I know this news is about a 2 weeks old, but what the hell is the Aragon Local Government thinking by signing off on this giant casino complex project? (Stupid question, they’re thinking about money of course).

The basic idea is that a beautiful area of wild countryside is going to be turned into the European version of Las Vegas (as if the world needed another Las Vegas…) I suggest you go and read the full story in the Guardian, which states that the project includes “32 casinos, 70 hotels, 232 restaurants and 500 shops”. How lovely.

Once you’ve read it, come back and tell me what on earth the world is coming to when local government votes for sordid, massive, gambling emporium commercial-nightmare-cityscapes over its timeless, irreplaceable natural habitats? Spain The planet truly is in a sorry state.

Further thoughts:

Having seen the sicky promotional video, I think:

1 – Many Spaniards will love it
2 – It includes many lakes and Golf courses, in an area already described as ‘desert’. Good bye water table.

Having just returned from the UK, in the mid-madness break between Christmas and New Year, I was delighted to overhear the following conversation in our local Supermarket, between two ordinary, middle-aged Spanish women:

- “¿Qué tal Nochebuena?”
- “Un coñazo, un coñazo que te cagas…”

Which roughly translates as:

- How was Christmas Eve? (traditional huge family dinner)
- A nightmare, a total *!#*·$-ing nightmare

They then proceeded to lament, in even more colourful language, the fact that all the New Year meals haven’t even started yet!

Which just goes to show, even the average Spaniard finds Christmas in Spain too much sometimes. Oh, and that the average Spaniard swears like a trooper, but we already knew that

OK, I promised I would eventually tell you what I most love about my country of origin. Marina and I have just spent a week in the UK, coming up with the following list (in no particular order!):

1. Help for people in wheelchairs. We were very impressed by how British Rail helped people in wheelchairs on and off trains, and by the number of ‘push here to open’ buttons set up for people in wheelchairs outside shops and offices. I think the UK does very well at helping people with disabilities, though no doubt there is still a long way to go.

2. Marmite, and bangers and mash.

3. International food in supermarkets. Herbs, spices, sauces and ingredients from a huge range of the world’s cuisine can be picked up in a decent-sized supermarket. Not the same in Spain.

4. The British countryside. The rural landscapes in Britain are as majestic, stunning and alluring as any you might find in the rest of the world, all year round. Even in winter, when leafless trees rise out of back-lit, mist-covered hillsides, Britain is astoundingly beautiful.

5. BBC Television and Radio. So what if you have to pay for it, I’m pretty sure it’s worth it.

6. The general standard of living is very high these days. Most people have comfortable houses, big TVs, decent food on the table, and long holidays.

7. The social security/benefits system seems to work. Single mothers with several kids and no work seem to get by one way or another. The NHS may be short of hospital beds but at least all healthcare is free.

8. Loo paper is softer and longer (than that found in Spain).

9. The police are approachable and seem like a decent bunch. One policeman we talked to while waiting for a crashed car to be pulled off an icy road was a thoroughly nice chap. (Spanish police often seem a touch arrogant and uninterested by comparison, but that is a vast generalisation of course).

10. What would you put for number 10?

Hi everyone,

Marina and I want to wish you a very Happy Christmas and New Year, and to thank you enormously for reading, commenting on, listening to, and participating in Notes from Spain this year. We look forward to more in 2008!

The blog will be a bit quiet over the next week as we attend to the rigors of the Spanish Christmas schedule. In the meantime, do join in the discussions in our incredibly friendly forum.

Happy Christmas!

Ben and Marina

Want to have a very Spanish Christmas this year? I recently complained that Spanish Christmas went on much too long, and many thought I was referring to the run-up to Christmas. No. What lasts a long time in Spain is Christmas itself, a veritable test of endurance with big events starting around December 22nd, and running all the way through to January 6th.

