How much do you know about Spain?

Really, I found thsi page which explains all you need about my country, our ancestral enemies the Frenchs and the British, and our first national sport (not football).


http://blocodonia.com/2013/02/03/guia-rapida-de-espana-para-el-resto-del-mundo/

 

Oh! And thsi is my town... Puentedey. Say hi to a town above a mountain above a gigantic natural bridge over a river!

 

Whew!!! you live there AND have broadband connection?
talk about an epic drop

 

(Do not tell anybody, but on the backyard of that big house on he left there is a huge cliff we use for people who make bad jokes )

 

lol, I was actually serious though, it seems like an awesome place to live in, I'm used to living surronded by concrete, and living in a place where you have alot of nature and the benefits of technology (usually one comes on the expanse of the other) is a dream of mine.
so can I avoid the cliff?

 

Ok, ok... but I´ll need to show you a cute place near my town. It's another town named 'Quintanilla'. There is a hole on the graund named 'Ojo del Infierno' (english: Hell's Eye). It's about 3 meters wide, 4 meters long, and a bazillion meters deep filled with an infinite supplay of drinkable water. You know... if you wanna LARP Cardhunter we can allways... mwahahaha...

 

More silly stuff about the country of mine:

The official idiom of Spain is the Spanish (OMG! Really? Amazing!)

... but we do not name it 'Spanish', we name it 'castellano', because the Spanish was born in the province named 'Castilla y León'. The fun fact this province name sounds like someplace in Game of Thrones, because it's translated more or less like this in English: "The land of Castles and Lion".

Even a more fun fact: the "Lion" part of the name does not come from the actual animals, it come from the Roman word 'Legio' (it's latin). Yo know, the Roman Army. But hey! **** latin, we spanish named thigs the way we like because of reasons!

There are a few more oficial idioms spoken in the country of mine wich come from latin too: Catalán, Gallego, and variants from them. And a few more also nearly forgotten like the Bable.

But, the most amazing stuff is that we still have a part of of country where we still use a so ****ing ancient idiom it's even older than the Roman and Latin: the Euskera.

It's so different from Spanish or English it somethimes sounds like Japanese...

Spanish: ¡Hola, me llamo Multimuerte!
English: Hi, my name is Multimuerte!
Euskera: Kaixo, nire izena Multimuerte da!

See??? Suck it, Dovahkiin!!! We have our own Dragon Language!!!!

 

Tidbit of Spanish history I know:

The phrase "The coast is clear" is derived from the Spanish phrase "No hay Moros en la costa", originating in the 7th and 8th century. The Moors, a name that referred to North African Muslims at the time came into Spain through Morocco and proceeded to claim what is now modern day Spain and Portugal. The phrase was used by the Spanish to let each other know that they were safe from the Moors at that tiem, and it has since worked its way into the English language.

 

That's right!

Nowadays that expression means more or less like "it's safe to do X withouth nobody noticing". For example, you want to go sneaky-sneaky avoiding to meet somebody you dislike on street, so you look around and say your friend "No hay Moros en la costa", meaning you can alredy have your way with no trouble.

 

More fun facts:

One Roman noble who was around the country of mine when their legions where conquering our land (actually the later-be-our-land) wrote about the people who live in this territory quite a lot. This guy is considered 'the precursor of History' or something, as I can remember. The most cool fact he wrote about pre-roman inhabitats of Spain and Portugal (the Iberians) was their tendency of constant warfare. He wrote that in abscence of a mutual enemy like the Romans, every guy will fight brother against brother, brother againts their father, family against family, and entire towns agains other towns.

During the Roman invasions the leggionaries got tired of this situation. You see, you conquer a tribe, a few years later it became rebel. You think you got an ally, and then it attacked you like berserks because they felt the mood. At the very the Romans deciden the proper way of dealing with the Iberians was the KILL THEM ALL philosophy, and worked pretty well until even the most crazy one learnt it was not a good plan to rise against them.

