Christmas is coming !!

Commercials announce new toys, Disney channel only broadcasts Santa's movies, it's freaking cold and stores are full of ugly sweaters. In addition your neighbour a huge number of lights around his house what seems a strip club in the night. Christmas is here!!!

But how Spaniers celebrate this days?

In our culture most of free days have a religious meaning so soon we will see all around Spain parades and representations of Christ birth. People celebrate this party even if they aren't religious, because it is rooted deeply in our culture since the middle ages.

The traditions may differ from family to other. Here we go with some pictures about the most common ones:

The recreation of the Jesus' birth is called "Belen" and often appear the three wise men, romans, shepherds, a  donkey, a mule, an angel....

Some representations have the "caganer" representing a boy pooping. Yes, it is a real and serious tradition. Quite funny at the same time so there are a lot of joke figures to put in the Belen.

And of course, the famous christmas tree, where Santa Claus (Papa Noel) leaves presents to the good kids and two weeks after, the three wise men will leave more presents again (So...we receive presents twice!!). As always, it depends of the family. Sometimes they don't celebrate anyone or they do both :

In Christimas Eve families gather as here in Thanksgiving day. Most of families spend Christmas and the Three wise men day with different parts of the family, in that way you meet your whole family in this vacations.

As you imagine, there are several banquets in these days and most of times people get some extra pounds in this days eating paella, seafood, soups, steaks, fish...

The most typical food before Three Wise Men Day is the "roscon" , a kind of sponge cake

The Spanish map

When people hear the word Spain, they think in Sevillanas, Bulls races, Sangria, paella, sun, and sometimes in some museums but wait...there are different "Spains" because you are not going to find the same stuff in Barcelona than Sevilla, as fact, you are not going to have the same culture in New England than Hawaii.

Let's start with the basics of Spanish culture:

Spain is formed by 17 communities, Balearic Islands and Canary Islands and two exclaves in Africa (Ceuta and Melilla). We also have other exclave in Africa, but there are only military troops in that place. The capital is Madrid with 3 million of inhabitants (47 million in all of Spain) .

The distribution of Spain's Autonomous Communities  is this:




And its Autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla:





So our little travel starts here:

Galicia is a idillic paradise full of forests and well-rooted culture based in the ancient christian traditions. Is famous in whole Europe for the "Camino de Santiago" (St. James way) , a group of pilgrimage routes that cross different Spanish Communities, even other countries as France or Portugal, to the shrine of the apostle St. James, in the "Catedral of Santiago de Compostela".



Pilgrims enjoy this way because it is a spiritual reinforcement (most of people who do it is not religious and they do it for other motives as oaths or promises, or even only for fun), an awesome opportunity to meet new people and talk with them about stuff that you wouldn't say to no one of your friends. A very recommended experience that you should do before die.



Asturias has a landscape similar to Galicia, but its weather in winter is really cloudy and rainy.  Cousine here is awesome. The most typical dishes of the north you will find it here. The most known dish is the "fabada" a kind of stew. Incredible taste despite of its appearance.


The Basque country is an international cousin tourist destination. This Community has inside most of the best contemporary restaurants as "Fulli", "Arzak" or "Akelarre", famous all around the world. Sometimes if you want to book a table you should wait for 2 years. The rest of typical restaurants always offer the classical dish from dish region, a "tapa" with a bread base and a stick, called "Pintxo"

  Bilbao is the capital of this region and is also the focus of the contemporary art in Spain, with the Guggenheim museum, with the same level as other international museums like the MOMA of New york.

Barcelona. Most of tourists that came to Spain only visit this city and they fell that they have visited the whole Spain. However the truth is that the region that envolves Barcelona (Catalonia) is really different from the rest of my homeland. They have as second official lenguage the Spanish because their culture is really rich and they have created another lenguage along the history, the catalonian. People there speaks both lenguages, so don't get confused if you travel there. Is a beautiful city focused in the tourism economy where the architecture and the gastronomy create an atmosphere that is unique.

Tourists make cues of hours for observe the "Sagrada Familia" (right), the awesome cathedral that is still being built by experts, because the original architect, Gaudi, died without ending this monument (100 years ago). What you find at the left with its characteristic sharpe is the Agbar tower. Really cool to see in the darkness full of lights.





The Valencian zone is really famous for his agriculture, well known for growing the best oranges all around the world. But people visit Alicante, Valencia and Benidorm for their awesome weather in summer (only one cloudy day as average) and beautiful beaches crowed of people seeking for a seat in the sand. Some famous parties there are "Las Fallas" where sculptors create huge "ninots", sculptures made with cumbustible materials because, after a competition, the losers will burn.

Other famous party here is "Las hogeras de San Juan" (Saint John's bonfires) where people go to the beach to jump through bonfires and get drunk.

For being more short, I have to say that most of Spanish parties are made for get drunk having fun with your family so I want to tell you about other parties around Spain with similar background.

San Fermines: A huge amount of people dressed white with red hankies running out like hell because a group of bulls pursuit them. Between "race" and "race" people can do tourism around the city (there are only bars)

Wine's battle: People with water guns filled with wine, buckets of the same alcohol or any kind of way to make a weapon to throw wine celebrate once per year a war between the inhabitants of the little town of Haro (La Rioja). Everyone gets soaked and everyone repeats the experience (Personally i would want to go)

The "Tomatina": The same idea as before but with tomatoes. Considered the world's biggest food fight. You will find this party in  Buñol (Valencia)

Seville April Fair: The most typical stuff will be found here. Sevillanas, flamenco, Spanish food, fresh fish, and party. The festival is organized around various streets surrounded by little places rented by a group o friends, a wealthy family, restaurants or dancing places. During a week a lot of Spanish artists show their skills dancing, playing the guitar or singing flamenco, rumba or sevillanas. Perfect place to be inmersed in the ancient culture.

