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Old 04-12-2017, 01:37 AM   #21
Hamsterita
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Default Re: Hamsterita's Ramblings and Photos

Quote:
Originally Posted by AmityvilleHams View Post
Sometimes you can get lucky with NY and not spend too much!When you book a flight in advance it's usually cheaper,plus the food there can be inexpensive if you get it from the right places.For example you can get huge slices of pizza for less than the cost of McDonalds,but if you go to fast food chains and certain restaurants you spend more on food.A lot of people expect NY to be expensive,but it all depends on what you buy and how you travel and things like that One day I'd love to go there myself,but for now I'll live that dream through family members and such!
I know that eating there can be really inexpensive, but the problem is that only the flight would cost about 1000 euros (you can find good deals but it's hard to find anything lower than 700) and then you need to pay for the hotel, that isn't cheap either... Best case scenario (being very generous) the trip would cost about 1200 euros and then you have to pay for the food and for what you do there... If you don't plan the trip in advance (and in advance I mean six months or more) you can easily reach 3.000 euros if you try to book it two months earlier or so. (everything per person).

Someday I hope I can go there anyway... and I want to make a trip to the National Parks too, but that's even more expensive, that's for a honeymoon or something like that, because we're talking about expending at least 4.000 euros to begin with

That trip to London If my memory isn't failing cost less than 600 euros per person, and we were in a very nice hotel with breakfast included.
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Old 04-12-2017, 06:53 AM   #22
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Yes I did mean Hamleys lol, it was like nothing I'd ever seen before and I loved it and wished we had one at home There is one in Scotland now which I sometimes visit if I'm in Glasgow (I'm a big kid when it comes to toys lol) but it's not as good as how I remember the London one
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Old 04-12-2017, 12:53 PM   #23
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Default Re: Hamsterita's Ramblings and Photos

I forgot to say in my last post I liked your pics.We had a nice B&B when we were staying in London, I enjoyed Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park and Harrods.
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Old 04-12-2017, 04:32 PM   #24
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Very interesting to read about your visit to London and see your photos!
London is such a lovely place to visit - I've been there quite a few times but still there are places I haven't been to or seen yet - I highly recommend going inside the Tower of London if you get to visit London again. I also like seeing all the old building next to the newer buildings.
I hope you get to visit New York too one day as I really enjoyed going to NY with my family - seeing all the iconic landmarks and also making a trip to Petco!
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Old 04-16-2017, 05:05 AM   #25
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BP I haven't seen anything like Hamleys either, it's very particular and fun. Between Spanish is not a typical place to visit when you go to London but I highly recommend it.

Thank you TL and SKB! I also enjoyed the Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and Harrods. But I don't think I'm going back anytime soon. British treated me very well when I was there and they were very kind (despite having a reputation among Spanish of being a little bit unfriendly) and I had a really great time but I would like to visit other places first. And the Brexit isn't helping, who knows what kind of requirements would be needed to go there, and this kind of statements https://infacts.org/wp-content/uploa...e-1024x437.jpg doesn't make me feel the urge to come back either. However I would like to visit Scotland, its lakes and its castles. When I visited London I was having doubts between going to London or to Scotland, but Scotland was very expensive and that move the balance towards London.

---

I'm already thinking about the next post. Maybe I'll show you more photos of my lovely stay in London, or maybe other pets that I had in the past, or If I'm able to gather some pics of my city, my lovely Coruña. What would you prefer?
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Old 04-16-2017, 06:12 AM   #26
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I can see why it would put you off, there are always people with crappy attitudes but the majority of us aren't as horrible and nasty as those newspapers like to make out

I would really like to see some pictures of your city. I have been to Spain a few times but not to your part of the Country. I have an Uncle who lives in Cadiz and we drove down to visit him from Bilbao it was a long drvie especially when my Dad decided to not go on the toll roads and we were driving up and down all sorts of mountains lol.
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Old 04-18-2017, 10:07 AM   #27
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I was searching on my archives photos of my city and I wasn’t being very successful so I had and idea, and I decided to cheat. In the future I hope to be able to share some of my pics, but It was taking me a long time to search them and I thought that my photos wouldn’t do justice to my beautiful city, and that’s why I searched some pre-made videos. Luckily I found several that I really liked, and even a few that were in English so I chose two among the best ones. If you let me steal you 5 minutes of your time, I invite you to see them.

