Appreciate what you have

Hello there! :)

Today’s post is going to be a bit short because next week I have to sit 3 exams and all my spare time is packed with learning. 

One of the exams I’m going to take is Spanish. This semester all culture topics are about Latin America. While studying for this exam I started thinking back to my holidays in Cuba in summer 2013. The 3 weeks I spent in this country had a formative influence on me and I thought it would be a good idea to share this with you guys. As I mentioned before I’m quite busy right now so I only focus on what made me change my way of thinking and skip telling you about the landscape etc. But if I don’t forget I might add some pictures for you later. :)

The first few days of my holidays I went on a trip to various places in the middle and western parts of Cuba. Our guide told us a lot about the history of the country and the current situation. Did you know that they still use ration books in Cuba? [for those of you who don’t know what this is or just in case I looked up the wrong word: this system intends that every person or family can only get a certain amount of food and things of everyday need like toothpaste etc.] And although there are shops which sell practically everything the Cubans can’t go there because these shops are only for tourists and even use a different currency. That’s why many people desperately try to get some money from the tourists, e.g. in Havana there were lots and lots of beggars. Hearing and experiencing this gave an unpleasant taste to the whole trip for me.

After the tour I spent two weeks in a  hotel located at the coast of Varadero. There I spoke to some members of the entertainment team and to my surprise they quite frankly told me about the problems and negative aspects of living Cuba. To put some of the things I was told there in a nutshell: the water supply is a problematic issue sometimes, electricity breaks down a few times a day and everything is very expensive compared to the wages people get.

All these facts made me think a lot about my lifestyle and how lucky I am to live in a country where these problems don’t exist or at least to a much lesser extent. Soon I started to care about saving water and electricity, reusing stuff like towels more often and to avoid wasting food. Back at home I also tried to convince other people to do so as well by sharing my experiences with them but I soon found out that this only had little to no effect at all. Maybe many people have to see it with their own eyes before they can really appreciate these goods. I hope that this blog makes some of you consider your behaviour and you try to be more economical with water, electricity and food.

I have to continue learning, so I’m going to stop now. I wish you all the best for your exams!

See you :)

Learning Vocabulary

Hello guys! :)

Today I decided to do a different blog post. The end of the first term at university has come quite close, it is high time for me to start studying for the exams. In terms of the English Progress Check this up to now mainly consists of learning vocabulary, because I still don’t have the access link to the culture topics I have to know. Since this exam is the most important one of my English course I wanted to take this blogpost as an opportunity to a) share my learning strategies with you and b) get some inspiration from you guys. Maybe you have some different, witty learning methods I could try out to learn vocabulary more effectively. Please leave me a comment, if you would like to share them with me :)

For many years learning vocabulary actually wasn’t a big thing for me, at least I can’t remember otherwise. In the last two or three years of school, however, it became a bit of an issue because by that time I head to learn words in three different languages - English, Italian and Latin. I had to develop more effective ways of learning words because the amount I had to know just got too big.

I have to admit that I was a bit lazy when it came to learning English vocabulary. In school I always did well at the grammar and especially at the writing parts of the tests, so being average when it came to vocabulary-checks didn’t really matter for me at that time because I still got very good marks.

Concerning Italian knowing the words was more important. We had vocabulary reviews on a regular basis which we had to learn about one DIN A4 page of words for each of them. Thinking about it now gives me a bad feeling but at that time I only cared about receiving good marks instead of really learning the language. So I soon developed a method to learn the words very fast for the tests, but little time afterwards I had already forgotten most of them again. It is hard for me to tell what it was like, but maybe you know what I mean: I knew the words by heart because I just learned the page like pairs of words or simply sequences of letters, but I didn’t really know them by their meaning.

Latin, however, was different because I was very eager to learn that language. Besides the words in our course book were separated into various chapters containing about 20 words each which made it easier to arrange them for learning.

Nowadays I noticed that it gets more and more important for me that the words I have to learn are arranged properly in a certain format as it applies too to all other things I have to learn. It took me some time to develop a system which suits me fine. That’s why I had some problems learning words when I started learning Spanish but now I get along quite well.

