Oh goodness, I need your help again. How can I choose an NFS Flickr pic of the month from this lot? Just have a look through the photos on the most recent four pages (which roughly correspond to March) and tell me which you like best. The quality is astounding. Let me know your favourites, and I’ll publish them here later this week.

Many thanks to Jill for sending this in:

The tomb of Santa Librada is in the sacristy of the Cathedral of Siguenza. In the Middle Ages Santa Librada was the patron saint of prostitutes and by extension became the patron saint of women in labour. Apparently pregnant women (would) go to Siguenza cathedral to recite the following:

Santa Librada,
Santa Librada,
que la salida
sea tan dulce
como la entrada!

… which means:

Santa Librada,
May the way out
Be as sweet
As the way in!

Gracias por ponerse en contacto con nosotros.

Esperamos contactarle en un plazo de 20 días laborables.

Gracias

Equipo de Atención al Cliente de easyJet

Which roughly translates as “We’ll answer your tiny question about changing a name on a flight some time in the next four weeks”… Wow, that’s speed for you! Outsourcing their customer service to Spain may not have been such a good idea. Still, better than finding a caterpillar in your sandwich.

Two days left until we announce the winner of our “500 things to do in Spain before you die competition“, so get those final entries in fast! Remember, you have a chance to win an iPod Shuffle and all entries will end up in a book designed to raise money for charity.

To inspire you I’ve included a few great examples below, the first two on Barcelona from our man in the Catalan Capital, Dave Hall:

“Play Russian Roulette with the Piminientos de Padrón (some are hot, some are not!) along with other truly great quality tapas at the Ciutat Comtal restaurant on La Rambla de Catalunya. It’s always busy so you might struggle to get in, but the food, service, and atmosphere are all definitely well worth it.”

“Go and see the Magic Fountains located between the twin towers of Plaza España and the grand entrance to Montjuic. Aside from the Olympic stadium of course, the fountains were the centrepiece for the 1992 Games and the nightly shows are amazing, combining huge amounts of water and light to make a dazzling effect, and many shows are also set to music. Check the timetables on the internet before you go, for more details, as there’s a reduced program during the winter.”

Katie, who writes at the excellent España Profunda blog sent in this entry on a very appealing hotel near the lost city of Teruel:

“Hang out with trout in the heart of El Maestrazgo. Deep in a valley in the middle of nowhere Teruel, Aragón, you’ll find a lovely hotel surrounded by some of the most spectacular scenery in all of Spain. The Hostal de la Trucha is styled tastefully like an old hunting lodge and sits on the Río Pitarque next to a small fish farm that provides the hotel with trout every morning for the day’s meals. To top it off, there are plenty of well-marked hiking trails in the area.”

Send in your entries (by email only please) while there is still time!

Table manners in Spain can be a minefield for the uninitiated. Imagine, you are on a language program, sit down for the first meal with your host family, and wonder why they are doing those weird things with their bread…

Well, here are 5 quick rules to start with, perhaps you can add more in the comments:

1. Dipping your bread in the soup. Don’t you dare! Big faux pas (excuse my French, how do you say that in Spanish?) But…

2. Do use your bread as another piece of cutlery. Strange this one. Spanish people will often hold a fork in their right hand, and a small piece of bread in the left, which is then used to help push food gently onto the fork. Not really acceptable behavior in restaurants, but no problem en familia, and actually pretty handy - saves chasing those last few peas around the plate.

3. Get your elbows off the table! But put those hands where I can see them! Either side of your plate, muy bien. Hands left in laps are no friends to the Spanish dining table (and bad for your eyesight, or something).

4. Big spoons are for soups, lentils, beans etc (platos de cucharra), desert is to be eaten with something the size of a teaspoon. Very frustrating at times! Don’t be surprised to receive a small knife and fork with your croissant/morning tostada either - strange I know, but saves washing sticky hands afterwards.

