Family in a quiet house in the countryside in Castellon province, Spain

Infos

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  Description

  A good place for people looking to move to Spain!
  
  UPDATE:
  
  In the past we asked only 2 hours per day of workaway volunteering for food and a room to sleep. We focused our space more to travellers who wanted to either experience our culture and learn Spanish or just visit our region, while we were also learning from other cultures and practising English.
  
  Now, due double maternity/paternity with 2 toddlers, and because Igor is very busy with his business, we must give a different approach to our space:
  
  In this moment, we need more help hours than the 2 hours per day we asked at first, and we are paying the extra hours as an aupair job (5€ per hour). You pay no room rent, no food, no electricity, no water... nothing! while you get some income. So this is a good starting place for people looking to emmigrate to Spain, and we are very happy to already have helped others to start a new life in Spain =) The help section is divided in 3 parts, and in the part explaining how much we pay, you can see examples with numbers of what we pay per week compared to what earns and pays someone with a minimum wage full-time job. So with these examples you can easily understand why our place is a worth starting point in Spain.
  
  Besides the examples, the help section is totally updated so there is no possible missunderstanding with the main stuff. Anyways communication is the key and we are always willing to reply any question before coming, or to listen any suggestion after joining us!
  
  *****
  
  We are Lara & Igor, an alternative couple + Leire (4) and Lluna (2,5), who are living off-grid at the countryside because we got tired of living in the city, we prefer a quiet place, we like nature and feeling free. We moved from Castellon city to this place on 2018, and after 8 years here, we are very happy of the change!
  
  We also like travelling and getting into other cultures, listening a so wide range of music and cinema, etc. To get fun we enjoy playing boardgames with others, socalize, etc. Lara enjoys watching series and films, cooking, exercise and reading books. Igor is more of music and games. So we have the range of entretainment pretty complete hehe.
  
  About stuff we like to do more related with the nature:
  -In autumn, one of the things that we enjoy the most is going to look for mushroom at some forest either in Castellon or Teruel province.
  -Spring is a good season to be here... not cold, not hot, less rain days than autumn, but with a bit of rain starts to grow a lot of wild sparagus around. So it is also nice to get them just walking around. Also flowers blossom and we even eat some of them!
  -In winter you know... the nature is "hibernating" but at least we have a winter garden to also take care and eat vegetables from.
  -And summer is maybe the worst season, too dry and hot! At least there are grapes, carobs, figs, and blackberries around, and also we run a beach house for tourists that is 200m from the sea. So from April to October (when the temperature is fine for a beach weekend) is nice to go there when instead of the full house, only the first floor is rented.
  And during any season, sometimes we do a walkie around the house with the kids and our cat Nora who loves to walk around with us :)
  
  About our family project, due to maternity/paternity we are short of time, so we need help (check the help section). Please, if you are allergic, be aware you are sharing the accomodation with Katana and Nora, our cat friends.
  
  Also be aware, that there won't be meat or fish at our home. We are totally isolated from eletric system for better and for worse, so due being solar-powered we have a fridge but not a freezer. It would spend a good portion of the battery. And yes, as you guessed, we are veggie.
  
  LGBT+ welcome :) And we prefer non-smokers for a reason: We are in the middle of the mountain and here landscape is dry (as it is in most of Spain). So out of the house is forbidden to smoke by law to avoid fires, while into the house is also not possible due to our toddlers Leire and Lluna.
  
  To reach our place we often pick up workawayers at Castellon city train/bus station. From Valencia the economic train to Castellon is only 6€, from Barcelona is more expensive and takes more time since it is not close. Buses and BlaBlaCar to Castellon city are also a good option. There is also an Airport in Castellon and we can also pick up there, but it is tiny and there are few flights from few cities in Europe.

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  Types d'aide et opportunités d'apprendre

  Pratique d’une langue

  Jardinage

  Baby-sitting et jeux créatifs

  Cuisine/repas pour la famille

  Aide à la maison
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  Centres d’intérêt

  

  Vie en van

  

  Végétarien ou végan

  

  Dev. durable

  

  Animaux de compagnie

  

  Films et télé

  

  LGBT+

  

  Événements/vie sociale

  

  Écriture

  

  Soin des plantes

  

  Photographie

  

  Musique

  

  Langues

  

  Jardinage

  

  Dessin et peinture

  

  Bricolage / artisanat

  

  Cuisine et alimentation

  

  Livres

  

  Art et design

  

  Animaux

  

  Sports nautiques

  

  Danse

  

  Activités en plein air

  

  Nature

  

  Montagne

  

  Randonnée

  

  Fitness

  

  Cyclisme

  

  Camping

  

  Plage

  

  Sports d'aventure
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  Echange culturel et opportunités d'apprendre

  About language and culture, we would like to improve our English pronunciation, and if you want to learn or practise, we also speak the world widespread Spanish and the not so popular Valencian-Catalan :P We are also open to learn a bit of your language if your motherlanguage is another, and we are happy to share cultures, gastronomy, music, get fun, etc. Valencian Community is the region of paella so you will be able to taste the REAL PAELLA, the tasty Orxata drink, or the not so healthy Carajillo. Here our mother language is Valencian, a Catalan dialect, but we also speak Spanish. So people in this zone speak both Valencian Catalan and Spanish as natives.

