LONDON (V)

The scheduled time of departure of the flight from Stansted Airport to Girona was 17:40, but we had to go there early because of the proceedings. Then, we had time until 12:30 before getting on the bus to the airport. It was the last day and we had to make the most of it.

First of all we savoured the last English breakfast: I had filled the dish again but that time I had dispensed with sausages and I made up my mind to try some baked beans. They are sweeter than I had expected, but good after all. After the last bite of toast with butter I had a drunk of apple juice and we went to our room in order to bring the cases down. We looked through the room and, apparently, we had picked up everything. I say apparently because we hadn’t looked into the wardrobe, where I had left my jacket, and I didn’t realize that it was missing until we had given the keys of the room to the receptionist. At least there was something positive; I would practise English asking for the key. I went fast to the room and, luckily, the cleaning lady hadn’t arrived there yet (she was into the adjoining room).



The destination was free choice and we chose the Portobello Market, in Nothing Hill. We got the tube and it seemed like we had been doing it all our life. The market of Portobello Road is very famous, but it takes place on Saturdays and it was Tuesday. Then, apart from shops, there were only a few fruit street markets, but even so it is a good place to visit. It was raining but it was fine and it lasted a few moments. One of the first shops we visited was very unusual because they sold all kinds of metallic plates. I was thunderstruck when I saw the price of clothes and shoes in the market: everything is extremely cheap. I saw a pair of trainers that, in Spain, cost about 60€ and there cost 20 pounds. I can’t believe it yet. It’s a shame I didn’t have space in my case.

After the walk we seized the opportunity to shoot a scene of Portobello Road for our video project and we went to the station to get on the tube. We had moved far away from the centre of the city and the tube station was different than others: it wasn’t underground but outdoors. We were going to lose a lot of time with the journey, but we were still able to visit another place: King’s Cross railway station.



King’s Cross is very famous because it’s a very big station, but it’s also one of the places where the story of Harry Potter, a best-seller novel well-known around the world, takes place. The novel has been adapted for cinema and one of the scenes was shot in the station. Of course now it isn’t decorated like in the film, but there’s one place which has been designed to satisfy the fans of the story, specifically the Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, which represents the connection between the normal world and the world of magic. We knew the existence of that place, but we didn’t know where it was. At first, when we entered the station we saw the first four platforms and we thought that we were in the wrong place, it was very different than we had seen in the film. But it changed with the platforms 5-8, the ceiling was so familiar. We went excited to the next platforms but there was a disappointing problem: we needed a ticket to enter. We desperately tried to use our travel cards and, miraculously, they worked! A few meters separated us from the Platform 9 but, when we reached it, there was nothing between platforms 9 and 10, no sign of Platform 9-3/4. The hike had been in vane. And there was another problem; the machine didn’t accept the cards to get out from the station. We had to explain to the guards that what had happened and, luckily, they allowed us to leave. While we were thinking how to return to the hotel, we saw an orange poster addressed to those who were looking for Platform 9-3/4! There was a map explaining its location into the station and we finally found it. It was a brick wall with a sign and half shopping trolley stuck on the wall, perfect for a photo.



There was a restaurant between our hotel and the nearest tube station. The owners were from Spain and they also knew Catalan. I would have preferred to eat something typical, but we didn’t have time and I chose beef with pepper sauce.

We arrived on time at the hotel (teachers had been penalising us these days with fifty cents per person if we were late) and the bus came to pick us up. I was so tired and I slept the entire journey, but when I woke up I realized that the temperature of the bus unbearably high. Those British are nuts.

Once into the airport, we had to weigh our case because it couldn’t weigh more than ten kilos. I didn’t have that problem because at the beginning of the trip I had about eight kilos and I had bought only two postcards and a pin. My problem wasn’t a matter of weight but a matter of space. Some people had bought many things and they had to wear most of them because they exceeded the then kilos. Then we had to go through the scanner. The luggage check hadn’t been very strict in Spain, but that time was very different. I left the case on a conveyor belt and I took off my clock, the mobile phone and the wallet, but I forgot the belt, which has a metallic clasp, and I noticed it too late. The alarm rung and the security guard inspected me. It had been very awkward. After that we were in a floor with loads of shops and, there, there was no limit of weight. I hadn’t planned to buy anything, but I went to a library to have a look and I asked for The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J. K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter novels, and I found it. It’s a thin book with five short stories. I haven’t read it yet but I’ll do it when I have time. Videogames were also very cheap there, but I didn’t allow myself to be swept away by that.



