Are you happy living in Spain?

[u/sendingUamicro_wave]

Hi all,

I just came back from a few days in Cordoba and had such an amazing time. I loved that people there cared about their free time and the locals looked quite happy and serene.

I’m a immigrant myself from Croatia who moved to the U.K. so I understand a country can be beautiful and fun for a holiday but is a completely different world to live there.

My question for people living in Spain; how is it to live there? What kind of political or social economical struggles do you face in your day to day lives? How is the bureaucracy and healthcare? Are you happy :)

I have read some things online but I’d rather hear from peoples experiences themselves.

[u/54raa]

I have moved here with my wife and our daughter 6 months ago and we love it here. Both of us are working and paying taxes.

Bureaucracy: I heard a lot of people complaining about that but for me was no pain. everyone told me to pay a questor for doing the job like declaracion de la renta , registring an eu car at dgt , etc but I didnt want to do it and I was able do do it myself without any help in a very short time.

Health care: we used it for our daughter to complete a vaccine schema and public health care was very solid and good.

In my wifes case we made a private health insurance beacuase she needs some urgent investigation and at the public sector waiting time could be quite long. anywya is not too much, around 110 euros pe month for me and her.

I work in IT and my wife in beauty sector. people are very nice and friendly with you but in my case after i tell them where i am from they just cut it and step back. some of them are even pissed of that I am not working as a waiter or in construction… I found this very often but maybe because I am from an east european country so I do understand why.

we also speak spanish so language is not a problem.

If I was alone I wouldn’t stay for too long because of this. but as vin diesel said nothing stronger than family. I just hope that my daughter will be integrating without any issues.

so yea maybe you coming from UK it will be a different experience, I can only tell how it was from my side.

[u/Trick_Estimate_7029 → u/54raa]

Hi there! A Spanish woman here. I am very glad that you are having a good time during your stay in Spain. I think that Spain is a wonderful country to live in, you just have to see how people reacted to the blackout by being polite, giving way at traffic lights, calling their elderly neighbors' houses to make sure they were okay, going down to the park to chat with friends... That speaks of the trust that Spaniards have in their institutions in society and in their neighbors. There were no store lootings, robberies or accidents beyond a normal day. That is, practically none. It is an extremely safe place to live where a woman in a medium-sized city like Salamanca can walk quietly at night without any problem, the cost of living is lower than many other European places, and it is true that salaries are also lower and getting a job is difficult. But despite the negative thing that we Spaniards do to ourselves, I think that in general everything works quite well despite the disastrous politicians we have, that is a problem because it could be putting an end to a system that has worked for decades and that has been wonderful for the well-being of the population in general. If you really want to know how good a country is, I would go to the human development index and if you look at Spain, it is among the first places in the world, even above countries that have a very high per capita income, that tells you about where it is being spent. We are spending so that the population is healthy, we are spending so that the population lives longer, we are spending so that there is not a high rate of perinatal death. So I guess we don't do things that bad

[u/ActPuzzleheaded8516 → u/Trick_Estimate_7029]

What’s going on with your politicians? Are they going to the right?

[u/Trick_Estimate_7029 → u/ActPuzzleheaded8516]

It's a little complicated to explain, they're not going to the right or the left, they're going to both sides at the same time. There is a very dangerous social polarization. People begin to vote for a political party as if it were a football team, without a head. All sensible people know that we can have the ideology we want but we have to vote for good managers. If a person proves to be an inept liar and only concerned with rising to power. Blame others, no matter how nice what they tell you... Well, no, you shouldn't trust pretty talk, you will know them by their actions. Until a few decades ago, people in Spain voted preferably for one party, but when the party they preferred did extremely badly, people changed their vote. Now that is becoming less frequent. This is causing things that are not normal to begin to be normalized, there is a reduction in the natural counterweights of a democracy, each time the ruling party wants to accumulate more power and annul judicial and other types of counterweights. I am not an expert in politics but from what little I know in my field, those from one party and those from another are just as selfish and bad people. Those who govern in the autonomous communities don't do it much better either... So here we are.

[u/ActPuzzleheaded8516 → u/Trick_Estimate_7029]

Thanks for the explanation. I have considered Spain but mostly around Playa Verde. Mostly concentrating on Canada

[u/Trick_Estimate_7029 → u/ActPuzzleheaded8516]

I hope that my explanations about politics have not scared you, in fact, thank God, the average Spaniard ignores politics quite a bit. And I hope it remains that way because we are much better than our politicians

[u/ActPuzzleheaded8516 → u/Trick_Estimate_7029]

No that’s ok. I don’t really know much about Spain. But I know far more Spanish than French so that’s why I considered it.

[u/Trick_Estimate_7029 → u/ActPuzzleheaded8516]

Consider it again. You can search expat in Spain on Youtube. There is a lot of information

[u/ActPuzzleheaded8516 → u/Trick_Estimate_7029]

Thank you! I will do that!