A letter for my idol Ville Valo (HIM)

Dear Ville,

I hope you don´t mind my calling you with your first name. I simply had to write you a letter because I feel a strong need to tell you that your music is really wonderful. I spent the whole weekend listening to your song Angels cry blood. It sounds in my head all the time whereever I am and it ´s incredible. The melody is so tender and so rough at the same time. I don´t understand how this is possible. You must be a very sensitive person if you are able to write such a song. And all of your other songs sung by your interchangeble voice are also fantastic. For example Heartache every moment or my favourite one In joy and sorrow.

Sometimes there are moments when I´m simply discovering myself in the lyrics of what you have written and I tell to myself “how could he do that??!“. I´m confident that I would never be able to write something like that. I would like to tell you that I appreciate and admire you. How easy it is to write those words and how humble they look on the paper! But that´s truth. The same truth that everybody can find in your work.

The only thing I´m a little bit sad about is that all your songs are filled with such a pain. Sometimes I think about what must have happened to you. Why do you feel so miserable, lost and blue? I know that I won´t ever get answers to these questions but in any case I wish you to be happier, despite knowing that it would change your work and although I love your so called “love metal“.

There is one more thing I must write to you. You have my deep admiration because in spite of the insucces of your first album you didn´t surrender and went on recording your beloved music and – and this is very important – you didn´t change it. You only waited for someone who would understand it. And fortunately it happened – a lot of people began to understand what you´re trying to say. So I thank you for keeping your own style.

I´m looking forward to your concert which will take place in the Czech republic. I believe that seeing you live will be one of the best experiences in my life.
Thank you that you have read my letter.

Hold on, the best singer of the world,

With love,

Dana

Reading: my beloved activity

What does reading give us? And why did I choose this (at the first sight) boring topic? I consider reading books to be very important because this activity gives us a possibility to gain new knowledge, to activate fantasy, to relax, to get to know our (or foreign) language better, to write in a proper way and to understand people more. The characters you meet in the world of books are various and sometimes you can even find your own personality in some of them.

But reading isn´t related to books only. Nowadays we can read newspaper, magazines, articles on the Internet, on teletext… We have many chances to find information we need. I personally think that reading is the best way how to do that because you don´t have to wait until the news on TV or radio start, you just sit in your armchair and read what you need. As far as I´m concerned the most comfortable way how to search for information nowadays is the Internet. You just switch your computer on, visit Google website and in a moment you find all you wanted. The only danger which is related to the Internet is that some of the information we can find there isn´t true. That´s why we should be careful when choosing the sources. In my opinion trustworthy ones are for example BBC or CNN.

Talking about the printed texts we´ve got two types of stuff which we can read – firstly the books, secondly newspapers and magazines. The main difference between most of the magazines and most of the books is that magazines react to the actual topics. It´s only logic if we think about how long it lasts to write and publish a book. Despite preferring books to magazines I must say that magazines have some advantages too. I have already mentioned the first – and the biggest one – chance of quick reaction to the recent problems. The second one is the addition of pictures (photos, sketches) to the text – it is easier for us to imagine the situation then. The third advantage is that it´s possible to read the whole magazine during thirty minutes – it´s quite practical because of our stressful way of life (we haven´t got very much time).

In my point of view it´s a quite sad fact that we haven´t got enough time for reading. It seems to me that in our society there are even people who aren´t able to read in a proper way. I don´t want to say that they don´t know what a single letter or a word mean but they aren´t able to make a summary and to realize what the paragraph they´ve read really means. I hope that this is only my feeling and the real situation is better but sometimes while talking to my relatives, classmates or friends I feel it could be the real problem. Maybe this could be caused by the fact that our schools don´t teach us how to understand things, they just make us remember some stuff.

