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Thursday, June 9, 2022
Thursday, May 12, 2022
Task 5: Essay on what I most like of my hometown
What I like
best is its harbour. A big river called “Elbe” crosses the city that
has widened into a huge international port in the city centre. There
are also lots of small canals surrounded by antique warehouse buildings that
were once used to store coffee, silk and carpets. It is very amazing and
impressive to take a small “Barkasse” and visit those canals, you smell the water
and the wind as if you were near the sea, although the North Sea is about 100 km
away.
Task 3: Describe the way from Cibeles to the Fisherman's Wharf
Last Saturday,
when I was taking a walk near Cibeles, I was suddenly surprised by a phone call
from an American friend. It was around 16:00 h and I just wanted to go for a
coffee, but as I heard what she was telling me, I had to hurry up to go home.
Why that? Well, you’ll not believe what I’m telling you now. She only said, “Martina,
please, come to Fisherman’s Wharf as soon as you can! I have to hang up now, but I’ll
call you again soon!”. Wow, I had no idea what was going on there, but this
friend is a very good one and her voice sounded very stressed, so I ran to the
bus to get home to pick up my passport and to get some luggage. During the bus
trip, it was sooo slow, traffic jam as always… I had time to check the flights
and to book the soonest one: leaving 19:45h from Barajas airport to Zurich. What luck that I got the Visa last week already, as I planned to go to visit her
next week. Of course, the flight next week was lost. Hopefully, they’ll give
me some money back.
All the way
to Zurich I was thinking of what could the reason be to go there so urgently,
when I arrived I instantly switched on my phone to see the messages. And yes, I
had a WhatsApp from her saying: “Hope you are bringing black clothes with you”. Oh
my god… somebody had died! Who could it be…? Her mother? One of her siblings? Even
one of her kids?? Not to think about that… Well, I didn’t have any black
clothes in spite of a bra… But I had 9 h and 5 min time left in
Zurich before the flight was leaving for London-Heathrow at 7:05 h. So I found
some shop and got a nice dress and a Blazer, horribly expensive, and normally I
do not wear this kind of clothing, but anyway…
The flight
to London was short, I arrived at 7:55 h and still did not sleep a minute ☹ In London there was again a waiting time of
2,5 hours! I looked for some seats that could serve for a quick nap, always
watching the boarding gate.
At 10:25 I
finally was in my comfortable seat of the Boeing 777 to San Francisco. 11h and
5 minutes, sleeping half of the time and watching films the other half. But I
did not get the plot, because I was still thinking of who could have died so
suddenly. Was it an accident? Even murder???
The plane
landed at 13:30 h on Sunday. I was starving because I was asleep when the breakfast
was served ☹ So I quickly got a hot dog and ran to the car
rental. I had the luck to get a Chrysler Neon, I love that car!
Just when I
wanted to unlock the door, I got a call from my friend. She asked where I was
and if I could make it at 15h to Fisherman’s Wharf. God, it was 14h, so I
thought that one hour should be enough, luckily on Sundays, there is no traffic
jam. I was very nervous, and the dress was very uncomfortable (I changed
clothes after arriving at the airport).
I finally
arrived around 14:45h near Pier 39, but the challenge was now to get parking!
And I had another message, my friend left me a voice mail screaming “hurry up, I’ll
wait for you in front of Houdini’s shop!”. Houdinis? What the heck has this to
do with a funeral… I thought that she would pick me up to go to some church near
or something else… I was very confused. Well, I found a place at “Pier and
Wharf Paring” and ran as fast as I could with this stupid dress to Houdinis, having
to do some slalom around all those tourists… Tourists? Many people dressed in
black..., But not like me, they were more like… Bikers? Heavy Metal fans? It
was no Halloween time… And it was so loud, as I got nearer I heard drums,
microphone testing… wow! It looked like a live concert was going on right on the
main square at Pier 39!
And there
was my friend, wow, dressed up like Bonnie Tyler with her blond hair, looking
great! And she was waving some paper in her hand, should that be concert
tickets…? My heart was jumping, I am not a fan of heavy music but THAT was a good surprise! I gave her a big hug but there was no time for sentimental things, she took my
hand and we ran to the entrance, pushing through the people to get to the first
line and then I finally saw WHO was the band playing: SUZI QUATRO was back again!
Wow, I dreamed of seeing her acting live since I was a teenager, she's my hero!
Thursday, April 7, 2022
Task 2: Short essay on: "The day I got really misunderstood"
Actually, I would like to change the title of the essay to "The moments I always get misunderstood", as it fits better with what is happening to me frequently. I don't remember the first time it happened, just that it was many years ago, maybe 1995, which was my first year here in Spain.
Since then, it happens to me again and again, during telephone calls, purchasing bigger things, making contracts, etc. always that somebody else has to fill out my personal data in some document! The big problem is my german surname: ECKERT which is impossible for me to pronounce in a way that Spanish people would know how to write it. They pronounce it "Etchert" or "Esquert" as they get confused with the "C". Actually, it is quite simple, as the "C" is not pronounced at all! So you could simply say "EKERT".
But they don't know this and this is where my real problem enters: I have to spell my name such that the other person could write it down. I first tried it like "E", "C", "K" etc. but this was not easy by phone e.g. people got the letters often wrong and it took a long time and many nerves to get them understanding everything. My life changed the day I heard my secretary spelling my name by phone to some other secretary. She said: "E de España", "C de casa", "K de Kilo" etc. I memorized the way she said it and since then I am always using it in exactly the same manner! I owe her my life!!! :-)
Thursday, March 24, 2022
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