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Let’s revise what we have seen in class and practise some listening comprehension.

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Food exercises

Watch this video and then do the following exercise

The book I’ve read is Pig, written by Andrew Cowan in 1994. It was his first novel, a drama which made him win a lot of prizes.The story takes place in England, during the industrial restructuring of the country. It is narrated by the main character, a fifteen-year-old boy who has his head in the clouds and lives quite isolated from the real world.The book tells us about the life of an underclass family, seen from the boy’s point of view.The story starts with the death of Agnes, the protagonist’s grandmother and shows how the family reacts to it, taking his grandfather to a residential home for the elderly, and how the teenager spends the summer taking care of the pig his grandparents had, until the house is pulled down to build a theme park.Apart from his Indian girlfriend, the pig will become his only worry, the way he disconnects from all the problems.In this context, the book deals with the troubles of racism, the hate that English people feel towards the immigrants, and the lack of attention that the grandfather suffers. The boy is the only character who really worries about him, the only one who goes to visit him.In my opinion, it is a deep story, but I found it a little bit boring to read, because it doesn’t tell a story in the typical sense, with an ending. It’s just a part of his life. The most interesting aspect in the book is the symbolic meaning that the pig has. From my point of view, the pig is the symbol of the last time of innocence in his life. The pig gets ill and old and finally he has to kill it, what I think it means: he has to face adults’ problems, his girlfriend leaves him and his innocence is gone. All the things that have happened change him and he matures.

To sum up, we could say that it’s a good book, but that’s not because the story is gripping or entertaining, but it has a hidden meaning that makes you think about the problems that appear in the book.

by Águeda Díaz Tuero

I live in Gijón, a town placed on the north coast of Spain, in the Asturian province. It is a mountanious region that is well-known in the country because of its lush vegetation, which conforms a colourful landscape, and its traditional food. It is a seaside town so the presence of different wide beaches and its mild weather make this place a touristic destination and a wonderful place to live in.This may be the reason why it has the highest population of Asturias: 270,000 inhabitants, which conforms the 25% of the Asturian population. Another thing that could also explain why this area is so populated is that the city has plenty of things to do. As it is a seaside town, going to the beach to sunbathe or just to enjoy the view of a rough sea is very common. Other options are the usual things, such as going to the cinema, to the aquarium, shopping or just hanging out. It must be said that the pace of life here depends on whether it is winter or summer time. In summer, nightlife is more active and even hectic because August is the busiest time of the town. However, in winter it is more usual to go shopping or to the cinema or even, like this year, going to an ice-rink!Its history is characterized by the Roman influence, which you can appreciate in the Ancient Wall, the Thermal Baths or the forts. Also, “El Elogio del Horizonte” has become realy famous here.Gijón isn’t really expensive but it depends on where you go. Public transport is really cheap and so are sports facilities. Maybe prices are low because it is a working town with 15,535 employeés. The inhabitants are friendly, funny and nice and we could define the town as picturesque, fertile and lively. This atmosphere is a little bit different from the capital’s, which is 30 km far from Gijón and has a cathedral and other political buildings.

What I really like about Gijón is the sea and the huge parks that you can walk through. I just cannot think about any disadvantage and the only thought of living anywhere else doesn’t fancy me at all. Here is where my family and friends are: here’s where I belong.

 

 

Sarai Díaz García

“Girl with a pearl earring” is a novel written by Tracy Chevalier. It is published by Harper Collins and it’s a drama and a romantic story. It’s told by the protagonist who is telling us her own biography.

The story took place un Delft, a Dutch town, during the seventeenth century. Griet, the protagonist, was a sixteen-year-old girl who belonged to a poor family. As her father got blind and he couldn’t continue working as a tile painter, she had to start working as a maid for a painter’s family, the Vermeer’s. It was a huge family whose bread-winner was a painter. Since the first day he met Griet, he realised that she had some artistic intuition which, later, will help with his colours and paintings. At her work, she had to deal with children pranks, specially Cornelia’s ones , the jealousy of the other maid and of her mistress, who didn’t put up with the special attention her husband had for the maid.

She got used to her hard job, her new house, her mistress and master religion, not seeing any familiar face.. Nevertheless, her new life brought Pieter to her, a handsome and kind boy who wanted her as his wife. On Sundays, she was allowed to visit her family and do her protestant services.

Eventually, she was in big trouble because the man who supported her mastress job, van Ruijven, wanted a picture of her. The story reflects how the aristocracy seemed to believe that they could have everything they wanted and what life was like in the 17th century.