Now I would like to return back to the books and say something about the types of books. We have fiction and factual books. The fiction books can be for example detective stories, historical novels, fairy tales, fables and so on. Factual literature is represented by biographies, descriptions of some events or explanations of some processes in physics, biology or chemistry. I think it would be good idea to mention encyclopedias focused on various topics as well because they are very useful for ordinary life. We can have encyclopedia of art, of big inventions in human history, of states etc. Encyclopedias can help us when we don´t understand something. Very helpful are also various dictionaries.

And what about reading and me? I´m convinced that it´s obvious that I like reading – especially books - very much. Reading a book is something like an adventure for me. Sometimes I even feel something like reader´s passion while reading. I just can´t stop emphatizing with the main character, thinking of what I would do if I were him, imagining the scenes and so on. I love those moments when I can lie on my bed with a book in my hand. The best time for reading (for me) is when the rest of my family is somewhere far away and nobody disturbs me. The world of books is so large and diverse that I can always find a book which pleases and comforts me. I prefer prose to poetry, because poetry is sometimes too complicated for me (but I read it as well). If I should answer the question who my favourite authors are, I would probably mention William Saroyan, Francois Villon and Václav Hrabě.

Personal letter

Dear Charlie

I am terribly sorry that I have not written earlier to you, but as you know – I have been really very busy. It ´s harder and harder in school, maths, chemistry and physics are not understandable for me at all. But I will not talk about school, it is such a boring topic! Did Tom tell you about a new member of our family? It is a girl and her name is Nellie. She is really fantastic but openly – I do not understand very much why my daddy (in his age of 58) wanted one more child. But it is not important, she is wonderful and we all are happy that she is with us. And now something new about me personally - I fell in love with one boy and we have gone out together for over a month. I know that it is no long time but I must confess I am a really happy person. We understand each other very well and he is so kind and nice to me… I have never felt better. After all, you know the feelings when you are in love for first time…

And what about you, your life, your family? What are you all doing? How are you? I have not heard from you for ages! And now the biggest reason why I write to you: we are preparing a party because of my mum´s fortieth birthday. It will be celebrated on 4 April in our local pub Titan. Do you think you could come? I am confident she would be really pleased to have you there… Give my regards to Val and please write soon. I am looking forward to hearing from you and besides we need to know if you will come to my mum´s birthday party.

Best wishes

Connie

Geoffrey Chaucer – The Miller´s tale

At the beginning of my essay I would like to mention one important fact about Chaucer. He lived in Middle Ages and was a courtier what determined him to be careful in his writing. Because of this reason it is possible to find some secret meanings in his stories. I will try to find the one which is hidden in the Miller´s tale, although I´m not sure whether I´m able to do that.

At first I would like to tell you what is this story about. The main characters are John – an old carpenter, Alisoun – John´s young wife, Nicholas – young clerk and Absolon – the village dandy. This comic story begins with the fact that Nicholas fell in love with Alisoun. He makes her advances and she accepts it. They trick John into thinking that the flood is going to come and plan to escape in kneading tubes John prepared. John is asleep in one of those tubes and the young pair is in the bedroom. At that moment Absolon – the second man who wants to get Alisoun – comes. Alisoun promises him a kiss but she only puts her backside out of the window. Absolon realizes that he has made a mistake kissing it and gets a piece of the hot iron from the smith. He returns to the window and wants another kiss. This time Nicholas puts his backside out of the window. Absolon touches it with the iron and Nicholas screames for water. Old John awakes and thinks that the flood has come. He falls out of the tube and breaks his arm. The neighbors, who come to see what happened, think that old John is a fool.

I must confess that I like this funny tale. But what is hidden in it? I think that Chaucer – a big critic of the society – criticizes here the relationships. He tries to show how unwise it is to force young women to marry old husbands. That´s clear that they won´t be happy with them and that they will try to find some younger lover. The second point of this story appears to be in the behaviour of Nicholas and Alisoun, who cheat Absolon with the kisses. The story reflects the old truth - who wants to hurt someone is hurt more in the end. The third message of this story - according to what I think – is that the person, who is harmless, seems sometimes to be the worst in the end. Poor John who didn´t do anything wrong (except trusting his wife) is now seen as a fool.

