A trip to... London!

Hello dudes!! I just came back from my trip to London. I've written a short diary, as I promised to our teacher Antonia. Here it is, if anyone is interested:

Day 1: Thursday, 20th June

We got up at seven o'clock, and we started preparing all. We left the house and, at quarter past eleven, we were already inside the airport, buying oil, ham and wine for our friends in London.

An hour later, our plane left the airport. We were the last passengers to arrive, and I lost five euros in a bet with my sister, because I was sure that we weren't going to be able to get on the plane at time.

We arrived at London at one thirty and, not surprisingly, it was raining. Our friends took us to their house. They live in Forest Gate, in a house more than one hundred and thirty-eight years old!! It's a very curious neighbourhood: every house has a front garden, and it's compulsory to keep it as a garden, so the streets are very colourful. Sometimes, they look like a forest! Also, in the streets we saw an amazing mixture of razes: Chinese, Muslims, Hindu, European, African people... It's quite a beautiful neighbourhood!

Just after we arrived, I went straight to the garden they had at the back of the house, and I found two cats and a small pond. That was enough to entertain me for all the afternoon.

We had dinner (their strongest meal) at seven o'clock. After that, we went for a walk through a park they had very near their house. We also visited their allotment. This is a piece of land you can apply the town hall for, in which you can grow vegetables. Our friends cultivated broad beans, raspberries, lettuces, tomatoes, carrots... They're a really good idea, these allotments... We should have them in Spain, too!

Day 2: Friday, 21st June

We got up at nine o'clock, and we had breakfast. We caught the Underground (it was a complete mess!) and we got onto a cable car above the Thamesis. It wasn't as I had imagined: the water was grey and I didn't see any birds or insects. Nevertheless,
the sights were interesting. We saw the O2 Arena; maybe you remember it from the book "All About Britain".


After lunch, we bought a guidebook from London. In front of the shop there was a bagpipe player. I'll tell you something: a bagpipe player can appear very colourful and impressive, but only until he starts to play his instrument... The sound is terribly loud and high-pitched, and it pierces your ears. It's horrible!!

We quickly went into St. Jame's park. It was enormous! It was all green, there were trees everywhere... And lots of squirrels! There was also a big pond, with lots of ducks, swans and their offsprings, herons, geese, pigeons, coots...

St.Jame's Park

Later, we went to Hyde Park, near the Buckingham Palace, the residence of the Queen. There, in front of the Palace, we saw three Queen's Guards, who, as you might well remember, have the job to protect the Queen Elisabeth. Their faces were very serious, and they stood still in front of their sentry boxes with their bear hats. I got bored quickly and we went to Hyde Park. It's as beautiful as St. Jame's Park, and sometimes I confuse them. There were many squirrels, too. We had an ice-cream next to a huge pond full of swans, and later we went to Green Park.

We went out of the Park and walked through the streets. We went to Oxford Street, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly's Circus, Chinatown (a chinese neighbourhood)... There were many people and many shops, but I didn't enjoy the walk because there was a lot of smoke everywhere.

After that, we went to Convent Garden. There was a little orchestra playing there- three violins and one contrabass. The man who played the principal violin was amazing! He jumped, danced at the rhythm of the music... And all this while he was playing the violin! We spent a funny time there.

Finally, we took the Underground and went back to the house. We had dinner and they prepared us a traditional English dessert- the rhubarb. It was delicious!!

Day 3: Saturday, 22nd June

After breakfast, we took the Underground to the Natural Museum. It was very big, and we spent all the day walking along its endless corridors and its enormous rooms. We learned about rocks, insects and all kind of animals, but there was too much information to keep in o
ur heads. We ate lunch at a picnic area they had inside the museum and we continued our visit; precious minerals, extinct animals, volcanos, dinosaurs, stuff animals... I was so tired that I fell asleep just when we arrived at the house.

