{"id":373,"date":"2018-03-24T17:01:14","date_gmt":"2018-03-24T17:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/?p=373"},"modified":"2018-06-13T07:07:10","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T14:07:10","slug":"interlude-granada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/interlude-granada\/","title":{"rendered":"Interlude \u2013 Granada"},"content":{"rendered":"

So today we are taking a break from the \u2018touristo\u2019 activity and I\u2019m going to write a little about living here in general.\u00a0 We thought it might be interesting and informative.\u00a0 We can yak ad nauseam about the castles, churches, and graveyards, (and the hordes) but the point of the trek to elsewhere was to see what it was like to live as a local here.\u00a0 Or at least try to.\u00a0 We will always have one foot in both camps until we rent\/buy in someplace, but we can try to be local as much as possible.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Our Air B&B<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Anyone can come here on vacation, spend some money, eat out a lot, and go home again but we no longer have a permanent home to go back to.\u00a0 This gives us a lot of monetary advantage in that we are not having to pay living costs in two places.\u00a0 The downside of course, is we have nowhere to go back to.\u00a0 This forces us to always be planning the \u2018next\u2019 bunch of places to book and stay in.\u00a0 It\u2019s a challenge and can be very tedious.\u00a0 But we have total freedom and so far, we are loving it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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View from the\u00a0 back deck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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What\u2019s it like to live here in Spain?\u00a0 It\u2019s a beautiful country, the little we have seen so far, the weather is decent (except for the last week in Granada, but hey, the weather is the weather and it\u2019s finally warm and sunny), and the alcohol is cheap!\u00a0 \u00a0Staying in airBnB\u2019s so far, has been positive and is much cheaper than hotels.\u00a0 The hosts all seem very nice and we get info and tips on the area, what to do, where to buy things, etc.\u00a0 All of the places come with some sort of kitchen, laundry facility, internet connectivity, and TV.\u00a0 Cooking you can\u2019t do in a hotel room usually and laundry service tends to be not so cheap.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been able to book and stay in some very nice places for an average price of $80CDN a day and that works out to what?\u00a0 $2400CDN\/month?\u00a0 We think that\u2019s a good deal for what we are doing and if we got an actual apartment for 6 months or a year, I would guess the average monthly rent would be closer to $1800.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As I mentioned in a previous post, we tend to buy groceries daily or every other day and have our meals in as opposed to going out.\u00a0 Sampling the local food at restaurants is nice but it gets expensive.\u00a0 The average menu del dia is around <\/span>\u20ac<\/span>10 each or more and if you start going out to the tapas places at night, well\u2026.\u00a0 So, we tend to have breakfast consisting of an egg, fruit, and some toast, something I normally skipped back home, a late afternoon snack (cerveza, cheese, bread), and we have dinner later with some cheap wine.\u00a0 Groceries are a little cheaper here than in Vancouver, especially the local produce, and a single can\/bottle of beer is less than a\u00a0 $1, and a drinkable table wine can be had for about $5 -$6.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We also don\u2019t have the expense of a vehicle either.\u00a0 Who needs the hassle.\u00a0 The buses and trains here are efficient, relatively inexpensive, and seem to go to most places.\u00a0 We just purchased a senior’s train pass which gives us 40% off on weekdays \/ 25% off on weekends.\u00a0 We walk everywhere in the city centers (5 to 12Km most days).\u00a0 It keeps us in shape.\u00a0 Our airfare from Barcelona to Granada (about a 100km less than Vancouver to Calgary), cost all of $60CDN each.\u00a0 Even the touristo things weren\u2019t all that bad, The Sagrada was <\/span>\u20ac<\/span>15, Monserrat <\/span>\u20ac<\/span>22, Alhambra <\/span>\u20ac<\/span>14, Graveyard <\/span>\u20ac<\/span>0.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We like it here.\u00a0 There\u2019s a different pace to life.\u00a0 You could live here for a lot less than in Vancouver but I suppose most places are less expensive than Vancouver these days.\u00a0 We don\u2019t miss it much though and what I certainly don\u2019t miss is the feeling that I\u2019m being taxed to death.\u00a0 Yes, there are taxes here, but they are not so much in your face as in BC.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And we\u2019re told that Portugal is less expensive that Spain. \u00a0What\u2019s not to like!\u00a0 Not missing work much either <\/span><\/span>😊<\/span>. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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So today we are taking a break from the \u2018touristo\u2019 activity and I\u2019m going to write a little about living here in general.\u00a0 We thought it might be interesting and informative.\u00a0 We can yak ad nauseam about the castles, churches, and graveyards, (and the hordes) but the point of the trek to elsewhere was to see what it was like to live as a local here.\u00a0 Or at least try to.\u00a0 We will always have one foot in both camps until we rent\/buy in someplace, but we can try to be local as much as possible.     Anyone can come here on vacation, spend some money, eat out a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2776,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions\/2776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}