Prague: nice city

I know it has been a long time since I last updated my blog but summer it is a difficult time because all the work we have. I have a lot of things to write about but I will start explaining my holidays in Prague, a beautiful city that you should visit sometime in your life if you can afford it.

We arrived early in the morning and went to the hotel that was really nice. Only ten minutes walking from the city centre, we started visiting the Prague Astronomic clock, one of the city’s famous buildings. Afterwards, we decided to do the guided tour in the city Sandemans New Europe with Carlos who explained us a lot of interesting things. I strongly recommend you to do it because you receive a lot of information and you start knowing the city.

Everybody says that is a great city and I did like it. Charles’ bridge, the castle, St Vithus Cathedral, the city centre, Wenceslao’s square… a lot of interesting places to visit and spend some time enjoying them. We also visited different churches, the Jewish cemetery and the different synagogues or Loreto palace. A lot of places that are worth it and that you will like for sure. The only important place we didn’t get to visit was the Clementinum, an excuse to get back in the future.

As we had some time over we decided to visit Kutná Hora; a very nice city known because of a little chapel made of human bones, but that also had few other interesting monuments.

However, a lot of people say that is a cheap city and we didn’t found that cheap. It is not expensive but the prices were not very different from the ones here in Barcelona.

Prague was one of the cities I wanted to visit and I can delete it from my list. It is a small city where everything is in walking distance and that has a lot of nice things to see and a very interesting history. I think that is worth it to walk around the streets, the different squares and neighbourhoods and learn some of its history. A great trip to one of the most historical cities in Europe!

Can somebody explain it to me?

For a week we have heard on television that Isabel Pantoja, a famous Spanish artist, was getting out of prison. If you don’t know who she is, you just need to know that she is an artist who went to jail because of money laundering. After a great career as a ‘tonadillera’, she was involved in some dark business due to her relation with Julian Muñoz, a corrupt politician that also ended in jail. It is a long story and if you are interested you can read more things here.

However, for me, the most incredible thing is what happened last Tuesday. After some months in jail, Pantoja was given a permission to get out of jail for a few days. I am not going to judge if she deserves it or not. I understand that the judge made the best decision. Probably, there are worst crimes than the one she committed but the law is supposed to be equal for everybody. This is not the subject of debate.

In mypoint of view what is terrible is that a group of fans received her when she was getting out the jail. They were there outside the jail to give their support and to cheer her. I can’t understand! Obviously you can admire somebody because of their career or music, but I think that is terrible to receive here as she was a heroine.

This woman robbed and cheated. I know she is paying for it and that everybody deserves a second opportunity but I can’t conceive receiving someone that has committed a crime this way. Something similar happened a few months ago when Leo Messi went to court because of tax offense and hundreds of supporters went there to cheer him. I can’t understand it.

I know that in life you have to forgive, but what I don’t accept is that someone that has cheated us gets an ovation. I know there are bigger problems in our world but this type of behaviour says a lot of our society that is involved in one of the worst crisis of history but is not capable to condemn unfair and illegal attitudes of famous people.

Nice city and great guide!

This past weekend I discovered a new city: Dublin. Jéssica and I went with another couple to visit Marta, a friend of my wife who has been living there the last two ages years. It was a trip that I was looking forward to because everybody spoke well of Dublin. I have to say that it was worth it!

Our trip to Dublin has a lot of anecdotes. After we bought the flights, we started looking for a hotel. For a reason we don’t understand yet all of them were very expensive. Therefore, we decided to rent an apartment. We found one in the city centre very cheap and well connected, and we decided to book it. Everything looked all right until one morning that Laura told us that the woman had cancelled our reservation. Drama! We started looking again for somewhere to sleep and it was impossible to find anything. All the apartments, guesthouses and bed and breakfast were full and the hotels left were too expensive for a weekend. After a hard search we booked two rooms in the Ibis Hotel (30 minutes away from the city centre) with breakfast.

The Spire

We hadn’t started our trip and we already had many a lot of inconvenience problems. A few days later, we read that in Barcelona’s airport there was a strike and we also find found out that the tram that took us from the hotel to the main street of Dublin was affected on Sunday due to maintenance works. Hopefully, nothing affected us and we didn’t have any other inconvenience.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

One of the best things of going to visit someone is that they explain you a lot of things. Marta took us to the see the Spire, Dublin’s General Post Office where the Republic of Ireland was proclaimed in 1916, St Patrick Cathedral, the Old Library in Trinity College where the Book of Kells is kept. We also crossed the Ha'penny Bridge and went to see the Temple Bar, one of Dublin famous pubs. Marta took us to some of the nicest parks, we walked around the main streets full of life and we also met the Prime Minister. We saw one of Oscar Wilde’s houses and had time to go to a few pubs and walk around Dun Laoghai. Marta, who answered all of my questions, became a great tourist guide.

