Did you know...?
1. Paris is to Europe as Buenos Aires is to South America.
2. El Yunque in Luquillo, Puerto Rico was thought as a mystical place by the taíno indians due to its height and its proximity to the sky.
3. "Gallego" is a language spoken in Spain that most speakers of Castillian do not understand.
4. Salvador Dalí was obsessed with death; he was afraid of it.
5. The Spanish language contains many arabic words such as "almohada", "ojalá", and alabar among others.
6. The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
7. Not everybody in Spanish speaking countries of South America speak Spanish.
8. There are gypsies in Spain who live in caves with all the comforts of a modern home.
9. North American country music is the result of the mixture of Irish and Mexican music.
10. The "Tegucigalpa" airport in Honduras is considered by many aviation experts the second most dangerous airport in the world.
11. Costa Rica has active volcanoes.
12. Tourists can drive to the mouth of the Poas volcano in Costa Rica.
13. The largest radiotelescope in the world is found in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
14. A Semí is a taíno god made out of stone.
15. The Real Academia de la Lengua Española is the organization that monitors, and approves changes in the Spanish language over time to ensure the language's integrity.
16. Mexico City has the largest number of Spanish speakers in the world.
17. Cock fights are prohibited at certain times of the year in Spanish speaking countries.
18. Flamenco music and dance is of arabic origin.
19. The "Capitolio" (The Capitol) in Puerto Rico is entirely made of marble imported from Italy.
20. The oldest fire station of the Americas is found in Ponce, Puerto Rico.
21. Spanish is the third most spoken language throughout the world.
22. Some of Puerto Rico's mountains are inactive volcanoes.
23. It is said that Walt Disney was inspired by the Castle of Segovia in Spain when he designed Cinderella's castlle.
24. A Spanish "peseta" is only a fraction of an American penny.
25. In Spain and Puerto Rico a "tortilla" is an omelet; not a taco or burrito shell.
26. Bananas were introduced in the new world from Asia.
27. "Hispanic" is a broad term to categorize people whose ancestry dates back to Spain and whose first language is a form of Spanish; however, hispanics can also be descendants of Italians, germans, romanians, the french, middle easterners, africans, the chinese, and other ethnic groups and nationalities.
28. Singer-musician and comedian"Charo", born in Murcia, Spain had formal classic Spanish guitar training under Andres Segovia(master of classic Spanish guitar) for seven years.
29. It is not known who wrote El Lazarillo De Tormes.
30. Pronunciation of castillian varies from country to country, and each country claims their version is the correct version, but in reality it all has to do with how the language evolved in the particular region as it encountered different ethnic groups that contributed to the expansion of its vocabulary and idioms.