Smoking ban and pub culture in Ireland

As we’ve heard before, Ireland is known for having a strong connection with pubs (THERE ARE MORE THAN 10.000 OF THEM!) and they represent the friendship and camaraderie between the customers. In Ireland a pub is not only a place where you can get drunk and do silly stuff – it’s more like a social center. A lot of people go to pubs to have a good talk with their friends, the barstaff and even strangers.

Smoking was one of the main attractions of pubs, but everything changed in March 29^th, 2004, when the Irish government decided that smoking in workplaces was a big deal, so they decided to ban it.

In 2004, 29% of the population were smokers, but they were not the only ones affected by the habit. A lot of people were exposed by second-hand smoke. Until now, the smoking rate has been on the decline, reaching a 22% in 2014.

People accepted it and pubs are cleaner now, but is it enough? Ireland consumes 11.6 liters per capita of alcohol, placing them as the third country with the highest alcohol consumption in the world in 2012. Could they change their habits without losing their customs? If the government decides to ban alcohol consumption in certain circumstances, will it affect their social life? Maybe people will find it difficult to change such an historical tradition, but it would be worth the effort.

Canadian Lifestyle

Canadians come from diverse cultural, racial and religious backgrounds.  In the collective identity of the nation projecting the three founding peoples: natives, the French and the British.

Peaceful and simple but cordial, Canadians live in an atmosphere of calm and very nice kindness. They celebrate popular holidays like Christmas, birthdays and national holidays in a harmonious environment. However, Canada has values, principles and traditions that guide the behavior of its nationals and whose respect and follow up the duty of all citizens.

Canadians are characterized by being friendly and receive good way to all who come to their country. It is customary to thank and greet all people, regardless of race or sex. As also have a habit of being on time for an appointment. The most common form of greeting is shaking hands, both women, men and children. It is not customary hug or kiss when greeting people exception is Quebec where the custom among friends is a kiss on each cheek, the best European style.

                                          

To introduce yourself you need to use your first name and family name, last goodbyes Eternal friends in Latin America used are unusual in this country people quickly dismissed.

They are sorted so we recommend queuing for treatment when you want to buy something or ask a service. An example of this is that when using escalators can travel walking down the left, those who prefer to stay unemployed to be carried up the stairs have to row on the right side and to leave others move to the left.

Traffic rules are very strict in Canada and must be respected at all times. Although pedestrians have priority in the city, you must cross the street only at the corners when the traffic light for pedestrians tells you to. If you drive a vehicle, be sure to give priority to pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, be courteous to other drivers and strictly follow the signs.

Most Canadians are quite regionalist, including many feel more connected to their province or territory to the country in general. Each province chooses whether English, French or bilingual. Quebec chose to be only French. In schools, teachers have to accept written work in both French terms in English.

Canadians love to exercise and eat healthy. They like outdoor activities such as yoga, running, hiking (walking in forests and mountains) and numerous sports. Lots of people prefer walking or cycling to school or work instead of using car.

They care deeply about the environment and therefore recycle all waste. Get used to deposit the remains of garbage in the can where it belongs. Garbage always mainly separated into: organic waste, plastics, metals, paper and cardboard.

Kettlewell Scarecrow Festival

Kettlewell, Yorkshire Dales, England is a nice and quiet village situated just in the perfect place, at the junction of the main and the river valleys. Its’ name come from the Anglo Saxon Cetel Wella which means a bubbling spring or stream.

Every year since 1994 at August's second week there takes place a funny, interesting and entertaining tradition that consists on setting scarecrows in every corner or open space around the village, even the most unexpected places get taken by this singularly interesting fake people. They can be seen doing different human activities such as fishing, drinking, resting and even riding a bike, among others.

This all started as a fund raising event for the local school and even when they expected the support of just a third of the fathers, they were considered by whole community and in the first year there were more than a hundred scarecrows all over the village.