We were leaving England; the trip was coming to its end, stepping on English floor for the last time (at least, for the moment) and getting onto the plane, with a one-hour flight ahead and some miles on the bus. When we arrived in Spain I thought “we are home”: there was no fitted carped and people were standing in the middle of the steps of escalators. That was the end of an unforgettable trip, with a unique company in an extraordinary city. It was worth and I would repeat it again without any doubt.

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LONDON (IV)

London’s underground is used by hundreds of thousands people every day and we joined them the third day. As you can see in the picture, there are many lines, each one with a different colour. That allowed us to move all over the city because there are plenty of tube station entries spread over London. One of the characteristics of this network is that it is very old and the underground road tunnels can be really deep. Because of that, the use of a lift or escalators is essential if you don’t want to become exhausted after two journeys. Lifts are huge because they have to transport about fifty people at the same time (you always get fined if you press the alarm button without a good cause). Escalators are also very long, with enough space for two persons per step, and, as a collective agreement, you must place yourself at the right side to leave a go-ahead for those who want to go up faster. There are mirrors at the corners of the corridors (maybe to prevent a crash with those who walk in the opposite direction or to see if there’s somebody dangerous at night). Mind the gap is a very famous message which warns of the space between the tube and the platform, it has become one of London’s symbols (like the look right) and you can find it in many merchandising products like T-shirts, key rings or lighters.

First of all we visited some constructions near the river, we crossed the Millennium Bridge, which was designed by Norman Foster, and we stayed a few minutes near the Tate Modern, a contemporary art museum, before entering into the Globe Theatre,were we would do the only guided tour of the trip. I have to say that the reconstruction of Shakespeare's theatre is one of the best things I’ve watched in London, the place is so interesting and the explanation was better, very clear and easy to understand. Most of the building is made of wood and the thatched roof doesn’t cover the whole theatre, but sonority is very good.



After that, we had free time. We hurried up because we had time to watch the change of the guard. Then, we got on the tube to the Buckingham Palace. When we arrived, it was going to start and it was full of tourists. Some mounted police officers were controlling people in order to leave a free way for the guard. It was very difficult to see something but, suddenly, a group of guards went through the square near the palace and we started to hear music from a band. It was a strange melody, I had heard it before. But it couldn’t be possible because I had never been there and I didn’t know anything about the change of the guard. After some seconds I recognized the song, it was an adapted version of The Cup of Life, by Ricky Martin. Maybe it was a coincidence and the songs were similar or, perhaps, Ricky Martin had plagiarized it. But the following song was from the soundtrack of Rocky Balboa and it couldn’t be a chance. As it seems, the band of the guard adapts famous songs for that event. That was shocking and a bit disappointing.

We had arranged to meet near the Tower of London at lunch time and we arrived just on time. It is near the London Bridge and there is a square with some shops and takeaway restaurants. Most of people bought hot dogs, but I didn’t want to leave London without having tried fish and chips (also written fish ’n’ chips). As its name shows, it consisted of two pieces of fried fish and some chips (ketchup, mustard and other supplements were optional). I’m sorry for the picture but I was so concentrated that when I remembered to take a photo I had nearly finished it.



Then, we crossed the London Bridge to the other side of the river and we split up again. We had time to go anywhere but we had to return early to the hotel because most of people had to go to watch a musical. We had bought tickets for the musical We will rock you and The Phantom of the Opera, but I decided to stay at the hotel with some people. Then, we decided to go to Oxford Street, a place with many famous shops (like the Apple Store or one of Nokia’s flagship stores). I admit that I enjoy technological gadgets, but such a vast amount of consumerism made me sick (Without taking into account Harrods. I think I’ve become very critic after the research project). Time flew and it was time to go to the Tavistock Hotel.

We had notified the hotel in advance that we were going to eat early because we were in a rush, but they had forgotten that and the dinner wasn’t ready. We couldn’t wait and, after complaining a lot, they took us to one of their hotels, which was near ours. It was a buffet and we were able to choose one dish. Those who went to the musical had to leave and we had time to finish eating, watching how waiters picked up the half emptied dishes, sometimes full, bitterly.

While we were going back we smelt chlorine from a swimming pool that was into that hotel. It would have been fantastic to go for a swim in a heated swimming pool, but it was not possible. It was the last night. The cases had to be ready for the following day because we had to leave them in the same room than the first day.

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Under the sea

First of all I want to say that this post is a spoiler although I won’t tell too much about the game because I haven’t played it until the end. After this, it’s time to talk about one of the best videogames I’ve ever seen (maybe after finishing it, it will be the best one); Bioshock. It’s a first-person shooter game which was released on 2007 and, since then, it has been highly rated, receiving very good reviews from the specialized critic and also from the players. It really deserves that.

