Burnaby vs Alcobendas

I live in Alcobendas, a neighborhood in Madrid. It is neighborhood like Burnaby in Vancouver. For these reason, I am going to compare these two different areas instead of Madrid vs Vancouver. Both places have several things in common, like could be an inefficient public transport, specially in the morning and afternoon, when all the commuters have to go to work, very few Hospitals, Schools and other community services. The average population who lives in both neighborhoods have a medium-high standard of living, and also have to deal with the problem of the real state because a house in those neighborhoods cost the earth!.

Even though they have a lot of similar things, they have huge differences like the way of life. For example in Burnaby each family lives in his own house with his own backyard. However in Alcobendas almost everyone lives in flats, some of them with a balcony or terrace but not more than that. Other important difference between Alcobendas and Burnaby are the small local business, very common in the ground level of the buildings in Alcobendas and totally rare in Burnaby, where Shopping Malls are common.

During the last ten or eight years, the phenomenon of the Globalization has been affecting these two neighborhoods, becoming them in multi-ethnic societies because the immigration has increased for different reasons The European Union, Hong Kong belongs to China, Balcanic war, Iraq war… But at least these two neighborhoods are not in the main tourism routes, they don’t have the lure of the capitals, so the massive tourism are not affected them like other parts of world.

I don’t belong to the actual Tamwood generation.

Has anyone ever asked how long is one generation in Tamwood?. I had never thought about it before, but it is amazing how fast Tamwood is changing. It is true that I’m not in the average age of Tamwood students even though I was able to change my mind in order to think like a student in his twenties. (Maybe someone could think that my real mind is like that, so I didn’t need to change it. It’s totally false). At the beginning, all the students knew each other and the atmosphere was friendly, perhaps because when I arrived four month ago Tamwood was a small school with no more than 70 students and 7 classes. However, nowadays Tamwood has more than 150 students and more than 12 classes.

Just in only four months, everything has changed. Only two students and four teachers are still in the school (Even the secretary has changed), So my challenge had been saying Bon Voyage to all of them. If someone asked me “How did you handle it?” I would say depends on the day and the person who was leaving because I will never forget the good moments with the “Green Helmets”. They really make a mark on my life.

In conclusion, I can feel that my time in Tamwood is almost over, These actual Tamwood generation, in my opinion, has other priorities on their lives. They come basically for one month during their holidays to improve their English and that’s all. However, it is easy to me to go back to Spain because I really can feel that I don’t belong to the actual Tamwood generation.



I want to dedicate this part of the Blog to “The Green Helmet Generation”
Jachen, Miku, Pedro Chile, Pedro Brazil, Thais, Bettina, Philip, Marine, Yandle, Sophie, Hari, Son Youngho, Hyo Jin, Santiago, Rafael, Abdullah, Kyogei and the rest of the people of the School. I don’t want to forget our wonderful friends and also teachers Charlotte, Jacqueline, Monique, Kazu , Allie and of course Hani.

My hobbies

Since I was young, I wanted to be a Zookeeper. For this reason, I always had “pets” in my parents flat, but when I say “pets” I don’t want to mean pets like dogs, hamsters, rabbits or cats. The animal that I used to have was a snake, hens and also, one time one big heavy pink pig. During several years this animals were my best friends, I enjoyed a lot taking care about them. However, when I went to Madrid to study my University degree, I was not allowed to bring with me because, at the beginning, I went to a homestay. Nonetheless I continue with my hobby, on a different way, with the computer game Zoo Tycoon by Sid Mayer (Highly recommended).

Seven years later, I got my own flat, so I was able to continue with my hobby. This time my girlfriend only allowed me to have usual pets like Coddy, a big lazy Labrador dog, or Hugo, my Apalone turtle

I don't wanna die... :*-)

I know that everyone have to die one day, but i would like to live as much as possible.
What can I do to have a long life? If i do a lot of sports, I will live more time?
Can anyone help me because right now, I am the oldest person in the class....

I have several problems.....

One of the most common problem that students have before come to Vancouver is, when they have to choose an English school. In order to help them, I will try to give them some advices.
First, if I were them, I would try to find a small school (that mean with few students), so it doesn't mean a school with a few classrooms an a lot of students ( specially in the summer season).
Second, If you really wanna learn English, try to ask for a school focused on the Japanese market because if at the end of your course you are able to understand the rookies Japaneses , you are going to able to understand any other non-native speaker. Nonetheless, if you follow these advices, maybe at the end of your English course you will learn more Japanese than English. Who knows? Could this English course be the first step to go to Japan to study Japanese? In that case, just do it.

A Vancouver Adventure

I am going to explain my last trip, but maybe tomorrow.
Sorry guys, I was too lazy yesterday to wrote in my blog Anyway. Today I am going to write on it, so came this evening and you will be able to read my Vancouver Adventure on the island.

Well, I'm here again. As I promise, I am going to write about my last weekend in BC.

Last Friday Thais, Philip, Pedro and I, we took the Ferry to Nanaimo at 17:20 hs. After 1 h and 30 min we arrived to Departure Bay at Nanaimo, where a guy was waiting for us with the car that we rented before.
At night falls, we started to drive to Ucluelet, it’s a small fishing village in the other side of the island. When we arrived there, it was raining and all the cheaper hotels and backpackers were closed or full, so we didn’t have any place to slept. We tried to found a dry place to drink and we discovered an abandoned building, some of us went there to check if it was possible to drink inside, and the rest were waiting in the car prepared the mix of Vodka and orange juice. However at that moment a police patrol appeared and they saw us red-handed. As a result, they parked his car close to us and started to ask questions like what are we doing? What we have in the trunk of the car? Suddenly Thais, who was really smart, asked the police “ By the way, where can we find a hotel to spend the night…” This question changed the police topic and, at the end, we didn’t paid any bill.
We drove to another parking lot, far away from the police station and we drunk and slept inside the car because it was raining cats and dogs outside. After several hours we woke up in the car, with all foggy window.
I started the engine of the car to go to ate something for breakfast and when I was driving, all my friends felt that I was still drunk, and they asked my about my health condition. I was really surprise because my answer was “ No, really… well maybe just now I am seeing a nice deer, jumping, just four meters away in the street. And it can’t be possible because we are in the middle of the town.”