The event has been growing year after year. Since 1998 it has been organized with the benefit of St. Mary's Parish Church and Kettlewell Village Hall so now it has become a remarkable tradition among villagers whose every year get prepared to receive the visitors by making amazing scarecrows, preparing delicious food and organizing parking and traffic

Sources:-http://www.kettlewellscarecrowfestival.co.uk/
             -http://kettlewellvillage.co.uk/

Groundskeeper Willie Wants an Independent Scotland, but he might end up losing the war. (By Orlando Fuente-Alba Dominguez)

(This entry belongs to Orlando Fuente-Alba from parallel 2. Due to problems at the time of accepting Matias's invitation to the blog, I saw myself forced to upload this through Javiera's account. I hope you understand)

When you meet someone from the UK you commonly call them “British”. But if this person comes from Scotland, he will tell you “I’m not British”.

This is because its thousand-year relashionship with england is based on resentments from all the wars they have been in. The first one, for example, started when the English king Edward I invaded Scotland, beginning with this the figure of the national hero William Wallace (Yes, the one from the movie.)

Ever since then, Scotland has had a nationalist, independent feeling, but what they don’t know is that separating from the UK might be even worse than being part of it.

Here are four reasons that the blind, nationalist eyes of Willie don’t see when talking about Independence:

1.      What currency should they use?

Independence would force them to change their currency, which might affect their economy, exposing the contributors to the financial risks of being a foreigner country to the UK.

2.    Will they form part of the European Union as an independent country?

This would mean having to convince the other 28 members of the EU and then arguing with OTAN and ONU.

       3. Scotch oil in English territory?

Scotch nationalists claim that more than 80% of the oil reserves in Great Britain belong to them, just because they are inside Scotland’s sea borders. The big question is: Will England allow this? Without the oil, they would lose the most of their income.

       4.      Will they have their own army?

Scotland is the hangar of all the nuclear submarines of the UK. If Scotland becomes an independent country, they must manage a self-sufficient fiscal system and a consistent public expenses, assuming new responsibilities that go from the creation of its own army to the handover of specific passports.

States of death

At the moment of speaking on controversial topics that have caught my attention on The United States, the first thing that one comes to my mind is the death penalty. The United States they are considered to be pioneers in the incorporation of social and cultural rights, are those who implement chairs opposite to the acceptance (due to the multiple problems of discrimination). On the other hand, this nation has been characterized for being a country advanced and developed in different matters (technology, communications, economic models, between others), nevertheless, they continue being primitive in what to sentences for crimes it concerns. 

They are 32 the States that, according to the eighth amendment to the Constitution of The United States, they apply the death sentence, or the capital, against adults (mentally competent) that have committed aggravated homicides. In the remaining States, these laws change, having been as Michigan, where the death sentence has never been applied. To federal level, the death penalty is legal, but they are the conditions those that decide to suppress, to abolish it it or to apply it. Nevertheless, there exist a series of crimes of federal character, where indepéndiente of the laws of the condition where they are committed, the president of the republic is the one who decides if it finishes with the life of the defendant or life imprisonment is granted to him. Some of them are the perfidy to the mother land, the espionage, the war crimes, the genocide, the use of chemical weapon that cause death, between others. 

The current methods that use the conditions and to federal level, are basically the lethal injection, then (with very little I use) the electric chair or the gallows (that already is not in use). In Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Ohio and Arizona assassins execute often. Texas has carried out the major number of executions. With the previous thing, is it possible to deal to the United States as a developed nation?, is it the State the manager of taking the life from someone? that exists on our cultural penal one?. I wait for progress on the part of the progressives.

Why Do British People Say 'Sorry'?

During my group investigation about the United Kingdom, something that caught my attention was the different use of the same language (English) that British and American people have. Into this subject, I decided to focus on a single expression:

“Sorry”

Terms such as “Sorry” and “Excuse Me” have an apologetic meaning in the use of modern English, but it has come into my attention that in the last years, the list of situations where using ‘Sorry’ is appropriate  has started to grow wider.

But, why do British people say sorry? Nowadays, it could mean anything. In Britain, it’s very common to say ‘Sorry’ or ‘Excuse Me’ to begin any petition, to ask for something, to call someone’s attention, to even to excuse oneself for an action that will happen in the near future! 