The plot is, at first sight, very simple and original: you are the only survivor of a plane crash, in the middle of the ocean, and beyond the wreckage you find the entrance of an enormous city built under the sea: Rapture. But, after reaching it, you realize that something goes wrong. The perfect utopia has turned into a nightmare, citizens have driven mad after using science to become stronger and there have happened many incidents that will be unveiled throughout the game. Horrible stories that never stop surprising the player, when you think you have seen everything there is a new objective or an unexpected turn.

The objective is much more than to explore the city wiping out splicers (your enemies, Rapture’s inhabitants).The story revolves around two kinds of characters: little sisters and big daddies (you can see them in the picture). Young and fragile, little sisters move throughout the city collecting ADAM, a very valued substance, from dead people. You may think that to get their ADAM would be as easy as taking candy from a baby, but the problem is that they are always protected by a big daddy. If you approach too much a little sister, you’ll have to face a big daddy. And that’s the mission of the main character, to beat them and then, to decide what to do with little sisters. There are two options: to save them or to kill them. Each one will have different consequences, leading to a good or a bad end.

Apart from the meticulously detailed settings of the city and the characters, the game immerses you in the underwater world because of the way of telling the stories. There are many audio recordings spread over the game and made by people of the city who explain what happened before reaching the current situation. There’s always a feeling of being in an alive place, with music from the 30s, the 40s and the 50s, hearing voices of splicers (they don’t emit sounds like typical zombies but they have very realistic conversations) and, of course, little sister’s words. They are always talking with their big daddy (daddies never speak), who they call “Mr. B” or “Mr. Bubbles”. Here there are some of their quotes:

Don’t be a slow poke Mr. Bubbles! Angels don’t wait for slow pokes…

Scabby on my knee! Scabby on my knee! Scabby on my knee!

Ready for dream time now Mr.Bubbles

The sequel of the game is called Bioshock 2: Sea of Dreams and its expected release date is on the last quarter of the year. I still have to finish the first one, but I believe that it will also be a must have game.

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LONDON (III)

The second day in London we woke up early and we went down to the dining room with the yellow ticket for the typical English breakfast. I had seen that meal in photos, but it was nothing compared to what I found there. It’s thousand times better when you see it, when you smell it and you sample it. Bacon, sausages, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, toasts, baked beans (there were cereals and other things but I can’t remember now), orange juice, apple juice, peach juice, water, tea, coffee, milk, and many other kinds of food. There was also some butter, jam and bread on the table. I filled my dish and a glass of apple juice and I went to the table we had chosen to enjoy the treasure. It was delicious (apart from the sausages). When I’m at home, I tend to eat a bowl of cereals with milk, but now, if I had time to prepare it, I would eat an English breakfast every day. At first, after the trip, it was difficult to wake up and know that a poor breakfast was waiting for me. Then, after the high dose of calories, we went to the room to get ready for the hike.

We got a travel card for three days. It allowed us to use the public transport (bus and underground) through the centre of the city. That day we started getting used to the use of the many bus lines and we left the underground (also called tube or subway) for the following day. Most of the bus and tube lines appeared in my map, which means that there haven’t been many changes in fifteen years. About the buses, we had to pay attention to the number of each bus placed in the front side of the vehicle. When you enter into the big red bus, you have to show your travel card to the bus driver, although they don’t pay much attention and it would be easy to trick them, and then you can sit at the first floor or at the second one (it isn’t allowed to stay at the stairs, surely it is a safety measure). All of them are quite comfortable, but I missed to get on one the classical Big Red Bus.


First of all we went to the Big Ben, near the River Thames. I had to ask to some English pedestrians how they pronounce the word Thems, because I used to say [teims] but then I discovered that the real pronunciation is [temz]. It’s useful to know it because sometimes you don’t understand why somebody pulls a face when you ask how to go to somewhere. From the bridge near the Big Ben we had a great view; we could see the London Eye and the Millennium Bridge among other buildings, maybe it wasn’t sunny like the first day but it wasn’t raining and that was good enough. One of the most shocking things for me was that, in a park near the Houses of Parliament there were some tents surrounded with banners condemning war or demanding peace. I think I hadn’t ever seen in person such way of using the right to freedom of speech.

