Thanksgiving 2013: What to Know About Turkey Day

Thanksgiving 2013: What to Know About Turkey Day

Phrasal Verbs...

Hi again,

Phrasal Verbs... What are they??? They're really important in English! Really, really important! Wikipedia gives a good explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrasal_verb

Anyway, if you want to be proficient in English, I recommend you try to practice using a few phrasal verbs everyday so that you feel comfortable using them and you understand them when you hear them.

Here's a good book:


Anyway, don't forget to practice your phrasal verbs!

Wow! It's been a while since I last wrote on my blog with the summer weather and all!

If you like cycling and/or walking, I'd like to recommend the Canal de Garonne! You can see the distance I cycled from outside of Bordeaux to Toulouse on the map below:

It gets pretty hot in the summertime, so you're thankful of whatever shade you get from trees.

If you so choose, you can continue to the Mediterranean on the Canal du Midi (although I understand the road isn't paved the way the Canal de Garonne is). If you like mountain biking without steep slopes, I'm sure you'll enjoy this portion!

Anyway, these two links will help you on your way:

http://www.freewheelingfrance.com/where-to-go/cycling-the-canal-de-garonne-from-bordeaux-to-toulouse.html

http://www.freewheelingfrance.com/where-to-go/cycling-the-canal-du-midi-from-toulouse-to-sete.html

Hope you enjoyed St. John's Eve! If you're now wondering how to keep practicing your language skills through this summer season, here are some links:

For English Learners who want to practice their listening comprehension skills:

http://www.ted.com/talks

If you find it difficult, you can follow along with the transcripts!

If you want to do some summer reading for free, go to:

http://www.gutenberg.org/

You can then go to the Top 100 Books and Authors, look for Audio Books or go to the most popular book at Most Downloaded Books.

As far as news, http://www.euronews.com/ is a good option. You can practice your listening comprehension skills and there are also transcripts.

Then for Spanish news in English, you have http://elpais.com/elpais/inenglish.html

If you want to practice your Spanish, here are a list of online newspapers that will keep you busy: http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/spain.htm

And to practice your French, just click here: http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/france.htm

And for German, click here: http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/germany.htm

Enjoy the summer!!

Wow! Time flies, doesn't it? The summer solstice is fast approaching! Take a look at what it's about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_solstice. Time to enjoy the weather and long days! Practice your favorite outdoor sports and activities! This is it! The southern hemisphere would like to have it this good right now and some of us would love to be in the southern hemisphere come wintertime, so enjoy!

I went out for a bike ride the other day and discovered that the bridge I told you about the other day was open! It actually wasn't too bad going up. I've been in much worse predicaments. Anyway, here's what it looks like from the top:

BCNWorld will be there soon! Enjoy the view!

Hey, have you heard the latest about a huge project they will be building in southern Catalunya come September, 2013?

It's called BCNWorld http://www.bcnworld.com/en/bcnworld/localizacion/.

I imagine some people in Salou, La Pineda, Vila-seca, Tarragona, Cambrils and even Barcelona are happy to hear about it. It's Eurovegas' alter ego and it's supposed to help generate a lot of jobs and bring in tourists, and stimulate the economy, etc. Who knows?

I cycle around there pretty often and it's a lot different than when I started cycling there just a few years ago. It used to be like you were on a mountain bike trail. Now check below how it's changed. You can see some of the terrain where BCNWorld will be on the right-hand side of the picture.

I guess gamblers will be happy and tourists who want something to do or somewhere to go after going to the beach.

They've even made this special bridge for cyclists (It's not open yet- looks pretty steep going up! (gulp...). It goes from Vila-Seca to connect with the biking lane you see in the first picture that takes you to the beach. Anyway, it seems this is all infrastructure for (you guessed it) BCNWorld!

Hope it's good for people or something...

Before I forget to mention, are you looking for ways to practice your English (at present, most of the courses I'm talking about are in English), Spanish, or French (there will probably be other languages as more and more universities join in)?

There's this great education explosion going on in the net! It's called MOOC, short for Massive Open Online Course. It's a lot of fun if you enjoy learning. There are all sorts of university courses in a wide variety of fields, things you wanted to study but never got the chance, and it's FREE!

My favorite is https://www.coursera.org. Universities from all around the world are churning out some really interesting courses you can easily sign up for and learn to your heart's content! They already have courses programmed 'til November 2014! You can take courses in music, art, philosophy, history, economics, computers, and even statistical molecular thermodynamics. And if you don't find enough courses, you can go to https://www.edx.org and https://www.udacity.com and sign up for more!

Some courses have over 60 or 70 thousand students from around the world and you can give your perspective on things in forums and local Meetups. Your language skills don't have to be perfect. It's all for the fun of learning. So check it out!

Internet's great! You can become a writer with the click of a key! How times have changed! I remember back when a typewriter was just the first step (or second step if you first made a handwritten draft, so that you didn't make so many mistakes while typewriting) to writing anything- even a short letter to someone.

Anyway, this blog will necessarily be about words, since that's what I'm typing, but apart from that, I'd like to share things about Barcelona and biking here and in other parts of Spain and Europe for those who are aficionados to traveling and enjoying the outdoors. 

To begin with, I really enjoy cycling and exploring the places that cycling makes possible. Barcelona is a great city to explore on a bike and you can cycle through it on biking trails from one end of the city to the other. If you stay in the lower elevations of the city, it's pretty flat.

The best routes are Diagonal from Pedralbes all the way to the Forum and the bike lane that starts in Hospitalet and winds its way to either Avinguda Badal, Gran Via to Parallel or Gran Via all the way to the Forum! I shouldn't leave out Josep Tarradelles's bike lane to Estació Sants and Comte d'Urgell to Diagonal (one of my favorites). Apart from this, there's everybody's favorite: the beach lane! You can cycle while you look at the beautiful blues of the Mediterranean and stop off for a drink to quench your thirst.

Well, I hope to include some photos of interesting sites I see on my bike journey! Bike safely!