Merry Christmas and a Happy New year!!!!

We would like to give you this greeting card with all the best wishes for the new year, and as it says full of new projects together, but specially for your own life project to be enjoyable and successful for 2013.

Multilingua Team

Ies Zubiri-Manteo Bhi

EUROPEAN COMMISSION GIVES ANOTHER STEP IN COMBATING THE YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT

The European Commission propose some measures to battle youth unemployment by offering jobs, education and training to avoid social exclusion.

The European agents are very worried with the young unemployment rate, also with young people who neither study nor work. "High youth unemployment has dramatic consequences for our economies, our societies and above all for young people. This is why we have to invest in Europe's young people now" said European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, the Hungarian LászlóAndor.

The numbers speak for themselves, the young unemployment average rate in Eurozone is near 24%, 1 in every 4 under 25 years have no work. In Spain the situation is really frightening, where the rate is over 55% and many of these young people aren´t studying, the 20% exactly. It seems that if not remedied, the future could be dark for us.

The measures propose to member states recommend that every person under 26 receive a quality offer of a job, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months after finishing formal education or be unemployed.Brussels opens the door to the possibility of offering subsidies to companies that hire young people, and could cover the cost of reinforcing teachers, for more young people continue their education.

It is now up to parliament, which has to study these measures, change something if necessary and reach an agreement.Meanwhile, member states follow the recommendations that the European Commission proposed to each country specifically in July 2012.

Xabier Torrado

How much does it cost to move by car inside Donostia?

There are many ways to move between the small streets of Donostia, you can easily take a bike and go around the entire city and have fun or just go shopping. A regular bike costs around 200€, brand new. Obviously a car is a lot expensive than a bike, but comparing the cost of traveling from one point to another inside the city, the bike could be considered as a hard contender.

Let’s suppose that you live in Riveras de Loiola and you have to go everyday to Zurriola, it’s a 3, 6 kilometer long trip. A car fuel consumition in the city is between 7L/100km and 12L/km. Translated, it's between 0,25/0,45L in 3,6 kilometers. The Diesel now costs around 1, 40€/L, so 17cents/32cents just to go. But as you don't leave the car in the beach and walk back to your place, you have to multiply this by 2, then, by 20 days.

The estimated result gives us a 14-24€ cost per month only in diesel, which is not so bad. You have a car where you can keep your shopping and be safe from the rain. At this point, the car looks like the best option for this rainy and sometimes cold city.

But let’s be honest, try to park in Donostia. Many times you will spend more time trying to park than doing the task you are going for.

Next time, we’ll talk about the parking, insurance and another taxes to get the real cost per month.

Bastian Parra

INTRODUCING OURSELVES IN DAILY LIFE

Foreigner people normally think that all Spanish people are open, and that dance ‘framenco’ and that we are very loud but here in the Basque Country we are more reserved and we do not normally interact much with other people, it doesn’t mean we don’t like meeting new people it is just the way we are. Once we know a person we interact more and become friends. 

here are some tips you could use if you come to our country and wanna meet people:

1) When we meet someone new if that person is a boy we shake hands but if that person is a girl we normally give her 2 kisses on the cheeks. 

2) When we know a person we see on the street we either say hey, or just move our head up and down just one time ( move it up move it down) 

3) Sometimes, teenagers, they do the ‘high five’ movement when they see someone they know or a friend of theirs

4) When we are at a party or clubbing and we meet someone new we tend to  buy that person a drink or a shot.

5) When we see someone we haven’t seen in a long time we normally hug that person and give a big kiss on the cheek if that person is a girl and just a hug if that person is a boy.

BODY GESTURES IN A PROFESSIONAL ENVIRONMENT

When we have a meeting...

Firstly, we introduce ourselves and we shake hands. Usually, the boss is the one that introduce the rest of the people in a meeting if they don´t know each other. 

We can make the difference between a first meeting where people doesn´t know each other and a regular meeting with closer participants.

1.    When people meet for the first time in a professional environment they use to shake hands and sometimes they kiss each other in both cheeks (if there is a woman among the participants) or just greet if the meeting is very crowded. 

2.    On the other hand, if the meeting participants are known (for example, a regular meeting among employees of a company to discuss the agenda of the week) they just may say hello or good morning.

