NEW BARCELONA MIAMI ROUTE

Iberia expects to carry 53,000 passengers on this route in the first year of operation. Passengers coming from other U.S destinations, such as Dallas, Houston, Orlando and Tampa can connect to the new route via American Airlines. The non-stop Miami-Barcelona flight will be the second U.S route inaugurated by Iberia this week as the airline has also started flying this past Monday, March 28, between Los Angeles and Madrid. Iberia offers now three non-stop flights weekly from Los Angeles on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. The aircraft used on these routes will be a 254-seat Airbus A-340/300, with a recently redesigned 36-seat Business Plus section. Following its merger with British Airways in January, 2011, Iberia is now Europe's third-largest and the world's sixth largest in terms of sales. In addition, Iberia is market leader on routes between Europe and Latin America, with the largest off offer of destinations and frequencies. To promote the new Miami-Barcelona route, Iberia is awarding triple frequent flyer points for tickets acquired in iberia.com through May 31st. Now Iberia operates a total of 10 weekly flights from Miami to Spain. In 2011 the airline will offer a total of 1,164,000 seats between the Spain and USA, representing a 13 per cent increase from 2010. The new flights and the overall capacity increase are part of the joint business launched in October last year by Iberia, American Airlines and British Airways for routes over the North Atlantic. Customers of the three airlines have now more travel options available, with more frequencies, more destinations and better connections across their networks. The three airlines’ combined route network serves 433 destinations in 105 countries with almost 5,200 daily departures.

barcelona wants to ban smoking on the cam nou

Spanish champions Barcelona have proposed a total ban on smoking at its Camp Nou stadium, club officials said Monday.
The club will ask its members to vote on the proposal for "a smoke-free Camp Nou" at its next general assembly, said Jordi Mones, one of the club's directors.
"This is consistent with Barca's values," he told a news conference.
If Barcelona members approve the proposal, the smoking ban will come into effect next season, Barcelona president Sandro Rosell added.
Under a new anti-tobacco law which came into effect across Spain on January 2, smoking is already forbidden in indoor passageways in the Camp Nou stadium, which can seat 99,354 people.
The new law, one of the strictest in Europe, bans smoking in all enclosed public spaces, including bars, restaurants and night clubs, and makes it illegal to smoke in children's parks or anywhere on school or hospital grounds.
Barcelona said the initiative is in line with similar policies across Europe.
Dutch club Ajax and Germany's Bayer Leverkusen have banned smoking at their grounds as have all stadiums in Britain, the club said on its website

getting a phone line and internet in Barcelona.

One of the most important part once you have moved into your new flat is to be able to connect to the world. This is why it is very important to be able to know where to go to set up and internet connection and a mobile Phone.

1rst step: getting a landline.

thereare 2 ways to get landline in Spain, it is to call the you can either go with the "historical" phone provider, Telefónica, and if you are lucky you can get your ADSL connected the very next day. most of the time it takes up to 72 hours to get it up and running. The easiest part, if you speak a little bit of Spanish, is to order your phone line directly online ( telephonicaonline.com). but you also have the website in english : Telefónica's website in English

The only problem is that you will need a spanish bank account. However, if you have a nice friend you can ask him to give you his bank account number since you will then be able to change it anytime. You should also have a prepaid phone since they will call you before going to your home.

you can choose to stay with telefonica for your ADSL or go to some other, cheaper ADSL operator.

However, if you decide NOT to go with telefonica, the installation will cost you about 80 euros and should take a little longer. So make sure you have a friend that speaks spanish and can take adantage of some offers they have to get the installation totally free of charge.

Please also note that telefonica has this horrible habit of overcharging on the first 2 bills. If you call them and complain, you will get reimbursed very quickly but you need to be aware of this.

If you are lucky enough and have cable connection on your street, you can check the cable operator's website ( www.ono.es) and may get the fastest internet in Town, 50 MB ( 02/2011).

Ono is not cheap but it is much cheaper than telefonica and more reliable.

you can also choose between 2 other phone operators:
VodafoneVodafone offer a new router which comes with a mobile internet USB stick built-in. This means that if you take out a contract with Vodafone for ADSL, you can have your internet connection via mobile internet whilst waiting for the landline ADSL to be connected. First you will use free of charge the 3g connection of Vodaphone, up to 1GB, until you get your line connected to the ADSL.

This is a good solution as it means you can have internet in your home from the very moment you leave the shop and get home with the connection pack

Orange

Orange offers a similar service – if you take out an ADSL contract you can have "Internet Sin Esperas" (mobile internet) on a pre-pay basis while you wait for the connection, which takes up to 30 days.

Orange belongs to France Telecom and is about 20% cheaper than Vodafone. the good news is that if you combine internet ( ADSL) with a Cell Phone contract, your internet will cost you 4 euros 95 for the 1rst 6 months.

There is something very annoying with orange: the fact that, even though they don't want to aknoledge this, they have placed a ban on megavide connection which prevents you from watching ANY movies of documentary on megavideo ( since the speed is limited to 50kps, which is ridiculously slow for a streaming website).

Unless you are planning to use a VPN, don't go for Orange.

If you aready have a landline, Jazztel and tele2 are good alternatives.