03 Dec 2010 12:00 AM:

Does anybody know of any orphanages, ideally in or near the Coín area? We're having a clear out of the house and have several items that we'd like to donate to help poor little souls at Xmas rather than boot sale or throw away?

Some of the items are quite large but can be delivered, hence ideally in or around the Coín area.

If you have telephone numbers that'd be great.

Thanks

Thread: Orphanages in Malaga

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22 Dec 2009 5:16 PM:

Hi

I can only give you our opinion on the region based on our travels there a few years ago, but given that many foreigners have never visited that part of Spain I thought it might be more helpful than nothign!

We we intending to spend about 2 weeks driving round Galicia in our camper van as part of our travels round the entire country. VERY green, VERY lush, quite rough and ready (not necessarily in a negative sense). I've never been to rural Ireland, but I'd guess it would be cut from the same mould? We were there at the end of July / beginning of August and for every good day of weather it chucked it down, pretty heavily, for 2 days.

I speak fluent Spanish (i.e I work in Spanish as well as English, rather than I can order a beer without getting it wrong) and I found the language up there pretty tricky. To me it sounded more like Portuguese than Spanish and everybody spoke it. In fact, having met a few Gallegos and their circle of friends, it became apparent that there was quite a strong regionalist / separatist sentiment up there and that the Gallegos appeared to identify themselves with the Portuguese more than the Spaniards!

The locals that we met (in particular in a town called Cambados - home to Albariño wine!) were all pretty friendly and welcoming.

Great food, especially if seafood is your thing which, alas, it isn't ours particularly, but the wine more than made up for it.

VERY confusing road signs.

But, alas, the weather. We found it a little oppressive after a while, and I don't actually mind the rain in sensible measures! Could be that we were living in a campervan at the time, but we got pretty fed up with it. We were told that the weather that we experienced was completely normal for that time of the year.

I can't comment on aspects of actually living there, just our tourist impressions. I wouldn't live there personally, but that's just me. Funnily enough, I would have loved to have lived in next-door Asturias, and that was hardly the Sahara! The girlfriend (now the Mrs) likes the sun too much, so here we are!

Hope this little helps.

 

 

Thread: Moving to Galicia

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22 Dec 2009 5:16 PM:

Hi

I can only give you our opinion on the region based on our travels there a few years ago, but given that many foreigners have never visited that part of Spain I thought it might be more helpful than nothign!

We we intending to spend about 2 weeks driving round Galicia in our camper van as part of our travels round the entire country. VERY green, VERY lush, quite rough and ready (not necessarily in a negative sense). I've never been to rural Ireland, but I'd guess it would be cut from the same mould? We were there at the end of July / beginning of August and for every good day of weather it chucked it down, pretty heavily, for 2 days.

I speak fluent Spanish (i.e I work in Spanish as well as English, rather than I can order a beer without getting it wrong) and I found the language up there pretty tricky. To me it sounded more like Portuguese than Spanish and everybody spoke it. In fact, having met a few Gallegos and their circle of friends, it became apparent that there was quite a strong regionalist / separatist sentiment up there and that the Gallegos appeared to identify themselves with the Portuguese more than the Spaniards!

The locals that we met (in particular in a town called Cambados - home to Albariño wine!) were all pretty friendly and welcoming.

Great food, especially if seafood is your thing which, alas, it isn't ours particularly, but the wine more than made up for it.

VERY confusing road signs.

But, alas, the weather. We found it a little oppressive after a while, and I don't actually mind the rain in sensible measures! Could be that we were living in a campervan at the time, but we got pretty fed up with it. We were told that the weather that we experienced was completely normal for that time of the year.

I can't comment on aspects of actually living there, just our tourist impressions. I wouldn't live there personally, but that's just me. Funnily enough, I would have loved to have lived in next-door Asturias, and that was hardly the Sahara! The girlfriend (now the Mrs) likes the sun too much, so here we are!

Hope this little helps.

 

 

Thread: Moving to Galicia

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08 Dec 2009 1:38 PM:

We spent the last 2 winters with some of these for the rooms of the house where the lving room heat doesn't really reach. I certainly wouldn't say they are brilliant and the answer to all our heating woes - I'd say rather than heat the room per se they take the cold out of it. We had 2 in our bedroom (about 4m x 4m) and one in the hall and we used to just leave them on for long (very long) periods of time as the instructions told us to. You'd go in the room and, whilst it was no longer cold it certainly wasn't shorts and t-shirt in there.

I understand they cost about €1 per day to leave on. Like I say, we had 2 in the bedroom...it works out cheaper to blast the warm air from the a/c unit than use 2 of these.

That said, we had double glazing put in a few months ago so maybe that would make a difference. haven't had to use the one in the hall yet, but it did an OK job so we haven't taken it down either...

Thread: Econo-Heat

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08 Dec 2009 10:38 AM:

A month or so back we had to have our electrics totally replaced. We'd had a problem previously going the cheap route and using a (English) sparky, but this caused so many problems we decided to do it the official route (also I work autonomo, so can at least claim the VAT back now the bills are registered (after 3 years of trying!) in my name)).

So we got a registered Endesa installer in. He was fine, did the job nice n quickly, but said we needed Endesa to come round and instal this limiter in order to get a proper contract. Endesa came round and installed - at the time I asked the guy if there would be a problem with the amount of juice we use (apart from an emersion heater on the solar panel during winter it's not really any more than your average household). No problem I was told. Well, later that week we had a few lights on, the kettle and a hairdryer and pop! went the electrics. Several times.

So I went to Endesa (Coín) who said I'd been put on the lowest possible limit and that it was nowhere near enough for the list of electric items I mentioned. She put me on the middle limit, and charged €120 for the privilege! I speak fluent Spanish so tried arguing the toss with her, but you can image the response I got!

I heard from a neighbour later - whether he has his finger on the pulse of rustic life who knows - that he had friends where the same thing happened and it's basically just a racket by Endesa - they put you on the lowest limit knowing there's a good chance you come back for an upgrade. Given we'd been 3 years without problems prior, you'd think Endesa would've known which limit to give us. I smell a rat...

Not knowing anything about electrics, I guess we've paid the price. Still, our electrics have been fine since and all nice and safe wiring for when our first kiddie comes along in March!

But does anybody know if this means we'll be paying more for our electricity?

Thread: Iberdrola / New power limiters / law

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