Why today (23rd April) is the best day of the year?

Hi everybody. Today I'm taking the liberty of not talking about Denmark. I will talk about the only day I miss from Catalunya. There is only one day I would like to come back to Catalunya and to be in Barcelona. Is today, on 23rd April. It's a special day for me and for everyone in Catalunya. This day is only comparable with "La diada de Catalunya" (National day of Catalonia), on 11th September. 

23^rd April: Sant Jordi’s day

Sant Jordi is the patron saint of Catalunya and each 23^rd of April, in Catalonia, we celebrate “La diada de Sant Jordi” (Sant Jordi’s day). On my opinion is the most beautiful day on the year and everybody should go to Catalonia on this day, especially to Barcelona. On 23^rd April Barcelona turns magic. The atmosphere is incredible and everybody has good mood.

Sant Jordi is the Saint Patron of Barcelona

For catalan people, Sant Jordi’s day is the day of love and culture. That’s why men give a rose to women and women give a book to men. Since XV century Catalans took Sant Jordi’s day as the lover’s day (we don’t celebrate Saint Valentine) and that’s why we give a rose to our loved women. But also since 1929 this day is taken as the day of the book. That’s why we also interchange books.

Some years ago, it was popular that men gave a rose to women and women gave a book to men; but nowadays, it has changed, and both women and men can interchange books and roses.

23rd April we celebrate Sant Jordi: The day of the book and the rose. 

It’s such a beautiful day because everybody is outside in the streets and walk through the Barcelona’s city center with a rose and a book in their hands. All the streets have stands of roses and books, and you can walk with your partner or your friends enjoying the day. This day Barcelona smells different-it smells to roses- and it is plenty of different colors- there are roses of all colors you can imagine, even multi-colors. 

 It’s especially nice to walk through “Les rambles”; maybe the most popular street in Barcelona, because besides stands with roses and books, there are a lot of stands where the books-writers are, and you can talk with them, take some photos and get a signature on your book.

Les Rambles are every Sant Jordi full of people, althought it is raining.

Everybody is walking through the streets looking
for a rose and a book for their partners.

With this video you can have a vague idea about the atmosphere in Barcelona on Sant Jordi's day, but I insist that you have to feel it by yourself. 

The Legend of Sant Jordi and the dragon

Once upon a time, the inhabitants of Montblanc, one of the most important Medieval villages in Catalunya, were terrified by the threat of a dragon who lived in a close cave. The dragon was really scaring and he flew every day to the village asking for food. First, the inhabitants of Montblanc gave him chickens and sheeps. But they were too small animals for the dragon and he was still hungry. So they decided to give him the cows of the village. But the dragon soon finished with them. Desperate, the people gave their horses to the dragon, but anyway they were not enough to fill the stomach of the dragon.

I honesty recommend you to visit Montblanc, specially on Sant Jordi's
week, because there is a very nice atmosphere these days.

Montblanc is surrounded by walls. 

 The dragon was never fulfilled and he turned more aggressive every day because he was very very hungry and the villagers couldn’t offer him anything to eat. Finally, one day, the dragon went to the village and made a request:

“You have to give me one of your villagers every day. If not, I will burn and destroy your village”.

The villagers did what the dragon had said and they decided that a raffle had to be done in order to choose the person would be eaten by the dragon. So, the names of all people of the village were written down and put into a bag and every day, the king took one of the pieces. The third day the king took one piece of paper and went suddenly blank. He took the name of his beautiful daughter, the princess. Both the king and the princess cried, but they quickly accepted her destiny. So she said goodbye to everyone and walked to the dragon’s cave.

The village was totally depressed by the fact that the dragon was close to eat their princess; but when the dragon was ready to eat her, suddenly appear a horse rider – Sant Jordi- taking a sword in his hand. The dragon saw him and blew a ball of fire towards him, but Sant Jordi avoided the attack, rode towards the dragon and stuck the sword in the dragon heart. The dragon screamed and died. The princess ran to her hero and embraced her, and then, a magic thing happened. From the pool of red blood coming from the dragon’s heart, a rose tree sprouted. Little by little, more roses appeared from the dragon’s blood. Sant Jordi took the biggest and most beautiful red rose and gave it to the princess.

Everybody in Catalunya knows the Legend of Sant Jordi

That’s why, from that day, the 23^rd of April Catalan men give to their “princesses” (their girl-friends; wives; best-friends; mothers or grand-mothers) a rose.

