Saturday, April 21, 2007

Price updates

Not everything in Andalucía is a good value. Three examples: (to convert from € to the equivalent approximate dollar amount, just multiply by 1.40)

  1. Cost to have 3 weeks' worth of laundry washed, dried, and folded = 30 €
  2. Cost for one café con leche in Starbucks = 3.80 €
  3. Cost of one (meagre) scoop of Cherry Garcia at Ben and Jerry's = 2.90 €

Here, of course, it's Starbucks that are the most egregious offenders - somehow they again manage to take an item typically costing just under a Euro and quadruple the cost. The amazing thing is that they get away with it; the Starbucks stores in Seville were always packed, as is the one I've seen here in Granada.

Mind you, the price for doing all that laundry wasn't exactly cheap either - $42 would allow you to do many loads of laundry in the U.S. Even if you handed it in to have it done, I'd be surprised if it cost half as much in San Francisco. Not that the method of arriving at the price was particularly scientific - if it had a name it would be referred to as the Iberian squint technique.

At least, three weeks of clean laundry lasts for roughly three more weeks. One can only wonder why the robber barons of Starbucks get any repeat business at all.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Regarding laundry costs in San Francisco, last night I spent $14 plus an hour and a half at my corner Laundromat cleaning four loads. It would have been $12 and one hour, except one washer fooled me into thinking it was actually functional. In addition to the bargain rate, I got to chat with Lee, the homeless junkie who sometimes sleeps on one of the folding tables, after I had angrily torn off and discarded a few flyers promoting groups I don't like from the community bulletin board. Trying getting all that for 30 measly Euros.

gaelstat said...

I assume you stopped at Starbucks on your way home, for a delicious, reviving, overpriced latte, right?

Anonymous said...

Tuesday was Ben & Jerry's annual free cone giveaway celebrating the anniversay of their founding. A very long line of mostly teens wound through Union Station here in DC, so long I opted out, but YOU don't have to work so you could have stood in line and made new friends for hours.

Pb

gaelstat said...

"and made new friends for hours" - the typical blithe clueless sneer of the extrovert, who can chat for hours with other extroverts, with no emotional cost whatsoever.

Just kidding, darlin'. Sorry I missed you when I phoned just now - you were probably at the Alexandria dreamery (or whatever it's called)

Hmm... if I were a Ben and Jerry's flavour, what would I be? Chunky monkey or Cherry García? Tough choice.

Anonymous said...

Yo soy Cherry Garcia. Tu es Chunky Monkey. Verdad? O Paloma Picasso?