LA CUEVA DE LAS TRES VENTANAS {THE CAVE OF THE THREE WINDOWS}

 

me getting off the bus after a long day studying caves.

In my sixth week at my school we went on a field trip to a cave called La Cueva de las tres ventanas  in the Granada province, and man was that a memorable trip!

            This cave looked tiny from the outside but it was actually gigantic on the inside!
There were so many paths, yet they all led to the same place in the end—the beginning. You could take the left path to start with and come out the right path. We started at the beginning where a boy from the school was looking over the edge—he must have felt queasy or something because the next minute he went over the edge and scared the wits out of everyone. He then got out of the little hole and went to the doctor with my math teacher, Lola.

            We next went through the cemetery. Way back when they threw the dead bodies there and tied their hands and feet together, thinking that the person would come back to life. But that never happened so people cleaned the bones out when they were sure no one lived there anymore. I have to say though, they left some skulls to show that people actually lived there. Ewwwwww!!!! Rotten skulls!

             Then, on our way back we saw a bat and a rock that was posed like a lion if you looked at it from a certain angle. Then we went to a little building where you got to hold a golden eagle. Then the people who worked there taught us to make a pre-historic knife, which I still have today and use for cutting tape and bananas.

my knife.

            Like I said before, that was a memorable trip to the full extent because it was very fun and I learned a lot. Even though it was a bit scary and disgusting, I hope you liked it!

Birthday! Carnival!

            We have been here in La Herradura for about a month now and I have some updates to tell you about! I hope you like them!

            Carnival is a big celebration here in Spain that lasts for about a week. Here in La Herradura it was a huge deal! Carnival was awesome! Kids and adults were supposed to dress up in costumes. My friend Stella (who was visiting at the time from Switzerland) and I dressed up as cats.

 

Then we marched along the street beside the beach. At one point we got separated from our moms and we were shepherded into a group of little kids who spoke Spanish.

 We thought this was kind of funny, seeing that these kids were about four so therefore we were a lot taller and bigger than them. But also my dad was standing on the outside so he got a picture of us trying to sneak away from the group. Saturday was the last day and there were so many costumes! Crayons, Dorothy with the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Lion, and Toto, Lady Gaga Disney princesses, angels, brides, and Barbies with a dog.

              In my school at La Herradura I have made some new friends and I have a surprising discovery to tell you, you are allowed to chew gum at recess whereas at Grout, it is forbidden to chew gum. And speaking of Grout, I have recently received some letters from my classmates about my blog. Thanks guys!!  You’re really cool! One thing that isn’t so cool here in Las Gaviotas (my school) is, you don’t have cubbies for your books so every day I have to haul home a 2-ton backpack. We also don’t have lockers for our jackets so I have to put that on the back of my chair.

             A few weeks ago I went to a birthday party and we had dinner and talked for a bit and then, finally, CAKE!!!!!!! We sang happy birthday in Spanish and then we ate the cake. The only difference was, at the end instead of just saying thank you, we shoved the leftovers of our cake in each others faces as a way of saying, “ thank you for being here, TAKE THAT!!!!!!” That was the funniest part, I have to say.

            Here are some observations that I have made about La Herradura! I find these things very interesting! I hope you enjoyed this blog post.

LA HERRADURA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are now living in the southern part of Spain and the area is Andalucía. The city is called La Herradura, which means “horseshoe” in Spanish because La Herradura is in the shape of a horseshoe! Ω  Here are five cool things about La Herradura.

1• Ω It takes 3 minutes to walk to the beach!

         The beach is precisely 1 block from my school so we go walk on the beach after school almost every day! Here is a picture of my mom and her friend, Susana at the beach. There are heart-shaped rocks, playgrounds, and exercising places at the beach! There is also a mini-soccer field, which is almost always empty so my dad and me go play on it. One fun thing is, we put our jackets in the top corners of the goal and try to knock them down with the ball.

2• Ω Ω All the houses and apartments are white!

The first time we came into La Herradura we did not expect the houses to be all white as if they had been bleached! It might be traditional, I don’t know. I am going to figure that out.

3• Ω Ω Ω It is a small village so you can walk to the other side of the town in 10 minutes or less!

         I never knew how small the town was until I realized that I had walked downtown in 3 minutes 59 seconds when I only felt as if I had walked around the block twice! There are only 3 bread shops (panaderías) and no museums (museos)! There are maybe more bread shops. I will keep looking for more bread shops because I looooooooooove bread and chocolate bread (pan de chocolate).

4• Ω Ω Ω Ω It is extremely hot!

         I am very surprised that I see most people bundled up in winter coats and scarves because I think it is so hot I’m tempted to go swimming in my clothes!

5• Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Narizela!

         There is this one cat that I really like who’s wild and I named her Narizela because she’s always nosing around on my clothes (nariz means “nose” in Spanish). She’s totally black and a sucker for being pet. If you pet her long enough, and sit down, she will jump into your lap, which makes it impossible to leave. There are all these other cats but they all run away when I get near. The trick to calming Narizela down is sitting on the ground and making “meow” noises. She will think you are another cat and come right up to be pet. I usually see her on my walk back from school and I go pet her until I have to go home for lunch (almuerzo). 

