Yesterday was a full day in the sun room laying out a couple of trips. I learned some things, so I thought I’d share.
1) Skype is an incredibly successful way to call Spain. I already had and account since I’d used my iPhone and Skype to communicate with the family from Italy.
There are a couple of things I had to do to use phone foreign landlines instead of simple computer to computer connections. One was buy credit. I popped for the whole $10. I will warn you this purchase triggered a fraud call from my Midwest Airlines Mastercard. (Kmart always does it, too. Why Kmart?)
The second issue was finding the magic sequence for dialing. I finally learned to drop the +1 and dial the country and area codes and then the number. No 011, etc., as one might do from a traditional landline.
The cost to call the hotel in Toleda and check on transportation? $0.08. Not bad. What’s more, I now have international calling capability any time I have my mobile phone with me.
2) There’s lots of English out there. Lots. Like everywhere. Every Web site came with an English option. Spain is a popular playground for the Brits, and no one wants to miss out on those travel dollars. The hotel I called switched to English without a hiccup.
3) Paypal is your friend. After resisting for several years I finally set up a Paypal account to make a deposit for the apartment we are renting in Granada. The process was easy, the exchange rate reasonable, and boom! within moments my payment had been received. Of course something could always change my mind, but it looks like a slick method to manage some of these payments.
That’s it. I’ll let you know if anything else pops up.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Anthony // Mar 7, 2010 at 5:40 pm
I know a friend who uses Skype to call his relatives in Serbia. There are also people over there who have webcams and Skype installed on their computers that he communicates with, in video chat, for free.
PayPal is awesome. It’s a nice way to send money quickly. Better than a wire transfer for sure. Except the one time my account was hacked and the hacker tried to withdraw $400 from my account.
2 Cindy // Mar 7, 2010 at 6:07 pm
That part worries me a bit, but I don’t have a balance there, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
How do you ever get your money into real cash if you are selling stuff? Do they send you a check?
3 Dan H // Mar 7, 2010 at 9:18 pm
You can send an email request to someone for paypal and they can enter a credit card or bank account or whatever, and then it will deposit it directly into the account you have linked.
4 Anthony // Mar 7, 2010 at 10:26 pm
You can have it sent to you as a check, but they charge you a fee. It’s free though to link your checking and savings accounts to your paypal and have it deposited. The accounts are used though in the case that you overdraw your paypal account like when that hacker tried to get my cash.
5 The Lorax // Mar 9, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Have a good trip!
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/03/the-view-from-your-window-8.html
…here’s hoping the weather clears up by the time you’re there
6 Cindy // Mar 9, 2010 at 12:16 pm
I saw that. It looks like Barcelona was smacked with 20″ of snow. Perhaps in will be a little warmer by the time we get there.
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