Our Spanish students celebrate Valentine’s Day

Tomorrow is the 14th of February, which can mean only one thing: in Bilbao, as well as in many other places around the world, we’ll be celebrating Valentine’s Day.

Although this tradition is less firmly-established in Spain than in countries like the US and the UK, it has become more popular in recent years: Bilbao’s shop windows are all full of hearts and the cake shops are making special treats for the occasion.

Many Spanish-speaking countries recognise the tradition of St Valentine related with romantic love, many of them also celebrate other types of love on other days: 20th July in Argentina is “Friendship day” (“Día del amigo”), and 23rd July is “Day of love and friendship” (“Día del amore y amistad”) in Bolivia.

I’m sure that it’s fine to celebrate this sweet sentiment any day of the year. Our students all have different plans for the occasion: some are going out to dinner, some are celebrating with their partners, others with friends and some aren’t celebrating at all.

However, as long as some of them swap their“Ich liebe dich”s, “Je t`aime”s, “I love you”s, “ti amo”s etc for a “Te quiero” (Spanish) or even a “MAITE ZAITUT” (Basque) after their time at Instituto Hemingway… we’ll be happy.

Happy Spanish Valentine’s Day!