Sant Jordi is our "Saint Valentine's day"

Den Smagløse Café

Hi everybody, 

I told you few entrances ago that I would like to show you some of the bars in Odense. So, let's begin with one my favorites, if not my favorite: The Smagløse Café.

It is a bar I could spend all my day in. The bar is located in Vindegade 57, 5000 Odense C, and their phone number is 66 12 75 66. It is open everyday since 12:00 and it closes at 3:00 from Tuesday to Saturday and at 1:00 on Sunday and Monday. 

The entrance of Smagløse Café

I like going there and spent time with friends just talking and drinking; but you also can play foosball or pool. Prices are not so much cheap, but they are on the average of price in Denmark (There are something cheap in Denmark?) and the atmosphere is amazing. Everyday at every moment there are people, and specially from Thursday to Sunday it is usually full. In Smagløse you can find as much as danish people as international students.

The pool.

It is also my favorite bar because of the decoration. The decoration is astonishing: there are sofas, there are bus-chairs, there are small-round tables, big tables, a lot of pictures on the walls, even in the roof!, there is a chimney with a nice bookcase... but the best part of the decoration is the light. I think that the light is just perfect: Not so much; Not too less. Is exactly what I like. Furthermore is nice because they have very different types of lamps. The majority of them are home-made lamps and they have very strange shapes and, for example, there are ones that are made with the head of a doll, or another ones that are made with a globe.

Is very nice to sit down there and talk with friends while you
are drinking a beer and listening music

In that picture you can see the bus-chairs I have mentioned before,
and also the globe-lamp. 

This is one of all the different types of lamps you can see in Smagløse. 

As I have said before the prices are not so much cheap, but the relation quality-price is pretty good. Here you can read the drink menu (they don't offer food!). I recommend you the beer (of course!), especially I like the Albani 1859; but the tea and the smelt chocolate are also excellent. 

http://densmagloesecafe.dk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/drinkskort1103-2013.pdf

It is also good to know that there are some days per week where different events take place in Den Smagløse Café. You can check their webpage and take a look to them. 

http://densmagloesecafe.dk/

So, my recommendation is that if you are in Odense you have to go to Smagløse Café, drink something you like and enjoy this bewitched place.

If you want to save some money..don't throw any bottle out to the garbage!

Denmark is a country where people take a lot of care of environment and they are more used to recycle than other countries, like Spain. But it is easier in Denmark than in Spain because in Denmark people are payed for recycling; so they have an special interest in doing that. 

When you buy a drink you are paying a small deposit extra for the plastic, glass or aluminium bottle, but if you give the bottle back into the supermarket, this extra deposit is returned to you. 

Which bottles can I recycle? Almost all bottles have a small black logo consisting in two arrows surrounding the word "Pant" and a letter, which can be "A", "B" or "C". This logo means that you can recycle the bottle and the letters are indicating the amount of money you will obtain for the package:

• Type A = DKK 1.00
• Type B = DKK 1.50
• Type C = DKK 3.00

In this image you can see that the amount of money that you receive it depends on the material and the size of the bottle. 

But where you have to go to recycle the bottles? You can return bottles and cans in any supermarket, using an automatic bottle bank (flaskeautomat). You have to place the bottles inside, with the bar code facing downwards, and once you have finished press the green button and take the printed ticket that you can exchange into the supermarket's check-out.

Some machines have an yellow button, that you have to press if you want to donate your "recycled-money" to charities.

Flaskeautomat 

For example, in this ticket I obtained in LIDL you can see I recycled 13 type A-bottles and 5 type B-bottles; so they returned me 20,50 Kr.

Recycling it helps you to save some money!

In these videos you can see how the flaskeautomat works: 

flaskeautomat 1

flaskeautomat 2

Do you think that is a good way to motivate people to recycle? 

Hans Christian Andersen's statues in Odense

Last week I was in Copenhaguen, and I took some photos with the popular statue "The Little Mermaid", which represents the character of the fairy tale with the same name, wrote by Hans Christian Andersen. But Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, not in Copenhaguen. That's why in Odense, we have a different sculptures representing characters from the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. In that entrance I just want to show you only pictures of these fantastic sculptures. Do you know all these stories?

If you don't know any of that stories, or you want to learn other fairy tales, you just can visit that website and read!
                          http://www.fairytalescollection.com/HansChristianAndersen.aspx

The Steadfast Tinsoldier

The Little Mermaid

The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep

The toad

The darning needle

The emperor's new clothes

The sea horse

The paper boat

The flying trunk

The wild swans 

Thumbelina