There are reasons, lots of logical reasons, for me to live in La Unión. I've rehearsed them all in my head dozens of times over the last few days. Basically it's financial, a nicer flat for less money still relatively close to my teaching job in Cartagena. Now that now that I'm fending for myself I just couldn't afford the sort of flat that Maggie and I shared in Cartagena. There are other reasons too though I'm not sure that I've convinced myself yet.
La Unión is a town in Murcia. The town exists because of the mining. The Romans and the Carthaginians dug silver, lead, iron and zinc from the hills and valleys around Herrerías and el Garbanzal and shipped it out of the port of Portman. With ups and downs, that continued till the final shut-down of the last mine in 1991. Somehow most of the money that La Unión produced enriched nearby Cartagena rather than La Unión and although it has a couple of very impressive buildings there is nothing like the wealth of splendid modernist architecture that there is in Cartagena.
The town was part of Cartagena until 1860 but, as it grew, it became a town apart. The name comes from the union of three smaller populations: Portman, on the coast, El Garbanzal and Herrerías. At first the name of the new town was Villa de El Garbanzal but the people of Herrerías weren't too keen on that name and in 1868 the town council agreed on the much more politically neutral name of La Unión. At the tail end of the 19th Century, as the town was granted city status, the population reached 90,000 people. The town now has around 19,000 people.
The flat I've just paid a deposit for is in El Garbanzal - an area that takes its name from the growing of chick peas or garbanzos - about a kilometre from the dead centre of the town and on the western edge, the right side for Cartagena. From the front door to my workplace in Cartagena it's 10.5 kilometres or 12 km if I use the motorway. That's fifteen minutes door to door for the six or seven miles. Nothing of a commute by UK standards but a tad more unusual here in Spain. There are plenty of buses too and I could even use the narrow gauge railway into Cartagena.
There isn't much to La Unión - a couple of main streets Calle Mayor and Calle Real are joined by a mish mash of little streets. Most of the town looks a bit scruffy but then, to be honest, so does much of Spain. There is a good range of services - bars, restaurants, supermarkets, shops, sports facilities and the like. There's plenty of life on the streets during the day too. For one reason or another I've been a bit more confident of my Spanish the last couple of days and I've spoken to quite a few people there all of whom have been very pleasant and I can't fault the prices - a coffee in the high street cost me just 60 cents, though I think that was a mistake as the second time it cost me 80 cents in the same place; cheap nonetheless. I also had a perfectly good three course set meal for 7€.
I sign the full contract on Tuesday. Who knows, maybe it'll be a good place to live.
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