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Weekend in: Palencia

June 9th, 2012 | Posted by Laura in Laura - (0 Comments)

            The first reaction when I mentioned my impending trip to Palencia (using my close-enough Spanish pronunciation) was invariably, “oh, you are going to Valencia! I love the beach there, it’ll be great weather, etc.”

Nope. As the shirts from Palencia say, “PALENCIA (CON P).” I was on my way to the small city north of Valladolid in Castilla y León. While smaller than the major cities I’ve visited in Spain, this little metropolis has a few nice treasures up its sleeves.

The most known landmark is definitely the Cristo del Otero, an enormous statue on top of a hill, showing a tranquil Christ holding up his hands, as if blessing the city below (the rumor has it that the statue was supposed to have his arms spread wide, but that problems with funding created his current posture instead). Visiting it makes for a good view of the city, whether you drive up or walk up the various switchbacks that lead you up the hill, and at the top is a small museum dedicated to the artist and the process of building the statue that comes in at more than 20m high.

Downtown, you will find various churches and the enormous Catedral de San Antolín. On select days, they open the crypt below the church, and tradition has it that the water in the well down there is blessed. This time of year, there are weddings quite often, so at the smaller churches or even in the cathedral you may catch glimpses of very formal fashion; search GuiriGuide to learn more about how unique weddings are in Spain.

Outside of town, you can visit various small towns, from Dueñas (famous for an old abandoned building that supposedly is where Ferdinand and Isabella got married in secret, and for the house of Pepe Botella, brother of Napoleon Bonaparte) to Baños (famous for having a Visigoth-era church still standing, very possibly the oldest in Spain).

If you stop for an afternoon drink in the plaza next to San Pablo or one of the neighborhood bars, you will be pleasantly surprised at the small-town prices, often one or two euros less than the norm in Madrid.

Overall, while in no way a tourist hotspot, Palencia is a nice place to take a break from the big city and see authentic Castilla y León; the lack of tourism actually adds to the charm.

Meet me on mitmi

May 25th, 2012 | Posted by Laura in Laura | What's Happening Madrid - (0 Comments)

Computer applications have become a business of seeing gaps in currently offered products and places where a new product would make people’s lives easier. That is the idea behind mitmi, a mobile application start-up in Madrid. The mitmi team of José Luis Fernández, Eduardo González, and Guillermo Zotes addressed a gap when they released their application in January: people need a way to organize via their mobile phones specifically about where, when, and how they are going to meet up in person. What about an application that combines instant chat, a listing of personal events and their locations, real-time maps/checking-in technology, and even the ability to make reservations at restaurants and clubs? The product, which is ever updating and growing with its growing consumer base, is mitmi.

The name comes from the English ‘meet me,’ but with the Spanish spelling of the phrase. From your phone, you can use this free application to connect to your Facebook and invite both Facebook friends and people who also have mitmi to do something with you, be it going for a hike in the mountains or meeting up for cañas or anything else. You can monitor who is planning on coming to the event and have a group chat discussion of times to meet, meeting spots, etc. Finally, as the moment approaches, if you arrive early you can click ‘ping pong’ and find out where your friends are at the moment using a map, which gives you a much more accurate read on when they will arrive than ‘c u soon!’ ever has given.

Coming from a small town, I was surprised when I arrived in Madrid and it became much more difficult to meet up with friends; selecting a time, location, and activity became something complicated, especially if I was involving lots of people or people who had never been to that part of the city before. This application makes an effort to reduce the complexity of that task, and offers other perks like connections to other people who like similar events to yours and the ability to make instant reservations with discounts at participating restaurants.

The application is based in Madrid, which means there is a high concentration of users here, but it is an internationally available application in Spanish and English, so you can use it if you are in the United States too. In the future, the application team plans on expanding and will continue adding features.

The application is currently available for iPhone and Android. Visit www.mitmiapp.com to learn more and download the free application to try it out yourself.