Day 4: Sunday, 23rd June

We took the Underground to Windsor and Eton, two little villages separated by a river. We walked a little through the streets of Eton, and we saw a lot of college students in black uniforms. They were spread along all the village, because they just had celebrate a party for the end of the course. Eton College is one of the most prestigious schools in London. It's very expensive and elegant, and it's only for boys from thirteen to eighteen years old. They say it's very tough; it prepares you very well for the University.

Later, we had lunch at a pub. It was one of those traditional English pubs, and it was very nice. They were playing a record by The Beatles, my favourite group! I felt at home.

After lunch, and after waiting in a long queue, we visited the Windsor Castle. It was enormous; it had been the residence of many kings and queens, and it had plenty of rooms. We hired some audio phones and we listened to the story of the rooms as we walked through them. We saw the Queen Mary's dolls' house, a long, long room with hundreds of shields in the ceiling, a room with plenty of armours, swards and trophies from battles, like precious tigers' golden heads, and much more. We also saw four more Queen's Guards. They were walking along the gates of the castle, watching us with their bored faces.

Day 5: Monday, 24th June

Hieroglyphs

We spent all morning in the British Museum. It was huge, even bigger than the Natural Museum, so we couldn't see it all, of course. We had only time to see the Egypt, Rome, Assyria and Greece exhibitions. They were all very interesting.



We also saw the mummy of Cleopatra, and the mummies of many other people, cats, birds and even crocodiles!

We had lunch and, for the first time, I tried the famous “fish and chips”. They weren't served in a cone, as Antonia had explained to us, but in a plate. Nevertheless, they were delicious!

After lunch, we went to St. Jame's Park again and tried to hire a bicycle to ride along the park, but none of them worked, and we spent more than an hour trying to find the error, and we also lost eight pounds. We were very angry because it was very bad explained and we couldn't ride the bikes.


We walked along the park, because we also had another plans for that afternoon. I wanted to feed the squirrels, so we spent a lot of time giving them bread and seeing them eat. They were very, very close to us! They were completely used to humans; one even climbed onto my leg! It was absolutely incredible.




Later, we went to London Eye. It's a huge wheel from where you can see wonderful sights of London. We saw the Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the Thamesis (right under us), St. Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, Cleopatra's Needle, Westminster Palace... It was all amazing.


It was getting dark, so we couldn't visit the Big Ben or the Houses of Parliament, and we went back to the house.

Tuesday, 25th June

It was time to leave. We said goodbye to our friends and their cats, and we took the Underground to a suburban train, who led us to Gatwick airport. Our plane took off at ten thirty and we said goodbye to London, who disappeared quickly under the fog.

Tragedy in Bangladesh

Hi you all! I'm not coming anymore to school, because I'm going to London, and I was supposed to do my speaking yesterday in class. But I thought it wouldn't interest you very much and that you wouldn't pay many attention to it, so we watched the movie instead. Anyway, I have put it here if someone wants to look at it. I hope you like it.

Tragedy in Bangladesh

Have you ever gone shopping to H&M, Mango, the Corte Inglés? These shops are everywhere, aren't they? They're famous, and they have a lot of costumers. But they aren't perfect; they are all, in part, responsible of this:

Maybe you've heard of it, although it happened in April, so you probably don't remember. And, before I explain it to you, I'll tell you a few things about Dhaka, the place where this factory was located.

Dhaka is the capital city of Bangladesh. It has a population of more than 12 million people, which makes it one of the most populated cities in the world.

It isn't like Spain. This is Third World, and life is difficult here. People have to accept any kind of job, in any conditions, to survive.

These are workers at a textile factory, very often in old buildings with no extinguishers and no emergency exits, and in not very good hygienic conditions. Some of them are twelve, fifteen, seventeen years old.

They spend TWELVE HOURS in front of a sewing machine, six days a week. And what do they earn? The MOST MISERABLE MINIMUM WAGE IN THE WORLD (in Spain the minimum wage is six hundred and forty-five euros a month; compare!).

