Καλά Χριστούγεννα! Thinghs you might not know about Christmas

Christmas time is coming and we want to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Buon Natale, Feliz Navidad, Boldog karácsonyt, feliz Natal!!!

 

 

Here are festive facts to get you even more in the mood for Christmas..

Christ's Mass : the word Christmas comes from the Old English "Cristes maesse" meaning "Christ's Mass".

Xmas : the abbreviation Xmas isn't irreligious. The letter X is a Greek abbreviation for Christ.

Speedy Santa : US scientists calculated that Santa would have to visit 822 homes a second to deliver all the world's presents on Christmas Eve, travelling at 650 miles a second.

Noel : the word Noel derives from the French expression "les bonnes nouvelles" or "the good news".

Christmas Trees : nearly 60 million Christmas trees are grown each year in Europe.

Early Christmas Trees : they may date back to pagan traditions, but the earliest known reference to a Christmas tree is in a German pamphlet from 1570.

Tallest Tree : the world's tallest Xmas tree at 221ft high was erected in a Washington shopping mall in 1950.

Eating a Christmas Tree : many parts of the Christmas tree can actually be eaten, with the needles being a good source of Vitamin C.

Rudolph the Reindeer : Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was invented for a US firm's Christmas promotion in 1938.

Jingle Bells : James Pierpont's 1857 song Jingle Bells was first called One Horse Open Sleigh and was written for Thanksgiving.

Christmas Songs : JINGLE Bells was the first song broadcast from space when Gemini 6 astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra sang it on December 16, 1965.

Banning Christmas : In 1647, after the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell banned festivities. The law wasn't lifted until 1660.

The Birth of Jesus : Many theologians estimate that Jesus wasn't born on December 25 but sometime in September between 6BC and 30AD.

Tangerines : the tradition of putting tangerines in stockings comes from 12th-century French nuns who left socks full of fruit, nuts and tangerines at the houses of the poor.

 

And we want to share with you some of the weirdest Christmars traditions from around the word....
 

Καλά Χριστούγεννα

Wine Tasting

On the 13th of November we had the chance to go for a Wine Route trip, where we tried 8 different types of wine.

There are some tips how to look like a professional and impress other, when you drink wine. And of course to enjoy it more.

US Elections, what will happen next?

Two days after the elections in the USA, everyone is expectant of knowing what is going to happen because of the result got in it. Donald Trump, in case there is still somebody do not know him, candidate of the republican party for president of the United States of America, has got to reach the position at the White House for the next four years.

After knowing the outcome of the elections, many people are angry, many scared, many others concerned of what will happen both with the future of the United States and of the rest of the world.  It is unquestionable the person in charge of such a big responsibility will have the power from now on to decide the destiny of many people with his decisions, and according to the image the new president of the US has given so far in terms of sexuality, racial profiling and migrant policy among ohters, it seems almost impossible to trust in a better future. But let us try to do not being very catastrophists for the moment and take a look how things are coming up.


The other main candidate, Hillary Clinton, from the democratic party, was the hope for many people both in the US and in the rest of the world in order to continue with the economical and social "stability" there has been so far. But all that glitters is not gold and Hillary, according to some revealed information in the latest months, has been shown that she was not the most appropriate person to succeed Barak Obama either. Some controversial decissions in foreign countries leaked by reliable sources demonstrated her purposes in some countries with open conflicts that were not legitimate.

In any case, one of two candidates were unavoidable to be chosed as president. As a result of the elections, now both the future of the USA and the rest of the world are in hands of Donald Trump, a man with an outlandish personality who will not leave anyone indifferent.  

"Pão por Deus" (bread for God)

The 1st of November in Portugal is holiday and its called "O dia de todos os Santos" (all saints day).
In the VIII century the Catholic Church establish this day, mixing the catholic tradition with the pagan one - the Stamhain in Celtic tradition that latter was called Halloween. The word Halloween actually come from "all hallows day".
So the tradition says that in the 31st of October, the end of the Summer, the deads and the living people were more close, and the spirits came back to their houses to ask for food. To receive them, the families left food and drinks next to their doors. They did campfire and they use masks in the streets.
In Portugal this tradition is done on the 1st of November in a different way. Usually is done on country areas and basically is small groups of children that goes from door and door asking for food like dry cakes and candys. Latter people started to give some money as well.
When they arrive to the people's houses they have to screen "pão por deus" that means bread for God.
This tradition is disappearing every year more and more, especially because with the crisis people don't have that much to give and also because the Halloween started to take more credits then the old tradition.
Even though, in some places in the North and Centre of the country, they still do it and according to the tradition, the children collect their food in hadmade bags by their grandmothers. These bags are made with different pieces of different textile, re-using the waste of the sewing.

