ÖÑ

2010-06-23T07:25:00.000-07:00

I play football in a team called IFK Valla. I’ve been playing there for seven years now. We train about three times a week. Our trainer is a very big man, almost two meters long, and he’s got the world’s biggest stomach :-) When we train we’re almost thirty people.

My favourite football teams are IFK Göteborg and Real Madrid. I’ve been to a few IFK Göteborg matches and it’s really funny. Everybody is singing the entire match. When they score a goal everybody stands up and cheers. It’s a really nice feeling. It’s definitely worth go looking at.

One of my big dreams is to play in IFK Göteborg. My favourite player is Cristiano Ronaldo, who plays for Real Madrid but was born in Portugal. He’s really fast and he shoots like a horse.

AC/DC

2010-06-23T05:19:00.000-07:00

My favourite band is AC/DC. AC/DC is a hard rock band from Australia. They play, of course, hard rock music and rock’n’roll. They have been active very long, since 1973! So they are old men today. But they are still active. They made an album in 2008 and after that, they went on a world tour and played in many countries, even in Sweden.

The front figure in the band is the lead guitarist Angus Young. When he’s on the stage, he’s very energetic and he does often show for the audience. Angus Young’s brother, Malcolm Young, is the comp guitarist in the band. He and Angus have been playing in the band since they started in 1973.

The singer of the band is Brian Johnson. He came in 1980 because the first singer, Bon Scott, had tragically died. He had drunk too much at a party, and that didn’t go well. The bass player in AC/DC is called Cliff Williams and the drummer’s name is Phil Rudd.

I like AC/DC because they play good music, of course, and because they are so old but still great! That impresses me. In the summer of 2009 I was at an AC/DC concert in Nya Ullevi in Gothenburg. The concert was part of their world tour of the “Black Ice” album, which came out then. The concert was really great. I had to have protection for my ears because they play loud. They played all their best songs and new ones from the new album. That was a memory.

I hope AC/DC continue playing a while. That would be really fun! Maybe I can add one more album to my AC/DC collection!

TAYLOR SWIFT

2010-06-22T14:13:00.000-07:00

Taylor Swift is a singer-songwriter. I love her lyrics, but she doesn’t sing as well live as she does in her CDs. All of her songs are about boyfriends or her family. She wrote a song named “The Best Day”. That song she wrote to her parents.

Taylor was mobbed when she was young. She had glasses and she didn’t fit in. She learned to play the guitar all by herself and when she was 13 years old she released her first album. She wrote a song called “ The Other Side”, it was one of the first songs she wrote. “The Outside” was a very emotional song. It was about all her feelings about being mobbed.

Taylor was born in 1989 on December 13, so she is 20 years old now. I think she is a very pretty girl with her blue eyes and blond hair. She is also very tall, 1,80 cm, if I’m being correct. She lived in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, when she was little. Then she and her family moved because they wanted to live near the city where the music company was. Then Taylor got very famous and she wanted to visit her hometown again.

When she got home she met all her old schoolmates, even the mobbers! The mobbers had t-shirts with Taylor on them and wanted to have an autograph. Taylor felt it was very weird but she couldn’t be mad at them because if they hadn’t mobbed her, she wouldn’t have written all the good songs about her life and she wouldn’t have gone famous.

That’s one thing I like about Taylor, she takes everything positive. Even if she was mobbed when she was young, she takes it positive now.

I’ll tell you something about Taylor Swift’s boyfriends. She dated a guy named Joe Jonas. He is a member of the band Jonas Brothers. Everyone thought they were a cute couple but after two weeks Taylor got a call from Joe. He said he wanted to break up. Taylor thought it was very mean to break up on a 27-second phone call. She wrote a song about it, named “Forever and Always”.

A couple of weeks later she started dating a guy named Taylor Lautner. It is very funny about the names, because both of them are called Taylor. Taylor Lautner is also famous. He is Jacob Black in the Twilight movies. But Taylor Swift didn’t have the time to have a boyfriend so she broke up with him.

She has written a song named “Teardrops on my Guitar”. It is about a guy named Drew that she dated in high school. But she knew that they had to break up because she was going o move. It is a very beautiful song.

She has also written a song to her best friend Abigail. That song is named “Fifteen”. It’s about a guy hurting Abigail and life being hard when you are fifteen.

Taylor Swift has won very many prices. Once she won the price for “best female video” and, when she was standing on stage and had just started her “thanking” speech, Kanye West got up on the stage and took the microphone from her. He said: “I think Beyoncé should have the price instead, I like her more”. That was very mean. Taylor was upset at first but then she got to finish her speech.

My favourite Taylor Swift songs are “Beautiful Eyes”, “Fearless” and “Untouchable”. Taylor has released three albums, all of them very good.

My First Mobile Phone

2010-06-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

I had my first Mobile phone when I was 11 or 12 years old approximately. When I went on trips with the school, my mother lent me hers, but only when I had trips. My first mobile phone was a Nokia and I loved it because it was my first one. It was a black and white mobile phone but I liked it because it had a thing for changing the casing. I had this mobile phone for 2 years but then I lost it at the Attraction Park in Madrid.

So, I had to buy a new one. It was a Sony Ericsson which was much better than the other. This had a colour screen and the numbers were much bigger. The best thing was that it had a camera, and it was one of the few mobile phones to have it. When I got bored I sold it to my aunt and I bought another one.

The third one is the one I have now. It is a Samsung and it has a camera, MP3 player, videogames and internet. I think I’m not going to change this one until it breaks down. I couldn’t live without a mobile phone.

Boardsports

2010-06-21T05:17:00.000-07:00

My favourite sport right now is kitesurfing. It’s like snowboarding on the water and to move you need a kite in the air. It moves you forward over the water. I was in Denmark last weekend with my friend and his big brother. He taught us to kite. I’m not so good at it but I have learned body dragging. It’s what you do before you get up on the board. There are many lines and you must have control over them so you get the kite up in the air. It’s very difficult to do.

I also like snowboarding and skateboarding. I was in Livigno in the Italian Alps snowboarding with my friends and my family. Most of all I like downhill but jumping is funny too. In the Alps the mountains are so big that if you go and take the lift to the tops in the morning, you’ll be done when you’re down again. You never have to go down the same way and that’s what I like the most about Livigno. I have tried many other places to ski, like Trysil, Åre, Sälen, Norfjället, but nothing is like Livigno.

When I was a little kid I loved to skate, in ramps almost always, but also halfpipe and rails. I was very good at it, but my knees would hurt if I did it anymore.

Longboard is also funny but not like skateboard or snowboard or kitesurfing. I don’t know why I fell in love with boardsports. Maybe it’s the danger I like…

Audioslave and Black Jack

2010-06-21T04:06:00.000-07:00

I have many favourite bands but if I have to choose one I guess it’s Audioslave. They are a band from London in England, they play soft rock and have their own style.

Their inspiration sources are mostly old goodies like Van Halen, Thin Lizzy and the 80s. Audioslave is world famous and tour all over the world. They have been to Sweden once. My favourite song with the band is “Be Yourself”, I think. The first time I heard them was in a CD-store in Gothenburg and I just felt that “this is good!”

The band sounds a lot like a Swedish band called Takida, at least the vocals in each group are mostly the same.

