craiggingell

A few months ago i came onto this forum asking for info about moving to madrid following a job offer i had. I got loads of good advice and appreciated it all. I then visited Madrid and eventually decided the finances,timings and locations werent quite right so declined the job.
There is now the oppurtunity to do the same job for the same company but on the outskirts of Barcelona. I've had a life long love affair with Barcelona and have always dreamed of going (its like my spiritual home calling). However in real life dreams need to be balanced with practicalities.

I dont want to take up too much of peoples time at the moment as there is some way to go before a firm offer but I wanted little snipets of info to help decide. i.e how much would i need to earn to keep a family (wife kid and dog) in a house on the outskirts. I am learning Spanish but how similar is the Catalan language and how much use would Spanish actually be?

steviedeluxe

Without being too negative, people I know in Spain always tell me Barcelona's a great place for a holiday (although there are security implications) but not a good place to work. I once stayed there a month and enjoyed it (I lived in Gracia) but prefer Madrid as a place to work and live. Other posters here who've lived in Barcelona have confirmed that it's not as friendly a place as they initially thought (of course this may be unrepresentative). I fear that if you ruled Madrid out due to finances, then you'd find Barcelona a lot worse. In my opinion you passed over a great opportunity to work in Madrid, but as you say your heart is with Barcelona. It's up to you really if you want to pursue this or not. As for learning Catalan - footballers for Barcelona FC manage to learn it, so it's obviously not impossible!
Good luck in whatever you choose to do.

craiggingell

Thanks for your reply. Can you put any details as to how Barca is less friendly?

One of the big reasons for choosing against Madrid was that i didnt want to live in a flat. There appear to be more houses available on the outskirts of Barca. Let me be clear of one thing (it may or may not change anything), I have no intention of living IN the city, i want to live on the outskirts. Another reason for choosing against Madrid was being so far from the beach.

I agree with you that Madrid was a fantastic oppurtunity but the little details made it unworkable.

Additionally please feel free to be negative. I am very aware of alot of the positive aspects of moving but need to inform myself of the negatives.

steviedeluxe

Well it's funny, as I found plenty of friendly people when I visited Barcelona, but posters on this forum who've lived/worked there tell us it's a lot less friendly. There's a thread currently (I think the title is racist company in Barcelona) from someone who didn't get on with his workmates. There have been other posters also who can tell you that they found people unfriendly there (from memory "paininspain", "sarita", "livininBarcelona" - apologies if I'm missrepresenting anyone). Here's a thread where they discuss things:
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=625355

Also, I have actually met Latin Americans who said the one place in Spain they felt most unwelcome was in Barcelona where the locals would refuse to speak Spanish to them. As I say, I didn't find this (there was probably only one guy who snubbed me), but there again, I find most people ok wherever I go in Spain! Others here on the board disagree

There are houses (often called chalets, but similar to our detached houses rather than holiday chalets) in parts of Madrid as well as in Barcelona. I may be wrong, but these will be extraordinarily expensive in Barcelona too. But we need someone who's lived there to give us a truer picture

sabarda

Hi, I can tell that for a spanish speaker catalan is not hard to learn, as they are pretty similar (I can tell you cos I speak catalan).
I´d say problem is if you are trying to learn both same time and you are sorrounded by people speaking both alternatively. You´ll end up not knowing which words are catalan and which are spanish.
I met a german girl who went to Catalonia to learn spanish (great mistake in my opinion) and she was always asking me: is that catalan or spanish?
As they are really similar languages it is difficult to separate them, sometimes.
In my opinion people in Catalonia are less friendly than in other regions of Spain. The northern you get, te worse it is.
I´ve lived 1 year in Catalonia, 7 months in Reus (Tarragona province, South) and 3 months in Pineda de Mar (on the coast, north of Barcelona province), and I really could feel the difference.
People are polite and try to be kind, but they are not really friendly. It´s like they already have a "circle" of friends done and it is really hard to get into it.
I have friends living there and they feel the same.
But your experience might be totally different...
Regarding to money, I´d guess that a house in Barcelona outskirts could be really expensive, but I can't really tell for sure...

I don't know what kind of job or company will be yours, but it could be there are lots of people from outside Catalonia so they wouldn't speak catalan all the time. Otherwise they probably will.
Catalan authorities have been encouraging natives to not speak spanish to foreigners so they can learn catalan. And they fine companies if they don't use catalan in their docs, ads, etc. So you'll have to survive in a bilingual (or trilingual) environment.

Someone said about Southamericans in Catalonia. The problem is that these people speak spanish as a native language. So Catalan authorities see them as a threat for catalan language ad they have been trying to favour immigration from other countries (that's the reason for such a big muslim community in Catalonia compared to Southamericans).

Good luck

SaritaBarcelona

Yes, I have made several comments on this front on other threads. Unless you are either very lucky, have a niche hobby that will get you straight into the Catalan social scene (speaking Catalan, of course), are simply the nicest person in the world, or marry a Catalan, it is very difficult to make real friends amongst the locals (and even then you'll be struggling). If you are happy to have a mainly expat social life, then it could be great... especially if you have several thousand euros a month to spend on renting a house, or a spare half a million euros to buy a house in the outskirts (depends where you are looking to live in the outskirts; I live 10 km from the centre). PM me if you have specific questions. We are moving to Andalucia soon, partly because of the aforementioned factor, the cost of living and Catalan education (our three year old son is now effectively trilingual, which may seem great, but his education will be entirely in Catalan and he already has a bilingual family, too much to handle for me).

craiggingell

Thanks SaritaBarcelona. I just may take you up on that offer. For now i appreciate everything everyone has said and i think ill wait to see how the negotiations go before I start harassing people for more info.