Finally...Madrid!!...Spain's capital full of history, art, politics and sports (Real Madrid rocks babe!). Probably i can tell you only about people and nightlife. This city is a gathering of people from all around the world (China, Germany, France, Africa...) with a great young population because there are numerous universities around. A classical tradition in this place of Spain is to take a walk in San Isidro's day and eat typical food in a famous hill 

This city is organized by different neighborhoods where you will find what are you looking for. Some examples are "La Latina" (nightlife and bars), "Serrano" (expensive purchases), "Chueca" (gay neighborhood)...Everywhere is connected with the public underground so won't find any problem to explore the magic city

The Ebola's lie

As journalist some times we have to touch tough issues, as now, Ebola.
There is a little outbreak of this illness in Spain, USA and of course, West Africa, but, seriously, why population of the whole world thinks that is going to die soon? Probably in one year no one is going to talk about this disease; it happened the same with the "mad cow disease", "pig influenza" or the "avian flu".

All this kind of "journalist's epidemias" starts at the same way:
1-Detetected an outbreak of (lets call it virusW) in the heart of Africa (really often)
2-VirusW is spread everywhere and everyone is going to die, no one knows a cure
3-Information about virusW in all the tvnews and journals, we start to see campaigns for donate money, campaigns for have clean habits...
4-The OMS starts to move money, caused by people's paranoia.
5- The Pharmacy Industries create a kind of miracle solution that eliminates the affliction but the states have to pay a great amount of money, that sometimes is only a placebo (see Tamiflu chase HERE )
6-And LATER, in maybe one month, no one remembers or care about virusW and is forgotten

Actually there are more people dying with other diseases like plain flu, Malaria or HIV than Ebola (Ebola only killed 3500 persons since 1970, the 0.000003% of the actual population of the world). Bio mathematicians studied this illness and they said that this is not going to be a long-time new.

Of course, it exists and is a real drama for the people who lives inside of affected countries, but the first world countries shouldn't be frightened and the paranoia is the real disease.

If you want to be a real journalist, contrast, search and look for real information in different media.

Are Spaniards still trading with mirrors?

Actually the Spanish construction companies work in foreign countries because the economical crisis paralyzed all the indoor projects. OHL (Qatar's underground), FCC (Arabia Saudi's underground), ACS, Ferrovial, Indra and others in the high speed train to The Mecca. This are only some of the several projects of Spain outside.

But not all of them go as they should.

Sacyr is building the Panama Canal expansion, in 2015 should be finished and the American country would amortize the cost in some years. This shortcut created by the human generates 6 millions of dollars per day and with the expansion will generate 12 millions per day. The government are really interested in this project but the Spanish company swindled the cost prices and Panama should pay more of they expected.

Around a hundred of Panamanians after know this new, they made a strike around the city, ending in the Spanish embassy, grabbing mirrors in their hands as symbol of protest against Spain and his company. But...why mirrors?

The little mirrors were a symbol of the time when Spanish were colonizing Central America and we took natives gold, changing it by mirrors, sold as "magic items". This is a metaphor of what happened there; Sacyr took the "gold" with a cheat in their accounts.

I have to say that the whole population is not angry with Spain, they are specially with this company but this issue broke the confidence between both countries and other spanish companies are having troubles to trade there and have benefits.

 A path to unite oceans have separated countries

First meeting of King Felipe VI with Obama since accesion to throne

Yesterday the spanish international leader met with Obama in New York looking for covenant new international relations in the future for improve both countries and have a solution for global warming.


The link to the new is here

Starting Blog

Hey Americans, Do you want to know something new about Europe? What happens actually between UK and Spain? Probably not, but I would want to tell you about Gibraltar, a little town that freaks out everyone in Spain

Gibraltar is owned by the english crown and is located here, in the south part of Spain

Until 1704, Gibraltar was from spain and was a strategical point to control the mediterranean sea. British noticed that and they invaded only this town when Spain had a succesion civil war. And spaniards didn't try to recover it because the monarchy of that time didn't want to have problems with England.

As the years go by, Gibraltar has become in a fiscal paradise with the backup of England and companies use this place to "wash" money or have less taxes.


What does it mean?

Mafias use this place to introduce drugs and tobacco and earn money (a box of 20 cigars cost 2 euros or 2.6 dollars while in Spain it costs 5 euros or 6.5 dollars and in America, 10 dollars aprox.). So the Spanish government lose per year millions of euros and all Europe too with the smuggling.

Another fact is the number of registered companies there...30.000, more or less the same number of inhabitants!!!...There is a company per person...It's impossible that a child of 3 years old has a company, so...what happens?

Several business traspass a little part of their company to here, maybe only a paper signed, for evade taxes that they should pay in Europe. Gibraltar is a kind of land called "off-shore" where these pratices are legal...For another hand, Spain and Europe have lost millions of euros in taxes and we can't stop him because could be an international conflict with England.

And this is only the peak of the iceberg...A year ago an atomic submarine went to spanish waters (because the sea that is around the town belongs to Spain) and landed in Gibraltar's port because it needed a reparation in the core. Yes, british could repaired in England, but if happens something dangerous such as an nuclear explosion, better do it far away, in Spanish territory...And no one can say what to do to England