Talking about photos

Here's a fun way to practise your speaking skills and get you ready for the speaking part of the Advanced exam.

• Go to FlickrStorm
• Choose a subject and write it in the box provided
• Click on advanced and select the Creative Commons option
• Click on search
• Create a folder with your name in the LovingBilbao folder
• Select and download 2 of the photos to your folder
• Go to VoiceThread
• Log in with the login I'll give you
• Click on Create
• Click on Upload and upload the photos you chose
• Give each photo a title and a description
• Click on Comment and record yourself talking about why you chose the photos and what you think about them
• Click on To Go
• Click on Share and choose the option Public no comments
• Copy the code from Put a small version on your site or blog
• Create a new post on the blog and paste the code (in the Edit Html tab) - don't forget to give your posting a title!

I have always lived in Bilbao; since I was born...a very long time ago!!
Bilbao its a great big city situated in the north of spainbetween San Sebastian and Santander.

Its got lots of things to do like visiting the great, succesful, big and modern Guggenheim Museum with its new instalations ubicated in the center of this lovely city.(you can see a modern view un the picture of the left).

In these wonderful village there are also some

special and tipycal basque food. the most famous and inernational example of this "delicatesen" is the cod. This kind of fish is used to prepare many dishes. You can make a soft "bacalao al pil-pil" (pi-pil cod) witch is done with a special sauce that makes it delicious. Another way to prepare this comun sea-food is making a "bacalao a la vizcaina" (biscayan cod).

Anyway, we have got exotics "pinchos" (small portions) that marks the difference from other spanish citys. All the turist get surprised when they see lots of smal-portions in any pubs`bar. (you can look in this picture many different kinds of these wonderful food).

Another advantage of thic Cantabrian exotic place is that we have got, as many diferent citys all over the world, a football and a basketball team.

Talking about our basque football team its name is "Athletic" and they play in San Mames stadium. Its nown for its huge space. Bilbaos`s colour is known to be red and white because this team is represented by those colours.

If we talk about our complete succesful basquetball team called "Bilbao Basket"

Check out the news

Go to the BBC's Video and Audio news and check out one or 2 of the stories that interest you then make an oral posting (click on Vaestro) about what you've found out.

Meditation: an easy solution

To start writing about the meditation topic, first of all we had to do a little research about David Lynch. For those who hasn’t watched any films or has never watched read any article about him (that’s my case), here you have a little summary made by me with the information from Wikipedia:

“Not everybody knows David because of his films, he is also well-known because for his paintings or his photo galleries. Maybe some of you can remember his latest film “INLAND EMPIRE” or the now old fashioned “Lost Highway” and “Twin Peaks” (TV series and a film). All those films are created to make the audience think about it. Most of them are little descriptions of different American states, but all of them are made with his personal style. That’s why some of his films are well-known all over the world and the reason for his wealth.”

As you can see he has already had a long life so that he has made a lot of things but now he wants to do more. That’s why he has created the David Lynch Foundation. This foundation helps students having a more relaxed and calm life. For that, this foundation tries to help them in different ways; one of them is the film he has watched: meditating at school.

I think meditating at school should be imposed in schools. As those students have said their lives have changed a lot, we should also be able to have the same benefits. Having time to meditate would help me to relax a bit and to forget everything related to school. Because of that we will get better marks and not being stressed. I also read some articles from the same website and they are all related to this topic: stress, depression…

To sum up, I think this would be a perfect solution for the problems of a lot of people so our government should try to test this method in some schools and see what happens.

BiLbAo!!!

Bilbao is my home town. I have lived here since i was born. I think that´s a beautiful town, so i think i´m not going to move from here.
Bilbao is a place where you can´t get bored.

There are plenty of things to do, for example visit the famous Guggenheim museum or have a good lunch at the famous basque restaurants or go shopping, but there are also other choices.





Sport is also an important thing for Bilbao. Atlhetic is the city football team an it has a special caracteristic; all of the players have either to be born in the Basque country or have basque family. Although the team isn´t very good, several years ago it was the best team of Europe.
















On the other hand, the city center called Moyua is also important because there is the shopping area. The most known street of Bilbao is the Gran Via where you can find lots of famous shops, for example, pepe jeans or zara. Zubiarte is also another place where you can go to spend time. Apart from the shops there is also a big cinema and plenty of restaurants where you can eat everything you want. I like zubiarte very much because it´s not very far away from i live, and is an alternaive to go when the weather isn´t very good.


