Welcome to our blog!

Hello everybody! We are seven girls from the University of León, a small city in the North-West of Spain. Our names are Alba, Hermelinda, Mariana, Olga, María, Rebeca and Pauline (who's actually French!).

Our English teacher wanted us to write a blog about Spanish traditions and customs, aimed at American students of Spanish.

We've decided to call it 'Killing Torrente' but... wait a minute. I'm sure you're wondering...
 
...Who's Torrente, and why do we want to kill him?

Unfortunately, a lot of foreign countries (specially in Europe) usually think of Spain as the country of "siesta and fiesta". Spaniards don't have a very good reputation: we're supposed to be  irresponsible, not very hard-working, a little bit bad-mannered, loud, jokers and party-goers. 'Torrente' is a Spanish film whose main character has all the worst 'qualities' of the Spanish stereotype: he's stupid, lazy crude and sexist.

Well, the thing is that most Spaniards are not like that, and that's why we want to kill Torrente: We want to bring down all the cliches and stereotypes about Spain. But in order to do that we're gonna need some help : we're not very sure of what the Americans think about Spanish people, so we'd like you to tell us what do you think of our country and its citizens or to ask questions about Spain, which we'll love to answer. Any opinions, doubts, suggestions, experiences from people that has already been to Spain... are welcome!

That's all (fot the time being.) We're really looking forward to reading  your comments!

¡Nos vemos!

Where is Spain? What about our History?

Hi, guys!

Before starting to write about Spain, we are going to answer some hipotetical questions that American people could make, because we know that there are even some people who don't know where Spain is, or if it is an African or South American country. Well, let's see!

Have you found Spain in this world map? If your answer is no, don't worry; our country is not very big, (specially compared to yours!) -someone once said "el tamaño importa"... sometimes it's true. 
Spain has a surface area of 504.645 square kilometres and more than 46 million of inhabitants. The main language  is  Spanish  (which is also spoken in most of South American countries due to historical reasons that we'll explain later), but there are other official languages too: Euskera, Catalan and Galician, which are only spoken in certain parts of the country.
The capital of Spain is Madrid, but we have a lot of important and beautiful cities, like Barcelona, Valencia, Santiago de Compostela, Sevilla... or León, why not?

Now that you know where we are, we can start to tell you a bit of our long, long History in a few words -because we know how boring it can be:

Our King and Queen

Nowadays, our country is a democratic kingdom where we can vote for our president, but the sad truth is that there was a dictatorship 36 years ago. Have you ever heard something about Franco? Well, this dictator governed Spain for more than three decades after winning a cruel Civil War that took place between 1936 and 1939.

Do you see the two men in the black and white photograph?? Well, one of them is Hitler, and the other one is Franco.

But, why did it all start? In other words, how did we get into that  awful situation?
Our History, as we have told you at the beginning, is veeeeeery long -for this reason we have a lot of ancient monuments that you can see if you come to visit us-, so what about  searching for answers in the beginning of the Spanish History?

.·*...a long time after Adan and Eve were created...*·.

Once upon a time there was a little Iberian Peninsula where people like Celts, Iberians or Basquets lived quitely, like shepherds do in bucolic poems. But one day, the Roman army conquered this paceful land and called it Hispania. Since then, it became part of the huge Roman Empire, which had been expanded as far as the Oriental Mediterranean shores. But such a big region was difficult to govern, and the generals' ambition was increasing, so after  Julio Cesar was killed, a lot of Civil Wars divided the Empire:  Teodosio I, who reunified all the little parts again, was the last emperor, because his sons, Arcadio and Honorio, cut the Empire into two. The Occidental Empire fell, and then the Oriental side, and when it happened, Europe emtered the Middle Age.

At that time, Hispania was conquered by German people, and then, by Arabic people who arrived from  Noth Africa to stay since 711 aC to 1492 aC, when the Christian Kingdoms (the resistance from the North of the Iberian Peninsula) fought them and expelled them. After that, all this little realms merged.

The same year, Columbus accidentaly arrived to South America (he was looking for a new way to get to India), where the Spaniards dominated the natives by making them lose their culture, traditions and language, and teaching them ours. As everybody can easily deduce, 16th and 17th centuries were a wonderful period for Spain, but not only for our economy: the best authors of our literature were alive then: Cervantes, Quevedo, Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca, Tirso de Molina, Góngora...

The red zones were Spanish settlements in the past.

But, as we've said, such a big region is usually too difficult to govern, and our colonies -the ones in red in the map- became independent like the 13 North- American colonies did in 1776. Besides, in 1713 Spain had lost its dominance with the Treaty of Utrecht, that helped to end the  Spanish Succession War, one of ours civil wars (like our  History teacher said, there's not a single century we can have peace between ourselves).
But, after all, after those innumerable wars bettwen brothers,  we can say:

*If you are a curious person and want more information about what we have explained very shortly in this post, take a look:

Spanish colonization of the Americas

Spanish Civil War

Western Roman Empire

Voyages of Christopher Columbus
Spanish Golden Age
The Catholics Monarchs

About Spanish music... ¡y olé!