From my point of view, the writer uses a good technique, giving us information from the past in between present events and going back and forwards in time (flashback). I think the vocabulary isn’t very common nowadays because it’s set in another century but I could guess almost all the meanings from the context, without looking them up in a dictionary. I found it moving and worth-reading. What I most enjoyed was the strange relationship Pieter the son and Griet had, that is gripping. They loved each other in a weird way. On one hand, she wasn’t sure about getting married to him and she put it off for two years. Moreover, she was found of her master but she tried to hide her feelings. On the other hand, he never inquired her about her feelings, his relation with the master or how she had her lobes pierced.

I was quite interested in the importance Griet gave to hide her hair. The moment someone saw it, she felt like she had nothing more honour able to lose and she lost her virginity with Pieter.

I did not like van Ruijven character because he thought that, due to his fortune, he could have whatever he wanted. He had had an affair with one of his maids whose life he spoiled leaving her pregnant. Pieter the father was also a very rude character but, in my opinion, he had a good heart. I found her sister’s death because of a sudden pest appalling and the effect it had un her sensitive little heart.

It was an easy read. Nevertheless, the beginning was a little tedious but then you couldn’t stop reading it. I would like to recommend this book as a love story for those who are romantic like me. I found the book explanation of how the paint of the girl with the pearl earring was done moving: the colours, the shines, the reason for the earring…That’s beacuse I had seen the original picture in a trip to Holland and I can say that it’s worth-seeing.

On balance, I¡m satisfied with my decision of choosing this book.

Silvia Blanco

The talented Mr Ripley is a novel written by Patricia Highsmith, published in 1955. It is a mystery story. The narrator is not involved in the action.

Tom Ripley, the protagonist, is a cruel inhuman young man who lives in New York City. Tom is asked by a wealthy man to go to Europe and try to convince his son to come home. Tom decides to go to Italy and talk to Dickie Greenleaf. Although the Italian village and his new friend make him feel as though he is in a paradise, Tom realizes that he loves Dickie´s life so much that he decides to become Dickie. Tom kills Dickie when they are in San Remo, where they were on a trip. Marge, Dickie´s girlfriend, suspects Tom of being a murderer but Ripley tricks her and finally, the book ends with Tom traveling to Greece, replacing Dickie Greenleaf.

From my point of view, The Talented Mr Ripley is a extremely absorbing book that makes you feel the tense atmosphere that involves all the characters. It´s a really gripping book because you can´t stop reading. You can read a hundred of pages and want to read more. What I most enjoyed was that it wasn´t like other books, where the good guys fight the bad guys and at the end the good guys win. This story is different and I would like to recommend it.

Rachel

Introduction

Amsterdam is an unusual city in that it has all the advantages of a big city - culture, history, food, entertainment, good transport - with relatively few of the disadvantages: it is physically small, beautiful, relatively quiet, and largely thanks to the canals, has relatively little traffic.

Transport

Amsterdam has superb public transport facilities. There are many trams and good facilities for cyclists, like special bike lanes, and traffic lights for cyclists.

Trams

The best way to travel is by tram. They are frequent, fast and dependable. You can buy a ticket from the driver, the conductor at the back of the tram, or a machine in the middle of the tram, depending on the sort of tram it is.

Bicycles

The fastest way to travel is by bike. There are several addresses around town where you can hire (rent) a bike, for reasonable prices. Traditionally, Dutch bikes have no hand-brakes, but back-pedal brakes. If you think you can’t handle this, be sure to ask the hirer for a bike with hand-brakes.

When cycling, cross tram lines at a good angle to avoid getting your wheel caught in the rail. For obvious reasons, lock your bike to something solid when leaving it unattended.

When hiring a bike, you will be required to pay a deposit, and you should take some form of identification. Addresses:

Car hire

Driving in Amsterdam is not recommended. Even for longer distances it is far better to take a train.

Trains

Trains in the Netherlands are fast, frequent, comfortable, punctual and cheap; well, they were until they got privatised, when their punctuality started to suffer.

Walking

Central Amsterdam is very small: most distances are walkable, and walking is pleasurable, giving the best chance to appreciate the Amsterdam architecture. Beware of walking on bike paths, which are distinguished by their reddish colour: cyclists will show no mercy. Also take care when crossing roads, even at a green pedestrian light. Cyclists consider themselves pedestrians in Amsterdam, and so tend to ignore traffic lights.

Amsterdam is, as you may have noticed, structured as a half wheel. In the middle you have the old centre bounded by the canal called the Singel. It contains the Red-Light district around the Oude Kerk, the Nes theatre street, a quaint maze of small streets and quiet canals, and the Royal Palace at the Dam, with pedestrian shopping streets Nieuwendijk and Kalverstraat going north and south.