That was my favourite band and here comes my favourite artist. There are so many great artists in this world but my favourite one is… I actually think it is Black Jack. He is a great singer! Many people know him from his band Tenacious D or for the fact that he is an actor in American movies. He’s pretty big but that doesn’t bother him. It is something that I really like about him. His voice is extremely raw and also light as a feather. He makes singing and rocking fun. These days music has to be so sad and rough, for example metal, but he makes it funny and awesome to look at and listen to. He’s just an exceptional singer.

Cross-country skiing

2010-06-20T17:43:00.000-07:00

Actually, my favourite sport is football but I want to write about another sport instead, cross-country skiing.

Cross-country skiing is a typical Nordic sport. It is a winter sport. You have two skis and two poles and special clothes and shoes. I like the sport because it’s funny and you get to see the nature.

I started cross-country skiing when I was about nine years old. Our family went to Team Sportia in Stenungsund and bought a pair of skis each. I started skiing around my house but when I knew how to do it I went to Tjörn’s golf course. There was a lot of snow and much longer. It was really funny.

A year later I got my first roller skis. They’re like short skis with wheels. When I had trained enough, I decided to set up a goal. And the goal was to complete Vasaloppet, the longest ski competition in the world.

It is 90 kilometres long and for the elite skiers it takes about four hours. But you don’t need to be a professional skier to complete Vasaloppet. You can be 80 years old and still do it! Vasaloppet is fantastic!

But why is the name Vasaloppet? There was a king in Sweden, whose name was Gustav Vasa. The Danish king wanted to kill him. It was winter and he had to flee with skis. The skiers today go the same way and they named the competition after him.

Now I practise a little in order to one day cross the goal line. It’s a future dream that can come true. Wish me luck!

The World Cup

2010-06-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

This year sees the World Cup in South Africa, one of the most important events in the world. The best football teams in the world take part which means that the media and millions of people will be focused on what happens over the next month.

South Africa is a country that must grow and develop and this event can help it, building better roads, hospitals, schools and creating jobs through the construction of stadiums and hotels. The majority of the population is black and often poor and only a minority is white and often wealthy. The country's favourite sports are football and rugby.

One of the features of the people is that when they see a football game they are very happy and sing together. They also play a trumpet called vuvucela that mimics the sound of the elephant!

The most important person in the country is Nelson Mandela, who has fought so hard to achieve this great event and fight for the rights of black people in general. Also one of the most important things in the world cup is that you meet people from other countries and from your own country too. It is also a great opportunity to help more disadvantaged people and give them our support.

I also want to take the opportunity to say that I HOPE SPAIN WINS!!!!

Dreams

2010-06-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

Hi, let me tell you a story about dreams.

Dreams are images of what we want things to be or happen, even how things should have happened.

Everyone has dreams. You maybe say you don’t but in fact you do. Dreams are also a reflex of our emotions. They are people’s shields for not going crazy.

When you are in a dream you feel safe and nothing can hurt you. I think we all need dreams ’cause they help us think, they protect our secrets and emotions.

I think dreams are wonderful. They give you this feeling you never can explain. Sometimes the feelings are positive and sometimes negative. Before I stop writing I’d like to say something:

“Somewhere over the rainbow there’s this castle in the sky.”

Now that’s a place where I wanna be.

Football

2010-06-18T03:39:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite sports is football, I think it’s my favourite actually. I started playing for IFK Valla when I was about six or seven years old. When I was little I played forward. Then I changed to defence. Last winter I switched team from Valla to Stenungsunds IF. The first two-three months didn’t go that well. It was when I grew in length and my body didn’t listen to me. It got better when I gained weight but that year I felt that I didn’t go up to my standards. This year a lot has changed. I am in the right weight for my length and I feel stronger than last year. It was hard to get where I am now but I never gave up and kept on fighting, so now it’s going very well.

Right now in SIF we train about five times a week including matches. It’s tough but if you like it it’s nothing. My team is called the Under-16 team but I train with Under-18 sometimes and I have played a match with them once. It’s tough because it’s such a high tempo, but you learn to deliver the ball quicker and not to take dumb risks.

I mostly play as libero but I sometimes play defence centerfield. That’s what I like the most.

Today after the school I’m going training and on Thursday, Friday and Sunday we have matches. I think I’m going to play all of them. My number is 8, like Zlatan had in Inter Milan. My favourite team is Barcelona, I like them because they play very funny football to watch. My favourite player is Yoann Gourcuff. He plays for Bordeaux in the Ligue I in France. Bordeaux is also one of my favourite teams. They came to the quarterfinals in the Champions League, which is a huge success for them.

Final Fantasy

2010-05-22T07:39:00.000-07:00

Hi! This time I'm gonna talk about a role videogame that came out 1 month ago. I finished it some days ago and it´s great. It´s Final Fantasy XIII the last FF for the moment, from the famous saga.

The world of Final Fantasy XIII is split into two very different parts. One part is a floating, mechanical city called Cocoon. Cocoon is home to a few million people. These people of Cocoon are frightened of the other part of the world which is outside of the city, a place called Pulse. Anyone who comes into contact with Pulse is believed to be part of a plot to invade Cocoon.

Lightning the main character will have to save both parts of the world from it´s destruction, at the same time Snow will try to find his girlfriend.

This videogame has a very interesting story, at the same time it includes a new battle system and very good graphics. These factors make it an special videogame.

It has been criticized by some magazines and critics because it means a great rupture with the tradition of Final Fantasy. But in my opinion its positive to include variations according to new technologies and consoles as Ps3 or Xbox 360, making the game more attractive in some aspects.

I recommend it to everyone that likes this genre and videogames in general.

Pole Vauting

2010-05-11T02:43:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I had a competition in Madrid, it was really nice because the best pole vaulters from Spain were there.

The competition was won by Naroa who has the Spanish record, she jumped 4 metres and 50 centimetres, the second was Mar who trains with me, she jumped 4 metres. I was the fifth, I only could jump 3 metres and 50 centimetres but I liked so much to be able to jump with the best pole vaulters.

As I finished the competition soon I decided to go to visit some friends I have in Madrid and we were having a walk in the center of the city. At night, they went with me to the bus station and then I came back to Soria by bus.

The X games

2010-05-10T04:09:00.000-07:00

X games is a yearly multi sport. You compete with other people in almost every sport: skateboard, freestyle, motocross, snowboard, etc.

The winter X games are held in January and February in Colorado, Aspen. That includes snowboard, snow scooter, freeski, snowskate, ski cross, monoski and half pipe.

The summer X games are held in August in Los Angeles. That includes BMX, super cross, surfing, skateboard, rally, moto X speed and style and BMX super park.

The inaugural X games were held in the summer of 1995 in Rhode Island.

The competition often features new tricks such as Tony Hawks 900 in skateboarding. And Anthony Napolitan with the first ever double front flip on a bicycle.

Tony Hawk is a skateboard legend from the U.S.A. He was born on the 12th of May 1968 in San Diego, California. Tony Hawk was the first skater who ever did front side ollie in a ramp. He won the skateboard World Championship in 1995. He also got his own product and video game: Tony Hawk underground.