But before, I’m going to make you a little introduction. A Coruña is a tiny city in the north west of Spain with about 250.000 habitants. It has several nicknames, but probably the most famous are “la ciudad de cristal” (the glass city) and “la ciudad donde nadie es forastero” (the city where no one is an outsider). The first nickname it’s concerned with the typical buildings in “la ciudad vieja” (the old town) near the marina, the galleries, and the reason of the second one is that apparently we are very friendly and nice, so we make everybody feels like if you’re at home.

My city is and isthmus, it’s surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and we have long beaches in the city (even if we can’t enjoy them a lot due to the weather). The weather is not nice but we have the advantage that we don’t suffer extreme temperatures, it’s not too cold in winter and it’s not too hot in summer. That makes an average of 13 degrees the whole year. However the climatic change is making the weather hotter each year. Another advantage of the weather is that our landscapes are green and the flora and fauna develops without problems.

We are also well known for the food, Galicia in general is a reference in gastronomic culture. We have good fish, good meat, and good vegetables, so we can’t ask for more. A Coruña has several restaurants with Michelin Stars, but in my opinion they aren’t necessarily the best ones.

When I was a child I didn’t like my city because I thought it was too small and I felt trapped, but now I feel very lucky, because I have everything I need in here, it’s not too big, not too small, it’s not definitely a boring city, because we have a lot of places for leisure, and at the same time it’s a quiet city. I couldn’t love it more.

But lets stop the jibbi jabber and lets see the videos.



The first video is in English. I’m also going to share above the Galician version in case you want to know how my language sounds (but it’s the same video).



The video starts with a city panoramic from the marina side, then it focus on the marina, some cliffs and the “Castillo de San Antón” (Saint Anthony’s Castle) near the marina.

The street that it is shown after that is the “Calle Real” (Real Street), one of the oldest streets in the city, and a place where a lot of coruñeses (I have no idea how to translate the demonym) go to take a walk. A couple of years ago was one of the main places to go shopping too, but with the development of several malls a lot of shops closed.

In one of the ends of the Calle Real is “el Obelisco” (the Obelisk), and in the other end is the Town Hall in “la plaza de Maria Pita” (Maria Pita square). As it’s stated on the video, Maria Pita was a heroine that defended our city from the British Army in 1589 (you can find more about the story here Maria Pita: The Woman Who Saved a Galician Town from the British | Ancient Origins )

Later on we see the Galleries that I told you about before, and then “la Domus” (the domus) that’s one of the city museums. It’s very cheap and very interesting, it’s focused on the human being. It also has a cinema where they broadcast very interesting documental, and even some movies (I remember that one of the six times that I went to the cinema to see Titanic it was there hahahaha). My house is next to it, you almost can see the roof of my house in the video!

As it’s said in the video “La Casa de las ciencias” (The Science House) is another museum. There we have a planetarium and I have really good memories of going to the planetarium when I was a child. The museum is very small but it’s interesting too. I think it’s focused to youngsters to help them understand scientific concepts. They also have an incubator where they incubate eggs. If you’re lucky enough and your timing is right you can see the little chicks coming out of the egg. The museum is inside a park where there is a pond with swans and ducks.

Another shoot of the Galleries, the cliffs and the marina (in my opinion all the videos were too focused on the marina). A lot of big cruises visit us and all summers The Cutty Sark (or now The Tall Ships Races) stays for a couple of days.


(remember that all the photos in this thread aren't mine)

“La Torre de Hercules” (Hercules’ Tower) it’s probably the most famous monument in the city. It’s part of the city shield.


It is the oldest Roman lighthouse in use today (apparently in the whole world). According to the legend, the hero Hercules slew the giant tyrant Geryon and buried his head where the tower now stands. It’s surrounded by beautiful fields. Nero and my grandpa’s ashes remain there.

And we can see again … for the third time? the Castillo de San Anton. It was one of the main places that was used to defend the city against the British Army. Now it’s a museum. My parents took their wedding photos there.