Canada Fact Sheets

Canada Fact Sheets: Unknown author

The book is divided into 32 chapters and has 66 sites. This book relates of the world´s second largest country – Canada. It describes Canadian landscape, talks about history of this interesting country, refers about Canadian people, political system, cultural traditions, sports that are played there, system of education and about many more topics that can be connected with writing about some country. In the book you can find some pictures as well. There are maps of the whole Canada and of the concrete areas that are described in the book or about which the book talks.

One of Canadian provinces is Saskatchewan. This strange name comes from word “kisiskatchewanisipi” which means “swift - flowing river”. The name is very logic although it does not seem to be when we look at it for fist time. Rivers are very important part of this province. The biggest of them are the Assiniboine, the South Saskatchewan and the Churchill. In Saskatchewan you can find a quite big number of lakes as well - that is why one eighth of Saskatchewan is covered by water. The other important things about the landscape are that one half of Saskatchewan consists of forests and one third of cultivated lands. The southern part of the province is relatively flat with occasional valleys. Saskatchewan is bordered by provinces Manitoba and Alberta, The Northwest Territories and with the United States. The shape of this province is rectangular and it´s area is 651 900 km2. In Saskatchewan there live about one million people, who have mainly come from Germany, Ukraine, Poland, Great Britain, France, Russia and so on in the past. The history: the aboriginal people were the Chipewyan Indians, who lived in the north. And there were some people with nomadic life-style as well. The first European explorer of this area was Henry Kelsey, who belonged to Hudson´s Bay Company – he visited Saskatchewan about 1690. Then was Saskatchewan owned by Hudson´s Bay Company. The government of Canada purchased the Territory in 1870. After 1905 there were years of prosperity – until the economical crash in 1929 that was connected with big draught. The recovery of economics came in 1940s and 1950s.

The most interesting about this book is that it discusses various topics about which it would be difficult to find information anywhere else. For example it gives readers knowledge of situation of women in Canada, of life style of the Inuit (that are dwellers of the arctic area in Canada) or about the Royal Canadian mounted police and simultaneously it answers to the main questions in which can be a reader interested.

Do schools teach us the right stuff?

The first thing I would like to say is that general knowledge we can get at a school like ours is very important. As far as I can see humans need to have some overview – if not for anything else, so for better dealing with problems they have to solve during their lives. But I am convinced that we should get to know as much as possible. The more the better. Why? Because we are here to help and understand – as the band Enigma sings in one of their songs. We should try to understand what the world is about and education is one of the ways which can help us with it.

Of course in real life it differs a bit from what I have already written. For example me – I really believe that those sentences I used in the first paragraph are right. But when I´m at school I do not really follow it. I think this is caused by that problem that the methods which are used at schools are a bit out of date and that the students aren´t motivated enough to do all they are able to. Another point is that the amount of information you get at school is too big and you simply can´t remember everything although you spend hours at home learning. I think it would be better if we got a smaller amount of infomation – only things which are really important and at least quite useful in real life. It would be easier to get it into the brain.

The other question which is related to the topic of this essay is whether the information we get from our teachers and read in our books isn´t out of date. This is a quite difficult problem because there are branches in which the progress is very fast and you can never be sure you are telling or reading the latest news. That´s why I would forgive the teachers saying something that is not the hottest new any more. According to what I think it is an unpleasant fact we have to make up with. And finally – I´m convinced that our educational system has bigger problems than this one.

Astrology

Astrology sees mankind as being not only influenced by hereditary (dědičný, vrozený) factors and the environment (okolí, prostředí) but also by the state (stav, rozpoložení) of our solar system at the moment of birth. (astrodienst.com)

We have 12 astrological signs, which are divided to 4 groups – Elements. The Elements are: Fire, Earth, Water and Air. Every Element consists of three signs.
Water signs are : Cancer, Scorpio and Piesces. For people born in any of these three signs is typical big sensitivity and deep and rich emotional life. They have huge imagination.
Air signs are: Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. Airy people are quick and animated.They apply their energies in various ways.
Fire signs are: Aries, Leo and Sagittarius (střelec).These people are spontaneous, impatient and impulsive and they have a lively imagination.
Earth signs are: Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn (kozoroh). Earthy people react quitly and slowly. They are tenacious (vytrvalý) and emotionally slow to change.