Check out for more here

http://espn.go.com/action/xgames/winter/2010/index

The Poet and the Women

2010-04-30T01:20:00.000-07:00

Hi! I’m Estefanía and I am writing again to tell us you my last trip I made with my class. This happened the 13th of April, the second day after Easter holidays.

My class and half of the people from 1st of bachillerato who are studying Latin like us, went to Zaragoza to see a theatre of Aristophanes called “Thesmophoriazusae” or “The Poet and the Women”.

Well that day we Left Soria at 8 o’clock from the high school by bus and we arrived at Zaragoza at 10.15 more or less. We were late for the 1st theatre and museum so we had to go to the other 3 museums we had reserved to visit them. There we could observe the primitive theatre built for a long time ago by the Romans when they conquered our peninsula, and that is still preserved up to our days.

We spent the whole morning going from one building to another up to the time we had lunch. Afterwards the let us go shopping or whatever we wanted until the theatre of Aristophanes began.

It started at 5.30 and it lasted for one hour, it was quite interesting and funny so everybody liked it. Once it was over we went to the Square “El Pilar” to visit the cathedral and finally at 7.30 we left the city to come back to Soria.

This was an unusual activity that our teacher of Latin prepared for us, it was an entertaining trip and I wouldn’t mind going on another.

Thanks for reading about it

The crazy videogames player

2010-04-26T13:45:00.000-07:00

Hi, I´m Javier and I´m going to talk about an article I read some days ago, this article talks about the effect of the videogames on children´s behaviour.

The article says that young people who play violent videogames, even for a short period of time, become more violent and aggressive.

Moreover these chidren try to imitate the characters of the videogame with their friends , this imitation can cause serious illnesses, these videogames could also affect the children academic task because if the child was always playing games he wouldn´t do his homework and it could cause a worse relationship with parents.

In contrast I think that a simple game can´t affect so much the children´s behaviour .because most of the children have a limit with the videogames and they also do sport or meet friends instead of playing videogames.

On the other hand, I read another article which said that playing videogames helps the children to develop their skills such as the visual attention, so videogames perhaps aren´t so terrible.

The Bullfighting Debate

2010-03-23T13:16:00.000-07:00

Several demonstrations have taken place all around the world. More and more people are against bullfighting because they consider it a cruel act. This activity means killing an animal just for entertainment.

However some others think that it is some kind of art and that’s an essential part of our culture that shouldn’t disappear. Furthermore, in some regions they declared bullfighting, National Heritage.
That’s right, but just because of that should we keep on practising it? The evolution of our society is obvious why shouldn’t we de the same with this barbaric activity? Romans had gladiators, people killing each other, something unbearable nowadays.

On the other hand the abolition of bullfighting would affect local festivities like the San Fermines or even the San Juanes, here in Soria. What’s your opinion? Think about it.

Carnival

2010-03-16T03:36:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago the streets of the cities, towns and villages were full of colours, life and splendour. We were celebrating carnival. It is known that this festival invites you to dress up as whatever you want. So, if you go for a walk on these days you willl see pirates, witches, princesses, ancient Greeks or Romans, superheroes... which are some of the typical costumes. You can also find policemen, soldiers, flies, bees, or even original costumes as tomatoes, famous statues, chewing-gums... I think this is the best moment to show your imagination and creativity to impress other people. It isn’t difficult because the most stupid thing you find could be the funniest idea. Now, all of you have enough time to think about the one of next year. Come on, don’t be boring!!

THE WINTER OLYMPIC GAMES

2010-03-14T01:53:00.000-08:00

I’m Marta, from Soria and I’m going to write about the Winter Olympic Games now that they have just finished. This competition has taken place since 1924, when the first ones took place in France. Before this, the first multi-sport event especially for winter was the Nordic games, held in Sweden in 1901. Like the summer Olympics, they are held every four years, but they don’t coincide with each other. However, fewer countries participate in these games compared with the summer ones. Maybe this happens because many of the sports that are played in the Winter Olympic Games are quite strange or, at least, not very well-known. There are lots of types of skiing, like alpine, freestyle or cross-country. There are also other sports, like snowboarding, skating, hockey, curling and skeleton. These two last ones are new sports that have been added to the Olympic Games in the last years. Anyway, they have become quite famous in these games and lots of people know now about these sports.

As always when we talk about sport at these levels, we also have to talk about doping. It was in 1967 when the International Olympic Committee started to make drug testing protocols. The last Winter Olympics, hosted in Turin in 2006, were famous because of a scandal involving blood doping. This caused the suspension of 12 cross-country skiers. Other three skiers tested positive after the Olympic Games took place and their medals were taken.

This year, the Winter Olympic Games have taken place in Vancouver, Canada. United States is the one that won most medals, with 37, followed by Germany, with 30, and Canada, with 26. Sweden is in the eighth place, together with China and France, with 11 medals so you can be happy. On the other hand, Spain has not won any.

My trip to Canada

2010-02-24T12:36:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone! Me and my family are going to spend a month in Canada and watch the Olympic Games! Now we are in the house we'll live in. The house is beautiful and the family we live with are really nice. Our flight here was long and tiring. We got up at three o'clock, and drove about half past four. At seven o'clock the plane went to London / Heathrow from Landvetter. After a two-hour flight, we waited in Heathrow for about four hours. We ate an English breakfast and shopped a bit. Then at one o'clock our plane left for Canada. The air trip took ten hours and the plane was full of sports people. We quickly found our luggage and went by taxi to the house. Now I've had a shower and mom and dad have been drinking champagne with Sophie and Scott, the people we live with. They have two children, Portia and Ethan. We have not seen Portia because she is at camp, but she comes home tomorrow. Now I’m going to bed and sleep, you get tired after having been up for almost 24 hours.

Jueves Lardero

2010-02-21T07:17:00.000-08:00

"Jueves Lardero" is a festival celebrated on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday. It's a festival celebrated in many places in Spain, but in Soria it is very important. Jueves Lardero is also the first day of Carnival. It began because people couldn't eat meat during Lent and as they couldn't store it either, they made a festival to eat everything they had before the forty days of vigil.

In Soria, we say: "Jueves Lardero, pan chorizo y huevo" which means ""lardy thursday" bread, chorizo and egg". Most people usually go to the countryside and eat this and other things (we can also make a chorizo-omelette sandwich). Young people also go out with their friends to some parks near the city and make camp-fires.
This year the weather wasn't so good (it had snowed the previous night and there was mud everywhere and it was below 0ºC) but anyway everyone went out to have a good time. At least, we were out until midday, when it started to snow, and we had to continue the party at home.

In the rest of Spain people have a holiday on Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, but here in Soria we have Jueves Lardero and the next day to celebrate. It has been like this since the seventeenth century.

After Jueves Lardero, young people dress up and parade in the streets at night. There are also some competitions in the old part of the city for the kids.

That's all for today. I'd like to know if you also celebrate carnival there in Sweden.

Numancia

2010-02-16T11:15:00.000-08:00

Numancia is the name of a Celtiberian and then Roman town located next to Garray, a small village near Soria. It is famous because of its epic resistance to the Roman invasion.

