Finca is a new game published by Hans im Glück. This is an odd little game of fruit growing on the island of Mallorca (though the English translation claimed it was Majorca). The game has a kind of roundel: players move their farmer pieces around the windmill sails in one corner of the board. The sail they land on lets them pick up a specific fruit, the number depending on the number of pieces on the space. Crossing the median line of the sails gets the player a donkey cart as well. Using a cart allows a player to deliver some fruit (you can’t get that many in a donkey cart) to the districts of the island. Each district is looking for a certain combination of fruit, as shown by the top tile in the district. Delivering the right fruit gets the player the tile and a bonus tile if it’s the last in the district. Players also have a set of special actions, allowing them to bend the rules in specific ways, but these are worth victory points if not used. With the money that you earn you have to build “Posessions”, the typicall ancient vuildings of the Island.
The game designed by Ralf zur Linde has reached some international impact, and even the US newspaper “The Daily Herald” has selected it as one of the best proposals for this Christmas because its “mixture between simplcity, beauty and unpredicatability.”
The “Spiel des Jahres”, a kind of “Oscar” awards since 1978, nominated the game as finalist for 2009, which could raise the sales from 3.000 to 10.000 units.
TEDAX officers, experts in deactivation of bombs of the National Police of Spain, could be deactivating a second car bomb in Mallorca. Local Police is evacuating the hotels nearby and shutting the area.
This is an information given by Bartolomé Barceló, the general public prosecutor in Balearic Islands.
[UPDATE] Confirmed second bomb, TEDAX exploded the second car bomb in Mallorca.
[2nd UPDATE] Experts say that maybe the dogs marked the second car due to proximity with the first car, we will have to wait for a while until we have confirmation about this second car. In any case is sure that TEDAX officers have made a controlled explosion.
The basque terrorist group ETA is responsible for the explosion early this afternoon (13:50), which hit a police car on patrol in Palmanova, Calviá, one of the most important touristic destinations in Europe.
Yesterday, a 200kg bomb targeting dozens of Civil Guard members and their families, including children, ripped through their 14-storey barracks building in Burgos, northern Spain, but with no defeats.
The origin of the explosion was most likely a limpet bomb attached to the underneath of the Nissan patrol car that was being driven by the two deceased civil guards at the time of the explosion. According the a representative of the government of the Balearics, Ramón Socías, the two agents were dressed in civilian gear at the time and were carrying out maintenance works.
One of he two victims is a 28-year-old Guardia Civil officer from Burgos. The second victim was a 27-year-old man from Pamplona who had lived in Palma for the past two years who was a trainee officer.
The date will be cause for celebration for the minority of Basque nationalists who share ETA’s aim of the violent achievement of independence for the Basque Country from the rest of Spain.
Security forces believe the terrorists, weakened by arrests of top leaders, and long relatively dormant, are trying to put on a show of force to prove they are still able to strike at the Spanish state and to maintain morale among ETA supporters, and also to achieve a negotiation with the Government of Spain.
Right now the airport is open again as Spanish authorities had closed ports and airports on Mallorca from the time of the terrorist attack during three hours in the operation know as “Jaula” (jail).
The resedence of the Royal Family of Spain is at only 10 kilometers from the place, and two of theur daughters arrived yesterday to the island.
The MSC Fantasy, the biggest cruise ship of the Mediterranean, broke her ropes due to strong winds while the passengers where boarding. This caused all the passengers on the gangway to fall into the sea. Four of them were sent to hospital with hypotermia symptoms.
MSC Fantasy
The CEO of the company, Emiliano González, was traveling in the cruise as this was the inaugural travel of the vessel. The MSC Fantasy is the second biggest cruise ship that stops in Palma de Mallorca, only after Queen Mary, and the biggest Mediterranean cruise ship.
The german magazine ‘Golf Journal’ awarded Mallorca Island as best destination for tourism golf during the “Travel Awards 2009”. The award was given to Álvaro Middelmann, president of ‘Fomento del Turismo de Mallorca’ and also to the owner of Aucanada Golf, designed as best course in Mallorca.
The sport that is increasingly taking root in the islands is golf. Majorca is quite a paradise for golf lovers: the bid to attract winter tourists anxious to play the “green sport” has led to a proliferation of golf clubs; at present there is a total of twenty two top flight clubs.
The top #1 tennis player, Rafael Nadal, is the protagonist of one video promotion of the Balearics
Rafael Nadal was born in Manacor, Majorca to Sebastián Nadal and Ana María Parera.
Rafa Nadal is the new face for promoting the Tourism in Majorca since a couple of months, and he is trying to install a National Center of High Performance Sports in Mallorca.
