Moving to Barcelona

Today we look at moving to Barcelona in Spain from Victoria in Seychelles. We highlight cost of living and other major differences likely to be experienced in our series of short blogs on moving between different international locations.
In Barcelona people speak Spanish (Castilian), Catalan and its variant Valencian, Gallego (Galician) and Euskera (Basque). In Victoria people speak English, French and Creole.

Barcelona is the capital and the most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain. Victoria is the capital city of the Republic of Seychelles.
Barcelona's economy consists of finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts and international trade. Barcelona has a long-standing mercantile tradition. Victoria is the smallest African capital. The principal exports are vanilla, coconuts, coconut oil, tortoise shell, soap, and guano.

The overall cost of living rank in Barcelona is 90 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with high cost of living locations.  An expatriate moving from Victoria to Barcelona will experience a change in cost of living of 33.5%.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Barcelona is ranked as a minimal hardship location with a hardship index of 10% compared to Victoria with a hardship index of 20% which is a some hardship location.

Source: Cost of Living Barcelona Spain as at July 2011.