After the Punic wars (2nd century B.C.), the Roman Empire conquered the Iberian Peninsula. When villages next to Numancia were attacked, their inhabitants moved to Numancia. The Romans got angry and decided to attack Numancia. For 20 years the Romans performed several campaigns (they even used elephants), but they were not successful.

So, Rome had to send their most important general, Scipio. He decided to besiege the town. He built 7 camps and a wall with towers between them surrounding Numancia. As they were starving, they had to surrender, but, before doing that, some of them committed suicide and burnt the town. The rest of them were made slaves. Numancia’s resistance became a legend.

After all this, the Romans built their own town on the ruins. Maybe the Visigoths maintained the town until the 6th century, when it was abandoned.

Soria’s inhabitants are proud of this story. The football team’s name is Numancia, every summer there is a theatre play about this and one of the most famous souvenirs from Soria is the Celtiberian horse.

Dance band music in Sweden

2010-02-11T03:33:00.000-08:00

Hello! My name is Marcus Larsson, I live in Sweden, and I am going to
write about Swedish dance band music. A dance band is a music group that
plays dance music, which means music that people dance to. There
are many dance bands in Sweden, for example Sven Ingvars, Thorleifs
and Vikingarna, who are old dance bands, and young ones like Zekes and
The Playtones.

Dance bands often take the name of one of the members and put an "s" or a "z" in the end to get the band name. That's pretty unimaginative, in fact,
but that's how it is.

Dance band music can sound like rock'n'roll or like other music styles
that you can dance to. I like the rock influenced style the most.

In Sweden there is a competition and television show about the best
dance band in Sweden. It is called "Dansbandskampen", in English it
would be "The dance band fight". The band called "The playtones" won
last year and "Lars Kristerz" won in 2008. Lars Kristerz has had
one really great song called "Carina".

Thank you for reading. Have a nice day!

Marcus Larsson

TIME

2010-02-09T10:35:00.000-08:00

The word time, as we know it, is a regular point in life. Time is always underestimated. There are two ways of underestimating time, you either got to much time or you don’t. People never have enough time. Maybe you are going to a meeting and you say ”I have enough time...” but the fact is you don’t. I think everyone has a special ”time limit” in life. Therefore you’re not supposed to waste it ’cause I believe that when a person does something bad, life reduces this ”time limit”. The time you’ve been given in life is perfectly matched with the duties every person has on earth. When I look at people on the street they always are in a kind of hurry. I think that we humans somewhere deep inside our minds know that our time here is short. Some of my friends say that time is just a word of use but I think it’s the knowledge of where we are in life. When people talk about life, what they have done or what they would like to do, I would like to think that they actually talk about time. Time is not a phenomenon it’s a purpose! Even the world has a ”time limit”. Even the scientists have discovered it. The only problem is that nobody can adjust the time every person has.

People think life is hard but “after the rain comes the sunshine”. It’s only a matter of time.

By Jesper Fredriksson

Hinojosa de la Sierra

2010-02-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

Hello, my name is Lucia and I am the girl who was with Pernilla during the trip. I have to say that I am very happy to have met all of you, and I would like to go again for a visit.

Now, I wanted to make a brief description about my village, called “Hinojosa de la Sierra”. My village is very near Soria, the town in which I live, approximately 18 kilometres away. It’s a small village in which nobody lives during the winter. I usually go in summer, because it is when all the people arrive and when I meet my friends who live in other cities. Normally, I stay there during all the months of summer. I remember that when I was small, I preferred going to my village to going to a summer camp with my friends from school.

In my opinion, it’s a very beautiful village in which you can do a lot of activities. We have the river Duero which crosses on one side of the village, and in which I usually go for a swim. The water of the river is very cold, but when you get out you feel really relaxed. I also do more activities like going out with the bicycles to the nearby villages or playing football and other sports.

In the middle of August, the village has three days of holidays. The first day, there is a band during the night. The second day, there are typical traditional games, like cards or bowling. The last day, the people from the village have lunch in the main square where the entire village gets together.

The village has three important monuments, a palace in the entrance, a castle in the middle of the village and a gothic church.

In some aspects, I would prefer to live there than in the city, because it is a very peaceful place, surrounded by nature.

I hope you like my photo of the village.

My best wishes

LUCIA

The Moccia phenomenon, Italian love boom!

2010-01-28T01:52:00.000-08:00

The Italian writer Federico Moccia has been able to create a huge legion of young and teenage readers all round the world.

Federico Moccia, who was born in Rome in 1963 didn’t have an easy beginning. He started his artistic career in the world of TV and cinema where he wasn’t very successful at first.
He wrote a book called Tre metri sopra il cielo and after sending it to lots of publishers, and in 2004 a small one finally accepted it. This book was a great sales success, and was translated into lots of languages all over Europe and the rest of the world. That year, a film version was made.Two years later he published Ho voglia di te, the sequel to his other novel with another film version which was also very successful. In 2007 he published Scusa ma ti chiamo amore, a novel that worked as well as the other two.

These world wide bestsellers have a successor this year, his last novel, Scusa ma ti voglio sposare, and its first edition was completely sold out in Spain in one week, and has beaten by far the total number of sold copies of his other novels in our country. This sales success has been called “the Moccia phenomenon”, and specially, among the youngsters all over the world, has created another effect; the trend of couples locking padlocks to some bridges and throwing the key into the river afterwards. This comes from his second book where the protagonist couple does this on the Milvio Bridge (Rome).

So, enjoy these romantic stories situated in the eternal, ancient, and busy city of Vespa´s.

These shoes were made for walking...

2010-01-23T13:24:00.000-08:00

I have talked about my village that of course you know very well, I also wrote about F1 and for my new post I would like to write about one of my favourite clothes brand.
It was founded in 1993 by Ken Block and Damon Way. The company is situated in Vista, California which is a city in north San Diego County. Its name is DC shoes.

This American company specialises in footwear for extreme sports such as skateboarding, snowboarding, BMX, motocross and much more related sports. DC Shoes was originally called Eightball, and solely made t-shirts for skate shops. After trademark disputes, Eightball was renamed Droors Clothing, sporting a new line of clothing in which they created ads in satire of famous advertisements for companies like Calvin Klein. At first, DC was a related with skaters and snowboarders, although this has changed. The style of their clothes and other accessories has made this brand one of the most famous around the world in just a few years. Some of the most famous international pop-rock groups wear DC shoes or t-shirts; like Linkin Park or Limp Bizkit. They have also created their own personal designs.

DC founder Ken Block is a rally car driver competing in Rally America. DC is a sponsor of both him and his teammate, driver Travis Pastrana, a champion motocross rider. Pastrana was the 2006 and 2007 overall Rally America championship winner. Both Pastrana and Block compete as part of the Subaru Rally Team USA and drive Subaru Impreza WRX STi rally cars. DC has recently released a driving shoe because of their involvement in rally. Both of them have been involved in the publicity done by DC appearing in videos where you can admire their abilities driving a car or a motor bike.

The increasing fame of DC attracts other companies. In March 2004, DC Shoes was acquired by Quicksilver. Droors Clothing Footwear was simplified to DC, and after the sale of Droors, DC stood alone as DC Shoes.

Watch this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ7R_buZPSo

Our favourite sports

2009-12-09T09:12:00.000-08:00

Ice hockey

I like watching ice hockey. It’s a funny and hard sport. You have to be very strong and a good skater.

