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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