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‘El Clásico’ between Barcelona and Real Madrid

Mónica Boixeda

The 22nd of April is the day that one of the most highly-awaited classic football matches is taking place at the Camp Nou in Barcelona, the match between FC Barcelona and their arch-rival Real Madrid. This clash of the titans is part of the second round of the Liga BBVA 2011-2012 and, like every year, it´s highly-awaited by thousands of fans of both teams, the two biggest representatives of Spanish football. This match won´t be played on a neutral ground but rather in the impressive Camp Nou, the stadium of FC Barcelona, who are also known as Barça. This stadium was inaugurated on September 24th 1957, designed by the architects Josep Soteras Mauri and Francesc Mitjans. The stadium took two years to be built and is now a monumental sporting landmark. Its current name was formalized in 2001 after a referendum with the club´s fans. It´s 55sq metres big and 157ft tall, with a playing field of 114×74 yards and a capacity for 99,000 fans. FC Barcelona, or Barça, was born out of the initiative of a group of young sports fans, especially football fans, in 1899. The 1950s was one of the best decades for the club, adding players such as Ladislao Kubala to their ranks, who helped them win 3 Spanish League titles, 5 Copa del Generalísimo (now Copa del Rey) and 2 Fairs Cups. Another motive of dispute between the two teams was Alfredo Di Stefano, who Barça claimed to have signed, only for him to end up playing in the white of Real Madrid and going on to win many trophies with them, being a...

Latin Culture in Barcelona

Mónica Boixeda

To be Latino, Latin American, South American, whatever you prefer to call them, in Europe. Spain held colonies in America for hundreds of years, influencing, with the Bible in front, their culture, traditions and the Castilian language, which was spread across America and is now spoken by millions. However, in Latin America the Castilian is called Spanish. And Spanish in Latin America, has so many contrasts, accents, expressions, slangs, which have made the language a sea of sounds, identities and indescribable beauty. Thus, a language that was imposed as a synonymous of control, nowadays is assimilated and returned with a new face, new meanings, expressions, meanings, poetry and music. Now analyzing such an impact in Latin America, from the most logical point of view, it would have to be pretty stupid not to consider a relevant immigration to Spain from these countries, and therefore cultural presence and exchange. Unfortunately, light or not as light fascism that is sometimes spread among Spanish people, seems not to allow us to see that the cultural exchange with America and other cultures, has been having a major importance in Spain for centuries and will not be erased. Recall also the ancestral Arab presence in Spain. It has been demonized both the Latin Kings, the disaster of their “bad influence” on the culture and the Spanish youth that borders on the ridiculous. It is true that there have been acts of violence, but those are definitely less than the ones caused by the Spanish regionalism and racism that are still present among us, or violence and separation generated by the big business of football....

Barcelona with children

Mónica Boixeda

Few cities in the world (perhaps Paris or New York) are as suitable for traveling with children of any age as Barcelona. Its rich artistic heritage from the nineteenth century normally amuses adults and children equally, with its colorful labyrinths and amazing architecture. Take a stroll down las Ramblas and its living sculptures, flower stalls and the animals on the sea direction will please kids and adults. But Barcelona is much more than that. Parks in Barcelona Designed by one of the most universal Catalan artists, the same who designed the Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi’s Park Güell, will charm you with its distinctive organic, colorful tiles, its views of the city, its stairways, porches is a must see for all travelers, whether accompanied by family, honeymoon or alone. But this is not the only park in the city, although it is the most spectacular from the artistic point of view. In the old part of the city, there is the Ciudadela Park, open to the public during the late nineteenth century and designed in the style of the Europeans who that time, began to proliferate like mushrooms. In its more than 17,000 m2 of land, which contains beautiful modernist squares, trails, exotic plant species and the Barcelona Zoo, known mainly for having been the residence of Snowflake (Copito de nieve) and, to date, with a busy schedule activity and circuits. The Labyrinth Park of Horta, recreates a French garden with clipped boxwood paths, classical sculptures, and the Botanical Garden of Barcelona, designed for people’s research and education support, complete the four most unique and important in places of greenery....

Brooke Fraser in Barcelona

Mónica Boixeda

The New Zealander folk-rock singer Brooke Fraser will perform a concert on the 16th of April at Bikini concert hall in Barcelona. This new tour is aimed to promote her new album Flags, which that has been a total success by obtaining five awards at the Vodafone Music Award 2011 in New Zealand. Along with Flags, Fraser also promote some social actions to help Africa. Brooke Gabrielle Fraser, Brooke Fraser´s real name, was born in a traditional New Zealand family in Wellington in 1983. When she was 7, she started to take some piano lessons. At age 12, she became interested in writing lyrics and took the guitar to accompany them, learning to get the tones that her lyrics required. While she never took singing lessons, she learned to train her voice and make the most of it, which led her to sing at the Parachute Festival 2000. Before becoming a professional musician, she became interested in media and wrote articles for the Soul Purpose magazine since she was 15. She was then editor and hosted a cable television program, before moving to Auckland to start his musical career. Just after her arrival in Auckland, she met the elemento P drummer, Scotty Pearson, who helped her get an interview with producer Matty J. This was an excellent meeting to the point that he immediately became her manager, while he positioned her in several record labels. Finally she decided to stay at Sony Music Entertainment New Zealand. Her first album What to do with Daylight was released in 2003. In just one week it reached No. 1 in sales and...

