4. Everybody in Spain ends up every year eating the same thing: Grapes. Yes, in New Year's Eve, we celebrate the arrival of the new year eating 12 grapes. While the clock beats midnight, we'll have to eat 12 grapes in the last 12 seconds of the year. we can listen to the last 12 chimes on T.V., the radio or in the majority of churches. Next, we kiss and hug our family and friends and we drink a toast with cava. January is the best month for children, because the 6th arrive at our homes the long awaited “Three Wise Men", charged with presents. Later, we eat our traditional cake for this day named "Roscón de reyes". In February we can enjoy Carnivals, especially in Cadiz and the Canary Islands. The 19th of March is Public Holiday, and it is when the "Fallas" fire festival takes place in Valencia. We usually celebrate Holy Week in April, that is celebrated in all the country but particularly in Seville, where in the same month the "April Fair" takes place too. In May we find the "San Isidro" Festivity in Madrid, and begin the bullfighting season. June, July, August and September are full of festivals, but the most famous one is "San Fermines" in Pamplona. The 12th of October of 1492, America was discovered by Columbus, for this reason we celebrate this day the "Hispanic World". We'll finish the year in December with the Immaculate Conception and Christmas. CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS IN SPAIN (1) DAVID DE LA CRUZ MANCHÓN 1. Spanish traditions
5. Spanish people usually spends summer holidays in a village. Normally it is the village where parents or grandparents were born. In August there are festivals and Spanish villages are crowded with people from capitals. It is a good opportunity to meet old friends and members of your family you do not usually come across with the rest of the year. If your parents are from the capital and you do not have a village to go, you can go to a friend´s village, and adopt the village as if it were yours. If you do not do that, you will not be able to speak about anything at work in September! CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS IN SPAIN (2) RAQUEL MADROÑAL HERMOSO 1. Spanish traditions
6. TYPICAL SPANISH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION… OR NOT (1) The focus of the lines below is to show how a birthday celebration of a guy in Madrid could be. Through these lines you WIll read some about food taste, religious events, cultural chances and social fun. As soon as I woke up, I started to feel the summer morning heat in Madrid . It was 8 o’clock in a sunny Saturday morning. It was august the 15th - bank holiday - and it was my 34th birthday. Nevertheless, I didn’t care about the heat because I had plenty of things to do and I wanted to enjoy it all of them. In spite of it, the first thing I did was to prepare my breakfast: several toasts of bread with marmalade and butter. Of course I couldn’t start the day without having a cup of coffee. I met my sister at main Museo del Prado gate. But to get there was not easy because just by my home there was a procession. This procession had provoked the cut of several streets about my neighbourhood due to the great quantity of devoted people who had joined there. Afterwards, I get on a bus that just left me in front of the main museum gate. The “Museo del Prado” dedicated an anthological exhibition to Joaquín Sorolla , one of the most outstanding artists of late nineteenth-twentieth-century Spanish painting. Once I got in, I realized it was crowded but it was worth and we liked it very much. 1. Spanish traditions
7. TYPICAL SPANISH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION… OR NOT (2) After visiting the museum we went to my parent’s home where I met my closest relatives: parents, brothers and sisters, their couples, and their children. All of them congratulated me for my birthday and gave me their gifts, and I was pleased to see them altogether. My mother had cooked delicious paella which was tasty because of the peppers, prawns and mussels. As always, we were talking after having lunch and also playing card games like “ Mus ” or “ Tute ”. After all those grateful moments during the day I had to finish it properly. And it can’t be without enjoing the night with my dearest friends. We had dinner out at La Latina neighbourhood which is near the Plaza Mayor . We were all very happy because there was a parade and the streets were packed of people, laughing, talking and dancing in the streets. All of it was enlighted by the magical light of a starry night with the full moon watching it over. It was the greatest way for closing a fabulous birthday. As you can have read, Spaniards not only are religious, football watchers and lazy people. On the other hand, there are lots of people with cultural or gastronomic interests. Spain is a combination of people with the same aim: live the life! 1. Spanish traditions