Do you think you could take the pace? All I can say is this: here’s hoping you get on well with your family! Let’s run through it, meal by meal, day by day:

December 22nd – El Gordo

Wake up and spend several hours glued to the TV watching small children pulling wooden lottery balls out of a big revolving cage. Discover that you haven’t won El Gordo again this year – it’s going to be split by 28 customers of a small bar in an obscure barrio of Valencia… or Soria… or Avila.

You will however make 20 Euros back on one of the tickets your mother-in-law gave you, narrowly off-setting the 300 Euros you spent on buying and swapping lottery tickets with every friend, workmate and relative you suspected might give one to you.

December 24th – Nochebuena!

The first big family meal of the season, an elaborate dinner of seafood, turrón, maybe piglet, fish, roast beef – it varies, but there’s definitely going to be lots to eat!

December 25th – Navidad

Wake up remembering the argument you had with your bother/sister/dad at last night’s family dinner, and remember… you’re seeing them all again in 3 hours time for a big family lunch! What’s on the menu? No turkey, most likely fish or lamb instead.

And no presents in Spain on the 25th, except in families that have adopted the Father Christmas (Papa Noel) tradition as an excuse for giving their children presents now (rather than waiting until Jan 6th), thus keeping them quiet for the remainder of the holidays. Obviously this is increasingly common – good news for shareholders in El Corte Ingles.

December 26th to December 30th – Run for the hills!

Nothing official programmed, but plenty of scope for at least one family meal, possibly with aunts/uncles/cousins. Update: Another reason to run for the hills (thanks for the reminder rachman) – December 28th is el Dí­a de los Inocentes, the Spanish version of April Fools day. By now you’ll be in no mood for practical jokes, believe me!

December 31st – Nochevieja

The Spanish have a very civilised approach to the biggest anti-climax of the year: get together for a family meal! Instead of fretting for weeks beforehand about which bar or disco isn’t going to be as crap as last year when the clock strikes midnight, they simply meet once again for another enduro-eating experience.

And when the clock does strike 12, it’s traditional to eat one grape per chime. Success means a year of good luck, and sounds pretty easy. But wait until you’ve already got 8 fat grapes stuffed in your mouth and 4 more to go – those chimes come pretty fast! Fortunately there is always a large bottle of Cava on hand, and the grapes are followed by a healthy round of toasts.

January 1st – Año Nuevo

This is where those who were not born into the Spanish Christmas tradition usually break down, crave psychological council, and wonder why they didn’t marry a girl from back home instead.

Waking early on January 1st, hungover, exhausted because you just had to go out last night after the family meal ended at 2 a.m., as you roll out of bed and plant your feet on the bedroom floor, a shocking realisation washes over you… you’re having lunch with the family again in half an hour. The same family you had supper with last night, for crying out loud!

Life has now started to resemble that film, Groundhog Day, where every single day brings about the same set of events: a meal with the family! Another big one too. Hope you’re hungry!

Janurary 6th – Reyes!

The marathon is all but over. Just one more get together with the relatives, usually just an afternoon tea party, and this time the joys of breaking bread with the family once more are enhanced by the giving, at last, of Christmas presents. A general sense of relief washes over the family collective, as real life, moderate eating, and a little time alone once again appear on the horizon.

Could you make it all the way through a family Christmas in Spain?!

If you want to hear more about Christmas in Spain, learn how to pronounce Nochevieja, and sharpen up your Spanish at the same time, then check out our latest Inspired Beginners Podcast, Feliz Navidad, over at NotesinSpanish.com.

I once had an argument with an English friend who suggested that the Spanish don’t work very hard. He thought they spent half their working day having a siesta. I told him that having worked in two companies in Spain, I could say without a doubt that the Spanish work much longer hours than the British and appeared equally, if not more, stressed as a result.

I worked as an English teacher in both companies. The second was a multi-million dollar marketing company, that invoiced its clients hundreds of thousands of euros at a time. By just floating in for a few hours a day (max 24 per week), I earned more than most of the main-floor cubicle workers I was teaching, who worked 60 hour weeks, might come in at weekends without extra renumeration, and were lucky to earn 1,000 euros a month.