You need skates, a stick and many pads on your body. You also need a helmet, of course.

The biggest league in ice hockey is NHL (National Hockey League). Only the best players in the world play in NHL.

I think the best player ever was the Canadian Wayne Gretzky. He was fantastic. But my favourite team is a team in the Swedish highest league, called ”Elitserien”. I have seen many of their matches. Their name is Frölunda Indians and they are from Gothenburgh. I really like them.

Ice hockey is best when you see it live. But it’s fun to see on TV too. There are other sports I like watching, ice hockey is only one of them, but today I chose to write about ice hockey!

Marcus Andersson

Riding

I love to ride, I’ve been riding since I was seven years old.

At the beginning it was hard to hold your balance in the saddle, but now it’s really easy.

If you ride in a riding school there are often 4-9 people in a riding group. I started riding in a riding school and I’ve been doing that for seven years now.

I’ve also had three ”nursehorses”. My first was named Cassernagh Darkie. He was brown and had a blaze on his face. My second horse was called Molly. She was light brown and had long mane and tail. My third horse’s name is Casper. He has also a very light coat and he is the cutest thing you can imagine.

Cecilia Andersson

Dancing

I’ve been dancing since I was about five years old. Whenever I start with a sport it always contains some sort of dance. I first started dancing when I was training rythmic gymnastics. Later I started practising figure skating. Both containing some sort of dance. I love dancing. And it isn’t as easy as everyone thinks.You must work hard, be strong and you have to be flexible and be in good shape. You should know how much work, sweat, tears and blood there is in every dance. If you haven’t gor hurt or if you don’t get sweaty, you are not doing it right. Dancing is really a more demanding sport than, let’s say, hockey or football. Well, maybe not more, but just as demanding. So think of that before you try it. But when you’re doing it right, it can be just beautiful.

Elin Öhrn

Soccer

One of my favourite sports is soccer. I have been playing soccer since I was born. Soccer has always been my favourite sport and Spanish soccer is always the best. J

The most important thing to know if you want to start playing soccer is that you are not only one player. You are a team.

Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckam are my favourite players. Beckam comes from England but plays in a team called Milan and Cristiano Ronaldo is from Portugal but plays in Real Madrid, which is a team you probably have heard about…

Robbin Englesen

My "small" Way to Relax

2009-11-10T01:14:00.000-08:00

Hi, it's Miguel Angel again, and I want to tell you my tip to relax.

I have two special places where I go to relax, both of them are in my small village. I use one of them in Spring and Autumn and the other only in Summer. The first one is in the middle of a small forest. There is a very small river that at first sight is very ugly. However, if you follow it you find a small waterfall about two metres high. Right on one side there is a samll place where I can sleep to the noise of the water.

The other one is much more different, although I thinkl it is more beautiful than the other. It's at the highest part of my village where there are some windmills. So, what I do is sit down by the windmill with my music and the wind in my face to see the fantastic view of all the villages around mine.

I think everybody has a way of relaxing so I propose you tell me how you relax...

Old Chickens Make Good Soup!!

2009-10-28T06:33:00.000-07:00

I’m going to talk about the new Moto GP world champion Valentino Rossi, who is considered to be the best rider ever. He has won the championship 9 times. He has managed to beat one of his hardest competitors, the Spanish pilot Jorge Lorenzo, who is 22.

Rossi, 30, celebrated his new title with the slogan: Old chickens make good soup. With this Rossi wanted to say that he is old, but he still manages to beat the “youngsters”.

He won the championship after a very difficult rainy race. He started in pole position but when he reached the first bend he was in 10th position. However, he ended the race in third place, just one place before his rival Jorge. So for me, one of his greatest fans, it was one of the best moments of the year and to celebrate it he did two amazing wheelies!!

What a disaster!

2009-10-15T12:19:00.001-07:00

Hi, it’s Sergio again and I’m going to talk about a bad experience I had last weekend. I took part in the duathlon in Almazan. This duathlon consists of running 6 kilometres, then cycling 20 kilometres and then running again the final 3 kilometres.

The race started. I ran the first 6 kms in 24 minutes, 2 minutes slower than the first runner and 30 seconds slower than the second. When I got on the bike I was third, but in 5kms I was first.

I was first and I was feeling great, but then something bad happened… I had a puncture in my rear tyre. I decided to continue with a flat rear wheel, but I had to reduce speed so the second competitor reached me, and a kilometre later something even worse happened to me. I had another puncture in my front wheel!!! At that exact moment I realised that I wasn’t going to finish the race. I had to retire.

This was a bad experience that I hope will never happen to me again!!

NEW AUDI E-TRON

2009-10-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

If we take a look at today’s number of electric cars we will be able to see that it is incredibly low. Nowadays, the country with the highest number of working electric cars is Germany with just 1400 units. Why don’t we care more about investing in “techno-ecology” and sustainable resources, so that the Earth will last much longer?

Audi has assumed this responsibility and has therefore designed a futuristic, new-concept car. The basis of this car is simple: no CO2 emissions are allowed. The car is powered with four interconnected electric engines placed one in each of the wheels. The maximum power of the car is 313 horsepower and the weight of the batteries (which are stored in the centre of the car), is 450kg. The whole car weighs about 1600kg and it can reach 100km/hour in 4.8s. The maximum speed of the E-Tron is limited to 200km/h due to the batteries dependency. The autonomy of this car is 248km but Audi has promised an improvement in this aspect. It has got just two seats and they are displaced several centimetres to the front because of the huge space occupied by the batteries.

Like many other electric cars, it is provided with a system that uses the kinetic energy generated during the use of the brake. Furthermore, they are now investigating how to heat or cool the inside of the car without using any electric energy or any fuel.

The coolest thing about this car is that you can just plug it in the socket of your own house. When the batteries’ charge level is low, you simply plug it in and wait between six and eight hours. In spite of being quite a long time, there is a chance that in the near future gas stations will provide us with high voltage sockets that will reduce the charging time to 1 or 2 hours.

This car is great but what about the price? The cheapest 100% electric car is nearly 32,000 euros, so just imagine what the price of the new Audi might be... It seems that if we want to help our plane we need either to be rich or wait for the electric cars to come along an dismantle today’s motor industry.

Happy Husky

2009-04-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

Hi! I’m Miguel Angel and I’m going to talk about Siberian Huskies.

Firstly I want to say that I have the one you can see now.Huskies are strong, working dogs. You can see them in many colours from white to black, and they usually have markings on their heads.
The Siberian husky has a thick, woolly undercoat and a soft outer coat. It’s able to survive attemperatures as low as -50 degrees C. These dogs are very gentle and playful.

As I know very well, my dog never tires and if he doesn’t get enough excercise he can be very destructive. They don’t like to be alone. Another good point about these dogs is that they are good with strangers and children. We probably know these dogs pulling a sled. Their weight is about 20 and 27 kg .My dog’s name is Max and he is 8 months old.

Formula 1

2009-04-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

I would like to talk about the formula 1 championship this year. The competition between the pilots is very close this year. The difference between each car is little and in some cases they are almost the same. The FIA try to promote a balanced championship by forbidding some kinds of aerodynamic changes and making the tires totally different.

