My last four-day trip to Bremen and Hamburgh

Have you ever heard about “The musicians of Bremen”? I  am sure you have. It’s a very popular tale written by Jacob Grimm.

And what has a tale to do with this English course? –Nothing at least related to extra work or something like that. Then, why do I bring this subject up? Well, I just want to tell you, using  this twisting beginning, what I did the last four-day weekend  since  I was in the German old city of Bremen which gives its name to the tale. I went there to see my daughter who is living in this city now. As the means of transport are good and the distance is short, I went to the nearby city of  Hamburgh  as well. I will show you some photos of both cities.

In this first photo, you can see one of the many channels that Hamburg has. I took the picture because the water we see  in the foreground was still partially  frozen. Two weeks before I go there, the water of channels, rivers and lakes was completely frozen and people could skate on the iced lakes. Temperatures reached -15 degrees centigrade.

In this other picture, the sun is fighting against thick dark clouds that threaten us  to pour with water. The sun won at the end and umbrellas were not necessary.

At the foreground, the small lake. The city centre and shopping area is located in the lake shore and  behing the buildings around the lake.

This is a photo of Hamburg port on the fish market day - Sunday. The market is opened from 5 am to 10 am. As you see, the place is crowded with  people.That morning, people doing their shopping mixed with “little drunk” youngs and not so youngs who after a crazy Saturday night had not gone to bed yet.

Do you guess what I had for breakfast that morning? A glass of orange juice and a sandwich of lettuce, tomato and  marinade herring. Uhmm, delicious!

Here it is the musicians of Bremen’s bronze sculpture. If you go there, you will find it in the market square.

This is a beautiful night view of the market square. On the right, the beautiful  main facade of the town hall. It is one of the most important examples of Brick Gothic architecture in Europe. It dates from the sixteenth century. In July 2004, the building was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

This is one of the parks that Bremen has. The bare branches of the trees frame an old windmill.

It can´t be left out, of course, an image of the so called “biergarten”, in other words, large terraces plenty of tables and benches in the open “fresh” air, where the Germans usually hang out drinking their most famous beverage, the beer. Don’t surprise if there is nobody. It’s still early. Wait a while and despite the cold weather, you won’t find a  free seat. But that’s not a problem. They are used to shearing their tables with you or whoever else.

Embellishing and finishing a story

It was very early in the morning, earlier than usual for the retired Martin. After a whole life waking up before dawn he could now remain delightly in his comfortable warm bed until the sun had climbed high in the sky. But that night, the terrible depression he suffered from since he had been confined in an elderly people’s home, prevented him from a heavy refreshing sleep,  even though he had had the pills that the doctor had prescribed.  He woke up several times with a spine-chilling quiver which shrank still more his decrepit body and distressed soul. Never had he felt a so uncanny feeling. It must be the pills side effects- he thought. He put  awkwardly his dressing gown on and shambled to the window. He decided to wait the day light doing what calmed his anxiety down most, drawing. So, he sat  in his rocking chair and taking  his drawing book  he started to sketch something like a huge  tree and a boy. He always have drawn the same ladnscape since he has been there. It was like an obsession. A state of semiconscious crept into him letting his mind fly away with the sweet twitter of the blackbirds that nested in the garden of the old mansion, mainly all over the old oak which,  as an impressive long armed  giant, dominated the centre of the vast  terrace. Suddenly, there was silence, such a deep silence that Martin was affected. He saw himself coming into the picture and padding towards the old tree where a not older than ten year-old boy  was drawing. The scene was so puzzling that Martin rubbed his eyes. For a long time, he looked at the kid deeply concentrated in his picture. “Who are you? “-He asked the boy. But there was no answer. “Do you live here?”- he asked again. And again the silence was the reply. “It seems a beautiful picture”-Martin insisted. But the boy didn’t look away from the piece of paper as if he hadn´t noticed Martin’s presence. Martin approached him a little more and leaning over the picture, he could read what it seemed to be the little boy’s signature: “Martin”. Had  he streched his arm to touch the boy, when a sharp voice came him round into reality._ “Mr. Martin, come on. Let’s go into the house. You know  you mustn’t go out barefoot. You are going to get a terrible cold_”. He turned round to the nurse and silently shuffled into the house.

Hi friends,
Here you are a link to know more about Dickens and his birth city.
http://www.voanews.com/templates/widgetDisplay.html?id=138810264&player=article

My version of David Copperfield

David Copperfield Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night.

And to tell the truth, both predictions, unfortunately for me, became true. Hardly had I stuck my head out into this world when twelve strikes sent to my biological clock a signal. And my miserable life began right after this moment as if my life was predestined to be a race against myself.  When my eyes opened to life and my throat gave its first crying, my mother was lying in a rickety cot  placed in a dark corner of one of the two rooms that made up my home. The other room was a small kitchen with so little furniture that it seemed to be empty. It is worth mentioning  two of the objects that stood out from the rest, however: the wall clock and the wood  stove. If the first one marked my time for the rest of my life,  the second saved me from dying of cold.

