Sara Bean, aka "Little Sara" is a fan of The Beans family. She was born in a day like today ten years ago in SanFrancisco, California.
SaraBean is an intelligent and clever girl who studies very hard to become in a great genius in a closer future. Sara has lots of friends and she is a funny and beautiful girl.
Some weeks ago, San Francisco received some important news: The Beans family were going to visit it. Then, Sara Bean participated in a contest in her school about The Beans and she won it.
She wrote a wonderful composition about how she thought a family must be and she said that, although the perfect family doesn't exist, she would like to know The Beans because they are a multicultural family, every member of the family has a different origin and speaks a different language but it doesn't matter because it's not important where you come, the most important is where you are going to arrive.
Little Sara visits Berkley University, California
Sara's dream is a reality today, in her 10th birthday because TheBeans have visited her and she has guided them in their visit to Berkeley, where you can find the most popular university in California, cradle of the most important social movements. Sara knows that if she works very hard, if she studies a lot and if she follows her parents' advice, she will arrive to study in Berkeley, if she wants, or wherever she wanted, because a good formation is the key for a better future.
Congratulations, "Little Sara"! Thanks for travelling to Berkeley with us and enjoy this wonderful day with our fantastic family.
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The sudden influx of immigration and gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy, and California became one of the few American states to go directly to statehood without first being a territory, in the Compromise of 1850.
The Gold Rush had severe effects on Native Californians and resulted in a precipitous population decline from disease, genocide and starvation. By the time it ended, California had gone from a thinly populated ex-Mexican territory, to the home state of the first presidential nominee for the new Republican Party, in 1856.
The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial. Whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers, called forty-niners, referring to 1849. Of the 300,000 people who came to America during the Gold Rush, approximately half arrived by sea and half came overland on the California Trail and the Gila River trail; forty-niners often faced substantial hardships on the trip.
Some prospectors in the 19th century
While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the Gold Rush attracted tens of thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and China. Agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the settlers.
San Francisco grew from a small settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852. Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California. In 1849 a state constitution was written. The new constitution was adopted by referendum vote, and the future state's interim first governor and legislature were chosen. In September, 1850, California became a state.
At the beginning of the Gold Rush, there was no law regarding property rights in the goldfields and a system of staking claims was developed. Prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, such as panning. Although the mining caused environmental harm, more sophisticated methods of gold recovery were developed and later adopted around the world. New methods of transportation developed as steamships came into regular service.
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth,
but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
Leo Tolstoy
By 1869 railroads were built across the country from California to the eastern United States. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, increasing the proportion of gold companies to individual miners. Gold worth tens of billions of today's dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few. However, many returned home with little more than they had started with.
A hobo's camp near the railway
A hobo is a migrant worker or homeless vagabond, especially one who is impoverished. The term originated in the Wester, probably Northwestern, United States around 1890. Unlike a tramp, who works only when forced to, and a bum, who does not work at all, a hobo is a traveling worker.
It is unclear exactly when hobos first appeared on the American railroading scene. With the end of the American Civil War in the 1860s, many discharged veterans returning home began hopping freight trains. Others looking for work on the American frontier followed the railways west aboard freight trains in the late 19th century.
The number of hoboes increased greatly during the Great Depression era of the 1930s. With no work and no prospects at home, many decided to travel for free by freight train and try their luck elsewhere. They had their own code.
Life as a hobo was dangerous. In addition to the problems of being itinerant, poor, and far from home and support, plus the hostility of many train crews, they faced the railroads' security staff, nicknamed bulls, who had a reputation of violence against trespassers.
She was exhausted. The car had broken in the worst moment. She pushed it again and again. Then, a new hope appeared in the horizon. She felt she was saved. Edgar was walking to her quietly. When he arrived next to her, she cried "Edgar!" and he, like a brave hero, turned to her and say "Hello!" before disappearing into the same horizon that he had arrived.