Something which helps me a lot is an app introduced to me by my current English teacher. It is called Memrise and makes it quite easy to manage vocabulary. The best thing for me is that I can use it on my smartphone and therefore can learn whenever and wherever I want, whether I am waiting at the bus stop or have a break between my courses at university. I am on the go a lot and therefore don’t have the time to spend a few hours in a row on learning stuff so the app comes in quite handy. I really recommend it to all of you! Just give it a shot and see if it helps you  :)

But enough of me, it’s time that you tell me about your learning strategies! I think this could be useful for everybody to get new ideas on how to improve their learning methods.

See you and good luck for all your exams! :)

I'm back again :)

Hey guys! :)

It’s been some time since I wrote my first blog post. But I went to Barcelona in my winter holidays and didn’t have time and the opportunity to do so. Anyway, now university continues and so does my blogging. Today I thought I’m going to tell you something about my trip to México because this holiday had a great impact on me.

In summer of 2010 my mum and I did a tour of Yucatán, a peninsula in the southeast of México. We mainly visited sites of the ancient Maya such as Ek Balam, Tulum and - probably the most famous one - Chichen Itzá. Each of this places was very special in its own way and being there aroused some great feelings inside me which hopefully I can share with you through my blog.

First I would like to start with Ek Balam. The site itself actually isn’t that impressive compared to the others because some of the buildings already are in quite a bad condition. However, you can ascend two of the temples and the view from above is absolutely amazing. From the peak of the smaller temple you can oversee the whole area and standing on top of the bigger temple gives you the opportunity to look down on the surrounding rainforest. Just imagine seeing miles and miles of rainforest beneath you, it’s an incredible feeling!

The second place I would like to tell you about is Chichen Itzá. This place is probably the best-known Mayan site and pictures of it can be found on many postcards and there are loads of souvenirs. The pyramid of Chichen Itzá is the biggest one I’ve ever seen. It still puzzles me how the Mayas were able to construct such great buildings without any of today’s machines and technology. Ascending the pyramid was prohibited for tourists which on the on hand was a pity because the view must have been mind-blowing. On the other hand however I think this is fair enough because there are many tourists visiting this place and all these people would gradually destroy the pyramid.

The most impressive place for me, however, was Tulum. It is very special because the Mayan pyramid of Tulum is the only one built on the coast. Directly beneath the pyramid there is the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. It is actually quite tiny but the white sand and the crystal-clear water of the sea made it look to me like a little piece of paradise. On our trip we were allowed to spend some time there on our own and of course I took the opportunity and went swimming there. Since then I’ve visited many other places and although I only had little time there this is still one of my favourite places. Maybe I can go there again in the future.

However, besides the Mayan sites we also visited some other places on our trip. Unfortunately I can barely remember what Merida, the capital of Yucatán, was like. The only thing I know is that our guide led us through countless narrow streets. If I had to find my way there on my own I probably would have been lost immediately. But what I can remember quite well was our excursion to a so-called cenote. Basically cenotes are big holes emerged from collapsed ground and a unique phenomenon of Yucatán. They are very deep and filled with water. Over time more and more cenotes emerged and nowadays the form a vast underwater cave system. The shapes of the cenotes vary, some are quite broad, others - like the one I visited - only have a few metres of diameter and look like a vertical tube in the ground. Visiting the cenote was very exciting for me because we were able to go down some stairs and look up from the bottom. It was quite a funny experience because earlier that day I stood on a 30m high pyramid overlooking the rainforest and then I went swimming 30m beneath the ground.

All in all my trip to Yucatán was an amazing experience which I am really grateful for. I absolutely recommend visiting this place to everyone! Whether you are interested in the Mayas or not, Yucatán is a definitely place worth visiting.

That’s it for today guys, I hope you like it and you can share some of the feelings I had on this trip. If you would like to tell me about your travel experiences, just tell me in the comments, I would be pleased to read it! :)

See you soon!