Identity

One country can have many identities hidden inside itself and only local might be able to recognize the difference between vocabulary, accent and daily activity. In Puerto Rico for example we all speak Spanish as a main language but as you go deeper into the rural side of the island you will begin to notice a difference in accent between the people from inside the island to the people from the city. Maybe as a tourist, an outsider, you wouldn’t notice this because is a language you are not use to hear but for local inhabitants is pretty obvious. A person from Jayuya for example will have a more native accent than the one living in San Juan. This difference could be marked by several variations as the working place and how packed the population is. People from the city usually have to adapt to a more industrialized atmosphere being forced to change the way they talk and to be fluent in other languages like english with is the world’s main trade and business language. The fact that people live so packed in the city makes it easier for the accent and new culture and way of live to spread than if we were more deeper inside the island where sometimes your closest neighbor can be two minutes down the road and you see him every two or three days.

In the United States there is a much bigger difference in accent and language than we have in Puerto Rico. The United States has a much bigger contribution of nations on it soil than any other country in the world. Almost every country if not all are present in the States today. These people walk between American people and maybe we don’t notice them but native people do, the way they act, the way they speak, the way they dress is different but we don’t notice because is not our culture and they all look the same to us. For example the most common would be the Jewish people, I couldn’t tell the difference between them and an American person because I’m not entirely aware of how both cultures are because throughout the years the have blend into the society and make it their own. Difference between accents is very difficult to get, but it is said that a person from Boston has a much stronger accent than a person from lets say Arizona.

The same way we have cultures that blend in very good we have others that doesn’t even bother to blend in. Latin communities usually stick together and is easier to tell the difference. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in the United States for example have a more distinguished and marked accent than those other communities that have been longer in the States. Normally theses groups try to stay together in the same area for example Mexicans concentrate in areas like California, Texas and Chicago while Puerto Ricans Concentrate more in Florida and New York. These settlements are this way so that the people can feel that they still have their identity as a group being a minority. They take their culture, their language and their style and make that place their own. Like Cubans in Miami they have their own town and is called little Cuba and is place where you can go and live the Cuban culture because they took all what identifies them and moved it with them. the identity of a group is not made only for their own country but it is something that you carry with you anywhere you go.

Tourist for a day

Many people have been talking about the Forest Park La Marquesa located in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. Most comments that I got to hear about different people were based on the extensive area with exotic birds in which you can enter and interact with them. I wasn’t really interested about visiting the park but because I was supposed to act as a tourist for a day for my English class, I thought that visiting this park was a good idea since I really was going to be a tourist because I’ve never been there. Because of the literature on the internet that I previously read, the park was mostly design to entertain children, so I decided to take my little cousins with me. They are 5 and 8 years old and this definitely was a great opportunity to spend some time with them. 

I planned on getting there at about 10:00am but because I was with two little kids being punctual is almost impossible so we got there at about 11:30am. I found it was not so far from home, about 15 minutes and the road were asphalted and covered on the sides with a lot of gigantic and beautiful trees. What really surprised me was that since you got out of the main road to go to the Park you can see big signs announcing the park on every light and that’s pretty uncommon in Puerto Rico.  Here for what I have seen the government doesn’t really worried about identifying streets or main attractions, but I guess that La Marquesa Forest park had it signs because it was inaugurated just a few months ago.

When I finally got there you have to identify first in what seems like a main gate, then you straight for about two minutes when you finally got to see the parking lot for the visitors. The parking was really packed and I think it was really small for the capacity of the park so I had to park in the very last spot and for me it was not a problem but I was with two small kids that started complaining because they were tires of walking and we haven’t arrived yet. 

Like a few steps ahead from the parking lot you get to see what seems like a small office in which you get information about the park and other main attractions of Guaynabo. Then is a window in which a very nice girl to which I got to pay for the entrance. The prices were really affordable I only spend about $16 including taxes for me and my two cousins. They day wasn’t the greatest one because it was really rainy so the girl on the entrance recommended us to take the cable railway in the first place because if it starts raining the closed it, so we decided to take the tour the way she recommended it. The view was really impressive you can see the mountains of Guaynabo and even the beach on the coast of the island.  At first I was really amazed with the beautiful view but then I got to see how high we were and I started panicking for a second but then I realized that they cables were really strong and it seems pretty secure.  My cousins were really enjoying the ride on the cable railway and I felt really happy and excited for them, and I transported myself instantly to when I was about their age that I had no obligations or preoccupations.  The ride to get to the other side of the park took about 8 minutes and then you arrived to a wood platform that leads you to the aviary and other side were they kept the monarch butterflies.

