Jump to the boo-tiful south

[Lee Scoresby]

Here's a sun-drenched thought experiment - you're late-middle-aged, say, you've always wanted to live on or near the great mother, the Mediterranean Sea (with a generous definition that stretches from the French Basque country and the Canaries right over to Cyprus) - not retire exactly, just do something else, 'wake up happy' as the slogan sez

Setting aside all practical issues of prices, links, bureaucracy, language etc etc etc - you want to be somewhere with a real communal buzz: intellectual (maybe a smaller university town?), artistic/crafty, alternative (not that you're an aging hippy, but yoga and meditation in the area would be absolutely fine) - you don't want to end up in glorious little-brit isolation (like some participants in those property hunting shows seems to crave), nor in some little Anglo enclave, nor with snobs or bores of any type, class or nationality

A lot of people move south, and clearly some self-clustering goes on (as well as random sprinkling no doubt) - purely as an example: one part of northern Corfu (Kerkyra) is real snotty South-Ken, another part is getting very alternative

So, any thoughts? any insights? - please don't shoot me down on this, I'm just lettin' the bird fly, y'know?

Lee Scoresby

[????]

Tarifa - Cadiz province (Andalusia)..or Cadiz

[MrBen]

Yo' bro'. Really likin' your street jive.

I've been looking at South France for a while but after talking to a few weekly Easyjet commuters it seems the shine soon wears off. It's tiring and you are forever between the two.

I think it works best when you can move the centre of your world to the country in question and embrace it full on. The basque area is nice as is the Eastern Med side (from Banyuls to Montpelier).

[El Pibe]

Buenos Aires

[Lee Scoresby]

Wow, early responders - great, thanx

"Street jive"? Moi? Innit tho, geez - I have no idea what you're - yeh, woddeva

Mr ?, tell my WHY about Cadiz, what exactly - it is on le radar

To be clear MrB, not thinking of jumping back and forth - I agree, it probably doesn't work - maybe splitting the year, at most - but basically JUST JUMPING - tho a broom cupboard to call one's own in the UK + a SqueezyJet timetable, just to get back here de temps en temps, y'feel me, blood? [enuf street jive now - ed]

Pibe, very interesting answer - coz they do say Argentines think they're part of Europe (certainly not Latin America), so - and yeah, I always got a good sense about BA - but, y'know, I grew up in NZ (classified datum about me), which in those days thought it was just off the coast of dear old Blighty - and I've got a bit of a block about returning to the southern hemisphere, stoopid I know it

And further to my original:

1. Age - is not an issue either - old people can be fantastic in the richness of their self-realisation - but if you were a small-mind all your life, that's how you'll be at 70 - young people: are energising, challenging, generous, all of that - and they can also be tedious in their noisy self-fixations (don't let them know, little poppits) - so -

2. La mare, the sea, the sea - I grew up beside the sea and have missed it for all my long-long London sojourn - but every man and his dawg wants to be shoreside - so most of the the monstrous concrete construction is there - so maybe a compromiso

3. I have in mind a smaller settlement - a small quiet city at the largest outside, on the edge of

Let the dreaming continue - Lee Scoresby

[El Pibe]

Just we've half a mind to spend a couple of years in BA when the kids are a couple of yaers older, probably in about 4 years.

Give them Spanish, a dose of broader horizons and different culture, plus it's a fantastic place. Big, bustling, sophisticated, incredibly friendly, cosmpolitan, great food and yes a very European feeling to it indeed.

Flaky economy mind ;)

[Jessie]

Wherever you go Mr Scoresby, please do blog as I'm very much enjoying your writing style.

[Jessie]

Also, how about Porto? I fell in love with that city this summer.

[El Pibe]

feckin' feezing in the winter though!!! If Pickle thinks NZ is the land that central heating forgot...

[david_carnell]

To be fair, EP, you'd be wearing a jumper in Yemen and complaining it was a touch nippy.

