Mucha dinero - Prices in Spain

I came across with some old receipts and decided to share some price info from Andalucia, Spain with you. Make up your own mind if they are cheap, expensive, or something else...

Some restaurant prices;

• 6 portions = raciones of different seafood, bread, 8 x soft drinks, 4 x water bottles, 2 x 0,75 liters of Rioja wine, all together 67,80 Eur in our favorite restaurant
• Pizza in a bit better restaurant with wooden chairs etc 8,90-10,50 Eur
• Pasta in the same place +/- 9 Euros
• Similar pizzas and pastas you can get for 5~6 Euros in a restaurant with plastic chairs

From grocery store;

• 2 liters of Pepsi, Pepsi Twist that we don't have in Finland, for 1,19 Eur
• 6x2 liters of still water á 0,23 Eur = 1,38 Eur
• Irish Cream 0,7 liters 4,88 Euros
• 12 x 0,33 liters of San Miquel beer á 0,49 Eur = 5,88 Eur
• Rioja wines from ~1,5 Eur up
• Philadelphia fresh cheese 150g 1,48 Eur
• Oven pizza 2,49
• Not much different from Finland
• Plastic bag 2 cents
• Yep, much weaker than the Finland 20-40 cent versions, but still

Others;

• Billabong's fabric wallet 10 Euros - youngster's choice... 
• 6 people access to BioParc Zoo, an amazing one in the middle of the city, 76,80 Eur including some sort of flyer discount of 20%
• Access to a big water park, Parque Acuatico Mijas, adults 19 Eur, kids 14 Eur

Adios con poco dinero...!

PS You better save some money in your pocket to pay for a taxi of 29,4 kilometers, as it can cost you 61,40 Euros...

Wanna ride a taxi?

If you wanna keep some money in your pocket, you better think where you ride a taxi.

I have also earlier talked about the taxis in Finland and other places. I will let you make up your mind if you find the following reasonable or a slow-down for more active taxi usage;

• Ordered from the taxi centre at around midnight
• 2,2 km distance
• 4 minutes driving time
• Cost 13 Euros (8,60 start fee, 4,40 trip fee)

If you are in Helsinki and want to get more info, check out http://www.visithelsinki.fi/ - taxi info from here.

Long live taxi monopoly!

Or not.

Today the Finnish Government decided to increase taxi rates by 4% as of July 1st. Fairly high increase with zero warning time tells me about excellent lobbying by the monopoly industry. The news info says the increase is in line with the cost increase. I don’t doubt that at all – question is always about what you want to show in a report…

I have written about this earlier and I gotta say I am still unhappy with both the service as well as the tariffs. Part of the issue is that most taxi lisence owners change their cars every 3 years – and provide the service with fairly expensive cars.

Earlier almost all cars were Mercedes, but in the past years many have decided to increase their profits and drive cheaper ones. We still pay the same.

Some time ago the driver was from Iran – very friendly man. Some weeks later the driver was from deep Africa, from Gabon if I recall right. His car was a Huyndai that had seem some ass. Plenty of it. It had over 300.000 km in the meter, but that didn’t matter since the driver again had realized he was in a service inductry.

He was studying economics at the Helsinki University and finances the studies by driving the evening and night shifts. He plans to go to North Africa, most likely to Algeria to make a market analysis – having as a target to set up a mobile phone dealership with his friends. I wish all the best for him!

I’m not sure what would be the right solution, but I can claim today we don’t have the best one. Unless you are a taxi license owner. Still, this is considered as part of a transportation solution, controlled by the government so it should be possible to make changes. But please go to Sweden to check how they have done it – and learn from the mistakes.

Few words still about football - or soccer;

Hats off to England and Team USA in the football Worldcup. Both of them had to win to continue and they did it. Team USA lost today their second game winning goal in 3 matches due to a bad call by the referee. It would have been injustice if they would have been out from the games after these...

We have seen some flops in the games – perhaps France as the worst for now. Let’s see how Germany plays in a similar situation tonight.

Do we have a good healthcare system?

Our daughter had a minor hand injury at basketball practice and we took her to a doctor to check nothing was broken. We could have used the public service - which in generic is considered to be good. Yes we have the system extremely good comparing to US but having experience from the Belgium system, I can say the public healthcare in Finland is nothing to write home about.

If you go to the emergency, you normally need to wait anything from about an hour up. Since we were talking about x-ray and sophisticated hand bones we decided to use the insurance and went to the private doctor.

Directly to a specialist doctor, x-ray, 2nd talk with the doctor and out via the cashier. From start to end it took about an hour and doctor's time was used for ~20 minutes.

Cheap?

Nooooo, x-ray 93 Euros and the doctor fee 75 Euros. The social security system covers 31 Euros from that, but the rest is up to you to take care of. Or the insurance like in our case.

