CHRISTMAS AROUND THE WORLD

  Christmas is coming and everyone is excited around the world because of that. But, how does every country celebrate Christmas? Every place is a different world, and there are a lot of curious and interesting costumes around this celebration.

  In Scandinavian countries, the typical Santa Klaus is known as Ded Moroz, and he is an elder and tall man, with a white and long bear and blue or red clothes. He always has a big bag with a lot of gifts. He has a magic stick, and he can froze everything with it. He gives all the gifts in person every New Year Day. 

  

  In Austria and Hungary, young people dress up like a Krampus, a Christmas devil, and what they do is to scare children saying that if they haven´t been good, they will directly go to the hell.

  In Italy, who gives Christmas gifts is the Befana. She is a woman who looks like a witch. Every January 5^th, the Befana  visits Italian children and if they have been good she gives them gifts and candy. Although she is a witch, she is a cheerful woman who flies with her broom.

                                               

                                                    

  In Spain Christmas starts on December 22^nd, with the National Lottery Raffle. San Ildefonso School´s students, are the children who give the prizes. There is typical to eat 12 grapes on Christmas Eve to change the year, and Santa Klaus is not the only one who visits Spanish children. There are also the Three Magic Kings, who give presents to the children on January 5^th, during the night. There is a show in every Spanish city, where the Three Kings tour around the streets and they throw candy and gifts. Besides that, what have always to be in a Spanish house on Christmas are the typical sweets called “turrón”, “polvorón”, “mazapán” and of course the best Iberic ham.

                                         

So, every place is different, but every place is unique. Merry Christmas!

THANKSGIVING TRIP

   Tomorrow I am leaving to my first Thanksgiving trip. It will be a week, and I am sure that is going to be one of the best of my life. I am going to Santa Fe, to the Grand Canyon, to the Zion Park, and to Las Vegas. I have always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon and to Las Vegas and I can´t believe that finally I am going to do it!

   It is going to be hard to travel by car so many hours, because in Spain everything is smaller, and every city is closer from each other, so I am not used to do that kind of trips by car. Anyway, I am so excited about the trip and I am sure it is going to be something that I will never forget.

   In this moment I am aware that I am really lucky because I am here. These months here in the United States have been amazing and I have enjoyed more than ever, and I am happier now that I am about to do the first long roadtrip of my whole life. This week I hope to find the best part of this country, because although in Europe a lot of people think so, I know that the United States are not only high buildings and big houses. In this trip I am going to visit the Grand Canyon, and I am sure it is going to be one of the most beautiful landscapes that I have ever seen.

   So, after a few stressful weeks finally I have a break to enjoy and take fresh air! The only thing that I have to do right now is to pack my luggage and prepare myself to have a wonderful week! 

SOMEDAY

   She decided that she had to write a list when she was 9. A list of every country where she wanted to go. There are a lot of countries on that list 11 years  later, but the problem is that she doesn´t know how to make true her dream. She has never travelled by plane, and every single day, she waits for that moment.

   But it isn´t easy. Not now. Now everything is difficult for her and for her family. Her mother is unemployed and his father can´t win money enough with his job. This year, she can´t study at the university anymore, because the cost of her courses has increased  and her family doesn´t have money to pay it.

   But her family is not the only one in that situation.  In Spain thousands of families are suffering the biggest crisis that the country has had ever. How could she come her dream true on this moment? She knows what she has to do in this moment. She has to find a job and help to her family. She can´t go out to have dinner every Saturday anymore, as she was used to do, or buy clothes once a month. Now it is time to sacrifice herself, to forget everything she has always wanted, and to think just about what her family needs. That´s it.

   Anyway, although she will have to wait to go to all those countries on her list, she knows that someday she will do it. She doesn´t know when or how. She doesn´t know how much time is going to last this situation. But the only thing that she knows is that the list that she started to write when she was 9, and that is saved in the last drawer of her desk, someday will come true.

THE MOST TRAGIC HALLOWEEN

  Halloween is supposed to be a terrific celebration.  But what happened in Madrid, last October 31^st was the most terrific that could happen.  Four girls died and one is in the hospital, in a really critical situation.

  Everything started in the club “Madrid Arena”. There was supposed to be a big party, with the famous dj Steve Aoki. But all the signs are that the organization that was responsible of the event sold almost the double of tickets that they could sell. There were around 15.000 people in one club for 9.000, and the result was catastrophic.

  Suddenly, someone fired an illumination flare in the club, and everyone wanted to get out at the same time.  But the problem was that there were too much people, and according to the witnesses, just one exit was opened.  It produced an avalanche of people, and the result was, three girls died because of the crushing, two girls seriously injured (one of them died three days later), and lots of people fainted and moderate injured.

  The three girls who died there were 18, and their names were Katia Esteban, Cristina Arce and Rocío Oña. The girl who died three days after was Belén Langdon, and she was 17. The several injured girl who is still at the hospital, is María Teresa Alonso, and she is 20. Doctors say that, even if she gets survive, she will have consequences forever.

