My 2-part doubly fun birthday!!

Now I am in Brighton, England and in this blog post I decided to talk about my birthday party! This year my birthday came in two parts, a fun party in La Herradura, Spain one week before my actual birthday and a visit to the clock tower Big Ben in London, England on my actual birthday. I thought these were very memorable and unique experiences because I  don’t always have a birthday party in Spain and England. For me this was very special since it does not happen on a regular basis.

On the day before I left La Herradura I had a little birthday party with some of my friends. We listened to a song that is called “Ai Se Eu Te Pego” which is in Portuguese and very famous and exciting among adults and children. If you want a link to see how exiting or dreary it is {you’ll have to watch and see which is your decision ;-)}, here’s the link.    We also ate cookies, had our faces painted by my mom, played Pin The Tail On The Donkey,

 

 ate a wonderful chocolate cake 

and played a game where you tied a balloon to your ankle and had to try and pop the other person’s balloon.

 

 All these games were played on the roof with the sun shining, and our laughs echoing through out the little street that we lived on. We had a lot of fun and I was sad when my friend Naiada had to go. Then my friend Bo and I played soccer in the plaza for a bit where a lot of other kids were playing on the stone surface.

 

      Then a week later I had my actual birthday in England!  We took an overnight boat trip that was very fun and was chock full of stuff to do. A few days after we got there, on my birthday we took a train from Brighton to London and saw the huge clock tower Big

Big Ben. Big Ben.

  Ben, a seven-acre play ground called Coran’s Field  where there was a sign that said, “No unaccompanied adults” which I thought was funny because it’s usually “ No unaccompanied children”,

and then took a train home with a hot chocolate and a refreshing egg-salad sandwich. I have to say, that was a memorable trip for me!

    These two birthday experiences were very fun and interesting! Hope you like the song as much as I do!  If you know Portuguese, please tell me what that guy is singing! Also, WARNING: THIS SONG WILL MAKE YOU DANCE!

¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡La Feria!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (the fun fair)!!!!!!!!!!!

            Here is an example of a homework assignment that I wrote in Spanish and then translated into English for this blog-post. Hope you enjoy this!

                       La Feria

Las fiestas Patronales de San José empezaron en La Herradura el 16 de marzo. Para mí era una experiencia totalmente nueva. Asistí al Gran Espectáculo “Pasión Flamenca” en la plaza de toros. A mí me gusta los caballos bonitos, especialmente cuando ellos bailan. ¡Fue increíble! ¡Los caballos bailaban con las personas! Mi padre y mi tío asistieron al Gran Festival Taurino donde los toreros matan a los toros. A mí me gustan los animales, entonces no quiero ver esta matanza.

         En una nota más feliz, asistí a los juegos y cucañas en la Plaza de San José con mis amigas, Elena y Rocío (las gemelas de nuestra clase). Ellas me prestaron un vestido especial de flamenco. ¡Qué suerte tengo yo! También con ellas yo fui a la playa y a los colúmpios. Montamos en toros falsos que temblan muy rápido. Una cosa más, con Elena y Rocío asistí al Primer Encuentro Mototurístico La Herradura. Había un grupo de Mototurísticos que se llaman “Los pingüinos” ¡Qué interesante! La feria fue una experiencia inolvidable para mí.    

                       The fair of Saint Joseph

         The fair of Saint Joseph starts on March 16. For me it was a totally new experience. I attended the “Passion Flamenco” dancing in the bull-ring. I liked the beautiful horses especially when they danced. It was incredible! The horses dancing with people!

 

 My dad and my uncle attended the bull-fighting where the bull fighters killed the bulls. I love animals so therefore I did not want to see the massacre of bulls. Poor bulls!

         On a happier note, I attended the games in the Plaza of Saint Joseph with my friends Elena and Rocío (the twins in my class). They lent me a special dress for flamenco. What luck!

We also went to the rides at the beach. We went on a fake bull that shook very fast! 

One more thing, with Elena and Rocío I attended a gathering of motorcyclists and had a lunch of paella (pronounced pie-ay-uh). There was a group of motorcyclists called “the penguins” How interesting! The fun fair was an unforgettable experience for me.     

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!