Come on, let’s travel!

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By Paolo Giordano, Italy

Santa Barbara from the pier

 

I want to start this article with a phrase that I think is so cute “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.” Yes, that’s true. When you travel, when you leave your country to search for new adventures, vibes and emotions, you have the opportunity to escape from your daily life and land in another world. All the things that you see change and you have the possibility to discover new lifestyles, customs and traditions, especially when you go in a country with a lot of artifacts.

It doesn’t matter if you’re travelling for job or a normal vacation, when you come back home you will feel better, wiser, rested and with a different vision of life. Yes, because your life will change, and your intention is to continue to travel, save money and planning the future trips.

I want to spend now a few words to talking about my experience in EF. I arrived here in Santa Barbara on August the 6th, and I am going to stay here for four weeks, one month.

I think that Santa Barbara is a beautiful place, such as all of California. It is a little city, not like Los Angeles which is bigger, and the thing that I noticed is the elevated number of restaurants that there are here. There is a wide variety of  food, from Mexican to Japanese, Italian and obviously American!

But my trip here in California doesn’t stop only in Santa Barbara. EF organizes other trips in the USA. So I had the opportunity to visit Las Vegas in Nevada. I think that Las Vegas is an amazing city, and there is no possibility to be bored there. Pubs, discos, nightclubs and obviously casinos are the major attractions of the city, and the only way to have fun! In the same Las Vegas trip, there was the opportunity to visit the Grand Canyon reserve and I grabbed the chance and I decided to go there. It was the right decision: one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! Red rocks, the Colorado River, and unfortunately, the weather was not very good…cloudy and after 45 minutes that we were visiting the Canyon it started to rain! Fortunately, we had the time to take a few photos and enjoy the view.

The second trip that I have made, in the second weekend available, was in San Francisco. I decided to not go with EF just because the city is big, and because of the long bus journey. The time wouldn’t have been enough to visit the city as well as possible. So I went by car with a few friends and we had more time to go around the city and enjoy it. We got on a boat and sailed into the bay and saw the Golden Gate, symbol of the city, up close. It was massive, high and breathtaking. A great experience! I enjoyed it so much, but San Francisco is not only the Golden Gate Bridge. The city is full of fantastic places such as Lombard Street, the Financial Center, Union Square, Golden Gate Park, Alcatraz, Cable Cars, Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf where I ate a very tasty Crab!

The last trip: Los Angeles!

Well, I had a fantastic trip in California, but I would have felt incomplete if I hadn’t visited Los Angeles! I went there for just two days, but they were enough to visit all the most important things of the city. First of all I went in Beverly Hills, and then I spent a major part of the day having fun at Universal Studios. It was amazing but the ticket was very expensive! In the evening of the same day, I went to Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Sign, and to see the view of Los Angeles city. The sign with the light at sunset was something beautiful…I really enjoyed it! The second day, I spent my time visiting the Walk of Fame and the beaches: Venice Beach, Santa Monica and Malibu! I rented a bike with my friends and cycled, and unfortunately when I went to Venice beach it was cloudy so I didn’t enjoyed it as well as I wanted. In Santa Monica, I had a ride over the roller coaster on the pier and then I went to the beach in Malibu by car, just to sunbathe because the ocean was very cold!

Hoaka Swimwear

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Lea Lessard, Canada

Elisabeth Riouxlea

Elisabeth is from Quebec in Canada. She is 21 years old. Miss Rioux was a model with Dulcedo (Model Company) but not anymore. She has more than 1 million of followers on Instagram. Elisabeth is famous, because she has her own swimsuit line named Hoaka Swimwear. She recently moves with her boyfriend, who he’s also a model from Monaco, in Montreal. She adopted one dog and one cat. With her Swimsuit line, she’s able to travel all around the world. Rioux is one of the famous girls who want to show positive thought. She starts her bikini brand at 18 years old. She had the help of her parents. Elisabeth think that she is used by her “friends”, because of her popularity, every girls want to be friend with her. Eli decided to focus on the good people. She’s now in a good mood.

