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Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Agave and Tequila and a book about Tequila
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Pretty Pearl Sculpture in La Paz, Mexico
I like landmarks as quick openers to slide shows, articles, even boxes of brochures saved from recent holidays. Everybody knows Tower Bridge the symbol for London, England, UK, and the Eiffel Tower for Paris, France, but now here's a new one, the pearl.
The Spanish, Mexican Spanish, name for this sculpture is La Perla. Wonderful - a quick way to learn one new word of Spanish. I love learning languages from place names. La Perla is in La Paz, which means peace.
English - Mexican Spanish
and - y
bronze - bronce
by/of - de
in - en
(the) peace - la paz
Pearl/the pearl - la perla\
sculpture - escultura
stainless steel - acero inoxidable
the - la
Spanish - English
acero inoxidable - stainless steel
bronce - bronze
de - by/of
en - in
escultura - sculpture
la - the
la paz - peace (literally the peace)
la perla - the pearl
y - and
Please share links to your favourite posts.
| on | Español: Escultura en bronce y acero inoxidable, "La Perla" de Octavio González Gutiérrez, en la Paz, Baja California Sur, México English: Sculpture on bronze and stainless steel, "La Perla" by Octavio González Gutiérrez, in la Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico |
| Date | |
| Source | Own work |
| Author | Carlos Valenzuela |
| Software | RawTherapee 5.1, Gimp 2.8 |
| Camera location |
|---|
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
Do You Know Ten English Family Name Meanings? - Ten Popular Jobs - And Statues To See
It is easier to remember people's names if you recall the jobs which the names mean, probably a job held by their ancestor, or even their ancestor's boss. I have at least one book about family names, and several about first names.
Names associated with jobs
1 Archer (like author Jeffrey Archer),
2 baker
3 barber
4 bishop
5 carpenter - made wooden items, spoons, furniture, housing
6 carter (who drove carts or maybe made carts)
7 clark (clarkson was the son of a clerk, writer come secretary, or maybe a religious cleric)
8 Cook or cokson meaning son of a cook
9 cooper - maker of barrels
You can see a stue of comedian Tommy Cooper in Wales near Caerphilly Castle. More details in Wikipedia.
Statue of comedian Cooper near Caerphilly castle, seen in the background, in Wales. More details in Wikipedia.10 draper made drapes or curtains
11 gardener or gardiner - worked in gardens
That is more than ten, but there are many more.
glazer - person who makes windows
knight - roade around on a horse
Lee means shelter in English, and in Chinese Lee or Li means plum tree
Statue of Bruce Lee in Hong Kong. Photo in Wikipedia.miller - ground corn at a mill
Priestley - priest's woodland clearing, owned by the church. A common name in Yorkshire in England, and Scotland in the UK, also the USA and Canada. See the statues of Priestley the scientist in Yorkshire. See the statue of author-playwright J B Priestley whose time-slip play An Inspector Calls is used by many schools for English O level exams.
Statue of J B Priestley in Bradford, Yorkshire.shepherd - looked after or herded sheep
smith - usually blacksmith, since a silversmith would be called silver, or silverman, and a goldsmith or person working wiht or selling gold bards or gold jewelery and items might be called gold or goldman
tailor/taylor- sewed by hand, later by machine (as in Elizabeth Taylor the film star)
Bust of Taylor in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Another Believer - Own work
Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico (2021)
thatcher - who created thatch or thatched roofs, made of bundles or dried straw, before clay was dried and made into tiles (as in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher). A statue of Margaret Thatcher is in Grangham, Lincolnshire, England. A bust of her is outdoors in the Falkland Islands, in the capital, Stanley.
Statue of Margaret Thatcher in England.weaver - wove textiles
wheeler - made and repaired wheels for wagons
woodman - worked with wood, or in the woods
You an buy books about statues, such as London statues (I have that one) and on surnames (I have one of those, ) and on baby names (I started collecting books on baby names when my son was born more than 40 years ago and I now have more than ten books on baby names. Magazines on Parents and babies often give away books on baby names with their springtime editions. Some first names are derived from names of parents.
