Welcome! :D

Hi! we are Raquel, Camino, Elsa, Lorena, Sara and Tania six students from León who are studying to become English teachers.

We are going to introduce you to the customs of León with erasmus interviews (foreign students who study in León), our faculty and some articles...

And of course, you can ask whatever you want!

We hope you like our blog! =)

A brief introduction!

León is a city situated in the north-west of Spain. The population is about 150,000 inhabitants and it is known above all because of the old monuments, which most of them are near an ancient district, called "Barrio Húmedo". Here you have some photos:




The Cathedral




Basilica de San Isidoro, which has a king's pantheon.





San Marcos. Nowadays it's a Hotel.





“El Musac”, a contemporary art museum.

More buildings in León:

The auditorium:

The terrain is very uneven: from the mountains in the North with more than 2500 meters (8,000 feet) to the plains in the South. In winter is a bit cold so we have a ski resort where people can ski.

“San Juan y San Pedro”

Our local festivity is from June 24th-June 29th, about a week. During this time, we do activities for all kinds of people. For example, young people participate in sports activities near the river bank and they observe street theatre. Elder people see local dances, a fireworks contest, a bonfire, a street market, equestrian sports and bullfights. There are also activities for everyone, including going to the fair or listening to concert music in the night."

The Legend of our Cathedral

According to legend a giant mole, which no one has ever seen, went out overnight, and with his powerful snout destroyed all the foundations that builders had placed the previous day.

For weeks, the builders were not advancing in their work, because they were not able to avoid the destruction caused by the mole.

The builders were tired because their efforts were in vain, so they decided to make a trap in order to hunt the animal.

The first night, they heard that something had been caught in the trap. As they approached they could see a huge mole, the biggest they had ever seen.

They killed him and hung his skin, as a sign of victory on the door. Since then, at the door of San Juan, there is a huge dark skin hanging, it is said that is the skin of the mole.

Espabila

What’s ES.PABILA program?

It’s a very good alternative to enjoy weekends at night. It is sponsored by Mayor of León, and a lot of young people from 16 to 31 participate in this program.

The main objective is to take young people away from drugs and alcohol. And they have other alternatives to enjoy the night.

It consists on sports like football, climbing, paintball, skating, swimming and hockey; and activities like dance, cooking, making-up, belly dance, graffiti, art, Dj-room, role playing, table games, jewellery making… The best of this, it is activities change every months.

History of ES. PABILA

ES. PABILA was created in 2006 by the Mayor of León. It organized about 112 activities: 31 for teenagers, 42 for young people and 24 for adults; these have duration of 920 hours annual. It is usually open Thursday-Saturday and there are 80 young workers. During the last year, this program tripled the assistance in their activities. Last year, 33.165 people participated.

This was a pioneer program and now more and more cities are adopting this project, like Villaquilambre, a village near León, it has bat funny program.

How do you participate in ES. PABILA?

If you want to participate to the ES. PABILA, you can do the two different ways:

Bracelet: you can buy it when you go to the activities and it costs 1€.

Carnet: you have to buy it at beginning of the course and it costs 10 € and you don’t have to pay anymore.

Where are the acitivities?

.

e-mail: espabila@espabila.org

Website: http://www.espabila.org/

Timetable: de 9:00 a 15:00 h.
Adress: Joaquina Vedruna, 12 CP 24002
Adress of activity place : Dámaso Merino 6 CP 24003

These activities take place in the following neighbourhoods: Armunia, La Lastra, Ventas and Asunción and El Crucero.

The workers will go to the Húmedo district in the weekends when the police will do breath test to volunteers younger. The teenagers who haven’t drunk something, they could go around with the “ segway” which the police use to patrol this part of the city.

In addition, there are a some activities which are realized in “ La Candamia Park” such as paintball.

Personal opinion

We’ve been in Es.pabila three times. First we visited belly dance class, where about ten or fifteen girls were dancing for an hour. It was very amazing because we and our friends knew culture and dancing from other country.

Second we were in art class, this time we learnt to make a purse with a page of a comic. Tania chose her favourite super hero comic, and now she has got a Spider-purse, Axterix and Obelix comic was chosen by Lorena who made a cracy-purse, and Camino chose a zipi-zape comic and she has a naugty purse.

Third day we were playing with our friends to The legend of The five rings, a role paying. It’s a interesting game based in China and Japan ancient culture. Raquel wanted to be a beautiful courtier, Elsa was a prietest who had a dragon tatoo in her back and Sara chose to be a too strong and taller samurai; we were in a very dangerous adventure, we had to rescue a princess Dogi- Hitomi.


These activities are a little part of Es.pabila offer. In our opinion, it’s an excellent project but is unknown for a lot of people. The first objective is moving away drugs and alcohol to young’s parties, but it isn’t real, because, during the activities they can’t have alcohol or take drugs but after midnight when these activities finish teenagers go to Húmedo district to get drunk.

We think that the education is very important, because they need to understand that they don’t need alcohol to have a party or fun.
Finally we wise you visit Es.pabila and enjoy the night party and discover other form to have healthy fun.