The following stage was the Buckingham Palace, we wanted to watch the famous change of the guard at half past eleven, but it only happens every second day and we had bad luck. After the palace we walked through many streets and parks. I didn’t pay attention to the churches because all of them look the same to me, but I was open-mouthed with the parks, there are some enormous parks in London, with rivers, very old trees, swans, ducks, squirrels... For an instant, you forget that you are in one of the largest cities of the world and not in the country.



Another park we visited after the Buckingham Palace was the Hyde Park. It’s very famous because it’s the meeting point of many persons, a good place to walk, to practise sports and many other activities the most famous, maybe, of which takes place every Sunday. I mean the Speakers’ Corner, where you can go to show your ideas, your convictions, freely. That day there were three conversations when we arrived: the first one was a bold man who was talking about people’s behaviour, men and women, sex, etc. He finished speaking German because there was a group of German students and I left the conversation. There was also a woman that was talking about religion, she was standing on a chair and holding a Bible. But the best discussion in my opinion was between two men: The first one, a Londoner on a small ladder, was trying to prove the existence of God in front of a man from Kentucky, who was standing on a box of detergent. That conversation was very hot, their arguments were very serious and it was so interesting. Next to the speakers there was a couple with a poster that said free hugs and I went to buy one. That’s a very famous movement that has spread around the world, especially in the most important cities.

We went to Harrods, a department store well-known throughout the world. We didn’t visit it because it was our free time and we had to have lunch, but we got into one moment to go to the toilets. After going through many sections (perfumes, handbags, sunglasses...) and escalators, we arrived to the toilets. While I was waiting for an empty toilet, I saw a very comical situation: there was an employee who provided toilet paper and perfume and turned on the taps to the customers, who thanked and, sometimes, tipped him. He made the same when I went there, but I didn’t want perfume and I didn’t tip him because I hadn’t asked for that. I think that’s quite unpleasant because I can do it myself and the bin was full of napkins, which is more contaminant and less practical than an air hand-dryer.

The two sandwiches from a restaurant near Harrods were nothing to shout about, you can’t expect to eat something good, cheap (and quite healthy) very near Harrods. Then, we decided to visit the department store, but we were eight people and the doorman only let four persons enter because of their rules (no groups). He also told us that if we wanted to get in we had to go to another door, but the real truth is that he warned the other doormen not to let us enter. I have to admit that I am grateful for this fact because we decided to visit the Natural History Museum; otherwise I wouldn’t have gone there.

The Nature History Museum contains many fossilized specimens of dinosaurs and animals, some of which are extinct. The collection is great and they are very well maintained. My favourite one was the Smilodon Fatalis, commonly known as Sabre-toothed tiger.



That week took place the London Fashion Week, and the exposition was near the museum. Because of that, we saw many people wearing bold clothes (very bold, that place looked like carnival and it was difficult to hold back the laugh).

Later, we went to Piccadilly Circus, where we had planned to meet, by bus. In fact, that place is like a circus: from the round square with a big fountain we could observe the front side of a very high building covered by many neon signs that were always flickering and cars that moved continuously around the square and the web of streets. There was some time left and we discovered a place to buy a box of varied doughnuts (with many kinds of chocolate, jam, cream, sugar, with shavings, filled, covered, with layers...).

That was the last we did after coming back to the hotel. That time there wasn’t a game show in the TV but something better: Top Gear. It’s a very popular English program about cars produced by the BBC. I had heard many times about it but I had never been able to watch it. In that chapter, the presenters of the program competed for travelling through Japan as fast as possible. One of them drove a Nissan GT-R, the others used the public transport (we must take into account that in Japan some trains can reach more than 400 km/h). The result: a crazily funny program.



Finally, after eating, we decided what to do at night: most of people stayed at the hotel, but some of us decided to go out. We took the underground to Covent Garden, and we realized that everything was closed. Nightlife in London is very different than in Spain, most of pubs close at eleven (in fact, they close a bit later) and clubs are only for adults. Then, if you are under age you must be with an adult if you want to go to a pub and you must forget clubs because the minimum age is eighteen. We knew it before, but we had to try it. We found a place with clubs and pubs near the Chinese District and some of us could go into the clubs; the others tried to go into a club called Chiquito but it was closing and we went to a bar. It doesn’t mean we had a bad time because I had expected that before and the city, the big red buses and Trafalgar Square are wonderful at night. It’s a shame I didn’t have a better camera and more time.

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It can make you feel inconvenient

An inconvenient truth is a film about global warming and climate change. It was released in 2006 and it has been very controversial because it is a very critical documentary. Al Gore, who had been the Vice President of the USA, is the narrator of the plot, a mixture of some parts from one of the many environmental conferences that he has made around the world and scenes with a voice-over.