Media

At the beginning of her bikini brand, only the Quebec knew her. With Instagram, her line was way better, because IG help her to profuse her swimsuit. It is international. More girls were seen with her swimsuit around the world. That is the reason why now everyone knows her Swimsuit line. Elisabeth really wanted the best for the swimsuits. People on Instagram started to post pictures of her swimsuit and after this, the line grew up. She was at 1 thousands of followers on her Hoaka Instagram. And now the account is at more than 300 thousands.ll

Swimwear

The swimsuits are made of neoprene. Neoprene is a really good quality of rubber. It’s the same as the wet suit. It’s flexible and the swimsuits keep the warm of your body.

aaElisabeth created a lot of pattern and size. You can have different bikini bottom, the in front of the family, the modern, the cheeky and finally the bootykini. You have also different top and also a lot of colors. The bikini’s price is 69$ Canadian. Unfortunately you need to pay for the shipping, but it’s not expensive. Hoaka is for everyone. If you want to shop it’s here https://hoakaswimwear.com/ .

Bodies

Miss Rioux really wanted that everyone feel good in their body and their swimsuit. She made her bikini brand for every size, X-small to X-large for the top and the bottom is X-small to large. Even if you have small or big boobs, it doesn’t change. Eli wanted her bikini brand to be one of the most things girls will want. Today, a lot of girls are different and proud to be. She succeeded.

The Power of Social Media in the Life of Girls

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Eliska Hojgrova, Czech republic

Our lives are full of media. Media are playing big and an important role in our life. People spend very long time on social media, watching TV or reading magazines

We spend several hours watching TV. All those ads, TV shows, movies and news. Every day we are influenced by media. When we wake up we usually take phone and start scrolling thought our Facebook feed or Instagram feed or even twitter. Or we take magazine or newspaper.

Magazines like Teen Vogue or pictures on Instagram are big problem of female readers. We can see tall, skinny girls with perfect skin, perfect hair, and especially on Instagram we can see “perfect life” that deeply influencing most of young girls. Girls are spending several hours on Instagram watching perfect models with great life they can feel insecure about their bodies.

This year lot of clothing brands or even girls on Instagram with lot of followers started lot of projects about self-love and let them know that every body shape is perfect and that you don’t have to be skinny to be pretty and feel confident. For example project from American eagle. They made campaign and they talking about that they don’t use Photoshop on their models

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The Photoshop free campaign #ICAN for fall 2017 denim collection with models like Iskra Lawrence, model and actor  Amanda Steele or professional basketball player Brandon Ingram. I’m really glad, that celebrities and media are trying to help those girls or even boys who are insecure about their body. Because no one in perfect.

 

 

My Hobby – Soaring

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By Benjamin Frank, Germany

Soaring – or gliding- is a revolutionary, competitive air sport. Gliding offers you a special kind of freedom because it is an extravagant sport. As a gliding pilot, you have to learn reading the environment and all their influences. You have to learn to adapt yourself and to make very spontaneous decisions. You have to understand special weather events, for example; glider pilots have to find unique types of clouds or orthographic places where thermals could exist. (If a glider flies into a thermal he will use this potential energy and will climb into the sky)

Thermal is the right keyword, thermals are one of the most important parts in soaring; they help pilots to stay airborne and fly hundreds of kilometers. As already mentioned soaring is a competitive sport, there are a lot of different competitions; the most famous competition is the so called “Racing Task”. In the Racing Task, the pilots have to fly a special route. The fastest pilot wins; the most famous record in soaring is from a German pilot. On 21 January 2003, Klaus Ohlmann flew- without a motor – a record of 3009KM in less than 12 hours. This record was broken with a Schempp Hirth Nimbus 4DM this is a high performance glider, you can see it on this picture:

Of course there are much better gliders than the Nimbus 4DM, for example the so called “Eta”. The Eta is the best glider in the world, only 7 types were made. It has a span of 31 meters, which is unique in this sport:

You can start with soaring of the age of 14. You can find actually everywhere a soaring club with an own airfield, gliding isn’t (compared to other air sports) expensive you have to pay 600 to 3000 $ per season, it depends on how much you fly and witch gliders you use. It becomes cheaper when many people are in you soaring club, because gliders are very expensive. The most expensive glider is the “Eta”, you can buy one for approximately 300.000-4000.000 $, and of course, you have to pay more than this, you have to pay upkeep and and and…

 

If this article has inspired you, you can start with this awesome air sport pretty simple! In the first months of flying, you only have to fly with your teacher, bit by bit they will teach you how to fly a glider. After some months and approximately 60 starts with your teacher, you can fly alone. Before you’ll get your global soaring pilot license (SPL) you have to make 300-600 starts by your own, also you have to make complex theoretical test and difficult practical tests. After these efforts you can fly alone, and the first time with passengers, and, of course, you can fly all over the world with nearly all types of gliders.