They are the so-called mileuristas (great article in El Pais), late-20’s to thirty-somethings with a degree, maybe even a Masters, probably an extra language or two to their name, who just can’t break the 1,000 euros a month barrier no matter who they are working for. Inflation rises, house prices go through the roof, yet salaries in Spain just don’t budge. How is that possible, even when multi-nationals are writing the wage cheques?

Can’t answer that one, but here are a few more things you might not know about work in Spain:

- Many companies still enforce an hour and a half lunch break (as if everyone still worked round the corner from home and wanted to pop back for lunch – now the exception rather than the norm).

- It is still common for women to get paid less for doing the same job as their male colleagues. A female director in the above-mentioned multi-national I worked for said this is because the man is seen as the head of his family, and will need more money to support his household, including, presumably, his low-earning wife.

- Once you get off the cubicle floor and into a managerial position you will earn a more realistic wage, but you’ll be expected to give up the rest of your life to earn it. Don’t expect to be home before 10 at night.

- Working from home is uncommon, but pilot schemes in some companies do let people stay at home once or twice a week.

- A yearly salary is usually split into 14 payments: one per month, and an extra payment of the same amount, the paga extraordinaria, paid once in June or July and once at Christmas.

Conclusion

Working in a Spanish company is tough. You are expected to work long hours for low wages, no matter who you are working for. Multi-million dollar international marketing firm? They’ll pay you little and take their cash for the shareholders, thanks. A Spanish friend of ours works for a multi-million dollar tech company, just outside Madrid, as a mid-level IT consultant with 6 years experience. She has been placed there by her consultancy firm, a large French company. Should be driving a BMW, right? Wrong. She earns less than 2,000 euros a month, probably half what she would earn for the same job in the UK.

If you want an easy life in a Spanish company you have two options. Be the chauffeur driven CEO, or the lowly English teacher.

How does life in your company/country compare?

And finally, also by popular request, my last list of the week. Please feel free to add to it.

The BEST things about Spain:

1. The food – the variation in all the different provinces, from Salmorejo in Cordoba, to Fabada in Asturias, Pinxtos in San Sebastian, Arroz in Valencia, tapas in Leon, and everything else in between!

2. The outdoor lifestyle – who doesn’t love eating, drinking, and living outside?

3. The strong sense of family – Spaniards work hard to keep the family important, it’s a shame other cultures focus less on this as time goes on.

4. The climate. Of course!

5. Spanish wine!

6. The Spanish are generally happy people who take pride in showing others the best of Spain (in many other countries people are often too quick to criticise their own culture, and there us nothing wrong with a bit of national pride).

7. If I don’t say the pretty girls then someone else will!

8. Small traders still giving ‘trato personal’ – the supermarkets haven’t put everyone out of business yet.

9. The landscapes – From the lush green north, to the mighty Pyrenees, the deserts of Almeria, the Alpujarras, the Rias in Galicia, the wilds of Extremadura… the variety is unimaginable until you start to see it all for yourself.

10. What would YOU put for number 10?

OK, so the latest campaign from Spain’s Foundation Against Drug Addiction doesn’t exactly say that drugs are quite attractive and a bit of a laugh, but it might as well!

Headed up by the slogan ‘The Most Dangerous Thing About Drugs is Forgetting what they Really Are’, billboards and press ads all over the country show popular narcotics looking, well, pretty cool. Good plan, that’s really going to discourage kids from taking drugs!

Chocolate anyone?

Join our forum: What would your anti-drugs campaign look like?