And now I’d like to tell something about every sign.

The first sign of the horoscope is Aries. In this sign are born very friendly and active people, who are energetic, dynamic, impatient and impractical. They are self-confident, strong and they do everything to get, what they want.

The second is Taurus. This sign is calm, patient, materialistic, sceptical and conservative. They like to own something. They are romantic and love is very important for them.

The third is Gemini – the sign of twins. They are very quick, spontaneous and curious. For gemini is life always new and exciting game. They are humorous and they are very good acters.

The fourth sign is Cancer. Cancer is very emotional, sometimes over-sensitive person. He needs to guard people he loves. He´s romantic and tender. (něžný) He´s moody, lazy and excitable. The most important in his life is his family and his loved-ones.

The fifth – Leo. These people are lofty, good-hearted and arrogant. Their self-confidence is too high, Leos overrate themselves. They need to win, they must get what they want. They like to lead and often help the others.

Next sign is Virgo. These people aren´t very talkative, rather retiring. They have big sense for detail. Virgo is very critical person – to himself and to the others too. They desire for perfection and are humble, hardworking and practical. They like analysing too.

The seventh – Libra. People born in this sign are sociable, friendly, diplomatic, romantic and tolerant. They´re indecisive (nerozhodný) and they love harmony and balance.

Next sign is Scorpio. Scorpio is the most sexy sign. He´s got very interesting hypnotic look and some magic attraction. Scorpions are energetic, impulsive, exciting, jelous and they don´t let anybody to enter their soul.

Ninth sign is Sagittarius. These people are very clever, inteligent and charming. They´re optimistic, they love jokes and typical for them is a good mood. They are ambitious but not reliable (spolehlivý). And because of they´re direct (přímý) , they can be often untactful.

Number ten is Capricorn. People born in this sign are practical, matherialistic and conventional. They are reserved and reliable, hardworking and strict, patient and careful. Their career means very much for them. They can often be melancholic and sad.

Eleventh sign is Aquarius. This sign is a dreamer of future. People are unemotional, honest, reasonable and rebellious. (vzdorovitý) They´re inventive (vynalézavý, tvořivý) and foresighted. (předvídavý). They like freedom and their friends are very important for them.

And the last sign is Pisces. People born in this sign have great imagination. They are sensitive, often over-sensitive and idealistic. Pisces are helpful, compassionate (soucitný)understanding and kind. They often use intuition (intuice). The bad about them is that they are impractical and hypocritical. (pokrytecký).

George Orwell – 1984

George Orwell wrote his novel called 1984 in 1948. In that time it was something like science fiction. But unfortunately… some of the thoughts which we can find in this book came true later in totality system in USSR. And what is this book about? It describes the dark side of our mind, it shows us how bad things are people able to do, it steals our illusions. The directness which Orwell uses to explain the totality system scares us. The conditions for life in his writing are unbelievable. I – as a person that was brought up in democracy - can´t really imagine such interferences to peoples´ lives from the government. We are used to going wherever we want to, to doing whatever we want to and to thinking whatever we want to. All of these three “freedoms” vanished in Orwell´s book.

The people are controlled by their fear. They can´t even spend their spare time with the ones they love – instead of it they have to participate on stupid collective activities with the others. And they can never know who from their relatives, friends, co-workers etc. is an agent of Ideapolice. Their needs are never fully satisfied, they suffer for all of their lives. But these words refer only to one group of the inhabitants – about 13%. Of course there has to be the powerful group as well. These people are members of the “inner party”. They have nice houses, cars, good food and drinks…but that´s all. They don´t have any real competencies. The whole state is ruled by the Big Brother and maybe a very small group of people around him. The biggest group of population of the state is the “prolets” – people who are often illiterate, live in really bad conditions and are not very intelligent. Prolets listen to the songs which are made up by machinery, they love the state lottery and drink awful beer. On the other hand, they are free. They aren´t watched by the Big Brother in every second. They just try to live, I would say, like people before millions of years. They try to satisfy their basic needs like hunger, thirst, sexual urge etc. and to be happy.