However, their efforts were for nothing because as always happens, there is always someone cleverer than them. In this case, we find BRAWN GP team that created a new diffuser which makes the car go faster.

The championship started on April 5th; the first race was celebrated in Malaysia. There was an enormous surprise in every team when the first positions were held by Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. The new diffuser made them beat all the other teams such as the great Ferrari or McLaren. Other teams had a new invention called KERS (kinetic energy recovering system) but it didn’t help them to get better positions.

Most of the teams without the new diffuser complained about it to the FIA. Later it was ratified as legal, and as a result they needed to change their cars to improve them.
Now that most teams have changed their cars like Renault, there was an incredible change in the last race in China. After the hard work of the engineers, the Spanish driver was able to get second place in the qualifying session on Saturday.

Until the end of the championship in Brazil we won’t know the name of the 2009 champion.

Spanish Stereotypes

2009-04-14T10:15:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of Spanish stereotypes.

One of them is that all Spanish people like flamenco dancing, but I think that it isn’t true because I don’t like flamenco.

A second stereotype is that Spanish people are very rude because they shout a lot, but I think that Spanish people shout because there is a lot of noise pollution here, so we must talk louder to the people who we are talking to in order to hear them.

People also think that we all love bulls. However, in Spain there are a lot of problems with them because there are some people who are always protesting about them.

Yet another is that Spanish people drink a lot. I think that this is right, but there are also a lot of people who don’t drink.

Finally, people think that we have strange schedules. I think that this is true but we are accustomed to them so other countries’ schedules are strange to us.

Motorbiking

2009-04-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm Miguel and I'm going to talk about the Grand Prix motorbike championship and my favourite rider Valentino Rossi, who is the current world champion.

The championship takes place every year between March and November and there are more or less 17 races.

There are three classes:

•125cc: This class has really young riders some of them are 15 and the motorbikes are
little but they can do over 200 km/h

•250cc: This is the 250cc class with bigger bikes. The champion is Marco Simonchelli

•Moto GP: This is the top class with really big bikes, which go at over 350 km/h

Valentino Rossi has won one championship in 125cc, another in 250cc and 6 in Moto GP. He also holds the record of victories in Moto GP, in addition he has won nearly half of the races he has competed in.

He is also known for his funny celebrations when he wins a championship or an important race. For example, once he went to the podium with a plastic chicken to promote a friend's butcher's, another time he dropped the motorbike on the ground, he jumped over the circuit fence and went into a portable bathroom.

His best rival is Casey Stoner who won the 2007 championship and beat him in the first race of the year, which took place last Monday at Losail circuit in Qatar. It was supposed to take place on Sunday but it was cancelled because it was raining a lot. The most shocking thing about this race is that it is raced in the middle of the night lit by huge spotlights.

It is raining again!!

2009-04-14T04:52:00.000-07:00

People here in Spain might think that Sweden is cold or windy. But they are not right. The best adjective to describe Sweden's weather is: RAINY. Yes, it is true.

I took my thick coat and then I had to leave it inside my bag and use my umbrella. Amazing!

One night, we were outside, talking and suddenly, it started to rain. I remember Jennifer said: This is Sweden. I heard that same sentence so many times during the following days…

The day we went ice-skating, we were walking and it started to rain again. We had to run. Hope you never have floods.

Tour de Bilbao

2009-04-03T03:25:00.000-07:00

Hello, I´m Sergio and I´m going to talk about an impressive cycling race in Bilbao, on the north coast of Spain. This race is so impressive because more than 6000 people take part every year.

Last year I took part in it with my father and some of his friends, but this year I will do it with all my cycling team mates so it will be fantastic. During the race you can see people of all kinds and from all kinds of places. Last year I met an American guy that told me he has been taking part for the last 11 years. But the person who impressed me most was an 87 year old father and his son who only had one leg! Also if you are lucky you can see some professional cyclists like Samuel Sanchez or Miguel Indurain. If you like bikes you also can see a display of some famous brands during the previous and the following days.

The race is not very hard so most people can finish it, also in the middle of the race there is a huge area to get as much energetic food and drink as you want, because you need to eat something to finish it alive. When you finish, the organization gives you a free ticket to have a look at the Guggenheim museum.

The only nightmare is to finish the 120 kilometres long race.

Would you like to take part in it?

2009-03-27T02:47:00.000-07:00

Cibeles Catwalk is the main platform for the promotion of fashion in Spain, and nowadays it is the fourth most international catwalk after Paris, Milan or New York.

It is situated in Madrid, and the last edition (49^th) was from 20^th to 24^th February 2009, Autumn - Winter. There are two catwalks –Cibeles and Neptuno-, and they have different characteristics, such as design, lighting or the terraces.

In the 48^th edition, a new and decisive chapter was opened in the history of Cibeles, IFEMA (Institute Fairground of Madrid) made a new project and Cibeles had a new format with a new identify: CIBELES MADRID FASHION WEEK.

A lot of designers take part in this event, like Jesús Del Pozo, Amaya Arzuaga, Andres Sardá or Victorio & Lucchino.

After the fashion show some cocktails are served backstage, but these cocktails are only for the most renowned people and over 18, because they are served alcoholic drinks.

It is said that most of the models that parade on the catwalks suffer from anorexia, but it is not true. They only follow a simple diet without too many excesses.

I recommend you see a fashion show, its cool!

Dorian Gray

2009-03-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

Hello people, I am Laura!

Today I am going to talk about a book I have just finished reading named " The picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde.

This book is really interesting and peculiar. The main character of the book is Dorian Gray a very attractive handsome man. An artist named Basil Hallward paints a portrait of him impressed by his beauty .Dorian feels worried about losing his beauty and because of some magical, strange event, the portrait starts to became older instead of him.

Dorian starts to live a life full of sins and satisfaction. In a particular way Dorian is showing us a life guided by his own senses and desires. By this time his picture apart from being old is getting deformed because of his vain and bad life.

Another character of note is Sibyl Vane, a poor actress who Dorian falls in love with. He destroys her career and finally she kills herself drinking prussic acid.

In the end Dorian finally kills Basil the artist, and with the same knife he kills himself stabbing it into the picture. The police find Dorian’s body old and in a very bad way and the picture in its original form.

If you are interested in the plot of the book you should read it! It is really good! There is also a very old film of this book but this October a new one will be premiered.

Father's Day

2009-03-23T05:12:00.000-07:00

Hello! I am Sandra, and I am going to talk about father’s day in Spain. Here we celebrate “San Jose” or father’s day on March 19th, but I know that in Sweden, Estonia, Finland and Norway it’s celebrated on the second Sunday of November. It is a celebration that changes according to the country.

Father’s Day is a bank holiday and is celebrated by families. Here it is typical to give your father a present and spend the day with him. The typical presents are after shave, clothes, watches, etc. Younger children usually make drawings for their fathers in school. Also, small children make cards and sometimes objects in clay. It is usual to celebrate with a cake after lunch.

It is a special day when you have a holiday and you don’t go to school or to work. I like this day because some families spend time together and celebrate.

What do you do that day?

Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die!

