162. PROS AND CONS OF USING A BICYCLE TO MOVE IN A CITY, by A.P.C (E.S.O 3)

SONG:  Katie Melua - Nine Million Bicycles

I find bicycles the best transport to move in a city: you don’t have to wait in never-ending traffic jams, it is easy to park and you help to reduce CO2 emissions.

In my opinion, Santander is a city where you can cycle easily and enjoy your ride. Imagine you live in a flat in Calle Castilla and you work at an office located in Avenida de la Reina. Instead of driving to work every day, you could start to cycle. You would de exercise each morning; therefore, you would keep fit and feel better.

There’s a beautiful bicycle lane which goes along Puerto Chico and the Paseo Pereda by the sea. It’s a nice place to cycle, and while you go to work you would appreciate the lovely landscape.

Cycling instead of driving helps you to do better at work: you would be calm as the ride would have unwounded you.

In addition, it isn’t necessary to own a bicycle to make use of this transport, since there are lots of stands in Santander where you can hire bicycles. They are cheap and very useful, as you can use them the time you want and then return them to any other stand located next to you.

Although riding a bicycle in a city like Santander has got lots of advantages, there are some negative aspects too.

Bicycles are an open transport, therefore, it isn’t a comfortable experience to use them when it is very cold. Bicycles could be considered a dangerous transport, as they can slip when the road is wet. From my point of view it is very dangerous to cycle among cars on a road since the speed of a car is always higher than the maximum speed a bicycle can reach.

I would love to cycle from Maliaño to Santander with my friends and go to the beaches and parks; however, the way to go to Santander from our city is through the road, therefore, it is dangerous for people without a great ability riding bicycles, like me.

It would be perfect to have a bicycle lane to Santander where people could cycle safely.

161. WRITE A FORMAL LETTER TO A TRAVEL AGENCY COMPLAINING ABOUT A HOTEL, C.M.T (E.S.O 3)

                   

                                                           C/ Marqués de Villapuente

                                                          Muriedas, Cantabria

                                                                 39600, Spain

Agency manager

Sánchez Travel Agency

Santander 3W4  6ND

Dear Sir/ Madam:

I am writing to you in order to demand a refund or a discount in the next book. I am going to explain you why.

I am so unhappy with the hotel your agency booked for me. I trusted your company for choosing me the best hotel to stay in, however they sent me to a horrible hotel that didn´t look like the one they had shown to me.

When I was talking with your employee I said to her that I was looking for a hotel with a very beautiful façade. I told her that I was going to travel to a very hot place so the hotel had to have a swimming pool, air conditioner in the bedroom and be near the beach.

I pointed out that the room service and a large buffet in the canteen were essential. Your employee wrote down all these details and she searched for some hotels.

She recommended me one which looked great.

The photos of the hotel showed an amazing place and it had a reasonable price.

On the way to the hotel, I was very excited; however, once I saw the hotel, the only thing I wanted to do was to run away.

The hotel looked like an abandoned place with a very dirty façade.

My room was too small. It did not have air conditioning and it was a complete mess. I had to clean the room myself when I was supposed to have room service.

The website said that the hotel had a fantastic swimming pool with huge gardens, but there was only a duck pond with some plants around it.

I was totally stressed so I decided to spend the rest of the day on the beach, but when I tried to get there I got lost since I had to take two buses to get there.

There wasn´t a canteen. Instead of that, there was an old kitchen where you had to cook your own food.

To sum up, it was a terrible hotel therefore I didn´t enjoy my holidays because of that. I would like to get my money back.

Yours faithfully,

160. PROS AND CONS OF USING A BICYCLE TO MOVE IN A CITY , by V.D (E.S.O 3)

SONG: Soul Asylum - Runaway Train

Using a bicycle is advisable as it does not pollute.

With it you can enjoy more your ride as you can stop whenever you want and take photos. It is easier to move around a city riding as there are more places where you can leave the bicycle. Another advantage of using a bicycle in a city is that it is healthy as you can do exercise.

On the other hand, you can suffer accidents on the road. It can also start to rain, and if you are riding the bicycle, you can get wet and catch a cold. Although, before, I mentioned that there are more places to leave the bicycle, it’s also true that in some of those places it isn’t safe to leave the bike as it could be stolen.

Finally, it may not be comfortable to use a bicycle in a city as there are a lot of people and cars and, unless there is a bicycle lane, it is almost impossible to ride it.

Riding a bicycle is a healthy activity, however it is a bit hard to use them in a city as Santander.

