BYE, BYE ERASMUS

   Erasmus is an Exchange program between European´s students.  This program has reached 25 years in 2012, an millions of students have enjoyed it. Most of them think that it has been one of the best experiences in their lives, and now, it is in serious danger.

   During an Erasmus, people start from the beginning in another country, with different people and with another culture to learn. Is a door to Europe, to know how people live in other places of the same continent. Is a big opportunity to open you to the world, to live alone by first time, to be an adult.

   But now, the big crisis in Europe is threatening this possibility. Brussels has declared that the program doesn´t have enough money to cover all their students. This means the end of the dream for millions and millions of Europeans, who are waiting from their first year as university student their Erasmus course.

   This is a sad new for me. I´d love to do Erasmus next year, because for me is always interesting and necessary to go to other countries, and to learn languages, cultures and people. I feel I´m so lucky because now, I´m having one of the opportunities of my life. To be in the United States for a year.  I don´t know if the Exchanges Programs with United States are in danger too, but now that I´m living here, I´m surer than ever that everyone should live this opportunity.  It doesn´t matter where. But in Europe, the most popular program is Erasmus, because is closer and cheaper than anyone else, and because it has a lot of places more than Exchange programs with other continents.

   So, if Erasmus program finishes, it will be the end of the dream for millions of students who don´t have the possibility to leave their country, and it is so sad. People need to open their mind; they need to live abroad because it is very important to understand the world. And now that I´m living this experience, I can say it will be a big mistake if these kinds of programs disappear. 

LAVUELTAALMUNDO.NET

   Sometimes you want to travel and you don´t know how to start. It´s difficult to choose the best places, prices, hotels…  So, you need some help to prepare your adventure.

It can be useful for you when that happens to look websites that talk about travelling. As far as I have seen, my favorite website of this kind is lavueltaalmundo.net (thetriparoundtheworld.net). Is the website of Xavier and Carme, a Spanish young couple. They have travelled very much around the world, and they have seen a lot of interesting things that they explain in their web.

   They have also some solidary projects around the world and they talk about them too. They have Spanish, English and Catalan version, so you can choose your language.  In this website you can find information about who they are, about their trips, about their projects, and also help for people who want to travel around the world. They give good tips because they have lived so many experiences during their trips.

   I have to say that the English version is simpler and doesn´t have a lot of information. Spanish version is much better, because there you can find all their trips explained in detail, a lot of tips, and really beautiful proverbs and citations about travelling that you can´t find in the English version.

   I like to look this site because you can discover new options of travelling, and you can learn a lot of things that wake up your interest in other places. You can find also a forum where you can ask and talk with other people about travelling, and you can share your experience with others.  So, I recommend this site to everyone who loves travelling, because it can be a kind of guide for you if you want to do a journey. But even if travelling is not in your plans, this is a good website to learn about other countries and cultures, so it is recommendable for you too.

THE DREAM WILL COME TRUE

  She told me before dying that I had to come true her dream.  She never had the opportunity to have desires or ambitions. Her job was to stay at home and work for her family. She had accepted that and she loved her life, and everyone loved her.

But what anyone knew, was that she had inside a lot of dreams, dreams that she never would come true. She had an adventurous spirit that never could show to anyone, but that I have always perceived when I saw her eyes.

  My grandmother had a difficult life, but she never complained about that. She was happy with what she had and she didn´t need anything else. But her biggest secret dream was the only thing that she couldn´t do in her life. She wanted to travel around the globe. She had been years planning that journey, although she knew that she couldn´t do it. Six months, twenty countries, five continents, and a lot of illusion.

  That day, she was lying in her bed as every day. When she called me, I thought that she wanted just a glass of water or something like that. But what she wanted was something much more important.

  When she told me about to cry that I had to make her dream true, I didn´t know what to say or what to do. I just smiled and I promised her that I would do it, although I didn´t know how or when I had to begin. It was a hard decision, but finally, I decided to do it, because I thought that she deserved it.

  So here I am, in this plane. The plane that finally is going to do possible mi grandmother´s dream, and as she told me, I will send her one postcard every week, because although I don´t know how or where, I´m sure she´ll see every one of them. 

FIVE PLACES THAT I WANT TO VISIT

There are the five countries on the top of my list of places where I want to go.

India

India is the first place in the world where I want to go. I think that its colors, contrasts, and variety make of this country a special place in the world.

People say that India is a country that doesn´t let anyone indifferent. Or you hate it, or you love it. And I already love it although I never have been there, but I will!

Taj Mahal in Agra (India)

Australia

Amazing beaches, incredible landscapes and a whole world to discover. This is what I expect of Australia. I have heard that people there is kind and generous, and that who visits Australia, immediately falls in love with the country and with its splendid views and places to go.

I don´t know when or how, but I´m sure that I will go there even earlier than expected!

                 Sidney (Australia)

Kenya

I´d love to do some solidarity work in a place as Kenia. It is a country where you can do such a nice gesture as help people and live a lot of experiences at the same time. You can enjoy the African savannah and I think that you can learn a lot of things from this place.

I would love also to know how people live in a country as different from what I´m used to see.