It denounces the great trouble where we are now and the problems that can come in the near future. He explains that the results of many scientific studies about the temperature of the environment, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or the cold and hot ages during the life of our planet, for example, using techniques like analysis of ice from the icecaps, has revealed that, in the last two or three centuries, the human being has drastically changed the world and now we are starting to suffer the consequences.

Ice in the poles and glaciers is melting very fast, many animal species are endangered, natural disasters are becoming greater and more and more frequent, hurricanes, droughts, floods, etc. And this is only the beginning if we don’t do anything. What Al Gore says is that we have to act, we must learn from our mistakes and that it isn’t a political issue but a moral issue. Some influential people say that there’s no reason to worry, and maybe the following quote explains one of our problems:

It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

Some of the resources used in this film are real videos from TV news, pictures of natural disasters, images of the same place but taken during different years and many charts. All of them show that, as its name suggests, this truth is really inconvenient.

I won’t only recommend you this film, but I think that you MUST watch this film if you are really worried about the world were you live, if you want a future for your children or for people who could live from now on, if you still believe that there is no need to start changing now, even if you don’t mind about others and you think you won’t live enough time to be affected by this problem.

I haven’t seen it announced in our cinemas, but I think that this documentary should be watched in the schools, that people should promote it to their friends, to their neighbours. For me, it hasn’t by any means been a waist of time.

The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences.
SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL November12, 1936.

Now, I want to watch another film called The age of stupid, which has recently been launched. It seems to be very interesting and, as I’ve read, it talks about a man who lives in 2055, in a world destroyed by climate change, and he asks the reason why we didn’t stop it when we had the chance.

I finish with the trailer of An inconvenient truth:

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LONDON (II)

After leaving the suitcases in a room, we started the London tour! The first day, we moved on foot around the city, and the first stop was the British Museum, which wasn’t very far from the hotel. It was a very interesting place, with objects from many cultures and civilizations like Egypt or the Roman Empire, with mummies, jewels, sculptures, mosaics and so forth. It was easy to get lost there because there were many rooms and some floors. Especially I liked the Egyptian collection, with big sculptures and objects like sarcophagus (At first, we saw one and we didn’t know if it was a sarcophagus or a bathtub because it didn’t have a lid and there were some holes in the bottom but, after reading the description of the object, we knew that it was a sarcophagus). We also found the busts of some philosophers in one of the rooms (the perfect place to take a photo near Socrates). One of the things I want to mention is that, in the museum, there are cards to explain each piece, but it’s also full of cards which say “don’t touch the objects”. The problem is that, when you want to find the first ones, you always see the others, because their print is bigger. That was quite annoying.

After visiting the British Museum, we went to the Trafalgar Square, near the National Art gallery. I spent most of the way counting Chinese or oriental people and I don’t remember it very well, but I think we counted more than 50 in less than five minutes. After that I knew that we had walked near the Chinese District. It was lunch time and the teachers gave us free time to eat and to visit the city until the afternoon.

There were some pubs in that zone and, after that, we had the choice to go to Covent Garden or other nearby places. I didn’t want to leave London without having eaten “fish and chips”, but the first day I didn’t taste that but I discovered the “jacket potatoes”: it’s a big potato with other ingredients that you can choose. We were four people and all of us chose the same: jacket potato with tuna and cheese. It was delicious and we got full, but there was a bit of space for dessert. The girl who attended us said that they didn’t have a typical dessert from London because everything is very international. I chose a good cake. After eating, we asked to the waitress whether she could help us with some of the questions of a “quiz” we had to do for school. She said some answers but they didn’t fit the answers that our teachers expected (this fact happened to us many times...). For example, she said that Londoners celebrate the welcoming of the New Year in front of the London Eye, not near the Big Ben.

We had some time and we went to Covent Garden. It wasn’t so far from the restaurant and maybe it was the first time we had to get our bearings in London. I had brought a map of the city (The map was more than fifteen years old but the main streets hadn’t changed, the monuments were in the same place and the underground stations were in the same places.) and we used it to know the routes we could take. It was nice to walk through the streets, to look at the houses or the cars (I was thunderstruck when I saw two Porsche in the same street). I realized that we were in Covent Garden because of the atmosphere, the people. It’s difficult to explain, but that place has got something that I had never seen anywhere. There was a man with a t-shirt printed with “I’m a show boy” who was singing and livening up people that were having a coffee or going down to there. Further on there was a big skillet where a good meal was being cooked. There were also many shops. We went for a walk and we returned to Trafalgar Square.