Hmmmm…. no deep philosophising about Spanish culture today I’m afraid, just a shout out for a great, and bizarrely named, Spanish cake. Now the Spanish aren’t all that hot when it comes to pastries – this is not France. A Spanish croissant, for example, looks just like the French version, but it’s a poor, dry, and slightly less interesting cousin (which is possibly what the French think about Spain), and the rest of the offerings on display in the bakeries of Madrid have never exactly moved me…

Until that is, I discovered Plum Cake. The only trouble is that for at least a year I felt far too ridiculous saying it to actually buy any. You see not only does Plum Cake have nothing to do with plums – it’s just a rich, moist, melt-on-the-tounge sponge cake with almond chips on top – but it isn’t pronounced anything like our word ‘Plum’ either. Think of the ‘oo’ sound in ‘boom’, and stick a pl- on one end and an -m on the other. ‘Ploom’. That’s it. Now add ‘cake’, just the way we say it in this case, walk into a bakery, order, take home, and hmmmm… heaven.

The one I just picked up is the size of a small loaf of bread, how the hell can I stop myself finishing it before Marina gets home?

Go abroad. Please! A notice to any college student anywhere who may come across this, please take my advice – spending time studying in another country is something you MUST do. I know you were most likely told to never listen to strangers but I beg you, hear me out.

My name is Michael Loiacono and I am a junior studying business at, and through, Syracuse University here in Madrid. Unfortunately, my semester will be coming to a close within the next two weeks so Ben and Marina have asked me to write (for an internship they provided me with – another great experience I can take away from here) a brief reflection/advice entry for any fellow students who may be looking to come to Spain.

But before I get into details let me give you the single most important instruction: JUST GO!

Highlights

To be honest before I came here, I couldn’t have told you the difference between a tosta and a tortilla. But Spanish food is something incredible that once embraced, can allow for some memorable meals.

Spain, and Madrid in particular, is a great jumping board for trips to other countries. It is great to embrace Spanish culture but getting a small feel for places all over Europe is equally exciting. I was able to make trips to Italy, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany, and picking a favorite is nearly impossible. Also, I had peers who made their way out to Portugal, England, Ireland, Czech Republic, Turkey and Greece.

All I can say about these places is that reading a book or browsing online only goes so far. Seeing for yourself is an overwhelming experience that has profoundly changed the way I view people, places, and culture. Truly an eye-opening experience.

Essentials to buy before arrival

While many students like to go out and pick up guide books on what to see and do etc., one thing I have found is that those books do not provide very insightful advice on foods and types of foods. Find a quick and easy guide book to Spanish food. This will make your dining experience much easier and allow you to cipher out your favorites quickly.

My second tip may involve a bit more planning than some like when they travel. But for students it is a great way to save money. Tickets. Those who had planned at least a few trips before they arrived saved much more than those who paid premiums for last minute trips.

My last tip is actually not something to bring but something not to bring. Before you go many people may scramble at the last minute to pick up attire. The truth is, once you are here there are numerous places to find inexpensive, well made and most of all fashionable clothing. Save your money in the U.S. and buy the goods here.

Things I had wish someone had told me before I arrived

Find good places to get good tapas. Once you understand the methodology by which tapas work they are a great way to socialize and enjoy Spanish cuisine.

On the same note the best bars and restaurants tend not to be in any book. Get lost, take a chance and try places that you may walk past, I have found these places to be the most rewarding for food, drinks and nightlife.

Arrive at a restaurant at 1:30 in the afternoon to find it dead and at 2:30 to find a completely packed house. It’s as if the second the clock hits 2, the entire country runs to eat. Good to know when planning your day accordingly… and if you’re coming from America, do not expect the service you are used to, waiters and waitresses do not work for tips here and it translates!

Conclusion

The best way for anything however is to learn for yourself. That is why more than anything I have told you, my most important piece of advice is just to come here. You always hear how great going abroad is, and the fact is that the experience lives up to the hype. Push yourself, and try something that will undoubtedly change your life. Coming abroad has always been something I wanted to do, a dream for me, and these past four months have been nothing short of that.

For a run down of my specific tips for Madrid, head over to notesfrommadrid.com