                 African savannah in Kenya

               

Chile

I don´t know a lot of things about this country, but what I know is enough to be sure that I want to go there.

It is a place where you can enjoy awesome landscapes and views: mountains, glaciers, fjords… But besides that, I have heard that food and people are wonderful too.

                 Santiago de Chile (Chile)

Greece

I think that what I could find in Greece can be summarized in amazing art and history, and beautiful beaches and cities.

I have always wanted to visit Greece, and I´m sure I will!

                 Mykonos (Greece)

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL

   For me, any film that reminds you of something that has happened in other places, where you have never been and you don´t know if you will be, is a good movie, in general. In the case of The best exotic Marigold Hote”, I was totally transported to India, where the story takes place.   The film tells the story of a group of English retired people, which decide to travel to India to find something that is missing in their lives.  Each one with his own problems, Evelyn (Dench), Graham (Wilkinson), Douglas (Nighy)  and Jean Ainslie (Penelope Wilton), Muriel (Smith), Norman (Ronald Pickup)  and Madge (Celia Imrie), embark on a trip which finally wasn´t what they  had expected. They thought they would be in a luxury hotel, living the best of India. The Marigold Hotel they discover is only the remainder of what it was one day. The group is received effusively by Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel), a young and inexperienced entrepreneur, who isn´t able to keep his hotel. At first, everyone is deceived and complained about the hotel. But with the time, they discovered a new way to see the world, and they all fell in love with a country full of contrasts and gentle people that offers everything they have.    I could almost smell Indian´s odors and I could feel the chaos of the city of Jaipur.  Directed by the English director John Madden, and adapted from Deborah Moggach´s novel These Foolish Things, “The best exotic Marigold Hotel”, has a wonderful cast, which helps the audience to submerge into the film.   I think that one of the most awesome things of India is its contrasts, so maybe, I´d like to see in the film more about the other face of India, not just the poverty.
   I recommend this film because of many reasons. But the most important thing in my opinion, is that “The best exotic Marigold Hotel” made woke up my interest about India and about its culture, and showed me that if we look around us, we can find a lot of interesting things that we didn´t even know.

"At the end, everything will be ok. If it´s not OK, it is not the end"

                            The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS

   I have enjoyed a lot of books in my life. I have read some of those books just for entertainment, and others because I thought they could show me a lot of new things. One of my favorites was A Thousand Splendid Suns, the second and last (at the moment) novel by Khaled Hosseini. This book made me cry and feel a lot of emotions on every page.
   Khaled Hosseini was born in Afghanistan forty seven years ago, but he has lived in the United States since he was fifteen. He studied medicine and worked as a doctor for over ten years, until he wrote his first novel The Kite Runner, in 2003.


   In his novel, the Afghan author tells the stories of two unfortunate women, in a country where the revolts for achieving power are in the street every day. Mariam and Layla live in this context. They are two children with a considerable age difference and from different places, but both with a tragic story behind them. One day their paths cross and their worlds are turned upside down. In time, they´ll discover that their lives haven´t a lot of value in a place as Afghanistan, and that they need to give support to each other if they want to survive there. They have to fight together for their happiness, although it´s something difficult.
   I loved how the book was written. I could feel every emotion as mine. This novel makes you learn about human suffering and cruelty, but also about willpower and overcoming obstacles. You can´t imagine how people can suffer in countries like Afghanistan if you don´t walk in their skin, and that´s exactly what happens in this novel. You can feel in every moment almost what the characters are feeling, and you can understand why they´re doing what they´re doing. Once you start, you can´t stop reading until the end.

   In my opinion, maybe there is too much suffering in the book. You feel constant distress while you are reading, and it is so hard for people who have never felt this kind of emotion. However, it is something that has happened in other places of the world, and I think that we need to know it.
   I don´t recommend this book to people who are just looking for entertainment or having fun. This novel is much more than that. We have a lot to learn of people such as Mariam and Layla. If you are a reader who wants to know how far human suffering and cruelty are able to go, and how women can survive in these situations, you have to read this book. 


"Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.”

                        A Thousand Splendid Suns

My Blog

   There are a lot of places in the world where I´d love to go. I think that travelling is one of the best ways to learn about culture, tolerance, and life in general. It opens your mind and can make you a better person. I haven´t been to a lot of countries, but I´d like to. For now, it is difficult for me to travel around the world, but in my opinion, there isn´t only one way to do it. You can travel from your own house, wherever you want. You only have to take a book, or sit in your couch and watch a good film, and you can be transported to the other side of the world.

So, in this blog, I want to talk about places. No matter which places. Just places where we can find so different manners, people and landscapes. I haven´t been in a lot of these places, but I have learned about them through books and cinema, and I´ll talk about novels and films that have woken up my interest in some cultures and histories.
   I think it is important to know how people are living in other countries; how they suffer, how they survive, how they enjoy life or how they have to overcome the obstacles. And it is these things I want to talk about. About places around the world, about ways of living, about what´s happening on other countries, and about these special films and books that can help you to travel in other way.



     As the British writer Pico Iyer said: “Travel is like love, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.” So, let´s travel!