2009-03-21T06:19:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody!! This time, I’m gonna talk about last AC/DC’s world tour. The release of their last album, Black Ice, pulls the trigger to start this worldwide tour out. AC/DC, is a hard rock band, which was formed by 1973 in Sydney. Some members didn’t suit the band and left, and some others left as their first official lead singer had died. Despite all these facts, AC/DC has been rocking all around the world till today.

Between 2008 and 2009 they’re gonna give nearly 90 gigs that will surely fill huge arenas. The 20th and 22nd of February, The Globe in Stockholm was crowded, and around the beginning of April they’ll be rocking in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao.) Unfortunately, the tickets for the Spanish concerts were sold out in less than 3 hours and if you wanted one, you had to camp in the street and wait in a queue that lasted the whole night.

I don’t know if anybody has been to any AC/DC concerts or if they have one of those desired tickets, if so, comment here!

Rock on!

The First Time

2009-03-21T06:06:00.000-07:00

I don’t have a blog and I’ve never written anything for one. In fact, I think I’ve only seen a few. Some were done by friends of mine who talked there about themselves, like a diary.

The last was my cousin’s wedding blog. She lives in Belgium and her blog has a different entrance depending on the language spoken. She has had some problems with it, there is a youtube video about the place where the wedding is going to be, but it never works. The thing I like most is the book of visits, everyone wrote about the very sweet story of their love.

I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t yet visited the Swedish blog and I’ve just remembered that I promised to give to the teachers some photographs of the trip (don’t kill me, please!)…..I’ll do it soon, for sure.

Let’s change the subject! I’m excited about the visit of the Swedish people. I think I’m going to take Therése to my village, El Burgo de Osma, because I find it really unfair that there are visits to Calatañazor, Abejar, Vinuesa… and not to El Burgo! I’m sure she’ll love it.
Nothing else for the present time.

Vector

2009-03-21T05:17:00.000-07:00

Hi! I’m going to talk about a book I read some weeks ago. This book is “Vector” written by Robin Cook.

It’s a thriller that has to do with a possible biological attack to New York. A Russian citizen (Yuri Davydov) with the necessary knowledge to create two kinds of biological weapons, anthrax and a botulism toxin, decides to attack Manhattan with the help of a paramilitary group. There are thousands of people who might die, but two forensic scientists start to investigate the problem.

It’s a very interesting book that I’d recommend to everybody. When you start reading it, it is addictive. The end is unexpected and you will be surprised if you read it. Robin Cook is a great writer and Vector will not disappoint you.
I hope you’ll enjoy reading this book.

Tinkerbell

2009-03-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

Hey!! I’m Elsa

I want to tell you about what my friends and I did on 21st February.

That day was carnival and we dressed up as Tinkerbell, Peter Pan's Fairy. We wore beautiful green dresses with wings and a magic wand. We put our the hair up in a bun.

That day we went to the discos to dance and everyone was dressed up as angels, witches or policemen. It was really funny except when we had to pass between many people with our wings, that was horrible everyone told us “take that off NOW”.

I expect to dress up again the next year!!

That was a funny day, please write your opinion.

Stereotypes

2009-03-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

Hi!! How are you? I’m going to talk about stereotypes, because it’s something quite common especially when you are going to visit another country.

Spanish stereotypes are normally related to: tortilla (potato omelet), sun, sea, sand, bullfighting, flamenco dancing, salsa, Shakira, Ricky Martin, Benidorm, Barcelona, paella, sangría, chorizo (of course!!), wine and tapas. There are some other things thought about Spanish people like being very lazy and of loving having a siesta (nap). Spanish people are considered to be very rude, shouting at each other and arguing instead of talking. Also, we shouldn’t forget that Spanish people supposedly have really weird timetables.

As for Swedish people, we can say that people think (and maybe they get it right) that they have blonde hair, blue eyes, and they are tall and beautiful. These all fit the Swedish stereotype of both men and women. However there are brunette, brown eyed, short Swedish people.

However, when we were visiting Sweden we could see for oursleves that most Swedes speak really good English and enjoy talking to foreigners. They are very friendly and they love to celebrate holidays. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay here in Spain.

Jueves Lardero (Part 2)

2009-03-08T09:17:00.000-07:00

Hello people!

I am Lorena. I am also going to talk about our very special day of February in Soria (my city). It is one Thursday in the middle of February. This year it was February 19th, and I went out with my friends at 11a.m. to go to the Royales (it’s a field to approximately 3 km from Soria). Other people prefer to go to Valonsadero (it’s a country park further from Soria than Royales) or the “Dehesa” (a big public park). We decided to go there because there are more people of our age. We went at 11:45, we took food (sandwich of tortilla and chorizo, chips, little doves, sweets …) and drink. Thankfully it was hot the whole day. Some people made a barbecue to roast chops, chorizo … We left at 7 pm went the sun went down. There were many people and we knew many people, so we had a good time :) Next year we’re going there again.

Jueves Lardero

2009-02-27T12:05:00.000-08:00

hi¡¡

It's me Alberto, and I'm going to tell you about a tradition we have here in some towns in Spain.

The Thursday when the carnival starts is known as "Jueves Lardero". On this day in Soria, all the young people go to the countryside with their friends and stay there all day. Gastronomy plays a very important role and people eat the typical food of our region.

In Soria we celebrated last Thursday by going to a place named Los Royales, situated on the outskirts of Soria. The tradition is to eat bread, sausages (Chorizo) and eggs, there is even an old proverb that says "jueves lardero pan, chorizo y huevo."

I went to Los Royales at ten o'clock in the morning with my friends. We stay edthere eating and having fun all day. Then, at seven o'clock it started to get cold and we were very tired so we went home. Once I was at home, I fell asleep.

Later one of my friends phoned me to go out at night and he woke me up. We met at twelve o'clock and we went to a pub, but we only drank coca cola. I had a great day.

See you soon

Row, Row, Row

2009-02-27T06:35:00.000-08:00

Hi!

I'm Lucia from Soria, I hope you remember me. It’s my first time on the blog, but I will contribute more often from now on.

I’m going to talk about the next trip we are preparing to Italy. At the end of the course all the students from 1º of Bachillerato will travel to Italy. Right now we are thinking about what dates we are going to go as we have some problems with the dates the teacher said to go, because we have some important exams. We are also thinking about the transport to go, we have more than one option.

The possibilities are to go by boat and plane. We want to go firstly by boat to Italy and at the end of the journey go back to Spain by plane. Also we have the possibility to go to Italy by bus and back to Spain by boat, in my opinion this option is worse because the journey by bus is very exhausting. We will have to wait and see how we finally go, but I hope we will enjoy ourselves as much as we enjoyed being in Sweden.

I will write again and tell you more about the journey.

I wish you would comment on the blog

My best wishes

Lucy!!

Hello Everyone!

2009-02-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

Hi!

How are you all? I hope that you are all well. I'm here in soria, I go to high school everyday and all those things. I try to study more but I'm better at practising athletics. Nowadays I'm training very hard because I want to win all my races. Last week we ran in Palencia, my team finished third but we want to improve more .

Sometimes I play football and basketball, but now I can't because I have a little injury in my knee and I can't do brusque movements .

That's all for now. Hope to see you all soon,

Goodbye.

