Category: notes

Many thanks to all who gave us some feedback on the future of Notes from Spain.

The main conclusion (yours and ours) was not to meddle too much and to carry on doing what we have been doing so far, which essentially means producing lots of podcasts and, to an extent, making the rest up as we go along! So nothing will change too much, but we certainly do intend to expand in new interesting directions.

For a start we hope to get the Spanish conversations going a bit better in the forums (maybe with the help of some competitions – if anyone wants to offer a prize, please contact me!), we want to add more video and pictures (including billboards and ad hoardings, as requested 😉 ), we are going to make it possible to put your video in the forums and, above all, we want to carry on building on and encouraging the fantastic Spain and Spanish-loving community we have in the forums.

Finally, we want to make NFS more useful, by offering useful services to visitors to the site. I have no idea what that means yet, but our aim has always been to make this one of the best Spain sites on the net, and as such the more useful it is the better. Any ideas?

One of my favourite bits of your feedback, which we shall try to follow to the letter, was that it is better to be “slightly arnarchic, unplanned and flexible. Embracing serendipity, idulging your instincts and seeing where it takes you could, as it has, be the most successful plan.” Sounds like fun to me!

Today is ‘Armed Forces Day’ in Spain, with a big military parade and fly-by here in Madrid. Marina and I were standing on our terrace watching the fighter jets zoom by on their way to the King and other assembled dignitaries in the Castellana, when I felt a strange sensation, a stirring of emotion… it took me a few seconds to realise what this was: pride! An unprovoked feeling of pride at seeing the Spanish planes flying overhead! This is getting worrying…

Right, we are off to the beach to make some more podcasts. We’re taking all your great feedback with us, to think about what lies ahead for NFS. Worry not though, nothing much will change, just more content, more podcasts, more videos and, hopefully, more great involvement from you lot!

If so these groups might interest you: I LOVE learning Spanish!, set up by me, or Catavino – For Spanish and Portuguese Wine Lovers and Ex-Patriots in Spain, set up by Ryan at Catavino.net.

Personally, I’m new to all this social networking business, but it looks fun to explore for a while!

Notes from Spain is over a year and a half old now and has grown into something neither Marina or I could have imagined. Most of this has been due to your involvement – commenting on the blog, listening to the podcasts, and joining in over at the forum. And now we find we have a vast project on our hands. NFS podcasts and posts cover travelling in Spain, living and working in Spain, food, not to mention the Notes in Spanish side of things. So, the question we would love you to answer, below in the comments, by e-mail, or in the forum, is, what would you like to change? What would you like to see more focus on? More travel? More about living and working here? More about (our) daily life in Spain? At the moment it feels like we have a (big and friendly!) monster on our hands, and we’d love to steer it gently into the future! Your opinions really count. Most of the good ideas on this site have come from you, the readers/listeners, forum-goers, so, please let us know what you think. Thanks, Ben and Marina.

Ben and Marina will be on holiday in the UK from September 23rd until September 30th, so I won’t be posting here on NFS this week. We will still be logging in to the forums every day however, and posting at Notes in Spanish.

So, until next week, why not come and say hi in the forum? – Ben and Marina

Head over to the Notes from Spain forum to take part in the latest NFS photo quiz. There are 10 photos from all over Spain, can you name the location and answer the questions?

The photo above is from question 7: It’s the interior wall of a bar, which is located in the Spanish city in the photo. Can you name the city and the river? Good luck!

Frank Gehry has done it again, this time for La Rioja, building a 42 million euro Bilbao Guggenheim look-a-like for Spanish wine producer Marques de Riscal.

Vast purple and silver titanium wings shield the interior from the sun, hiding a 5 star hotel and wine spa (apparently you bathe in the stuff that gave you the hangover that sent you to the spa in the first place…) At anywhere between 300 and 1200 Euros a room, most of us will have to be content with seeing the complex from outside, or, that failing, on low quality youtube videos. So what do you think, a blot on the landscape, or genius contrast of old Spain and the new? More info over at Expatica.com.

Just a quick reminder that all of the Notes in Spanish podcasts are now over at NotesinSpanish.com. There’s a new advanced Spanish podcast out today, and the second intermediate Spanish podcast will follow hot on its heels tomorrow. ¡Hasta pronto!

It’s been a busy few weeks at NFS, not only have we moved all the Spanish podcasts over to Notes in Spanish.com, but we have finally launched the Notes in Spanish Intermediate Podcast! We have big plans for this new site, including great new features like the Spanish Phrase of the Week. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Whenever we make a Cuisine from Spain podcast I’m curious about whether the ingredients we use can be found elsewhere. One of our listeners, Jacqui Aitken, has come to the rescue of anyone living in London… (which has given me an idea…)

“During the podcast you asked whether people could get a hold of fresh pimientos del padron where they were in the world. I am sure you probably have had lots of replies but in London I have been able to buy them at a couple of stalls in Borough Market including Brindisa, and at J Garcia on Portobello Road. They do come sealed in plastic bags and are not cheap, but nice for a treat in between visits to Spain. I also have them often at La Rueda on Clapham High Street, the people who run it are from A Coruna so I guess it is their signature dish.”