Besides, it´s usual to make deals while having lunch-dinner  in a restaurant or “sidrería” , a typical basque restaurant where people use to drink cider from a barrel and eat cod with green peppers and veal chop and of course, cheese with jelly and walnuts as dessert.

When the meeting is finished or the deal is made people shake hands again or kiss each other on the cheeks, and the gestures depend too on the relationship we have with the people we are interacting with.

Tania Bravo, Ana García, Sofía Pérez & Julen Lopetegi

DONOSTIA-SAN SEBASTIAN IN FIGURES

San-Sebastian or Donostia is the capital of Gipuzkoa with a population of 186,185 inhabitants and a density of 3057.53. 53% of the population is women and 43% men. The coordinates of the city are 43 19 17 N / 1 59 8 O and was founded in 1180. In 2016 will be the European capital of culture.

Contains three beaches with a total length of 2750 meters . The largest and most famous beach of them is “The Shell” with 1350 meters long and 40 meters wide. Also, the beach has a total of 38 tents, showers and chairs. Zurriola is 800 meters long and Ondarreta, however, 600 meters. The average temperature in San-Sebastian is 15 degrees.

Donostia has 17 neighborhoods, including the most populous, Amara, with 26309 inhabitants, and the least Igueldo, with 1046 inhabitants. It also has three enclaves: Zubieta, Landarbaso and Urdaburu.

70% of citizens have high school and 26.6% have a college degree. Point out that more than 100,000 spectators each year participate in the San-Sebastian Behobia half-marathon that is held annually and involves sports professionals as well as amateurs.

Finally, if you want to know some reference prices here you have:

Bread: 1.25€, coffe: 1.35€ and cane of beer: 2.5€.

PS. We have forgotten a very important figure!! 2, which is the number of official languages we have. Basque and Spanish.

 Raquel Felipe & Xabier Alberdi

Our fifth travel day in Brussels - Trip to Paris

Hello everybody!

Today we left the apartments and we said goodbye to Brussels, we went to take the train, we pass a really bad time in the way because it was really cold.

We have taken the train to Paris, and when we have arrived, we left our baggage because we couldn’t go for the entire city with them. Before leaving the baggage we going to see Paris.

We saw the Eifel tower and the Notre Dame cathedral, it was awesome.

Finally we take the train to go to Hendaya and we pass 6 hours in the train.

At 11:17pm we arrived to Hendaya and all our parents were waiting for us so we go home really tired.

We hope you’ll like our travel.

See you!

Have a nice day!
Bastian Parra, Jorge Uceda, Noemí Gómez, Xabier Torrado and Lander Sein

Our fourth travel day in Brussels - Simulated Company Fair in Luxemburg

Hello everybody.

Today we waked up really early to go to Luxemburg for the fair of “empresas simuladas”. We passed three hours in the train to go to Luxemburg, and then we went to the fair, in a really beautiful place.

In the fair we contact for other companies for having new contracts, and we have work all day. The fair finally had finished at 6 p.m. and then we had one hour to buy some gifts in Luxemburg.

At 8 p.m. we have taken the train to go to Brussels and then we go home.

Tomorrow we go back home, but first of all we are going to see Paris.

See you!

Have a nice day.

Bastian Parra, Jorge Uceda, Noemí Gómez, Xabier Torrado and Lander Sein

Our third travel day in Brussels

Hello everybody!

Today it’s been a very nice day; we’ve been at the European parliament. Antonio has given us a nice speech about the parliament and the things they do, the different types of politicians and their responsibilities.

Antonio has lots of experience and shared it with us. After that, the Basque Government representation institution has given us another speech, about representation in European countries and the things they do. It should been said that they were the first institution representing an autonomic region. The coffee and biscuits have been really appreciated, so many thanks for the detail.

The midday and afternoon have been free for us, so time to buy souvenirs and take a rest. Tomorrow is going to be a very long day.

See you!
Have a nice day!

Bastian Parra, Jorge Uceda, Noemí Gómez, Xabier Torrado and Lander Sein

Our second travel day in Brussels

Hello everybody!

We arrived to European commission with some difficulties. We passed an exhaustive control, for enter to de Commission, and they explained us the functions that they do.

They recommended us for doing our training in Brussels, it sounds really good; we were thinking about it!

We went quickly to the Computers Museum, but we got lost in the middle of anywhere.

When we arrived to the museum a lovely elder man talked us passionately about his collection and its history.

We said goodbye and we went home tired but satisfied with what we saw.

