The business school of Mondragon Unibertsitatea that I am attending is located in another small town, Oñati in Basque Country. It is about 20 minutes’ bus from Arrasate where I am living.
The name of the town is Basque and means “place of many hills”. Local people said the town has the highest quality of life in Spain and the economy in Basque area is better than other parts.
This building was build about 500 years ago for the university of Oñati, which is a National Historic Monument. It is one of the most remarkable Renaissance buildings with Plateresque style in Basque Country. The town has many old buildings. One of local peoples’ house I visited was also built about 500 years ago.
A church and a square in the town. Having lived in Beijing, Shanghai, Newyork City, Montreal and Toronto for a while, I found the peaceful and relaxing life style is also a good choice. The local trash management is very special and a lot of people have complaints about it. The blue ones are for the waste paper, which should be brought out on Tuesday. Only one color for each day.
Besides the courses required by Centennial College, I also take a Spanish class and a Final project. My final project topic is about ” How the government can help companies internationalize ” and I need to submit a 70- page (or so) report at the end of the semester Right now, My shallow concern about Spain’s economy majorly lies in two points. First one, the country is using EUR system and can not depreciate the currency to boom export. Second one, It may focus more on attracting and keeping talents to build competitive advantages on higher end industries, which should be a common challenge for every country. Hopefully, I can find and learn more about the local economy and the topic of globalization during the study here.
Thanks for reading,
Lin Cao
THE GLOBAL EXPERIENCE BLOG 
Hi, Yes you are right, one of the reasons Spain economy is stagnant is that apart from the tourist Industries, they don’t have more to export. They have profiting for a long time on the sun, beaches and cheap beer. They need to be more positive and work a bit harder to compete with the northern economies such as Germany, UK, amongst others.