Today, The Bonds are still in the capital of The USA. They're checking their passports to know if they can travel to New York City, first, and San Francisco, later or they must return to Sant Boi. You know, the new rules of the man with orange hair...
The family is celebrating Eli's birthday and they've received an unexpected visit: Manuela Bond, an EliBond'scloser friend who has surprised all the family with a huge cake. Delicious!
Manuela is a shy person and she doesn't want to appear in our blog, for the moment, but the family is persistent and they're working to convince her to appear on it.
Before eating the cake, the family has worked Future Continuous, Prepositions of Place,some Social English and some Airplane and Business Vocabulary.
Finally, The Bonds have created some crosswordsto prepare their closer travel to Kiev, after visiting San Francisco, a long trip which offers lots of leisure and they've talked about how to try to be brave in front of difficult situations, especially in interviews and embarrasing ones.
Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius
and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
Today, The Bonds are reviewing some Social English, connectors and grammar (superlative and present tenses). It's important to pay attention to the clues in grammar because they can save us in an exam.
The family is still in Washington, DC and they are remembering one of the most important and historical figures of American History: Martin Luther King and his incredible speech I have a dream. The effort of the black people to improve their lives in The USA has been a strong struggle since the slavery age until nowadays.
Music is a great instrument to reclaim rights and The Bonds are preparing some songs to participate in the next Eurovision Song Contest.
Finally, after remembering more examples of people who created wonderful works and didn't obtain fame or recognition, people who worked for others and saw how their creations were copied, The Bonds have talked about their preferences in pop stars and black music.
If The Grandma can dream, she will return to Betlem in year zero...
We are not makers of history. We are made by history.
Today, The Bonds are practising some aspects of Social English and grammar. The family is talking about kosher food and how important is for the Jewish community, in general and Capçanes, in particulary.
After some exercises, The Grandma is explaining some stories about Oscar Wilde and Rosalía de Castro two incredible authors who wrote in their native languages: Irish and Galician and François Aragó, a French scientific who studied the timezones.
The Bonds want to participate in the next Eurovision Song Contest in Ukraine. For this reason, they're creating some songs based on the Coplas of Jorge Manrique, the famous Castillian writer.
Finally, the family is talking about the future and about how to prepare it looking for some connections between the past and the present which can be very useful to success in an interview.
What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.
Today, The Bonds are still in Washington. They're practising some Social English and The Superlative. The family is working in a high level and this fact allows them to dedicate more time to speak about different theme. They're very interested in helping Jaume and Eli Bond who are suffering a deep couple crisis.
The Grandma is talking about resistance and resilience. It has been a constant in the communities and we can find some examples in our closer story: 1641, 1714, 1936, 1941 are dates which demonstrate how people could learn to protect themselves. From Barcelona to London, from Sant Boi to Siracusa, resistance in front of the cruelty of wars and resilience like a phsycological way of surviving.
Literature is a great demonstration of our past because it expresses feelings, stories and facts which are common then and now but... What is true? What is false? We don't know really and this is the most beautiful side of all these stories that we can not be sure about anything although science and language is a good ally to discover other points of view, other explanations and other ideas very different from the original and official.
Joanot Martorell, Miguel de Cervantes, William Shakespeare... Who were they? It doesn't matter because a man can not create a myth without the complicity of a society who wants to continue the tradition and make it popular.
Tomorrow, the family is creating a song for participating in the Eurovision Song Contest.
I believe our countrymen will show themselves capable of standing up
to it, like the brave men of Barcelona, and will be able to stand up to it, and carry on in spite of it, at least as well as any other people
Today, The Bonds are in The White House. They're meeting the new President of The USA and his special guest: Queen Elizabeth II. This meeting has been classified like top secret and this is the reason because of we haven't got any kind of photo about the event.
The Bonds have taken advantage of the visit and they're reviewing some Social English, the modal verb Have to and some Relative Pronouns. It's true. You often have to wait much time before the President receives you although you're the special guest star.
After the meeting, The Bonds have a created idea about the behaviour of The President and they're writing some comparisons between him and other special people who had strong ideas and did them in a particular way.
MJ has wanted to join the family in this special day and she has asked some questions about the meeting. You know, she's the boss and she needs information.
Finally, Pedro Bond has talked about Horitzó 2020 a new vision about educational system which is very interesting and, perhaps, it's the clue for the closer future.
Ask ev'ry person if he's heard the story; And tell it strong and clear if he has not: That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory Called Camelot. Camelot! Camelot!
Today, The Bonds are visiting Washington DC. They're interested in the historical buildings and they're comparing them with Comparative. They are also learning how to use the modal verb May and practising some Social English.
After that, the family is practising some vocabulary about Hotels and Tourism and they're meeting with Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who are helping The Bonds to know more things about voodoo.
