JOSEPH OLLER

 

He was a Catalan man that founded the Moulin Rouge in Paris, a place where girls danced very sexy dances and that became very popular. He was a very important business man too; he started to bet in the horse races and invented the Spanish lottery called “la quiniela”. 

He opened the Moulin Rouge in the "place Blanche", in Montmartre ( a very small town in Paris).           

First of all, Moulin Rouge was a very old brothel where men wanted the girls do sexy dances for them, so the Madame there started to let the girls do striptease. Years later, Moulin Rouge was only a place where girls danced. Every day, the dances were less sexy and it finally became a cabaret bar. In the cabaret, the girls lived and rehearse for hours, so Moulin Rouge became the best cabaret of Paris.

Apart of the Moulin Rouge, Joseph founded the horse races of Saint Germain in 1882. And in 1885 he open  a swimming pool with a gym, a sauna… in Paris that became very famous too.

  

JUDIT MASCÓ

Judit was born in Barcelona the 12th October 1969. She is a famous Catalan model. She is a model since she was 15 years old but she did 3 things at the same time because she studied  piano and normal studies too. She studied to be a model in Francina Models school.

She did fashion shows for Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Carolina Herrera, Escada, Loewe… In 1990 she finally rose to fame because of a special cover of Sports Illustrated that launched her internationally.

He has worked in international advertising campaigns for companies like Max Mara, Laurèl de Escada, Armand Bassi, Betty Barclay, Georges Rech, Mango, Swarovski, Majestic y Palmers Lingerie or cosmetics companies like Vitesse, Natura Bissé  Clairol, Lancaster, Clarins o Timotei etc.

She has worked as an actress too. She did small roles for movies such as "El largo invierno del 39" (“The long Winter of 39”)  o "Después del sueño" (“After the dream”). She has written two books “El libro de Judit Mascó” (“The book of Judit Mascó”) and “Modelo” (“Model”).

She got married to Eduardo Vicente (lawyer) in 1993.

She is has got a humanitarian role too because she helps some NGOs . For example, in 2000 she travelled to Florida  to meet Joaquín José Martínez, who was waiting in the death row.

Júlia Recordà
 Laura Parera

DANI PEDROSA

Daniel Pedrosa Ramal was born in Castellar del Vallès the 29th September 1985.
He's an international Grand Prix motorcycle racer, and he was the youngest rider to win the 250cc class.
He started riding a motorcycle when he was 6 years old and when he was 18 years old he won the 125cc class. However, he fell and he broken his ankles. When he started riding in the 250cc class, he broke his two ankles and later his shoulder, however he won the 250cc class title twice. Pedrosa made the move to 990cc Moto GP bikes in 2006, riding for Respol Honda. He finished second in the opening roun at Jerez in March 26th, 2006. He won his first MotoGP race in the Chinese Gran Prix, in May 14th, 2006. He won his second MotoGP race at Donington Park and became a strong candidate for the MotoGP Championship. In the Malaysia Gran Prix he fell and hurt his knee. He became the Rookie of the year in Moto GP.
He's broken a lot of times his fingers and toes, also he's broken his knee and his left arm and his two collar bones.

              

Hector Pozo Guerrero
Roc Altarriba Palma

TONI BOU

Toni Bou's first race trophy was in 1999, when he obtained the Catalan Cadet Trials Championship title at the age of 12.
At the moment, he’s the best international motorcycle trials rider. He won the outdoor FIM Trial World Championship from 2007 to 2011 and the indoor one from 2007 to 2011, too. So, we can say that is one of the most successful riders in history. When he was 20 years old, Toni Bou was the second youngest rider to win the World Indoor Title and the youngest to do it on a 4-stroke motorbike.
Finally, we are going to mention his titles below:

1. 5 World Motorcycle Trials Champion: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
2. 5 World Motorcycle Trials Indoor Champion: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
3. 2 Spanish Trials Champion: 2006, 2009
4. 1 Spanish Trials Indoor Champion: 2009
5. 5 Trial des Nations: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
6. 3 Trial des Nations Indoor: 2006, 2007, 2008
7. 1 European youth cup: 2002

                                                                                                   

  by Miguel Galán and Jordi Cucurull

Polish Famous People

There are a lot of famous Polish people, you can find a long list of them on the Wikipedia website.
The students from Polish school have chosen names of 15 famous Polish people and collected some information about them.
Mateusz U. and Marcel K. have printed a short presentation about a Polish well-known writer , Józef Konrad Korzeniowski.

Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski

Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties (and then always with a marked Polish accent). He wrote stories and novels, predominantly with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit by the demands of duty and honour.

Conrad, an emotional man subject to fits of depression, self-doubt, and pessimism, disciplined his romantic temperament with an unsparing moral judgment. In 1894, aged 36, Conrad reluctantly gave up the sea, partly because of poor health and partly because he had become so fascinated with writing that he decided on a literary career. His first novel, Almayer's Folly, set on the east coast of Borneo, was published in 1895. Its appearance marked his first use of the pen name "Joseph Conrad"; "Konrad" was, of course, the third of his Polish given names, but his use of it – in the anglicised version, "Conrad" – may also have been an homage to the Polish Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz's patriotic narrative poem, Konrad Wallenrod. In April 1924 Conrad, who possessed a hereditary Polish status of nobility and coat-of-arms (Nałęcz), declined a (non-hereditary) British knighthood offered by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald.Shortly after, on 3 August 1924, Conrad died of a heart attack. He was interred at Canterbury Cemetery, Canterbury, England, under his original Polish surname, Korzeniowski.
Novels
· Almayer's Folly (1895)
· An Outcast of the Islands (1896)
· The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' (1897)
· Heart of Darkness (1899)
· Lord Jim (1900)
· The Inheritors (with Ford Madox Ford) (1901)
· Typhoon (1902, begun 1899)
· The End of the Tether (written in 1902; collected in Youth, a Narrative and Two Other Stories, 1902)
· Romance (with Ford Madox Ford, 1903)
· Nostromo (1904)
· The Secret Agent (1907)

FACUNDO BACARDI

Facundo Bacardi Massó, (Sitges, Barcelona, 1814 – Cuba, May 9, 1886) was a Catalan businessman. 

He followed his older brothers to Cuba, finding employment in his general store in Santiago. In 1844 he established his own mercantile shop.

In 1843 he married Amalia Moreau, and they had a lot of children Emilio, Juan, Facundo Jr., María, José and Amalia Jr.
In 1862 he founded "Bacardi, Boutellier, and Company", using capital supplied by Facundo's younger brother José. The icon of the brand is a bat.
In 1874, the company was named "Bacardi and Company". The company gained renown as the rum was sold in Cuba and even the wider world after winning prizes in international exhibitions.
In 1877 Facundo retired and his sons Emilio, who became the president, Facundo Jr., the master blender, and José the sales manager, continued with the company.
The next period of Cuban history was politically tumultuous, as the society struggled against Spanish imperialism.

By Roger Cos and

JOAN MIRÓ

Joan Miró i Ferrà was a famous Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramist. He is very important in Catalonia because of his brilliant works. His pictures have been sold around the world. His works are based on different topics, like his country or abstract ideeas which were the most original in the twentieth century. 

Miró was born in April 20th, 1893 in Barcelona and he studied at the Belles Arts school and at the Galí Academy. His work before 1920 was influenced by the brilliant colors of the Fauves, the fragmented forms of cubism and the two-dimensional Catalan romantic freschoes. In 1920 he moved to Paris, and he met Pablo Picasso, who influenced him in the art of surrealism.

He also did watercolors, pastels, collages, painting on copper, sculpture, theater designs and cartoons for tapestries.

The most important works he did are the large ceramic murals called ‘La paret de la lluna i la paret del sol’ (1957-1959) for the building of UNESCO in Paris, and the wall of the Palace of Congresses and Exhibitions of Madrid. Nowadays, its production can be seen in the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, ​​opened in 1975, and in most museums of contemporary art from all around the world.

Here, in Catalonia he did very important scultures like the dona i ocell, an abstract sculture decorated with mosaic. We can find it in the Park Joan Miró in Barcelona.Joan Miró died in Palma de Mallorca in 25th desember 1983.

By Emma Sellés and

ANTONI GAUDÍ

Antoni Gaudi was a modernist architect. He was born in Reus in 1852 and he died in Barcelona in 1926 before “La Sagrada Familia” was finished. It’s the biggest building that he designed, it’s still under instruction. He has done a lot of buildings in Barcelona. The most known Gaudi´s buildings are: “La Pedrera”or “casa Milà”, “Park Güell”, “La Casa Batlló”, “la Sagrada Familia”, “La Casa Güell”

“La Sagrada Familia" is a temple designed by Gaudi but is still in instruction. Last year the Pope came to La Sagrada Familia to bless the church that is inside of “La Sagrada Familia”. He celebrated a very big Mass. The central tower of the temple represents Jesus, another represents the Virgin and the others represent the evangelists.