Spain is appalled with the horrible news, because it happened because of the organization´s irresponsibility. It is shameful how they acted selling more tickets they could, and of course, the tragic new has to make people react. Something similar happened in Germany in 2010, and this can´t happen again.

Rocío Oña, Cristina Arce and Katia Esteban

  As a result of the incompetence and the negligence of the club and the awful organization, four innocent girls lost their life in the most tragic Halloween that Spain has lived. They just wanted to go to the concert to see their idol, and they couldn´t come back never. 

MY "YAYO"

   I just received one of the worst news that I could have. My grandfather died yesterday and I couldn´t say goodbye to him. That´s something that you know when you leave your home. You know that something can happen to the people you love, and now I feel that bad news are worse when you are far away.

   My grandfather had been at bed for one year. He stayed his last year of life without going out not even once, so I know that he was suffering and that this is the best for him. Anyway, I´ll miss him so much, and I´ll never forget him.  In his last year he couldn´t walk, go out or even talk, but he could love and make feel people important. Every day that I went to visit him, he just wanted me to lead him by the hand, and I could be like that for hours, just talking to him, although he couldn´t respond, because I knew he loved that, and he was happy when I talked to him. Sometimes he kissed my hand, and smiled to me.

   My grandfather had an interesting and amazing life. I think he was a lucky man, and although he has suffered so much, I hope he was happy with the life that yesterday ended. He lived a lot of experiences as a child and as a teenager. He had the opportunity to live in different countries and he learnt so much about other cultures and people.  As an adult, he was a respectable dentist, and an awesome father and husband.

   He lost his wife twenty years ago, when a cancer ended his life, and since that moment, I think he wasn´t the same person anymore. I don´t know where people are when they die, but I hope he´s finally with my grandmother.

   He was a good man, an awesome father and husband, and a lovely grandfather. My grandfather. And I´ll love and remember him forever, and I´ll be always proud of the last name he gave me. TE QUIERO, YAYO.

  I travelled a lot of times when I was a child. The problem is that I didn´t appreciate a lot of things in those moments, because I was too young. Now, I love travelling and I have enjoyed my last journeys so much. Here are my last trips around the world.

BARCELONA

  It is not necessary to go to other countries to enjoy your trip. I have been several times in Barcelona, even I lived there when I was a child. But every time I go there is as the first time. I love walking around “Las Ramblas” or “El Parc Güell”, and visiting places as “La Sagrada Familia” or “La Pedrera”. It is my favorite city in my country.

SAHARA

Sahara camps of refugees in Algeria is a place where you don´t have nothing to see. There aren´t monuments, famous places or colorful landscapes. But the people, the feeling of being useful, and the awesome image of the stars in the sky above you every night, were some of the reasons that made of it one of the best journeys of my life.

AMSTERDAM

  I went to Amsterdam past April with some friends. I think it is an amazing city, beautiful, clean and ecological, where the main transportation is the bike. It is cultural and impacting. You can find beautiful and interesting museums as the Van Gogh Museum, or Anna Frank´s house, and you can also find places as peculiar and shocking as the Red District or the Coffee Shops.

UNITED STATES

  This is my 5^th visit to the United States. I have been before in California, New York, and twice in Florida, and now I´m here, in Oklahoma. I don´t know if I could live here, because everything is too big and is too far for me. However, I love this country and its people, and I think that here, every state is a new world, and you always discover something different in each one.

WHAT YOU MISS WHEN YOU AREN´T AT HOME

  Sometimes you don´t know to appreciate what you have at home until you go to other place. I have been my whole life living in the same place, in Valencia (Spain), and I had never thought about the things I would miss if I had to go far. But even if you love travelling, and even if is something that you have always wanted to do, is impossible not to miss a lot of things from home.

                    My town, El Puig, a little village near Valencia

  I arrived to Oklahoma two months ago, and this time has been enough to miss a lot of things of Spain, and to appreciate that anything is as comfortable as home. I miss Valencia, its orange groves and its beaches. I miss too the sunny Sundays eating Paella with the family in the open air, or in a restaurant close to the beach. I miss to walk to everywhere, without using the car for everything, and a good Spanish dinner with “tapas”, “sangría”, and the best company: my friends.

                          

           Some of my friends              Part of my family

           in a fancy-dress party

  I miss also to walk around my town and to know everyone. To say “Hello” to every single person that you see in the street.  And of course, I miss all my people. My family and my friends, and all those people who make my life easier and happier.

  I have to say that I don´t change anything for the time I´m having here, but anyway, it´s impossible not to think sometimes in everything you miss from home.  The Spanish jam, potatoes omelet, the beach,  parties on the street, to play in the band of my town, my house, my family, my friends, and sometimes even my university! But, there is no doubt that everything can wait a couple of months more, because right now I´m so happy in Oklahoma and nobody can make me go back to Spain!