The Grandma is remembering some of her favourite singers and Irene Bond is explaining some experiences with one of them. Suddenly, they have received an unexpected visit, M, the partner of MJ, has appeared with some presents for the family. Thanks a lot MJ! We admire you and you know it!
In addition, The Bonds are discovering Ordesa, a beautiful natural reserve in the north of Aragon and they're connecting different stories.
Finally, the family are listening to The Grandma who is explaining some stories about blood and monarchies talking about Jack the Ripper, Vlad Tepes and Enriqueta Martí meanwhile Jaume Bond is adding a new name to this serial killers list: Elizabeth Báthory.
Tomorrow, the family has a meeting in The White Housewith the new president of the USA, a Juanjo Bond's old friend, and with the Queen Elizabeth II. They're going to talk about Middle Age and literature.
Be polite and dress elegantly!
My grandfather was a voodoo priest. A lot of my life dealt with spirituality. I can close my eyes and remember where I come from.
Paula Bond is with the family again after spending some days in the Empire State with King Kong, her new friend from Skull Island.
After talking about sugar and its benefits in our lives, remembering Sir Arthur Conan Doyleand his famous character Sherlock Holmes, the family are learning how to use their twitter accounts.
Jaume Bond and his new friend
After that, The Grandma is talking about Romanesque Art in the exile aroundthe world because of the war and she is explaining a story about Roman superstitions.
Finally, Jaume Bond is explaining his experience face to face with a hurt bird which reborn after phoning to emergency services and The Grandma is remembering some beautiful songs of Leonard Cohenand Barbara.
Tomorrow, the family is meeting Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in the FBI Headquarters. Together, they're going to investigate voodoo practices and how to prevent them.
May you need some needles...
No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.
Raquel Bond is leaving the family. She's going to stay in Washington DC where she has found what she was looking for. The family is going to miss her a lot because she's like an amazing grace, always with a beautiful smile and some kind words to share.
Aftertalking about the importance of Sant Boi along the history and they are reading White Rabbit, a beautiful song of Jefferson Airplane which is a big criticism of Vietnam's War.
Finally, they are sharing sad and happy stories before going to assist to The US Presidential Inauguration where a Juanjo Bond's friend is going to become in a powerful man.
I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster,
so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it.
Today, The Bonds are practising some Social English and some grammar like Prepositions of Place and Direction, Zero and First Conditionals and Modal Verbs (Must).
They are working together to demonstrate Juanjo and Irene Bond's innocence and they are creating little guides about the most important places of New York City.
The Grandma is talking about some universal painters like Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso and Francisco de Goya and their influence while the whole family is visiting The Metropolitan Museum. She's a fan of Joan Miró although her favourite painting is The Pantocrator of Sant Climent de Taüll in La Vall de Boí, a part of the Romanesque art inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000 and which is now exposed in the MNAC in Barcelona.
Today, The Bonds are still staying in New York City. They are meeting
Richard Castle, the famous writer, and his team formed by Captain Gates;
Detectives Beckett, Esposito and Ryan, and Dr. Parish. The Bonds are helping
this fabulous team to solve the latest crimes of the city.
Before visiting Castle's team, the family has reviewed some aspects of
Social English and Modal Verbs. They have talked about Should and advice and
they have written a postcard to MJ who is still in Sant Boi organizing new
adventures.
The Grandma is a little melancholic after Barbra Streisand's concert and
she is remembering one of her best friends, Charlie Rivel, the universal clown
who was born in Cubelles, in El Garraf and became one of the most famous and
acclaimed clowns of the history. The Grandma is old and she starts to repeat
things without stopping and today she is a little obsessed with Charlie, the
clown.
After talking about the importance of animals and the respect we must
give to them, the family has been talking about the Hobos, the American figure
of a migratory worker or homeless vagabond, who is impoverished and lived near
the railway during the last decades of the 19th century and live near the
containers in dark streets nowadays.
First, they are trying to help
Juanjo and Irene Bond who are involved in a crime scene and they have been accused
wrongly.
Next, they're visiting TheMetropolitan Museum.
Finally, they're
meeting Iris Apfel another Grandma's friend.
Memories light the corners of my mind misty water-colored memories of the way we were. Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behinds smiles we gave to one another for the way we were.
Today, The Bonds are living an intensive day. They continue revising some aspects of Social English and grammar like uncountables and Future Simple. The Grandma is talking about some memories and she is explaining some stories about fire, black cats, Occitan poetry, spies in the Middle Age and Tarot.
For one hand, Mariona Bond is reading the future in the cards and the family is realizing that this evening they have a meeting with Barbra Streisand in Broadway and tomorrow they're staying with Richard Castle and his mother, the popular actress Martha Rodgers.
