Differences paying Pound or Euro

Having a walk few weeks ago and doing some Christmas-shopping I realised that depending if you pay with Euro or Pound you could get a really expensive price instead a fair price. It's known that you are always going to pay an "extra" when you are abroad, maybe because there are some hidden costs or a hidden fee because you are using a different debit card, however in the next pics I consider that you are paying an overestimate price.

Real currency value when pictures were taken
1 GBP = 1.15681 EUR   1 EUR = 0.864450 GBP

If the price is 30.00 GBP you should pay 34.7205 EUR instead 46 (difference over 11 EUR)

 

If the price is 38.00 GBP you should pay 43.9826 EUR instead 58 (difference over 14 EUR)

If you are travelling abroad, be sure you are getting the cheapest exchange rate or in the worst case scenario you should use your debit card, surely you will get a bad exchange rate but at least you won't pay an extra fee getting cash..and always, if you can, try to pay in the local currency.

Who will win "El clasico"?

FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid Kick Off time tonight 21:00 CET at Camp Nou, Barcelona

The eyes of the whole word will be on the first ‘El Clasico’ of the season

About El Clásico (English: The Classic) is known as a football match between two Spanish rivals football club Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. Both are the largest cities of Spain and the most successful and influential football clubs in the world. El Clasico has turned out to be the most followed club football match in the world.

This year it is much more than a victory, both teams will fight to show the world what style and way to understand football will be the future.

The best 10 reasons to watch the match:

2 Best in the world; Real Madrid - Barcelona

2 Best trainers; Mourinho - Guardiola

2 Golden Ball; CR7- Messi

2 Captains world champions; Casillas - Puyol

2 Duels in midfield; Xabi Alonso - Xavi

Junk TV

The one thing everybody has in common and at last someone have admitted

Senior management at the UK’s leading independent broadcaster ITV have admitted to a UK government committee that the broadcaster is trapped in a ‘ratings rat race’

Basically they were trying to say they would like to broadcast non-mainstream programming such as art & culture, scientific research or documentaries but as the most of the audience would rather reality shows programmes so they have no choice.

Big Brother (UK)- Gran Hermano (SP)

X Factor (UK)- Factor X (SP)

Britain’s Got Talent (UK)- Operacion Triunfo (SP)

Apprentice (The) (UK)- El aprendiz (SP)

Come dine with me (UK)- Ven a cenar conmigo (SP)

Deal or no deal (UK)- Allá Tú (SP)

Weakest Link (UK)- El rival más débil (SP)

As you can see it doesn't matter what country you are from or where you live because everywhere you will find the same shit programmes.

Which category do you belong to?

• Enjoying this realities
• Getting angry doing zapping because you don't find anything interesting
• Resigning yourself to watch something but with your mind in anywhere
• Switching your TV off

Controversial for who?

A new survey conducted by PRS for Music (Performing Right Society is a UK copyright collection society undertaking collective rights management for musical works) has revealed the top 10 most controversial songs, as voted by the British Public.

Once more a foreign can learn a lot from a country’s culture by just observing how the surveys works! if the top is analysed you can see how people throw up their hands just because are saying inappropriate words without thinking the essence of the song. From my point of view I have always interpreted the Prodigy's song as a play on words with a term that sometimes djs use, never saw that song how being rude to women.

As conclusion you can be really critic with the system if you are polite, subtle and smart as Dylan, Cobain, Hendrix, Lennon, Young or even U2 did.

By the way, my personal opinion about the top, they were all an opportunists except Rage and Sex Pistols. I would have included The Doors as the first one, they were controversial  with real poetry.

The top ten most controversial songs were as follows:

1. Smack My Bitch Up – The Prodigy
2. God Save The Queen – The Sex Pistols
3. Relax – Frankie Goes To Hollywood
4. Kim – Eminem
5. Killing In The Name – Rage Against The Machine
6. Ebeneezer Goode – The Shamen
7. Suicide Solution – Ozzy Osbourne
8. Get Your Gunn – Marilyn Manson
9. Angel of Death – Slayer
10. Dear God – XTC

A true competition

Premier League Vs Liga Espanola

Real Madrid and Barcelona underlined their status as the two most attractive teams as Spanish league leaders Madrid thrashed Athletic Bilbao 5-1 and Barcelona scored a crushing 8-0 win over Almeria. Both Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi scored hat-tricks.
After reading those great scores you will think Real Madrid and Barcelona are doing a great season but the fact is that the rest of Clubs can do nothing against these rich clubs so Saturday after Saturday you can see the same scores and how their players are getting hat-trick almost every week.
Real Madrid and Barcelona are getting almost all television rights so for this reason the poorer teams can not try to think how to sign up better players or how to get income through marketing or merchandising. They are struggling to get a fair distribution of tv rights.
Everybody in Spain is pointing Premier League how a true competition where you can see how they try to win on equal terms. if you have a look the last English scores you will see how Manchester won just for 2 goals, Chelsea lost with a team below mid table and how Tottenham won Arsenal in its stadium.

Difficulties to chat up when you are abroad

Surely most of you have asked yourself why when you are on holiday destinations in Spain like Alicante, Canarias or Mallorca it can be so difficult to chat up local people. The main reason between "guiris" and Spanish is behind the time difference and the way to choose the right places.

Guiri: It's the affectionately way to call foreign tourist when they are on holidays in the coast.

Meeting someone is difficult because our behaviour is different.
This is a fact, simply you have to look the behaviour for each person. It's totally different a German, an English or a Spanish. Each country has its culture and traditions, and this could be a problem even to chat up.
First of all because inexplicably there is a place for foreign people, almost always called "West End". When someone hear this it's supposed this area contain many of the city's major tourist and commercial attractions. These places always are full of colour and music along streets, even the shabbiest place has a lot of colour lights to make it more attractive. You are never going to find any local people or traditional place in this area, these place have been created only for a consumer society. You should try to stay away from here.
Second of all the timing question, usually English people is preparing themselves at 7pm so they are leaving their apartments and having the first drink at 8pm, for this reason at 9pm surely you are drunk, at 10pm you are trying to get a partner and at 11pm you are coming back with someone to your apartment. In 5 hours the party is finished while Spanish are having dinner at 10pm, prepare themselves at 11pm and leaving the apartment at 12. Surely our paths have been crossed more than once however some are finishing the night, other are just starting.

Relax yourself, you are not in a hurry, you are on holiday and you have the whole next morning to sleep.

This is England - The contrast

Few days ago I watched again the amazing movie called "This is England", after a while living in here I think I have enough info to compare England from inside and outside view.

Long gone are those days when the public image of England was Ben Sherman shirts and Dr Marten boots, however still nowadays you can find in every single football stadium people drinking and fighting, even The Royal Academy define the word hooligan as "British supporter with violent and aggressive behaviour".

Leaving in second place the fact about "English drinking culture" and anti-social behaviour as a "normal" part of life, it has nothing to do with the feelings that you will perceive once you have been here.

Every English represents the nation, from a distant point of view England is still a small town. I don't mean the way English are, but the original way they interpret the human life. English would never allow to nobody invade their private life or freedom. English still have the pride of small town built in a great society a great nation. It’s incredible how a cold country can become so warm, It’s the best example about how an individualist people can work together to be stronger.

It's a shame that sometimes the behaviour of people abroad or public image (including all countries) doesn't seem the same that you can find when you are here.

We still have a lot to learn.