SPAIN has many of the most religious Christians and Roman Catholics on earth even though it has as a mixture of nudists, Muslims and Jews habitation. As we wind down to 2008, we now count down what is going on in Spain for the remaining days of this year. The country has just wound up its annual Christmas draw, the largest annual lottery all over the country. A total of $3.6 billion were given away giving a merrier Christmas cheer to those who have won them. In fact, the raffle entitled El Gordo is not just the biggest in Spain but the biggest all over the world and this is one of the nicest reasons why living in Spain as an expat is really gratifying.

In fact, Spain is so rich that it is not just giving away cold cash to its residents but also to its former colonies overseas. It is granting the Philippines a $250 million loan to improve all its ports nationwide. The Banco de Bilbao in Madrid has initiated the loan after the Philippine government has planned to put up solar facilities in all its ports nationwide. The ports in question number to a total of 70. That’s a lot so $250 million are really needed to fund it.

In another piece of news, a big oil company in Spain has decided to sell some of its assets to an Argentine group because it has discerned that this time is an opportune period to do it when the economy in the country is very bullish. Some 15 percent of Reposol’s stake is now in the hands of Argentine billionaire Enrique Eskanazi.

And because the economy in this country is nowhere this close to being bullish even with the current mortgage crisis in the United States, scores of shoppers are currently virtually all malls in Spain from Madrid to Barcelona, from Salamanca to Valencia to Benidorm and even in territories overseas such as Tenerife and Palma de Mallorca. Even if there are concerns that consumer goods manufactured in China are tainted with dangerous elements, these have not wrought fear in the minds of the Spanish shoppers. They are confident that the trade ministry is doing everything it can to inspect all individual items that have entered into this country.

Because Spain’s economic lifeblood remains to be the Mediterranean Sea (tourism and fishing fronts), the country has decided to merge with the countries of Italy and France to form the Mediterranean Union so they can have a collective and stronger lobbying stand before the European Union and before other governing bodies. Lots of Scandinavian and British tourists troop to the Mediterranean shorelines in these three countries because they have a temperate climate all year round ranging from an extreme low of only -3 degrees Celsius during winter and an extreme high of only 18 degrees Celsius every summer. There are lots of nutritious seafood abounding in this region too.