I often think the best way to write a blog post is to imagine that you have an audience of one, or that one day, at least one person will benefit from whatever you are writing. And this piece of advice might make a big difference to someone’s life in Spain one day:

If you are going to set up a business in Spain, get a gestor to do it for you.

Don’t under any circumstances try to go through all the paperwork and different steps involved on your own. We did, for a saving of approximately 500 Euros, and we wish we hadn’t. In fact a large part of my recent burn out was undoubtedly caused by our decision to do most of the work of setting up Notes from Spain S.L. on our own.

Like any other bureaucratic nightmare here (and there are many!), setting up your own business in Spain requires an endless shuffle around different offices of inconvenience (to coin a new, appropriate phrase), interminable waits, and inevitable errors (filling out the wrong form, in the wrong order, and having to jump back two steps to get everything back on track again).

Despite receiving excellent advice and help in filling out the appropriate forms from the Madrid Chamber of Commerce, it still took us around 3 months to cover all the bases, and in the end we still needed a gestor to complete the final steps. I’d estimate we lost at least a week’s work doing things that a gestor could have done for us, removing immense stress in the process.

So what is a gestor and where do you find one?

A gestor is like a glorified acccountant. He or she will charge fixed fees to complete certain jobs, such as setting up your business, getting your driving license renewed, and doing your monthly accounts. If you run a business here then you have to get one eventually anyway, to process and register your yearly balance of accounts for example, so you might as well get them to do all the hard work for you from stage one.

Where do you find a good one? We found ours by asking Ana, the girl who runs the photocopying shop around the corner. She seems nice, trustworthy, discerning, and runs a good business. Sure enough, she put us on to a local gestoria (gestor‘s office) where unbelievably efficient women of a certain age process our monthly receipts with a minimum of fuss. They tell us what we can get away with deducting tax-wise (lunches, fuel, etc), what income we should be paying ourselves every month, and what forms we may have forgotten to fill out (actually they fill them out for us, we just turn up and sign – what joy!)

OK, to recap: if you are going to set up a business here in Spain then make sure you get a gestor to do it – it might cost you around 500 euros more (bringing the total cost of setting up a business in Spain to around 1,000 euros – you have to pay the Notario for some official paperwork as well, for example), but it’s worth every centimo in time and stress savings. To find a good Gestor or Gestoria ask around in respectable local businesses, or ask other ex-pats who are already running their own show.

One final piece of advice, if you are setting up an on-line business in Spain, make sure the Gestor is prepared to learn about this side of the business world as well. Most will never have worked on this side of things before and may have absolutely no clue about what Paypal is, for example. Make sure they are interested in finding out!

There we go, hopefully someone, somewhere, some day, will benefit from this piece of advice!

The main news story for the last few weeks (although you could easily argue months if not years) has been the controversy about the soon-to-be-don’t-know-quite-when-yet-exactly arrival of the AVE high-speed train into the centre of Barcelona. The date for the first train to pull into Sants station is 21 December, and it would seem that previously cut corners are now being desperately cut once again in order to meet this clearly impossible date.

In recent days, I’ve lost count of the number of morning newspaper headlines telling of another hundimiento or socavón (landslide/ground collapse) in the area of the final few kilometres of the line into the city from the area heading out to the airport, which have caused the closure of the existing local train lines heavily used by commuters. Pictures of Bellvitge station with a section of its platform collapsed into a hole in the ground have focused the worries of the tens of thousands of these people who travel on the network daily, not to mention a number of workers who’ve gone public with their concerns about the enthusiastic corner-cutting. (Check out the final link below for a more sensationalist vision of the effects of a tunnel collapse in Barcelona).

Every day it seems another train line is affected by a rather large hole opening in the ground, leading to Plaza España being converted into a giant bus-stop on a daily basis with endless queues of people boarding hundreds of temporary buses in order to reach their workplaces. The news crews asking the public for their thoughts have come up against some pretty irate people who are at the end of their tether with the whole drawn-out mess. One of which I saw was a middle-aged man angrily slapping the front page of a newspaper carrying a headline quote from PM Zapatero which implored people to "be patient”, and telling the camera that "patience” is something that he and his fellow passengers no longer have. (Hence the title of this blog entry.)

