And a Happy New Year

Yesterday evening we arrived from our Christmas trip to Paris. I'll talk about the wonderful time we spent there in upcoming posts; this is just a quick update to congratulate you on the new year and wish you happiness, joy, and fantastic journeys.

Of course, I can't help but share a first couple of photos from our trip. Capturing the Eiffel tower is a hopelessly tourist-y thing to do, and you knew I would do it anyway. I have to say, though, that it was really difficult to get the chance to capture the entire tower.

In a more "parisienne" photo, this is how the tower looked like at the end of a street the first time we approached it. More than half of the tower was hidden by the mist and we had to come back the next day. The twisted branches are Christmas decorations at a store.

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Happy Holidays

This is my Anti-Crisis card for this year. I hope the Government does not find the snowflake too excessive.

Have a very nice Christmas. See you in a week, after my trip to Paris! Joyeux Noël à tous.

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Last Pictures of Summer

I'm posting the remaining pictures from our last trip before embarking on the next one this Christmas. Earlier this year, my family and I landed Seville, Southern Spain, at the same time as the first heat wave of the Andalusian summer.

This sort of awning in front of this building, Seville City Council, in San Francisco square, didn't do much against the sun, but it was highly ornamental — which is, I guess, the reason why the charming Sevillians left it where it was.

Wordless Wednesday.

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Martin Scorsese's Short Film The Key to Reserva

Since the mid seventies, when democracy came in Spain after forty years of gray and long postwar period, one of the things that mark the beginning of Christmas in Catalonia is Freixenet TV commercial campaign. This brand is a champagne producer located in Catalonia, the largest one in the main area of sparkling wine production in the peninsula.

Their TV commercials are broadcast only on Christmas holidays in prime time. They usually have a plot, a long duration and every year a celebrity is invited to star in the spot and congratulate the holidays. Now we are used to see world-famous celebrities advertising a wide range of products on TV, but for several decades commercials in which Gene Kelly, Paul Newman, Raquel Welch, or Kim Basinger, among others, struggled with our language to congratulate us the holidays with a glass of our champagne were a real bombshell.

As for the importance of cava, our sparkling wine or champagne, I'll only tell you that one december, following one of the many political quarrels between Barcelona and Madrid (Catalans had withdrawn our support for Madrid's bid for the Olympic Games), the Spaniards threatened to boycott Catalan products by not purchasing our cava on Christmas. Namely, the worst threat they could think of at that time of the year, and one which they failed to carry out.

In 2007, right before the financial crisis, Freixenet commercials reached their peak with a short film, or a long ad, directed by Martin Scorsese. He was the invited star, both behind the camera and on the screen. Scorsese did not just do the typical advertisement of each year. In response to the new viewing methods and habits, the short was released primarily online and — well, I think it is time for me to shut up and leave you with the video. You can watch it on their site too. May you have a happy anticipation of the holidays.

Freixenet - The Key To Reserva per tvspot

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Financial Crisis

I wonder if we will ever hear good news again about finances. Not so many years ago, when the financial crisis affecting Argentina was in the news every day, we never thought that something like that could happen in our country whatsoever. Nowadays, the Spanish banks do not pass the European Banking Authority stress tests and most of them are in need, they say, of recapitalization. This is just to give an example of what is said these days; I don't have enough knowledge in economics to provide further data (and too many people feels as ignorant as me in this issue). I guess I have to continue to do as always: not stop buying, keep reading dealfun.com scam articles, hire fixed-term deposits, etc., if I want to do something on a small scale for the system not to collapse. Now that I write it down, though, it sounds childish. Is there anything we can actually do to support economy through our consumption patterns, or our dealings with banks? The worst thing is, I imagine our political representatives feel the same way as us. This is what we get — let me say “I guess” once more — for having adopted the euro about ten years ago, when prices rose exorbitantly taking advantage of the confusing currency exchange, without protesting.

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Black Bread

For the first time ever, a film in Catalan has been shortlisted for the Oscars. We can't be more cheerful about it — although the final five nominees are yet to be announced, and Pa negre is a tearjerker. It was directed by Agustí Villaronga and it is based upon a novel of the same name by Emili Teixidor. If you have the chance to watch it, I strongly recommend it to you; it truly has to be a good film, as it was selected by a country, Spain, that usually does not support anything Catalan (and, sadly enough, is the only country that can decide wether a Catalan film is going to the Oscars or not). Leaving politics aside, I hope you enjoy the trailer (it comes with English subtitles).

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