A DAY WITH FREDDIE MERCURY, 'THE SHOW MUST GO ON'

Today, The Winsors and The Grandma have visited Southwark Cathedral, close to London Bridge. The family has assisted to a concert organized by Freddie Mercury and Queen to pay tribute to all the martyrs of our recent history.

Before the concert, the family has studied some English grammar with Must/Mustn't and Object Pronouns, and they have talked about Santa Eulàlia, the patron of Barcelona who commemorates her festivity today.

More information: Must/Mustn't

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More information: Eulàlia de Barcelona, The Myth Becomes a Legend

Download The Goose Game (Barcelona Edition)

Southwark Cathedral, formally the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, is a Church of England cathedral in Southwark, London, near the south bank of the River Thames and close to London Bridge. 

It is the mother church of the Diocese of Southwark. It has been a place of Christian worship for more than 1,000 years, but the church was not raised to cathedral status until the creation of the diocese of Southwark in 1905.

Between 1106 and 1538, it was the church of an Augustinian priory, Southwark Priory, dedicated in honour of the Virgin Mary (St Mary-over the river, 'overie'). Following the dissolution of the monasteries, it became a parish church, with a dedication to the Holy Saviour (St Saviour). The church was in the diocese of Winchester until 1877, when the parish of St Saviour's, along with other South London parishes, was transferred to the diocese of Rochester. The present building retains the basic form of the Gothic structure built between 1220 and 1420, although the nave is a late 19th-century reconstruction.

The 16th-century London historian John Stow recorded an account of the origins of the Southwark Priory of St Mary that he had heard from Bartholomew Linsted, who had been the last prior when the priory was dissolved. Linsted claimed it had been founded as a nunnery long before the [Norman] Conquest by a maiden named Mary, on the profits of a ferry across the Thames she had inherited from her parents. Later it was converted into a college of priests by Swithen, a noble lady. Finally, in 1106, it was refounded as an Augustinian priory.

More information: Southwark Cathedral

Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; 5 September 1946-24 November 1991) was a British singer and songwriter, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead vocalist and pianist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of rock music, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. Mercury defied the conventions of a rock frontman with his theatrical style, influencing the artistic direction of Queen.

Born in 1946 in Zanzibar to Parsi-Indian parents, Mercury attended English-style boarding schools in India from the age of eight and returned to Zanzibar after secondary school. In 1964, his family fled the Zanzibar Revolution, moving to Middlesex, England.

Having studied and written music for years, he formed Queen in 1970 with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor. Mercury wrote numerous hits for Queen, including Killer Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody, Somebody to Love, We Are the Champions, Don't Stop Me Now and Crazy Little Thing Called Love. His charismatic stage performances often saw him interact with the audience, as displayed at the 1985 Live Aid concert. He also led a solo career and was a producer and guest musician for other artists.

Mercury was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987. He continued to record with Queen, and posthumously featured on their final album, Made in Heaven (1995).

In 1991, the day after announcing his diagnosis, he died from complications of the disease, at the age of 45.

In 1992, a concert in tribute to him was held at Wembley Stadium, in benefit of AIDS awareness. His career with Queen was dramatised in the 2018 biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.

As a member of Queen, Mercury was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004. 

In 1990, he and the other Queen members were awarded the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, and one year after his death, Mercury was awarded it individually. 

In 2005, Queen were awarded an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. In 2002, Mercury was voted number 58 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

More information: Freddie Mercury

Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara in Stone Town in the British protectorate of Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania) on 5 September 1946. His parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara, were from the Parsi community of western India. The Bulsaras had origins in the city of Bulsar (now Valsad) in Gujarat. He had a younger sister, Kashmira (b. 1952).

Mercury spent most of his childhood in India where he began taking piano lessons at the age of seven while living with relatives.

In 1954, at the age of eight, Mercury was sent to study at St. Peter's School, a British-style boarding school for boys, in Panchgani near Bombay.

In the spring of 1964, Mercury and his family fled to England from Zanzibar to escape the violence of the revolution against the Sultan of Zanzibar and his mainly Arab government, in which thousands of ethnic Arabs and Indians were killed.

In April 1970, Mercury teamed up with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, to become lead singer of their band Smile. They were joined by bassist John Deacon in 1971. Despite the reservations of the other members and Trident Studios, the band's initial management, Mercury chose the name Queen for the new band.

