Post by Spain on Jul 5, 2010 19:45:09 GMT -5
Nation: Spain (off. Kingdom of Spain)
Name: Antonio Fernandez Carriedo
Gender: Male
Appearance of Age: 25
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Green
Height: 5'9''
Weight: About 140 lbs
Appearance:
Personality: Antonio is the type of person who, upon looking at him, seems like nothing more than a dense, lazy Spanish man who likes nothing more than to nap and eat tomatoes. That is true, in some ways. But there is definitely more to Antonio than sleeping and eating. He is the representation of the Kingdom of Spain; a nation full of life, color and music. He takes a siesta at almost the same time every single day-right after the midday meal- and one might think that he does it almost to a religious degree.
Antonio loves working out in his tomato fields, and has a passion for creating new food dishes with his favorite vegetables(fruits?). He takes great pride in the tomatoes he grows, and enjoys sharing them with his friends as often as he can. His food is almost as colorful as his personality, and music is important to him as well. Sports-namely, football [soccer]-are also important to Antonio,
Antonio is more than a little dense. And a lot of the time, he may not seem to be fully “there.” He’s that type of man who has an ‘I just woke up’ look on his face almost 24/7, and he doesn't even TRY to read the atmosphere. But despite all that, he’s a good friend and definitely doesn’t ignore what his friends or loved ones say. He doesn’t mean to offend the people he cares about, so when he does it’s unintentional.
A cheerful country bumpkin, Antonio wasn’t always dense and silly. He actually used to rule a huge empire, and it covered so much of the planet that it was called ‘The Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets’. [It was called that because it was on both sides of the world, so the sun never technically set in the Spanish Empire.] A member of the ‘Bad Friends Trio,’ Antonio almost always looked to be up to no good while hanging around with Prussia and France. Once a super-powerful nation, he was tormented by England and the Netherlands; he was beaten up, and was eventually thrust into war and poverty. But he stayed upbeat, passionate, and happy, despite all the hardships.
Antonio is definitely a friend who would be one for a lifetime, and there is certainly more to him than meets the eye. But who am I to tell you? You should talk to him yourself; he doesn’t usually bite! c;
Likes:
+ Tomatoes
+ Bull-fighting
+ Taking siestas
+ Music
+ Childeren, especially the Italy brothers
+ Food (only Spanish, though. He's very picky.)
+ Being with family and friends
+ Churros
+ Going at his own pace
+ Romano
Dislikes:
- Being hungry
- Doing chores
- Being woken up from a nap
- When Romano tells him to not walk in the street because 'it's unsafe'
- Being rushed
- Being told 'no'
- People who aren't picky enough about food/who don't treat food like it should be
- People who dislike tomatoes
Fears:
~ Being alone
~ Running out of food/not having food storage
~ His tomato plants dying
Strengths:
+ Growing Vegetables
Spain is constantly checking on his tomato fields, and certainly knows much about growing other vegetables as well. He has a passion for tomatoes, and can usually be seen munching on one as an afternoon snack.
+ Cooking
Antonio definitely knows how to cook; food is something that usually comes to most minds when 'Spain' is mentioned. He has a passion for cooking that most wouldn't notice from a first glance.
+ A Way With Words
...Or at least around Romano, he does. Antonio certainly knows how to embarrass his former worker [or erm, opposite of boss? OTL. I don't know how to word that right! DX] with only a few sentences.
Weaknesses:
- No Mouth-Filter
Although he can make a certain Italian blush with the fewest of words, Antonio has no mouth filter and says whatever pops into his head, and can offend easily, even if he doesn't mean to.
- Waking Up
Antonio likes to sleep- a daily siesta is something he rarely ever misses -and he has a hard time getting up in the morning.
- Romano
Romano, who was under Antonio's care as a small child, is someone that Antonio cares about. Antonio can't stand it when Romano is angry at him.
- Cleaning
Why else would he have hired Romano to work and clean for him when the Italian was younger? Antonio isn't exactly the tidiest person around.
History: I totally wrote too much on this part. Sorry.
