The heart of Madrid, the Plaza Mayor, is surrounded by 136 houses built in the 17th century. These home have been passed down through generations of the same family. For two centuries, the plaza served as the city’s chief forum for beheading, bullfights, and the canonization of saints. One of the world’s grandest palaces, the Royal palace was completed in 1764.

Contemporary Madrid came into its own after the death of the Fascist dictator Franco. Years of the Franco regime left Madrid and much the country in economic shambles due to isolation. With his death, Madrid, and Spain as a whole, began to re-assert itself on the international stage. Within Spain, reaction against the dictatorial bureaucracy centered in Madrid and a history of centralism that pre-dated Franco by centuries has resulted in the successful modern movement towards increased autonomy for the regions of Spain, considered as European regions, under the umbrella of Spain

Madrid is also noted for its nightlife and discotheques. It’s not uncommon for madrileños to dance all night, head to the Chocolateria San Ginés for chocolate y churros at dawn, go home, shower, shave, and go to work. This nightlife, called la movida and initially focused on the Plaza del Dos de Mayo, flourished after the death of Franco, especially during the 80s while Madrid’s most cherished mayor Enrique Tierno Galván was in office. A particular hub for this night activity is nowadays the nearby gay village of Chueca.

The Madrilenos don’t have dinner until ten or eleven in the evening. To quench hunger until that late dinner hour, they enjoy a light snack called tapa. Tapa can be king crabs, blood red, large as soccer balls; tiny squid cooked in their purplish ink; bull’s testicles sauteed in garlic; slivers of chewy air-cured ham; suckling pig, roasted in old ceramic wood-burning ovens; grilled flounder; fried hake, red snapper encrusted with salt and then baked; garlic soup, and tripe stew.

Madrid’s famous art museum is the Prado. Spanish works of Goya and El Greco compose the bulk of the Prado’s collection and of course there are paintings by the prolific Picasso. Hundreds of Italian and Dutch Renaissance pieces are displayed-–mostly bought with New World gold by the kings of Spain.

Madrid is also host to one of the most famous bullfighting rings in the world, Las Ventas.

Other Spain Links:

Car Hire Murcia Airport
Car Hire Alicante Airport

Car Hire Tenerife

Car Hire Cordoba Airport

Car Hire Costa Brava Airport
Car Hire Malaga

Car Hire Canaries

Car Hire Costa Dorada

In 2001, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received 86,212 complaints relating to personal identity theft. Two years later in 2003 those complaints had risen by 40% to 214,905. One wonders what would have caused a 40% increase in complaints from this new form of theft.

Its because we now make so many of our transactions without being seen or heard. We conduct our business over the internet and anyone’s fingers could be at the keyboard. Anyone who surfs the internet is aware of the multitude of passwords now needed for banking and literally most sites.

Even with unique passwords some spyware can steal your passwords, credit card and bank account numbers, and Social Security numbers.

Actually a method developed in the late 1800s by Charles Darwin’s first cousin, Sir Francis Galton, maybe the best solution to our thievery problems caused by this high tech world of ours. In 1901, Scotland Yard began using his system as a means of criminal identification. One identifying characteristic we all have at our fingertips is our finger prints.

A company named DigitalPersona now has fingerprint hardware and software for the home PC called Password Manager. For example if you were to do online banking and you click on the button that says “see accounts” a pop-up window always appears, requesting that you identify yourself. Instead of logging in a password that could be stolen from you just press your right index finger for a split second on a small scanner the size of a postage stamp that is near your keyboard. Your finger print identifies you and you can complete your transaction.

The Azteca Bank in Mexico has registered 4 million people who can now use their ATM by identifying themselves only with their fingerprint. This is an excellent method of identification for this bank since many of their customers are migrant workers who do not have existing forms of ID.

Perhaps returning to the successful methods of identifying people used in Scotland Yard in 1901 will be the best technology in the year 2004 and beyond as well.

The Space Needle in Seattle, Washington was the home to the 1962 World’s Fair. The 605-foot tower was built in less than a year and was conceived by Eddie Carlson as a doodle on a napkin in 1959 and given form by architects John Graham Jr., Victor Steinbrueck, and John Ridley.

The Seattle Space Needle boasts the following:

# A revolving restaurant where you can enjoy Pacific Northwest cuisine that is matched only by the view served with it. The restaurant is 500 feet up & revolves one full revolution over a 58 minute period.
# A 360º observation deck with a “safety grid” installed. The trip to the top takes less than a minute and travels at 10 mph, and the view is fantastic.
# 85 million candle-power lamps atop the needle which provide a beacon light

It sits on the Seattle Center, a 74-acre site with such attractions as KeyArena, Memorial Stadium, Seattle Opera House, Pacific Science Center, Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, Experience Music Project, and more. You can catch the monorail to all of Seattle Metro and from there to the Waterfront & Ferry Terminals, the Train Station, SeaTac International Airport, & all points beyond.

The Seattle Worlds Fair, also known as the Century 21 Exposition, really started something there. The area surrounding is very accessible and tourist friendly, with restaurants, hotels, and motels all within walking distance.

SMS: Short Message Service is a revolution in mobile communications. Most new cell phones and PDAs are capable of using this technology. Just ask your retailer about your cell phone.

Sending and receiving text messages with your telephone has gotten very easy to do, and a lot of your own labor at typing on your telephone has been replaced with pre-set messages and icons. This is a great way to send a reminder to stop for something at the store, send your address to a visitor, or just to check-in and say hi. PC to SMS is also being used more. This is a way to type a message onto a web page and have it sent to a SMS-enabled cellphone or PDA using the person’s telephone number instead of a web address.

Some email programs will let you automatically send an alert to your cell phone/PDA when a certain letter/document arrives or when a person emails you using the SMS technology.

Some say the word Panama comes from an Indian word meaning “land of many fish. Others believe it stems from the Cuna Indian phrase “panna mai,” when Spanish solders met a Cuna Indian and asked where they could find gold, the reply was “panna mai–far away,” in the hope, according to the tale, that the soldiers, too, would go far away.

Panama varies in width from 30 to 120 miles. The Caribbean Sea hugs it to the north and the Pacific Ocean is on its south side; one can watch the sun rise over the Pacific and set in the Atlantic. Because the isthmus is narrowest here, Panama has become an international shortcut: Over 400,000 gold rushers en route to California crossed here. Bananas are grown in the northwest.

In the interior, farmers grow rice, potatoes, coffee, vegetables, and citrus fruits. In a mountainous region near Cerro Punta are raised thoroughbred horses. Cowboys are also in the interior tending their cattle.

Panamanians have clean water, good health services, ample food, ready transportation, and disposable income. Panama’s economy is service-based, heavily weighted toward banking, commerce, and tourism. This is stability in an area of the world that is in turmoil.