Author: Ben

Best beaches in Spain – Spanish secrets revealed!

Post author By Ben
Post date July 21, 2006

Beaches in Spain

In recent weeks I have been keeping an eye on El Mundo’s ‘Fotoverano’ feature, where readers upload their holiday snaps, thinking that it would provide an interesting sociological picture of today’s Spain: instead all we get is loads of photos of kids (maybe it amounts to the same thing!)

Much more interesting then is the 20 Minutos feature on readers’ favourite Spanish beaches – endless photos of Spain’s best kept sandy secrets sent in by what the paper is calling ‘citizen journalists’. Great stuff. Have a nice weekend! (Picture above by Lidia Sánchez Barceló via 20minutos.com)

Cuisine from Spain Podcast Spanish Food and Drink

Cuisine from Spain podcast no. 10 – Grilling!

Post author By Ben
Post date July 20, 2006

[Download MP3]

The Catavino crew come round for some serious grilling (that’s Barbequing to us Brits 😉 ), while we chat about grilling culture in Spain and abroad, fine Spanish wines, why Spanish ingredients are so good, and Marina tells us about two great summer salads. This podcast goes hand in hand with the almost simultaneously recorded podcast over at Catavino radio, where we do some serious wine tasting before the food chat here gets underway.

Discuss this episode in the Cuisine from Spain forum.

Spanish

In Spanish: ETA assasins and civil war memories

Post author By Ben
Post date July 20, 2006

Thanks to The Big Chorizo for pointing me to an incredible article about the founder of El Mundo interviewing an old school mate who joined ETA, and was sent to assassinate him at a basketball match. There is also a snippet of video on the El Mundo blog.

And staying with my favourite on-line paper, they have a beautiful feature on the 70th anniversary of the civil war, featuring people that are still around to tell their tales – even if the Spanish is beyond you, the faces are wonderful…

Spain Travel

Free Spain Travel Advice at NFS

Post author By Ben
Post date July 19, 2006

What’s the one thing you would really like to know about traveling in Spain? Ask us in the Notes from Spain forums! Marina and I have traveled far and wide in this wonderful country, and the other forum members have covered much more ground besides. So if there’s one question (or as many as you like, in fact) that you’d really like to ask about travel in Spain: register in the forums and ask away!

(P.S. the same goes for learning Spanish and Spanish cuisine – we’d love to help!)

Spanish

Free iPod Spanish phrase book

Post author By Ben
Post date July 18, 2006

“lastminute.com has tapped into the genius of coolgorilla to release the first ever free interactive iPod Spanish phrasebook. With over 750 sound files this will transform your iPod into a portable phrasebook”

Definitely worth checking out. Installation may take a few minutes but you’ll end up with a nice Spanish lady gently whispering key words from your iPod.

Living in Spain Notes from Spain Podcast

Notes from Spain podcast no. 43 – Moving to Spain

Post author By Ben
Post date July 17, 2006

[Download MP3]

In response to Steve W’s post about moving to Spain, we add our two pennies worth on the first things you’ll need to sort out once you hit these sunny shores. Good luck to Steve, Pepino and all the rest of you that make this fantastic decision!

Some of the sites we mention in the podcast: for info on getting things sorted in Barcelona, try Barcelona Connect. We recommend Open Bank for on-line banking, Loquo for flat hunting (and much more!), Infojobs for jobs, and Asisa for private medical care.

Discuss this podcast in the forums.

NFS Spain Photos Spanish Culture and News

NFS Spain Photo: All Spain in the corner of one bar?

Post author By Ben
Post date July 16, 2006

click image to enlarge

Not all Spain, maybe, but a lot of it. There’s the coffee machine, that hissing, steaming, rattling altar piece found in every Spanish bar, the fans, with all their connotations of the ‘old Spain’ that you still find in evidence everywhere today, and the ‘Nunca Mais’ sticker, written in Gallego but proudly displayed here in Madrid, a protest against an oil spill that saw people from all over Spain flocking to Galicia to help each other out. Photo by Ben.

Spanish Culture and News

El Mundo sex blog! Only in Spain…

Post author By Ben
Post date July 13, 2006

Yes, only in Spain would one of the countries biggest national newspapers have a raunchy sex blog on their website, and, what’s more, advertise it in pride of place on their homepage.

Daily entries includes such salubrious topics as With or Without Penetration, Unfortunate Erections, and today’s Sex in the Water, which asks readers “¿Te va el polvo acuático?” (Do you like underwater shagging?)

The comments section leaves us in no doubt as to the answer: “El sexo en el agua es ideal para probar las posturas más acrobáticas” (it’s great for the more acrobatic positions), though my favourite has to be: “Muy buena fantasia para alguien que no tiene piscina privada y está a 400 kilómetros de la playa mas cercana. Se aceptan otras sugerencias.” (Great fantasy for someone that lives 400 km from the beach and doesn’t have a private pool. Other suggestions are welcome)!

In the NFS forums: its a great blog for learning useful new vocab!

Spain Video Spanish

Who says Spanish girls never get drunk?

Post author By Ben
Post date July 12, 2006

This lady was recently sacked from new TV channel La Sexta, for being blatantly drunk on the job…

(Direct youtube link)
See also: Spanish article in El Correo Gallego

Spanish Culture and News

Will tourism kill the Med?

Post author By Ben
Post date July 11, 2006

“The more pristine and beautiful a place is, the more people want to visit. Yet, as more and more people visit, the environmental and social impacts can destroy the very reasons for their coming in the first place… Seventy percent of the foreign tourists visiting the Spanish coasts say they do not intend to return – the main reason given is overcrowding.”

…overcrowding that is killing the biodiversity of the Mediterranean, and yet they keep on building, new golf courses keep opening, and new crowds keep coming. Read the full Greenpeace report and join us in the NFS forums to decide what could be done about it.