Abroad in Spain: Travel Blog

Visitors view the humongous Nativity of the Burgos Cathedral.

I have memories from when I was a child of helping my mother set up the Christmas tree and the Nativity set in our home.  I never really liked doing the task that much because there were always so many lights to put on the tree and so many little figures to put into the Nativity set.  In fact, I’m sure my mother would tell you that I complained quite a bit about having to do the chore. 

It turns out that I probably shouldn’t have complained so much.  Why?  My mother’s Nativity set was nothing compared to the monstrous ”Nativity on steroids” of the Burgos Cathedral.  In fact, I think my mom’s Nativity contained a Joseph, a Mary, a Baby Jesus, the Three Wise Men, and a couple of camels… it probably had no more than ten pieces.  The Nativity set of the Burgos Cathedral, on the other hand, contains over 1,200 pieces.  How’d you like to be the guy who has to put that thing up?  

All joking aside, it’s not all that uncommon to put up a very large Nativity set here in Spain.  Continue reading this post…

As part of the Christmas festivities in Burgos, a "Christmas Fair" was set up in the Plaza Mayor in which people purchased crafts from local vendors.

I’ve decided to title this post “Merry (ongoing) Christmas.”  You may be asking yourself why I’ve put the word “ongoing” in the title and the answer is really rather simple: in Spain, Christmas is not over yet.  In fact, I’ve discovered that the Spanish love to “make the most” of their holidays — no matter how big or how small they are — and that’s exactly what they’ve done with Christmas (you’ll see what I mean in a moment).  Continue reading this post…

Signs advertising the Christmas Lottery are EVERYWHERE in Burgos.

I was walking home from a class tonight when I noticed a small “pattern” start to emerge: lighted signs advertising the “Christmas Lottery” were on just about every street corner.  I always knew that Spaniards were a little crazy about their “Lotería de Navidad;” but, I guess I’ve never before noticed the extremes to which the craziness goes. 

If you’re not familiar with the Christmas Lottery in Spain, it’s basically a huge lottery drawing held around Christmas that the entire country buys a ticket for (or maybe two tickets, or sometimes three tickets, and there are probably cases of people buying four tickets, or five, but certainly not more than six… or seven).  The truth is that the popularity of this lottery is unbelievable.

Since I’m not Spanish, I don’t totally understand the attraction to the Christmas Lottery — I suppose your odds of winning are higher or the jackpot is bigger, but since I don’t play I’m not really sure.  In any event, I can tell you that people stand in long lines to buy Christmas Lottery tickets at places where winning tickets have been sold in the past and, in general, the entire population goes “crazy” buying up all the tickets in existence in places like tobacco shops, bars, and official lottery retail outlets. 

So, if you’re Spanish and you’ve bought a ticket for the Christmas Lottery this year, let me wish you all the “suerte” in the world… and please, do leave me a comment explaining what you think is the attraction to the Christmas Lottery in Spain.  Continue reading this post…

During the winter, churros stands like this one begin to crop up all over Burgos. It’s easy to eat these delicious delicacies; however, it’s somewhat more complex to order them.

The winter has finally arrived to Burgos. The days are darker, the temperatures are lower, and the people of the city are sporting their “Eskimo attire” to combat the cold. Of course, if you don’t like bundling up to stay warm, you could try another “heat-seeking” technique: eating freshly made churros.

Since the weather has begun to get colder, churros stands (like the one pictured above) have been popping up all over the place around the city. For those of you who don’t know what churros are, they’re basically rod-shaped pieces of fried dough that are covered in sugar — the Spanish version of the doughnut. The truth is, nothing quite warms you up on a winter day like some freshly fried churros along with a little hot chocolate to accompany them.

Despite their delectable goodness, ordering churros from a street vendor posed a bit of a problem for me when I first moved to Spain.  It turns out that ordering churros is more difficult than you might think.    Continue reading this post…

A spectacular view of one of the largest altarpieces in the Cathedral of Burgos. Whether you’re Catholic or not, it’s impressive to look at.

Not too long ago I wrote a post about the exterior of the Cathedral of Burgos, a thirteenth century Catholic Cathedral.  As far as cathedrals in Spain go, this one is a bit on the famous side — and it’s no wonder why.  The building itself is beautiful. 

Just the other day I paid another trip to the Burgos Cathedral and I decided to expand upon my last post by taking some photos of the interior of the building to share with you.  As you can see, the interior is very ornate and beautiful.  Still, what’s really amazing to me is the fact that practically all of the art housed in this cathedral (sculptures, statues, altarpieces, etc.) dates back centuries.  To put it in perspective for you, work on this cathedral began before the continent of America was even discovered by Christopher Columbus — that’s a long time for a bunch of “old statues” to survive.  Continue reading this post…

Last month I picked up my new foreigner residency card at the police station so that I could be “legal” for another year in Spain.  This was the first time I have actually had to renew my card from within Spain and I must say that the process, while extremely interesting to me as a foreigner (I’d never seen anything quite like it in my life), was not exactly what I would consider “seamless.” 

To give you an idea of what I had to do to get my residency card renewed here in Spain, I’m going to break the process down into steps.  Continue reading this post…