While we were waiting the others to enter into the National Gallery, I could observe the atmosphere in the Trafalgar Square. It was full of people, maybe because it was Saturday, and there was a great mixture of tourists and Londoners lying around the big fountain, on the stairs or on the grass near the Gallery. But not everybody was having a rest: there was a woman holding a microphone which was connected to some powerful loudspeakers and her voice could be heard from each place of the square. As I could understand, she talked about behaviour, about God and many other things; she was expressing her ideas and trying to convince people, to change their thought. I don’t know if it’s typical or it only happened that Saturday, but it was very curious. Near the National Gallery, there were some groups of artists painting on the floor with chalks. But it didn’t seem like an act of vandalism but a very original kind of street art. The first one had just started when we arrived and he had only drawn some lines (but he had had time to write some unpleasant sentences to the photographers who weren’t going to give him a reward in exchange for a snapshot). Beyond him, there were two men drawing a great picture of a dog, a guard of the Buckingham Palace and a bird which was being started. And behind them there was an old man who wasn’t doing a picture but he was writing a text. He had painted the letters of the words with one different colour per letter. I couldn’t know the end of the text because he hadn’t finished it when I went to the Gallery.

The National Gallery is very famous, there are many important works of art inside of this museum and, very important, the entrance is free! (Like in most of the museums we visited in London). I have to admit that I’m not an expert on art and this Gallery wasn’t the most exciting place I’ve ever visited. Maybe those paintings were very important but, in my opinion, most of the paintings we saw dealt with God and were very dull. We had to find some pictures for the quiz and we could find them thanks to the high kindness of the watchmen in the rooms. But when I thought I was going to leave the museum without having seen anything interesting we saw the teacher and some of us followed her (the sofas of the museum were really uncomfortable). One of the pictures we hadn’t seen was “The sunflowers”, by Vincent van Gogh. I learned that he painted some famous pictures called like that, but that wasn’t the best one. Then, we went to a very different room. The paintings were smaller than in other rooms, the topic wasn’t related with Christianity and most of the authors weren’t very famous, but that has been my favourite room. I learned what in Spanish is called “puntillismo”, which consists of making a picture without lines, only with small dots; thousands of dots which must be watched a bit far from the wall to see picture. I fell in love with one of the pictures: It was very small, the colours were bluish and I could see a cold winter morning near a river, with a London at the backside. The visit had been worth the effort.

After leaving the Gallery, a man had replaced the woman of the microphone and I could hear the word “God” a few more times. Some floor painters had finished their works and the most unpleasant of them had added some messages to those who wanted to take a photo of his painting (which, in my opinion, wasn’t the best one) like “if you want to take photos but you don’t want to pay, I ask you to go to another planet”.

It was time to return to the hotel all together. Night was falling and we travelled across the illuminated streets. The hotel was quite far, but finally we could find it. I was starting to join the pieces and to place myself into the city, but I was still very lost. Once inside the hotel, we picked up our suitcases from the room were we had left them and we went to reception to wait for the keys of our rooms. We had to sign some documents and we received two cards per room (one card per room) which were the keys. Then, we went to the lift in order to find our room. The hotel had more than seven floors and we were in the number six.

The room was the number 630 and it was quite welcoming. There was a small bathroom (Even though, it was bigger than the bathroom of the hotel where we stayed when we went to Italy in 4th of ESO, where the shower was nearly on the toilet). There was also a small wardrobe in the corridor and, after that, there was the room. It had two beds with a bedside table (which contained a hardback edition of the Bible), a TV, a phone, two paintings stuck into the wall (there are many thieves at large), a radiator and a window. Some rooms had got other things like armchairs or a thing to iron the clothes, but it wasn’t our case. Moreover, there was a tray, with two glasses, tea, coffee, milk and a machine to heat that, but we didn’t use it. In the room and everywhere, indoors, the temperature was very high. That was unbearable and we had to open the window, in the depths of winter.

We had time to have a shower and to watch the TV after going to eat. We watched a program called “The Colour of Money”. It is a game show where there are some “machines”, each one with a colour and an unknown amount of money. The contestant must choose a colour (a machine), which starts counting from 0, and he must say “stop” before the machine exceeds the money that contains if he doesn’t want to lose. After ten machines, he must have won more than a sum of money if he wants to get it. It was quite good, a bit stressful. We saw two contestants: the first one won a lot of money but the second one returned home empty-handed.

The supper was good, very varied. In London, most of the dishes were cooked using butter instead of oil, which gives a different taste to food, and you can like it or you can hate it. Personally, I think that wasn’t bad. Luckily, there was some bread, butter and ketchup to fill up the stomach if you didn’t like anything.