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  Aide « au pair »

  De plus amples informations sont disponibles ici

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  Projets impliquant des enfants

  Ce projet peut impliquer des enfants. Pour en savoir plus, consultez nos directives et conseils ici.

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  Aide

  Please, read this section carefully, and if you have some question, don't hesitate to ask!
  
  This section is divided in 3 parts:
  · What kind of help we need.
  · How many helping time.
  · How much we pay.
  
  *****
  
  About the help needed:
  
  For Lluna and Leire, it is bassically staying and playing with them either inside or outside the house (depending the season and weather). Experience as an au-pair or babysitting is highly appreciated, anyways if they have fun playing with you, then it is enough to do a nice job! If you get along well with children, or if you are creative and fun, then it is an easy job. So if they want to be with you (instead of runing to look for the parents) then it is a good sign that things are working out :)
  
  About the communication with our daughters, this is an important point!
  · If you are starting to learn Spanish, other workawayers found very helpful to practise basic short phrases with someone also using pretty basic language. Some workawayers were shy to try to talk to us at first as adults, so is with the kids with who they were confident to start practising!
  · In the case that you only speak English (or other language), it is a bit more tricky but yet possible while you are good at nonverbal communication (communicating with them with gestures instead of words). Anyways we are very interested in them to learn English. In school they take English lessons, even they took lessons in the kindergarden before school, but it is yet too early for them to communicate in English and we want this to change at some point. If you can help out with this, it would also be very helpful!
  
  So to sum up the part of communication: It is better to play with the kids in Spanish to avoid that them get bored (because not understanding when playing) but if you are not learning Spanish, it is yet possible if you are good at nonverbal communication or you know how to do English-learning fun for kids, which we would appreciate a lot.
  
  About other work:
  
  · Clean the dishes that doesn't fit the dishwasher.
  · Tiddy and help cleaning the house.
  · Helping Lara either preparing the meals or whatever she needs.
  · Helping Igor with the business (a water tank online store) preparing orders. Don't worry, you won't lift heavy weight, Igor will do with the tools he have to do it.
  
  Optional extra hours:
  
  · Manual work outside like removing weeds, pruning, cutting pallets into pieces for the fireplace, or once in a while, helping Igor fixing some stuff around the house. Also from October to May, maintenance of the winter garden.
  
  *****
  
  About the amount of helping time:
  
  · In the afternoon, from Monday to Thursday, the help time with the little ones starts at 16:45 when they are back from school. The finish time will be at about 19:30 with the dinner ready, and some more time after the dinner to clean-up so expect from 3h to max 4 hours in the afternoon.
  
  · On Friday is not necessary to help in the afternoon. If you don't do, at least we ask for the basic 2 hours in the morning.
  
  · During the morning, from Monday to Thursday, we are more flexible. We are happy to pay more hours, but we understand that you may also prefer to rest. If you prefer to do less hours, at least we are asking for 1 hour either early in the morning just after the breakfast or late in the morning while Lara prepares the lunch. In this way, you will have the rest of the morning free, with enough time to either walk around, ride the bicycle, go to the town, rest in the house, or whatever you prefer to do...
  
  If you are looking for doing more hours, don't worry, there is always something to do here :)
  
  *** To sum up ***
  
  · Mornings, more flexible, depending how much do you want to work.
  · Afternoon, from Monday to Thursday, 16:45-19:30 and the time to takes to clean up after the dinner.
  
  Don't worry, we have a whiteboard where the workawayers note the help hours each day, so we count all the help time!
  
  *****
  
  About what we pay:
  
  With 2 hours per day from Monday to Friday you get the room to sleep and the food, as we offered to other workawayers in the past. But now, each extra hour you do besides the 2 hour, we pay 5€/hour.
  
  The weekends you decide, but unlike the rest of the week, we count each hour as an extra hour. We always asked workaway hours only from Monday to Friday, so it is fair to pay each hour you help in the weekend.
  
  *** EXAMPLES ***
  
  · Someone who prefers to do the basic hours:
  3h in the afternoon + 1h before the lunch, from Monday to Thursday, and 2h in total on Friday. A week of 18h of help = 40€ (18h help time during the week - 2h per working day for the food and room = 8 paid hours *5€ = 40€).
  
  · Someone who want to do more hours but also to have some free time:
  3,5h in the afternoon + 1,5h in the morning, during the week + 3h in total during the weekend. A week of 28h of help = 90€ (28h help time during the week - 2h per working day for the food and room = 18 paid hours *5€ = 90€).
  
  · Someone who takes it serious as a full-time job:
  4h in the afternoon + 3h in the morning, during the week + 5h in total during the weekend. In total a week of 40h of help = 150€ (40h help time during the week - 2h per working day for the food and room = 30 paid hours *5€ = 150€).
  