But if you don´t like the city you also have the countryside. Near Bilbao you can find the coast or the mountains. The underground is a good way of public transport to go there because you can find the beaches next to the stations. But if you prefer the mountains gorbea is a good choice too see the wonderful landscape the basque country has.

I hope this information help you to find Bilbao as beautiful as I find it.

Bilbao, my hometown

I was born in Bilbao and I still live here so I'm going to speak about one part which I really like and know very well : the old town.


The old town or "Casco Viejo" is one of the most special part of Bilbao because it is the oldest place. We can say that it is the heart of Bilbao and one of the most lively and beautiful places to visit.


There, we can find different shops, historical monuments, some old churches and a cathedral, many charming squares like the "Plaza Nueva" or "Unamuno", and a lot of bars and restaurants. All this, make this place one of the most popular areas of the city.


The "Plaza Nueva", was built in the nineteenth century. It's a neoclassical square and was opened in 1851. It is one of the most interesting and well-known place too.


There is also a very important theatre in the old town called th

e Arriaga. The Arriaga theatre was built in 1799 and rebuilt in 1986, the place where the main plays and events take place, there you can see theatre, ballet, and many other shows.


However, if you don't want to visit museums, theatres, monuments or churches, you can visit some other places like beaches or mountains in the surroundings of the town which are really beautiful and interesting like for example Urdaibai beaches or the highest mountain in Bizkaia: Gorbea.


In Bilbao you will find a great variety of places with different atmospheres.


I think I have mentioned the main interesting places to visit in the old town and surroundings, and I hope it will help you to know my hometown better.

BILBAO

I´m going to write about Bilbao because I have been living in Bilbao for all my life and I considerate my hometown. In this writing of Bilbao I´m going to say positive and negative things of bilbao because it isn´t as perfect as I want.

In bilbao you can do many things, for example going to zubiarte, to the cinema or going by bike by the bicycle´s road. In bilbao there are so many places too. You can visit moyua´s square, the Guggenheim´s museum or you can go to the old quarters at night.



Bilbao is very attractive to many tourists because bilbao has mountains and beaches whereas in other cities of Spain doesn´t happened like in Bilbao, so this can be an adventage to live in bilbao.

At first sight, Bilbao is marbellous and beautiful; however, all the beautiful buildings are in only one part of the city. Bilbao is very clean and there isn´t so much pollution as Barcelona or Madrid.

People of Bilbao use a lot the public transport because is very fast. I think the underground is very useful in these days and it doesn´t pollute. on the other hand, there is the bus but is slowlier. Also we have the tram but I don´t use it a lot.

Meditate at school?

Watch this video which reports on a school where students are given time to mediate.

• Would you like to be given time to meditate in class? If you would, how do you think it would help you? If you wouldn't, why not?
• Look at 1 or 2 of the other sections of the David Lynch Foundation web site, what do you think are its aims?
• What do you know about the film maker David Lynch? If you don't know anything do a search on him. Have you seen any of his films or TV programmes? Did you like them?

Write a comment or a posting answering the questions.

Bilbao*

Well, as lots of people here my hometown is Bilbao.
This city is very famous for its museum but not just for that:

·It also has national artist like Fito & Fitipaldis. This group has

created lots of popular songs all around Spain like "Soldadito marinero" or "Por la boca vive el pez" and he's one of the most famous basque singers here. The main singer, Fito, lives in the centre of Bilbao and so I've seen him a few times where I live. He seems a normal man with his family and his guitar always on his back and I like most of his songs because of what they say.

·Bilbao is famous for his football team too but it isn't very good :)
San Mames is usually open on Sundays when the Athletic Club of Bilbao plays versus another team. When Athletic plays versus Real Sociedad there are always people shouting and fighting in the underground or while they are going to the football pitch so it's better not to go to that football match if that's possible. In my opinion, at the moment the Athletic Club of Bilbao is one of the worst football teams in Spain but thirty years ago more or less they were national champions.

Zubiarte is the best shopping centre in Bilbao. There you can find a lot of shops that are famous all around the world from the cheapest to the most expensive brands and it's one of my favourite places in this city because you can also go with your friends to the cinema or pick up something to eat at its cafetteries (McDonalds, Burger King, Asiatic Restaurant, Krunch...)

In fact, you can find all that you need there and so I remind you to visit that building while you're visiting my city.

I hope this information has helped you to know my hometown better and made you want to come soon!!