Pros & CONS of Life in Madrid - Orlagh

hi everybody and welcome back to my channel or if you're new my name is ola and i make videos on a variety of topics because i don't want to be pigeonholed and today we are going to be discussing the pros and the cons of living in madrid so i've been living in madrid now since 2016 so that's five years i'm from the uk i'm british irish and i've lived in a couple of countries before moving to spain but this is the longest we've ever stayed in the one place apart from obviously growing up in our childhood homes and things like that so yeah i want to talk to you a bit about the advantages of living here in madrid and the disadvantages in case you're looking to move here or in case you are just curious so a little disclaimer these are obviously my own personal opinions this is my lived experience here in madrid you might agree which is great you might disagree which is also great so take it with a pinch of salt if you want but these are my pros and cons of living in madrid okay so the first pro is going to be no surprise the weather even in winter it tends to be quite sunny and bright of course there's a couple of cloudy days but in general the skies are nearly always blue and of course it's very sunny even now which isn't great for filming because it does make my videos look a bit yellowy tinted but it's great for the rest of your life so you know so we have spring as normal and autumn they do tend to be kind of shorter the transitional seasons here and then winter does get cold i think some people are surprised by that but it's not as cold as other places but you still do need to layer up and turn on the central heating and things like that and then summer summer is long and it's hot um i think the highest it's ever reached has been about 42 degrees if i remember correctly that's obviously in degrees celsius not in fahrenheit um because i know when people say it's 100 degrees today and they mean fahrenheit that always blows my mind because i automatically think they're living in the fiery pits of hell when in fact it's just another another unit of measurement madrid has a lot of green areas i feel like some people are surprised when i say that but luckily we are fortunate to live quite close to casa de campo which is a massive big green space and really when you're there in the middle of the forest it doesn't even really feel like you're in a capital city at all and that's really important to me i like having green areas nearby it is nice and not always that common in a capital city to have so much green space so it's definitely a bonus if that's something that is important for you and then link to that is just the geographical location of spain itself seoul which is the city center of madrid is the very center point of spain which means that madrid is a perfect place for traveling to other parts of spain you have valencia which is close by barcelona is not too far away segovia toledo there's so many towns and cities and places that are quite close to madrid and then even if you want to go to the north or south it's not too far away you can get in a car you can go by plane or by train trying to think for the methods of transport then but it's really well connected so in that case it's a really good base and also linking the green area spaces to the location it also has beautiful mountains so it's easy to get to the mountains by car or by public transport and lots of people go skiing in the winter here in madrid which again quite a lot of people are surprised by i think they don't necessarily associate spain with skiing in general but there are lots of cool options like that i've still not been skiing actually i think i love the idea of it in theory but i think i just prefer to have a hot chocolate and kind of you know i'll do the apres ski part i'll do that part so one really big pro about living in madrid is the cost compared to other capital cities in europe it's definitely one of the cheaper ones and i do find your money does go a lot further here which is obviously great it's the dream and i actually a couple of months ago did what i spend in a week living in madrid video and looking through some of the comments a lot of people were surprised at how affordable it was here compared to other places so that's definitely a positive point madrid has great public transport links the monthly travel pass on the metro for a limited travel for the month if you're over the age of 26 is 56 euros per month and that includes the metro buses cerconias which are like the longer distance trains and that compared to london for example where i have friends who say they spend that in like one week on public transport is obviously a lot more cost effective and affordable and if you're under the age of 26 you can actually get that metro card for i think it's about 20 euros which is great and then obviously they have discounts for senior citizens too and in terms of reliability the metro is great it's in general it's clean it comes on time same for the buses they're never in my hometown for example the bus could be supposed to come at 12 o'clock and it could be quarter past 12 and there's no bus in sight so where's my throat going okay in terms of food aka one of my favorite topics it's brilliant to see more and more vegan options available by the day i'd say now madrid is definitely a vegan-friendly city and it's improving every single day something's popping up