Posted by Chris Showers on July 12th, 2010.
 A large screen was put up in the Plaza Mayor of Burgos this afternoon so that soccer fans could watch the final match of the World Cup. Right now as I’m writing this, the Queen song “We are the Champions” is blasting from speakers on the street below my house. No, Spaniards don’t just really like Queen — the song is being played over and over again because Spain won the World Cup this evening. It goes without saying that, since the win, there has been some massive celebrating going on here in Burgos. It’s safe to say that these Spaniards really know the meaning of the phrase ”party hearty.”
The afternoon started peacefully enough with almost everyone in the city heading to the Plaza Mayor to watch the final match of the World Cup on a large screen that had been set up just for today. As you can see from the picture above, there was a big turnout of red-clad, Spain-supporting, Burgos-dwelling people. The afternoon turned out to be a tense one: it was a really close game. Still, Spain won in the end.
When Spain won, what did those watching the game in the Plaza Mayor do? They went to the Plaza España, of course. Why? To jump in the fountain and celebrate the victory. Now, I’m no soccer expert and I could be missing something, but I don’t really see the connection between “victory” and “jumping in a city fountain full of cold water to celebrate.” Of course, that’s just me. In any event, the celebration started about two hours ago and it’s now 1:00 a.m. and still going strong. I have a feeling it will last well into the night.
In any case, I send my congrats to Spain’s team. This is the first World Cup that Spain has won and it deserves the victory. ¡Enhorabuena España! Continue reading this post…
Posted by Chris Showers on June 8th, 2010.
I woke up this morning at the usual time and, just like every other day, set out for the Plaza España to catch the bus that would transport me across the city and to the school where I work. After a few minutes at the bus stop, I began to realize that I was having to wait for the bus for a lot more time than usual. At first I thought my “number six” bus line was just running a little late… but then it dawned on me: the civil servant strike.
You see, city bus drivers are civil servants in Spain. As civil servants, they are included in the 5% average pay cut that Zapatero recently announced to help reduce Spain’s deficit and thus “save” the country from the financial crisis. Of course, this announced pay cut didn’t exactly go over very well with the civil servants (surprising, right?) and today they all went on a one-day strike to speak out against the change.
Spain seems to have become the “hot topic” in Europe right now with respect to the financial crisis and everyone is wondering if it will become the “next Greece.” Personally, I don’t think that things in Spain will reach the level they did in Greece; but, I’m no economic expert. In any case, if you’d like to read more about Spain and the financial crisis, you can check out this very good New York Times Blog article that explains the situation much better than I can.
I don’t really know how “worried” I should be about the crisis. In fact, I sometimes think that people here are blowing the whole thing a bit out of proportion and hoarding money unnecessarily. I suppose it’s understandable to an extent: nobody wants to be without a job or loose money that they have spent a lifetime saving. Still, I can’t help but feel as if Spaniards are overreacting. Who knows? Maybe I’m wrong.
In the end, thanks to the civil servant strike, I had to take a taxi to get to school today. Let’s hope they don’t strike again anytime soon… taxis are much less convenient (and more expensive) than city buses.
Please, leave your thoughts about the crisis in Spain in the comments below. I’d like to know what others think about all this — expats and Spaniards alike. Continue reading this post…
Posted by Chris Showers on July 29th, 2009.
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…
Posted by Chris Showers on May 12th, 2009.
 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…
Posted by Chris Showers on May 4th, 2009.
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…
Posted by Chris Showers on April 28th, 2009.
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…
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