So, as you can see Conan the Barbarian did NOT come from Cimmeria, he come from ancient Spain. Suck it, Arnold Schathisname!

 

More fun facts:

Buying alcohol, driving cars and voting! You can do those when you become 18 at the country of mine. But lets talk about alcohol. The country of mine, which has longer and funnier story than other backwater countries like say, United States (just kidding, I love Las Vegas), has a bunch of stupid out-dated laws about alcohol dated to teh Medieval Period. Still working. ^_^

The funnier one is this one about a town in the south of Spain. People there can sell no alcohol to someone consider an outsider, this is ANYBODY who is not a local from this town. Only the local noble ( the Duchess in this particular case) can say yea or nay to this comercial transaction. Quite cute and absurd, isn't it?

But this cannot be, Multimuerte! Well... the Medieval Era law transformed to a traition, and technicaly noone can forbid you to sell alcohol but... Oh wait! The Duchess OWN the entire town and surrounding lands, because her antecessor built if for her labourers. She can do as she pleases...


Next Issue! Spanish absurdiest holydays! Let's throw a goat from the top of teh bell tower!! (True story)

 

I believe that Majorca, the popular tourist island in Spain is the only location in Europe where it is possible to do Deep Water Solos. Pretty cool, I hope I'll get the opportunity to go there next year!

 

Right... do not know if it's the only place in Europe, but if you want to check this stuff best you can do is asking to the local government.

Try: http://www.conselldemallorca.net/

As long as I can remember in Spain you cannot do climbing or something like that without permission, but every region (Autonomous Community) has his hown particular version of the rules. Please, note that I do not go climbing, so I can be wrong.

 

... and speaking about Autonomous Communities, the country of mine is divided in 17 administrative regions. This would be a so damned boring stuff to tell about the country of mine if this division wasn't related to Pokemon.

You heard me. Pokemons.

As you alredy know, there are a bunch of Pokemom types: fire, dragon, psichyc,... so you can say there are a couple of types of 'spanish-mons'. Each region has is own type. We 'dislike' each other and make many jokes about our neighbours. Because you know, there are no people like us, the ones who live in <insert place here>. I will show you a bit of the 'fraternal love' we have.

As everybody knows *cough, cough * the spanish-mons who live in Aragon are very stubborn. It's said the best way for making 200 of Aragon-people to fit in a car is telling them "There is no way you can fit there". They are actualy nice people who knows what hard work means, just do not challenge them. ^_^

The people who lives in Cataluña it's said to be greedy. It's said the best way for making a Catalan-people to get into a car is by throwing a coin into. And the best way to getting out is telling them "Dude, it's a taxi". Those are just jokes, actually this people hate to waste money for a reason: they know how hard it's to earn each cent.

... and things go over, and over, and over. The people of Andalucia are quite a bum. The ones for Madrid are vain, and the people of País Vasco are quite exaggerated (but with a reason, because Bilbao is the center of the Universe).

Nice country to visit, right? Right? Right?

 

Are you with the Spanish tourist board or something?

 

Just love the country of mine, and think in sharing the most weird (and less known) stuff I knew about it.

The history, culture and such things of the country of mine are actually quite cool and hilarius. Did you know we built the best naval armada on histoy, named it 'Invincible Armada', sent against England and lost ALMOST ALL OF IT because the weather?

God... I do LOVE my country. How come you dislike your own?

 

I don't believe I actually made a statement to that effect.

 

Just kidding, bro...

 

I'm from Europe and I've never heard racism being the first thing that comes up in people's mind when Spain (or Italy) is mentioned. Then again I'm white and only been to Spain (Barcelona) a couple of times so I'm no expert.

I followed a couple of those links you gave and they were pretty bad sources. One was published in 1987. The other was about a football player being called names, which means nothing because football fans are crazy and do not necessarily represent the views of the general public. The last one was some random traveller getting bad service, which was of course 100% racism, because it's impossible for white people to get bad service, right?

The little experience I've had with Spain has been mostly positive. I like the architecture, scenery and the food. Barcelona is a great place to visit for two or three days.