Regarded as one of the greatest lead singers in the history of rock music, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. Mercury defied the conventions of a rock frontman, with his highly theatrical style influencing the artistic direction of Queen.

More information: Instagram-Freddie Mercury

Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1970 by Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, piano), Brian May (guitar, vocals) and Roger Taylor (drums, vocals), later joined by John Deacon (bass). 

Their earliest works were influenced by progressive rock, hard rock and heavy metal, but the band gradually ventured into more conventional and radio-friendly works by incorporating further styles, such as arena rock and pop rock.

Before forming Queen, May and Taylor had played together in the band Smile. Mercury was a fan of Smile and encouraged them to experiment with more elaborate stage and recording techniques. He joined in 1970 and suggested the name Queen. Deacon was recruited in February 1971, before the band released their debut album in 1973.

Queen first charted in the UK with their second album, Queen II, in 1974. Sheer Heart Attack later that year and A Night at the Opera in 1975 brought them international success. The latter featured Bohemian Rhapsody, which stayed at number one in the UK for nine weeks and helped popularise the music video format.

The band's 1977 album News of the World contained We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions, which have become anthems at sporting events. By the early 1980s, Queen were one of the biggest stadium rock bands in the world. Another One Bites the Dust from The Game (1980) became their best-selling single, while their 1981 compilation album Greatest Hits is the best-selling album in the UK and is certified nine times platinum in the US.

Their performance at the 1985 Live Aid concert is ranked among the greatest in rock history by various publications.

In August 1986, Mercury gave his last performance with Queen at Knebworth, England.

Though he kept his condition private, Mercury was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987. The band released two more albums, The Miracle in 1989 and Innuendo in 1991.

On 23 November 1991, Mercury publicly revealed that he had AIDS, and the next day died of bronchopneumonia, a complication of AIDS. One more album was released featuring Mercury's vocal, 1995's Made in Heaven.

John Deacon retired in 1997, while May and Taylor continued to make sporadic appearances together. Since 2004 they have toured as Queen +, with vocalists Paul Rodgers and Adam Lambert.

Queen have been a global presence in popular culture for more than half a century. Estimates of their record sales range from 250 million to 300 million, making them one of the world's best-selling music artists. 

In 1990, Queen received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music.

They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, and with each member having composed hit singles all four were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003. 

In 2005 they received the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors, and in 2018 they were presented the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

More information: Queen

When the whole point of Queen was to be original.

I won't be a rock star. 

I will be a legend.

Freddie Mercury

THE BRONX ZOO, CONSERVATION OR A HUMAN WHIM?

Today, The Grangers & The Grandma have visited the Bronx Zoo, the a zoo within Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York. Before this interesting visit, they have revised Must/Mustn't and the Object Pronouns.

More info: Must/Mustn't

 

More info: Object Pronouns

 

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The Bronx Zoo (also historically the Bronx Zoological Park and the Bronx Zoological Gardens) is a zoo within Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York. It is one of the largest zoos in the United States by area and is the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States by area, comprising 107 ha of park lands and naturalistic habitats separated by the Bronx River.

On average, the zoo has 2.15 million visitors each year as of 2009. The zoo's original permanent buildings, known as Astor Court, were designed as a series of Beaux-Arts pavilions grouped around the large circular sea lion pool. The Rainey Memorial Gates were designed by sculptor Paul Manship in 1934 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

The zoo opened on November 8, 1899, featuring 843 animals in 22 exhibits. Its first director was William Temple Hornaday, who served as director for 30 years. From its inception the zoo has played a vital role in animal conservation.

In 1905, the American Bison Society was created in an attempt to save the American bison from extinction, which had been depleted from tens-of-millions of animals to only a few hundred. Two years later they were successfully reintroduced into the wild.

In 2007, the zoo successfully reintroduced three Chinese alligators into the wild. The breeding was a milestone in the zoo's 10-year effort to reintroduce the species to the Yangtze River in China.

Today, the Bronx Zoo is world-renowned for its large and diverse animal collection, and its award-winning exhibitions. The zoo is part of an integrated system of four zoos and one aquarium managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and it is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).

In 1895, a group made up largely of members of the Boone and Crockett Club founded the New York Zoological Society (later renamed the Wildlife Conservation Society) for the purposes of founding a zoo, promoting the study of zoology, and preserving wildlife. Credit for this belonged chiefly to Club members Madison Grant and C. Grant LaFarge.