It occurs to me that the original, apologetical use of the word ‘Sorry’ is starting to get lost between the labyrinth of slangs we create through time, not only in Britain, but in every single nation with a language in common.

But what’s wrong with that? You may ask. Well, have you ever heard of the insensitivity of the modern age? Just imagine what would happen if everyone begin to not care about anything. If words such as ‘Sorry’ start to mean nothing, then we might become being with no emotion, with no regrets.

Think about that, and think it twice the next time you feel like saying ‘Sorry’ to someone just to ask for a seat on the bus.

Official Languages in Canada

Something that I was surprised about when I was looking information about Canada, was the fact the even when they are two official languages, French is the minority of the entire country.

 English and French are legally the official languages, which made Canada a Bilingual country. In fact, 98% of Canadian population can conduct a conversation in English or French, and 8/10 Canadians had one of these languages as a mother tongue.  

There are others languages spoken, but more than 90% of the population speak one of the officials regularly at home. But only 1/4 have French as the mother language, and 3/10 Canadians can conduct a conversation in this language. This shows that even when they have two official languages, the majority of the people speak English. Either because is more easy to communicate with people from other parts, or because they don’t use French. 

Quebec is one of the provinces that is an exception, because there mostly people  speak French. Is one of the few parts, where is really used as the major language. Those who live in there wants to preserve the difference, because they are really compromised with the use of French as the mother tongue. In other parts, such as Montreal, people use both languages, without problems. 

Australia as a British jail

Something that caught my attention when I was searching information for my map about Australia is how this country was used at the beginning of the history. We know that every country had theirs problems and nations too, but now that I’m searching for more information I realized how different this story is as the story that I thought it was.

This story begins in XII century when Australia was discovered, this island was almost empty and probably it wouldn’t be useful, or that is what they thought. Some years after that, in 1787 to be more specific, United Kingdom was in a colonial period and theirs jails were filled of people, so they started moving them to this new place. The island was used as a jail for 160 thousands of people, like thieves, prostitutes, criminals and political prisoners. They mostly came from England.

This went on until 1868 and it finished because jails in England weren’t full anymore and Europe started an economic crisis. Nowadays almost a quarter of Australians have ancestors who lived there as prisoners.

Now we can realize that we have similar stories, maybe our country was not used as a jail of foreign people, but most of the countries lived difficult periods as they and us.

By: Concepción Andrade Ercilla

Amazing Pink Lake in Australia

Something what is not well known in Chile is the raising tourism industry and scientific development in Australia. In this entry I´ll tell you as these two ways are joined in one destiny.

Researching about Australia I found this interesting tourist destination, Lake Hillier. Is located in Western Australia, specifically on Middle Island.

Australia has more than wildlife and exotic animals for to travel to meet, also have the most beautiful natural pink lake in the world.

Lake Hillier

The Lake Hillier is a saline lake with awesome pink-colored water. No one knows why this lake is pink, but some scientist believe that the color come from a bacteria that lives in the salt.

This lake not is very large, is about 600 meters in length and 250 meters in width, is surrounded by white sand and big woodland of eucalyptus trees.

The most common question about this lake is: is possible swim in this lovely pink water? The answer is: yes, is possible, some scientific research proved that the only difference with other lakes is what this lake is very salty like the Dead Sea, so is perfectly safe swim in this water.

Scientific community still is doing research about the origin of the pink color in the water of the Lake Hillier, such as shown in this video -Sampling trip- from Xtreme Microbione Project.

References

1.- "Lake Hillier". Retrieved 15 April  2015 http://hillierlake.com/

2.-"Swim in Lake Hillier, Australia". Retrieved 15 April 2015 http://whenonearth.net/swim-in-lake-hillier-pink-lake-australia/

3.-"Esperance and Recherche parks and reserves draft management plan 2012". Department of Environment and Conservation, Government of Western Australia. October 2012. pp. 15 & 108. Retrieved 15 April 2015 http://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au/images/documents/parks/management-plans/decarchive/20110559-esperancerecherche-dmp_web.pdf

4.-"Xtreme Microbione, Lake Hillier Project". Retrieved 15 April 2015 

http://www.extrememicrobiome.org/#!lake-hillier/c1pep