I looked at houses for rent in Mongat that looked fairly reasonable. The company office is to the north west near Saint Cugat. As anyone who read my posts about madrid will know, im not one to blindly jump into anything but im still interested in Barca so ill keep researching.

eviealex

My partner and I have been thinking about moving to the Tarragona area, slightly inland ie near Flix. Obviously there are lots to think about before taking the plunge. How unfriendly are the prople in this area? We've also found out that to register as self employed my partner would be charged 230 euro's. I'm assuming this is for social security reasons and that this is payable regardless of how much you earn in the month as when we first move he may not earn anything initially!

SaritaBarcelona

I don't think the phrase is so much "unfriendly", it is more "not friendly". I don't know if I explain myself there... People in shops etc will make small talk if you talk to them, etc, but it generally stops there. I have found the people in Tarragona a bit more open than those in the north of Catalonia (particularly Girona, not friendly in the slightest in my experience).

I am autonoma (self-employed) and the bad news is that you have to pay the full whack before you can even start invoicing anybody (unless you are under a certain age, I think 30 but you'd have to check that). It's nasty... You have to register separately with the hacienda and the social security office, and tell them exactly what you are going to be doing. You can't just do "whatever you fancy", they need to have you on record as doing this, that and the other. You need to charge VAT on your work (some exceptions, like teaching), and save it up to pay back every three months. I recommend a gestor, at least at the beginning, because there are surprises around every corner, even if you speak Spanish. I have never understood it all and I have been s.e. for over 5 years and am fluent in Spanish! It's a whole new ball game to being s.e. in the UK... but I recommend it, if you have initiative you will make a living, despite what many doom-mongers says (depending on what you do, obviously!). Good luck!

eviealex

My dad was in the army and we lived in germany a number of times so it's not new to me, but we will be taking our children with us as well. We found a couple of properties both with quite a few olive trees and we were wondering what sort of income we would be able to get from these? One was 35 acres and the other 12 acres. I don't have a trade as I'm currently a civil servant, my partner however wants to build rally cars and renovate classic fords, which is his passion but also something he's done as a living here and in the US but doesn't mean there is a market for it in Spain!! We will need an income of some sort. He's been trying to Any advice is always welcome.

SaritaBarcelona

Gulp, I have no experience with it but I believe that making a living off olive growing and selling cars is a longterm plan that you can work towards rather than a way of putting food on the table when you first move over. I am a risktaker, but perhaps not to that extent... you will need some kind of regular income unless you have money from another source (not meaning to be personal but it's an important factor). Bear in mind too if you have children that it can be difficult for them to get used to living in this kind of place. We considered it for a while, but we have a three year old and I want him to be near things, for the convenience and also to be able to say "let's go to the park" without always getting in the car. Feel free to PM me, I have been through all this myself, trying to think of the best place to live etc. BTW You missed out some text in your post, you said your husband has been trying to... What were you going to say?

SaritaBarcelona

Just been looking at Flix, it is quite far inland, with just 4000 people. It's 83 km from Tarragona, that's a fair way. You may have a bit of a drive to get to school if you live out in the sticks. I'm mentioning it as there have been people on here who have moved over to a village to Spain and then realised that the nearest school is miles away and they have to ferry their children up to 8 times a day (unless they stay for lunch which is not always possible). All things to bear in mind... Also, people in a village like this will probably speak nothing but Catalan and your children will immediately be plunged into Catalan education, so any Spanish they may know will be rendered pretty much useless. You will truly have to say that you are living in Catalonia if you move to a place like this, not Spain (people may take me to task on this but it is true). Sorry if I sound negative, just realistic as I have been there, done that, bought the t-shirt on this topic... I admire your guts though, and sounds like you have a good plan, just got to find the right place!

whitelinen

Its not the people who are unfriendly, it is the flies.

Flix and surrounding areas are plagued by flies for months on end and has cold in the winter.

The monthly autonomo is more than 230 euros a month unless the person is under 30 and is rumoured to rise substantially next year.

Business is in a dire state in Spain.

sabarda

When I was working in Reus my boss told me she had worked in Flix as a Pharmacist. Very quiet and small place, everybody speaking catalan. Far away from everything.
I would look for something closer to Tarragona which is a really beautiful city (but it depends on what you are looking for).
Also people in Tarragona city are more open compared with the rest of Catalonia.

SaritaBarcelona

WHAT! I am praying you are wrong, it can't go any higher, do they WANT people to make their own jobs or not? The whole autonomo policy here stinks. Someone earning 100s of thousands pays the same soc. sec. as someone who is earning 500 euros a month. It's just unbelievable. Recently a company has defaulted on an invoice, turns out that the guy owes over 4 million euros, you can't sue him unless you pay up front to hire a lawyer and a procurador (some other legal entity out to get your cash), and he gets away with it and sets up another company in the meantime! There are a lot of things about the UK I don't like but being self-employed is actually much better there.