viernes, 4 de noviembre de 2011

"Looking for a new opportunity" - by my grandmother

My name is Josephine. I’m thirty and I live in Biscay, a province of Spain, with my husband Mauricio and my four kids. We are very poor, Mauricio and I have to work a lot to be able to support our family and what makes it more difficult is the terrible economic situation of Spain because of the civil war that is facing our country.
Mauricio has told me that his friend Joseph is thinking of migrating to South America, where he has got his parents. They have told him that there he could find more opportunities of work.
We are thinking about it now, too. But as we don’t have money to travel, we must find the way to afford it.
I want to be able to give a good life to my sons. I know that here they can not study and therefore they will have to work as slaves. My husband and I think that we do not want it for our children, so if we decided to migrate it is for them.

My Ancestors' Story

My OwnTimeline

Biscay





My grandparents came from Biscay. It is a province of Spain; its capital city is Bilbao. It is one of the most prosperous and important provinces of Spain as a result of the massive industrialization of the last years of the 19th century.
This video shows us that Bilbao is a beautiful city where we can find lots of entertainment activities. One of the main activities is the gastronomy. Bilbao is called the Capital of Cod because traditionally it has been always consumed a lot and the most important chefs of Bilbao and Basque cuisine have made fantastic dishes with it.The Basque cuisine is one of the best in the world. The reputation is world-renowned chefs and some of them have received international awards for cuisine.

lunes, 31 de octubre de 2011

Knowing Biscay

 I want you to know a little bit about the city of origin of my ancestors. Here there is a map of Biscay.
This province of Spain has many attractions that makes it a beautiful place:




-Sights Biscay

1)Bilbao: Largest city of the Basque Country with the absolute top attraction the Guggenheim Museum. Other attractions include the Bilbao Fine Arts museum and the Palacio Euskalduna.

2)Gernika-Lumo: This place is especially famous for the bombing in the Spanish civil war by the Germans in 1937. This is painted by Picasso in his famous painting Guernica (visible in Madrid).


3)Santimamiñe caves: Five kilometres northeast of Gernika are caves with 13,000 year old drawings of bison and other animals.

The origin of my surname

Surfing the net and looking for information about my ancestors I found this map. It shows the distribution of the surname "Arriola" in the provinces of Spain. Here we can see that more of the 5% of the Spanish with the surname "Arriola" lives in Biscay, the city where my grandparents were born.



domingo, 30 de octubre de 2011

My family today


 
They are my parents, my mother Maria and my father Carlos. My mother is fifty-six and my father is sixty. They have been married for forty years. I'm very proud of my parents because in spite of all the problems they had along their lifes, they are still together. They give me everything, and they are always there when my brothers need them.






This is my brother's family. My brother Gabriel is the middle one. He is thirty and he is married with Natalia. They have three children. On the left of the picture you can see Julian, who is the youngest. He is eleven and he is my godson. Beside Julian is Barbara, she is thirteen. Despite being a spoiled girl, she is the moody one. Her brothers feels jealous of her. At the right of the picture is Iliana. From the three of them, she is the nicest. She is fifteen and she had her big party six month ago. I really love them and I'm very happy to have my nephwes so close.





 In the pictures above you can see my eldest sister named Andrea with her only child, Mauricio. Mi sister is thirty-seven and she is a teacher. I love her because she is like my second mother. When I was born she was nineteen, so she had to look after me while my mother worked. She is the nicest and most cheerful person I know. I admire her a lot. Every time I need some advices, she is there to help me and advising me.
My nephew Mauricio is my second godson. He is six now, but in the pictures he was only a baby. He is beautiful but very capricious. Everybody loves him. Every time he speaks, he makes us laugh, he is so funny.
I started taking care of him this year because my sister works in a school all day.