Temple Bar

Everything in Dublin is in walking distance and we had plenty of time to see the main attractions. Obviously, we couldn’t visit any of the museums but we had to prioritize. We finished tired because we walked a lot and we didn’t stop much but it was worth it. It was great to practice my English and enjoy a new country. After visiting Ireland, I only have Northern Ireland left as I have been in Scotland and Wales before. Maybe someday I will fly to Belfast to complete the five countries.

Ha'penny Bridge

It is not a big city but it inspires good vibrations and I think it is a good destination for a weekend, specially, if you find someone like Marta.  

I can’t stand Belen Esteban!

She is probably one of the most well-known women in Spain nowadays. Her gran success was being the girlfriend of a famous bullfighter, Jesulín de Ubrique, and getting pregnant of him. After the couple broke up, she started to appear in many TV programmes and magazines explaining things about her family in law and how bad was Jesulín with her daughter Andrea, who he didn’t attend as he should have. 

I am sure that if you are a Spanish reader you will know who I am talking about. If not, I will let you know: Belen Esteban. Everybody in Spain knows who she is. I am sure that very few people wouldn’t answer properly if we saw a photo of her. It would be easy to attack the Spanish society and I don’t want to do it, but I do feel sorry and I do think it is something terrible. 

I understand that people want entertainment. When you get home after work, you want to watch things that don’t take too much effort. Only a few people watch documentaries; I Know and as I wrote before I understand. However, this woman is too much for me. I can’t stand her! 

I have studied hard during all my life. In fact, I continue doing it. I have done a lot of efforts to get a good job and when I see someone like her: bad manners, illeterate, bad language and that looking I want to cry. I don’t like the programme she does, but I know that there are a lot of journalists that would like to work in TV and have the opportunity to work in these programmes about society and gossip.     

There is saying in Spanish that says “land for the farmer” (La tierra para quien la trabaja). I don’t totally agree with the sentence, because things require work and effort. Probably there a lot of people who haven’t had the opportunities to show their talent and they would deserve to have a better job.    

I am not criticizing the gossip programs. I know there are a lot of people that like them as there are a lot of people –I include myself- that like sports programs. What I don’t stand is that someone that hasn’t done anything in her life, apart from being the ex-girlfriend of a famous bullfighter, becomes someone famous and working in one of the main TV channels of the country.  

I honestly think it is a bad example for young people who can thing that life is easy; that is far from reality. We have a lot of problems in our society and we have to build references that really show things to us, not persons without any interest, manners or education. I am sure that in any other country you won’t find someone similar to Belén Esteban. I think we have to start changing and not turn into a hero or a superwoman a person that doesn’t deserve it; she is no example of anything. Don’t be wrong!  

Bizarre situation!

Last Sunday something really terrible happened in Almeria. After the match between Almería and Eibar, the Basque manager Gaizka Garitano attended the press. All the coaches have to go to the press conference room once the match finishes otherwise the club is fined.

One of the journalists that travelled with the team asked him in Basque and, of course, Garitano answered in the same language. Meanwhile, a few local journalists interrupted his press conference saying that they didn’t understand. Then Almeria’s head of press reminded them that there was no problem: firstly he would reply in Basque and after he would repeat in Spanish. My experience has taught me that local journalists don’t quote the away coach. The journalists carried on complaining while Almeria’s head of press repeated again that Almeria has been playing for the last six years in the First Division and that they should respect a person answering in other language as they have always done. Finally, Garitano got really annoyed and he decided to leave.

First of all, I have to say that maybe Garitano should have waited for respect to the other journalists. However, I understand that it is very difficult to stand a situation like that one where some people are behaving so badly. Secondly, congrats to Almería's head of press who tried to help and asked everybody to be quiet and respectful. I have read that afterwards he apologized to the coach.

Finally, terrible attitude of those journalists who didn’t respect Garitano. I think that their attitude was unacceptable. We live in a country that has four languages. Garitano answered a question in Basque because somebody asked him in that language. I could understand somebody getting annoyed if the question was in Spanish and he decided to answer in Basque, but that was not the case.

In a lot of press conferences we have our speaker answering first in Catalan and after in Spanish the same question for the press to have the same quote in both languages. There isn’t any problem and everybody understands.

In the last years there has been a boom of Nationalism and I know that in other parts of Spain they have started hating the Catalans specially. When things like these happen –it is not the first- I think that I am better without these type of people that don’t respect other languages or the differences we have in our same country. It was a pathetic attitude. I know that not all the Almeria journalists acted this way and they felt sorry, but I can’t understand this attitude in our times and from people that have a University degree and they should have respect for others. However, you don’t only learn good manners at school.