapest way of contacting family and friends in the uk is to buy a phone card. For 12 euros you get a staggering amount of time.
This can be used from your home phone and at any time of the day too.
Although the user manual for the Telefonica Domo phone is in Spanish, there have been various translations into English.
Rojales Neighbourhood Watch have an English manual on their website http://www.rojalesnw.info
The very least we needed to know was how to activate the answerphone and then to change
the recorded voice to English; everything else is icing on the cake.
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| Connecting to the internet
If you try to connect to the ISP you had in UK, it's an overseas call to connect to them from Spain.
Gonuts4free is a Spanish ISP whose instructions can be printed in the UK and used when you finally arrive here.
They will also send you a CD Rom to connect you automatically. Most areas now have Broadband but if you want to use dial-up there are different packages from Terra, Orange, Ya and others
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