Here’s the Eurocopa song by David Bisbal featuring Cali and El Dandee. Called No hay dos sino tres, it refers to the fact that Spain could win their 3rd Eurocopa (they are the holders from 2008 and also won in 1964) The first clip features lots of clips from the World Cup / Copa Mundial and ‘de motivación’ – to encourage the Selección in Polonia y Croacia.

Doing OK so far…

httpv://youtu.be/_949qd18BVA

And here’s the karaoke version

httpv://youtu.be/M1zLdmfofEc

So, Barcelona won! And in style.

httpv://youtu.be/c-xWxzyeHxA

Abidal, after starting treatment for a liver tumour only 10 weeks ago, raised the Champions League cup following goals by Pedro, Messi and Villa (and Rooney I guess!)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3u2WPJDpns

And Gerard Pique went home with a rather original souvenir, apparently following a tradition set by the Barcelona basketball team!

httpv://youtu.be/ciiQV-EB2i8

I’ve never made  secret of my love of football, nor my love of Spain.  And I think most people who read my blog also know that Barcelona is very very dear to my heart, as a city and also as a team.

I haven’t been blogging here over the last week but I have been posting on my school website where you can catch a flavour of some of my exploits on our (final) Comenius Regio project.

One of the highlights of the visit was a trip and tour of the Camp Nou – I caused great amusement with my squealing, jumping, flapping and at times tears!

So I am VERY VERY excited about tomorrow and the Champions League final. It is so true that FCBarcelona is ‘més que un club’ – it’s a huge part of people’s life and the club is so much more than a football team.

In preparation, here’s the Himne de Barça – the children in Y5 at Els Pins sang it for us whilst we were there – everyone of them! This is the karaoke version so you can join in.

httpv://youtu.be/8b8cGhxhAsY

Want the words in English? See below!

Catalan

English

It seems that only Portugal and France agreed with me, and, as it was pointed out by @frogphilp on Twitter this morning, I’m not a country – yet – but I quite liked the Spanish entry for Eurovision. At least she sang in her own language!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7CuPRMyd-c&feature=related

As the clock in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid strikes midnight, people across Spain will be attemptig to eat 12 grapes before the ‘bongs’ finish.

As OrangePolkaDot tells us, the supermarkets sell special packs of twelve grapes to help you suceed!
Why? This blog post suggests that it is may have been due to a good grape harvest in 1909 (as does this post) or perhaps the converse.

Y en español aquí y aquí

Whatever, my advice is – make sure you have seedless, small grapes as you’ll never make it otherwise! The first New Years Eve I spent at my in-laws was hilarious thanks to my mother in law buying grapes so that I could ‘do my grape thing’ but choosing big fat seeded ones! That was a fun experience – good job I have a big mouth ;o)

Here’s a clip of a family celebrating ‘los doce uvas de la suerte’ (note the Mum doesn’t quite manage the feat!)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhfhaI_BsDU

I also like the other tradition that OrangePolkaDot highlights – wearing red undies.  Sounds like a fun idea to me – but how ill anyone know if you’re ‘celebrating’?  Unless Desigual are having another promotion…

In what seems like a past life sometimes when I used to teach Spanish to secondary pupils, we used a text book called Vaya.  Apart from my gripe about their assertion that Spaniards have pets ‘grillos’ on their balconies (yet to meet one!), my other main problem with the book / course was the fact that the pictures looked nothing like what they were supposed to be illustrating, particularly the food.  The ‘churros’ looked like those posh butter curls you get on hoity toity places, and if I showed you the ‘paella’, you’d be hard pressed to identify it.

Not sure why I thought of it today (perhaps I had a nostalgic thought?) but I did, and it reminded me of this marvellous group on Flickr called Comida española which features over 2000 photos of Spanish food.

So much easier to explain ‘chocolate con churros’

or ‘albóndigas en salsa’

or the scale on which paella’s are sometimes cooked

when you have a decent picture to help you!

You can search the group – for example, ‘tapas’ or ‘garbanzos’ or ‘tortilla’

To finish, here’s a picture that might come in useful in the next week or so…

NB watch out for the CC license under which images are shared – some are All rights reserved which means they’re copyright.  Look for CC Attribution Share alike that you can use as long as you say to whom they belong.

PS if anyone has ever met a Spaniard with a pet ‘grillo’ could you please let me know!

Today is El Día de los Santos Inocentes in Spain and other Hispanic countries, their equivalent of April Fools Day.  But it goes deeper than that as it has its roots in the story of Christmas when Herod ordered the killing of all baby boys, and Mary and Joseph escaped with Jesus having been warned in a dream to flee.

Find out more here in English or here in Spanish

Here, a man who runs a joke shop talks about the types of jokes people buy

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaBAZjr3tFA

And this clip shows an ‘inocentada’ involving a mouse!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTZirr32zGM

Even the Simpsons get in on the act!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9EotIriEOo

Looking at word clouds today during the course I was delivering, I came across these wonderful topical word clouds.

Like them?

This one is about a certain psychic sea creature…..

And this one is – well, this is one is ‘lo mejor’ ;o)

No necesito decir más ¿eh?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya85knuDzp8