5. Don’t stop talking for too long! Noise is key to any good family meal in Spain. Try to talk to the person diagonally opposite you, and shout if you have to make yourself heard, which is quite likely as everyone else in the room is also talking to the person diagonally opposite them as well. So rare is silence at a the Spanish table that they have an expression for such occasions based on an equally improbable event: “Ha pasado un angel!” - An angel has just flown over the table!

Any more Spanish table manners hints I’ve missed? What customs do you find strange in Spain?

Katie at España Profunda lists 10 Reasons NOT to go to Fallas. Here’s a snippet for the puritans at no.8:

8. Don’t go if you don’t like to drink and dance in the street. To me, this is one of the essences of Fallas, the verbenas: outdoor bars often accompanied by a stage with live music or a DJ and, if you’re lucky, a scantily clad young lady dancing up there and shaking her thang. This last bit has shocked many of my friends. All I can say to you is that the Spaniards are very open people when it comes to bodies.

… also evident if you stroll down any Mediterranean beach in July!

Years ago Alistair Wood and I used to put on joint photographic exhibitions here in Madrid, now hard work and other responsibilities mean we have been reduced to adding ourselves to each other’s Flickr contact list! Judging from the quality of his photos these days that is probably a good thing! Sharing wall space with photos like the one above, of visitors to Madrid’s new 11M bombings memorial, could be pretty taxing! To see more of Alistair’s photos of the memorial, and trips through Spain and beyond, check out his Flickr pages.

You can read about our exhibitions of yesteryear in Errant in Iberia, and watch a Spanish video blog about the 11M memorials over at notesinspanish.com

High up in the tapas hierachy, this dish can come at a heavy price considering the fact that you are just getting a plate of broad beans and a few off-cuts of ham: 9 to 15 euros sounds about right, depending on just how smart the establishment is. But you have to bear in mind that these are not just any ordinary broad beans - these are baby broad beans, plucked from the pod long before they reach maturity. Picking the beans when they are still the size of your finger nail (rather than half your thumb) means they are twice as tasty, and combined with snippets of top quality jamon and virgin olive oil, you have one of the finest delicacies on the Spanish tapas scene.

Bread is essential for mopping up with afterwards, along with a nice glass of chilled Rueda white to wash it all down of course. If you still think the dish is overpriced, bear in mind that a tin of the baby beans, or habitas, will set you back around 5 euros alone from food shops smart enough to sell them… compared with less than a euro for Heinz baked beans at the supermercado!

Thanks to Gary and all those that suggested the Tapa of the week series.

 

 Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download            

Recovering from just one day at Las Fallas this year means that is has taken me nearly 5 days to get this podcast, video, photos etc together. I highly recommend listening to the podcast before you watch the video below, but that may be just a personal preference - I always find it better to let audio work on the imagination before seeing the real thing!

Bits and bobs:

More Fallas photos can be found in our Flickr set

31 dogs go missing (Spanish article) in Las Fallas, scared out of their wits by endless explosions!

Spartan edge has some more great photos and a video of a buning Falla.

Wikipedia has more on the history of the event.

Come and join the discussion in our forum!

Maundy thursday, April 5th, is one of the big days in Seville’s Semana Santa Calendar. Easter processions will be taking place across a packed city that takes itself very, very seriously at this time of the year. The processions themselves involve solemn lines of devotees dressed in robes that look alarmingly like the Klu Klux Klan’s official garb, something which must be exceedingly annoying for the Spanish, who obviously dressed like this first. These parades will be spectated upon by the rest of the city, who all turn out in their best smocks and suits.

So what happens when you drop a few thousand drunken English football louts into this staunchly traditionalist environment, at a time of year when even simple tourists in shorts and T-shirts are practically hissed off the streets? Well, we are about to find out. April 5th sees a home game in the city between Sevilla FC and Tottenham Hotspur. Seville town council has asked football’s governing body, UEFA, to reschedule the match to another date after Easter, and, much to the town council’s horror, UEFA said no. As one of the tourists that has been tutted at for daring to dress down at Easter in this often obnoxiously precocious city, I am tempted to say ‘Bring it on!’ But that would be childish. Let’s hope both parties behave with dignity and mutual respect on this important occasion. Some chance of that!

More in Spanish here.