Hey guys!

This time we're here to write about Spanish music. Perhaps when you read "Spanish music", you imagine something like this:

Or maybe like this?

Well, the flamenco is the most "international" and traditional Spanish music, and the majority of foreign people who come to our country know  it. But the musical culture of Spain goes beyond that! 

In this post, we want to show you that,  as well as the typical Spanish music, we also have examples of musical groups who play almost every musical style. Here we go!

First of all, we're going to tell you about folk music - the characteristic music of each region. 
Each of these types of music has its own dance, instruments and clothes. Among the most important ones, we must remark the muñeira - from the North - the pasodoble, the jota - from all Spain - the copla, the fandango and the flamenco - from the South . 

As we said before, the best known one outside Spain is flamenco, which is popular and  practiced in very far away places,  such as Japan!

But there are also Spanish groups who play other musical genres. For example, there are specialized Spanish artists in pop music. Some of the most famous ones are Pereza, Amaral, El Canto del Loco, Pignoise and La Oreja de Van Gogh.  

There are also indie groups - Los Planetas, Vestusta Morla, Love of Lesbian, or Lori Meyers - and of course, rap groups- Nach, El Chojin, Tote King, Doble V, Shinoflow, Xhelazz ...

Do you want more examples from other genres? There are Spanish artists who play rock music, such as Marea, Extremoduro, Celtas Cortos, Los Suaves or La Fuga.

In harder genres like heavy metal, we find artists like Avalanch, Saratoga, Warcry ...and we also have punk groups like El Último Ke Zierre, Non Servium, Eskorbuto, or Kortatu.

On the other hand,  many Spanish groups  have succeeded beyond our borders, and not singing flamenco! So I'm not talking about Los Del Río or Enrique Iglesias, but about groups like Ska-P or Héroes del Silencio.

Finally, some Spanish artists have dared to sing in English. I'm talking about Russian Red, Love Of Lesbian, Waiting for Sunset, Carlos Jean, Dover, or Trust Nothing  (that last one is actually from León!) - And many others. Check it out!

That's all! Did you guys know any of these groups? What do you think of our music? Which bands and styles do you like?

Leave us a comment and tell us about it!
See you! :)

Bullfighting: the big controversy

Among the many Spanish traditions, probably the most world-renowned and polemic one is bullfighting (‘corridas de toros’).

The "spectacle"

We are quite sure you've heard of it at least once, and you probably know what it is about: It takes place in a bullring, where a bullfighter or torero teases a brave bull with a cape for a while, then stabs the back of the animal with colored sharp sticks (banderillas) and different swords until the bull finally dies. We could make a much longer explanation here, but we'd probably find the information in the same places as you would, so if you want to read details about the whole spectacle, you can find them here:

-▲ (where you can also read about different styles of bullfighting in other countries) 

-▲
-Estocada: Video of the final part of the corrida, where the bull is killed. 

Now go to Google and just type ‘bullfighting’ or ‘corridas de toros’. It’s hard to find really impartial information, isn’t it? Well, that's what we’d like to tell you about: 

The polemic: for and against

 Unlike a lot of people think, not all Spaniards like or agree with bullfighting. In fact, not even the majority of us do. It’s extremely hard to find reliable statistics about the percentage of people who are for and against this tradition, but as the years go by bullfighting has less and less supporters and more and more detractors.

So, while some Spaniards see bullfighting like this:

Others think of it this way:

As you can see, the first picture shows the bullfighter dressed in his traditional suit (called ‘traje de luces’) and teasing the bull. People who like bullfighting see this tradition as an elegant and exciting ART, a vital part of our culture that must be preserved, a beautiful spectacle  where a  man shows his courage by fighting a huge animal.

Nevertheless, the second picture shows a very different side of bullfighting: the bull has already been stabbed by the big sword carried by the torero, and it lies on the ground choking on its own blood and about to die. Besides, the other man in the picture is getting ready to cut the bull’s ears and tail, which will be given to the bullfighter as a trophy for his performance.

The protests

Obviously, people who are against this tradition want to ban it because it’s a cruel spectacle consisting in torturing and killing animals just for the enjoyment of the public.  Defenders of animal rights organize different protests and demonstrations every year in order to stop bullfighting. Some examples:

The sentence “Torture is not culture” is the main slogan against bullfighting.

This was a very popular and polemic protest: a lot of animal defenders laid on the ground in front of a bullring pretending to be dead and 'stabbed' with  banderillas, just like bulls after a corrida, showing how cruel the spectacle is.

Some ecologists even get into the arena in the middle of bullfights, making them stop.

This division between detractors and supporters has caused a lot of arguments, which sometimes lead to very agressive situations, and which have grown even more  since Catalonia, a region of Spain, has banned the corridas de toros. 

What do you think of this? Had you heard of bullfighting before? Have you ever seen a corrida de toros?  We’d like to hear  your opinion  :)