We’ve almost always found the laundries in Spain to be spotlessly clean and well-appointed with good baskets, tables, coin-exchange machines. We did the laundry a few days ago in Portugalete and to our surprise it was really dirty and no coin machine. Even stuff on the floor you could trip over. We didn’t want walk to a further one in the rain so we went ahead and used the creepy one.
Today, the laundry here in Santander was back to the good standards. As soon as we took our clothes out of the dryer, the properietor came out and started cleaning the outside and inside of the dryer. Later I noticed a sign that said: “The machines are disinfected after each wash.” (Top right sign below.) I imagine that is something left over from covid.
Now for the “coffee” part of the story. There was a bar next door. After we put the clothes in the dryer, we ran over and ordered two cafés con leche. We had planned to drink them quickly at the bar but I didn’t feel comfortable leaving the clothes for long so asked the bar tender if we could take the cups next door and she gave me a big smile and said “claro que sí” (“of course!”). And, of course, we hadn’t paid for them yet — you do that when you are done with the coffee.
Astute readers may have noticed the sign at the bottom right of the top photo that one might interpret as “no food or drink” but (1) we hadn’t noticed that sign till we’d already brought in the coffee and (2) Charlie, the sign expert, said that it meant “no hamburgers and coke.”
I’m sure the clothes would have been safe. Still… better safe than sorry.
Yes, I felt silly being worried about it. Chances were probably about 1 out of 1,000,000 that someone would make off with our dryer-load.
I like Charlie’s interpretation of the sign.