Lombard Street is an east–west street in San Francisco that is famous for a steep, one-block section with eight hairpin turns. Stretching from The Presidio east to The Embarcadero, with a gap on Telegraph Hill, most of the street's western segment is a major thoroughfare designated as part of U.S. Route 101.
The famous one-block section, claimed to be the crookedest street in the world, is located along the eastern segment in the Russian Hill neighborhood. It is a major tourist attraction, receiving around 2 million visitors per year and up to 17,000 per day on busy summer weekends, as of 2015.
The street was named after Lombard Street in Philadelphia by San Francisco surveyor Jasper O'Farrell.
Lombard Street's west end is at Presidio Boulevard inside The Presidio; it then heads east through the Cow Hollow neighborhood. For twelve blocks, between Broderick Street and Van Ness Avenue, it is an arterial road that is co-signed as U.S. Route 101. Lombard Street continues through the Russian Hill neighborhood and to the Telegraph Hill neighborhood. At Telegraph Hill it turns south, becoming Telegraph Hill Boulevard to Pioneer Park and Coit Tower. Lombard Street starts again at Winthrop Street and ends at The Embarcadero as a collector road.
Lombard Street is known for the one-way block on Russian Hill between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets, where eight sharp turns are said to make it the most crooked street in the world. The design, first suggested by property owner Carl Henry and built in 1922, was intended to reduce the hill's natural 27% grade, which was too steep for most vehicles.
The crooked block is perhaps 180 m long and 125.7 m straightline, is one-way and is paved with red bricks. The sign at the top recommends 8 km/h. The segment normally sees around 250 vehicles per hour, with average daily traffic reaching 2,630 vehicles in 2013. During peak times, vehicles have to wait up to 20 minutes to enter the Crooked Street segment, in a queue that can reach Van Ness Avenue. The Powell-Hyde cable car stops at the top of the block on Hyde Street.
A city is not gauged by its length and width,
but by the broadness of its vision and the height of its dream.
After some hours resting and taking enough force to continue with their travel, this morning, The Beans have reviewed some English with Conditional and Second Conditional and have finished another chapter of Charles Dickens's Christmas Carol.
It has been another special day. Nereyda Bean has invited all the family to taste a delicious Dominican breakfast and the family has been talking about popular culture, lullabies, songs and the figure of the hobo in the American society and history.
The Grandma has talked about the importance of lyrics in the songs and how some songs have been able to pass the censorship and become in universal hymns of freedom and social rights.
Finally, The Beans have been playing with one of the most incredible genius of the architecture, Antoni Gaudí, a referent, a symbol and a must.
This afternoon, the family has visited Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. Fisherman's Wharf is a neighborhood and popular tourist attraction in San Francisco. It roughly encompasses the northern waterfront area of San Francisco from Ghirardelli Square or Van Ness Avenue east to Pier 35 or Kearny Street. The F Market streetcar runs through the area, the Powell-Hyde cable car lines runs to Aquatic Park, at the edge of Fisherman's Wharf, and the Powell-Mason cable car line runs a few blocks away.
The Beans arriving to Fisherman's Wharf
Fisherman's Wharf gets its name and neighborhood characteristics from the city's early days of the mid to later 1800s when Italian immigrant fishermen came to the city by the bay to take advantage of the influx of population due to the gold rush. One, Achille Paladini, found success wholesaling local fish as owner of the Paladini Fish Company, and came to be known as the Fish King. Most of the Italian immigrant fishermen settled in the North Beach area close to the wharf and fished for the local delicacies and the now famed Dungeness crab.
From then until the present day it remained the home base of San Francisco's fishing fleet. Despite its redevelopment into a tourist attraction during the 1970s and 1980s, the area is still home to many active fishermen and their fleets.