Of course, these conditions attract many, many fashion firms, because it's cheaper to make their clothes there. El Corte Inglés, United Colours of Benetton, H&M, Zara, Pull & Bear, Bershka, Stradivarius... These are only some of the four thousand and five hundred textile brands that make their clothes in Bangladesh. Do they even know their working conditions?

What you see here is the world's worst industrial accident since the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984. This textile factory was located in Rana Plaza, Dhaka, and over three thousand people were working there when it fell down in 24th April.

The day before, the workers complained about cracks in the walls of the building, but their bosses didn't listen to them and forced them to work. And they did it; they didn't want to lose their jobs. In Bangladesh it's very difficult to get one.

Suddenly, the building collapsed and, until now, the rescue teams have identified one thousand bodies. They have rescued two thousand and fifty hundred injured.


There are many people around the wrecks of the building searching for their sisters, their brothers, their parents... They're missing, buried somewhere under the mess. Will they find them alive... or dead?

Do you know where do your clothes come from? Probably, most of them were made in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China... By people with no rights, thousands of people that depend on a miserable wage to live.

What can we do about that? Stop buying clothes that are made in sweat shops (factories in which employees work long hours at low wages and under poor conditions)?


No. That's not the solution. Bangladesh's economy depends on its factories. If we don't buy the clothes they make, its economy will sink and thousands of people that work in the factories will be fired, and they will wander through the streets without any place to go or any food to eat.

I think that there are two things we can do: To buy local and to buy fair. There are many initiatives that you can find in the Internet about that.

In this page, for example, they inform you about different projects to fight sweatshops. They also tell you which brands you should choose for a responsible buy: http://www.sweatfree.org/shoppingguide

We, as consumers, have a very important roll in business, because we decide which things we buy and which things we don't buy. And, if we start buying fair, buying local, buying from brands that don't exploit their workers, we'll inspire other people and, finally, between all of us we can make this a better world.

So... You choose. Do you want to do something about, or you prefer to turn a blind eye on it?
 

Animals in space

A monkey prepared to launch

Who was the first living being launched into outer space? No, it wasn't a human! It was... a fruit fly!! They sent it to space in a rocket in 1947 to explore the effects of radiation exposure at high altitudes. The fruit fly was recovered alive! Other missions carried biological samples, like moss.

The Soviet Union in 1961 launched mice and, for the first time, guinea pigs and frogs.

France flew the first rat (Hector) into space in 1961 and, a year later, two more ones. It also planned to launch the cat Felix into space in 1963, but Felix escaped, so they chose another cat, Félicette, who later was recovered alive. France also launched two monkeys a years later.

China launched mice and rats in 1965, and two dogs in 1996.

The United States launched Biosatellite I in 1966 with fruit flies, parasitic wasps, flour beetles and frog eggs, along with bacteria, amoebae, plants and fungi.

In 1967, Argentina launched the rat Belisario, and some more rats after him.

The Soviet Union also launched... the first tortoise in space!! It was sent along with wine flies, meal worms and other biological specimens. These animals, including the turtle, were the first ones in deep space.

Albert II became the first monkey in space only two years later (the original Albert died
while he was launching). Albert II reached about 134 kilometres, and died on a impact after a parachute failure. Numerous monkeys were flown by the U.S after him, but about 2/3 of them died.

Laika in her spaceship

The dog Laika was the first space animal into orbit, launched aboard the Soviet Sputnik 2 spacecraft. Laika died during the flight, as was intended, because the technology to return from orbit had not yet been developed. At least 10 other dogs were launched into orbit as well before 1961, when Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space.






Well... That's the history of animals in space until now it, and it's very summarised. But now, here comes the question: How many animals do you think died in total in these experiments until humans took over from them? Send lots of animals to space, knowing they'll die, just trying to invest and get benefit from space, only for our interests... Is that correct? Is it even ethic?

