Your posting leaves some things unclear (perhaps deliberately so).
Are you (and your wife), in fact, already retired, or are you still working? In that context: How do you pay for your healthcare?
[...] we are 600 meters from the beach [...]
A real beach... with sand? Is it really possible to enter the water, swim out a little way, come back, and then sunbath on the delicious sand for a few hours - maybe while enjoying an ice cream purchased from the nearby kiosk? Or are you referring to what is more properly described as a rocky cliff or a tiny patch of land covered in jagged stone, inaccessible without trespassing and/or macheteing your way through brush, leading to jellyfish-infested waters?
[...] you still live in a Socialist country. The most obvious sign of that is gas stations. Where we moved from in Georgia there were half a dozen gas stations within a mile in any direction while here we have 2 stations for a town of 27000 people.
Are you saying that, with only two stations serving 27,000 people, the gas lines are reminiscent of those in the U.S. during the 1973 oil crisis?
[...] Nobody here talks about American politics.
Are you fluent in Spanish? Because everyone here where I live in splendid self-imposed exile (heh-heh!), I am regularly buttonholed by passing acquaintances demanding that I hold forth on the most-recent political events.
Regards,
We are already retired. Healthcare costs 1800 euros per year for the 2 of us for private insurance. My wife as a member of the EU also has health insurance reimbursed by the NHS. After you have been a resident for a year you can opt into the public health system paying a flat fee monthly 60 euros if you are less or 65 or 157 euros month if you are more than 65 years old.
A real beach... with sand? Is it really possible to enter the water, swim out a little way, come back, and then sunbath on the delicious sand for a few hours - maybe while enjoying an ice cream purchased from the nearby kiosk? Or are you referring to what is more properly described as a rocky cliff or a tiny patch of land covered in jagged stone, inaccessible without trespassing and/or macheteing your way through brush, leading to jellyfish-infested waters?
A real beach with real sand and plenty of room to swim. Restaurants, bars and ice cream within walking distance. Unfortunately, that beautiful beach gets very crowded in July and August so we have to get on the scooter and go 1.7 kilometers to a different beach that isn't as crowded but also doesn't have as many ameneties. If you prefer to lie out in all of your naked glory a naturist beach is another 200 meters from the quieter beach.
Here is a video of the area that shows a few of the local beaches plus the town. One thing in the video that may appear strange is a fox in a snowstorm. The mountains are large enough and close enough that you can swim in the morning, ski all afternoon and be back in time for another swim before heading out to supper.
Are you saying that, with only two stations serving 27,000 people, the gas lines are reminiscent of those in the U.S. during the 1973 oil crisis?
Hardly any lines at all. They are open 24/7/365
My son is in Barcelona and getting married to a girl there in June. He’s going to live in Barcelona so I won’t see him much anymore.
On American politics and society...what a mess with his woman. She thinks she knows everything about America (we are inferior in every way) and Trump is the devil. She thinks Europe is Utopia. I am a RACIST I learned because I’m not crazy about Islam and they have muslim friends! I’m stupid because I believe in God. We have too much free thought and speech. My cooking and diet are incorrect. Talk about being buttonholed...It was terrible and rather shocking, too. It was downright disrespectful. I felt like I had been subjected to a re-education camp. : )
As soon as I realized I was entrapped by a stupid and aggressive communist (atheist and all), I tried to avoid political and social conversation but she got whinney and naggy and more intense. Finally, I told her that she was rather dumb and should shut the f up and she got mad and did. What a relief.
I wish my son good luck, if you know what I mean. But this is life. He likes to play in traffic and so there he is again. Karl Marx help him. : )
When we went out shopping this morning I stopped along the road and took a picture of the beach so you could get an idea what it is like.
The large rock in a straight line with the house with the red ductwork on top is the first of those 3 rocks you can see from our terrace. You can see another rocky outcrop directly in front of the house. Just on the other side of those rocks is where we go and the distance from where we lay out to the large rock is 1 kilometer. You can see there are hotels, apartments, shops and restaurants all along the beach area. There are also several more kilometers of beach on the other side of the large rock. None of those beaches are the one we go to when the pictured beach gets crowded. That one is in the other direction.