Although La Sagrada Família isn't finished, it is still very beautiful to visit and to see how they are working to finish it.

Gaudí didn’t buildLa Casa Batlló he reformed it because the owners of “La Casa Batlló” asked him to do this job. On the front of the house, the balconies have the shape of bone which represent the victims a dragon, which is represented in the roof. The house represents Saint George's legend. The chimney is the sword that St. George stuck to the dragon.

“La Pedrera” is another house built by Gaudí. Their owners were the Milà family and this building is called “la Pedrera” because they had to bring many rocks to Barcelona and then they quaried the rocks in the house. ("Pedra" means rock in Catalan). The front of the house represents a snowed mountain. In the roof there are sculptures that seem fighters.

By Laura Colom and Ivette Sabanes

FAMOUS CATALAN PEOPLE

We have been working on the topic of famous Catalan people that we want our Polish partners to know about.

The fact is that we found so many famous people, and it was difficult to choose a number. We found artists, architects, businessmen, writers and poets, musicians and singers, fashion models, politicians, sports people, scientists, cooks....

Here is a list of the most important ones, and then the students in El Casal School chose one person and wrote about him or her in pairs. You will see what they have written about the chosen person in the next posts.

I hope you enjoy our work and that you learn about us a little bit more.

Artists: Aristide Maillol (scuptor and painter)

Joan Miró (artist)

Charlie Rivel (clown)

Salvador Dalí (surrealist artist)

Architects: Lluís Domènech i Muntaner (modernist architect, designed the Palau de la Música Catalana)

Antoni Gaudí (modernist architec, designed Sagrada Família)

Josep Puig i Cadafalch

Ricardo Bofill

Businessmen: Facundo Bacardí (founder of Bacardi rum)

Josep Oller (founder of Moulin Rouge cabaret in Paris)

Enric Bernat (founder of chupa chups candy)

Writers and poets: Ramon Muntaner

Àngel Guimerà

Jacint Verdaguer

Narcís Oller

Joan Maragall

Josep Carner

Carles Riba

Josep Pla

Mercè Rodoreda

Miquel Martí Pol

Pere Calders

Salvador Espriu

Manuel de Pedrolo

Joan Brossa

Quim Monzó

Musicians and singers: Isaac Albéniz (composer)

Enric Granados (composer)

Pau Casals (cellist)

Victòria dels Àngels (soprano)

Montserrat Caballé (soprano)

Josep Carreras (tenor)

Joan Manuel Serrat (singer and author)

Pascal Comelade

Frederic Mompou (composer)

Lluis Llach (singer and composer)

Fashion models: Andrés Segura

Judit Mascó

Oriol Elcacho

Sports: Manuel Estiarte (waterpolo)

Arantxa Sánchez Vicario (tennis)

Sergi Bruguera (tennis)

Àlex Corretja (tennis)

Albert Costa (tennis)

Tommy Robredo (tennis)

Alfonso "Sito" Pons (GP motorcycle racer)

Jordi Tarrés (motorcycle trial rider)

Àlex Crivillé (GP motorcyle racer)

Pedro Martínez de la Rosa (F1 driver)

Nani Roma (rally driver)

Sete Gibernau (GP motorcyle racer)

Emilio Alzamora (motorcycle racer)

Marc Gené (F1 driver)

Marc Coma (rally racer)

Adam Raga (motorcyle trial rider)

Tony Elías (moto2)

Dani Pedrosa (GP motorcycle racer, from Castellar del Vallès!!!)