Erasmus Interview

Hi! This time we will show you something about the Erasmus program.


The Erasmus program is an student exchange program, basically all around the European Union. It gives the students the opportunity to travel to other counties, to study in the university there, to know new cultures different from yours, to meet new people, and why not, have fun too.


To show you an example, we have interviewed two students from Ireland, they are Cassie and David, and they will explain you a little about their lifes here in León, our culture, their impressions, what they like most, and many things... so, let's hear them!

Our Department

Hi students!

Today we are going to show you our department. It is called "Facultad de Educación".




People come to this department because they want to be kindergarten or primary school teachers. There, we also can study psycho-pedagogy.
The first degree last 3 years, although from next year on the duration will be 4 years. Psycho-pedagogy studies are done in two years, once you have passed the previous degree.
There are different fields. We are studying for being an English Primary teacher, but one can also study to become a music teacher, physical education teacher, primary teacher, kindergarten teacher or teach people who have disabilities such as being deaf.
Here you have some photos of our faculty:

The stairs


The elevator


The toilet


The Hall



A corridor



In the morning, if we are hungry we can buy some food or take some drinks on the vending machines.


For example, if we have to do some projects we can do it on some tables which are on the corridors.



There are two boards in the hall where people can see or put some news about the university or entertainments; some students put there advertisements to exchange class notes, other students want to teach and they offer you classes leaving there a paper explaining what they do.


We have few rooms like this one with computers; they are not open all day because someone must be there looking for them and helping you if you need, that ones are some students that are working there for few hours a day, so they have an schedule and we can go there when the rooms are open. We can go there to surf on the internet, work, study...


This room is where we go to make photocopies, and is always full of people, it's a mess!


In this picture, you can see our library, we can go there to read some books and take them home for few days, we can do this with our university card; students use the library also to work, or study on their own.




This locked door is the secretary's office, where at the beginning of the course we go and register ourselves for the next course or into a new one.



And finally here you have our class




We start the lessons at 9 o'clock. It depends on the day, but usually we finish at 13.00 or at 14.00. After that, we go home in order to have lunch. There are some people who eat in the coffee bar because they live far away. Some days, we also have lessons in the afternoon, from 16:00 until 18:00.

We hope you like our department!!

Christmas! =)

Christmas is coming! At the beginning of December the majority of streets in León are decorated with Christmas lights, all the shops are filled with toys, candies, Christmas trees, the street market is set so that we can buy some presents for our friends... Everything around us is in a nice and cozy environment. So we have decided to tell you something about Christmas in Spain.

Most of the Spanish houses start Christmas by decorating it. Firstly, a few days before Christmas, many families put up the crib. Other families prefer to put up a Christmas tree, and in some cases both of them.
But it’s not only in the houses, since the city council puts an enormous crib in the centre of the city so that everybody can see it. In addition, they put some real animals over there like sheep, donkeys, and ducks during the day and children really like it: they even feed the animals with bread!

Secondly, most of the people meet the family on Christmas Day. It is traditional to go to a relative’s house and eat there all together. For example, some typical dishes are: lamb, seafood, turkey, salmon, sea bream, piglet and as for desserts there can’t be a lack of “turrón” (nougat), marzipan or “polvorones”. The day before Santa Claus arrived, so kids play with their new toys.
Here you have some photos of mazapán, polvorones and turrón:



But we also know that Christmas has arrived because of Freixenet advertisement.(Freixenet is the brand of a famous champagne here in Spain).

Every year they premier a new advertisement during this time. But this year, because of the economic recession, they have put the one from last year.

The night of New Year’s Eve is also usually spent with the family, because it’s the time for “las campanadas”. Here in Spain there is a tradition that all the people have to eat 12 grapes in the last 12 seconds of that year, or if not they will have bad lack for the new year. All the people are watching TV in order to know the time exactly. It’s so popular that all the channels look for their best presenters so that they have more TV audiences. They usually take places in the clock of “La Plaza Mayor” in Madrid. There’s a crowd there waiting for eating the grapes.

After that, above all young people, go out to some parties in pubs, restaurants or hotels. These parties are called “cotillón”. They can also take the grapes there and after that they listen to music and dance.
We also are expectant in order to know which one is going to be the last advertisement of the year and the first one of the next year.
Next day, some people, who didn’t go out the night before, go to the church.

Finally, another important day here is the 6th of January. It’s because the day before “los Tres Reyes Magos” (the Three Wise Men) have arrived. It is said these men go over all the houses in Spain and leave a present for the children. Children have to leave in the kitchen some food and drink so that the Three Wise Men don’t get tired. Moreover, if children leave a shoe under the Christmas tree maybe they will receive some money.
After this the kids spend the whole day playing with the new plays, but most of them in the afternoon go out in order to see the Wise King in the “cabalgata” (Twelfth Night procession). For those who can’t go, they can watch the TV as they broadcast Madrid “cabalgata”.

For this magical and really nice day there is a typical desert: “el Roscón de Reyes”. Here you have a photo:

Inside this, it is hidden a bean and a surprise. It is established that the person who find the bean has to pay for the “roscón”.