Pier 39 is a shopping center and popular tourist attraction built on a pier in San Francisco. At Pier 39, there are shops, restaurants, a video arcade, street performances, the Aquarium of the Bay, virtual 3D rides, and views of California sea lions hauled out on docks on Pier 39's marina. A two-story carousel is one of the pier's more dominant features, although it is not directly visible from the street and sits towards the end of the pier. The family-oriented entertainment and presence of marine mammals make this a popular tourist location for families with kids.
Tania Bean enjoying the sea lions at Pier 39
The pier is located at the edge of the Fisherman's Wharf district and is close to North Beach, Chinatown, and the Embarcadero. The area is easily accessible with the historic F Market streetcars.
From the pier one can see Angel Island, Alcatraz Island, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Bay Bridge. Blue & Gold Fleet's bay cruises leave from Pier 39.
California sea lions have always been present in San Francisco Bay. They started to haul out on docks of Pier 39 in September 1989. Before that they mostly used Seal Rock for that purpose. Ever since September 1989 the number of sea lions on Seal Rock has been steadily decreasing, while their number on Pier 39 has generally increased. Some people speculate that sea lions moved to docks because of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, but the earthquake occurred months after the first sea lions had arrived at Pier 39. It is likely that the sea lions feel safer inside the Bay.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
Today is Saint Valentine. Saint Valentine, officially Saint Valentine of Rome, is a widely recognized 3rd-century Roman saint commemorated on February 14 and since the High Middle Ages is associated with a tradition of courtly love.
All that is reliably known of the saint commemorated on February 14 is his name and that he was martyred and buried at a cemetery on the Via Flaminia close to the Ponte Milvio to the north of Rome on that day. It is uncertain whether St. Valentine is two different Saints. Several different martyrologies have been added to later hagiographies that are unreliable.
The Roman Catholic Church continues to recognize him as a saint, listing him as such in the February 14 entry in the Roman Martyrology, and authorizing liturgical veneration of him on February 14 in any place where that day is not devoted to some other obligatory celebration in accordance with the rule that on such a day the Mass may be that of any saint listed in the Martyrology for that day.
Saint Valentine is commemorated in the Anglican Communion, as well as in Lutheranism. February 14 The Lutheran Service Book, with its penchant for the old Roman calendar, commemorates Valentine on this date.
The Beans have just arrived to the Hotel Palace in San Francisco where they're going to stay during their visit. For the moment, they're going to rest a little and take enough force to continue their visit in this wonderful side of California.
Old memories of The Grandma with Janis Joplin
The Grandma has decided to visit Vesuvio Café, a long-time city favourite, place that has welcomed authors, musicians,
artists and other free spirits through its doors since 1948, artists like Janis Joplin, someone who The Grandma adores. Drawn to
the Beat movement, and later to psychedelic rock, Janis Joplin was just
another patron who loved to hang out and chill behind its doors.
Some members of the family are remembering their firsts dates, something very special in a day like today, meanwhile The Grandma is evokating the past again and thinking strongly, that French is the most beautiful language to sing love songs.
Manuel & Cristina Bean
I remember my first date with Cristina. We met in a fantastic restaurant in the downtown and I was waiting for her very nervous. Suddently, Cristina appeared. It was like a dream. She wore a beautiful long white dress -she seemed a bride- and all stopped. Time stopped. World stopped. The waiter stopped. It was an incredible sensation. I was flying. A big scream returned me to the real world. It was a Cristina's scream. Her dress had become red and she was angry. The waiter had fallen over her and the Rioja wine finished on her beautiful dress.
I don't remember a lot about that day. I only remember that Manuel had asked for me a date thousands of times. He was very heavy, very persistent. At the end, I accepted and I wore the most beautiful dress I found inside my wardrove. I was a little nervous but I kept calm when I saw him, just before that waiter fell over me. We had dinner. At the beginning, it was a little uncomfortable to wear that red wine dress but finally, I only had eyes for Manuel. It was like a dream. Since that moment, he is my Cari.