We bought some food and we went to prepare our dinner and latter we went to sleep.

See you!
Have a nice day!

Bastian Parra, Jorge Uceda, Noemí Gómez, Xabier Torrado and Lander Sein

Our first travel day in Brussels

Hello everybody!

This morning everyone has caught the bullet in his stop, the bullet has left at 6:45am in Easo, that mole has led to Hendaya to catch the train that would take us to Paris.

The train that we took out in Hendaya to Paris at 7:43am,  and we arrived about 1:30. In Paris we took the subway to go to North Station to catch the train that would take us to Brussels.

This third train has left at 4:01pm and has lasted for 1 hour and 30 minutes.

When we arrived in Brussels teachers have gone on one side to the other and we each group toward the apartments.

After arriving we made ​​dinner, we showered, we have dined and left around 9:30pm we had a tour of the city.

See you!
Have a nice day!

Bastian Parra, Jorge Uceda, Noemí Gómez, Xabier Torrado and Lander Sein

Prices rise 0.9% in Euskadi and inflation remains at 3.1%

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The prices in Euskadi went up nine tenth last October so the increase in the CPI stood at 3.1%, according to the INE. In the whole of Spain, the October CPI experienced a rise of eight tenths, bringing the annual rate registered an increase of 3.5%.

By province, prices rose in October by 1.2% in Alava and 0.9% in both Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia. In the last twelve months, the highest increase was recorded in Bizkaia (3.3%), followed by Gipuzkoa (3.1%) and Alava (2.8%).

On the whole of the CAV the most inflationary in October were clothing and footwear, with a price increase of 12.5% and education, with an increase of 2.5%. Conversely, prices fell on recreation and culture (1.1%), transport (0.7%), housing (0.6%) and hotels, cafes and restaurants (0.2%).

As regards the annual period, prices fell on only in communications (1.7%). The rest of the branches experienced price increases, the most significant being those in housing (6.6%), transport (5.8%) and alcoholic beverages and snuff (5.5%).

Julen Lopetegi

HOUSE PRICE DROPS AGAIN

The financial crisis that hits hard Spain during the last years continues without a break and has got a new record. The house price has again nosedived in the last trimester, dropping 9,5 per cent, the biggest fall since the crisis started. After this new decrease, the average price of the houses is 1,565,5 euros per square metre, the sames prices as they were eight years ago, in 2004, according to the last numbers offered by Spanish Government.

Overall prices have fallen by 31% since the crisis hit in 2008. And the problem is that Spain has a vast over capacity of housing, much more houses than people to buy them. Experts estimated that there are 2 million unsold homes all around the country.

By region, the biggest fall in house prices year-on-year, have been in Extremadura where prices declined by 12.25% and Canary Island, by 11,7%. On the opposite side are Ceuta and Melilla, by 1.7%, Navarra, 2.85% and the Basque Country, where prices fell 3.5%. Regarding cities with more than 25.000 inhabitants, the most expensive is San Sebastian, at €3,781 per square metre, followed by Getxo, at 3,640 per square metre. Instead, the square metre is cheaper in the valence municipalities of Novelda, where it costs 748 euros and Villena, 748 euros.

According to the last report made by the company for real estate valuation Tinsa, in  September ‘Capitals and Major Cities’ recorded the steepest year-on-year decline with 13.5%. The remaining areas all fell below the average with very similar year-on-year figures. The largest price falls were in ‘Other Municipalities’ with 10.9%, followed by ‘Mediterranean Coast’ with 10.8% year-on-year, ‘Metropolitan Areas’, with 10.4%, the same as the previous month, and lastly the ‘Balearic and Canary Islands’ with a figure of 10%. In terms of the cumulative declines by area since the top of the market, the fall in prices in the ‘Mediterranean Coast’ reached 39.2% in September; followed by 36% for ‘Capitals and Major Cities’, 33.2% for ‘Metropolitan Areas’, 28.6% for the ‘Balearic and Canary Islands’ and 28.5% for ‘Other Municipalities’, which comprises all those not included in other categories

Ana García

The Basques hurried the last few hours to go to the polls

The 34.17% of Basques decided not to go to the polls. With the data given during the day seemed that abstention significantly exceed of the 2009 elections. But voters decided to go at the last minute. In the Basque polling the percentage of voters was 14.8% compared to 17.1% of the previous regional elections. The Deputy Minister of Interior of the Basque Country, Raul Fernandez de Arroyabe, stated that there could be "multiple reasons" that could explain that lower turnout, among which he mentioned the rain.