The main character of this book belongs to the group of the outer party. Winston´s got a tiny flat in a block of flats on some of the big housing estates and lives alone. But he is never alone. There is a monitor in his flat. It can see him in every single minute he spends at home. And his job? He works on the ministry of truth and his task is to change the past. It sounds impossible but this novel tells us that it´s quite easy. You just take the information and change it. In all of the media, in the books, in textbooks. And people lose their memories if they can´t support them by the right facts. After couple of years you aren´t wholly sure if your country was in war with Eastasia ar Euroasia. Noone is sure. And you just believe to what you read or hear.

But the terror doesn´t end with this. We could talk about things like permanent war, secret listening device or propaganda. But the saddest thought of this book comes to my mind when I think of the institution of love. Love became only a word. As well as friendship, hope or help. And if someone tries not to conform – to love someone – the Party catches him and makes him love only one person - Big Brother. The most tragical moment of this book is this: everoyne betrays the one he loves if he is confronted with his worst nightmare.

I have read this book and I must say that it´s really very interesting. You just can´t stop reading because you are fascinated of the elaboracy of that disgusting system, you are trying to understand it, to understand why the people behave this way, why there are no protests against the system etc.
The most important thing related to this book for me is this: we can be happy that we can live in such a democratic state and be so much free. It´s not so apparent as it seems to be.

John Lennon – his life and death

John Lennon is very interesting figure in the world´s history. And it isn´t only about music.

He was active on political scene and it´s one of the people, who in his songs, his books and his interviews strictly promoted peace, love and the brotherhood of man. Also nowadays there are people, who respect his thoughts and who agree with them.

His childhood was sad. His father was a sailor and his mother died, when John was 14. He grew up by his aunt Mimi, who was his mum´s sister. At the age of 16 John Lennon started a band, from which the Beatles developed.

As a member of this group he had many affairs with their fans, although he was married and had a little son Julian.

In 1967 John met a japanesse artist called Yoko Ono. He fell in love with her and after the divorce with his first wife, he married her in Gibraltar. After breakup of the Beatles, John with Yoko left Britain for USA. He went on in musical carreer. Then Sean – second John´s son – was born. John retreated from the limelight and pursued Sean. He spent five years as a „house husband“ and Yoko looked after the money.

Afterwards, when he decided to return to writing songs and singing and when he had been completing his last album Double fantasy, John was shot by psychopath Mark David Chapman. It was really a black day in history – and not only in history of popular music, but in history of whole world, because on that day we lost one of the really great people.

The article I chose talks about the last part of John´s carreer and life and of his death too. It´s very sad that there are people, who are able to do something like this – kill someone. And Mark D. Chapman had no reason to do that… The murder of John Lennon is a tragic event. And the proof of his greatness is among others the number of people, who admire and respect him as a musician or as a human nowadays too.

William Saroyan – his life and career

William Saroyan – his life and career

William Saroyan was born in Fresno, California but his family comes from Armenia. His father was lettered but he had to work very hard as a farmer. William´s father moved to USA – exactly to New Jersey – in 1905 and he died in 1911 from peritonitis. After his death William and his brothers were put in orphanage in Almeda. So his childhood wasn´t very happy.

And now some facts of Saroyan´ s life. When he was 15 he left school and tried several different jobs. He wanted to become a writer, so he was very pleased when he became a journalist. All that time he had educated himself by his own – he read many books and so on. His first well-known novel was „The daring young man on the flying trapese“ – it was published in 1934. The novel was very successful and Saroyan continued writing. Many of his next novels were inspired by his childhood or by his struggles as a young writer in San Francisco.