We met in the hall, where there were some sofas, and we decided not to go anywhere that night because most of people were very tired. Then, we stayed into the hotel, waiting for the following day.

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LONDON (I)

Last 21th of February I went to London with some people of 2nd of Batxillerat (about 30 persons) and three teachers. I had never felt attracted to London, but I have to admit that I have enjoyed it a lot. One person said that you can like or you can dislike it, but that’s the way London is, and I think that’s so true. I didn’t know a lot of things about the place we were going to visit, but now I think I have got an idea of it.

We get in the bus to the airport of Girona at 4 am and the flight was at 6:20. We were a bit tired (well, some people more than others) and I slept most of the journey. Even so, I sit near the window of the plane to see the landscape. When I woke up, we already were in England. After getting out of the plane, I realized we were in the UK: The signs were in English, the floor was carpeted and the door of the bus was at the left side. I couldn’t sleep during the journey to the hotel (we were in Stansted and we had to go to London), I was amazed: the bus and all of the vehicles drove on the left (there was a billboard in the exit of the airport for the daydreaming), the steering wheel of cars was at the left (at first, if you aren’t used to that, it seems like if the car has no driver), the buildings had something “special” and each billboard or shop sign was interesting.

One of the first things I saw in London was the Big Red Bus. It’s important for me because the first English book I had was called “Big Red Bus”, and I still remember the song “Bus, bus, bus, super bus. Big, big, big, big red bus...”. All of the buses have a number, and I thought it was the number of the bus, but I saw three buses with the same number, which means the line of the bus, and I have to say that London is full of buses. There is one each five minutes! Here, in my town, two buses in one hour is a lot.

We arrived at the hotel approximately at 9:30 am. At first, we had to stay in the Royal National, but there had been a last-minute change and we went to the Tavistock hotel. I think the change was good because with this hotel we had the “English breakfast” included, and it was one of the things of London that I was wishing to try. But let's not cross the bridge before we come to it.

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Crysis effects

We have lost another match. Today we have gone to Vic, more than one hour going and the same time coming. I don’t know what’s happened, but everything has gone bad. I’ve forgotten my handball trainers at home, the ball didn’t enter into the goal, some players were injured, some had a bad day and the referee has not been very sharp. I don’t know our position in the ranking after that, but surely it’s not a good position compared with the beginning of the league.

It was being the best start we had ever done, winning all the matches, it was like a dream. Then, we drew one match that we had started winning with nine points of average. We were in the first position of the championship, drawn with the second team, but we had got a better goal average. I don’t know why, we started being draw to a crisis. We lost most of the following matches, we fall in the ranking and I felt it was like the last year, when we were in a league playing against players older than us and we lost a lot of matches. Now, we are in the second round, it means that we have played with all of the teams of the league and we are going to play against them one more time: if we have played at home, we will go to their sports hall and, if we have gone there, now they will come here.

We have won some matches again, but it’s not like before. Last week we won, today we have lost and nobody knows what will happen next week. I think we are going to play at home, and I hope we will win. We can’t finish in the first position of the ranking because the leaders are very far from us (I have to mention that they haven’t lost a match this year and they have only drawn two times, always against us), but we can still finish in a good position.

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Willing to drive

One of the things that I’ve always desired is the driving license. Cars are one of my weaknesses and I am dying to drive one. Maybe it is the only reason why I want to be 18 years old. Last year, when I knew I could start getting the driving license, I didn’t doubt and I did it. The exam consists of two parts: the theoretical part and the practical part. The first one can be done if you are sixteen and the second one requires eighteen years old (although that’s not necessary for the practices before the exam).

It was summer, I had finished the first year of Batxillerat and I had two free weeks before start working. I went to the driving school and they told me that, if I wanted to pass the first exam in two weeks I had to “live” in the driving school. And that’s what I did: I went there nearly every day, from the first hour of the morning until the afternoon (taking some breaks, of course), doing more and more tests. And I passed the exam. It consists of 30 questions with three possible answers (A, B or C) and you can’t do more than three mistakes. I had two (I didn’t know if a novice driver can put curtains in the backside of the car...). After that, I had planned to start the practices this year in Holy Week, but I have a lot of work in the school and I think I’ll wait until summer. I don't like this idea, but I’ll have to renounce to do the exam the day of my birthday. Deep down that's not very serious because, if I can, I’ll have it sooner or later.