They have only one species of butterflies and it was the monarch and I get to see the lab where they had different specimens showing the different stages of them and it really surprises me, because I haven’t seen it that close.  The most impressive part was too see all the exotic birds flying on top of you, it was scary at first because I am not used to be in contact with a lot of animals but I must admit that it was one of the greatest experience I’ve ever had.  The bird that most capture my attention was the African gray, he was so intelligent that can speak just like humans and his grey and orange tones in the feathers were beautiful. After the aviary we took a trolly to get to small mountain that has on the top a wood deck in which you can see the same view that you get to see in the cable railway but the difference was that you had to take about 500 stair steps. When you finish looking on top of the wood deck you get to go to about 3 different playgrounds for kids, so there was not much left for me but cousins had a really good time and I actually enjoyed watching at them having fun.

There’s not really much that I really have an opportunity to see my surroundings but in there I really got to see everything that was around me, including people, animals, and things that most of the time I never notice like the different shapes of the clouds. I am glad that I decided to gave me an opportunity to visit the park because it was definitely not what I expected but in a good way.  If you ask me I would recommend it for people with small kids, because I think that the most attractive thing of the park its watching the kids playing in their playgrounds.

                                                      View from the cable rail way

                                                                           Butterfly House

                                                                          Parrot

                                                                African Gray Parrot

                                                                             cockatoo

                                                               Jorge a visitor to the park

A room with a view

Lucy Honeychurch is a middle class woman at the 20th century surrounded by a culture in change, specially for the women.Lucy comes out to Florence, Italy for the first time at the beginning of a revolutionizing era where women were beginning to demand more independency and leadership. Lucy’s older cousin Charlotte, who travels with her to Florence is more of an old-fashioned lady. In this movie we can see clearly how the culture was screaming for a change from one generation to another.Lucy falls in love with this man during the trip to Italy but is something that would not look good under the eyes of the people who surrounded her. The culture by that time was very strict when it came to women and and who they were going to be with. Usually the woman didn’t have much of a choice for the man they married because the family will search the most appropriate in accordance with their needs. The movie clearly shows us the two points of view of the cultural and political changes of the time, the radical part demonstrated by Lucy and the conservative side demonstrated by Cecil.

The movie opens up in Florence at the hotel Lucy and her cousin were staying, in this opening scene is where Lucy first met George Emerson over a discussion of the room view. Mr Emerson and his son offered their room to the ladies because he said that man didn’t need a view but women did. Charlotte who plays a conservative character in this movie declines to the offer saying that it was rude from him to insist on giving the the room but Lucy who should be the radical part of this scene disagrees with charlotte saying that the offer didn’t intent any harm at all and that they should take the Emersons room with the view to the river. Late in the movie a group made by the Emersons, Lucy, Charlotte and a couple other persons made their way to the country side of Italy. Here Lucy has an encounter with George that leads for them to kiss. George saw the opportunity thinking they were alone and went for it but Charlotte was right on the back of them and saw it all. Lucy and Charlotte discuss about the events and came to the agreement of keeping it a secret for everyone specially for Lucy’s mother because for Charlotte this would mean a shame for Lucy and also she would be the one to blame because she was the one in charge of Lucy at the moment and couldn’t let anything like this to happen.

Later in the movie we can see the empowerment of woman taking character into Lucy as she starts to takes decisions into her own hands. After the Emersons move to town by recommendation of Cecil George and Freddy become great friends. The two of them were doing all kind of activities together like swimming on the lake, playing tennis and so on. One day after a tennis game George finds himself in the opportunity to kiss Lucy again this event led her to a lot of confusion about if she should marry Cecil or not. That same night she took the matter into her own hands and decided that she wasn’t going to marry Cecil and she wanted to go to Greece instead. For all of this to happen she had to lie to everyone so that she wouldn’t be punished by society. But at the end she got what she wanted and she was happy with it.