More information: Bronx Zoo

 Life is a zoo in a jungle.

Peter De Vries

1071 FIFTH AV, THE SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM

Today, The Grandma has been visiting the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, one of the most incredible art museums.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have been preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied the Object Pronouns.

More info: Object Pronouns

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City.

It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. 

The museum was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director, Hilla von Rebay. It adopted its current name in 1952, three years after the death of its founder Solomon R. Guggenheim.

In 1959, the museum moved from rented space to its current building, a landmark work of 20th-century architecture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The cylindrical building, wider at the top than at the bottom, was conceived as a temple of the spirit.

Its unique ramp gallery extends up from ground level in a long, continuous spiral along the outer edges of the building to end just under the ceiling skylight. The building underwent extensive expansion and renovations in 1992 when an adjoining tower was built, and from 2005 to 2008.

The museum's collection has grown over eight decades and is founded upon several important private collections, beginning with that of Solomon R. Guggenheim. The collection is shared with sister museums in Bilbao, Basque Country and elsewhere.

In 2013, nearly 1.2 million people visited the museum, and it hosted the most popular exhibition in New York City.

More information: The Guggenheim Museum

Solomon R. Guggenheim, a member of a wealthy mining family, had been collecting works of the old masters since the 1890s. In 1926, he met artist Hilla von Rebay, who introduced him to European avant-garde art, in particular abstract art that she felt had a spiritual and utopian aspect (non-objective art).

Guggenheim completely changed his collecting strategy, turning to the work of Wassily Kandinsky, among others. He began to display his collection to the public at his apartment in the Plaza Hotel in New York City. As the collection grew, he established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, in 1937, to foster the appreciation of modern art.

On August 14, 1990, the museum and its interior were separately designated as New York City Landmarks. The museum was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 19, 2005, and was registered as a National Historic Landmark on October 6, 2008.

In July 2019, the Guggenheim was among eight properties by Wright placed on the World Heritage List under the title The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.

More information: Classic New York History

All day long I add up columns of figures
and make everything balanced.
I come home. I sit down.
I look at a Kandinsky and it's wonderful.

Solomon R. Guggenheim

INVEST IN NEW PROPIERTIES, COMPARE PROS & CONS

The Stones are spending their last days in Manchester. The Grandma has bought some new properties and they are deciding what to do with them. They have had enough time to review some English Grammar. They have studied Present Simple vs. Present Continuous, Object Pronouns and The Comparative.

All the properties have emotional meaning for The Grandma and although it is impossible to choose only one, she wants to talk about a beautiful cottage acquired in St Mary Mead where lives one of the most famous grannies of the world, Miss Marple.

St Mary Mead is a fictional village created by popular crime fiction author Dame Agatha Christie.

The quaint, sleepy village was home to the renowned detective spinster Miss Marple. However, Agatha Christie first described a village of that name prior to Marple's introduction, in the 1928 Hercule Poirot novel The Mystery of the Blue Train. In that novel, St Mary Mead is home to the book's protagonist Katherine Grey. The village was first mentioned in a Miss Marple book in 1930, when it was the setting for the first Marple novel, The Murder at the Vicarage.

Miss Marple's St Mary Mead is described in The Murder at the Vicarage as being in the fictional county of Downshire, but in the later novel The Body in the Library Downshire has become Radfordshire.

In the BBC Miss Marple TV adaptation of Nemesis, a letter from Mr Rafiel's solicitors indicate that St Mary Mead is located in the also fictional county of Middleshire. The St Mary Mead of Katherine Grey is in Kent.

More information: Present Simple vs. Present Continuos

Miss Marple lives in Danemead Cottage, the last cottage in Old Pasture Lane. Her telephone number is three five on a manual exchange.

Once it has been fully established as Miss Marple's home village, St Mary Mead is supposed to be in South East England, 40 km from London. It is just outside the town of Much Benham and is close to Market Basing, which appears as a name of a town in many of Agatha Christie's novels and short stories, 19 km from the fashionable seaside resort of Danemouth, and also 19 km from the coastal town of Loomouth.

Other towns said to be close by include Brackhampton, Medenham Wells, and Milchester. The neighbourhood of St Mary Mead is served by trains arriving at Paddington railway station, indicating a location west or south west of London. 