Wrapped in old pieces of cloth,  my mother held me in her lap under the curious gaze of the neigbors who came in and out as if  I was the first child they had ever seen. That cold Friday night was literally pouring with rain and the floor of the house was getting covered with a thick layer of mud and water brought, little by little, stuck to the shoes soles and to the hem of the dresses of those nosy women. That was because the front and only door of my shabby house gave onto one of the narrow lanes that there were in that slum at the back of the shoe polish factory. My street was not asphalted as were not the most streets int the suburb, so it became an authentic mire in  rainy days like this.

Pilates Method

I am sure you all have heard about Pilates, haven´t you? Ok, but maybe you don´t know very much about this way of exercise the body, so here you have sites where you can find everything you want to learn. Well, if I bring this matter up is because the other day when we were at the sports centre doing yoga exercises I could find some similarity between both yoga and pilates. As a former pilates practitioner I want to tell you that is an excellent method to keep your body fit and helthy. You will probably wonder why I stopped doing it if I have this positive opinion about it? The answer is this course and all the time I  need to follow it. Nevertherless, as soon I have time, I will go back. I have no doubt.

Did you know that pilates was originally used as a rehabilitation programme for  prisioners of war?

http://pilates.about.com/od/whatispilates/a/WhatIsPilates.htm

http://www.lincolnpilatesmethod.com/

SPANISH CIVIL WAR

FOREWARD

When Emilio asked us to choose a historical event I decided to search for the Spanish Civil War. Why?

 There are several reasons that made me incline for this and not for another one. First, because it was an event that occurred  in our own country and  surely most of us have a grandfather or ancestor relative who could tell us about the horrors of what they could have lived in those years.

On the other hand, Spanish war was, from my point of view, the prelude of the World War II or in other words it was the battlefield of foreign political interests which taking advantage of the weak polirized structural situation didn´t hesitate to add more fuel to the fire in order to get  their goals.

In history nothing happens by chance; any historical moment is the consequence of one or many other moments  that happened before and in the same way, that  will be the cause, will be the seed for other future events that will come after. Thus, to understand the Spanish civil war (if a war had any sense) and to have a further perspective, I will go backward in time until the  end of XIX century.

PREVIOUS FACTS

The monarchical regime came to its end  with Isabel II and one of the most agitated period of the Spanish history began. The first  republic was established  and  since then a lot of events took place in a short period of time. On one hand, Spain  got involved in the Spanish-American war which resulted in the loss of its colonies in America, Cuba, Philippines. On the other hand, our country was constantly changing of government and the way that every one understood its policy. (We mustn´t forget that from the second half of the XIX century before the reign of  Isabell II  Spain started to split in two. From then, there were many confrontations between the supporters of an absolutist monarchy (carlistas) and those who wanted a more liberal monarchy. The seeds of hatred had been spread).Now, with the republic, new confrontations between those who were in favour of the republic and the ones who still supported the monarchy were rising. The state of social unrest was increasing until a military coup ended with the first republic and monarchy was newly established. It was the reign of Alfonso XII and later of his son Alfonso XIII.

After the premature death of Alfonso XII, Alfonso XIII assumed  power and soon he became very autocratic and was in constant conflicts with the Spanish politicians. During his reign there was a new military coup led by Primo de Rivera who had promised to reduce unemployment, to eliminate corruption and other improvements  that he never did. Finally he was forced to resign. Then, Alfonso XIII agreed to democratic elections and even to go into exile when Spanish people gave their overwhelming vote to republic.

The second republic was set up and with it a new period of power alternation began. The first election was won by the socialist party and other left-wing parties, which tried to introduce agrarian reforms and other changes in their policies which led them to have confrontations with the church.

Two years later, new elections gave the power to the right wing parties. Over the next two years, the new government demolished all the reforms that had been introduced by the preceding government. This situation led to a general  strike and armed rising in  Asturias. The primer minister of the first government  was accused of having encouraged the disturbances.

For the next elections in 1936,  a coalition of parties on the political left was established with the name of  Popular Front in order to advocate for the restoration of Catalan autonomy, amnesty for political prisoners, agrarian reform, among others. On the other hand, right wing parties formed the National Front. After the elections, a new government was formed with the victorious  members of the Popular Front. They immediately released all the left wing political  prisioners  and took several measures which not only upset the conservatives but they led the country to an economic crisis and consequently to a series of strikes.

THE WAR AND FOREIGN INTERVENTION

A group of Spanish army officers began plotting to overthrow the Popular Front as if they were the only way to re-establish the social order. This resulted in the outbreak of the civil war. During the war, withing the left wing parties some divergences began to appear as well. This conflicts between anarquists and communists led the city of Barcelona to what is known as de May Riots.

