Abroad in Spain: Travel Blog

I have just found out about an attack by ETA on a Civil Guard barracks and dormitory located in Burgos where I live.  Unfortunately, I do not have a first-hand account to publish on my site because just a few days ago I returned to the USA to visit some friends and family for a couple weeks.  In any event, I’d like to leave a link here on the blog to an article in El País that explains exactly what happened.  According to the article, officers and their families were living in the barracks dormitory at the time of the blast but, despite the amount of people living there, nobody was badly injured.  If I talk with friends in Burgos over the next few days and they have information to add, I’ll try to update this post with that information. 

UPDATE on July 30th, 2009: It appears as though ETA has struck again with another car bomb, this time in Majorca.  At least two police officers were killed in this blast.  Unbelievably, this is now the second attack in a little over 24 hours.  Continue reading this post…

Me with Turkish and Italian students who were received by the mayor of Burgos.

Well, I’ve finally ”made it big.”  I’m now a star in the city of Burgos because I was in the local newspaper here.  Please, leave your autograph requests in the comment section of this post (ha!).

You see, the high school that I work at participates in the European Comenius Program.  If you’re unfamiliar with the program, it’s basically a student exchange in which students from various foreign countries come to Spain to spend a few weeks at our school and afterwards students from our school go abroad.  In this way, students from across Europe (and its surrounding areas) get to meet their counterparts in other countries. 

Anyway, right now some Turkish and Italian students are at our school visiting with the Comenius Program and, because they don’t speak Spanish but do speak English, I have been spending the week acting as their “official translator and interpreter.”  This means that I had to accompany them yesterday to a welcoming ceremony held in the Burgos Town Hall by the mayor.  Of course, since the mayor was involved, the press was there and I had the lovely photo that you see above taken with the students. 

This picture actually was printed in two — yes, two — newspapers (one local and one national).  I’m assuming it was some type of “standard press release photo” because in both papers the same photo appears with the same caption.  I literally “took a picture of the picture” in order to post it on my blog, so I’m sorry if it’s of low quality.  Also, I’m way in the back of the photo behind most of the students; sooooo, although you probably can’t even see me, I assure you that I’m there.  Continue reading this post…

I was just reading an article in El País the other day that said that Spain, just the country alone, accounts for two-thirds of the current “Euro Zone” unemployment rate.  In other words, unemployment is crazy high in Spain in comparison with other countries that use the Euro due to the current financial crisis, construction speculation, and other factors. 

I am starting to see some of the effects of the crisis here in Spain.  For instance, I’ve noticed when I’ve been out on Friday and Saturday nights that less people seem to be frequenting the bars and those who do still go seem to buy less (at least that’s what’s happening here in Burgos).  Also, I waked past the local unemployment office the other day and there was a HUGE LINE of people waiting out front… you never used to see that in a city the size of Burgos.  Continue reading this post…

Today I woke up around 6:00 AM and went to school like normal; however, when I arrived I got quite the surprise.  In fact, as soon as I walked through the door, I was surrounded by my coworkers telling me that the European Health Commissioner had recommended that nobody travel to the USA or Mexico because of a recent swine flu outbreak.  This came as quite a shock to me because I hadn’t really watched the news yesterday and I had no idea that there had even been a swine flu outbreak in the USA.  Thus, as soon as I had a few moments at school, I went online and found this article which does confirm that EU officials are cautioning European travelers not to go to America.  Apparently, there are also some confirmed cases of people in Europe having the disease and authorities say that the people here who have contracted swine flu have had some type of recent contact with either the USA or Mexico. 

The whole “swine flu scare” that is occurring right now in Spain reminds me a little of what happened in the USA a few years ago when mad cow disease broke out in Europe.  People from the USA who traveled to Europe were cautioned not to eat beef and generally Americans were a bit afraid that if they went to Europe, they would contract mad cow.  Now, the same thing seems to be happening, but reversed: it’s now the Europeans who are afraid to travel to America for fear of getting ill.  Continue reading this post…

Signs urging customers to buy in Burgos.

Recently, the city of Burgos launched a new ad campaign to get people to “buy, buy, buy” in the downtown shops.  Above is one of their new signs, which have been strategically placed throughout the city.  The signs must be working because shops in Burgos are booming and shoppers are out at practically all hours of the day looking for deals (except during siesta time, that’s sacred). 

I sometimes ask myself how it can be possible that people are out shopping like never before while Spain is in “Financial Crisis Mode.”  The unemployment rate in Spain is on the rise and people on the street generally “complain” about the crisis all the time, yet everybody seems to still be “buying up a storm.”  Where’s the money coming from?  Continue reading this post…

Now that the election in the USA has ended, I thought it might be interesting for me to write a post with what Spain’s reaction to Barack Obama’s victory has been like. As you may or may not realize, the Presidential Elections of the USA are followed quite closely in Europe and in other parts of the world because the decisions made in our country often affect those everywhere. In fact, as the election in the USA grew nearer, more and more Spaniards began to ask me who I would be voting for and what my thoughts were on the subject in general. Later, when Obama won the election, I was bombarded with questions about whether or not I think he will be good for the country and whether or not I am happy with him as president. Just as I’ve formulated my own opinions about Obama, Spaniards, of course, have formulated theirs. Here’s what many are saying.  Continue reading this post…