Useful Website
ancestry.com (I tried loading up the link but it wiped out the entire post, so I have just given you the generic name. Add name meaning.)
https://www.oxfordreference.com
wikipedia.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Inspector_Calls
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Thursday, December 28, 2023
Spanish words on maps
Friday, September 8, 2023
Your Traveler's Calendar
This travel calendar is useful in several ways. You can plan to hold a holiday to conincide with a festival which offers lights and parades, events, exhibitions and activities and excietment. Or you could seek to avoid the busy times with booked rooms and higher prices.
A Traveller’s Calendar
January
from Wikipedia.Jan 1 New Year’s Day. Concert, Vienna, Austria.
USA Tournament of the Roses Parade, Pasadena, California
Orthodox Christmas Jan 7
Jan 5 Evening before Epiphany.
Jan 6 Greek & Russian Orthodox (Christian) Epiphany. (Birth of Jesus.)
Jan 26 Australia Day.
Burns Supper Night, Scotland.
Jan 27 Holocaust memorial day (liberation of Auschwitz in Poland)
Chinese New Year (Moving dates.)
February
Feb 6 New Zealand Waitingi Day
Feb 14 Valentine’s Day (Ireland, Italy and worldwide)
March
March 1st St David’s Day, Wales
March 17th Irish St Patrick’s Day
March 20 French Language Day
April
April 20th Chinese Language Day
April 23rd St George’s Day, Shakespeare’s Birthday.UN English Language Day.
Spanish Language Day.
April 25th Anzac Day (Australia and New Zealand)
May
May 1st Labor Day
May 5th Cinco de Mayo.
Jun
June 2nd Italian Feast of the Republic. Flypast of tricolor arrows, red/white/green flag colors
JUNE 6th UN Russian Language Day
20/21/22 Summer Solstice (Longest day)
July
Jul 4th American Independence
July 14th Bastille Day, France
July 18 Nelson Mandela Day
August
August 1st Swiss National Day
August 9th Singapore National Day
August 15th Indian Independence Day
September
Sept 21 Belize Independence Day Parade and Carnival
October
Canadian Thanksgiving, 2nd Monday in October.
October 3rd German Unity Day
October 31st Halloween
November
November 1st and 2nd Day of the Dead in Mexico
November 11th Remembrance Day (WWI Armistice, WW2 and all wars)
December
December 18th Arabic Language Day
December 24 Christmas Eve
Dec 25th Christmas Day
Dec 26th Boxing Day in the UK, St Stephen’s Day in Germany
Dec 31st New Year’s Eve. Midnight Mass.
Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_multiple_capitals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_whose_capital_is_not_their_largest_city
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Friday, October 21, 2022
Pushkin - Russia's poet who belongs to the world - in Museums, statues, streets and stanzas
Pushkin's self-portrait.
Alexander Pushkin
Where can you see Pushkin?
1 Statue of Pushkin in Odessa, Ukraine.
2 Pushkin Memorial Apartment, Arbat Street, Moscow
He lived here with his pretty wife, Natalia.
He wrote the poem, My Monument, including the lines,
The poet is gone but his poem lives on. (My half-remembered translation. The version I read was the poet is gone but his poems live forever.)
3 Alexander Pushkin Apartment-Museum, 12 Moyka River Embankment, St Petersburg, Russia, where he died after a duel.
You can see his study with its shelves of books.
Lovely statue of Pushkin seated on a bench.
4 Statue in Bachkhysaria, Crimea, SW Ukraine (Annexed by Russia)
5 Mexico
Statue in Pushkin Park, Mexico city, Mexico.
I could not find anything quotable in Wikiquotes.
Elsewhere I found these:
Write for pleasure and publish for money.
Never despite the translator. He is the mailman of human civilization.