The Spanish PM is heavily involved (helped along by the upcoming elections of course) and is arriving in Barcelona today to see the state of things for himself. The Minister for Public Works is notable by her absence though, and was last seen commenting a few days ago from a safe distance…. Yes, she was hundreds of miles away in Seville! (A city which of course already has the AVE). Not an unreasonable life-choice though given that so many people at this end of the country would like to have a "quiet word” with her!

It’s not only the daily commuters who are suffering from acute AVE-strain, but the people that live in the L’Hospitalet district just outside the main city, who have had to live with the works for years. People there are only too happy to let news crews into their homes to furiously point to the large cracks in their walls, not to mention balconies precariously splitting away from the building, caused by the underground works (a charge often denied by the contractors).

The desperation on the part of the government to meet the date is obvious. So much so, that according to many reports, it’s now being discussed whether to abandon Sants station as the central arrival point, and just call it a day when the AVE reaches El Prat (very much outside the main city, close to the airport). I haven’t had a chance to figure out what people make of this suggestion yet, but to me it seems like the railway equivalent of a sending men to the moon but then telling them that as they’re almost there, "don’t bother landing, it’s been a nice trip so let’s not push our luck. We’ll just tell everyone you made it anyway”! I can’t wait to see the obligatory group of suited government officials disembarking from the first AVE, proudly proclaiming that it has arrived "in Barcelona on time”. Talk about moving the goalposts! Literally!

There are tons of reports (in Spanish of course) about this story in all the news sites (including: www.elmundo.es, www.elpais.es, and www.lavanguardia.es ). One that caught my eye this morning was this list of 50 questions and answers on the subject, in particular question 25 which suggests that the government’s interest is only focused at this late stage because the practical effects of the line closures due to landslides etc are felt most by users of the local trains who are, in turn, more likely to be PSOE voters (i.e. government supporters), as opposed to the average potential AVE passenger, who tends to vote PP (apparently).

Other related links:

Video of one of the ground collapses under a station platform

Report on the possible decision to move the AVE terminal from Sants to El Prat (which also includes a video of the not-so-popular Minister for Public Works saying that "running away from problems is for cowards”)

Mock news report from July showing how things MIGHT look if the AVE tunnel under the Sagrada Familia were ever to collapse!

“I’ve seen a couple of stories in the last week which demonstrate just how vital it is for us to have more people playing golf.”

..myself from starting any more blogs. Punto pelota.

Wandering off topic again (“topic” meaning living, working, culture, traveling in Spain etc), but I had a totally revolutionary past few days, rebooting completely and, who knows, someone might find this list useful one day. So…

Last week I was mentally, physically and inspirationally 100% burnt out. I couldn’t imagine ever managing to come up with another interesting blog post or podcast idea, and the mountain of life/paperwork/un-fun crap that needed sorting out seemed insurmountable. I was wound up as tight as I’d ever been in my life, moody, snappy, obsessive about all sorts of ridiculous things, complaining all day, and generally pissed off.

How did this happen? Well, if you really want to know, I would say it was a combination of: trying to keep on top of far too many projects and streams of information at once, never taking a proper break, and quite a bit of latent emotional stress and mental exhaustion related to the death of my mother earlier this year. (Sorry for the heavy stuff at the end there.)