  This last example is good to understand why this place is good for someone who is looking to emigrate to start a new life in Spain. Let's compare numbers with someone who moves to Spain with a normal job, rent to pay, food, and other living cost expenses:
  
  +1184€ current minimum wage in Spain per month working 40h per week.
  -700€ basic flat renting in Castellon city at the current minimum price which kept rising during the last decade (Castellon is a small city, big Spanish cities are much more expensive).
  -250€ basic food current expenses per month and per person in Spain.
  -50€ estimated electricity expenses for 1 person.
  TOTAL: Only 184€ left for other expenses like the phone bill, the water bill, transport, etc.
  
  And unfortunatelly, if you come from outside of the European Union, without a NIE (ID number in Spain for foreigners) you won't find a legal job but a job without contract. This kind of job is paid per hour yet below the minimum wage =(
  
  With us however you are getting 600€ per month and pay no rent, no food, and no house bills. Almost 0 expenses, so you can save while you are with us :-)
  
  On your own, with the current cost of life everywhere, isn't easy to even save a bit!

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  Langues

  Langues parlées
  Catalan: Courant
  Espagnol: Courant
  Anglais: Intermédiaire
  Italien: Débutant

  Cet hôte propose un échange linguistique
  We are open to do conversations either in English, Spanish or Catalan. We also understand Italian and Portuguese, at least we shared our space with workawayers from Italy and Brazil speaking their own language, and we could communicate. So you must speak either one of these 5 languages! Other languages, I'm afraid that communication would be not possible, sorry for thar. We are happy to improve our English, but probably you want to learn or improve Spanish, so we can do a mix :) We are even open to learn italian but the communication will be a bit more tricky :P Lara also dreams about learning Korean some day, so if you are Korean, Lara will be very happy to take private classes =)
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  Hébergement

  Our home is off-grid in the countryside. There is a fence around the terrain but we leave the entrance door open while we are in the house. Sometimes you will see someone working some field near the house, and once in a while some car or some cyclist will pass by the track near the house. Closest town is Costur, of only 500 inhabitants. So expect to stay in a quiet place for better and for worse :)
  
  To go around you can use a bicycle, but the area is a bit steppy, so at the end you probably go walking when going up.
  
  Despite being isolated, WiFi works ok here, for example, we often used Netflix or HBO... before the kids :P. There is also a bunch of books in Spanish. Since the house is not big, this is unavoidable at the end: we can offer you entertainment with more interaction... We are always open to conversations and there is also a collection of board games (yay!). We like to play but if the little ones are in the house and not sleeping, I'm afraid it is not possible. By the way, if you contact with us and write the word "pineapple", we will know that you are reading at least most of the description... This helps for example, to know that you are really interested, in case of more workawayers writting us.

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  Autres infos...

  During the weekends, we often visit friends or family in Castellon city so we can take you there. From Castellon, for about 6€, you can take a train for example to Valencia city or Peniscola touristic town. We can also take you to the coast if you like the beach, or to other places near Castellon city like Benicassim (a touristic town in the coast) or Desert de les Palmes (mountains close to the coast with amazing views).
  
  Also, once in a while we do some activity with our friends (go-karts, canyoning, kayak, via ferrata, etc) so you can join if you like the activity :)
  
  And some weekend, if we don't have other meetings or stuff to do, we can take to some nearby nice town (as Vilafames, Fanzara, Xodos and Culla).
  
  If you came by car and prefer to visit places by your own, these are the times by car:
  
  The picturesque Vilafames at about half hour. The artistic Fanzara, and Benicassim at the coastside, both at about 40 minutes (to different directions). Some nice small towns as Xodos (40 minutes), Culla (45 minutes) and Ares del Maestre (55 minutes). The touristic cave Coves de Sant Josep which you visit with a small boat (45 minutes). The natural parks of Sierra Espadan, Desert de les Palmes (about 50 minutes) and Penyagolosa (about 1 hour). The big city of Valencia (about 1 hour). And at 1 hour 15 minutes, the touristic towns of Peñiscola and Morella.

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  Informations complémentaires

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    Accès Internet

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    Accès Internet limité

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    Nous avons des animaux

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    Nous sommes fumeurs

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    Familles bienvenues

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  Possibilité d’accueillir les digital nomads

  Yes, why not! Even if we are a bit isolated, we installed an antenna for a decent WiFi connection. After testing the speed, it shows 10-15Mb/s download and 5-10Mb/s upload. In terms of use: for videocalls is not a so good connection and some days it works really bad (specially in storm days, I don't know why), but for the rest of uses internet works properly. So if you are a digital nomad often doing videocalls and you have not enough patience, think it twice!

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  Espace pour garer des vans

  There is no problem of parking here for campervans or whatever. We also have an old caravan here.

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  Possibilité d'accueillir les animaux

  Ask before, since we have 2 cats , so they may be scared.

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  Combien de volontaires pouvez-vous accueillir ?

  Deux

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  Mes animaux

  

  Giovanni

  Wild cat around looking for food almost everyday.

  

  Nora

  Despite being originally a wild cat, she really likes to stay with people like a dog. During one of the pandemic quarantines, we were walking around when Nora appeared very thin and desperately looking for food.

  

  Katana

  The shy but lovely Katana, rescued from a flooding at the north of Castellon province in October 2018.

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