It has been suggested that Market Basing is Basingstoke and Danemouth is Bournemouth. In the BBC Miss Marple television adaptations the Hampshire village of Nether Wallop was used as the setting for St Mary Mead. Brackhampton could be Bracknell, just north of Basingstoke.

Before World War II, the village itself was not particularly large. The only road of significance passing through the village was High Street. Here were the well-established purveyances of Mr Petherick, the solicitors; Mrs Jamieson, the hairdressers; Mr Thomas's basket-weavers; The Blue Boar Pub; Mr Footit's butchers, Mr Jim Armstrong's dairies, Mr Berks's bakers and Mr Baker's grocery shop.

The little-trafficked railway station, featured in the book The Murder at the Vicarage, is also located at the very end of High Street; though the station may have closed by the time of the novel 4.50 from Paddington as Mrs McGillicuddy has a taxi arranged for the 14 km from Milchester station to Miss Marple's house. Then, slightly further up Lansham Road, was the fine Victorian structure of Gossington Hall. Until the 1950s, this was home to the pompous retired military man, Colonel Arthur Bantry and his wife Mrs Dolly Bantry, Miss Marple's best friends in the village.

However, after Colonel Bantry died, Mrs Bantry sold the estate, but continued to live on in the grounds in the East Lodge. The Hall was later after one or two changes of ownership purchased by the film star Marina Gregg. One mile down Lansham Road was a very modern cottage called Chatsworth. It was also known as the Period Piece and Mr Booker's new house. It was bought in the early 1930s by Basil Blake, a member of the art department at Lemville film studios. It was also inhabited by Basil's wife, Dinah Lee an actress.

At the other end of Lansham Road, a small lane called Old Pasture Lane broke away from the main street. Nestled in this lane were three Queen Anne or Georgian houses, which belonged to three spinsters. The first house belonged to the long-nosed, gush and excitable Miss Caroline Wetherby. The second was Miss Amanda Hartnell, a proud, decent woman with a deep voice. The last cottage was called Danemead Cottage and it belonged to Miss Jane Marple, the famous spinster who solved countless cases between 1930 and 1976. The Post Office, and the dressmakers belonging to Mrs Politt, are located in front of the lane.

More information: The Comparative

The centre of the village was the Vicarage, the very grand Victorian structure at the end of the Lane. The Vicarage was home to The Vicar Leonard Clement and his pretty young wife, Griselda with their nephew: Dennis, and later their two sons, Leonard and David.

Near the gardens of the Vicarage was a back lane which led to a small cottage called Little Gates. Until 1930, it was inhabited by an Anglo-Indian colonel who moved away and briefly rented it out to Mrs Lestrange.

Beyond the Vicarage were two more houses. The first was the residence of the village GP, Doctor Gerard Haydock. He continued to live on in the village beyond 1960. The other cottage was much larger than Dr Haydock's. It belonged to Mrs Martha Price-Ridley, a rich and dictatorial widow, and the most vicious gossip of all the old ladies in the village.

There was also a large estate, Old Hall, belonging to the despised local magistrate, Colonel Lucius Protheroe. He was murdered in 1930 in Mr Clement's study in the Vicarage. After his death, the mansion was turned into a block of flats, to the great disapproval of the villagers.

More information: Object Pronouns

The flats housed Mrs Carmichael, a rich and eccentric old lady who was bullied by her maid, the Larkins, two sisters by the name of Skinner, one of whom was a supposed hypochondriac, and a young married couple, and a robbery was later committed by the Skinner sisters.

Finally, just beyond the home of the dreaded Price-Ridley, as she is known by other villagers, was a small stream, leading to the fields of Farmer Giles. 

However, the Second World War took its toll on the village, and soon after the war Farmer Giles's fields were bought and tarmacked over; and a new housing estate was built upon it. This was referred to as The Development by the villagers who survived the war.

A very large hospital was also built near, manned by many doctors and nurses. As well as this there were some very large hotels and three film studios: Lemville, Elstree and Hellingforth.

More information: The Guardian

Everybody in St Mary Mead knew Miss Marple; 

fluffy and dithery in appearance,

but inwardly as sharp and as shrewd as they make them.

Agatha Christie

THE JONES' MOTTO: 'ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL'

The Three Musketeers: 'All for one and one for all'

This morning, The Jones have returned to their activity after celebrating MJ's birthday sailing across the Seine River. 

