I love skips. When I was young my father had a skip hire business and I spent a lot of time jumping in and out of and tossing stuff into them. We always seemed to have one at home, though I have no idea how we managed to keep filling them. So, how happy I was to hire one this morning for the in-laws place in the sierra. While they are away we plan to throw out a whole load of crap, which will either lead to a nice surprise on their return or the start of an almighty arguement (“I can’t believe you got rid of my X”).
Anyway, to get said skip I went to the web and did indeed find someone to bring one over on the same day (130 euros for 2 weeks, not bad). However, it was impossible to find out how big a skip we needed. None of the websites I came to via paginas-amarillas.es would tell me what a 10 cubic metre skip looked like. They didn’t even have photos or prices. So I put ‘skip sizes’ into google, and came up with a gem of a website in the Uk where they have actually unploaded videos showing you how big each skip size is. Click here for some classic footage of a 10 cubic yard model. Just what I needed (once I worked out how to convert from cubic yards to meters). Now there is a company that gets the web (they even have a skip blog!)
How long until the web shows this level of usefulness in Spain? Could be a while in a country that, unlike the UK, France, and Germany, doesn’t even have Amazon.ES
Matt
13 Sep 07 at 3:38 pm
If you didn’t have a picture on this post, I would’ve had no idea what you’re talking about. Thank goodness for Wikipedia!
Saludos, Ben y Marina!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_British_and_American_English
Jon Hundt
13 Sep 07 at 4:06 pm
Ben: Inabilitly? I guess you’re not using your English spell-check anymore…?
Jon Hundt
13 Sep 07 at 4:54 pm
oh – one more thing… can I look through the skip before it gets taken away?
In the States we call ‘em dumpsters, and there are people (like me) who love to poke around and see if there’s something good in there. We call these people ‘dumpster-divers’. I’ve found loads of good stuff, including very valuable items. My family thinks I’m crazy, but they do enjoy the insanity when I come up with something good! I would love to get a chance to do some ‘dumpster-diving’ in Spain!
Palmer
13 Sep 07 at 6:39 pm
In Atlanta, we are also used to calling them dumpsters. Once, I lived in an apartment building with a dumpster beside it which I thought nothing much about. That is, until a local free weekly paper here named our dumpster the “most interesting” dumpster in Atlanta for its contents. First of all, I have no idea why there even was such a category (It was a Best of Atlanta issue). And second of all, I’d like to know who did this research and what they looked like after it was done. And thirdly, I can’t imagine what it was that made ours the most interesting.
Ben
13 Sep 07 at 10:10 pm
Matt – thanks for this link, could come in useful!
Jon – err, no, not using the spell check much these days… too busy admiring my dumpster
Palmer – that is the most random award I have ever heard of!
Edith
14 Sep 07 at 8:06 am
@ Matt
Thanks for posting this useful link. Another great ESL learning tool!
As a non-native speaker of English, sometimes I feel I have to deal with TWO different languages at a time!
Spanish is even worse btw, with all these different versions from all over Latin America. So I have decided to stick with Castilian Spanish (and some Mexican Spanish as well).
Jules
14 Sep 07 at 8:17 am
Well, now that we know the N. American word for ‘skip’, could someone give the Spanish word and don’t anyone say ‘el skip’ or ‘el dumpster’! -:)
parubin
14 Sep 07 at 8:36 am
@ Jules :
El “Contenedor”, I guess.
Diana
14 Sep 07 at 12:17 pm
Skip is new to me too. In German it is often call “der Container” (or “Mí¼llcontainer” Mí¼ll=garbage) using the English word, container!
John
14 Sep 07 at 5:05 pm
Well, at least you have an ebay.es
I suppose people in Spain like shopping in real shops still. I’m always surprised and pleased to see how many little family run shops there are everywhere, compared to here (Germany).
Chris Thompson
15 Sep 07 at 1:29 pm
Paginas Amarillas?? What a waste of time. Finding anything is a nightmare with the ridiculous division into towns within any heading and half the numbers are wrong anyway.
I phoned them (nothing on the website) trying to find a locksmith. Nothing in my home town they said (though it turns out there are three) and I had to supply likely towns for them o search against as their database seems to have no geographical links whatsoever.
BrianA
20 Sep 07 at 12:09 pm
It’s simple. You always need one size bigger than the one you order.
Ben
20 Sep 07 at 12:15 pm
Turned out to be quite true in this case!
ValenciaSon
26 Sep 07 at 6:04 pm
So do they call the guys who empty and collect the skips, skippers?
Matt Campbell
6 Dec 07 at 3:25 pm
Try typing in skip hire in google some companies have skip images on there.
shiv
10 Feb 08 at 10:10 pm
hey, currently suffering the same mission trying to find a skip company. Which one did you use? I’m looking in San Roque (near Gibraltar) help!!
thanks
Ben
12 Feb 08 at 8:54 am
Can’t remember the name, sorry, but I think paginasamarillas.es did the trick in the end!