         These are some of the things that make La Herradura extra fun. I like them and I hope you liked them too!

School School, School--FUN!

         Right now I am in a little village called La Herradura close to the Mediterranean Sea and literally right across from Africa! At night, if you have the perfect light, you can see Africa, that’s how close it is! On the beach there are heart shaped rocks, 3-4 playgrounds, a mini soccer field, and 2 exercising places!

The two schools (one in Portland, the other in La Herradura) that I go to are completely different! Here are some differences about them. One funny thing is, the mascots rhyme in English but not in Spanish!

 GROUT (THE EAGLES)

Grout is the first school I went to and am coming back to in July. It is in Portland and it has a cafeteria so you have about 15 minutes to eat lunch first and then 45 minutes of recess. There is only one teacher for all the subjects so you get to know that teacher pretty well. You have at least three days to get your homework done and turned in. The homework is spread out, not everyday so you aren’t too rushed to get it turned in unless you save the homework until the day before when you have to have it turned in.

  

         LAS GAVIOTAS (Spanish school in La Herradura) (THE SEAGULLS)

         Las Gaviotas is a school that doesn’t have a cafeteria because you eat lunch at home and have a snack at school, which means that you have an hour to play, talk and eat. There are multiple teachers for the subjects, so I have one teacher for math (Matemáticas in Spanish), another teacher for science (Conocimiento del Medio in Spanish) etc. You only have one day to finish your homework and turn it in the next day. Otherwise you have to do that homework plus the homework that you get that day. Everyone there speaks Spanish, but some of the kids speak some English so we can communicate pretty well, them speaking some English, me speaking some Spanish.

         There are some differences about both my schools! They’re pretty different aren’t they? I was surprised when I was told that my homework had to be turned in the next day!  

Joan Miró!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(artist).

               Joan Miró was born in 1893 and died in 1983. He was a famous artist who even made a painting for the FC Barcelona soccer team. He made 225 paintings, 150 sculptures, and 5,000 drawings during his life! That is a lot for an artist! 

•MUSEUM on Montjuïc

              When I was in Barcelona, (I am now in a small village called La Herradura.) I went to the Miró Museum and it was amazing! There were thousands of paintings and sculptures! There was also a video of Miró burning a canvas, cutting pieces out of it and then painting on it, and finally then, only then placing them on windows. A sculpture he designed was made of a gas burner, a bedspring, and a piece of wood. It was fun! He symbolized stars, moon, birds, and women. In the beginning he was more detailed. For example if he did a painting of a dog and a stool, you could really see the dog’s eyes and the stool’s cracks in the legs, whereas, later in his life he made things less and less detailed and more and more abstract like a person was merely a circle for the head, 2 dots for the eyes, etc. I think that his paintings are very unique because he changed his way of painting whereas some painters stick to a certain style of painting.

•SCULPTURE

             In a little park nearby our apartment called Park Miró, I saw a sculpture that looked like a very colorful cup on top of a used-for-dot-painting q-tip but it was called “Woman and Bird” made by Miró. It was in the middle of a little pond and lots of people were taking pictures of it. It looked so clean we could have gone swimming in it, but sadly there was a sign to our right that said in Spanish, “Do not swim in water please! Thank you!” So, we didn’t go swimming. Boooooo-hoooooo!

•LAS RAMBLAS MOSAIC

            There is a mosaic on Las Ramblas and it looks like a circle and it is very unique! But sadly, it is really hard to get a picture because a lot of people are walking on it. There was this one guy who saw that we were attempting to get a picture so he tried a few times to make everybody go around it but nothing happened so he gave up. But a few minutes later there was a perfect chance so the guy stopped everybody and we finally got a decent picture! He did it because he was one of the many people walking on it and he saw us trying to get a picture and he felt sorry for us so he started to help us.

  

            There are some memories from Barcelona that are now vividly stuck in my mind! I hope you liked them! One thing that is also stuck in my mind is, in the metro stop, a particular staircase has a painting of Miró on the side! He is everywhere in Barcelona!

NEIGHBORHOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

               The name of our neighborhood is Poble Sec. It’s in a busy part of Barcelona. We live in the southwest part of town, at the bottom of Montjuïc, a famous park on a hill. The neighborhood has a lot of parks nearby, so you always have something to do. Our apartment has a metro stop 20 feet from our front door. This top 10 list describes what our neighborhood looks like.

           

#1• TALL DOORS ON MY APARTMENT BUILDING!

            I have tall doors on my apartment building and something funny is, tall doors are not uncommon in Barcelona and the keys almost look unreal! They look like the keys you would have in a fairy tale! We live 3 levels up and we don’t have an elevator so it is like P.E. for me every time we go up to our door!  

#2•DUDE PLAYING MUSIC INSTRUMENT 

            He’s amazing! He just sits there all day, turning the crank on some cool instrument, and I can hear it in the apartment. It’s red and is a big box about 2 feet tall. It looks very complex, with toys hanging off of it and umbrellas attached on the instrument if it rains.  