Toni Bou (motorcyle trial rider)

Jaime Alguersuari (F1 driver)

Marc Márquez (motorcyle rider)

Laia Sanz (motorcyle trail rider)

Josep Guardiola (head coach of FC Barcelona)

Carles Puyol (FC Barcelona and Spain defender)

Xavi Hernández (FC Barcelona and Spain midfielder)

Víctor Valdés (FC Barcelona and Spain goalkeeper)

Gerard Piqué (FC Barcelona and Spain defender)

Cesc Fábregas (FC Barcelona and Spain midfielder)

Sergi Busquets (FC Barcelona and Spain midfielder)

Bojan Krkic (AS Roma and Spain striker)

Pau Gasol (NAB basketball player)

Raúl López (basketball player)

Juan Carlos Navaroo (NBA basketball player)

Rudy Fernandez (NBA basketball player)

Ricky Rubio (basketball player)

Nacho Solazabal (basketball player)

San Epifanio "Epi" (basketball player)

Scientists: Ildefons Cerdà (urban planner)

Narcís Monturiol (inventor of the submarine)

other scientists in Medicine, Biology, etc.

Cooks: Carme Ruscalleda

Ferran Adrià

Santi Santamaria

Sílvia Nicolàs

What do you know about the European Union?

Polish students made some posters and drawings, painted pictures and wrote short articles about the European Union and put up them on the school board bulletin, which was placed on the wall in front of the entrance to their school.

My image of Poland

We think that polish people are nice and friendly. They are a little bit different because our traditions aren’t the same. One thing that is different from us is the religiosity. There people feel the religion more inside and they practise it much more than us. They go to the church every Sunday with formal clothes. Their clothes are different. We think that they have got a different style. They were very affected because of the Second World War, and you can see it in many buildings and especially churches because Poland is the country that suffered more the Nazi destruction.

Their diet is very different from our diet. It is based in soups, meat and a lot of vegetables. They prefer drinking hot tea than water. Most of the people have a vegetable garden near their house. Their eating timetable goes earlier than ours: they have lunch at 12 o’clock and the dinner is at 7 o’clock. Although their food was different it was good. In the trips they gave us a lot of chocolate and sweets.

The country is very beautiful and it has got a lot of nature everywhere and the touristic places were far from where we were. The town where we stayed was small and it was formed by a central street and then other little streets that ended in this central street. In the town everybody has a house because they are few people and they have been living there for a long time.

The first days of our stay there, the weather wasn’t very good because it rained but the other days were sunny days.

Laura Colom and Ivette Sabanés

My image of Poland

Our image of Poland in general is nice, but there are some things , like the weather , that we didn't like this much. So now we will explain you in detail our vision of this country.
The people in Poland are quite nice, but more closed; you have to talk t0 them so that they trust you. Well, when we arrived the Polish students and their families came to us and hugged us.
In the culture there are many differences from our culture. For example ; they are very religious, they usually haven't got a big breakfast and they have lunch earlier than us and have dinner at 7p.m.
There is a typical dance and music that everybody has to know. When you enter in a house you have to take off your shoes. The way of cooking is very different because there the people usually eat a lot of meat and fat, potatoes and others things. They also eat a lot of vegetables, rice, soups, in the lunch and in the dinner. In the break time they eat a lot of chocolate, sweats and little cakes.
In Poland the scenery, was very rural and perfectly clean. We had a very good time in Poland with our friends and the teachers! We miss Sylwia and Łucja.

Mercè Gaitan and Cristina Castañe

Poland

In June, we went to Poland. We stayed in Juszcyna, a village near to Zywiec. In Zywiec,
there was a factory which made one of the most important beer in Poland. In that factory,
we saw the museum of the beer, and the process of making this drink was really interesting and
curious. In Poland, the beer is traditional but in Spain, the traditional is the wine.

People in Poland were really nice, some people of Poland have got a low level of English so the communication was sometimes really difficult for people from another country.

People were very religiously and they went to church every day in the morning and some of
people went in the afternoon, too.

Polish culture is really interesting and there are a lot of beautiful places. Crackow was really
pretty and there was interesting history about the Second World War.

The food was ok, the first dish was often soup and the drink that accompanied the meals was tea.

In our opinion, Poland was very beautiful. In the future, we are going to this country again.

Miguel Galán Alcalde
Jordi Cucurull Galofré

MY IMAGE OF POLAND

Visiting Poland has been an incredible experience. Poland and Catalonia are very different places with very different cultures and lifestyles. The weather is also quite different from here.

People there have a very simple life, without many possessions. They live in humil houses, most of them made of wood, with all their family. However, they are very familiar, close together and grateful and our Poland families were so nice and lovely with us.

Their culture is quite different. Polish people are more religious than Catalan people, they go to the church every time they can and they believe in church values, they are also very traditional and follow the catholic traditions, for example they eat fish instead of meat on Fridays. There is a lot of folklore, like the paper flowers or their typical dances which everybody knows.

