karl
September 11th, 2013, 04:21 AM
Spain is laughing its way to recovery from Madrid's failed Olympic bid by parodying the city mayor's English language speech to the Olympic bosses in which she said there was "nothing quite like a relaxing cup of cafe con leché" in the city's main square.
Despite her apparent linguistic difficulties, Botella made the effort of delivering her speech in English to Olympic chiefs in Buenos Aires on Saturday night.
But the Madrid mayor's unmistakable Spanish accent and some surprising phrases set off a storm of mostly light-hearted criticism, in particular her assertion: "There is nothing quite like a relaxing cup of café con leche (coffee with milk) in Plaza Mayor".
By Monday, T-shirts were on sale at 18 euros ($24) each with a parody of the Starbucks logo, featuring a profile of Botella and the logo: "Relaxing Cup of Cafe Con Leché in Plaza Mayor".
On YouTube, a video of the mayor's speech with mocking, phonetic subtitles of her English drew tens of thousands of views. Her first words "Dear IOC (International Olympic Committee) members, ladies and gentlemen", for example, were subtitled: "Diar Allosi Menbers, Leidisan yentelman".
On Twitter, hashtags that identify conversation topics such as #relaxingcup or #AnaBotella, drew huge numbers of comments.
A fake Twitter account, @Relaxingcup had more than 11,000 followers by midday Monday.
Some videos on YouTube had mixed the speech with music into "dance" or "dubstep" songs.
Full story and video clip here: http://www.thelocal.es/20130909/madrid-mayors-cafe-con-leche-goes-viral
See this video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhJt3Tzjy8I
Despite her apparent linguistic difficulties, Botella made the effort of delivering her speech in English to Olympic chiefs in Buenos Aires on Saturday night.
But the Madrid mayor's unmistakable Spanish accent and some surprising phrases set off a storm of mostly light-hearted criticism, in particular her assertion: "There is nothing quite like a relaxing cup of café con leche (coffee with milk) in Plaza Mayor".
By Monday, T-shirts were on sale at 18 euros ($24) each with a parody of the Starbucks logo, featuring a profile of Botella and the logo: "Relaxing Cup of Cafe Con Leché in Plaza Mayor".
On YouTube, a video of the mayor's speech with mocking, phonetic subtitles of her English drew tens of thousands of views. Her first words "Dear IOC (International Olympic Committee) members, ladies and gentlemen", for example, were subtitled: "Diar Allosi Menbers, Leidisan yentelman".
On Twitter, hashtags that identify conversation topics such as #relaxingcup or #AnaBotella, drew huge numbers of comments.
A fake Twitter account, @Relaxingcup had more than 11,000 followers by midday Monday.
Some videos on YouTube had mixed the speech with music into "dance" or "dubstep" songs.
Full story and video clip here: http://www.thelocal.es/20130909/madrid-mayors-cafe-con-leche-goes-viral
See this video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhJt3Tzjy8I