Students at Embassy

San Francisco

During my vacation, I travelled to San Francisco with a friend. It was tons of fun even though we could spend only a little money. I'm going to introduce the attractions in San Francisco that I visited, with my comments.

• Pier 39

This place is called Pier 39 and has tons of entertainment such as restaurants, a small stage show, souvenir stores, and other fun things. The thing I most recommend you to see is the sea lions. Hundreds of sea lions are lying down on the wooden floats on the ocean by Pier 39. They have caught lots of people's attention, and there is the restaurant named "Sea Lion Cafe".

• AT&T Park

This is the home baseball stadium for the San Francisco Giants. It has a very long history and is famous for the unique shape of the stadium. The right stand is beside the ocean and very thin. If a batter hits a home run (HR) to the right stand, the ball goes into the ocean. It is called "splash hit" because the HR ball falls into the water with a splash. There are lots of people who wait for HR balls on the ocean. I and my friend visited the stadium but we did not watch the game. We just felt its atomosphere and looked at the classic building from the outside.

• Seafood restaurant

There are tons of seafood restaurants by the ocean. It seemed like crabs and shrimps are famous and sort of expensive. I tried a meal made out of tiger shrimp and my friend had crab cakes. Both our foods were amazing tasting and made us satisfied.

• Youth Hostel

The youth hostel we chose cost just 19 dollars each person per day including breakfast. The unique thing is there are 14 beds in each room, so you can see strangers and have to share the space with them. Many backpackers or tourists tend to use this kind of youth hostel, and the price and the system (you can use the Internet for free) helps for their cheap trips like ours.

• Alkatraz

Visiting Alkatraz was the main purpose of our trip to San Francisco. This is an old prison on an island 15 minutes' journey by ship away from mainland. As we were approaching the island, the sight of the old building was making me uneasy but excited because it definitely seemed and smelled like an old prison. Inside the building it was much more like "prison" than the prison I had imagined. It was unbelievable that there used to be hundreds of inmates on such a remote island, and I was lost for words to see a real prison. I started wanting to know more about Alkatraz and bought a book  about it written by an old man who used be an inmate. When I was heading to the mainland, I was feeling like I am going back to the real world. Alkatraz was such an unreal world.

• Golden Gate Bridge

We visited Golden Gate Bridge almost at the end of our sightseeing. I just can describe it with the words "huge" and "great". The sight of the bridge from outside and the sight from the bridge, both are incredible. From the bridge, we could see all of the town of San Francisco and horizons on both sides of the bridge. I had heard that the place is famous for suicide. I looked from the bridge down to the ocean, and the rumor made sense. Golden Gate Bridge is one of the biggest faces of the town San Francisco, and I strongly recommend you visit, not to commit suicide there when you go to San Francisco.

Layers

As this is my first blogpost I guess a brief presentation of myself would be suitable. My name is Lina Frey and I'm taking the CAE course at Embassy's school in Oxford. This is my second week which means I still have eleven weeks to go. Eleven beautiful weeks loaded with interesting people, music, places, parties, laughs and of course, this stunning language called English.

I want to write about everything that moves this city. Anything! If you, as a reader have a good idea, or any useful opinions for that matter, please just leave some comments. I will read them gratefully!

My first impession of Oxford was, to be honest, slightly confused by an injury. This meant that all I saw of Oxford the first days of my stay was the hospital and my room in the host family's house. I was quite happy with that, as a matter of fact. But then this multicultural, colourful city hit me and I felt like never going home again.

There is a busker, playing his bagpipe on the streets of Oxford, who's notorious. I was walking along Cornmarket street yesterday when I heard him perform. Although some may consider bagpipes to be the most offensive sound to humankind, I was amazed. Listening to "Heath" is luckily not my best experience in Oxford, but it just want to give an example of the miscellaneousity in Oxford.

Everyone who has seen the movie Shrek knows what I mean when I say Oxford is like a big onion. I'm aware of the fact that I might sound like a mad(wo)man to those who hasn't seen the film, but I'll give you the key to desipher this mystery  code:

Onions have layers. Just like ogres, and just like Oxford.