Then I heard someone mention the word ‘burn out’ on a podcast, and I thought, ‘that’s what I’ve got!’ I googled the phrase just to make sure of course, and yup, all the symptoms fitted. If you’ve got this far and you’re thinking, hmmm, burn out, that sounds about right, then maybe this list might come in useful. This is what I did to reboot, and how around a week later I feel about 100 times better:

Ben’s top 10 12 ways to reboot after total burn out / stress collapse (in no particular order):

1. Take a 90 minute to 2 hour walk every day in the park or countryside with enlightening radio/podcasts in your mp3 player/iPod. I was recently led to/discovered the following podcasts, and they were great, enlightening, inspirational, interesting: Front Row Highlights from the BBC (good solid BBC cultural interviews), NPR’s All Songs Considered (lovely music podcast), WNYC’s Radio Lab (philosophical sciencey stuff). Important: walk very slowly, don’t rush, and for at least 10 minutes of the walk, turn off the iPod and just enjoy looking at those magnificent trees/hills/people/fields…

2. Have at least one long hot bath a day. Have two if you want

3. Stop living and working according to your conception of other people’s expectations of you. E.g. “I must write 5 blog posts a week, people expect it”… Who cares what people might expect of you, you’re burnt out! Take your own limitations into account for once! There are no rules about what you have to do. Do what you can for a while!

4. Take some exercise. (I didn’t get beyond the slow walks, but even that helped no end). Oh, and stop drinking for a while. You can’t reboot with a hangover, even a tiny one. You need to wake up in the morning feeling GOOD! (Eat lots of really nice, healthy food too!)

5. Remove as much information ‘noise’ as you can from your life. I realised that certain activities lead to that nervous knee-tapping thing that nervy people get on first dates. You know, where your knee starts involuntarily bouncing up and down? I realised that trying to read through the 40 or so RSS feeds I was subscribed to on Google Reader caused this as soon as I opened the page, so I wiped the lot and removed Google Reader from my browser bookmarks. I stopped checking Facebook 5 times a day (by removing that from my browser’s bookmarks too), and only checked email once or twice a day. If you notice a tell-tale sign that something makes you agitated, remove its ass!

6. Destroy your “to do” list! Looking at my to-do list (in a text file on my computer) led to instant melt down, so I wiped the lot. About 100 items deleted in one fell swoop. I’ll remember all the important stuff, the rest is gone, the world goes on, hurray!

7. Get up later whenever you can. Just for a while. You can get up super early again next week, when you feel better.

8. Go to the cinema. I saw the wonderful Death at a Funeral. Laughed so hard I cried!

9. Enjoy music and sofas, at the same time. Or your cat. Or garden. All immensely therapeutic stuff.

10. Work out what burnt you out and what you are going to do about it. Do that thing less or more efficiently. How are you going to make it fun again? Can’t? Make changes, no matter how impossible that might seem, or how big they might have to be. Can’t advise much on this one, only you’ll know what to do.

11. Get others to help out with things that need doing while you reboot. A million thanks to everyone who sent in posts on the worst of Spain last week to keep this blog going.

12. Take up the guitar! OK, that’s what I’m doing, but I bet there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, learn, start. Make time for it. It feels so good to be learning something different and new again, and something off-line! I’ve always wanted to do something musical and at last I am. What about you?

Well, that lot worked for me, I feel pretty energised again. (But cautious to keep applying the above for, well, forever would probably be a good idea…)

Any thoughts?

Arpi Shively from the Andalucid blog talks to the folks at Kaliyoga about just how hard it is to set up a dream business in Spain.

Stuart O’Donnell put me onto a great podcast with an interesting segment on Spain’s Love Bus: “I heard it while listening to a European Union podcast from Deutsche Welle Radio (www.dw-world.de) which is available on itunes. The podcast in question is titled “Has President Putin become his own successor” dated 6th October 2007 … the [Love Bus] report starts about 36 mins 30 secs into the podcast and lasts about 7 mins.” Well worth a listen. iTunes link.

Carl from LA Madrid thinks he’s found the worst swearing in Spain, and I’m inclined to agree…

Niels Klok finds the best kept secret cheap eat in Madrid.

And finally… Notes in Spanish brings you 88 typical, cool Spanish phrases to help you sound real on the streets of Spain.

I know I said I was going to take 10 days off blogging here, but this popped into my head this morning…

One of the most commented on elements of my recent recording about learning to live abroad, was the fact that when you up sticks to go and live far away from family and friends, it’s easy to feel guilty about those you leave behind. For many years I felt terrible about having voluntarily moved myself so far from my family, even though I’m just 2 hours from the UK by plane, and it’s just 8 hours door to door from here to my parent’s house.

