Secret Tenerife: Tenerife offers you can't refuse *

Got your map of Santa Cruz handy? Got a pen? Good, then you can start changing some street names, just as the town hall has done this week, when mayor, Miguel Zerolo signed a decree changing the names of eight (out of more than 100) of the streets with names that had something to do with the Franco era, in accordance with the Ley de la Memoria Histórica (Law of Historical Memory.)

The names, which changed as of Thursday, are as follows:

Old Street Name	New Street Name	Translation
Rambla del General Franco	Rambla de Santa Cruz	Holy Cross Way
Avenida José Antonio	Avenida Marítima	Maritime Avenue
Avenida del General Mola	Avenida Islas Canarias	Canary Islands Avenue
Calle General Moscardó	Calle Del Amor	Love Street
Calle General Goded	Calle Del Perdón	Forgiveness Street
Calle General Fanjul	Calle Del Olvido	Forgetfulness Street
Calle General Sanjurjo	Calle De los Sueños	Dreams Street
Calle García Morato	Calle De la Tolerancia	Tolerance Street

The new names have been chosen partly in consultation with residents, but we can't help thinking that the choice of those 5 street names isn't, er accidental.

There are, of course, numerous opinions on this. There are those who think that changing the names is actually sweeping the bad stuff under the carpet; that once the names are taken off the streets, this ugly part of history will be forgot.

It is not for me to opine over what might be more suitable names for streets in the Santa Cruz of today, but one commenter has already beaten me to it anyway, suggesting that streets should be given names like Corrupción en Miami (Miami Vice Street) Rambla del Padrino (Godfather Way), or Avenida Corleone (Corleone Avenue), Plaza del Gangsterismo (Gangsterism Place).

(* The Godfather movie's line "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse." was voted as the #10 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.)

One thing I couldn't resist, was looking for one of these new street names in the Callejero (Street map) at the town hall's website and of course, I wasn't a bit surprised when it came back with, "No se han encontrado coincidencias con su búsqueda" (Nothing has been found that coincides with your search).

No more queues to ruin the end of your holiday

Low cost airline, Jet 2, are launching some new free services for passengers in the new year, it is reported, amongst them an increase in luggage allowance from 17 kilos to 22 kilos and offering made-to-measure menus where passengers can choose their hot meal at the time of booking.

Jet 2 will also be offering online check-in, with seat allocation, to avoid queuing, on flights leaving from a number of Spanish airports, including Tenerife.

Thousands expected to fly abroad this Christmas

Thousands of Scots will defy the economic downturn by jetting abroad for Christmas. More than 250,000 holidaymakers are expected to pass through the country’s main airports in the run-up to December 25. As heavy rain and wind lashed the country, 53,000 passengers were booked to fly in or out of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports on what was predicted to be the busiest 24 hours of the festive season. Popular destinations include the sun-soaked beaches of Tenerife, Alicante and Dubai.

The Painted Cave comes to Garachico

As we reported earlier, the annual nativity model village in the Hotel La Quinta Roja in Garachico, generally takes the form of one of the Canary Islands in the pre-conquest era and that this year's offering features the island of Gran Canaria, the foreground of which represents, La Cueva Pintada (Painted Cave), where this year, a young aboriginal Jesus makes his entrance into the world. This report shows the model, together with the man who made it, Vicente Antonio Díaz Melián (blog), while here are some closeups of the model's detail.

Lucky #5

Tickets ending with the number 5 are the ones that have been repeated most often throughout the history of the El Gordo Christmas Lottery in Spain, being winners 31 times.

It's followed by the numbers 4 and 6, which have won on 26 occasions and the numbers 3 and 8, both winning 20 times. The number that has won the least number of times is the number 1 - that has only won on 8 occasions.

Smog in the City

An article in the Tenerife press yesterday, informs us that Santa Cruz town hall is in possession of a report revealing "possible contamination risks" from the refinery, saying levels of nickel in the atmosphere are three times the permitted amounts, a situation classified as "dangerous and alarming for the city." Photo: Foro contra la Incineración.

Have yourself a Healthy Little Christmas

Public health services in the Canary Islands recommend that you control your consumption of fats and alcohol, to enjoy a Healthy Christmas.

And we all know what we think of "untimely" killjoy advice like that, don't we? But they're right. Variety, moderation and, they suggest cutting down on eggs, since so many of the traditional Christmas foods, particularly turrón and many other sweets and deserts also contain them.

Still time to order: Turron, Christmas Candy and Treats

Rod Stewart Concert Tickets Selling Fast

Tickets for the Rod Stewart concert to be held on May 16th, 2009 in Adeje, Tenerife, have been selling like hot cakes, with 8,000 sold in the first 4 days since tickets went on sale last Monday and, at some points of sale, people even had to queue up.

Organizers say that the phone lines were saturated on the first day and that they've received communications and emails from Scotland, England, Italy, France, Germany, Ireland.

Stewart's Latin fan club, headquartered in Barcelona, are said to have reserved "an important number" of tickets in the front row and hotels are reportedly getting busy. If you want to attend, better get it organized while stocks last.

Labels: Rod Stewart in Tenerife