They have revised the Object Pronouns and Whose. They have also written some composition using connectors about the next visits in Paris.

More info: Whose I & II

After the grammar session, they have read a new chapter of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and they have practised different verb tenses.

The Grandma has explained her impressions about two great French writers: Jules Verne and Alexandre Dumas and their influence in the universal literature. They have been talking about different topics like the importance of sleeping to have a health life and about the scientific experiments about sleeplessness. 

The Jones in The Bibliothèque nationale de France

They have also discussed about Narcís Monturiol and his famous invent, the Ictineo, a submarine which was tested on the shores of the Delta de Llobregat, a beautiful special place if you want to see a great variety of  birds and wild animals or you want to help to return them to the sea.

This afternoon, the family has visited The Bibliothèque nationale de France which is the national library of France. It is the national repository of all that is published in France and also holds extensive historical collections. The family has searching more information about some authors.

More information: Object Pronouns

On the one hand, The Jones have talked about Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), who was a French writer. His works have been translated into nearly 100 languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. 

Many of his historical novels of high adventure were originally published as serials, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later.

Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays, which were successfully produced from the first. 

He also wrote numerous magazine articles and travel books; his published works totalled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris.

More information: The Count of Monte-Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Dumas' father's aristocratic rank helped young Alexandre acquire work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans. He later began working as a writer, finding early success. Decades later, in the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1851, Dumas fell from favour and left France for Belgium, where he stayed for several years. 

Upon leaving Belgium, Dumas moved to Russia for a few years before going to Italy. In 1861, he founded and published the newspaper L'Indipendente, which supported the Italian unification effort. In 1864, he returned to Paris.

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it. 

Alexandre Dumas

On the other hand, the family has remembered Jules Gabriel Verne (1828-1905) a French novelist, poet, and playwright who was born in the seaport of Nantes, where he was trained to follow in his father's footsteps as a lawyer, but quit the profession early in life to write for magazines and the stage. 

Jules Verne

His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a widely popular series of scrupulously researched adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).

Verne is generally considered a major literary author in France and most of Europe, where he has had a wide influence on the literary avant-garde and on surrealism. His reputation is markedly different in Anglophone regions, where he has often been labeled a writer of genre fiction or children's books, largely because of the highly abridged and altered translations in which his novels are often reprinted.

Download Around the world in eighty days by Jules Verne

Verne has been the second most-translated author in the world since 1979, ranking between Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare. He has sometimes been called the Father of Science Fiction, a title that has also been given to H. G. Wells and Hugo Gernsback.

In consequence of inventing machines, men will be devoured by them. 

Jules Verne

Moreover, the family has remembered Narcís Monturiol (1819-1885), who was a Catalan artist and engineer and the inventor of the first air-independent and combustion-engine-driven submarine. Monturiol was born in Figueres, Girona. 

Narcís Monturiol i Estarriol

He was the son of a cooper. Monturiol went to high school in Cervera and got a law degree in Modtoles in 1845. He solved the fundamental problems of underwater navigation. In effect, Monturiol invented the first fully functional engine-driven submarine.

Monturiol never practiced law, instead turning his talents to writing and publishing, setting up a publishing company in 1846, the same year he married his wife Emilia. 

He produced a series of journals and pamphlets espousing his radical beliefs in feminism, pacifism, and utopian communism. He also founded the newspaper La Madre de Familia, in which he promised to defend women from the tyranny of men and La Fraternidad, Spain's first communist newspaper.

Monturiol's friendship with Abdó Terrades led him to join the Republican Party and his circle of friends included such names as musician Josep Anselm Clavé, and engineer and reformist Ildefons Cerdà.

More information: Semantic Scholar

Monturiol also became an enthusiastic follower of the utopian thinker and socialist Étienne Cabet; he popularised Cabet's ideas through La Fraternidad and produced a Spanish translation of his novel Voyage en Icarie. A circle formed round La Fraternidad raised enough money for one of them to travel to Cabet's utopian community, Icaria.

Marta Jones's memories of the Ictineos I and II

Following the revolutions of 1848, one of his publications was suppressed by the government and he was forced into a brief exile in France. When he returned to Barcelona in 1849, the government curtailed his publishing activities, and he turned his attention to science and engineering instead.

