Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

droopsnout

Ah. There IS a God!

Though I'm sure your knees are delightful.

seven-day-weekend

droopsnout wrote: »

I suppose it's a bit crass to be talking like this as those poor souls in Burma suffer a hell far worse than we'll probably ever know.

Perhaps my prayers would be better directed towards their plight.

However, I do sympathise with you, too. The bit about going to Wales is especially sad. *

* It's a joke, right? Listen, I worked for over 20 years in Burnley. I'm allowed to make jokes about Wales!

Agreed, yes, about the poor people in Burma.

Hey
- I LIKE Wales!

donny-gal

I also like the country, however, I have found some of the residents to be a little less than welcoming to say the least!

7DW - Do you know what time the ferries arrive at Bilbao and Portmouth? Cannot seem to find that on their site. Spotted that the mini-cruise on 28th May is offering stand up entertainment, and fancying a change may just go for the ferry route and get that as an added extra. Food on board may be a bit pricey, wondering how I can overcome that to a degree, will maybe discuss on OS board. Let me know if we have to wave as we pass.
DG

Francophile

binnie wrote: »

We have thought of having spanish lessons. but the nearest ones are in an evening miles away, I don't drive, and hubbie works nights, and races most evenings in good weather on his bike.

When we are over there though, we take our little phrase book and sit in the restaurants and learn new words in spanish, and also ask the waitress/waiter to say certain words to us then we can hear how they prounounce it.
We have met quite a few people who we see everytime we go over there now and become friends, but neither of us can understand each other.
We just smile and use the phrase book, but they seem pleased to see us and always get a big grin and cuddle.
:T

Have you ever heard of Michel Thomas (or maybe it's Tomas) anyway he does language cd's which are excellent. I bought the French ones (14 of them although I'm only up to disc 5) for about £28 on ebay. I'm sure you'd find the Spanish ones there as well.

seven-day-weekend

We are up to CD 5 of Michel Tomas Spanish (I thinbk his name is spelt differently depending upon which language he is speaking at the time) and can confirm that they are indeed excellent.

seven-day-weekend

donny-gal wrote: »

I also like the country, however, I have found some of the residents to be a little less than welcoming to say the least!

7DW - Do you know what time the ferries arrive at Bilbao and Portmouth? Cannot seem to find that on their site. Spotted that the mini-cruise on 28th May is offering stand up entertainment, and fancying a change may just go for the ferry route and get that as an added extra. Food on board may be a bit pricey, wondering how I can overcome that to a degree, will maybe discuss on OS board. Let me know if we have to wave as we pass.
DG

It arrives at Bilbao at about 7 am which is great if you have to go to southern Spain as you can get there the same day. In this direction it's night, day, night.

It arrives in Portsmouth at 1715 and it's day night, day.

about 30 hours I think total.

We have done it twice from Portsmouth and enjoyed every minute. There is also organised whale-watching!

Hey - maybe you'll be getting off as we are getting on! We are boarding on June 2nd betweem 0800 and 1230.

droopsnout

I love the Portsmouth-Bilbao route. In 2001, for our silver anniversary, we returned home that way from Bilbao. Had a cabin, with proper bed, a view of the sea and all the luxuries!

Of course, being a good MSE-er, I paid for three-quarters of it with my Tesco vouchers! Now there's one thing about the UK I miss.

seven-day-weekend

How do Tesco Vouchers work? Wasn't amn MSE-er til I came to Spain!

Francophile

You earn 1 point for every £1 spent at Tesco. Every 3 months they send you your vouchers. You can use them in store at face value to buy more groceries or you can collect enough to say pay for a boat trip, go to theme park etc etc (you'd have to see their booklet to see what's available) and each voucher is worth 4x it's value. So say you have saved £25 of vouchers, that will be worth £100. Google Tesco clubcard and you can find out all about them.

donny-gal

Unfortunately, P&O only offer Tesco points against Irish Sea crossing now, you had me excited for a short while. I think we miss by one crossing the 31st May crosses with the 2nd June. I used them for my recent Eurotunnel crossing with the caravan.
DG