The affluence to the polls for the last three hours they opened made possible at the end of the day that the turnout figures were similar to those of other years. The researchs are showing that the public feels increasingly distanced from the political class.

Sofía Pérez

A Bad Bank in Spain

In Spain it was known that a housing bubble would explode sooner or later. The houses were valued very high and with unrealistic prices for banks to give the credits.

In 2004 and in 2006 the Bank of Spain told to Caja Madrid:

“The property risk is growing by 55% (…) and it will continue increasing upt to very high rates”

Then the housing bubble finally exploded and Spain fell in a deep crisis.

Now in the last quarter of 2012, the crisis seems to have no solution and Brussels has imposed to Spain to create a “bad bank” which will be paid with public money.

Brussels validates the reforms of the Government of Spain and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recommended liquidating the non-viable banks as soon as possible.

The International Agency, the Commission and the ECB give the approval to the bad bank and want it to be operative the first of December.

The EC and the ECB ensure that the reforms which Spain agreed to comply if it request the rescue is “in line” with expectations. But FIM believes that more efforts have to be made Sareb (the bad bank that will manage the property portfolio of toxic banks) ready to open by the end of November.

Noemí Gómez 

We are back again!

Good morning!

Welcome everyone to our blog, the best place to know about us and our interests, about the school and whatever interesting issues are going on around us.

We're first year students of Business & Finance, willing to share with you all the exciting journey of earning new skills, putting them into practice and, of course, enjoying  the experience along the way!

 Most of us are bilingual, we speak Basque and Spanish, our mother languages, and  being proud of our culture as we are, we'd love to share with you what it is like to live in The Basque Country in general and in Donostia-San Sebastian in particular. In the same way, we're smart enough to understand that the interaction of different people and different cultures is what really makes the journey of life enjoyable, exciting and worthy. Therefore, one of our objectives this year is to learn how to communicate in English to share with you all the experiences that will enrichen us. We'll be happy if you come to visit us and we are looking forward to knowing about you!

This is the beginning of the journey. We hope you enjoy it with us from now on! 

Zubiri Multilingual 2012/2013 

See you next year!

After 9 months of classes in Zubiri Manteo School we have reached at the end of 2012 course.

It has been an unforgettable year because we met people of different places and we have not had any problems at the time of working in groups.

The subjects that we have studied in the higher grade of business and finance has been Human Resources, Accounting, Supply Management, Commercial Management, Finance, Computer Application and English. From these, two subjects we have done in English (Computer Application & Finances) and it has been here where we have worked for the European Projects.

I can proudly say that for all of us it have been a unique experience and highly recommended for everyone. And from all of them we have learned so much in a fun way.

Now we will take a little break in summer to start with more desire and forces next year, so see you next year!

Bye friends!

Nerea Diez

WE ARE GLAD YOU CAME

The School year have gone so fast, along this time, we learned to work in groups, know more about finance and business and the course offered us the opportunity to visit other countries and meet people of other European cultures practicing and improving our level of English.

Now we are in the final countdown of the first year, and this can be our last post in this blog.

So I can only say thanks for reading and do it again next year when the new students take over the blog.

Jon Mikel Cruz

See you next year!

Now, we are finishing the first course of Business & Finance. This is the last week of the course, and it’s time to make a little summary talking about this school year. During the course we have been working since first day. Some subjects were new for some of us, so sometimes we had to dedicate enough time to learn things of some subjects. We have had 7 subjects, that are: Finance, English, Accounting, Supply Management, Human Resources, Computing & Commercial Management. For me, almost all of them were known.

Apart of the usual subjects, we were in the multilingua group, doing Finance & Computing in English language. We prepare some projects in this two subjects for European projects ‘GOEM Go On… Employ me! & ‘A Step Further’. It was a fantastical experience to know and learn more about different cultures and to meet people from other countries to share with them new experiences, and to learn how to find a job when you are abroad, or how to prepare a presentation of different companies.

Now, we are studying for the last exams because we are in the last week of exams. We have to pass all the subjects this course to be prepared for the second course that will start in September. I think that the evaluation that I can do is excellent. We are learning a lot of things that we will need in the future, in our future job in a company.

See you next year.

ERIK RIOS SALAZAR.