Long time no see!!

Hello people! I haven't had so much time to write on here lately and I didn't know what to write about! But today I just forced myself to write something  and I've decided to write about my city! Madrid! It's impossible to write everything about Madrid in just one post so maybe I make a couple of posts about this beautiful city hehe.

Madrid as you all know is the capital of Spain and it has 3.3 million population approximately. I would like to start with my favourite part of the city: Madrid of the Habsburgs which is a name used for the old centre of Madrid built during the reign of the Habsburg Dynasty.

This is the "Plaza Mayor" (Main Square) where in Christmas is full of shops and you can buy a lot of Christmas' things

  

Now we're going to Puerta del Sol, it is the very centre of the city and here on New Year's Eve, the bell that it is right above the clock gives 12 chimes before 12 o'clock and with each chime we eat 12 grapes...It is believed that if you don't eat the 12 grapes you will have bad luck thee whole year so be sure to prepare for eating 12 grapes in 12 seconds if you spend New Year's Eve in Spain!

I would like to show you my favourite street of the city... Gran Vía. In the mid 19th century, Madrid's urban planners decided that a new thoroughfare had to be created, connecting the Calle de Alcalá with the Plaza de España. It is called "The Spanish Broadway" you can find lots of theatres with musicals and lots of shops (my favourite part hehe). There are also many restaurants with tables on the street so you can enjoy a spanish meal in one of the most important streets of the city.

I think it's time to have a rest and breathe some fresh air, so we might go to "Parque del Retiro" the biggest park in the city. It actually was the old backyard of the Royal Palace which is now a museum and the current royal palace is in another place.. The thing is that in this park you can find a lake where you can hire a boat, a palace made of glass, little cafes to have a drink....

The Lake

The Palace made of Glass

To finish our day in Madrid. I will take you to see the most beautiful sunset you've ever seen. We're going to an Egyptian Temple and see all the city from the top of it. As a sign of gratitude for the help provided by Spain in saving the temples of Abu Simbel, the Egyptian state donated the temple of Debod to Spain in 1968.

I hope you like my post! There are many more things to see in Madrid. I will post them in the following entries!

XOXO

Idioms

Hello peeps!! Here I am again letting you to get to know me a little bit more, although I think you already know me pretty well thanks to our crazy chats/conversations...

The last two weeks have been a bit hectic, yes I know, I always say that I'm busy but the worst thing of it, it is that is true!. I started university, German lessons... but today I am going to tell you about my English lessons in the British Council. I was pretty excited the first day and it went really good! I found out that my teacher was from Birmingham (England) (from a town near Birmingham, but I don't remember the name, it was long and weird haha) so he has a challenging accent for me, but I have to say that I do understand him, at least when he speaks in class... and I also realised that I felt more comfortable talking in English in class, last year I used to look down and try to not be asked in the whole class and the other day I was looking forward that the teacher ask me something to speak in class!! Believe it or not, I am shy... haha and when I finally had to speak we were acting out like if we were on a court and I had to accuse the most handsome boy in the class of breaking out in his neighbour's house, because I was the lawyer.... but that's another story... haha

The last class was about idioms, we saw some of them, all of them were new to me. David asked me in a comment, what was the most difficult thing when learning English for me... well I think it's idioms hehe. I want to take advantage of the blog and I will try to make a sentence with each one ok? Because I have always learnt things by memory but a friend of mine told me once that it is better when you learn a language using it and having fun, so I want to try this new method haha. You know who you are ;-)

tie the knot -  It's very difficult to find a boy that wants to tie the knot with you nowadays
cast my net - I think it's better to cast my net somewhere else, because with this boy is not working
bolt from the blue - The call from my mother was a bolt from the blue for me, I didn't expect it
time on my hands - I don't have a lot of time on my hands right now
calling the tune - can you give me an example of this one? haha I know that it means that something is up to me but I don't really know how to use it
carrying a torch for - I have always carried a torch for Nick Carter
roll up your sleeves - When my friend told me that he had a problem, I rolled up my sleeves and start working on how I could solve the situation
at death's door - I pretended to be at death's door and not going to work
give someone the cold shoulder - My friend gave me the cold shoulder when I told her about my problems
get a grip - I was out of control and my friend helped me to get a grip on my life

I feel like I have all of them wrong! haha

As always you are invited to comment (which means you are obliged to haha) but now you will also have homework, on your comment you have to leave me a new idiom ok? It can be colloquial, slang... whatever that comes first to your mind... I will take that risk haha.