Another problem that I have is the car. I want to have a car only for me, but I think I’ll have to wait because my parents won’t buy me one and I don’t have enough money to buy it (and to maintain it!). Also, the insurance tends to be very expensive for new drivers. I’ll probably use the old Renault Clio (which is as old as me) of my mother because I don’t want the Seat Córdoba of my father, I think it is quite long. But as fast as I can, I will get my own car. Maybe it will be a second hand car, but for me is enough. If I lived in a city like London or Barcelona, I wouldn’t need it but, here, public transport isn’t very good and to have a car is almost indispensable.

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1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,...,17,18!

This is the year of number 18. Now, people in class are becoming of age, one after another. Normally, a birthday is an important fact, but I think that the 18th birthday is one of the most special dates in the life of a person. It’s the day when somebody becomes an adult, maybe not in a psychologically way but officially (for good things and for bad things). You get more rights, more freedom, but you also have more duties and, if you commit a crime, for example, you can go to prison.

Thinking about it thoroughly, time has past very fast. I have always wanted to be off age, but I didn’t know that this moment was going to arrive now. Well, I still have to wait some time until May, but I’m sure that months will go very quickly. There’s a difference between those who are born at the beginning of the year or at the end. It must be difficult to wait and see how some people already are eighteen and you must wait one year. I don't have this problem because I was born “in the middle”, and I like it because the wait isn’t very long.

Some persons that are 18 say that there it isn’t a big change. Maybe it’s true, surely the day of my 18th birthday I’ll do the same things I did before: I’ll continue living at home with my parents, I won’t have the driving license yet (I think I’ll have to wait some days) and I won’t go to buy cigarettes, which is another thing that an adult can do.
Anyway, I’m not in a rush to be of age, I’ll enjoy my 17 years as much as I can and I’ll continue watching how time passes, how things change unrelentingly.

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By candlelight

Imagine the world without electricity. No energy to run our computers, to light our rooms, to watch the TV. Maybe with the daylight we can think that we could bear this situation, but it’s not the same at night, when the blue sky changes turns dark. I know we could use candles or make fire but, have you tried to read or to write with the light of a candle? It’s completely different than the pure and shining light of a bulb.

Music is another problem. What would we do in this case? Yes, an MP3 player has got enough battery for some hours but, without electricity, a gadget becomes a very nice paperweight. Maybe to sing or to play an instrument would be a solution.

This hasn’t been a tale and I’m not talking about the Middle Ages. This is the XXI Century and there isn’t electricity in my town. My computer has turned off and the lights have switched off.

Of course, I’m not using a candle light to see what I’m writing, but the light of a torch is not the best I’ve ever seen. I’m sure that electricity won’t take a lot of time to come again. Then, I’ll be able to turn on my PC again and the battery of the MP3 player won’t go flat. But it’s a fact that makes me reflect. What would happen if electricity disappeared without a date of return? The panic would spread or maybe we would accept that, to live like our ancestors did, but with more experience. Perhaps we would change to the habit of listening real music, talking with people directly, etc.

The question I want to make is: Has electricity come here to stay?

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TDR

Today I’ve finally bound my research work! I think I have never talked about it here. I started it last year (well, like everybody does in Batxillerat) and after the summer, Christmas Holydays and January, it is already finished.

The topic of my work is basically hydrogen (against petroleum) and that’s why I put the “Oil clock” in this blog, because after doing this project I am aware of the huge problem which is petroleum.

We have to give it on Thursday, the 5th of February, and we have until 18:00. I still remember when I started Batxillerat and teachers said “You have to do it in summer” and they repeated it almost every day. Now, as usual, it hasn’t been finished until the last week.

I think it’s one of the two worst nightmares we will have this year in 2nd of Batxillerat. The other one, of course, is the Selectivitat, also called PAU or university entrance examinations. Now, the first one is, more or less, over, and it’s time to face the second one.

I say “more or less” because it hasn’t finished yet. The 18th of February is the day of the oral presentations, in other words, we have to explain our work in 15 minutes in front of a jury made up of three people that will evaluate the works. This year there have been many works and there’ll be more turns than last year, but now I don’t remember how many turns there are because I am in the first one, between 3:15 and 4:00. Some people say it’s good, because when you finish it you are calm while other people are still nervous. Maybe it’s true... but I won’t believe it until I watch it.

The first picture of this post is one of the images I haven’t been able to put in my work. It’s liquid hydrogen in a bubble chamber. And here I put another one that I think is very interesting but the resolution is a bit low. It shows what happens when a car filled with hydrogen or gasoline burns. If you didn’t know, the first one is the hydrogen car, and the other car contains gasoline.

Do you still think hydrogen isn’t safe?

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