Activities 23.03.2015 - 28.03.2015

Spring has arrived and so have a flood of Tía Tula activities! A scavenger hunt, afternoon 'pinchos', a literature workshop, a guided tour of the city and a weekend trip for next Saturday - the week is shaping up to be a busy and fun-filled seven days!

Monday 23rd, 5:00 pm: Scavenger Hunt – We will split into teams to complete a range of different tasks and activities in the centre of the city. The fastest team will win a prize! Interested? Sign up now! 
Approximate duration: 1h30min.

Tuesday 24th, 7:30 pm: Exhibition and ´'pinchos' -  Artist Paula Noidat (illustrator and photographer) presents her exhibition 'Beyond my Imagination' at El Rastrel Etic Café. Come and see her work and try a selection of vegan tapas or home-made cakes and organic coffee . 
Approximate duration: 1h.

Wednesday 25th, 4:50 pm:  – Literary Workshop. Brush up on your knowledge of contemporary Spanish literature with Montse. Come and listen to a selection of poems and literary readings. 
Approximate duration: 1h30min.

Thursday 26th, 5:20 pm: Charlamos – We will watch a short film, then discuss the ideas presented, and their relevance to current issues. Don't miss this great opportunity to practice your Spanish!  
Approximate duration: 1h30min.

Friday 27th, 6:10 pm: City Visit – A fun and interesting look at the history of various monuments and buildings around Salamanca. 
Approximate duration: 1h30min.

Saturday 28th: Weekend trip – We have a range of trips for the perfect end to the week!
Please ask our secretary for more information.

Please don't forget that you need to sign up for each activity at the reception desk (in order to reserve your place). The minimum number of participants required fro each activity is usually three. Also, unless otherwise stated, the meeting point is Tía Tula school. Lastly, if there's no price mentioned in the description, the activity is free of charge. 

Try to participate in as many activities as you can; they are designed not just for you to have fun, but also to improve your knowledge of Salamanca and Spanish culture, and to put into practice the Spanish you have learnt in class.

International Day of the Book

As every year, we’ve celebrated the International Day of the Book (23 April), we’ve taken the opportunity to ask the school staff which book of the Hispanic literature they will read again. The literary works could be of any genre but originally written in Spanish.

The purpose of this poll was to create a list of our favorite books, by Spanish or Hispanic authors, to recommend to students and of course, enjoy ourselves. Throughout this work, we were able to confirm what we were already suspecting: the school staff has an exquisite literary taste!

Here is the result of this small public opinion poll (in strict alphabetical order, though...):

Aline : ‘Sin noticias de Gurb’  by Eduardo Mendoza.

Ana Andreu : ‘La tabla de Flandes’ by Arturo Pérez-Reverte.

Ana Cortina : ‘El manuscrito de piedra’ by Luis García Jambrina.

Ana Fernández : ‘El maestro del Prado’ by Javier Sierra and ‘La verdad sobre el caso Savolta’ by Eduardo Mendoza.

Ana Sáenz : ‘Retahílas by Carmen Martín Gaite.

Beatrice : ‘La sonrisa etrusca’ by José Luis Sampedro .

Carmen : ‘El tiempo entre costuras’ by María Dueñas and ‘Como agua para chocolate’ by Laura Esquivel .

Cristina Martin : ‘Cien años de soledad’ by Gabriel García Márquez, and ‘Retrato en sepia’ by Isabel Allende.

Cristina Ramos : "La Celestina" by Fernando de Rojas.

Elena : ‘Poesía completa’  by Alejandra Pizarnik .

Enrique : ‘La ciudad y los perros’ by Mario Vargas Llosa, and ‘Olvidado Rey Gudú’ by Ana María Matute .

Javier : ‘Los renglones torcidos de Dios’ by Torcuato Luca De Tena.

Lourdes : ‘Espantapájaros’ by Oliver Girondo .

Macarena : ‘La sombra del viento’  by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

Montse : "Bichos" by Miguel Torga .

Nela : ‘Poeta en Nueva York’ by Federico Garcia Lorca.

Rosa: ‘La Tía Tula’ by Miguel de Unamuno, and ‘Marianela’ by Benito Pérez Galdós.

 

We’ve also included the list of the 100 best novels in Spanish published by El Mundo newspaper in 2001, in which they’ve taken into account the opinion of both 20,000 critics and readers:

Top  100 novels in Spanish by “El Mundo” - 2001

We hope you come over just as well as us with these magnificent works. In addition to, we'd love to know your opinion. What book of Hispanic literature would you like to read again?

World Book Day

The 23rd of April we celebrated the World Book Day.

 

 

We celebrate this day because on the same day in 1616 Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega passed away. There were also lots of other excellent writers just like Maurice Druon, K. Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo, who were born or died on the 23^rd of April. That’s also the reason that this date, which has a symbolic signification for literature, was chosen by the General Conference of the UNESCO for honoring books and their writers and for encouraging everyone, especially the youngsters, to discover the pleasure of reading. The idea of this celebration was born in Cataluña (Spain), where on this day they traditionally give a rose to the buyer of a book.

 

There are also some other events on that day, that have actually nothing to do with books:

 

The day of the Community in Castilla León, because on the 23^rd of April in 1521 the Battle of Villalar in the countryside of Valladolid was set free. They confronted the members of the Castilian community, which was a little army that was mostly made up by farmers, with the imperial forces of the new king Carlos I. Carlos I entered a little while before from Flandes with barely knowing a word of Castilian and was the most powerful European king of the moment. The comuneros were massacred and the battle, of which they knew it would be a bloodbath, for the freedom and for the rejection imposed from the outside, was recorded in the history forever.

 

Another event that took place on April 23 of the year 303 was the one on where San Jorge, leader of Aragón and Cataluña (and other countries and territories, just like England), was tortured and executed for defending his religious liberty and for not giving up his Christianity when his ceasar, Diocleciano, told him to follow and to seek after the Christians of the empire. After that the legend of San Jorge and the Dragon came up. The legend tells that San Jorge went to a dragon, who demanded human sacrifices in exchange for water of a well, and killed it. He actually confronted the dragon after he heard that the next sacrifice would be a princess. With this legend a new kind of literature was introduced: the one of swords, dragons and witchery. In Cataluña they remember San Jorge (San Jordi there) giving a red rose, which is the symbol of love and passion, with the book that is always accompanying it to the loved ones.