Hi there!
A couple of
weeks ago a very good friend of mine told me about this blog. He himself
created it to upload compositions, to share them with the community, and all of
this with the purpose of practicing English. At that moment it resembled to me
a very good idea, but I didn’t think about it too much later. Some days after,
he talked to me again of the blog. Then he offered me to post something if I
would like to, despite not being a student of EOI right now (my purpose is to
start C1 next course). Two words came to my mind: why not?
As I said
I’m planning to sign up EOI in the next course. Writing in a blog is a great
way of practicing, and that’s just what I want to do. I just only pretend to
exercise my language, my writing skills and my vocabulary in a funny way. How?
Sharing with you my thoughts about topics that are interesting to me, about my life
experiences, maybe about hot news… who knows?
So, few
days later, sitting comfortably in my sofa, I’m starting to write my first post
in this blog. Today I’m going to talk about an easy topic. It’s a common topic.
Everyone likes talking about it. Everyone likes doing it: travelling.
To start, let’s
put some context. What’s travelling for me? Travelling for me it’s not an
action. It’s much more. It’s a way of truly living life. Let’s put an example
on this. Imagine an alien who comes for the first time to our planet, and
standing above our atmosphere, and having a more or less global vision of Earth.
Imagine how amazed he would be, seeing the immensity of the blue oceans, the
beauty of the clouds, the spectacular contrast of land and sea, the gorgeous
green tones of the Amazonia and the shiny white tones of Greenland, Antarctica
and Himalaya. And now, imagine this alien thinking about a living being of this
absolutely marvelous world who do not travel. Who has never left his place of
birth, his hometown. Who only knows his city, his village. Who has never exited
his little comfort zone. Probably this alien would think that this could not be
possible, living beings in this amazing world can’t be so intelligent.
I accept
that this isn’t probably the best example, but sometimes it’s good to take some
perspective and to see the things from a higher point of view, like our alien.
Now, forget about this alien (today we don’t know if aliens exist or not, and
we are not going to discuss it now, maybe in another post), and let’s put our
feet in the ground again. Let’s travel.
Travelling
is the only thing that despite costing you some money makes you richer. This is
a great truth. I’m going to remember now one of my favorite trips I’ve ever
done. It was three years ago, with two friends and a van, travelling from
Catalonia to the north of France. We planned the trip during the month before
leaving. But there wasn’t so much planning. In fact, we only booked some of the
nights, what would give us some freedom to improvise.
Our first
stop was at La Rochelle, in the Atlantic coast of France. We happily found La
Rochelle lovely village. We could experience this although we only spend there
one night and one morning. When we arrived there was late afternoon. There were
a lot of people in the streets, walking, sitting in cafes and having fun. The
weather was perfect, keeping in mind that we came from Catalonia, what is known
to be very hot in summer especially in august.
The next
stop was Brittany. What to tell about Brittany. There’s nature at its highest
expression. Wild coast, high cliffs, beaches, rocks, forests... it sets an amazing
landscape. The French coast continued like that as we went north, to Normandy.
Our plan was visiting Utah and Omaha beach, since we are very concerned about
the facts occurred there and their importance in contemporary history.
One of the
most memorable moments in this trip, and surely in my whole life, that for sure
I will never forget, is the moment at sunset when me and my friends walked
alone by Omaha beach. There were only the sea, the beach (huge and beautiful beach),
the weight of history and us. That was amazing. Another memorable moment was
visiting the American cemetery in Omaha Beach, the day after. The opening scene
of Saving Private Ryan was exactly what we had in front of our eyes. It was absolutely
heartbreaking.
The trip was
plenty of other adventures that make me smile every time I think about them.
One night we cannot enter to our hotel and we had to search for another one at
1 a.m. This sounds to be a good adventure in France, isn’t it? Another day we
had to be rescued by a rescue team after being trapped in the rocks, because of
not being so prudent with violent tides of Normandy. Another moment to remember
nowadays, but very scary in that moment!
In another
post I will explain some more memorable things about this trip. I think it’s
enough for today. As a conclusion, I say: travel. Travel, please, as much as you can.
You owe it to yourself.
See you
soon!