All Saroyan´s works have very strong original style, which is named Saroyanesque – it´s very spontaneous and swift. William Saroyan is known as an author, who was quiet sentimental. In his books the characters are wonderfully depicted – when you read any Saroyan´s book you can see them in front of you – if you have at least a little bit of imagination.

Saroyan didn´t write only novels – he wrote several plays too. One of his best-known plays is „The time of your life“ which was published in 1939.

In 1942 Saroyan joined the US army and went to London with the film unit. He had couple of troubles with the court martial because of one his literal works (because it was pacifistic) but in the end he wasn´t accused.

In 1943 Saroyan married Carol – Marcus, but they soon divorced. They married again and divorced again too. They had two children – son Aram and daughter Lucy.

With the play „The time of your life“ won Saroyan the Nobel prize. But he refused it with the argument that arts shouldn´t be judged by commerce.

After World War II interest of Saroyan´s works decreased but in fifties he was discovered again by a lot of people and he became a very popular writer.
The last years of his life spent Saroyan in Paris, where he went on writing. He died in 1981 in Fresno, California.

I personally have read 3 Saroyan´s books and I was fascinated by it. That´s why I´m going to read more his books. He became my favourite author because of his beautiful descriptions of events and people and especially for his thoughts, which are in his works represented.

Reading, literature, my favourite author

Reading as a source of getting information, American and British literature,
My favourite author

Well, I´ve chosen this topic because I love literature.

I consider it to be very important because reading brings you a possibility to gain new knoledge, to activate phantasy, to relax, to get to know your lenguage better, to write in a proper way and to understand people more. The characters you meet in the world created by the books are varios and sometimes you can even find your own personality in some of them.

But reading isn´t related only to books. Nowadays we can read newspaper, magazines, articles on the Internet, on teletext… we have many possibilities to find information we need. I think that reading is the best way how to do that because you don´t have to wait until the news on TV or radio starts, you just go, sit in comfortable armchair and read what you need. The most comfortable way how to search for information is nowadays the Internet, I think. You just sit in front of your computer, visit google website and in a moment you know all you wanted.

Now I would like to say something about the types of books. We have fiction and factual books. The fiction books can be for example detective stories, historical novels, fairy tales, fables and so on. On the other hand, literature of fact are biographies, descriptions of some events or explanations of some processe in physics, biology or chemistry.

I personally like novels best. I like many authors – Exupery, Coelho, Francis… but my favorite one is William Saroyan. It´s an american writer, whose family came from Armenia. He was born in 1909 in Fresno, California. He started his carreer writing short stories, which were publisched in various magazines. The story, which made him famous, was The daring young man on a flying trapeze. Saroyan wrote a large number of books that are often autobiographic. His most-known novel is called Tracy´s tiger. This book tells us a story of Thomas Tracy, who had an imagionary tiger. One day the tiger becomes real and this fact brings a lot of more or less funny situations.

In the end of my talk I would like to say something about famous American and British writers. From the English I´d like to mention Geoffrey Chaucer with his Canterburry tales, William Shakespeare with his undyiing plays, George Byron – the big figure of romantism, Oscar Wilde – a little bit controversial person of 19. century, Lewis Carrol, sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his famous Sherlock Homes, Agatha Christie with Hercule Poirot and present author of detective novels Dick Francis. Because of her commercial succes I think it would be a good thing not to forget J.K. Rowling and her books for children with a hero called Harry Potter.

The american authors I can´t forget are Edgar Allan Poe – the first one who wrote a horror story, the humorist Mark Twain with his Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Jack London, Ernest Hemigway, whose Whom the bell rings is known all around the world, Francis Scott Fitzgerald and John Steibeck.

Switzerland

The historical designation (name) of Switzerland is Confederation Helvetia.