[Jessie]

Yes, I spent a fair few shivery winters in NZ too.

[El Pibe]

There will be no libel case coming your way D_C, I grant you.

[????]

Cadiz - unique, arty, Cheapish, its coast- the Costa da Luz -is deliberately non-high rise and fab unlike its neigbour (the Costa de sol). Near to Seville and Cordoba too and not that far over to Marbella/Gibraltar if you need some Marmite :)

Plus near to Ferrys to Morroco.

If you want a similar town (rather than city) then I'd go for Tarifa. Tarifa has a bit of a surfer/hippy vibe - the windsurfiing and proximity to Marrakesh contributing to both vibes. It's quiet arty and reasonable number of the rigtt sort of ex=pats (ie those that bother to learn to speak spanish and avoid the Costa de Crime) and very few Russians unlike it's neignbouring costa.

[StraferJack]

I took some of ????'s Andalusian advice a few years back and he is spot on.

Would happily spend a chunk of time around there

[Lee Scoresby]

Love it - got our own 'escape to the sun' going here

Temperature - no need for mutual flaming, y'all - people break into hot- and cold-weather tribes - then you can choose where on the scale you want to be - if you're a hotto (like me) you might go for all-year round warmth, with the price to pay of a summer month or 2 being way too hot - alternately, a definite cool winter (not too long) with less of a heat peak - sure, northern Iberia/ southern France do have COLD winters - also, uplands and hinterlands have a 'continental' climate, with marked day/ night and seasonal temperature swings, whereas the counter-balance of the sea, storing and releasing heat/ coolness, moderates the coast

In fact, NZ extends across quite a latitude NS, so it gets colder at the bottom than the top - my distance from NZ (in every sense) isn't to do with temperature, it's to do with complacency, narrowness, sports-worship, isolation-weirdness, and my youthful ambition (as was, long ago)- wo-TEVA

???? (might call you Ezra, get me?), thanx for that thumbnail - corresponds to my impression - cheapish is good (heh-heh), surfing is todally fine - and within distance of the Alentejo and W. Algarve also - I love marmite, but may be less hooked on industrial foods (as they're called) than yer average brit - fish, veg, olive oil, I'm a Med diet cliche, me - learning the language? absolutely! - Russians, yeah, really don't want to slag off an entire nationality, but indeed, Cyprus is chokka with' em - and indeed, well, they are as they are

MrBen, yeah, again that's my thought - the Aude Valley and Narbonne look great - (wasn't that where Godard's Pierrot le Fou ended up? - the Cote d'Azur maybe) - Languedoc-Roussillon (a region so great, it's got 6 syllables and a hyphen) - L-R has shown up quite a bit on those More4 'Escape' shows lately (= Medporn for sad types like me, I confess)

The Kid (en espagnolly), you're right of course to be aware of the economy anywhere you think about moving to - but I'll make these points about the 'flakey' Argentine economy:

1) It's not like the euro-economy is unflakey - my Greek friend tells me about a huge new property tax there - half her annual salary, and she feels she got off lightly! - to me it's a prospective nightmare: to be in my cottage with a small but sufficient monthly income, then to be hit by a huge tax demand, 3 weeks to pay - apparently some expats are having to sell up (good luck with that) and leave

2) The Argentine economy may be flakey sometimes - but myself I love that Argentina stands up against the WB/ IMF/ Wall Street (who then conspire to weaken that economy, as a punishment and a warning to others) - compare and contrast: the public-school dritseks, spineless tossers, incompetents and corporate-whores who supposedly run this country - think I'm exaggerating? - check http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/04/british-government-leading-gunpowder-plot-democracy-eu-us-trade - check http://www.wdm.org.uk/category/tags/agribusiness - this is Whitehall and Westminster for you

3) For me, moving south involves downsizing my personal economy - buying way less stuff (made of atoms) in favour of, to use the delightful Italian expression, 'immaterial production' (electrons if you will): ie encoded experience - streamed music and films and books, and the wunnerful-wunnerful worldwide web - not to mention being content with everyday life rather than having to CONSUME constantly to cheer oneself up (the best things in life might turn out to be free) - and then also buying cheaply, locally, simply - and bartering, y'know?

