Jean Galea

Health, Wealth, Relationships, Wisdom

Where to Park Your Car at the Barcelona Airport

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A taxi from the city center to the airport costs around 35 euro. I would suggest avoiding the local taxi companies and getting a Cabify cab instead. You’ll get better service for the same price or less.

If you want to travel to the airport in your own car, this is another convenient option, since there are numerous parking options.

Aena General Parking

The most expensive option but probably the safest and most convenient is to leave the car in the airport’s own official parking. For a 4 and a half day stay (4 days and 6 hours to be exact) I was charged €53 to park in the General T1. This is by booking in advance through the web interface. According to the same site, parking without booking would cost €114.50 as it just goes by the hourly rate. If I understand correctly unused hours will be refunded when you exit the parking. The parking is located in a building annexed to the airport terminal T1, and you can just walk to the terminal in 4 minutes – no hassle whatsoever.

PROCEDURE FOR USE OF THE CAR PARK:

On entering the car park:

Take a ticket as you enter the car park. IMPORTANT: Please, wait in front of the barrier until the Automatic Number Plate Recognition recognises your vehicle and a ticket will be issued automatically. YOU MUST NOT PRESS THE BUTTON. If you press the button, the ATM will charge you the normal price and not the reservation price. Proceed into the car park and park your car in any available parking space.

On your return:

When you return to the car park, please go to the ATMs to make the payment. If you have any problems, please use the Customer Service integrated in the ATMs. Amount calculated based on the stay booked. If the actual stay of the vehicle is different, this amount may vary.

You can purchase this parking on the official site or on elParking or Parkvia. elParking offers free cancellation up to 24h before the reservation starts.

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How do Bitcoin Futures Work and Should You Trade Them?

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bitcoin futures guideFutures operate in a multi-trillion dollar industry. They are complex financial instruments that allow you to speculate on whether the price of an asset will be higher or lower in the future.

While futures are particularly common when trading commodities like gold, oil, and wheat – they have since reached the Bitcoin scene. Whether or not you should access Bitcoin futures will depend on your financial goals, understanding of the market, and how much risk you seek to take.

See also: Best Exchanges for Spot Trading Crypto

To help clear the mist, this guide will tell you everything you need to know about Bitcoin futures. I’ll explain how this segment of the crypto investment scene works, what potential risks and rewards you need to consider, and how you can get started with a Bitcoin futures trade today.

Here’s a list of the best crypto futures platforms that we’ll be considering in this article:


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My Favorite Fashion, Sports and Cosmetics Brands

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Over the years, I’ve been experimenting with finding the best brands for different scenarios. I tend to focus on brands that produce natural cosmetics and for clothing those that focus on natural materials like merino wool.

This exercise is important for me because once I know which are my favorite brands I can reduce my options and know that whatever I buy from these brands will fit me well and feel good. Having many options to choose from is a huge time sink for me and one of my main enemies in the quest for high productivity.

Note that much of my wardrobe and products I use are focused around functional elegance, casual and sports. That is 99% of my daily life, so I don’t really own any very elegant wear like suits, shirts etc.

Here’s a list of the clothing brands I love and typically stick to.

Underwear

  • Icebreaker
  • Lululemon
  • Smartwool
  • Polo boxers (for sleeping in)
  • Under Armour/Puma/Columbia for sports

Premium Underwear

  • Zimmerli
  • Hanro
  • Sunspel

Sea Island cotton is the best quality I’ve found.

Sportswear

  • Icebreaker
  • Lululemon
  • Salomon
  • Gore
  • The North Face
  • Acrteryx

I’ve moved away from mass brands like Adidas and Nike as quality has decreased over the years and everybody is using them.

Indoor Wear

I love the feeling of Merino wool, especially when indoors as the loose and comfy style is especially fitting for this purpose.

  • Icebreaker
  • Smartwool

Casual Wear

  • Asket
  • Arket
  • Lestrange
  • Paul Smith
  • CDLP
  • Uniqlo
  • ETQ

Jeans

  • Levi’s

Jackets

  • The North Face
  • Columbia

Footwear

  • Asics & Wilson – Tennis and Padel
  • Nike & ON – casual shoes, football
  • Baldinini
  • Golden Goose
  • Zegna
  • Tod’s
  • Salomon – hiking shoes
  • Timberland – winter boots
  • Ugg – indoor

Caps

  • Zegna

Socks

  • Smartwool
  • Icebreaker
  • Darn Tough
  • Falke
  • Happy Socks
  • Vitalsox
  • Vincere for Beach Tennis

Future List

There are a number of brands that I’ve heard great things about and would like to try out at some point.

A good place to buy luxury items is Farfetch.

Cosmetics

cosmetics for men

Using the right products around the house and for personal hygiene and care is very important. So you can say that every product I own has been carefully selected to make sure there are no harmful chemicals present and that it does what it says. I’ve honed this process over many years, so I wanted to document my process in a few lines here.

I use the following apps and websites for research into ingredients:

These are some of my favorite brands:

This PDF is worth a look at for understanding the basics on product safety and how to pick better products.

Essential Oils

I like using essential oils or blends of them in diffusers while I work. The world of aromatherapy and oils is quite an interesting one, although it can also be quite scammy in terms of claims and products.

When buying essential oils you need to make sure you’re buying the right quality, which means products that are 100% natural. If the price looks too good and it comes from suspicious vendors (looking at the Chinese ones on Amazon especially here) you should look away.

In the United States, companies like Doterra have quite a bad reputation due to their MLM-type structure and outlandish health claims, so be aware of things that are too good to be true.

In Spain, I’ve encountered a few reputable brands:

  • Essenciales – only available from their online store
  • Sisen – high-end brand with excellent info about each oil
  • Phytofrance – very good French brand
  • Pranarom – French brand found in many local shops
  • Terpenic – a Spanish brand

In Barcelona a good shop for essential oils is Arke.

Luggage & Bags

My favorite luggage and bags brands are:

  • Tumi
  • Rimowa
  • Briggs & Riley
  • Travelpro Maxlite
  • Thule
  • The North Face
  • Lipault

Also tried Level8 and Horizn Studioes and they turned out to be typical made in China products that are heavily pushed by Instagram influencers, nothing more. Returned both of them.

Electric Vehicles and Toys

Further reading

The Best Powerline Adapters

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netgear powerline

Powerlink adapters are a fantastic invention that help those who have poor WiFi connections at home get a decent signal through the powerlines. I’ve tried various solutions to be able to make the best use of my fibre optic connections in rooms where the WiFi connection was playing around, and have finally settled on the Netgear adaptors.

I just wanted to write a few notes down here for my future self and others who might be in the market for one of these devices.

I’ve also tried the Devolo and TP-link options. I got the best product from each of these brands, but the Netgear was the clear winner. In fact, although it advertised lower speeds than the Devolo, it still came up on top in the end.

The difference between the Netgear and Devolo was very significant. I could reach the same upload speed with both but download speed on the Devolo was half that of the Netgear.

An interesting fact is that it’s the upload speed that suffered most with WiFi connections. I’m not sure why that is so.

 

Introducing Multi HODL: Crypto Margin Trading (Made Easy)

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Youhodler Multi Hodl

Recently, I’ve been discussing the Europe-based FinTech platform YouHodler a lot on here. For readers of those articles, you probably noticed as strange new terms appear frequently.

One of those terms is “Multi HODL” and at first glance, it may not mean much to you but as we peel back the layers behind this tool, you’ll begin to understand why automated margin trading should have a place in every crypto trader’s trading strategy.

So let’s get started, but first, the basics.

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Jean Galea

Investor | Dad | Global Citizen | Athlete