#3• DOGS

            There are so many dogs I can’t believe it! Whenever I turn around there’s a dog sniffing this or that. There are big dogs and small dogs, nosy dogs and mind-your-own-beeswax dogs.

#4• LOCAL FRUIT

            It’s neat because in Portland the local fruit is apples and in Barcelona the local fruit is oranges. In Portland I eat endless apples but now, here in Barcelona, I eat endless oranges!

#5• TOY STORES

            There are so many small, cozy toy stores it is amazing!  They are closed during the afternoon because during 2-4 PM everything is closed because it is a time to relax and eat a very long lunch called a “siesta.”  Then they open back up in the evening. Now I know why there are so many kids around!

#6• MARKET 

          

  Right now they’re repairing the place for the market but until it is finished it is in a big tent that sells fish, meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts and more. We buy brussel sprouts, apples, oranges and potatoes. Each person at the stalls selling the stuff gets to keep their money because the stalls are not owned by a big company. It’s a farmers  market! You can smell the fish, freshly cut, and the fruit and drinks wafting up to the ceiling.

#7• El Café del Barri

            This café is very cozy and there’s a T.V. in front so you can go there and watch soccer games if you get there early enough to get a seat! It is almost always packed on days when there are games on the road, you can barely get a seat! Everybody yells and shouts when Barcelona scores. You can drink anything on the menu and I usually get steamed milk and a croissant with warm, melted chocolate spilling out of the sides. We go there so often that now whenever I go in, José, the guy who works there, says, “leche? (milk?)” and I say, “sí. (yes.)”  Surprisingly, he is a Real Madrid fan! Boooooooooooooooooooo!!!! So we give each other a hard time whenever he sees me wearing my Barcelona shirt.

#8•BELLA PAN

            Bella Pan is a bread shop around the corner, where you can sit around and have something to eat or drink and get bread. It is there because the people in Barcelona seemingly eat a lot of bread. There are a lot of bakeries around. There is basically a bakery on every corner! They sell bread, croissants, donuts, and drinks. Mwahahahahaaaa!!!!!

            The money people use to buy this stuff is different than in Portland. The basic difference is that people in Barcelona use money called Euros whereas in Portland they use dollars. They have a 2 Euro coin. The edges are rough and have little ridges on them and the 2 Euro has the outside rim silver and the inside rim copper.  Also they have more copper coins. In some ways they are the same because they have 1, 5, and 10 cent coins. But instead of being called cents they are called Centavos.

#9• THEATER AND MY TREE

            There’s a grand outside theater called “Teatre Grec” with fountains and gardens and a stone orchestra pit that has stone lions on the sides. There is this one tree that looks over the theater and it has a branch that I like where I can lean my head on it. You can walk there from our apartment. Wild cats live there in the theater and mind their own beeswax eating mice and wet-food given to them by this one person who seemingly comes there every day and feeds them. You can hear the birds chirping their heads off. 

#10• LIBRARY

            This public library is where I publish my blog posts. There are always a lot of people there and the bottom level is a museum-ish thing. There is a park in the back, which is unique because not many libraries have their own playground. I have become a sort of local because I now have my own library card!  The library was built imbedded in a wall and is all black on the outside.

            There’s 10 things about my neighborhood, folks! And coincidence! I’m going to be 10 in a few months!

Gaudí!

   Antoni Gaudí is a famous architect and he has built some of the most famous buildings and many of them are here in Barcelona. He was born in 1852 and died in 1926. He had a different mind than any other architect. His imagination was fantastic! He included animals and nature in his buildings to make them unique.   

 

     Perhaps his most famous building is the church called La Sagrada Familia. La Sagrada Familia is extremely big and it has 8 towers, 4 on the back, and 4 on the front. It was started in 1882, but it was left unfinished for some years because of the death of Gaudí. Now they are still working on it, thanks to Gaudí leaving an original copy of the building plan that explained how he wanted it to look. We walked up a spiral staircase, and when we got to the top, we could see the whole city!

     One last building that Gaudí built before starting to work on La Sagrada Familia is Casa Milá a.k.a. La Pedrera. Like I said before Gaudí had a very imaginative mind. He made this building wavy, with no 90 degree angles! It’s also an apartment building and the people who live there are lucky! They have a museum exactly above them! We went up to the roof and the chimneys have broken bottle pieces embedded in them! You could also see La Sagrada Familia from the roof. 

     Gaudí also designed the park called Parc Güell. He used a lot of tile work like broken plates, broken bowls, imprints of twigs, and much more. He designed a bench that doesn’t look wavy if you look at it straight on, but if you look at it sideways, it is extremely wavy! He put a statue of a beautifully tiled and brightly colored lizard in the front of the park, which seemed to be quite famous because so many people wanted their picture taken next to it! Somehow my mom and me squeezed in to get our picture taken before we got mauled by the hoard of tourists!

          Speaking of getting mauled, Gaudí died on June 10, 1926 when he got cruelly crushed by a passing tram. When he was in the hospital nobody recognized him because of his shabby clothes! He didn’t demand special treatment because he was a humble tío (in Barcelona slang, “tío” means dude and uncle but in this instance it means dude). He is now buried in the crypt in La Sagrada Familia.