"The history of Spain spans the period from prehistoric Iberia, through the rise and fall of a global empire, to the recent history of Spain as a member of the European Union
Prehistoric-ness/B.C.
About 32,000 years ago, modern humans entered the Iberian Peninsula. There were many different populations and cultures followed over the millenia, including the Iberians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans and a whole lot more. .
And then what happened was, in the 9th century, the first Greek colonies were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the east, and they left the south coast to the Pheonicians. The Greeks are who named the land Iberia, after the river Iber (Spanish: Ebro). Then, a little while later, the Romans came and were like 'oooh this is our land now' and met the Iberians.
The Spanish Wars
Basically it was just a series of three wars that lasted, on and off, from 181 to 133 BC. It was fought between the advancing legions of the Roman Republic and the Celtiberian tribes of Hispania.
Roman Hispania
[Hispania was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula, btw.]During the 5th century, the first Germanic tribes invaded as the Roman Empire decayed. Spain's main languages, its religion and basis of its laws originate from this period. The centuries of uninterrupted Roman rule/settlement left a deep, enduring imprint upon the culture of Spain.
Germanic Occupation of Hispania
After the Roman Empire declined, Germanic tribes invaded the former empire. Iberia was taken over by the Visigoths after 410. And unlike everywhere else, the Roman Empire didn't "fall with a bang, but with a whimper". There isn't a convenient date for the fall-through the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries there was just a progressive 'de-Romanization'.
Basically what happened was the Roman Empire controlled Spain for 300 years; then these people from the north named the Vigisoths came and took it away from the Romans. The Vigisoths were Christian and controlled Spain for 200 years. Unlike Britain, Gaul, Lombardy and Germany, Spain never saw a decline in interest in classical culture. The Vigisoths tended to maintain more of the old Roman insitutions.
What happened next?
Then basically a bunch of people took Spain over from the 13th ventury, but by the end of the 19th century, Spain was very poor and was being ruled by French people. Britain sent some troops down to help Spain because they were so weak. So basically when it came to people in charge of Spain, it was France first and Britain second.
19th century Catholics decided they wanted to take Spain away from the Muslims, and fought for many hundreds of years-some of which were crusades against other Christians. They were very cruel wars.
Then, in 1492(the same year Columbus found the Americas!), they took over the last part of Spain that had belonged to the Moors. Internal feuds, corruption, and divisions had caused Baghdad to fall to the Mongols in 1258. Spain went similarly. Before this, several different kings had ruled different countries in what is now called Spain. Two of these countries, Castile and Aragon, came together when the king of Aragon, Ferdinand II, married the queen of Castile, Isabella.
In the same year, 1492, they decided to send Christopher Columbus to explore the Atlantic Ocean. Hooray for Columbus! c:
Late 15th century
Columbus-and other explorers-discovered North/South America, and so Spain sent a bunch of soldiers and buisnessmen there, and they took over large parts of the two continents. Owning this empire made Spain very rich. But when they conquered that empire, they killed millions of the Native Americans who had lived there before. Spain owned this empire for more than three hundred years.
16/17th century
Thanks to gold in the Americas, the Spanish Empire was the strongest in the world through most of the two next centuries. The new gold made rulers/colonial governers rich, but made others' savings worth a lot less because of inflation. Spain was a society of very rich people and very poor.
Native American peoples were killed by diseases brought by the Spaniards, but most Spaniards did not know this. They found damaged and dying societies with people who had lost some of their most important leaders and thinkers. The Spaniards thought this meant they were inferior, and used this as an excuse to enslave the natives. Millions of natives died mining gold for the Spanish.
The Spanish Empire also began funding the Spanish Inquisition-basically they tortured and killed anyone who disagreed with the Roman Catholic church. The Reformation which created Protestant sects in Europe was not allowed into Spain-it was kept out, and along with Jews and Muslims, its believers were killed.
The nobles of Spain were no longer having to fight with anybody, since the internal feuds were over. Nobody could challenge their power, and in many ways it was held together as a reign of terror.