History:

In 1291 the 3 states Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden - the so called "Ur-Kantone" united against the surrounding aggressors. This was the beggining of existence of swiss confederation. This confederration was then joined by the other states, which nowadays form the country named Switzerland.

Location and basic information:

Switzerland is a republic, which lies in the middle of Europe. It borders with France, Italy, Austria and Germany.
It´s not a very big country (the area of Switzerland is only 41 293 km2 ) and about 60% of it´s landscape is formed by the Alps. Swiss climate is very different in each part of the land.
Switzerland has four national lenguages - people there speak german, french, italian and Rhaeto- romanic and a lot of swiss people can speak English too.

Swiss main city is Bern but it isn´t the most important city there. The most important and the biggist is Curych – there live about 400 000 people. Another well – known city ist Geneve – the city of diplomatic meetings and internetional conferences.

Swiss flag:

The white cross on the red back has a religious background. The cross represents the cross, Jesus was put on, the red color represents his blood. Each arm of the cross has to be of the same size and must be 1/6 longer than wide.

Economic situation

The swiss curency is called swiss francs. Less than 10% of the population is employed in the agriculture, also considered the primary sector. This sector is strongly supported by the government. About 40% of the population are employed in the industry, trade and handicraft, also considered the secondary sector. This sector includes the machine and metal industry, watch industry and the textile industry. All of them export much of their products to foreign countries and suffer a lot because of the expensive Swiss Franc. The fact that Switzerland does not belong to the European Union additionally slows down the Swiss exports.More than 50% of the population are employed in the services, also considered the tertiary sector. This sector includes banking, assurances, tourism and so on. Banking is one of the most important businesses in Switzerland.

Geography and the landscape:

Switzerland hosts about 20% of the Alps. The highest point is Monte Rosa. The other well – known swiss mountains are for example Matterhorn, Jungfrau, Eiger and Dom.

In Switzerland there is a lot of lakes too. The most important of them are Lago Maggiore, Bodensee, Lake Geneva – Lac Léman, Zürichsee and for example Walensee.

The rivers which stream there are: Rhein, Aare, Rhone, Inn, Thur, Ticino and so on.
They lead to 3 different seas: Rhone and Ticino to the Mediterranean Sea, Rhein, Aare and Thur to the North Sea and Inn to the Black Sea.

Hemingway: The Old Man And The Sea

Ernest Hemingway is one of the most famous american writers. He was born in 1898 and died in 1961 when he committed suicide. He fighted in World War I and he was wounded in it. He travelled a lot, he visited Spain, Africa, Asia and finally he lived in Cuba until his death.

His most known works are for example: „A Farrewell To Arms“, „For Whom The Bell Tolls“ and „The Old Man And The Sea“ . For this book Hemigway got the Nobel prize in 1954.

The book talks about one old fisherman, whose name is Santiago and who isn ´t very lucky. He hasn´t caught any fish for the last eighty days. He used to go to the sea with a young boy named Manolin but parents of that boy forced the boy to go fishing with another ship because of Santiago´s bad luck. That´s why now the old man goes fishing alone. The boy cares for the old man, he brings him food and is his big friend. The old man narrates him about his childhood, about times when he was young and about various famous people.

Then, one day, it´ s the 85th day of his failure the old man goes fishing again. He goes very far with his boat and he hopes to catch a big fish. After few days long fight with one really huge fish, he gets it. Because he is not able to put the fish into the boat, because it´s too big, he ties it to one side of the boat and tries to sail back to the harbour. But it isn´t easy at all. The sea is full of sharks that attack his boat. He kills one with the harpune, second with knife and with the other he fights with the paddles. He survives but the sharks eat the fish which he has caught. The man gets back to the harbour wounded and exhausted. And he´s got about six metres long skeleton of fish tied to one side of his boat. The next day the other fishermen welcome him and the boy is very sad because of Santiago´s defeat. But Santiago doesn´t surrender, he plans new fishing.

The book is about the fight between man and nature. It shows how cruel can nature be. But the interesting thing is that Santiago still loves nature and sea although he has troubles with it.