there's more options on menus in non-vegan restaurants so for a city which is like the capital of jamon iberico and all of these kind of spanish meats and things like that it's great to see that it's becoming really really vegan friendly and in terms of fruit and vegetables and things like that they are really affordable it's still very common here to have green grocers whereas in the uk for example it isn't common anymore to do your shopping in separate shops whereas here you can go to the green grocers and get things that are fresh and delicious and tasty i think compared to other cities i had a friend who told me that the last time she went to new york she paid nine dollars for a bag of carrots that blew my mind honestly we can get a week's worth of fruit and vegetables for nine euros from that shop so that's definitely a plus there is a great coffee culture in madrid if you're a fan of going out for a speciality coffee if you like that kind of coffee scene which i'm a massive fan of there are amazing coffee shops there are so many good neighborhoods that have great coffee or brunch places and things like that which is my favorite thing to do on the weekend i'm more of a go for a coffee person than i go for a beer person so that's brilliant but if you're more somebody who does prefer the kind of nightlife there are loads of clubs and bars and it's very much an outdoor culture here if you are i mean i'm obviously talking pre-covered but if you are somebody who likes to go out for a couple of drinks and have an atmosphere sit outside on a terrace and have like a couple of snacks and a drink that's definitely something that's very common here which i know a lot of people love there are so many cultural things to do here in madrid too and there is the reina sophia the prada museum um museum of madrid history in the center which is one of the most beautiful buildings ever it's one of my favorites and there is a lot of art exhibitions and pop-up things going on and there's always something to see which is great if you're a fan of the kind of artsy culture side which is always great if you fancy doing something along those lines there are many different neighborhoods in madrid and a lot of them are really varied you have the more traditional neighborhoods like la latina which has all the traditional architecture which has lots of vintage shops and antiques and markets and things going on like that you have malasagna which is like the trendier neighborhood which has a lot of coffee shops and things like that going on and you have lava piers which is very multicultural that's the neighborhood i'd say with the most ethnically diverse population so there you always have like the best restaurants if you're looking for food that isn't spanish and then you have the more up market neighborhoods like salamanca which are often more expensive and have like the designer shops and things like that and then there's loads more but you do have a lot of variation between their neighborhoods which keeps it quite interesting every neighborhood has its own quite distinct feel so it's not really a city that just has the city centre and then it kind of goes out you have kind of pockets of different places everywhere which i think is really fun it does keep things quite interesting madrid is definitely an lgbtq plus friendly city troika is known as the gay district which is a neighborhood that's quite central you can see lots of same-sex couples walking around holding hands i've never heard of anybody experiencing any hate here because of who they are with or who they identify as there are a lot of drag nights and things like that that are going on and in general the city has a very accepting feel which i think obviously is very important so that's great to see because obviously not every city is like that and that's awful so that's really good that madrid is and i think in general spain is but i'm just talking about madrid for this video so i don't know about other parts of spain but that's obviously really great and then in terms of the people in general everybody's friendly in terms of culture it's quite tactile people greet with dosbezos which is the two kisses and i'd say in general spanish people are more open in terms of body language and touching and things like that compared to british people who in general i do think we seem to be a bit more reserved um so i'd say that is a positive if that's something that you think is good although maybe you're like stay away from me who knows okay so let's move on to the cons okay so the first con i see a lot of immigrants who move here say is and i've experienced this myself as well is the bureaucracy in general is quite slow so if you need to make an appointment if you need to go and open a bank account if you need to i don't know change your wi-fi details all of these kind of structural things that we all have to do from time to time the process can be slow and can be quite complicated and often you're sent to one office to find out it's closed or you're sent back to another office banks for example close at 2 30 or 3 p.m every day which i think nowadays is just a bit unacceptable it's just crazy to me that the banks could be shut then and then there are some quite weird rules around banking so sometimes if you want to make an appointment you can't just go to a branch of your bank you have to go to the original branch that you registered for your account in