Surrounding the old centre, you have the three concentric ring canals Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht (it can help to note that they’re in alphabetic order). All four canals (with the Singel) are nice to walk along. The Herengracht is the grandest, especially along the ‘Golden Crescent’ to the east of the Leidsestraat, the Prinsengracht is perhaps the friendliest with its houseboats. The streets that connect the ring canals, especially the area called “The Nine Streets” in the section between the Brouwersgracht and the Leidsestraat shouldn’t be missed for their lovely individual shops.

Canal trips

It’s worth taking one of the canal boat tours to see Amsterdam from the water. They last about 90 minutes, and take you around the city and through the harbour. If you’re feeling energetic, you can hire a Canal Bike from one of the several points through the city, and choose your own route.

Language

Just about everyone speaks English in Amsterdam, and is proud of the fact. A common misconception is that Dutch is very close to German. In truth they are not mutually intelligible: Dutch people have to learn German at school, and in general they speak better English than German. German and Dutch are similar in the same sort of way that French and Italian are similar.

Money

The currency used in the Netherlands is the Euro expressed as EUR or €.

There are many places to change money in town. Post offices usually give the best rates.

Credit cards are not as widely accepted in the Netherlands as in many other lands, but it’s getting steadily better. Always enquire first if you want to pay by credit card.

Tipping

All prices in the Netherlands by law include tax and tips: the price you see is the price you pay. You don’t need to tip taxi drivers either.

Safety and Health

Amsterdam is a safe city, and there is nothing to fear from walking in any part of the city. Even in the red-light district but as in any large city you should beware of pick pockets. Don’t try to photograph the women in the red-light district though: that would be risky!

Eating and Drinking

It rains less in Rome, but Amsterdam has more cafés. So went the advert in the city once. Of all the things Amsterdam can offer a wide choice of food and drink.

Proeflokalen (tasting rooms)

In the 17th and 18th centuries Amsterdam was the centre of the European spice trade, and out of this grew a tradition of distilling ‘medicinal’ spirits, that developed into a full range of liqueurs. The proeflocalen specialise in these alcohols, and they have a disturbingly large range of traditional liqueurs that you will never have heard of.

That other sort of café

In the 17th Century Catholics and Protestants discovered that they were living side by side in Amsterdam, and in a very surprising development for the time, they didn’t slaughter each other. This seemed to work out well, so they developed a concept that they called ‘tolerance’, so that nowadays the Dutch don’t care if you are gay, foreign, or even if you eat mayonnaise with your fried potatoes (the latter of course is strictly speaking illegal, but the police turn a blind eye).

As you are probably aware, Amsterdam also has a policy of tolerating the sale and use of soft drugs. This activity is centred around so-called smoking cafes or “Coffeeshops” as the Dutch euphemistically call them. Whether you wish to avoid them or patronise them, they are easy to recognise: they are usually dark, have a characteristic smell, and tend to use words like free, high, happy, dreams, and space in the name of the cafe. They typically have a menu of the products they have on sale.

Places to See

Some of the major attractions in Amsterdam are the Anne Frank House, the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum which allow you to book online and print your tickets out. This is worth doing, since it allows you to jump the queue for tickets and go straight in, but bear in mind that some only allocate a fixed number of tickets per day, so book early if you can.

The Anne Frank House, Prinsengracht 263 (Westerkerk), 09:00-19:00(summers 21:00), €7.50. The wartime hiding place of the young Jewish girl and her family, finally caught by the Nazis, made famous by Anne Frank’s diaries. Not to be missed. It’s better to go early, or late, to avoid the queues.

Begijnhof, Spui. Amsterdam has many ‘hofjes’, courtyards hidden away between houses. The Begijnhof is one of the largest, and well known, but also one of the more surprising: that such an oasis of peace can be so close to the bustling heart of the city. There is a doorway in the row of houses on the Spui that leads you there (if it is closed go right, around the corner to the entrance in the Gedempte Begijnensloot). It has a lovely English church (AD 1400) with pulpit panels designed by Mondriaan, and the oldest house in the city (1475), one of Amsterdam’s few surviving wooden houses. Turn left out of the Gedempte Begijnensloot entrance, and it leads you to the Amsterdam Historical Museum and its free gallery of old paintings of city guards in the style of the Nightwatch.

Heineken Brewery, Stadhouderskade 78; 10:00-18:00 (closed Mondays); €10. Used to be a brewery until a few years ago, now a museum and visitors’ centre. No unaccompanied children. No reservations. Free beer!