One thing I neglected to mention is that there is one possible lifestyle choice, which although it may at first not seem open to everyone, can make a big difference in removing those feelings of guilt: being self-employed. In March 2006 my mother became very ill, eventually dying in April 2007. It was a horrendous year to say the least, and the one thing that I constantly thanked fate/luck/myself for was the fact that I was self-employed and able to travel to England regularly, and at the drop of the hat. Had I had a full-time job here with a contract, I would have been up against the horrendous rules that govern emergency days off in Spain. But I was working as a freelance translator and building our websites into a business, and as long as I took my laptop with me and summoned enough energy, I could keep things going from the UK while feeling really happy to be able to be around the family and lend a hand.

Now, I was of course very lucky. Not every freelance job will let you have this sort of freedom, the sort of freedom that goes a long way towards assuaging those feelings of ex-pat guilt. But there are many many jobs and businesses that you can set up or aim towards that will allow you the freedom that was so crucial to my life from March 2006 to April 2007. It’s worth thinking about, especially if you are considering a move to Spain or feel trapped here by an imposing job.

I never, for one minute, thought I could be a successful freelancer or start a business that would give me the freedom to travel freely to the UK and beyond. The former, being a freelance translator, was relatively easy in the end. I’m still not sure I could have done the latter, setting up a business, without Marina doing half the work as well. But if you are determined enough, there is no reason you can’t make the life you want in Spain, relieving half the guilt in the process. There are hundreds of freelance jobs that can be done on-line, and many more businesses that can be set up and run over the net. Good luck!

Essential reading: The 4 hour workweek

I need to take ten days off blogging for Notes from Spain to catch up with all the work we have to do at Notes in Spanish, and want your help in the meantime. I’m looking to make the definitive list of the crapest, dullest, most dire, boring or downright appalling places in Spain. It could be a town (“Albacete, caga y vete”?), a beach, an airport terminal (Barajas 4 anyone?), a national monument… If you have had a shit time somewhere in Spain then I want to hear from you!

Send your entry in via our contact page (comments are off for this post) and I’ll publish all entries here on the blog (with a link back to your webpage/blog if you have one!) Entries should ideally be a minimum 75 words (a short paragraph), and explain just what is so terrible about the place in question.

Help me out! Let’s make the definitive list of the !*@#-est places in Spain!

There have always been two reasons why I like the band Radiohead. Firstly, I love the music (and started loving it before I was 28 which, apparently, is when our music tastes freeze for all time). Secondly, I went to the same school as they did, Abingdon school, and knew Jonny, the guitarist. He was in my French A-level class. I bought one of their fist demo tapes (eventually sold for 600 pounds on ebay to pay for my Charity India motorbike trip), and my friends and I went to all their early Oxford gigs, some before they were even signed and were still known as On a Friday….

Now I have a third reason to like them. They have just completed their latest album, to be released on October 10th. So what? So, they are releasing it on their own, with no record label involved, via their website. And guess what? You decide what to pay for the album. If you go for the digital download option and click on ‘view basket’ you see empty boxes where a price should be. Clicking a question mark next to the empty price boxes elicits a new page saying ‘You decide’, and again, another question mark links to a page saying, ‘No, really. You decide’… and so it is, the fans decide how much they want to give the band for their new record. I paid 5 pounds to pre-order mine (which I reason is more than the band would normally get from their cut of a CD sale), and will get an email on or before the 10th with my download link.

So, not every band has the clout to make this work, but this is obviously a revolutionary move, and just how the music business ought to work: ditch the greedy labels, and make the fans happy to pay you for your work. No matter what happens/what people pay (and I’m sure Radiohead will come out very happy from this new way of selling their music), they will still make a fortune on the concerts that will follow and the admiration this will inspire. So it’s win win for them, and win win for us!

What do you think?

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Lessons learned living in Spain… and questions for you: What did you last learn? What was the motivation? What did it lead to?

Answers below or in the show’s forum post!