Wednesday, 25 February 2015

You will love New York

New York is a very attractive and enormous city. It is considered to be the capital of the world and when you visit the city you realize why people say that. It is very impressive for people that live in small cities because it doesn’t matter where you are that you can see hundreds of skyscrapers. That is what I thought when I arrived the city. I am going to tell you some places that caught my attention when I visited the city. 


Central Park is a calm place inside the crowded, busy city. It’s very big. It takes one hour to cross it from side to side. In the park you can watch people playing basketball and baseball which are very common sports in the USA. 

The Statue of Liberty is not in the city. It is in the middle of an island. You need to take a boat to reach to the island. Inside the statue there are very long stairs which you can use to reach to the crown of the statue which is the tallest part. 

If you Times Square you will be amazed. 1 million people go to this square to celebrate the New Year. It is full of big screens showing advertisements and a lot of colored lights.


And finally, the last place I´m going to talk about is the Empire State building. It is an incredible building which is more than 300 meters tall. It has more than 100 floors and you can take an elevator which takes you to the top in less than one minute. When you are at the top you can see all of the island of Manhattan. It is a magic place.

Wednesday, 11 February 2015

Hipsters

Hi guys! Have you ever heard of the word hipster, well, you will probably have an small idea of what it is, you will have in mind those typical boys wearing big glasses, long beards, always hearing music with his i-phone while they drink Starbucks coffee. Okay, so this urban culture is now becoming very very popular amongst the young.

The word hipster first appeared a long time ago in the 20th century within the jazz music; this urban culture has a great relationship with the hippies and the indies. The hipsters is an extended group mostly in cities like New York, Chicago or San Francisco.

They are mostly intellectuals that show independent  thoughts and have a special attraction to the artistic world, they love independent cinema and unknown music bands (that probably nobody has never heard) mostly alternative rock. They are always trying to be original and different than everything, refusing the local brands and shops, interested in ecology, freedom and living in his own world. In conclusion, their principal hobbies are cinema; music, arts, photography, travelling and showing their opinions on social networks.


Now I´am going to talk about their estetic; their form of dressing don’t follow an specific line, they wear reuse or vintage clothes they find in retro stores and t- shirts with messages, symbols, animals,or of some music group.  Hipsters don’t wear any make up because they are in favour of natural beauty, moreover, they don’t even brush their hair because they refuse any type of  artifices.(something I like).

In my personal opinion, nowadays there are too many hipsters, or mainly people that want to be like them pretending to be something they are not, so its not really an original or different culture. It is also a great  irony to say they don’t follow any type of fashion when they really are the fashion.

Wednesday, 4 February 2015

Reading: paper…or e-book?

It is well known that technology has changed our lives and, in most of the cases, for better. But... has it helped in matters of education? Let’s start! 

With the advancements of phones and tablets, ebooks have become a popular reading standard. Still, some people argue that there's something about the feeling of an old-fashioned paper book. 

So... starting with the advantages of electronic books we find that they are more accessible and portable than traditional books, allowing you to carry your whole library everywhere.


However, as many others say, and this is something I support, the kind of format depends on the kind of book. Probably you won’t mind reading a certain novel on a screen, but, when it comes to some series that you like, you may prefer (as I do) a normal paper book of which from my point of view, is easier and more comfortable to read.

In terms of reading, this may not seem important, but I’m one of those people who feel the weight and touch of a book is a hard opponent for a screen. 

On the one hand, ebooks help us to save money and resources, reducing the amount of trees which are cut for us to enjoy a simple book. However, on the other hand, due to the facilities we enjoy nowadays for downloading new books, publishing companies are being damaged both in terms of economics and prestige. With more and more people moving to ebooks and more and more editorials being closed, the decision is yours, screen...or paper?