For other hand, the Bonds are creating a folder using imperatives and connectors of order, and they are reviewing polite expressions with shall and reading a new chapter of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Finally, The Grandma is talking about great genius like Charlie Chaplin, Charlie Rivel or Mr.Bean.
The family has a new member: Montse Bond. She's Eli Bond's secret daughter, a result of an old German romance, and the real reason about Jaume Bond's behaviour last week in Berlin.
All the family is in New York City now and they're preparing a plan for a week. The Grandma wants to go to Broadway to watch Barbra Streisand in concert; Brooklyn, to visit Richard Castle, an old friend who is an international writer and she wants to know more things about the CSI team with Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera.
Finally, the family plays Bingo with Noemí and Pedro Bond to enjoy themselves.
I grew up in New York City, a town with different races, religions,
After talking about lullabies with the examples of English, Occitan and Catalan folk and their influence from the Middle Age until nowadays, The Bonds are remembering the origins of some of the oldest guards in Europe and their influence in American ones.
Rubén Bond has decided to join the Force and he's taking another way far away the family who desires him lots of luck and a future full of chances and hapiness.
Finally, the family has created a neutral composition about the situation of education in our schools nowadays, a difficult theme with lots of questions and no answers.
Goodnight my angel, now it's time to sleep
and still so many things I want to say. Remember all the songs you sang for me
when we went sailing on an emerald bay
and like a boat out on the ocean I'm rocking you to sleep. The water's dark and deep, inside this ancient heart. You'll always be a part of me.
Now, The Bonds are studying some English grammar. They're working the Present Continuous and its uses in Present and Future. After, writing some clues and rules and talking about the Cathar, Gypsy and Arabian cultures, hazard and luck they're doing some exercises to review it and they're creating a composition based on a dice.
Creating a compositioin isn't an easy task. You must think in too many aspects like the context (Who? Where? When?) and what kind of information we want to explain (brainstorming).
After having this information, you can create a little plot paying attention to three important things: cohesion, adequation and coherence.
Finally, depending of the composition you can offer your opinion. The family continues in Berlin. The incident of Jaume Bond and the wall has delayed their return to Barcelona. Tomorrow, they are starting to prepare a new travel to the USA and they are saying goodbye to one of their beloved members.
Luck affects everything. Let your hook always be cast;
in the stream where you least expect it there will be a fish.
The Bonds continue in Berlin. They practise some English grammar every day.
After doing some listenings and some exercises about Social English and vocabulary, they have read another chapter of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and they have talked about two especial words: too and enough.
The family is very happy because Jaume Bond has returned after the little incident with the Berlin Mauer. A misunderstanding that has had a happy end. Now, he is again with his lovely family who is helping him to pay a punishment: adopting an animal from the Berlin Zoo.
The Grandma has shared an unofficial but wonderful history about Gypsy and Cathar community and they're thinking about their next travel to the USA.
The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world.
They also read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and create a plot because it's very tired to wait without knowing anything about Jaume.
Eli Bond explains some feelings and experiences about Berlin, her hometown, and talks about Jaume, her husband, who is a bohemian artist who doesn't control his art.
The rest of the family is playing Pio Pio, a game where Juanjo Bond is an incredible crack and Juanjo Bond is in the hotel recovering of an intensive flu.
The Grandma tries to calm her nerves explaining stories: today, she has talked about the importance of the Gypsy culture in the Mediterranean cultures and a curios story about George III of the United Kingdom who wrote in his diary in July, 4 1778: Nothing important happened today.
Egypt is coming back, is becoming , is going to become, you know, a center of excellence for the region and maybe for the rest of the world.
The Bondsare in Berlin. They visit as monuments as they can and enjoy the city. They learn History and they talk about the recent events in this incredible city. They're together and spend all days doing different and interesting things. Eli Bond is at home again. She feels happy and wants to remember her childhood in the capital of Germany. They are special days for her. Mariona Bond practises German everywhere. She's from Luxembourg, German is very easy for her.
The Bonds don't forget their English classes. They talk about Present Simple and its uses in Future and Past. It's an interesting verb tense. They write down some rules and clues about this Present and its Question Tags. The course continues with some important preparations: create a profile, write a postcard and talk about Social English. They use hypothetical deduction method, like Sherlock Holmes. They practise with Who is Who and listen some new Grandma's stories. She talks a lot. She hopes they start to talk and don't feel ashamed. This is Grandma's goal.
Juanjo Bond wants to travel to The USA because a closer orange friend of him is going to do something important. The family joins him.
Life is beautiful and fantastic in Berlin with The USA in mind until an unexpected thing happens: Jaume Bond is not with the family. Where's Jaume?
Think...