Spain in the 19th century
Even though the juntas(the name for the several local administrators) had forced the French to leave Spain had sworn by the liberal Constitution of 1812, Ferdinand VII very openly believed that it was much too liberal for the country. On his return to Spain, he refused to swear by it.
And although Spain accepted the rejection of it, the policy was not warmly welcomed in Spain's empire in the New World. Revoloution broke out. Spain was nearly bankrupt from the war with France, and was unable to pay her soldiers, and in 1819 they were forced to sell Florida to the United States for 5 million dollars. Spain was also on the verge of losing their colonies, because of rebels and the Monroe Doctrine.
(Really all the Monroe Doctrine was was a United States policy, passed by President James Monroe in 1823. It said to all European countries if they tried to further colonize land and/or interfere with states in the Americas, it would be seen as acts of aggression by the United States. It also said that the USA would not interfere with European colonies nor in the internal concerns of European countries.)/rant
After that....?
There was the First Spanish Rebublic(1873-1874), the Restoration(1874–1931), a Second Spanish Republic(1931–1939) which allowed women to vote in elections.
The Spanish Civil War
In the 1930s, Spanish politics were "polarized at the left and right of the political spectrum". The Left-wing favored land reform, autonomy to religions and a reduction in church and monarchist power. Right-wing groups held opposing views on most issues.
On July 17 1936, General Fransisco Franco led the colonial army from Morocco to attack the mainland, while another force under Gen. Sanjurjo moved south from Navarre. Franco's move intented to seize power immedietly, but successful resistance by Republicans in places such as Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and elsewhere meant that Spain was facing a prolonged Civil War. Both sides recieved foreign military aid, the Nationalists from Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Portugal, the Republic from the USSR and organised volunteers in the International Brigades.
The war, which cost anywhere from 300,000 to 1,000,000 lives, ended with the destruction of the Republic and Franco becoming dictator of Spain. "Franco amalgamated all the right wing parties into a reconstituted Falange and banned the left-wing and Republican parties and trade unions."
Dictatorship of Fransico Franco (1936–1975)
Spain stayed neutral in WWI and WWII, but suffered through a devastating Civil War. During Franco's rule, Spain remained largely economically and culturally isolated from the outside world, but began to catch up economically with its European neighbors.
Spain since 1975
"The Spanish transition to democracy or new Bourbon restoration was the era when Spain moved from the dictatorship of Francisco Franco to a liberal democratic state. The transition is usually said to have begun with Franco’s death on 20 November 1975, while its completion is marked by the electoral victory of the socialist PSOE on 28 October 1982."
Modern Spain
From 1982 until 1996, the social democratic PSOE governed the country with Felipe González as prime minister. In 1986, Spain joined the European Union and hosted the 1992 Barcelona Winter Olympics.On Jan 1 1999, Spain changed the peseta for the new Euro currency. On 3 July 2005, the country became the first country in the world to give full marriage and adoption rights to homosexual couples. Spain also won the FIFA World Cup 2010.
(it totally depends on the time period. oh well!)
Allies: Southern Italy, Northern Italy, the United States of America, Austria, Hungary, Prussia, France, Germany, Russia, Portugal
Enemies: England, America, France, Germany, Russia (This part was hard, especially with the whole civil war part and some countries were helping either one side of Spain or the other. I don't think that Spain has any current enemies, though.)
Sample Post: [I'm sorry if Antonio sounds too serious and not laid-back as he usually is. ;3; I thought he should be serious if I wrote him as playing in the World Cup. Oh and I'm unoriginal, so I just wrote him as the guy who scored at the end. And I've never done this before.]
Antonio's lungs were burning. His legs were on fire and his feet were almost numb. But he didn't pay attention to that. He kept his eye on the ball and ran.
If this isn't being 'in the zone,' he thought, 'I'm not sure what is.'
Today was a big day. Antonio was playing in the final game of the 2010 World Cup. La Roja, a nickname for the Spanish National Football Team, had never made it to the finals. They were playing the Netherlands, they were in extra time, and it was still a 0-0 tie. But the Netherlands were playing 'underhand': they had ten players on the feild, Spain had eleven. Which gave Antonio's team an advantage. A huge advantage. Antonio had to score-if they ran out of the extra time, they would go into penalty shots. And that would be dangerous.