A stay in Cadaqués allowed him to observe the dangerous job of coral harvesters where he even witnessed the death of a man who drowned while performing this job. 

This prompted him to think of submarine navigation and in September 1857 he went back to Barcelona and organized the first commercial society in Catalonia and Spain dedicated to the exploration of submarine navigation with the name of Monturiol, Font, Altadill y Cia. and a capital of 10,000 pesetas.

In 1858, Monturiol presented his project in a scientific thesis, titled The Ictineo or fish-ship. The first dive of his first submarine, Ictineo I, took place in September 1859 in the coast of the Llobregat River, in Barcelona.

 A book is kind of like a river; I simply jump in and start swimming. 

Melody Carlson

THE BEANS & THE HIPPIE MOVEMENT IN SAN FRANCISCO

Paqui Bean ready to enjoy Hippie lifestyle

Today, The Beans have been working some new aspects of the English grammar like Used to and Object Pronouns. 

The family is a little tired because of the rythm of the trips. They are doing exceptional efforts but they are hard workers and exceptional students and they are doing a great job.

More information: Used to 1, 2 and 3

The family has decided to stay in the hotel and talk about the history of the city that they are going to visit deeply during the next days. San Francisco is a city with a huge history, a great referent in all kind of social movements and the city where the Hippie movement born in the 60's like a peaceful movement against war policies.

The Beans have been talking about the importance of this movement not only for the history of the USA but for the universal history because it was a mirror for other countries and communities.

More information: Object Pronouns

If you talk about the Hippie movement, you must remember incredible voices and composers like Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jimmi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Scott McKenzie, Jefferson Airplane and others. An exceptional generation of great artists who expanded the global message of peace and love around the planet.

Salvador Dalí, a genius of painting

The Grandma has also talked about the influence of the drugs in this movement, particularly, and how drugs have been used by the power to stop social movements and to control them. 

It has been a very hard moment because this is a theme that affects everybody in some senses and everyone of us has a closer experience to tell, to remember and sometimes, to forget.

Finally, the family has been talking about some important artists and writers like Arthur Conan Doyle, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Mercè Rodoreda, Agatha Christie, Federico Garcia Lorca, Antonio Machado and Miguel Hernández.

More information: Cambrige 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

A hippie is a member of a counterculture, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The word hippie came from hipster and used to describe beatniks who moved into New York City's Greenwich Village and San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. The term hippie first found popularity in San Francisco by Herb Caen, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Jimmi Hendrix & Janis Joplin

The origins of the terms hip and hep are uncertain. By the 1940s, both had become part of African American jive slang and meant sophisticated; currently fashionable; fully up-to-date. Hippies created their own communities, listened to psychedelic music, embraced the sexual revolution, and many used drugs such as marijuana, LSD, peyote and psilocybin mushrooms to explore altered states of consciousness.

In 1967, the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, popularized hippie culture, leading to the Summer of Love on the West Coast of the United States, and the 1969 Woodstock Festival on the East Coast. 

Hippies in Mexico, known as jipitecas, formed La Onda and gathered at Avándaro, while in New Zealand, nomadic housetruckers practiced alternative lifestyles and promoted sustainable energy at Nambassa. 

More information: All That Interesting

Hippies enjoying life in the 60's

In the United Kingdom in 1970, many gathered at the gigantic Isle of Wight Festival with a crowd of around 400,000 people. In later years, mobile peace convoys of New Age travelers made summer pilgrimages to free music festivals at Stonehenge and elsewhere.

In Australia, hippies gathered at Nimbin for the 1973 Aquarius Festival and the annual Cannabis Law Reform Rally or MardiGrass. 

Piedra Roja Festival, a major hippie event in Chile, was held in 1970. Hippie and psychedelic culture influenced 1960s and early 1970s young culture in Iron Curtain countries in Eastern Europe.

More information: The Culture Trip

Hippie fashion and values had a major effect on culture, influencing popular music, television, film, literature, and the arts. Since the 1960s, mainstream society has assimilated many aspects of hippie culture. The religious and cultural diversity the hippies espoused has gained widespread acceptance, and Eastern philosophy and spiritual concepts have reached a larger audience.

The hippie movement politicized my generation. 

When it ended, we all started looking back at our own history,  

looking, in my case, for motives of rebellion. 

Vivienne Westwood