I have a lot of great memories, but I can't imagine
Berliner Mauer, The Berlin Wall, in an old picture
Today, The Bonds are going to visit The Berliner Mauer aka The Berlin Wall and the East Side Gallery. It will be an exciting visit full of feeling and emotions because this wall has determined the lives of millions of people and when it fell the Cold War gave another step to the end. The Wall wasn't only a construction of bricks but the line that separate two manners of understanding economy,commerce and free expression. Firstly, this German fact changed the recent history of many countries like Romania, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Belorussia, Ukraine, Moldavia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia or Bulgaria and prepared another one in Yugoslavia (Balkan War), Albania, China or Cuba.
Berliner Mauer or The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.
Constructed by the GermanDemocratic Republic, GDR, East Germany, starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall completely cut off by land West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989.
Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area, later known as the death strip, that contained anti-vehicle trenches, fakir beds and other defenses.
The Eastern Bloc claimed that the Wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that had marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.
Some children playing next to the Berlin Wall
After the end of World War II in Europe, what remained of pre-war Germany west of the Oder-Neisse line was divided into four occupation zones, as per the Potsdam Agreement, each one controlled by one of the four occupying Allied powers: the United States, United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union. The capital of Berlin, as the seat of the Allied Control Council, was similarly subdivided into four sectors despite the city's location, which was fully within the Soviet zone.
Within two years, political divisions increased between the Soviets and the other occupying powers. These included the Soviets' refusal to agree to reconstruction plans making post-war Germany self-sufficient and to a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods and infrastructure already removed by the Soviets. Britain, France, the United States and the Benelux countries later met to combine the non-Soviet zones of the country into one zone for reconstruction and to approve the extension of the Marshall Plan.
On 15 June 1961, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and GDR State Council chairman Walter Ulbricht stated in an international press conference, Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten!, No one has the intention of erecting a wall!. It was the first time the colloquial term Mauer, wall, had been used in this context.
The transcript of a telephone call between Nikita Khrushchev and Ulbricht on 1 August in the same year, suggests that the initiative for the construction of the Wall came from Khrushchev.
However, other sources suggest that Khrushchev had initially been wary about building a wall, fearing negative Western reaction. What is beyond dispute, though, is that Ulbricht had pushed for a border closure for quite some time, arguing that East Germany's very existence was at stake.
Khrushchev had been emboldened by US President John F. Kennedy's tacit indication that the US would not actively oppose this action in the Soviet sector of Berlin.
On Saturday, 12 August 1961, the leaders of the GDR attended a garden party at a government guesthouse in Döllnsee, in a wooded area to the north of East Berlin. There Ulbricht signed the order to close the border and erect a wall.
The line of the Berlin Wall nowadays
Hungary effectively disabled its physical border defenses with Austria on 19 August 1989 and, in September, more than 13,000 East German tourists escaped through Hungary to Austria. This set up a chain of events.
This was followed by mass demonstrations within East Germany itself. Protest demonstrations spread throughout East Germany in September 1989. This was the start of what East Germans generally call the Peaceful Revolution of late 1989. The protest demonstrations grew considerably by early November.
The movement neared its height on 4 November, when half a million people gathered to demand political change, at the Alexanderplatz demonstration, East Berlin's large public square and transportation The fall of the Berlin Wall began the evening of 9 November 1989 and continued over the following days and weeks, with people nicknamed Mauerspechte, wall woodpeckers, using various tools to chip off souvenirs, demolishing lengthy parts in the process, and creating several unofficial border crossings.
Television coverage of citizens demolishing sections of the Wall on 9 November was soon followed by the East German regime announcing ten new border crossings, including the historically significant locations of Potsdamer Platz, Glienicker Brücke, and Bernauer Straße. Crowds gathered on both sides of the historic crossings waiting for hours to cheer the bulldozers that tore down portions of the Wall to reinstate ancient roads. While the Wall officially remained guarded at a decreasing intensity, new border crossings continued for some time, including the Brandenburg Gate on 22 December 1989.
The Bonds visiting East Side Gallery
In some European capitals at the time, there was a deep anxiety over prospects for a reunified Germany. In September 1989, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher pleaded with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev not to let the Berlin Wall fall and confided that she wanted the Soviet leader to do what he could to stop it.
We do not want a united Germany. This would lead to a change to postwar borders and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security, Thatcher told Gorbachev.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, French President François Mitterrand warned Thatcher that a unified Germany could make more ground than Adolf Hitler ever had and that Europe would have to bear the consequences.
Nowadays, Berlin is a symbol of peace and reconciliation, a modern city, capital of one of the more powerful European countries. The East Side Gallery is an international memorial for freedom. It is a 1316 m long section of the Berlin Wall located near the centre of Berlin on Mühlenstraße in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. The actual border at this point was the river Spree. The gallery is located on the so-called hinterland mauer, which closed the border to West Berlin.
The Berlin Wall wasn't the only barrier to fall after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Traditional barriers to the flow of money, trade, people and ideas also fell.