which is really inconvenient maybe you've moved maybe you want to go to the branch that's closest to your work or something like that so things like that can be a bit of a bug bear and you definitely need to kind of approach a situation quite relaxed if you're used to things being done in quite like a timely way i think that can be quite frustrating and linked to that i'd say in general although of course there are exceptions customer service isn't great and that's coming from a brit i think if you were american you'd think even more so the customer service wasn't great again there are exceptions that are the places i love to go to all the time like the restaurants and the coffee shops where they're lovely and they're chatty but they are the places that tend to cater more to maybe an international audience in shops for example it's not uncommon to be stood there waiting while people are chatting and they don't even acknowledge you're there or for example in the supermarket where there's a really really long queue maybe there's like eight or nine people waiting and in other countries i've lived in they'd open another till to accommodate those extra customers was here in some supermarkets they might do but it's definitely not a blanket rule that they would so things like that can be a bit of a pain again it's something you've got to adapt to sometimes you have to be a bit more direct in restaurants to get service like waving your hand and things like that which is never something i do in the uk um obviously while being very very polite but i think if you're used to especially the american style of service i think you would be a bit shocked at the service here sometimes um okay so let's talk money in general salaries in spain are not great and just because we're in a capital city doesn't mean that the salaries are that much better for it again if you're living and working in spain and you're happy with the life work balance which is why we lived here we wanted a good life work balance and the weather and all of the other advantages that i've discussed before then it's fine your money will go fine here and that's great it's definitely not a place where you're going to earn the big bucks and be able to save a massive proportion of your income unless you are here with an international company maybe who have settled you here and it's that kind of thing maybe but in general the spanish wage for spanish people is low and the spanish wage for people who come immigrants the country is also low so that's definitely something to bear in mind again cost of living is lower so it does balance out but if you're planning on living here to save to then buy a house in the uk or something like that i don't really think it's the place for that necessarily so there's a spanish song i'll try and find a clip if i can find it somewhere but it translates to um something like madrid is great but it doesn't have the beach and it's true madrid has got everything as i said before but we don't have the coast and as somebody who lived and grew up next to the sea i do really like being near the scene even if i'm not i don't know swimming there every day or actually going to the beach i do like being near the coast and obviously that's something that madrid doesn't have so in that respect i know some people prefer to move to barcelona i've been to barcelona a couple of times now and personally i feel like madrid is a better place to live and barcelona's a better place to visit but that's just my personal opinion so arguably the next point is not specifically a madrid thing it's a spanish thing in general but maybe a con for you could be the schedule of the day the spanish work day is longer everything's a little bit later on in the day so lunchtime is two to three for example dinner time is 9 30 10 later so if you're somebody who's an early bird who wants to go and be able to get lunch at a restaurant at 12 o'clock a lot of restaurants shut in the middle of the day or maybe they're open for snacks but their kitchen is closed so if you're an early bird i do think you need to make some adjustments to make up for that because if you want to go to a restaurant at seven o'clock for dinner it's probably going to be closed so that's not really a con for us because we're naturally kind of more night owls but it is definitely something to bear in mind and we've definitely been in that position where we thought ah let's go and have an early dinner to escape the crowds and then we arrived there because we didn't check because you know only to find out it's closed so that is something to bear in mind and i actually found out a really interesting fact the other day that geographically spain we should be on the same time zone as the uk and portugal because back in world war ii franco basically changed the time zone and matched it to germany's time zone to show his solidarity for nazi germany so let's change that back already i think we need to just get rid of time zones completely i definitely feel crappier when the time zones change back an hour or go forward an hour and that definitely could be a reason to account for the fact that everything's slightly later here in spain because internally i don't feel like it should be as late as it is and but schedule wise that's definitely something to bear in mind okay something that's quite interesting if you're looking to move to madrid to rent and not to buy a place is in general the