So Antonio ran. He wasn't listening to the sound of fans banging on drums or screaming or playing on those annoying Vuvuzelas(they made it so hard to concentrate!). He ran forward eight more steps, about a six feet from a Netherlands player who fell as he tried to kick the ball away from the goal.
It all seemed like slow-motion after that: Antonio's teammate stole the ball-and almost got it taken again by a player from the other team- and kicked it to Antonio. The player who had fallen had gotten back up, and was trying to take it from Antonio as he ran towards the goal. There was no way that Antonio was going to lose this ball, though; with only four minutes left in the game, and this good of a chance at winning the World Cup for the first time, he kicked it as hard as he could. He stopped for about two seconds up right at the goalie line, watching it fly right past the Netherlands goalie and hit the net.
It took Antonio about a second and a half to realize that he was running again. He was sprinting and, for some reason, pulling off his shirt as he ran off the field. By the time his team was starting a dog pile, he had realized what he had just done: score the winning goal for the Spanish team and winning the World Cup for his team for the first time.
And, of course, he got in trouble for pulling his shirt off. He wasn't allowed to do that, but nobody on the team really cared. They had won the World Cup! There weren't words to describe Antonio's feelings at that moment. And after a bunch of stuff that happened on the field(Antonio didn't remember because he was a little spaced out), including talking to the other team and shaking hands, he walked up the staircase with his team to go to the locker room.
There was absolutley nothing that could bring Antonio down at that moment. If all of his tomatoes had wilted when he got back home or if Romano came up to him and told him that he hated him(which actually never bothered Antonio; he knew Romano never really meant it), Antonio would still be as happy as he was.
All was well.
If this isn't being 'in the zone,' he thought, 'I'm not sure what is.'
Today was a big day. Antonio was playing in the final game of the 2010 World Cup. La Roja, a nickname for the Spanish National Football Team, had never made it to the finals. They were playing the Netherlands, they were in extra time, and it was still a 0-0 tie. But the Netherlands were playing 'underhand': they had ten players on the feild, Spain had eleven. Which gave Antonio's team an advantage. A huge advantage. Antonio had to score-if they ran out of the extra time, they would go into penalty shots. And that would be dangerous.
So Antonio ran. He wasn't listening to the sound of fans banging on drums or screaming or playing on those annoying Vuvuzelas(they made it so hard to concentrate!). He ran forward eight more steps, about a six feet from a Netherlands player who fell as he tried to kick the ball away from the goal.
It all seemed like slow-motion after that: Antonio's teammate stole the ball-and almost got it taken again by a player from the other team- and kicked it to Antonio. The player who had fallen had gotten back up, and was trying to take it from Antonio as he ran towards the goal. There was no way that Antonio was going to lose this ball, though; with only four minutes left in the game, and this good of a chance at winning the World Cup for the first time, he kicked it as hard as he could. He stopped for about two seconds up right at the goalie line, watching it fly right past the Netherlands goalie and hit the net.
It took Antonio about a second and a half to realize that he was running again. He was sprinting and, for some reason, pulling off his shirt as he ran off the field. By the time his team was starting a dog pile, he had realized what he had just done: score the winning goal for the Spanish team and winning the World Cup for his team for the first time.
And, of course, he got in trouble for pulling his shirt off. He wasn't allowed to do that, but nobody on the team really cared. They had won the World Cup! There weren't words to describe Antonio's feelings at that moment. And after a bunch of stuff that happened on the field(Antonio didn't remember because he was a little spaced out), including talking to the other team and shaking hands, he walked up the staircase with his team to go to the locker room.
There was absolutley nothing that could bring Antonio down at that moment. If all of his tomatoes had wilted when he got back home or if Romano came up to him and told him that he hated him(which actually never bothered Antonio; he knew Romano never really meant it), Antonio would still be as happy as he was.
All was well.
Did you read the rules? Si! More than once!
"Let me give myself
The 'Awesome Me' honor award!"