Sad that our finest aspiration
Our freshest dreams and meditations
In swift succession should decay
Like autumn leaves that rot away
I've lived to bury my desires
And see my dreams corrode with rust
Now all that's left are fruitless fires
That burn my empty heart to dust
Struck by the clouds of cruel fate
My crown of summer bloom is sere
Alone and sad I watch and wait
From The Queen Of Spades and other stories, on playing cards for money,
'Play interests me very much,' said Hermann, 'but I am not in the position to sacrifice the necessary in the hope of winning the superfluous.'
From Eugene Onegin, 1833
Love passed, the Muse appeared
The weather of mind got clarity new found
Now free, I once more weave together
Emotion, thought, and magic sound.
Let us end on a happy note.
Moscow - how many strains are fusing in that one sound, for Russian hearts
What store of riches it imparts
I am married and happy. My only wish is that nothing will change.
Better the illusions that exalt us than ten thousand truths.
It is better to have dreamed a thousand dreams that never were than to have never dreamed at all.
When I read his life story at first I blamed his wife for his death.
She was a flirt and her relationship with another man was a scandal and many people thought the man who married her sister did so to get closer to her and to justify being seen in her company.
However, when I read that her husband had already fought more than twenty duels, I felt that he was playing a game of Russian roulette, as they say, an accident waiting to happen.
I looked up when duels were banned in Russia, the USA and UK. Unfortunately there is no simple exact date, because efforts were made to ban duelling but it still continues sparoadically.
Useful Websites
TRAVEL DESTINATIONS
RUSSIA, St Petersburg
http://www.saint-petersburg.com/museums/pushkin-museum-memorial-apartment.asp
https://www.thinkchina.sg/impressions-moscow-pushkin-influenced-whole-generation-chinese-part-3?
Vutm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=CPC&utm_campaign=Remarketing_Singapore&utm_term=MailOnline
QUOTATIONS
Thursday, October 20, 2022
Pumpkins - and halloween ghouls worldwide
Photos from Sharot family.
What does Halloween mean? All hallows evening. Evening before. Like Xmas eve. Een or even is the Scottish short form for evening. Halloween is celebrated worldwide. Let's start in London.
Halloween In London
This place is not for the nervous. I am judging by these pictures have been sent to me by family who went there on a visit. I have mixed feelings about Halloween. Like all festivals, it has moved into a big, funny, fun commercial event from a purely spiritual festival. This festival is derived from a day honouring the dead. Festivals for ancestors or the dead take place in many cultures, including the Christians, but especially Roman Catholics on All Saints Day.
The Americas
Halloween or an equivalent is big in Mexico and South America.
Mexico
Mexico has two events resembling Halloween, Oct 31 Dia de las Brujas, meaning day of the witches, in addition to Dia de Los Muertos, meaning day of the dead.
The evening of November 1st is the day of the witches, a kiddie festival with trick or treating, children going door to door, demanding candies (American for sweets0.
All Saints day is November 1st (only for saints in the Catholic church). All Soul's day is November 2nd.
USA
Halloween is big in the USA. In the nineteen eighties before global commercialization had struck, we Brits drove around astonished. I had never seen a pumpkin before. So, drive around the USA nowadays and you will see real or fake pumpkins everywhere.
New York has the biggest Halloween parade with 2 million people participating - plus audience or including audience?
Singapore
What about the rest of the world? In Singapore there's a Hungry Ghost festival.
Another event is grave sweeping and picnicking by the graves. In Singapore it is forbidden to leave flowers in water filled vases with saucers because stagnant water attracts mosquitos which breed and give people malaria - which fills up the cemeteries even more.Singapore
Over in Singapore, the supermarkets, are full of Halloween novelties.
Great fun for adults and children at the Pumpkin Patch farm and ice cream shop in Barnet, North London. They have pumpkins in wheelbarrows,
Back In London
The funny farm has funny little orange hats for children and adults. My granddaughter seemed a bit bemused. She liked sitting in a wheelbarrow with pumpkins. But in other pictures she seemed uneasy. Me, too. However, it seems that at all times of year you can enjoy the ice creams.
