Reviewing the Madrid Confessions

May 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Regular listeners of The Monday Podcast may remember that I visited Madrid last year to take part in the Great Madrid Escape, an event organised by Ben Curtis and Marina Diez from NotesFromSpain.com.

Last week Ben released an audio book: “The Madrid Confessions”, telling the story of different parts of his life after arriving in Spain up until the present day.

I was lucky enough to pick up an early tweet about the book and download it early.  I’ve reviewed it in this week’s podcast:

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Notes From Spain: The Madrid Confessions

Download the MP3 file | Subscribe to the podcast

Filed Under: Monday Podcasts, Podcasts Tagged With: , , ,

Friendliness on Lanzarote

May 24, 2009 By 3 Comments

Are the residents of Lanzarote “grumpy?”  I can’t say that would be my experience, and yet the Chamber of Commerce has launched a “friendliness campaign” to improve the image of the island!

If I had to think of places where the people in restaurants and hotels were unfriendly to their guests, then Lanzarote would probably not have featured very highly (although I can think of some good examples in Germany and the UK).  In fact, my only real complaint about restaurants on Lanzarote would be that they charge for rolls and butter without asking and sometimes feign a lack of English when there is a problem with the bill.

Perhaps they are worried about the falling numbers of visitors to the island this year.  But I would have thought that that had more to do with the World economy than with the attitude of the taxi drivers.

As far as the restaurants are concerned, investing in decent translations of the menus might be a better investment!

Filed Under: Lanzarote, News Tagged With: , ,

Agreeing on borders

May 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

One of the most important events for anyone interested in 20th Century Bolivian history is the Chaco war, (1932-1935) fought between Bolivia and Paraguay over suspected oil resources in their border region.

As in many previous conflicts that Bolivia was involved in, it ended with the country losing land (approximately 75% of the Chaco region went to Paraguay).  In 1938 a truce was signed in Argentina, but this was not really the end of the subject as many Bolivians were not happy with the result.  It remained a topic as sensitive as the loss of the coastline to Chile.

Recently the topic has resurfaced, and Bolivia and Paraguay have signed an agreement to finalise the border – more than 70 years after the end of the conflict.

It could be compared to a similar situation between Germany and Poland.  Their common border was agreed in Potsdam in 1945 and is known as the “Oder-Neiße-Border“.  A formal agreement between the GDR and Poland was made in 1970, and to avoid any discussion on its validity it was confirmed in the 4+2 agreement on the re-unification of Germany in 1990.  A final contract between the states was signed in 1992.

On the other side of Bolivia, another border project is being discussed: a 150km tunnel to link Bolivia to the Pacific Ocean.  As much as I like the idea, it does sound like rather a big undertaking for those two countries.  And because of the area it is in, Peru would have to agree as well.

Filed Under: Bolivia, News Tagged With: , ,

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