Pen's Place - Spain

A place for the things that interest me

SPAIN

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This is beautiful Estepona; we have a house a little way outside the town, a couple of kilometres inland from the coast. We use it ourselves and also lend it to friends and relatives.

There's a HUGE British expatriate community along the Costa del Sol. Official estimates are for approximately 200,000 people, but unofficially there are an awful lot more; throw in the Germans, Dutch and other Northern Europeans and the fair skinned ones seem to massively outnumber the natives at times. Generally speaking everyone seems to rub along reasonably well, though some of the expats drink too much and drive appallingly - however most of us are past our first flush of youth, and Hell's Grandads can't keep going like they used to.

The locals put up with us because we have brought massive wealth to the area; Andalucia used to be one of the poorest regions in one of the poorest countries in Europe, but in the past 40 years it has become rich. Corruption and high level crime flourish - it seems like almost every week the ex-mayor of yet another town along the coast gets hauled up into court - but most expats turn a blind eye, and assume it's just the way things are done in Spain. It's not, it's the way things are done all over the world whenever and wherever there are vast profits to be made. The building boom is slowing down in this area, and so we should expect more probity in public life soon.

It's very easy to live here with practically no knowledge of the language whatsoever. English is so widely spoken that it becomes quite difficult to use the Spanish you're trying so hard to learn. There are English newspapers, English radio stations, English supermarkets selling baked beans and Worcestershire sauce, English builders, car mechanics, furniture shops, garden centres, vets, doctors, dentists...everything!

However if you're a bit of a polyglot, things can be quite fun. I've used all my previously acquired language skills: Latin (very useful for learning Spanish), French, German, and even my very rusty Russian - I went to a bizarre school - talking to the mother of my daughter's best friend. I wish I knew some Italian, Polish and Arabic too.

Useful Spanish websites:

Google in Spanish; can select for pages from Spain
The Spanish Yellow Pages
La Cañada Shopping Centre
El Corte Inglés Department Stores
M B Hormigo, English speaking building company, highly recommended!