159: WHAT IS HAPPENING AROUND ME, A.F (E.S.O 3)

SONG:  Ludovico Einaudi - Primavera

I am in a park, relaxing in my free time and I can see that many other people like relaxing with their relatives in a park too.

I am in a wooden bench, near a little lake which is full of ducks and geese. Some children are trying to catch them.

I can see an old couple feeding pigeons. They are surrounded by lots of pigeons which come to eat the little crumbs of bread that the couple is throwing to the ground to feed them.

I can also see a man with his children. They are skating around the park with their roller skates, except the son, who has a cool scooter.

On the other side of the park, some people are eating ice creams as it is very hot and there is a little ice-cream parlour that sells very cheap ice-creams of all flavors. I think I am going to buy a lemon ice-cream since I want one and lemon is my favourite flavor. 

158. DESCRIBE WHAT IS HAPPENING AROUND YOU, by V.D (E.SO 3)

SONG: Nina simone - Mr Bojangles

There is a lot of noise.

It doesn’t matter where you look, there are euphoric people screaming and queuing.

If you look to the right, you can see some people getting out of the roller-coaster. There is a girl who looks very frightened as she is shivering and white as the snow. A guy who could be her brother or her boyfriend is holding her at the same time that he is telling her something.

A bit more to the left, there is a baby in a baby carriage who is crying, and a very beautiful woman, who I suppose is his mother, who is talking on her mobile phone. There is a pacifier on the floor. The baby must be crying because of that. Poor kid!

I hear some shouts behind me, so I turn around to see what is happening. There are two men who are ready to start a fight whereas they shout one each other in an inhumane way. A woman is crying and asking them to stop, although it is in vane, as it is as if they couldn’t see her.

The people who are queuing to ride on the big wheel are moving.

The man who is in front of me holds a young girl, probably his granddaughter, who is watching me in a serious way. I smile at her and after a few moments, she returns me back the smile.

I stop looking at the girl to observe a group of birds that just came out of a tree. But my attention passes quickly from the birds to a frisbee that finishes in the hands of a twelve year old kid.

Next to him, there is a cotton candy stall.

My day starts well.

157. YOU ARE IN A PLACE. DESCRIBE WHAT IS HAPPENING AROUND YOU. by G.P.C. (E.SO 3)

SONG:  Santo California - Torneró

It’s warm and sunny. There aren’t any clouds in the sky.

I’m surrounded by vegetation. There are tall trees of different varieties and flowers of all shapes and colours on the grass.

There are also some animals: red restless squirrels jumping from tree to tree and looking for food; all kinds of insects buzzing among the flowers; birds singing on the trees… It is a bright chaos of colours, trills and smells.

There are paths with benches and fountains in the vegetation and there is an area with swings and slides for children.

The park is full of people.

There are kids everywhere: swinging, playing hide and seek, playing football, queueing to buy an ice cream…

Their mothers and fathers are looking after them, sitting in the benches with all their bags and sandwiches, talking to one another without losing sight of their children.  

There are also groups of teenagers sitting on the grass or taking photos with their mobile phones.

Some people are doing sport: there are runners warming up everywhere and people riding a bike or skating.

There are also some parents teaching their children how to ride a bike and other parents walking their babies in their buggies.

Other people are relaxing: they are laying on the grass with their eyes closed or reading a book under a tree.

Some families are having a picnic on the grass and there are elderly men and women sitting on the benches and talking.

In short, it’s a nice afternoon to be in the park.  

156. WRITE AN E-MAIL TO A FRIEND DESCRIBING THE FIRST TIME YOU TRAVELLED BY AIRPLANE, M.G. D (E.SO 3)

SONG:  Ryan Star - Losing Your Memory

Dear Shawn:

Hi guy! I am writing you because I arrive now from my holidays.

Two weeks ago I travelled to Finland with my mother, my father and my brother. We drove to the airport in my aunt's car, and then, she went back to her car.

We arrived at the airport three hours before our plane took off as the stewardesses had to check our passports and other documents and that takes time.

While we waited to board the plane, we went to a coffee shop. My mother and my father had a "Martini", my brother a glass of Coke and I drank a coconut and pineapple smoothie.

Later, we went for a walk and to see some of the shops that were inside the airport.

One hour before boarding the plane, I was very nervous because I had never been on a plane, and I thought that during the flight there was going to be an accident or something like that, but that didn't happen, as my family and I landed in Helsinki.