The landscape in Poland is really beautiful , it’s like a huge green carpet, where the trees seemto touch the sky and you can feel a lot of peace and breath pure air.

In general Polish people eat a lot of soups with vegetables, meat, and drink a lot of tea. Unlike Mediterranean diet, in Poland they use butter instead of olive oil and they don’t eat much fruit or fish so we think that they don’t have a very healthy diet.

Their level in English isn’t very good but they try their best. We think their maths and chemistry classes were more interactive because they practice what they learn in the laboratory. They also have a higher level in those subjects.

Our Polish students were Magda and Basia, we have a very good memories of them and our stay in Poland was great.

Thank you for all :)

Queralt and Emma.

MY IMAGE OF POLAND

We think that the people of Poland are very nice, responsible and different.
Their culture is more religious than ours, they believe in Jesus more than us. In Spain some people believe in Jesus, but in Poland on Sundays they go to the church, and the celebrations like Christmas or Easter are more religious than here, in Spain.
The country is very nice, but there aren’t too many shopping centers and things like this, and we are more advanced in technology.
The landscape is very mountainous, with trees, lakes, sometimes it's cold, altough when we went there in summer, it rainned some days and, and the temperature were very cold.
The food is different, the food is usually sandwiches, with butter, almost all the food contains butter, they eat a lot of soups, they usually drink tea, they almost never drink wine or water in the meals.
They are usually in the street, meet with friends in the park, and things like this, but they almost never go to the cinema, to the disco, use the computer or the mobile phone, and it’s very different.

Ariadna González
Laura Fernández

September

Polish students chose some pictures taken during Spanish guests’ stay in their village and put them on the board bulletin. They placed it on the wall in the main school corridor.
Apart from that, they have been writing some diaries about Spanish pupils visit in Juszczyna too.
Examples:
“In June 2011 Spanish came to Juszczyna. They were staying here from the 5 th to 15 th of June. During their stay we were travelling to different places with them. We were in Oświęcimiu to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau-the Museum of the Concentration Camp, where a lot of the Jews and other nationalities were killed by the German Nazi during the Second World War. We were in Kraków, where we saw the Saint Maria’s church and Wawel Castle-the seat of Polish kings. Next we travelled to Żywiec, where we saw the Brewery Museum. Next days we spent at school. I hope that Spanish guests were glad with Polish hosts. Spanish youth and teachers were very nice people.”
Mateusz
“The Spanish students visited Juszczyna in June. My friends, teachers and I welcomed them in our school. Each Spanish student lived in the house of my classmates. They went on some trips. They visited Kraków ,Wieliczka and Żywiec Brewery's Museum. Spanish students often went out with me and my classmates. We went on the pitch and played football and volleyball. One day we organized a party. We danced and we had a good time together. After their departure for Spain we missed them a lot.”
Marcel

Conference in Bielsko-Biała

The Regional Conference on Polish Presidency of the European Union.
On the 3rd October the coordinator of our project, Edward Szczyrk and his colleague, Maria Zaor took part in the Regional Conference on Polish Presidency of the European Union

in Bielsko-Biała. They gave a short presentation on our project there.

The conference was organized by the Educational Inspectorate in Katowice.
The conference’s participants presented European programmes of the European cooperation and Polish schools shared their experiences connected with the projects, which have been done with their partners’ schools from the whole Europe.
Different schools from the Silesia Region showed their achievement in the meeting and prepared exhibitions to present the objectives, products and results of their projects.

Poland 2011 Diaries

Students from School El Casal in Castellar del Vallès visited the partner school in Juszczyna, Poland, in June 2011 for ten days.
Here are some diaries from some students participating in the visit.

6th June 2011

It’s the second day of our Exchange in Poland and we started to do some presentations about our culture and costumes in Spain. Then, the Polish students acted a play for us “The prince Cinders” and when the play finished the other students sang some songs in English. After this, we went to visit the cemetery and then the church, where the priest told us about the history of the church.

When we finished visiting the most important things of the village, we had lunch in the school. Then we went to a classroom and discussed about our differences and similarities. After this, all the students and teachers went to Żywiec. There went shopping because it was raining and we couldn’t stay out, but when the rain stopped we went to a very nice and big park and visited a Castle. At the end of a park there was a bus waiting us to go back home.

Ivette Sabanés