housing market doesn't put a lot of effort into rented places so unless you're spending a lot of money on a renovated flat maybe in the north of madrid or maybe you are able to afford somewhere in salamanca like i said which is a lot more expensive and recently renovated the standard spanish flat when it's rented out isn't given that normal facelift what i mean by that is in the uk for example it's quite typical if you're about to rent your flat out to people that you strip it back to be quite bare and to be quite neutral so everything's painted white there isn't any really offensive ugly furniture in the flat if you're gonna do it furnished okay maybe it ends up looking a little bit like ikea's recent new catalog but at least it's neutral and at least it's quite basic that doesn't really seem to be the case here in madrid um in any of the flats we've rented and in our friends flats and other flats we've seen it's quite common if you could look behind this artfully placed clothes rail and we have this really big awful wooden unit in our lounge and this flat was one of the more modern flats we came across so in general that might be a problem for you if you are not really keen on the idea of putting up with it for the meantime maybe that means you have to look for somewhere that's unfurnished or maybe you have to look for somewhere that's a bit more modern and in terms of renting things move very very quickly here it wouldn't be possible to look for a flat to move into in two months time or a month's time and reserve it you very much need to come here get an airbnb for a couple of weeks or a hotel while you look around and then nine times out of ten when you go to see the flat you kind of need to put a deposit down there and then um so that's definitely something to bear in mind when it comes to renting so this is definitely improved a lot but something to worth noting is the amount of people who smoke is still really quite high so if you're somebody like me who just absolutely hates smoking if you're outside or in a public terrace or if you're having a beer at a restaurant people still do smoke quite a lot and when i say to some people they do laugh because they say it's a lot less than before but compared to a lot of other cities it's definitely still higher so that can be a bit of a con definitely in terms of food spanish food is great and delicious and i like it a lot but in comparison to other capital cities there's not necessarily the same variety of restaurants again it's improving all the time and you definitely can find japanese korean and chinese you can find mexican you can find kind of traditional british food american diner style you can find a lot of different oh and indian food as well but they tend to be a bit more difficult to find i'd say in comparison to london for example where these restaurants are littered everywhere and if you order something here that's spicy it's not spicy so ask for it like extra extra spicy because in general the spanish palette is not accustomed to a lot of spice so that's something to bear in mind if you want a curry because normally they cater it to like a spanish palette i'd say in general madrid is quite a loud city in some parts people can be up and partying until quite late at night but then again it depends on the neighborhood luckily our neighborhood is quite quiet so we can go in and out when we want that kind of atmosphere but it's not necessarily on our doorstep which is great and then a final thing about my experience as well with meeting people here i'd say a lot of spanish people tend to stick with the people they met with in school so it's very common to still have a very close-knit group of school friends work friends and your family so it can be hard to break into that circle sometimes i'd say most of the friends i have here who speak spanish are actually from argentina or other places like that i have spanish friends but it is hard to get into their real core inner circle sometimes because they already have quite an established network so that is something to bear in mind but there are so many meetups and things like that here there are no shortages of meeting people from all different countries so there's always somebody to meet up with and things like that which is great and i've definitely made a lot of firm friendships while being here but not necessarily with only spanish people even though i speak spanish so overall madrid is definitely a really great place to live even with the couple of cons i mentioned the pros are massive i really love it we've been here five years which james but that is everything i hope you enjoyed this video let me know in the comments down below if you've ever thought about moving to madrid is it somewhere that you'd like to live or do you live somewhere else let me know and i hope this video was interesting and i hope to see you again around this part soon thank you take care bye

Channel: Orlagh

Views: 11,440

Rating: 4.9891601 out of 5

Keywords: madrid, spain, madrid vs barcelona, madrid expat, madrid immigrant, life in madrid, pros and cons of madrid, travel to madrid, live in madrid, move to madrid, orlagh, is madrid or barcelona better, is madrid safe, is madrid a good city, madrid nightlife, move to spain, madrid vegan, vegan food madrid, blog, blogger, advantages to life in spain

Id: nr9PM7cEnTM

Length: 20min 18sec (1218 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 11 2021