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The unreal conditional, and why the north tempts people
The imperfect subjunctive is where Spanish gets easier rather than harder, and it is worth saying so plainly at the start of B2. Its forms are entirely derived from the preterite you already know, it adds no new irregular stems, and the construction it lives in — si plus imperfect subjunctive plus conditional — is one pattern that covers every hypothetical you will ever need. Compared to the present subjunctive at lesson 57, which required learning which expressions trigger it, this is a single rule. What learners do get wrong is the si clause, and the error is imported from English. Because English tolerates if I would have in speech, the instinct is to put a conditional after si. Spanish does not allow it under any circumstances, and the mistake is conspicuous because native speakers never make it. Si tuviera, never si tendría. As for what Sofía and Alex are imagining: the pull of the north is real and the arithmetic they sketch is roughly right. Bilbao, San Sebastián and Santander have higher wages and higher rents than most of Spain, excellent food, cool summers and a great deal of rain. The Basque Country in particular has among the highest GDP per head in the country, a consequence of heavy industry that was restructured rather than abandoned — which is lesson 74's subject. Madrid, by contrast, has the jobs, the connections and three hundred days of sun, and the trade-off between them is one Spaniards debate constantly. Sofía's advice is what a Spanish friend would actually say: probar un verano primero. Northern summers are the region at its best, which makes them a misleading sample — the honest test is a February.