Rangoli is a traditional Indian Art of decorating courtyards and walls of Indian houses, places of worship and sometimes eating places as well. It can be drawn on the floor in front of the entrance of a house to welcome guests.

Rangoli patterns are very popular in India, where every state has its own way of painting Rangoli.

Traditionally Rangolis are painted or created out of coloured sand/rice powder.

A symmetrical Rangoli pattern can be drawn on paper or card and then decorated by children with crumpled tissue paper. You can also use flower petals of different colours such as golden marigolds and bright red roses to add extra dimension to the pattern.

Most of patterns use circles to show the endlessness of time.

The most common Rangoli designs start with  dots which are connected to form lines and other geometrical shapes such as stars, squares, circles, triangles etc. These geometrical patterns must be formed in continuous, unbroken lines.

Rangoli designs are usually taken from nature. Peacocks, swans, mango and flowers are popular.

In special ocasions, like festivals, Rangolis are painted in every house.

Diwali -the festival of lights – is the most popular festival.

Here is one of the Rangoli patterns which I made:

If you want to make your own Rangoli, here is a site from my school to help you with it:

www.briteschool.co.uk/primary/rangoli.htm

Happy drawing!

On our Birthday we wished to go to the Barcelona Zoo but unfortunately started to late and all the park spaces were full. We were tired of driving around (parking around the Zoo area is a nightmare) so we decided to go to the Barcelona Aquarium instead, which was not a bad idea, for the Aquarium is actually the second most visited tourist atraction in Barcelona. 

The Mediterranean tanks show you the largest and most important Aquarium in the world for this kind of Sea Life.
In the Oceanarium there were sharks and stingrays swimming past and above us when we walked through an underwater glass tunnel. The sharks are the stars of the Aquarium.
Everywhere we saw amazing species and their fascinating adaptations to the sea life.

Adaptations and Curiosities

They say that the Common Octopus is the animal that changes colour the fastest and that it also has a similar intelligence to that of a puppy as it has a real brain and its eyes are capable of distinguishing shapes and colours.

The Horseshoe Crab is considered a living fossil that has remained unaltered for 300 million years. They are predators that live on other invertebrates and molluscs, which they discover by digging in the sand. They eat them whole and then regurgitate the shells and other hard, undigestable parts, and they can also eat seaweed. Its blood is blue and possesses extraordinary immunological properties of interest to the biomedical industry.

A fascinating world of colours opens up under the sea in the Tropical Tanks.
 
The Clown Anemonefish is a gregarious animal, living, like all clowns, in symbiosis with the anemones. The fish protect themselves among the poisonous tentacles of the anemones while the anemones take advantage of the pieces of food their guests drop while feeding. Other benefits of the clown anemonefish for the anemones are that they eat their parasites and air them to create increased water circulation around them, oxygenating them.
Doesn’t it remind you of Nemo in the cartoon film? In fact this character is inspired in this species.

The Blue Surgeonfish starts its life almost entirely yellow. Little by little the intense blue colour spreads from the front of the body to the tail as the fish becomes adult. The tail, which remains yellow, has a couple of sharp needles the fish uses to defend itself, the so-called scalpels, and this is why they are called surgeonfish.

Tropical poisonous and aggressive fishes

Many species of fish have developed mechanisms to defend themselves from predators, such as poisons needles, electrical discharges or aggressive behaviour. Some species warn of their danger with bright colours.
The Lionfish mainly swims calmly, gently waving its fins, ignoring predators as it knows that its bright colouring is a warning of danger. However, if a lionfish detects a small fish or crustacean that seems a possible prey, it can launch to attack it at a lightening speed. They use the pectoral fins to trap their prey.

Mini Aquariums

In these small tanks you can see animals with such strange shapes that they remind us of mythological creatures. These are strange beings that adopt incredible shapes to adapt to their surroundings. They make your imagination fly, taking us to a world of fable and legend.

The Sea Dragons are animals you will find hard to distinguish from the background, full of leaves and algae. They are relatives of Sea Horses.