We use animals to get all we want, without caring about how much they suffer or the danger it causes to its species. I think we should be a bit more careful about this, because we can't just send a tortoise, a monkey, a dog or a cat to space and see how it goes. Many animals are in danger of extinction. Shouldn't we care about this? Try to resolve this problem? Then, why are we launching them into space, wasting so much lives for our own benefit? Shouldn't we think of another option, instead of limit to take the most comfortable one? 

My last Saturday

Hi again! This post is about the last work of the year: a writing about what did we do last Saturday. Here's mine, I hope you like it!

Saturday 16th Jun, 2013

I got up early this morning because I wanted to see the sunrise. It was worth it: it was one of the most beautiful sunrises I've seen. There were a lot of clouds, and the sun, rising above the shadowed shape of the castle, lighted them and turned them into orange, pink, red and yellow. It was... Like a gigantic painting in the sky.

Later, I went downstairs to the kitchen and I had breakfast: milk and a piece of toast. After that, I went to the terrace to see how my praying mantises were.

When my parents woke up, we started to prepare our trip to London. I was very excited: I'm really looking forward to go to London! I want to see the Big Ben, the Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, the British Museum... And all this things our English teacher Antonia has told us about.

At twelve o'clock, we took the car and went to the Alpujarra. We had been invited to a country house for lunch.

It was in the middle of nowhere, lost in a mountain. There were flowers all around, and also a lot of insects. The adults started to prepare lunch. Meanwhile, a girl showed my sister and me the surroundings of the cottage; they owned a pretty big part of the mountain!

The girl led us through meadows, bushes and holes I didn't believe we could pass through, and we ended up with a lot of scratches.

She also took us to an abandoned mine, and we climbed a little mountain and look at the wonderful views.

Then we heard a shout over all the sounds of the country: “Come on ! The lunch's ready!”

When we arrived at the cottage, all the people were already sat around the table. There were a lot of things to eat: “rabo de toro”, Spanish omelet, Russian salad, pasties, pork, beef... And nearly twenty strangers gathered around the table making short work of all. I took a piece of omelet and went quickly outside.




After lunch, most of the adults had a nap, and I had to look after all the kids they had brought with them. I can't bare children, so I left them eating plants and went for a walk.

When the adults woke up, they scolded me for leaving the kids alone and after a short talk we went on an excursion together. We went again to the mine, and the owner of the land told us that, some time ago, people used to extract iron from there, but it closed after some years because it wasn't profitable enough.

We returned to the cottage, where their three dogs welcomed us barking. We had a snack inside and later I asked my father to go with me to a beautiful meadow I had discovered.

It was late afternoon, and the last sun's rays lighted up the tall blades of grass. There were grasshoppers, frogs and birds singing everywhere, and a lot of small insects flying and buzzing around. I sat on the grass and started to examine all the insects I found, describing them to my father. Nature never seems to be in a hurry; and neither we were.

But it was getting dark, and it was time to leave: we said goodbye to the people in the cottage and drove back to our house.


It was night when we arrived, so we prepared dinner (sandwiches, as always) and saw a Simpson's episode. After dinner, I chatted online and read for a while and, finally, I went to bed.

What a beautiful, busy day!

Goodbye, Melanie!!

Today's Friday, and this is the last day Melanie spends with us. She is from Ireland, but came here about two weeks ago to practice her spanish, although she has already finished school in Ireland.

She knows a lot of spanish, and she's very friendly and intelligent. Obviously, she can't participate in the class like we do, but she never gets bored: she listens to the teachers or chats in Facebook and Twitter with her tablet ;)

We've been trying to make her stay as comfortable as possible, and I think that she liked staying here. We also are very pleased about her! We think it's a pity she doesn't stay longer.

So Melanie, I hope you enjoy this time you've spend in Spain. Enjoy the summer, as well! Goodbye... We'll miss you :)