XOXO

University

Hello my english speakers friends! I know you were missing me but I have been pretty busy lately. My favourite season of the year has ended: Summer and September is a month for getting back to the routine. The first week of the month was very hectic, I had to do the enrollments for University, British Council and The Official School of Languages where I study German. Fortunately I have passed the German exam and next year I am going to the 5th year! I can't believe it, honestly I don't think that I have that level, but maybe my German friend is right and I know more than I think...

Regarding the British Council, I am really looking forward to it because I have a lot of fun there, I study my favourite language and I want to see how my teacher reacts when he sees how much I have improved this summer haha.

But I came here to talk about University, this year I am going to do the second year of my degree and taking into account that the first one was really tough, I am scared about the second... I study at UNED which is the National Distance University here in Spain, that means that I study from home, so that is a drawback, moreover you have to study a lot more than in the rest of universities and the level is much higher... Last year I had problems with two subjects:

1. History: But it wasn't my fault, I promise, it was because the book was in English with parts copied from Wikipedia and with very big mistakes that sometimes made it too hard to understand, so all the students complained and this year they have made a 2nd edition of the book without the mistakes... but I gave up and I'll try to enroll for that subject again but not this year, I'm still angry with it haha.

2. Literature: I made a lot of effort to pass it but there was too much to study, all in English... and although I did pretty well the June exam I got a 4/10 just because in one question I made an introduction of two lines and they told me that I mislead the answer because I didn't know what to answer, I complained butnothing happened....

Taking all this into account, I am a bit frightened about this year, on the one hand I know how the university works, I am used to study from home, I know how the exams are... on the other hand, I have two subjects of Literature. I will try to be more organised and try and study from the begining of the year.

I took a photo of my new books, there are more to come but I have these for now...

Now, as always you have to leave me a comment! hehe you can tell me whether you like Literature or not, what have you studied about Literature or whatever you want to tell me!

XOXO

Music!

How are you my bloggers? Thank you for your comments!! and thank you to the ones that I know they have read it but are too shy to comment me haha. When someone writes something is because he/she needs to tell something and that something needs to be read so I really appreciate your comments and corrections.


I will definately work on the questions that David posted on his comment but today I wanted to write about a very important part of my life: Music. It is a very important part of my life because of two things I could not live without it and because it has really helped me with English, I have learnt a lot of vocabulary, expressions and pronunciation!

So, answering to one of David's questions, if you are learning a foreign language, I will totally recommend you to listen to music in that language. I can recommend you spanish music although I hardly ever listen to it haha.


When I meet someone new, one of my first questions is "what kind of music do you like?" because I think that you can know a lot about the personality of someone because of the music they listen to. I don't like labeling people... actually I like Backstreet Boys (I should write a post about it, I know them personally, and I have a lot of funny anecdotes) so I don't like to be labeled because of that but I think you all agree that if I like BSB you can have a guess in the rest of the music that I like or even some things about my personality... There are exceptions but most of the times I am right in guessing the type of music that a person likes....

What else can I say about music? well, it can remind you to a person, an important moment of your life.... There is something in it. I am sure you all have cried with a song or have had the urge of starting to dance.

So, now what you were expecting... I am going to put some stuff that I like:










and....




I am keen on reading your opinions about it and knowing more about your musical taste ;)


XOXO

Welcome to my blog!

This is something that I have always wanted to do because I love writing and I love English but I have never had the enough courage or motivation to do it. I tend to write in a philosophical/ironic way in Spanish... and I will try to do the same in English, but it is harder hehe.

So, why now? well, this summer it has been really good for me in so many ways that you will find out in the following entries, but there is something that has really marked my summer: I have spoken more English than in my whole life! because I found a couple of websites for exchanging languages and I have to say I found really nice people, I had a lot of fun speaking with them and I learnt a lot, so maybe it was that what I needed to remember the reasons why I wanted to learn English and make it funny because we spend most of the time of our lifes dragged by the routine and forget about the important things....

Well, I don't want to bore you in my first entry! So the aims of this blog are: first, to practice english and second being corrected so, I will really appreciate your comments and corrections. Feel free to comment!!!

Last but no least, I want to tell you that lately, I have been lacking of imagination to write... haha so I will also aprreciate if you give me ideas or topics to write about. Maybe you can ask me a question of what I think about a topic and I will write a post about it ok?

XOXO