Friday, December 19, 2008
It's Christmas in Santa Cruz!
Is also the translation of the title of a new Christmas carol (I'd have said pop song), "Es Navidad en Santa Cruz", written by Tenerife artist, Iván Troyano, who performs it with Dan Silva and R&B / hip-hop sextet, Soul Sanet. I'm sure it will be popular with locals and, how many cities have their own "Christmas carol"? Watch the video though, the lights look pretty.
Also, this new "carol" will be performed live for the first time on Saturday, December 20th, in the Plaza del Príncipe in Santa Cruz at 7 p.m.
15th Annual Christmas Day Concert in Santa Cruz
You too may prefer the Christmas Concert by the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra to be held on Christmas Day in the port of Santa Cruz; this year in its 15th year. I say this every year, but I simply cannot impress on you enough how high the quality is. Goodness knows what you'd have to pay to see a top orchestra like the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra elsewhere, but this concert, on Christmas Day in the evening, in the open air on the port at Santa Cruz is completely FREE, with seating for 20,000.
This year, the OST, conducted by Lü Jia, will be accompanied by Chilean soprano, Cristina Gallardo-Domâs.
The program, coinciding with Italian composer, Giacomo Puccini's 150th Birthday, on December 22nd, contains some of the most representative arias of his works; from La Bohème, Madame Butterfly and La Rondine.
There are also the 1st and 3rd parts of Ralph Vaughan Williams' English Folk Song Suite and pieces from; the lyrical opera Eugene Onegin, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as the finale.
As usual, the concert will be televised live by Televisión Canaria in the Canary Islands. Local TV in Castilla La Mancha are also showing it live and Telemadrid will be showing it the next day. For the rest of us, the note continues that, as last year, you can watch the concert live via the internet at the Tenerife Ports Authority website: Puertos de Tenerife. Show starts 10 p.m.
Tenerife hoping on 278,973 chances at winning
Today was the last day to play El Gordo 2008, the Spanish Christmas Lottery. This year, every Canarian will spend an average of 46.41 euros on Christmas Lottery tickets, six euros more than in 2007.
Interestingly, the average spent on Christmas Lottery tickets in Santa Cruz province (56.71 euros) is around 20 euros, per person, higher than in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, with Tenerife this year betting a total of 55.79 million euros on some 278,973 tickets.
People hope at least one of them will come up, of course, though the headlines every December 23rd, always lament the fact that the islands get "forgotten" by El Gordo. Surprisingly, this may, in part, be due to the comparatively LOW (not so's you'd noticed, eh?) participation in this lottery on the islands. In contrast, in Spain as a whole, the average spend on tickets for the annual December 22nd, El Gordo, is 73 euros per person.
Three million travel over Christmas
As many as three million Britons will escape the gloom engulfing the economy and the weather and head overseas this Christmas, it has been revealed. Travel organisation ABTA said Christmas getaway numbers did not appear to have been affected by the economic downturn, with Tenerife still heading the list of most popular sunshine destinations for Britons.
Who may not all be too pleased to hear that ...
The Canary Islands will have the coldest and driest winter in years. The Agencia Estatal de Meteorología (State Meteorological Agency) has declared this autumn the coldest in the last 15 years. The coming winter, according to Aemet's crystal ball, will bring above average temperatures on the Spanish mainland, meanwhile temperatures are expected to drop in the islands.
First ever helmet with airbag in the world
A Spanish company has launched the first ever helmet with airbag in the world, to be distributed exclusively throughout the Canary Islands.
As a special offer during the launch, it will be on sale for just 649 euros until January 5th, which, the news item continues, "is practically 200 euros less than the usual selling price which amounts to 715 euros."
Yes, that is "practically" 200 euros, I suppose, if you happen to think there's very little difference between 66 euros and 200 euros. Must be the falling exchange rate again. Or that most reporters are notoriously bad with figures! :)
Defend your human rights
Join the demonstration on Saturday, December 20th in the Plaza Weyler, Santa Cruz (map), against immigration policies that are racist and that clearly contravene basic human rights, being held to mark International Migrants Day, which was on December 18th.
For more details of what this protest is all about, in English, read this Call for International Day of Action Against Immigration Prisons.
Crisis, what crisis?
The volume of home sales has fallen by 32% in the Canary Island archipelago in the last 12 months, more than the national average drop of 29.8%. (Though that, in turn, says that 2/3 of the usual rate of business is still being done, which seems fairly positive to me, given the ever increasingly uttered word, "crisis.")
El Cañizo say they will continue to analyse the data, but point to a news item published in Europa Press, from sources obviously close to the CajaCanarias (Canarian Savings Bank), whose business growth has dropped by 2/3rds in the last year, compared to 2006/2007, causing them to reach a diagnosis that Tenerife's economy is seriously injured. (Let's hope it doesn't prove fatal.)
All the other news that didn't fit ...
Kicking sand in our faces - tales of Tenerife beaches, "Nice new walkways to improve access, and better facilities can make a big difference to Tenerife beaches, but sometimes the warning bells start ringing when the word improvement is used." If bland is an improvement, this was.
The Hollywood Motor Show starts today in Puerto Santiago, has been a huge success in Santa Cruz, San Isidro and Granadilla and will be in Los Cristianos from 25th Dec to 6th Jan.
Christmas program in Granadilla de Abona
The Center for Tourism Initiatives in Güímar has launched a new campaign, "Senderos de Güímar. Tesoro Natural de Tenerife" (Footpaths of Güímar: Natural Treasure of Tenerife), to promote the district's natural resources to visitors. The project includes a DVD with 10 reports on each of the routes, guides, maps and itineraries, in Spanish, English and German.
Direct flights Tenerife to Miami. After many months of planning the new Air Europa flight between Tenerife and Miami will commence in the New Year.
Joe Cawley the award-winning travel writer, copywriter and author, gets the last word on the upcoming Rod Stewart concert in Tenerife next May:
"Well, it’s official. I mean officially official. The announcement was made several weeks ago that the oldest mullet in town was heading to Tenerife… but you know how things are on the rock. A ‘definite’ is a maybe, a ‘probable’ is a no chance, and a ‘possible’ is as likely as a gecko being voted mayor of Arona." (See, we're not the only cynics!)
Labels: Rod Stewart in Tenerife
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