Where the heck are we?

Well, first of all, we are in Spain. Some of you might remember your medieval history with the Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile) uniting their two kingdoms in 1469 when they married; the historical beginning of “Spain”.

Dating back to the 1830s Spain has been divided into 49 provinces (there are now 50).

After the dictator Franco died in 1975 Spain transitioned to a secular parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy (I’m not exactly sure what all that means). The new constitution was ratified in 1978. King Felipe VI is the current head of state. His daughter Leonor is his presumptive heir (only because he does not have a son).

With the new constitution the provinces were grouped together according to common historical, cultural and economic characteristics into autonomous communities (these are somewhat analogous to states in the US). In some cases, a single province became an autonomous community. For example, the province of Madrid is the sole province of the Autonomous community of Madrid, with the capital city being Madrid.

There are 17 autonomous communities (plus two autonomous cities Ceuta and Melilla which are actually located in northern Africa); you may be familiar with the names of some of these. They are: Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, Balearic Islands (off the east coast, in the Mediterranean), Basque Country, Canary Islands (off the west coast of Africa, in the Atlantic Ocean), Cantabria, Castile and León, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia, Extremadura, Galicia, La Rioja, Madrid, Murcia, Navarre, and Valencia.

Each community has their own president (which would be analogous to a governor).

We live in the city of Alicante, in the province of Alicante, in the Community of Valencia. The Valencian Community has three provinces – Castellón, Valencia, and Alicante. 

Alicante is on the east coast of Spain, on the Mediterranean Sea. Spain has a lot of coastline, with the Mediterranean Sea to the east and south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west (and a little bit in the southwest beyond Gibraltar).  The sections of coastline are named with our section being known as Costa Blanca (white coast).  If you zoom in on Alicante on google maps you’ll see a half circle shaped area facing southeast, overlooking the marina. That is the main downtown area. A separate area to the northeast of that, facing due east is San Juan Playa (St. John Beach) – that’s where we are. There’s a uninterrupted strip of beach about 5 ½ miles long. If we were to walk straight to the beach, this would extend about 2 miles to the south and 3 ½ miles to the north.

The longitudinal position of Alicante (0.49°) is almost directly in line with the borough of Greenwich in London, England, site of the prime meridium (0°). Yet England is in the Western European time zone (5 hours ahead of NH) and Spain is in the Central European time zone (6 hours ahead of NH). We have Francisco Franco to “thank” for this – he changed the time zone in Spain in 1940 in order to be aligned with nazi Germany and its occupied lands. This results in relatively late sunrise and sunset times for us (for example: sunrise/sunset times today in Portsmouth NH are 5:38 am/8:00 pm, and in Alicante are 7:08 am/9:08 pm;  Portsmouth is a bit further north, so has slightly longer daylight hours in the summer - and shorter in the winter). 

The globally spoken Spanish language (what you might call Spanish, or español), is also known as Castilian (or castellano), originating from the Kingdom of Castile (remember Isabella). 

Spanish (español/Castilian Spanish/castellano) is the official language of Spain. It is the world’s second-most spoken native language (after Mandarin Chinese) and the 4^th most spoken language in the world overall (after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani).

While Spanish is the official language for the whole of Spain and is spoken by the majority of the Spanish people in Spain, several regions within the country also recognize other official languages within their respective autonomous regions.  There is Catalan which is a co-official language in Catalonia, Valencia (where it is called Valencian, though it is the same language), and the Balearic Islands. Aranese (a dialect of Occitan) is also co-official in Catalonia. Thus, Catalonia has 3 “official” languages – Spanish, Catalan, and Aranese. Galician is co-official in Galicia, and is also spoken in Asturias and Castile and León.  Basque is co-official in the Basque Country and northern Navarre.

As I mentioned, we live in the Community of Valencia, so Catalan/Valencian is a “co-official” language. However, in practice, the majority of what we see and hear is Spanish (aka español/Castilian Spanish/castellano – too bad the names Catalan and Castilian sound alike; confused me for quite a while). Public transportation is a common place where you might see both languages. The photo shows a sign in the tram with the top being Catalan/Valencian, the middle Castilian Spanish, and the bottom English. You can see there is a lot of similarity between Catalan/Valencian, and Castilian Spanish.

In Barcelona, the heart of Catalonia, it is more common to see and hear both languages.

Who lives in Spain besides native born Spaniards?

According to a Wikipedia list of immigrants living in Spain by country of birth as of 1/1/2024, the leading country of origin is Morocco (with 1,092,892). #’s 2,3,5,6,and 7 are all South American countries. #4 is Romania. #8 is the UK (285,093), #9 is Cuba, #10 is France, and #11 is Ukraine.  The USA is all the way down at #30 (69,171).  The Spanish government has implemented a program to provide temporary protection to Ukrainian refugees, granting them residence and work permits. As of recent data, over 200,000 Ukrainian citizens have been granted this temporary protection.

License plates are standardized across the EU and most of the rest of Europe unlike in the US where the states use a wide variety of designs with state symbols, scenic landscapes, slogans, color schemes, etc …

Most European countries have license plates with a vertical blue bar to the left with either the EU symbol (12 gold stars in a circle) at the top and a letter code for the country at the bottom or the national flag symbol (if not in the EU) instead of the EU symbol. The rest of the plate is a white background with the plate number in black.

The example photos show E (for España), F (for France), B for Belgium, D for Germany (Denmark uses DK), and UA with a flag symbol (for Ukraine).

Whew! That's more than enough for today.

Salud!