Relative Strangers

2009-02-12T02:40:00.000-08:00

On Saturday afternoon I watched a film in which the plot is about Richard Clayton- the main character-, a young writer and psychologist. Things are going well, until he discovers few days before he gets married that he was adopted. His parents left him in front of an orphanage with a teddy bear.

When he found this out he immediately decided to call a detective to try to find his real parents. The investigations were so quick, that in few days he would invite his real parents and friends to introduce all the family before the days of the ceremony.

This couple appeared in America as fast as they could although they were living in Peking. The first meeting with Richard weren’t so good, as the two people were too small, fat and impolite, but kind-hearted. They worked as traders, nothing to do with Richard, a rich and polite man.

They spent some days living together at home, with Richard and his girlfriend. He became so stressed out by them, he couldn’t stand it and he threw them out of his house. When the couple saw that their behaviour was so bad they told Richard that they weren’t his real parents (although they were really), but one day he found a necklace from his mum in the garden in which there was a photo of him inside when he was a baby and a part of the teddy bear from his childhood. So, although his real parents were completely different, he look for them again and apologized and finally they celebrate the wedding all together.

Working in Åre

2009-02-07T16:28:00.001-08:00

Hello Spanish people!

Here we are again!

This time we are going to write about the workplace training we’ll be doing for the next six weeks, starting on 16 February. We are going up to the Swedish mountains and the snow, to a place called Åre (se map to the right).

We are going to work at a big hotel, the Continental Inn. We hope we’ll learn how it’s like to work at reception, conference and housekeeping. We are going to live in the personnel residence.

In our spare time we will definitely go skiing. We are also going to watch the Alpine World Cup.

Love from Charlotta and Caroline

Booooring!

2009-02-07T15:49:00.000-08:00

Everything is so slow right now, this has been our last week at school before a six-week-long work experience period. The weather is very cold, but we have not had any real winter yet... What comforts me right now is knowing that summer is coming closer and closer. Longing for warm weather, an ice cream in the city and a refreshing bath… Why was I born in cold Sweden? Are some born with luck and some with bad luck? Actually, it is not that I dislike Sweden, I'm just a little tired that nothing happens. Would need a major cultural change at the moment! ^^ Whatever! My next scheduled trip is down to Spain, so I’m looking forward to it! Hope to enjoy the things I have not done before. I am a little concerned about the food though. It has been incredibly difficult for me to try new dishes but it will be fun to see how the food in Spain is different from our food here in Sweden. I have already understood that your meal times are different from ours. You have dinner late compared to us Swedes, who are used to having dinner at around 5 or 6 p.m. And so what? It’s fun to learn about other cultures, it is a great experience!

Time goes sooooo slowly ^^

Jennifer V W

Hi there!

2009-02-07T15:16:00.000-08:00

My name is Isabella Lindblom and I am going to tell you a little about my future work experience. I will have a trainee post at a hotel called ”Fars hatt”. It is a pretty small hotel in a town called Kungälv. I will be a trainee there for six weeks. The first week I will work at housekeeping and the second week in the breakfast restaurant. The third and fourth weeks I will be at reception and the fifth and sixth weeks I will work in the conference department.

Do you know how to use PHOTOSHOP?

2009-01-21T08:23:00.000-08:00

Hi! Joaquín here and I'm going to talk about a computer programme called Photoshop.

This programme is a photo editor that helps you when changing the appearance of your pictures. It has got huge tools for manupulating the pictures. However, some of them are a bit complicated to learn and to use.

There are a lot of things you can do with it. For instance, you can focus on an image correctly if you haven´t focused correctly when shooting with your camera.

EXAMPLE:

(Click for larger view)

The example above is an easy way of correcting photos that were taken badly.

You just have to click on duplicate layer, then Filter- Focus (several times) and finally, if you want you can modify the opacity of the copy of the layer. This will give a different appearance to your image but it is not necessary.

Photoshop has got many other functions such as colour balance, focusing correction, "sound effects" applied to pictures, edition of many formats and many others!

This editor combined with Image Ready ( they are usually together) enables you to create "live images" as if they were moving (EXAMPLE)

The important thing about this second example is that you can choose a text to be "automatically written". You'll need more or less 3 layers for each letter (in my case 6 letters x 3 layers= 18 layers, so, I had to duplicate the original layer 18 times). Then you have to erase the last letters and leave the first one, afterwards you erase one letter less and you leave one more until you cannot erase more because the word has finished. This effect can be changed in many ways by applying different effects on the layer or using Image Ready in a different way.

All this stuff is found on the following web site, there are plenty of sources just based on photoshop. Some of them are very well explained, step by step ( most of them are in Spanish).

I hope you've enjoyed this post and if you have some experience with photoshop please comment on them here!!

Holy War

2009-01-21T08:17:00.001-08:00

Hello my name is Alberto!!! I am going to tell you about a game that I play on the internet. It’s set in the world of the Middle Ages, the age of the crusades. Playing the game is free but like a lot of games on-line you can pay for a premium account but this gives you some advantages. When you register you can choose whether you want to fight as a Christian Crusader, Muslim Saracen or Pagan. To go up to the next level you have to sack, fight with other players or you can go to battle with your alliance. You have some personal values (attack technique, defence technique, strength, experience, agility and life energy) and you can buy weapons, shields, helmets and armour that rise up your personal value, you can buy or sell these things in the city. The following shops are at your disposal in the city: “The Blacksmith”: to buy or sell weapons, shields, helmets and armour. “The Elixir Store”: to buy or sell all kinds of elixirs. “The Horse Stables”: to buy or sell horses. “The Market stall”: Here you can apply for work. The higher your level, the better the pay. “The Mercenary Market”: You can offer your services as a mercenary on the mercenary market. “The Arena”: Here you can fight with other players, you stake money and if you win you get the money. “The Tavern”: In the tavern, you will find games of chance where you can bet and win gold…

This game has many more things that I have left for you to discover your self. If you want to play, here is the link.

http://www.holy-war.net/ES/World3/bin/?advertiser=11027

Advent

2008-12-15T01:44:00.000-08:00

Advent

Four Sundays before Christmas we celebrate Advent. We celebrate it because we are waiting for Jesus. We light up a lot of candles. We have an Advent candlestick and light one candle every Sunday and we also bake Christmas cookies and sing Christmas songs.

Charlotta & Caroline

Merry Christmas

2008-12-11T02:10:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas

Today we got our first snow this winter :-)
Soon it is Christmas, and on December the first we put light in our windows and decorated our houses.

On December the 18th we start our Christmas holiday for three weeks, when we celebrate Christmas and the New Year. We hope that we will have a white Christmas this year. In December we eat a lot of Christmas food in restaurants and we go shopping like we are crazy. Now the weeks before our Christmas holiday we have lots of exams at school.

Caroline & Charlotta

SWEDEN.

2008-11-13T12:16:00.000-08:00

The experience of visiting Sweden was great, I'd repeat it without a doubt! I learnt so many new things, I met loads of new people and I discovered a different way of living. I found lots of amazing and interesting things, like for example, leaving your shoes at the entrance of the house.

However, one of the things I liked most is that everybody can speak English! This is an advantage and somehow I feel jealous. It's great to have almost all the films and T.V. series in English. Apart from school, it is a very good and effective way of practising and learning English.

Marina.