Thanks for reading!

Now you can take a look at some pictures about soaring/gliding.

 

My Sources:

 

 

Today’s China

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Chuwen Wang, China

 

China has been in the high speed development stage after entering the twenty-first century, but still there are a lot of foreigners who have the impression of China from twenty years ago or even longer. So I want to show something about today’s China.

Life in China today

Getting by without a wallet in China: Mobile innovation brings new experience.

Now people usually leave home without cash or credit card in China. They can do everything with their cellphone, such as eating and buying things. When you want to buy something, you just need to scan a QR code via your smartphone or the store scans your code to let you pay, and transferring money in this way can also be used between friends(but the money between friends doesn’t need to be scanned with a code. You can transfer money directly to friends in the app).

China’s bike share.

In order to give people more convenience, bike sharing provides a lot of help for Chinese people. You just need to scan a QR code on a bike via your smartphone. Then you can use the bike, and you can park your bike anywhere (don’t forget to lock the bike). Meanwhile we have many workers to check and repair bikes every day. If you find any bike is broken, you can tell the bike’s company via your phone when you are using it.

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High speed trains.

High speed trains, which travel at speeds of 250-350 km/h. Almost every city has these kinds of trains and there are also general trains for people to choose. So people have more choice to go places.

Chinese cities.

Most foreigners only know Beijing and Shanghai, but in my opinion, other Chinese cities also have different sceneries. Let me introduce some cities for you.

Chongqing, which is famous for spicy food. Even though their food is spicy, it’s really delicious. I advise that, if you go to China, you should go to see this city, especially the entire city at night, which view you will enjoy much better than you thought.

Xi’an, which is my hometown and this city used to be one of China’s ancient capitals. There’s one main attraction that many people know about–Xi’an is the city with TERRACOTTA WARRIORS. In addition, there is also a plenty of delicious food.

As we all know, China is a developing country, which also has a lot of problems we need to solve, but all of us in China believe that our country is improving and we just need time. If your impression is that China is like Chinatown in the U.S, I think you should go to China to see for yourself because China and Chinatown are completely different.

Finally, China will always welcome friends from all over the world.

A Great Comeback!

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By Catherine Savoie, Canada

In the bottom of the ninth inning, the right fielder, Yasiel Puig, hit a crucial two run-double to beat the Chicago White Sox 5-4 on Wednesday night in Dodger Stadium. That big win proved that the Dodgers are still the best team in the Major League.

On his 31st birthday, the pitcher, Yu Darvish, had a really nice home debut with the Dodgers; he allowed three runs on eight hits and one walk across six innings.

 ”What better gift than on his birthday the Dodgers win” Puig said in an interview after the 10th walk-off victory of the season.

 The game started really slowly with only two runs in the first three innings.

At the top of the fourth, the White Sox rookie, Nicky Delmonico, hit a solo home run to give his team a 2-1 lead, but not long after, Enrique Hernandez’s homer tied the game 2-all.

Chicago White Sox players, Jose Abreu and Nicky Delmonico, homered to make it 4-2.

The Dodgers are unbeatable at home this season and last night’s game proved it.

Down by two points with only an inning to go, Cody Bellinger hits a single into the center field which became a run on the Logan Forsythe’s double. 4-3 White Sox.

Austin Barnes lined a single in his fourth at-bat of the game to pull Forsythe to third base.

Yasiel Puig closed out the game when he hit a walk-off two-run double to score Forsythe and Barnes, lifting the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 5-4 win.

The Life at EF Santa Barbara

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By Diane de Molinari (Belgium)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a7iyvhfkjm4ia9o/EF%20Santa%20Barbara.mp4?dl=0

 

 

My video about the life at EF Santa Barbara

I made a video about the life here, at EF Santa Barbara, to show you, future EF students or parents, how SB is a real paradise.

I have been here for 3 weeks and I am leaving this beautiful place on Saturday, to go to Miami for one month more.

I think one month is the perfect duration to stay here. As you can see in my video, you can do a lot of things here and you never get bored.

I stayed in the residence and I can tell you that the environment there is very good. Everything is very organized and always clean. I have a lot of friends who are in host families, like you saw in my video, and I think that it is very different than the residence, but that is also good for your learning and to discover the Californian culture.