“El campo de la rata” (the Rat’s field) is next to la Torre de Hercules, and it’s a monument to memorialize the victims of the Dictatorship repression, particularly those who died in terrible incidents in the area. I’ve always thought that some of the monuments look like Stonehenge. In case you didn’t know, Spain suffered a Civil war in 1936, and we were under a dictatorship from 1936 to 1975 (yes, basically like yesterday)

And… guess what? Another view of the marina! This time you can see the control tower, and the dam. When I have free time (not a common thing) I usually go there with my bicycle to train because it’s a straight line of 1400 m and you can ride a lot of km very easily and fast.

Near the Castillo de San Anton is “el Jardin de San Carlos” (Saint Charles' Garden), in which Sir John Moore eternally rests. I suppose that you already know who he was, but he was a General of the British Army that fought in the Peninsula against the French Army. When they were being defeated, he kept fighting so the rest of the troops could back out and leave the city in the ships. He was fatally injured and he died in A Coruña where he was buried. The whole story here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M..._Army_officer)

The Millennium is another obelisk that we have. And it was such a waste of money… It was a whim of our Mayor at that time. It’s a 46 meters tall steel monument weighing 2 tons with 147 stone crystals from Holland around it. Yep, our Mayor thought that our glass wasn’t good enough and he had to bring it from Holland. It cost a fortune. The designer was as dumb as our Mayor, and thought that a very fine and delicate glass was the right material to built something that was next to the sea (that implies being in constant contact with water, salt, the waves, and our terrible weather). It was inaugurated in January 1st 2001 and it was broken before the year ended. In theory, the first 13 meters it illustrates the history of the main events and characters of A Coruña, which was best seen at night when the Obelisk was illuminated by 142 light bulbs, but now they don’t work either. So, to be honest, I never was able to see anything at all, and now without the lights and with all the shattered glasses I would say that it’s impossible to see a thing. Funny fact, if that wasn't enough, they decided that it was a brilliant idea to open a cafe underneath it... it was trashed by the waves and it was never open.


There’s a couple of shots of the main beaches, Riazor, Orzan and Matadero (the name of the last one means Slaughter house , because the old slaughter house was there in the 70's, and the blood run through the street to the beach). I’m very lucky because my house is at less than a 5 min walk from the closest beach

And finally the video show us more panoramic views of the city, specifically from a part of the promenade city, that joins el Castillo de San Anton with la Torre de Hercules. Our promenade it’s very famous too (the Mayor that time took the right choice when he decided to build it). It’s a 9 km long promenade along “el Monte de San Pedro” (Saint Peter’s Mountain), the beaches, the marina, and la Torre de Hercules roundabouts. A couple of years ago there was a tram next to the promenade (another bad idea of the Mayor) but it was worthless, very slow and with a very short route so it was only used by tourist to see the main areas of the promenade. After a couple of years of making a big hole of debts in the town budget the new administration decided to remove it. You can still see the rails. They are very slippery and they are very dangerous because they cause a lot of car accidents


I realized that I had told you that it was a modern city and the video mainly shows old buildings (but it’s because it’s focused on the old town) so I picked this other one that shows a little bit more other parts of the city.

I’m not going to explain step by step the video (this post is too long already), as there are images that I’ve already explained in the frist one, but I’m going to make references to the new places.



In the beginning you can see one of the entrances of the city that goes straight to the center of the town. Until a couple of years ago it was the only entrance. Now we have another 3 main roads. The new buildings made of glass are a hotel and the Court of Commerce

In min 0.31 you can see the port. The green building on the left it’s called “la Medusa” (the Jellyfish) and it was specifically made to unload charcoal. The traffic of oil ships is high, and we even suffered several shipwrecks. The Mar Egeo shipwrecked in 92 next to la Torre de Hércules. I was very little but I remember it very well, a huge smoke cloud covered the whole city and a few neighborhoods had to be dislodged for a while.


In min 1:00 you can see the aquarium. Yep, it’s funny that a small city has an aquarium but we have it. At this point you can imagine that our Mayor was a little bit megalomaniac, he did great things for our city, a lot of great things, but I think that he also had to inaugurate too many things and put his name in too many things to be remembered for the time being (even if they were unnecessary things or things that the budget of a small town couldn’t hold). Anyway It’s nice though. It was placed in an old cetarean. I remember going to the cetarean ruins when I was little. A dangerous place to play!



