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Comment by bertil | Hacker News Reader

Powers are comparable, but people’s expectations are dramatically different for many reasons:

* Climate: a shaded courtyard is pretty much necessary given the weather, for instance;

* History: not only most city centers in Spain were built in the Middle Ages, but they were also built in the Arabic tradition of having fountains, slated blinds;

* Economic: Spain grew economically a bit later than the US and the rest of Europe: 1980 rather than 1960, they had a similar wave of car adoption, but a decade after rebuilding the country after the Spanish war.

* Ecology: most of the country is pretty arid: there are beautiful vistas, but it’s not the place where one wants to stay out, baking in the sun, as much.

Spaniards want to be outside, but not in a sea of green grass. They much prefer a table in the shade.

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>Spaniards want to be outside, but not in a sea of green grass. They much prefer a table in the shade.

If you want to talk about Spain, you need to live in Spain ALL YEAR long, not just the summer.

Almost the entire country but the north(in the north it rains in summer) is arid in Summer, because of the Azores' anticyclone, three or two months, depending on the place, but the rest of the year it rains.

Also the arid place is Murcia and Almería, some part of Alicante and Monegros. There is a lot of rain in Extremadura, or places near the Ocean, like Galicia, Asturias, Pirineos, Huelva.

In august you are going to see anything yellow, but it gets green in Autumn, Winter and Spring.

That is, 9 to 10 months a year it rains. There is sun too and it is a good thing because it is cold, specially inside. Madrid is very sunny and cold in Winter so the sun is great.

I was born in Spain, I live and work in Central Europe but I go to Spain in the Winter as it is a much better Winter there. In Central Europe anything is burned by the cold and then you have snow everywhere.

So it is actually much more green Spain in Winter than in most of Europe.

Not all Spain has a Mediterranean climate.

No, of course – Galicia famously doesn’t, but they still have tall buildings and courtyards to shelter from the unspeakable wind.

Outside of the areas in the Cantabrian Coast and the Pyrenees, Spain is basically a dessert.

That’s awfully inaccurate

Castilles are not a dessert. Even heard of Picos de Europa? Mountains from Soria? Sierra Nevada?

While those don't sound like desserts, they don't sound like entrees or appetizers either.

No, Spain it's basically an elevated plateau (> 600m!) surrounded by mountain sierras everywhere. Thus, you can have bipolar climates in the Castilles, (both scorching Summers and ice-freezing Winters), more rain than the UK in the North (really), sun and touristy places at the Mediterranean zones, and microclimates all over the place.

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