Killing Joke in Barcelona

Mónica Boixeda

On the 17th of April, the Music Hall concert venue in Barcelona will stage the live gig of the British post-punk band Killing Joke, who will be playing techno rock. The support bands will be The Crying Spell and The Icarus Line, who Killing Joke are touring with as the original members of the band will be playing, in Barcelona, the only concert in Spain. Killing Joke were formed in 1978 in Notting Hill, London, by the guitarist Kevin ´Geordie´ Walter, the keyboardist and singer Jaz Coleman and then they added Martin ´Youth´ Glover and the drummer Paul Ferguson. This band began trying to smash the scene as a reply to the materialist, conservative and tremendously unfair world, using music as their method. Their vision and their capacity to evolve inspired Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Nine Inch Nails, Godflesh, Soundgarden and various other bands. Their reputation for being an innovative and influential band in the world of music is due to their huge experience that has set a trend for many bands of today who consider them a reference in the industrial music scene, mainly for the sounds of their first two albums. Their tracks have the hypnotic and metal-harmonic sound thanks to the guitars. On a rhythmic level, their tone registers are heavy, as is the background sound, which has a gothic twist to it given by the keyboards. To that, they add the warm voice of Coleman, who manages solos of brutal intensity. In their musical beginnings, they started mixing post-punk and dub-reggae. Then, in the 80s, they moved to a tribal phase with post-punk metal and proto-industrial which...

Delacroix exhibition Barcelona

Mónica Boixeda

One of the main figures of romanticism, renovator of the classic style and revolutionary artist, Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix, the French painter from the early 20th century, is the artist that this exhibition at the CaixaForum focuses on, which after its stop in Madrid is now in Barcelona. The importance of Delacroix is in his unique way of seeing and feeling art, which took him to face the hard rules of neoclassic art and to become the father of romanticism, inspiring many important artists after him in the first few decades of the 20th century. Delacroix was, therefore, a groundbreaking artist, who despite having been formed inside the neoclassic movement, he managed to capture revolutionary ideas of an imagination enriched by writing, especially poetry and music, which he admired a lot. In the exhibition we can see over 100 works by the artist, mostly paintings and lithographies, that have been sent from around the world for this exhibition. Among these we can find his most famous works, such as ´The Women of Algiers´ and ´Greece on the ruins of Missolonghi´, the latter coming from the permanent exhibition at the Fine Arts Museum in Bordeaux. It´s the biggest exhibition to ever take place in Spain of the painter, after its stay in Madrid, which was a huge success. In the exhibition, there are also his famous paintings made in North Africa. The exhibition, which has almost all the works of the artist, was inaugurated in Barcelona on the 15th of February at CaixaForum, thanks to an agreement of collaboration between Obra Social La Caixa and the Louvre Museum. Such is...

Let’s go crazy, it smells like flowers

Mónica Boixeda

A wise man once said that to feel young, one has to have more projects than memories. It´s the projects and the dreams to carry them out that keep us alive and even, sometimes, happy. Until 10th of April 2012 take advantage of our last minute offer for Easter getting a 5 % discount in all of our apartments during the first 10th days of April. All you need to do is decide where you want to go and enter the following promo code into the required field: **PC7W3NEEE31D** At Only-apartments we believe that it´s fair and necessary that all of us have these dreams. For that, we give you all the facilities you need to go out and see the world, unwind, break up your routine or simply go out and party with your friends far from home, whichever one is easiest for you. As you know, every month we offer a discount in all of our apartments for a few days, so make the most of it and book your trip until the 10th of April and save 5% on the price of any of the apartments that we have around the world. Maria Climent It doesn´t matter where you want to be, it doesn´t matter if it´s in any of the apartments in Barcelona London or Prague. The important thing is that, every now and then, you want to be someplace else and we want to make it easy for you. Let spring draw you...

Eccentric museums in Barcelona

Mónica Boixeda

The cultural, architectural and artistic offers in Barcelona are well known, particularly seductive and plentiful. However, with their sophisticated and internationally renowned museums, galleries and buildings, the city is also rich in unique museum attractions characterized by an eccentricity stimulant that will delight those looking for the less used or publicized faces of the city. We could perhaps call them museums for those who don’t usually like museums, if it was such holder that falls somewhere in that particular unhealthy cliché. Such is the case for example, of the recently opened Museum Miba or http://www.mibamuseum.com/ that with ideas and Inventions with inspiration and enthusiasm that greets the visitor with the words painted on the wall of the entrance, “All is not invented. ” Perhaps the most interesting aspect about this amazing place, where constantly we go through breathtaking journeys from the ridiculous to the sublime, while discovering devices such as pots that move alone in search of sunlight or pads that are also sometimes remote control is the way it explores the blurred, uncertain boundaries between the absurd and great ideas. No less remarkable is the famous Museu de L´Erotica, first museum dedicated to art and culture of eroticism in Spanish, which approaches to the seductive through the exhibition of more than eight hundred items of considerable historical value and from a transversal approach which includes disciplines such as, literature, art, archeology, history, anthropology, food, film and antiques. It also houses a permanent exhibition of erotic art, which are works by artists known and admired worldwide. With the entrance the visitor is entitled to a free drink. Nor could...