The country was polarized  and totally confused but  maybe  the war hadn´t been so cruel and violent if the foreign countries wouldn´t have taken part in it. Nevertheless, the fascist leaders Hitler and Mussolini saw it as an extraordinay occasion to broaden their power. The location of Spain was a strategic place to Hitler in order to control his French enemies at the same time as he had free way to pass to Portugal and Gibraltar. In the Spanish conflict the strategic interests of powers  intertwined with the ideologic commitment of the political currents at that moment.

 The intervention of the Italian forces and  the German Condor Legion sent by Hitler, supplied  the General Franco with  arms, military equipment, tanks, and squeadrons of bombers and floatplanes. This help was a crucial key to move the National troops from Africa to the peninsule and to take positions against the Popular Front army which was smaller in both soldiers and  military equipment.

Some time later, the Popular Front received the help of the International Brigades despite the agreement of non-intervention that most of the European countries had signed. That pact simply answered to particular political interests. The British conservatives weren´t willing to support a republican government  unless the base of Gibraltar fell in German hands; and France obeyed British orders. Even USA agreed with the neutrality law while oil companies sold fuel  to Franco’s troops. Stalin, becoming concerned that the Nationalists could defeat the Republicans, and thus, the right-wing governments in Europe could pose a serious threat to the security of the Soviet Union, he didn´t doubt in supplying the necessary military aid to stop the fascit regime in Spain.

Battle was bloody. Thousands of people die in both sectors. Some were executed, others were killed in bombing raids, others were the victims of murderers of rival political groups, others died due to malnutrition caused by the economic blockade and others die in concentration camps in the years that followed the war.

Consequencies were terrible.

CONSEQUENCES

1. The war first consequence was a demographic depletion. Apart from the deaths caused by bombings, shelling, assassinatios,  we must add the loss of population caused by starve and epidemic deseases and the decrease of births. In addition, a huge amount of young and active population among which the scientific, artistic and literary elites were, had to go to exile plunging the country even more into a deeper regression.

2. Another consequence was narrowly linked with economy. First, the industrial web was destroyed causing the  regression to an agrarian economy. Second, many buildings, roads, infrastructures were ruined and money was necessary to rebuild them again. Third, the foreign debt increased  and finally the Spanish Bank lost the gold stock in payment for the Soviet help that the republican government received during the war. The war was an economical catastrophe for our country.

3. War brought social changes as well. While landowners, financial and industrial powers recovered the economical dominance, the workers lost their adquired rights.

4. Apart from the previously mentioned consequences, war left a pronounced fracture within Spanish population which took several generations to restore. Franco never sought the Spaniards  reconciliation and the defetead were always persecuted and repressed.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the Spanish Civil War was the culmination of a prolonged period of national political unrest. Unrest in a country that was increasingly polarized and unable to ameliorate the conditions of terrible poverty in which millions of citizens lived. The Catholic Church, identifying more whith wealthy landowners than with the regular people, was in full control of education. Education for women seemed to them unnecessary and universal literacy  was for them a danger rather than a goal. The military, meanwhile, saw itself as the only bulwark against civil disorder and the guarantor of the core values of Spanish society.

Today, after more than seventy years, it is known that wounds are not totally cured. But that is all in the past and in the past m

              

               DON´T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN

Childhood memories

Last weekend, I was searching the Internet in order to get information about an historical event  when I came across these photos of our civil war.

They immediately caught my attention and I don´t know why,  I couldn´t help remembering my childhood,  fact that on the other hand, I consider strante taking into account that  fortunately, I hadn´t been born  yet when the civil war broke out. Nevertherless, the images made me bring to mind old memories. Although I didn’t exist when the war took place, now,  from the perspective that the distance in time gives, I can recognize that  almost thirty years later of the outbreak _ and then I was ten or eleven years old_  still there was a kind of  black shadow which remainded latent  not only in people’s mind or hearts but also in every corner of the own village.

In some way, the people in the photos were like the people I used to see in my chilhood.

I remember seeing most of the old women, dressed from head to feet in black or, it would be better to say in “deep black” because only  black is not enough to express the profound darkness they were sunk in. Black not only was the colour of their clothes but it was  the colour of their souls as well. The smile had dissapeared from their faces; their eyes, tired of crying the loss of a husband or what is worse, a son,  kept seeing without looking, with their sight lost in the distance, hanging off  their own memories.

Wounds of the past were not close yet.

Poverty could be seen everywhere as if the time hadn´t passed. Unpaved roads,  humble houses shared by persons and animals, large families subsinting on very basic food, mucky children with snots playing on the mud, are some of the flashes of this period of my life.We had no toys, nor television nor computer games, but our games were endless and our imagination did not have limits. My slide was the slope of a small bank; my mat was the straw of threshing; my balls pool was a barn full of wheat; my bowling alley was a hole on the ground; a rope was  the line to make friends and a bike...a bike was  the dream of any child.

Because my village was, and still is, a poor village; one of those which belongs to what we call rural Spain: hardened skin and noble of hearts.