Museums

There are three major museums, the Rijksmuseum, the Stedelijk (modern art) and the Van Gogh. All three are situated around the Museumplein.

Rijksmuseum, Jan Luijkenstraat 1, 10:00-18:00; €9 (under 19 free). Large museum containing paintings by some of the Netherlands’ great 17th century painters such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Van Hals. The Nightwatch by Rembrandt is their prize piece. Contains many artefacts as well as paintings. (Currently being renovated, so some parts are closed.) There is also a small branch of the Rijksmuseum at Schiphol airport.

Van Gogh, Paulus Potterstraat 7, 10:00-18:00 (Friday 22:00); €10. Surprisingly spacious, dedicated to Van Gogh and his contemporaries.

There are many other museums, too many to list here. Interesting ones include:

Rembrandt’s House, Jodenbreestraat 4 (Waterlooplein), 10:00(Sunday 11:00)-17:00, €7.50. The 17th century house where Rembrandt lived and worked, restored to its former state. Of particular interest is the ability to buy etches made from copies of Rembrandt’s original plates, at quite reasonable prices (about €35).

Trips outside the city

In tulip season (late March to mid-to-late May) flower lovers can take a coach trip to Keukenhof, huge gardens dedicated to tulips.

Not far from Amsterdam, in the former Zuiderzee (now the IJsselmeer) is Marken, an island now joined to the mainland by a land bridge. It still has many wooden houses, and you can still see people wearing local costume, not just for tourists. You should at least visit the harbour. There are organised coach tours, but for much less money you can take bus 111 from Central Station (it takes about 45 minute).

I have been doing judo since I was 5 years old and I go training on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7.30 to 10. I´m black belt and now I´ll tell you things about this sport.

In this fotograph we can see a man called JIGORO KANO the father of judo

As a boy, Kano was undersized, weak, and a sickly child with one sickness after another. Kano decided to do something to improve his health and at the same time learn how to defend himself against bullies. In 1882, Dr. Jigoro Kano (The Father of Judo) made a comprehensive study of the martial arts and integrated the best of these forms into a sport which is known as Kodokan Judo, which means “the gentle way”. In addition, he believed that the techniques could be practiced as a competitive sport if the more dangerous techniques were omitted. This is the beggining of judo

The referees are very important in judo

Judo made its first Olympic appearance in 1964, but then it was not included in the programme of the 1968 Olympic Games.However, Judo returned again in 1972. and women’s judo was added to the programme at the 1992 Olympics. At first, only men were allowed to participate but women’s judo was added to the programme at the 1992 Olympics.

Judo has four grades of score: koka, yuko, wazari and ipon. The object in a judo match is to score an ipon, and there are different ways to get it. The most common way is to throw your opponent to the ground on his back. There is another way in which you have to inmobilize your opponent with his back on the floor for 25 seconds. A match can be also won by strangulating or dislocating the elbow. Your opponent will lose consciousness and you will win. Penalties may be given for being inactive during the match, or for using illegal techniques. Fighting must be stopped if a participant is outside the tatami.

Clothes

Judogi is the judo uniform. For competition a blue judogi is worn by one of the two competitors for ease of distinction by referees and spectators.

Asalia Beya (these are my team mates) PINTOS

I´ve been doing judo for 12 years and my team is Asalia Beya. My team is my second family. I´ve never felt left out. They all are there when I need them and I´m completely sure that they will never let me down. Of course my second father is my coach Pintos. (we call him Pin) He has been doing judo for more than 30 years. He was EXCEPTIONALLY TALENTED and he won his first Spainish championship when he was 15. He has won this championship three times; however, when he was in his best moment he injured himself during a tournament. He had several operations but suffers physical pain for the rest of his life. Nevertheless I think he is one of the best judokas in Spain.

TRIPS

The best part of doing judo are the trips. I´ve taken part in tournements in Badajoz, Valladoliz, Pais Vasco, Toledo, Galicia, Cantabria, and Madrid, but the best trip I´ve ever done was our visit to Amsterdam. We had a championship there last May and it was a wonderful trip. We travelled with the Oviedo University team. The results of the tournament weren´t great even though we had been training for that for many weeks; but all of us remember that trip as one of the best and although we lost, Pintos was proud of us. We also visited Brujas and we met people from other countries and it was really amazing.

To conclude

To conclude I want to say that today Judo is enjoyed by a lot of people. There are many reasons for learning Judo. Judo provides exercise, balance, coordination, self-protection and self-confidence and I think that it´s one of the best sports that exists.

Rachel