Jessie, thanx, that's a really nice thing to say - in fact, I trained myself up on Wordpress earlier this year . . . and haven't kicked off el bloggo since - hmm - one thread of it was/is going to be my move southwards

And indeed, this has become too-too bloggish - sorry, all.

But. So. Down South, where else are the good people at?

Lee Scoresby

[miga]

.

[maxxi]

El Pibe Wrote:

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> Buenos Aires

Pibe - if you're going that far it's worth popping over t'hill to Santiago and points south. Great food, weather, wine and not expensive.

[Lee Scoresby]

Thanx miga - been a migrant a few times too. So I know that when you move countries something dies (no-one I tell ever gets this), and something goes along with you.

So many ways to respond to what you say:

Never felt like a kiwi as a boy, just a pakeha squatter. London? My Swedish pal used to quiver with excitement when he lived here: "All this busyness, and I'm PART of it!" Never felt that either. Not slagging London, it's most of what I know by now. I've self-educated and changed here. It's a megalopolis full of good things. But it's not my home.

What I FEEL is not British but European. Nothing artificial about that to me. Home is the wide swathe between the Gaeltacht bogs and the ice-smoked far-off Urals. I'm a European: Pale-pinky skin. Longish nose. Single-figure percentage of Neanderthal DNA. Post-religious. Enlightenment values. Some post-colonial guilt. European.

And most of all do I feel deeply at home in the south. Not that I am or want to be or can ever be Provencal or Portuguese or whatever. I'm not blind to the corruption, pollution, the small-mindedness, the ravages of tourism, the obscenity of drowning refugees. I just feel right there, it's a simple existential mammalian thing.

A new language: a new experiential lens, a new mind (rather literally) - I know this. It makes endless delay worrisome.

In a better parallel universe I headed there straight from university. By 2014 I have lived a life there. Little point in repining such things, true dat. Thing is, miga, for long, things move in me, the spring winding, waiting to be sprung. If I was 20 I would just jump - because what could really go wrong. I'm still brave enough to jump - with just a little circumspection. Hence this thread and my Q. Got to jump, but need to land well.

Way-way-way too much talky-talk from me - I'm putting people off, for sure.

I see old people on the street, on the bus. Stiff, stricken, struggling, unloved. I think, for myself: "Not in London - somewhere warmer, gentler". That's off in the future, but it's also a thought. Mortality intimates.

Lee Scoresby

[El Pibe]

I've been to Santiago too. I did really like it, but i didn't get the same sense I wanted to live there. In a weird way it reminded me of London, busy in a "I need to get from a to b" sort of way.

Lee, (oh we uaually call him quids btw, but nice idea) Argentina is basically run by kleptocrats that make our shower look like saints, so probably stretching that point a bit far. None of whic will put me off in the slightest as we won't go before we've basically got enough finances to shore ourselves up for the two years, so work will be a brucey bonus really.

[LouiseC]

Valencia or Seville. Weather, food, wine, not too big, not too small etc etc...need I say more...

[steveo]

Athens or Thessaloniki ίσως

[MrBen]

Stable political climate, low corruption index and decent health care would also feature in my criteria. So that rules out Greece for me.

[steveo]

What, like the UK?

[maxxi]

El Pibe Wrote:

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> I've been to Santiago too. I did really like it,

> but i didn't get the same sense I wanted to live

> there. In a weird way it reminded me of London,

> busy in a "I need to get from a to b" sort of

> way.

>

I think that's probably what I liked about it - like London with a big mountain curtain in the background - but I take your point - like London but with more riot police.

[bobcol]

Yeah I must say valencia is pretty nice. But if you want to go really south maybe a place like argentina,buenos aires or colombia,medellin or cali good weather good food beautiful.