Shrek: Ogres are like onions.
Donkey: They stink?
Shrek: Yes. No.
Donkey: Oh, they make you cry.
Shrek: No.
Donkey: Oh, you leave em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin' little white hairs.
Shrek: NO. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.
[sighs]
Donkey: Oh, you both have layers. Oh. You know, not everybody like onions.

Well, I haven't quite made up my mind about if it occasionally stinks even in a city like Oxford, but I definitely like it. So far, this is just a flirt, but it might get serious.

Very Berry

Berries are very healthy. Especially, blueberries are well-known as food which are good for our skin and eyes. Today I asked my friends to go blueberry picking. This was the second time we went blueberry picking, and this pleasure is becoming our mutual hobby.

In the park, there are thousands of blueberry  bushes. Also, there are blackberry bushes. Many people in the park, enjoy blueberry picking, not blackberry because blackberry is the rose family and the bush has thorns, and the thorns stick in people's body when they try to pick blackberries. Since I picked only blueberries the first time I went there, I wanted to get blackberries at this time. "Ah!!" we shouted as often as our hands almost reached the berries. Nevertheless, none of us stopped fighting against the bushes, and we were filling our bottles with blackberries little by little. When we had finished picking blackberries, we had many cuts on our legs and arms. We got more than enough blackberries, yet we went to the blueberry area to get them, too.

After I came back to my house, I washed the berries and put blueberries in containers, and some of the containers went into the refridgerater and some went into the freezer for preservation. As for blackberries, I put them into a plastic bag and pressed them. Then, I put the juice into the bottle and mixed with milk and suger. Recently, I enjoy a piece of bread and the blackberry milk at breakfast. The blackberry milk tastes a little sour, but makes me healthier and gives me energy for studying every morning. A third time I will go berry picking will probably be this weekend.

The Olympics

It is 2008 and Olympic year. At this time, the Olympics are being held in China and has been exciting.  In the Olympics, first-rate athletes gather from all over the world, and only a few of them can get a gold medal. The high level competitions make audiences excited and move us. On the other hand, the Olympics make athletes too enthusiastic and sometimes problems happen. I strongly believe that the Olympics lead to world peace.

First of all, the Olympics should be the biggest symbol of peace. Many athletes from all over the world are gathered in one place, and all the people who live in the entire world focus on this event. Athletes shake hands and praise each other's performances no matter where they are from. This is the most beautiful picture in the Olympics, and it seems that there is no problem of nationality, race, religion, or other serious issues. On the other hand, people strongly feel their own nationalities and feel proud of their own countries only in the Olympics. I believe the Olympics peacefully connect people and countries with each other.

One of the most pleasurable points of the Olympics is that people can enjoy the highest level of performances from athletes. The beauty, power, balance, and speed of their performances and sometimes competitions between rivals attract people. There must be tension when an athlete challenges to change the world record, or one athlete tries to get more than two gold medals in different events. As an example, in this Olympics, Micheal Phelps, the American swimmer, got eight gold medals, and every time in his races, I am sure that people had goose bumps. Watching the highest level competition is an extreme pleasure for people, and the Olympics is one of the most delightful events.

On the other hand, the Olympics gives us not only delightful news, but also nasty news. A gold medal, the symbol of the best athlete, makes athletes too enthusiastic. One athlete who got a bronze medal got in trouble since he threw his medal away. For him, nothing but a gold medal is valuable. Likewise, athletes occasionally cry with depression even though they get a silver or bronze medal and say that they can not go back to their own country without a gold medal. Furthermore, sometimes audiences heat up too much and boo their rival coutry as they do not want their rival team to lose. We have to rethink what the Olympics is for, and that medals are just prizes and are not everything.

The Beijing Olympics in 2008 has been exciting. While people are watching the games in front of TVs, they get happy or sad depending on how their teams are doing. Sometimes people give foreign athletes a big hand and are moved when the athletes perform well or keep performing although they reach their limits. That is exactly how the Olympics should be. Nothing but the Olympics can gather the attention of people from all over the world and only in the Olympics can share every person their happiness, excitement, surprise, and many other joyful things. I believe, from now on, the Olympics is held for the world's happiness and peace.

The title of this painting on the left is "PEACEFUL RACE". I hope this "Olympic Man" will be the symbol of Olympic peace. If you can not find your country's flag on the picture, there is your flag on his back, do not worry! Peace!