8. THE “SOBREMESA” CARLOS CARRILLO The customs in different countries are so deeply rooted that they are known as named in each country of origin and as a result, many words have been taken from one language to another. Siesta, fiesta, paella and sangría are recognized as typical Spanish customs. However there is a Spanish custom which is not so well known. It is the "sobremesa". The "sobremesa" is the time that family or friends keep after eating. This is a relaxing time when people consider many topics of conversation. From the family view, the "sobremesa" is often one of the few moments that parents share with their children. The "sobremesa" can allow parents to learn more about their children and share experiences, because it is a time when children can express concerns, fears, or wishes to their parents. The time of the "sobremesa" is not conditioned by anything. When the "sobremesa" is done between friends, conversations can be lengthened in time and can last even more than eating itself. The experiences and other anecdotes that are discussed are as diverse and entertaining as one feels more attached to one's friends. Thanks to the "sobremesa" it is possible to forge good friendships. Of course, the "sobremesa" is a habit that makes the soul grow and should be known as typically Spanish. 1. Spanish traditions
9. “ TAPAS ”: The passion for living (1) Ana Granados Almost everybody has ever heard about Spanish “tapas”, that traditional meal which Spaniards have in little portions with some drink. But not many people realize that to meet some friends for having “tapas” (we say “tapear”) is a sort of ritual to celebrate “ the passion for living ”. 1. Spanish traditions
10. Why do I consider this? Because having “tapas” means enjoying life: through the meal, since you can taste delicious combinations of flavors, cooked in different, small and cheap dishes; through the drink, with refreshing glass of draught, a magnificent wine, a sparkling soft drink, a delightful juice, or simply, a healthy glass of water; through the chat, with which we try to solve any problem, to get to know each other better and, especially, to enjoy ourselves while we are feeding mind and body; and, of course, through the company, because in a world where the relationships are more and more dominated by computers, to meet (and see) friends is an activity which enriches our spirit, our mind, our heart and, as a result, also our life. “ TAPAS ”: The passion for living (2) Ana Granados 1. Spanish traditions
11. Therefore, if you visit our country, you shouldn’t forget to go for “tapas”. It doesn’t matter if you have them for lunch or for dinner. Just do it, and you will be able to understand the reason why Spanish people love this custom full of life. “ TAPAS ”: The passion for living (3) Ana Granados 1. Spanish traditions
12. “ TAMBORRADA” OF SAINT SEBASTIAN (1) Elena Frey Gómez The celebration starts on the eve’s of the 20th, that night the citizens have a special dinner, the tradition is to go to have dinner in a Society, it is very common in the Basque Country to be associated to a cultural, gastronomic Society, where people get together to talk, cook, sing and dance folk songs and dances. For a long time, these Societies were not allowed to women, but nowadays only a few Societies keep this excluding tradition. In the North of Spain, between the end of the Pyrenees and the Cantabric Sea, there is one of the most beautiful regions in Spain, the Basque Country, and there, just by the sea, it is the city of Saint Sebastian. Saint Sebastian is a lovely city internationally well known because of their Jazz and Cinema Festivals’ in summer. But the most loved celebration for “donostiarras”, this is the name of people who were born in Saint Sebastian, it is named after “Donosti”, the name of the city in Basque language, the most loved, I was saying, is the day of the patron saint, the 20th of January, Saint Sebastian. 1. Spanish traditions
13. The next night, at 12 o’clock, the parade finishes in front of the Union Artesana Society, after twenty four hours playing and dancing. But, in the morning of the 20th , there is the children’s parade too. Like the adults, the children schools have their own Companies of Drummers and they march during the morning of the 20th of January. The parade is very beautiful and colourful and more organized than the adults parade, because in this case there isn’t any wine, of course. After dinner, people go to the Constitution Square, there, at midnight it starts the most important aspect of the celebration, the “tamborrada” or the big parade of the Drummers Companies. Every Society has its own Company of Drummers, there are two kinds of drummers, the ones who are dressed like French soldiers and the other ones are dressed like cooks. Firstly, at the Constitution Square, the Company of Gaztelubide starts playing “The march of Saint Sebastian”, and after that, the rest of the Companies go on playing drums during all the night and going round all the city. People usually go behind the Companies singing, dancing and over all, drinking wine, this is also a little drunken celebration. “ TAMBORRADA” OF SAINT SEBASTIAN (2) Elena Frey Gómez 1. Spanish traditions