Here is some more price info for you:
Taking a taxi at normal weekday around 5 pm is not a cheap trip - not to talk about night time. Actually taking a taxi in Finland is never cheap. Before the car starts, the meter shows 5.10 Euros and after 13 km trip, lasting 21 minutes, the total cost was 29.70 Euros. I do support deregulating the strictly limited taxi licence system - which of course all the taxi drivers are hanging on to.

At night time the cost example is 22 euros that a 5.3 km trip costs around midnight - including the 5.20 Euros we had to pay extra for the 8 minutes the driver was waiting for us. Naturally the option would have been to go out and wait for the taxi in the middle of the night in -5 C degrees... At night time the cost for starting the engine is 8 Euros.

But you can always call a taxi where you can sing karaoke!

However, I don't wish to go to the Swedish model where quality and wild competition can turn things upside down...

The quality is mixed and the competition can take the price extremely high like in Malmö train station. If you wish to get a ride for about 3 km trip, prepare to pay even 20 Euros - if they even take you for such a short trip.

So is our health care or taxi system good or not?
I really don't know...

Malmö - a suburb of Copenhagen

This morning I took a "red eye" -flight from Helsinki to Copenhagen, Denmark, having Malmö, Sweden, as my destination. Why red eye? Some of you know too well the 6 am flights where all passenges are tired with red eyes...

As always, landing in CPH is not pleasant as it feels you are landing in the water and last moment you have cross the coastline.

After landing in Copenhagen after about 1.5 hour flight - at the time guys in Brussels were waking up - I grabbed a bite at the airport (since my flight ticket included only coffee, tea or water as a breakfast) and headed to the train station downstairs of the terminal.

I bought a ticket from the machine, checked that it had a time stamp and a note that it is valid for 24 hours and off I go to the platform. Smooth, trains to Malmö every 20 minutes and it takes only about 20+ minutes (didn't check the time...). Ticket Ticket was 156 DKK, which is about 20 Euros. I have used both taxi and rental car but I must say this was very smooth, fast and economic. However, wait until you get to the downside at the end of the story.

I crossed the water via tunnel and the bridge with a morning sun glazing from the water and a row of windmills. Scene was pretty nice, just like it is when crossing with a car (unless you are driving and need to focus on the traffic).

Öresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden.

While I am enjoying the scenery there comes the train conductor as expected. No worries, I should have all covered. But I don't. I have an illegal ticket and I am sitting in a wrong place.

I should have stamped the ticket separately in a yellow box and should have know I am not allowed to sit in the first car. But I didn't. I guess it was highlighted somewhere but I am not a pro with the public transportation. Luckily the conductor was nice and let me off the hook, guided me with the ticket and let me sit for the 5 more minutes in the business car.

As a company I got two Swedish customs officers who apparently travel back & forth all day. They sat down next to me and started to read the latest Metro newspape. Soon we were approaching the Copenhagen suburb Malmö and a 3rd officer joined them and I was starting to worry about me not reporting a box of Salmiakki Läkerol.

Talking about the border control, a positive thing in traveling within Nordics is that you don't need a passport, a driving licence is enough.

I gotta say the landscape just before Malmö is not the something you can see in the postcards but the city centre is another story with some nice old houses. Luckily the sun was shining as it helps also the mind to lighten up.

One tip for Malmö visitors is to try out the traditional sauna on a peer. Take a swim in the ocean and enjoy the view to CPH across the sea. For pictures, click the "Bilder" link on the left side of the front page. More info also from here. (Many thanks Reine for the experience, that one I will never forget!)

Yes, the Bjerreds Saltsjöbad sauna is at the end of the peer.

Malmö also has got many nice restaurants, that one also can be a consequence of being a suburb of CPH. If you wish to have a tip of a good seafood restaurant, let me know. I would put the name here but I forgot to ask for the restaurant card so gotta check with a colleague.

They have also a nice way to see the city form the top.

Just before leaving Malmö I got another proof that it is a suburb of Copenhagen: People are bicycle maniacs!
They have even built a floating bicycle parking place next to the train station. Hundreds of bikes, almost as mad as in Holland...

Ok, overall it is not as bad as in Holland where people drive over you if you are walkingon a wrong lane of the sidewalk.

When I landed back in Helsinki I had the good old friend Mr Rain welcoming me. When sitting in a taxi I got a reminder what can be a result of limited competition: The meter shows 10 Euros before we take off!

Well, the Sweden approach might not be the best either so before copying them do the homework. Good side is that you have many taxis available but the flipside of the coin is fairly low quality and flexible pricing.

Swedish colleagues told me the Malmö train station is THE worst place in Sweden to take a taxi. They compared it with a country south from Mediterranean: While a normal price for a taxi between the station and our office has been about 110 SEK, nowadays the imigrant drivers have a cartell of >250 SEK price.