León

León is a small city in the North of Spain that was founded by the Romans. As a consequence of that we have a lot of remains from that time, like the Roman "wall", the old part of the city with narrow winding streets and 'Las Médulas', in the surroundings of León, which is an artificial landscape made by the Roman gold workings.

As Spain has an important catholic tradition, most of the monuments are related to religion, for example the Basilica of San Isidoro (11th c.). From the Romanesque architecture, the Gothic cathedral whose construction began in the 13th century and it went on until the 15th century. It’s best known for its 'stained glass windows’, which have great importance all around Europe.

Easter is the most religious time of the year, apart from Christmas. During this week there are a lot of processions that relate the passion-death-resurrection of Christ. In León, we have a different custom from the rest of Spain; on Thursday night we celebrate 'The burial of Genarín', which consists of a rite just before the end of the wall towers where we commemorate the drunken Bohemian who was run over by León's first dustcart (it's just an excuse for young people to meet and have a drink).

Nowadays, there are about 160.000 inhabitants, but not many young people in the last decades. Fortunately this is changing with the increase of immigration although it's not very significant yet.

Although it was a mining region in the past, now there are no big industries and that's why many young people have to leave León and go to bigger cities to work (mainly the capital, Madrid, or Barcelona). The most common jobs in León are therefore restaurants, pubs, shops and so on.

One of the main activities to do in your spare time here is going to 'tapeo', which consists of having a glass of wine or beer and with that you get a small amount food.

In conclusion, León is a very quiet and beautiful city but the best way to know is: 'come and see it'.

University Life

We know that university life in New York is pretty different from university life here in León. Here, the campus is on the outskirts of the city, although this part of the city is really expanding and a lot of new buildings are being constructed.

With regard to the classes, we have most of the classes in the morning and few of them in the afternoon, although the timetable depends on what you are studying. Classes normally start at 9 a.m and finish at 2 p.m. In the afternoon we only have one or two hours of class. Most of our classes are in English and we have subjects such us English and North American Literature, English Phonology, Linguistics, History of England and its language, etc.

We also know that you have an easier access to computers than we have. Here we do not have computers in our classes; we only have a common computer room for all students, what means one computer room for two hundred students more or less, so if you want to use this room you have to book it. Most of the people have a computer at home but this does not mean that all of those people have internet, only few of them have it.

Diversity in Spain

A distinctive feature of Spain is its diversity. Of course, in general Spanish people tend to be open ,warm, impulsive, a bit boastful and energetic and we do love night life! ;) Compared to Americans we wave a lot , talk very loud and we're very tactile.

However, there are some differences depending on the area, because historically the regional culture of some areas has developped independently of the rest of Spain, for example Catalonia, Andalousia, Galicia, the Basque Country and so on. Therefore, the character of each zone varies a lot: Andalousians are very warm but two-faced; in Catalonia they're mean and very fond of their own culture; in the north, where we live, we're colder, more closed and stubborn, but when we trust someone we're the most loyal people you could ever meet. You see, we're very self-critical as well ;)

Spanish Stereotypes

We know that people outside of our borders have specific preconceived ideas of spanish culture such as the fact that we are lazy and we devote most of our time to parties "fiesta", we all have a fondness for bullfighting or flamenco and we only eat paella, we live in a hot country and there are beaches all around. However all those customs are more typical of southern Spain, where most of the tourists go. On the contrary, we live in the north of Spain where cold weather is commonplace, not least this winter. Of course we go to parties as most youngsters do but we also spend our spend our time working or studying.

Concerning food, as in the case of the weather, there are different types of food depending on the area of Spain. Paella, gazpacho... are typical of the south of Spain. Here in the north we usually eat lentils, chick peas, beans, stews and cured meat which is more suitable for our climatic conditions.

Bullfighting is becoming less and less popular, specially among young people and it's losing ground to football. Now bullfighting is regarded as a kind of massacre.