15. MADRID , CAPITAL CITY OR NATURAL PLACE? SARA RUBIO Madrid is the capital city of Spain. Foreign people usually think that Madrid is a crowded and noisy place where you can visit lots of monuments like Colon Statue, Royal Palace, “Plaza Mayor” and museums like “Museo del Prado” and “Reina Sofía”. Other people only think that Madrid is the best place for going out at night. We have the famous Kapital or Joy-Eslava Disco and Huertas neighbourhood, where there are about fifty different pubs and you can listen to jazz music, see a live concert, drink a mojito or try the delicious and typical “tapas”. However, if you are visiting Madrid you can also be in the middle of nature. How can it be possible? Because in Madrid we have the most beautiful city park: “El Retiro”, where you can see different kind of animals like ducks, birds, squirrels or fish. If you are tired, you can relax reading a book under a tree or enjoying the music which is played by “rasta-men” while your children watch a street-show where clowns are telling jokes or feeding ducks next to the lake. If you are in Madrid and love trekking or climbing you can go 40 km away to a breathtaking place called Navacerrada, just in the middle of the mountains. To sum up, Madrid means everything, you should visit it if you have the chance. Other cities like Barcelona, Cadiz.... are so similar to it: Spain is different! 2. Madrid
19. THE REAL SPANISH CULTURE (1) Jorge Valero Rodríguez It´s a well known fact that Spain has plenty of festivals, days of fiesta, pilgrimages, annual ferias, football matches and Bullfightings. But the vast majority of the people don´t know that we have one of the richest literary legacies all around the world. Authors as Quevedo, Góngora, Becquer, Juan Rámón Jiménez, Pío Baroja, Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset, Antonio Machado, Miguel Hernández, Ayala or Federico García Lorca have been able to exalt the Spanish culture throughtout the world. Some of these authors knew how to combine tradition with literary art. This was the specific case of Federico Garcia Lorca, a Spanish dramatist and poet, who was killed in 1936, at the begining of the Spanish Civil War because his belonging to Frente Popular and his homosexuality. 3. Spanish culture
20. Two of his masterpieces are Romancero Gitano and Poeta en Nueva York . The former is divided into 18 chapters that describe Andalusian and gipsy culture within an atmosphere marked by death and blood. It also reflects the griefs of a pursuited race and its fight against repressive authority. In this masterpiece not only does Lorca use a high poetry but a great number of traditions as well. It´s worth emphasizing Romance del Sonámbulo , La Casada Infiel or Romance de la Guardia Civil Española . THE REAL SPANISH CULTURE (2) Jorge Valero Rodríguez 3. Spanish culture
21. The later was written during his stay at the Columbia University and Cuba. In this book the poet shows a deep rejection against capitalism and the modern society. At the same time he demanded a new human dimension dominated by freedom, wisdom, love and beauty, in the same sense as Grundtvig had done before him. Without any doubt the main poem during this stage was Pequeño Vals Vienés . In spite of the fact that Federico Garcia Lorca was very young when he died, almost 38 years old, his influence has been decisive in the Spanish and Universal literature during the 20th century due to the innovation of his texts. A great number of writers and singers have used his poems in their works. This is the case of Serrat, Camarón de la Isla, Leonard Cohen, etc. Seventy-nine years after his killing, Spanish authorities have started to exhume Lorca`s tomb in order to reach a definitive reconcilation in Spain. Paradoxically, Lorca´s body lies in a communal grave with a teacher and two banderilleros, three of the most relevant symbols of our culture, who were killed by Fascism. THE REAL SPANISH CULTURE (3) Jorge Valero Rodríguez 3. Spanish culture
23. ALIMENTS ENTRÉES PLATS DE RÉSISTANCE DESSERTS VINS LES ‘TAPAS’ NOS CUISINIERS L’ALIMENTATION ESPAGNOLE 4. Our food
24. DES LÉGUMES des oignons des carottes des épinards des concombres des pommes de terre DES PRODUITS DE BASE de la farine du sucre du sel de l’huile de l’ail DES PRODUITS LAITIERS du lait des oeufs du yaourt des fromages du beurre LES ALIMENTS : ils sont très variés, comme en tous les régimes méditerranéens
25. DE LA VIANDE du saumon de la sole Des sardines du thon du merlu DU POISSON du porc du boeuf de l’agneau du veau de la volaille DES FRUITS DE MER des coquillages du crabe des huîtres des crevettes Des moules LES ALIMENTS : sont très variés, comme dans tous les régimes alimentaires méditerranéens
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