Their ice cream flavours include bubblegum, lemon meringue, Rum and raisin,
These pictures have been sent to me by family who went there on a visit. I have mixed feelings about Halloween.
Being of retirement age, I am a bit squeamish about skeletons, skulls and graves, and this includes Mock graves. The theory is that by making fun you reduce your fears. To me it seems a bit of an unpleasant reminder that the days of the elder folk in the family are numbered. But that's just me.
They have mock graves with legs sticking out, mock skeletons playing guitars. If that amuses you, so be it. You can take photos to frighten your friends or amuse everybody.
AFTER THAT YOU NEED THE ICE CREAM!
Lewis of London, Fold Farm, Galley Lane, London. EN5 4RA.
The Halloween effects are available the last two weeks of October until Hallowe'en (with the original apostrophe for evening) at the end of the month. However, you can enjoy the ice creams all year. See their website for updates and opening times and/or call them to confirm whether they have extra activities or events.
Online Worldwide
Online from Amazon you can buy bracelets, bags for candies, bags of of candies, or stress balls.
Useful Websites
https://www.lewisoflondon.co.uk/events/pumpkin-patch/
https://www.amazon.sg/s?k=halloween+gifts
how to grow pumpkins
https://www.realsimple.com/holidays-entertaining/holidays/halloween/how-to-plant-pumpkin-seeds
Wednesday, March 9, 2022
Some handy Spanish Words In Argentina and South America, Mexico and Spain , for banks, silver and plates
The name Argentina sounds Spanish but actually comes from the Italian for silver or silver coloured. The Italian masculine is argentino. But Spanish is the language of Argentina. Let's go!
Even if you have never been to Argentina, you may recall the emotive song, Don't cry for me, Argentina, about the Argentinian heroine, Eva Peron. Spanish isn't only useful in Argentina. Spanish a handy language if you are ever going to Spain in Europe, and to popular Spanish islands such as Mallorca or Tenerife.
You also find Spanish handy in Mexico and all over South America and central America. The exception is Brazil where they speak Portuguese, but understand Spanish, and when I was on holiday in the Portuguese speaking island of Madeira I could recognize and understand a huge number of street signs, shop names, and leaflets.
Spanish is a very handy language to know. It is one of the easiest languages to pick up if English is your first or second language. Large numbers of English words are derived from Latin, or romance languages. The same roots lead to the Spanish words. Add an a or an o and you have many Spanish equivalents. For example. Bank is the English.
For example, add an o to the English word bank, and you get the Spanish word Banco. That is easy to recognize in a street, on a website, or when speaking. But what if you say banca? That means banking.
What about plato and plata? Plato is a plate.
But Plata is silver.
Un plato. Imagine asking for a plate in a shop.
The assistant replies, 'Oh, a plate'. 'Un plato.'
However, imagine that you are looking for something more expensive, silver.
'Ah!' she replies. Silver! 'Plata!'
Accents
The accents are not a hindrance but a help. They tell you which syllable should be pronounced more heavily.
The squiggly line above the n tell you to pronounce it like ny. You probably already know the word 'mananya' meaning tomorrow. it sounds like 'man - yarn - a'.
English - Spanish
bank - Banco
banking - banca
beautiful - hermosa
capital - capital
capital city - ciudad capital (note that the adjective is after the noun in Spanish)
city - ciudad
a plate - un plato
plates - platos
silver - plata
silver jewellery - joyeria de plata
silver mine - mina de plata
silver plated - platado
a silver plate - un plato de plata
tennis - tenis
white - blanco (feminine blanca) (like blank)
Spanish - English
Banco - bank
banca - banking
blanca - white
capital - capital
ciudad - city
ciudad capital - capital city
hermosa - beautiful
joyeria de plata - silver jewellery
mina de plata - silver mine
plata - silver
platado - silver-plated
platos - plates
un plato - a plate
un plato de plato - a silver plate
tenis - tennis
Useful Websites
Saturday, June 5, 2021
Beautiful Belize, An English Speaking Caribbean Country, Scene of Movie Mosquito Bay and Now The Death of a Policeman
The flag of Belize, featuring mahogany trees used in the logging industry, and the motto Sub Umbra Flores, which is Latin for under the shade I flourish. (Or I flower, but it's a metaphor, so flouish is clearer to some people.) The flag was adopted when British Honduras achieved independence in 1981.