I was visiting another little town in Denmark. Denmark is a wonderful country full of beautiful tales and nice people. I was travelling with some friends and we decided to visit a little church. When we entered in the religious place, an intensive light focused on him. Antonio was there, at the end of the central corridor, with the Holy Bible in his hands, reading Apostle John. I remember his words: 'And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth' (1 John 5:6). It was like a dream.Since that moment, I knew I wanted to stay the rest of my life with that handsome man, although I realized it wasn't going to be easy to share my life with a Protestant preacher. I'm Portuguese. I'm deeply Catholic, but as Apostle John says: 'The Spirit is the Truth'.
It was another day in the church. There's an enourmous crisis of faith in European citizens nowadays and Danish people aren't an exception. There weren't a lot of people in my little chappel but suddenly, the door opened and Ana appeared rounded by a sacred light. She was like an angel, a God's revelation. She was a God's present. I knew it immediately. It was like a dream. Since that moment, I realized I could follow the paths of God in different ways, it wasn't necessary to explain the God's words inside an empty church. I must go out and explain them around the world, but I wasn't going to do it alone: I wanted to share the rest of my life with Ana. She's a God's blessing.
I'm a professional football player and although I'm French, I'm a great fan of Real Madrid, perhaps because one of my favourite players has been Zinedine Zidane. It was the first time I visited the Santiago Bernabeu. I was very lucky because I was going to watch a derby: Real Madrid against Futbol Club Barcelona. I was very excited and happy. The anthem sounded and everybody stood up and started to sing and wave their flags. Everybody? No. In one of the corners of the stadium, near me, a beautiful woman looked the scenery with incredible open eyes. It was like a dream.It seemed that she wasn't very comfortable there and I felt a strange feeling of helping her to stay better. I left my seat and walked between dozens of people to arrive to her. I embraced her. I embraced Eli. Since that moment, we share our lives and two wonderful kids. By the way, my team won 2-1. ¡Hala Madrid!
I was scared. Thousands of thousands of people were shouting and singing to cheer their team. All the stadium was covered by an intensive white colour except me. I was very proud of wearing my blue and maroon t-shirt, which symbolize the colours of my football team. Yes. I'm a Futbol Club Barcelona's supporter and I was watching the Derby in the stadium of the rival thanks to a contest that I had won eating a packet of fried potatoes. I was alone and I have to confess that I didn't feel very well. Suddenly, Edgar appeared from the crowd and embraced me. It was like a dream.Since that moment, we share our lives, our football discussions and I demonstrate everybody that to love someone is not a question of age but heart and feelings. I don't remember the final score. It doesn't matter. Visca el Barça!
Today, The Beans have continued their English classes reviewing some aspects of the Past Simple with the irregular forms.
After doing some exercises, the family has adviced Edgar Bean, who has an offer to play in the Brazilian Football League, to continue with the family and try to find a better offer in the European Leagues. The family has been discussing about legends like Pelé, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Buffon and Messi, people who have changed football forever.
Tomorrow, it's Saint Valentine and some Beans have been talking about their memories about their first dates after reading a little more of Charles Dickens's Christmas Carol.
The family is flying from Rio de Janeiro to San Francisco, California. It's a 16-hours flight again, and The Beans are a little exhausted because of the rythm of the Carnival in Rio. This is the main reason because some members of the family have decided to read some English grammar books and some English novels that Eli Bond-Bean and Natalia Bean bought in their last staying in New York.
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. The consolidated city-county covers an area of about 121 km2 mostly at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Grandma at the Summer Solstice Festival (1967)
San Francisco was founded on June 29, 1776, when colonists from Spain established Presidio of San Francisco at the Golden Gate and Mission San Francisco de Asís a few miles away, all named for St. Francis of Assisi.
The California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later.
In World War II, San Francisco was a major port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. It then became the birthplace of the United Nations in 1945.
After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, along with the rise of the hippie counterculture, the Sexual Revolution, the Peace Movement growing from opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines.