During the weekends, and sometimes in the week, there are different activities. You can do activities with or without EF. Personally, I went to Camarillo, which is a big outlet with a lot of brands, and I also went Jet Skiing. It was very beautiful and so fun to do it. There are a lot of different aquatic animals in Santa Barbara!

The meals at the residence’s restaurant are always very different and delicious, both breakfasts and dinners.

In the residence like in host families there are some rules like that you have to be in your room at 10pm but it is not really boring because you do so much things during the day so you are very tired in the evening that you want to sleep!

The EF teachers are very cool. It is not like your teacher at your school, there are so cool here and sometimes they just ask you what you want to do, like more grammar or more vocabulary and they understand you so that is really great.

I think that to go away from your family and friends for 2 months is a beautiful experience which teaches you a lot of things. This is the kind of experience which grows you up and which teaches you to be independent.

So if you are hesitating to book a trip with EF, just do it, you will not regret it.

Diane de Molinari, in Santa Barbara since the 30th July until the 26th August 2017.

Outdoor Activities in Santa Barbara

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By Sophie Habermann (Germany)

A lot of tourists are travelling to Santa Barbara each year. One reason for travelling to this city is the variety of activities, especially outdoor activities, that Santa Barbara offers to their tourists.

kayaking Sophie Habermanna 1  kayaking Sophie Habermann 2

Kayaking is a very popular outdoor activity in many places. If you’re in Santa Barbara you’ve got the opportunity to do different kayaking courses\routes. On the one hand, you can do coastal kayaking at the Santa Barbara Harbor. Coastal kayaking includes a relaxing introduction to the exciting sport of sea kayaking and afterwards a two hours paddling adventure around the Santa Barbara shoreline. The paddling distance of this tour is about 1-2 miles and it costs $55 per person. Coastal kayaking is the perfect half day activity for the whole family. On the other hand you can do Channel Islands Kayaking, the most popular Channel Island National Park tour. It’s a 2-3 hour trip with a paddling distance of 2.5-3 miles. By doing Channel Islands Kayaking you’re going to explore the sea caves around Scorpion anchorage on Santa Cruz Island, where some of the most beautiful sea caves of the world can be found. The costs of this this trip are $149 per adult and $139 per child (12 and under).

Other popular water sports in Santa Barbara are surfing and stand up paddling. Stand up paddling is the fastest growing ocean sport that allows guests to experience incredible views of the city, mountains and ocean while enjoying a great total body workout. In Santa Barbara it’s possible to take stand up paddle lessons, a two hour session of instruction and practice for $89 per person.

If you’re not interested in stand up paddling you can take surfing lessons instead. Surfing lessons are a simple introduction for a first time surfer or someone who has tried surfing a few times and needs some pointers. Santa Barbara Adventure Company’s surf lessons offer students a great foundation to this exciting sport with knowledgeable instructors.

 

In addition to water activities, Santa Barbara offers different outdoor activities. Biking tours in Santa Barbara are very popular. For example, the wine country tour is a moderate biking tour for $159 per person. The distance is about 10-15 miles and it takes you into the heart of Santa Barbara’s wine country, home to several very popular California vintners. Another popular biking tour is the Mountains to shore tour for $119 per person. This bike ride is great for all skill levels. The start of the tour is high in the mountains and while heading downhill you’ll be stopping to enjoy some of the area’s most loved locations, including the Santa Barbara Mission. The end of this biking tour is at a local Santa Barbara beach. The biking tours are not just about biking. If you want to enjoy the beauty of Santa Barbara you can do the Seaside Biking Tour for $119 per person. This tour, with a distance of 15 miles, is designed to show the beauty of coastal Santa Barbara. The guides will be guiding you along the way, stopping at points of interest for photo opportunities and talking about natural history.

Another outdoor sport in Santa Barbara is rock climbing. Santa Barbara offers you the opportunity to choose between basic and intermediate climbing. Basic climbing is a thorough introduction to rock craft with emphasis on safety and fun. Intermediate Climbing will cost $169 per person and you’ll be climbing basic and challenging routes.

If you’re in Santa Barbara you have got way more activities like horseback riding, snorkeling, etc.. The opportunities for outdoor activities in Santa Barbara are limitless, just give them a try.

Writing this article inspired my to do some of these outdoor activities. Next week I’m going to do surfing and maybe kayaking.