¡Feliz año nuevo!

So, we´ve officially said goodbye to 2020… and wow, what a year that was!

And as we welcome 2021 I wanted to share with you my favourite Spanish Christmas tradition…  

Eating the 12 grapes at midnight on New Year's Eve! 

(Or rather eating them at 11pm this year as we stayed in the UK… Thank goodness for living in the digital era and being able to watch everything live!)

In case you don't know what the grapes’ tradition is, basically, at midnight you eat one grape with each strike of the clock up to 12! And this is supposed to bring luck for the following year. Hence the popular name “las uvas de la suerte” (lucky grapes)

It's so exciting and so much fun trying to keep the pace while you watch everyone else going through them struggling too! If you’re ever in Spain on New Year’s Eve (Nochevieja), I really encourage you to try it.

Those few seconds are really...

Christmas is a wonderful and very long festive period in Spain, where the main focus is to spend time gathering with family and good friends while eating copious amounts of food! lol

From late November, nativity scenes, Christmas lights, and other traditions start in the build up to Nochebuena, the 24th of December. But before that, on the 22nd there is the hugely popular “Lotería de Navidad” (Christmas lottery). Around 75% of Spaniards enter this lottery, which is the biggest ticket-based lottery draw in the world! The biggest prize is called “El Gordo” (the Fat One) and the combined prize fund is more than €2 billion each year. So if you happen to be in Spain around the time, you may want to consider getting a ticket!

Los mercados de Navidad, or Christmas markets in all big towns and cities are a great opportunity to feel the Christmas spirit. There you can find from Christmas decorations, gifts, or foods to...

I remember the first time I was asked to consider the question “what is a culture” at university. I was already living in the UK and despite coming from Spain and having had close contact with other countries, all I could think about was all of the things that we can see (like the architecture, the music, the art, etc) So, basically, the more “obvious” expressions of a culture.

And then the teacher said: “Culture is what shapes our behaviour and structures a person's perception of the world”. I remember saying… wow, that's deep! And she said… Indeed, as deep as this… And showed us an iceberg!

Since then (15 years ago) I have widely seen the concept of culture represented with an iceberg figure, something like this:

Interesting, right? So, when we travel, live or meet someone from another culture, all we are presented with initially is the very tip of “their iceberg”. The visual and most obvious elements that let...

Not so long ago, I was on a family holiday in Cádiz (southern Spain) and having lived in the UK for quite a number of years now, I realise how the words “please and thank you” are completely ingrained in me as a mark of being “a polite woman” in the country where I live, but to the point of sounding weird and foreign in a Spanish context at times!

Let me give you a bit more background…

I was calling a restaurant to book a table and after each of my requests I kept saying “sí, por favor” (yes, please, but literally translated “yes, by favour”) to which the manager of the restaurant (an incredibly funny, typical jerezano gent as we could witness a few hours later) eventually replied: claro mujer, ¡y sin favor también! (Of course woman, and without a favour too!)

That really made me laugh (recognising my own Englishness) and then it led me to reflect on the Spanish use of “por favor” or...