In min 1:32 you see la plaza de Azcárraga (Azcarra’s square). It’s in the old town and in summer there is where takes place the medieval fair.

In min 1:41 you see the plates dedicated to Sir Jhon Moore.

In min 1:59 there’s a view of las Hogueras de San Juan (St Jhons’ Bonfires). It’s probably one of the biggest parties of our city. It takes place every 23th of june at night. We built bonfires (now is common to built them in the beach) and we set them on fire, at 12 o’clock there are fireworks. The tradition says that you have to jump the bonfire 7 times to get rid of the witches and bad luck. I had really good memories of that night when I was a child. It was a good moment to gather with family and friends, eat sardines (it’s another tradition but, well, I didn’t and don’t like sardines so I ate grilled meat) and had a good time. Unfortunately now I hate it. It seems that it’s only an excuse to get drunk til the next morning, it’s become too famous, people from all places came and get drunk too, so we have a really big hoard of drunk people and the tradition is completely forgotten. Moreover, everything ends up dirty and it’s impossible to go safely to the beach for a few days due to the ashes, nails and other stuff that remains from the bonfires’ wood.

In min 2:06 you can see la plaza de Portugal (Portugal’s square). It’s next to my old school and I spent a lot of afternoons when I was a child playing there.

In min 2:13 you can see a famous fountain in the promenade and a famous hotel (I think it was the first one to achieve the 4 stars in our city). You can see the roof of my house there too!

In min 2:24 there’s a statue of an octopus. It’s relatively new, it’s from the new part of the promenade and I don’t know if it means something special. I have a beautiful photo of my past dog there.

In min 2:30 you can see the other famous fountain in the city, in la plaza de Cuatro Caminos (4 ways square). When Deportivo (our football team) wins something (it’s not something that happens a lot to be honest) or the Spanish football selection does, all fans go to that fountain to celebrate. The last few years they had to fence it because it always ended up broken.




In min 2:33 you can see el Palacio de la Ópera (Opera’s Palace). We have a big arena, but some small concerts and classical concerts usual take place in Palacio de la Ópera, I think that it has an specific structure to provide a special sound quality.

THE END

I think that it’s funny that I said that we have bad weather however all the videos are shoot in sunny days.


I hope you enjoyed this BIG HUGE thread, and CONGRATS AND THANK YOU if you made it till here!!

I also found this website that it’s an English guide from A Coruña. GALICIA GUIDE | A Coruna Galicia | Spain
It’s a little bit outdated but you can get a general idea of the city if you want to know a little bit more about it.
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Last edited by Hamsterita; 04-18-2017 at 11:56 AM. Reason: I tried to correct some epic grammar mistakes (I'm sure there are more, sorry)
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Old 04-19-2017, 02:48 AM   #28
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I started to look at this last night but decided to save it for when I hade time to enjoy it with my coffee this morning

Your city looks beautiful Hamsterita, I love that it's right beside the ocean. Real Street looks so picturesque. It's a shame when all these malls and retail parks open up and lots of independent shops close down

I had to laugh at the Millenium obelisk. I know it's not at all funny but the decisions that these big important people make sometimes you wonder if they ever give any practial thought to it. It's a shame really. I do however love the promenade and I would love to stroll along there. Your city is a nice size for me, I'm not so good with busy places but being in Scotland our cities aren't really huge either so I guess that's what I'm used to. It seems like it would be a lovely place to visit but not when las Hogueras de San Juan is on lol.

Thanks for sharing, I really enjoyed reading and seeing all about your city

PS I know what you mean about the weather. Anytime I look as pictures of Scotland on tourist info it always looks sunny too. I can't even see any sun today as the sky is completely grey...
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Old 04-20-2017, 01:16 AM   #29
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I know that the post was a little bit too much, probably you are the only one that made it til the end So thank you! I'm glad you liked it.

I got over excited and I rambled too much!!

I've recovered an old hard drive and I found old photos (like 10+ years old) that maybe I'll post later on. I hope that will be less hard to watch/read
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Old 04-20-2017, 01:52 AM   #30
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I made it to the end too
I was the same as BP, began reading it yesterday & came back to have another look this morning! I enjoyed reading it Hamsterita & found it interesting to know so much more about where you & Blacky live.

I think we all have the weather in common too!
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