The Nautilus is the only cephalopod mollusc that has a true exterior shell, but the animal only lives in the exterior compartment. The interior of the shell is divided by a large number of ceramic walls into different compartments full of gas to allow the nautilus to float. The animal regulates its floating by bringing in air or releasing water. Jules Verne used the name Nautilus to baptise the submarine in his novel 20,000 leagues under the sea because submarines, like the nautilus, flood some chambers with water to control their floating.

Did you know?
-The Sting Rays do not have dorsal fins and their tail is very long and filamentous, toothed and especially toxic and they use it only as a defence system. The poisonous needle at the end of its tail caused the death of Steve, the famous “Crocodile Hunter” from Australia.
-Penguins are birds that have lost their ability to fly and have their wings transformed into fins to be able to swim, which is why in antiquity they were thought to be fish. Penguins are monogamous animals, that is, they form stable couples. They have a single partner they preserve throughout their lives, building nests and laying 2 eggs they incubate for 6 weeks.
- The male Cardinal fish incubates the eggs in its mouth (to protect them from enemies) until they hatch (after 8 days), when they are expelled, during which time the male does not feed, and could die of starvation.
-The Black-tipped-shark can never stop swimming or he will drown and die.
-The Stone fish is the most poisonous fish in the world.

It was a beautiful and fun Birthday, and would have been a perfect one if they had dolphins.
Just kidding!..

Für heute hatten wir es geplant, mit unseren Freunden ans Meer zu gehen.

Es ist leider anders geworden…

Riesige dunkel-graue Wolken ziehen hoch am Himmel und laufen schnell Richtung Süden vor unseren Augen. Es wehen heftige, ungemütliche Winde durch die hohen Pinien hinter unserem Haus.

Seit zwei Tagen und Nächten regnet es schon heftig. Wir müssten hübsch daheim in unseren Stuben bleiben.

„Hui, wie pfeift der Sturm und keucht,

das der Baum sich niederbeugt!“

In Deutschland dagegen ist „viel Sonne und sommerlich warm“ an Pfingsten angesagt.

Aber für uns heißt es: „Gewitter und Regen, wolkig und kühl.“

Na ja, es wird nichts draus werden. Dummes Wetter halt.

I met with my friends at the Real club de Barcelona on Wednesday 30th April 2008.

We were there to see the Open Sabadell Atlantico Barcelona 2008, one of the most

important tennis tournaments in the world.

Rafa Nadal will be there along with several other top tennis players like: David Ferrer

(5  ESP), David Nalbandian (7 ARG), James Blake (8 USA) and Carlos Moya (14 ESP)

who had played against the 15 year-old promising-talent Carlos Boludo (ESP) in the

opening show on Sunday before. 

First we went to watch some tennis matches and saw Andy Murray, the 20th in the

world ranking and I got his autograph!!!

They were all there, the top 100 in the world!!!

It was so exciting to see all the titans of tennis in action, to see them fighting, using

their strategies to win, and sometimes getting angry and throwing their racquets

when loosing.

Then we went to collect autographs from other famous tennis players and I got

some of them on my white cap, but my most important of all being an autograph

from the second best tennis player in the world, Rafa Nadal!!! It was super-

exciting to meet him and all the other top tennis professionals in flesh and blood.

We also managed to get very good photographs with these big professionals.

My mom took them all, and here is one of them showing us with Andy Murray,

and the second one with David Ferrer.

That’s me in the brown-striped T-shirt, with my sister (on the left), a friend of ours, and of course Andy Murray.

Me and my friends with David Ferrer

Next we went to see some double matches and were fortunate to see the Bryan

brothers, Bob and Mike, the best tennis double in the world, with no less than 45

titles, including 4 Grand Slams and 2 times Masters Cup in 2003 and 2004.

With no doubt they were the stars of the court.

After that we went to play Wii sports tennis and other games. The place around the

tennis courts is called the “Commercial Street”, where many brands show their

products and let you sample them. It looks almost like a theme park. One can sample

drinks, play mini tennis, Wii and other games.

Finally it was time to say good bye to each other and leave.

It has been a wonderful day like one in Disney World,  we met a great many famous

tennis players who played such brilliant tennis.