Belize claims that Madonna's song La Isla Bonita (the beautiful island) refers to San Pedro, which is the name of a place on a Caye (which means long island or reef). Diver Jacques Cousteau spoke highly of the Blue Hole on another island off the coast of Belize, Half-Moon Caye. Belize was also the setting for the film The Mosquito Coast. (Yes, Belize has mosquitos.) The Hurricane Flood scene featured Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren.
The bad news about the death of a policeman and the arrest of his companion drew my attention to Belize.
A grand hotel has just been built there. With Covid-19 I have no likelihood of going there, but it is no less likely a destination that most of the world, and just as easy to research. So let's take a look at what we are all missing.
Belize, formerly British Honduras, is in central America, with the Caribbean on the East, Mexico to the north and Guatemala to the south.
Attractions include ancient caves, Mayan ruins, and modern Mayan descendants of the original Mayans, more than one type.
The main language is English but the country is surrounded by Spanish speaking countries, and the locals speak Mayan or other languages so many people are trilingual or multi-lingual.
Belize City
The largest city.
The coastal seaside was hit by Hurricane Hattie in 1961 so the capital with its government offices was moved to a more central and inland location.
Belmopan - the inland Capital
Some delightful names: the Hummingbird Highway, batty bus, Upside Down tours, and accommodation includes the Bullfrog Inn.
Outside the capital is the zoo.
On this map you can see the Western Highway leading west from Belize city to Belmopan.
San Ignacio
Twin town with bridge across the river to San Elena.
Belize - Beautiful Belize Was British Honduras A Caribbean Country Where Multi-linguals speak English a, the official language, and Spanish.
Outdoor activities include snorkelling, scuba diving, tubing (floating on tubes like giant lorry wheels) through caves, and riding along zip wires.
The People
I thought the Mayans had died out centuries ago and was fascinated to read that they are still around in Belize.
Shine on Shyne
A member of the Belize Parliament is the rapper Shyne. He was born in Belize. At the age of 13 he learned he had a great grandmother who was from Ethiopia and Jewish. During his childhood, he went to live in New York with his mother. He became a renowned rapper. After a nightclub shooting, he was sent to prison and while there converted to Judaism. He was deported back to Belize, where he became a member of Parliament.
To end on a light note, I found this amusing comment in Wikitravel:
A great deal of confusion amongst travellers has resulted from Belizeans love of the phrase 'right now'. Contrary to most other English speaking countries, in Belize 'right now' does not mean 'immediately' but rather 'soon' or 'in a minute'.
Useful Websites
Alaia Belize, Autograph Collection
Luxury Hotels guide offered 60 hotels on June 5th 2021 in San Pedro alone.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g291959-Activities-Belize.html
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g291970-Activities-Belmopan_Cayo.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belize
https://wikitravel.org/en/Belize
The Times, London
Daily Mail
wikivoyage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Ignacio,_Belize
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shyne
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito_Coast_(film)
About the Author
Angela Lansbury, is a semi-retired travel writer still researching bucket list countries and seeking out the special, unusual, people, places, landmarks, hotels, museums and trails, fabulous foods, recipes, clothes and online souvenir shopping.
Angela Lansbury is a member of Toastmasters International.
Angela Lansbury B A Hons is the author of ten books by regular publishers plus another ten self-published books.
About Angela The Speaker & Trainer
Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages to Toastmasters clubs and businesses.
Angela has several blogs speeches, comedy and song writing and organizing, writing intermittently, but writes almost daily on these three:
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