Who We Can Love

One of the strangest things about relationship is that we are not free to feel attracted to just anyone.

We tend to have very strong psychological types that we can't deviate from. All of us carry inside us very specific list, defining what the people we can love need to be like as characters. These list are often weirder.

Why can't we settle down with people who are good for us? That's because we are looking for someone who feels familiar.

A lot of us learned about love in childhood at the hands of people who were trouble for us and who continue unconsciously to guide our love types, this can cause havoc with our chances of happiness.
Emotional health mean expanding on the number of people we are free to fall in love with.

We learn about love in childhood, but we liberate ourselves from the traumas of childhood when we realize we can love in different ways, and get used to something that may at first be eerily and challenging unfamiliar.

This video, made from THE SCHOOL OF LIFE, explains why we fall in love with the wrong person.

Alain de Botton is a writer, philosopher and television host. He founded The School of Life. Deals with the culture and history of thought emphasizing their value for everyday life.

Million ways of Butternut Squash

It's butternut squash (pumpkin) season.

The positive health effects of butternut squash has been known by the Indians, they cured snake bites and it helped eliminate freckles.

Nowadays supported scientific research by the fact that the butternut squash has an a lot of calcium, zinc, manganese, copper, iron, phosphorus, vitamin C, carotene, biotin, niacin, pantothenic acid, A, B1, B2, B6, and the content of folic acid have health maintenance, curative effect . The butternut squash is suitable for the treatment of inflammatory diseases, in particular, show high efficiency in the case of cold, common cold diseases, but applicable to pneumonia and other treatment of lung injury. The butternut squash can even help with allergic coughing, sneezing, reduce asthma attacks.

Its consumption can make our skin more beautiful, especially in the treatment of acne is a great help. In folk medicine it is used as a laxative and bowel cleanser. Consuming can be very beneficial for people suffering by digestive problems. The butternut squash stimulates liver function, helps prevent heart and coronary problems.

With the low calorie content of pumpkin is ideal for people with strict diet.

Those who have never tasted a real butternut squash might think, with so many beneficial effects it has to have a bad taste. Wrong! Probably the most delicious fried, but you can make soup, vegetables, cakes, jam, and juice of it.

It’s rare that a vegetable combines three important characteristics such as healthiness, taste delicious and affordable price. You can find butternut squash on every continent except Antarctica…

On the next week at the veggie kitchen we will show you three different ways to prepare it.

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Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients:

Approx. 1.5 kg butternut squash

1 large onion

3-4 cloves garlic

1l bouillon broth

100 ml cream (milk)

(roasted pumpkin seeds)

1 heaping ts curry

1 heaping ts ground cumin

1 heaping ts ground coriander

Salt and pepper

Croutons

1. Slice the butternut squash for bigger pieces and put it in the oven till it’s ready, or put in the microwave for 20-25 minute

2. Meanwhile, cut the onion for small pieces, and cook in in a bigger pot

3. Cut the ready butternut squash to small pieces and with the sliced garlic add to the onion.

4. Add the bouillon broth and the curry, coriander, cumin; boil and cook for a few minutes.

5. Pull off from the fire, blend it with a blender until its smooth, pour more water if necessary

6. Pour in the cream and boil it again. After tasting put salt and pepper, depending on your taste

7. Serve with croutons and roasted pumpkin seeds

Tip: Don’t throw out the peel, cut in into very small pieces and add it before blending.

The importance of advertising in our society

Nowadays it´s unthinkable to live without the presence of advertisement in our lives. On TV, on Internet, the Social Media, newspapers, at the streets...everywhere. And the main reason why we are surrounded of such a huge amount of publicity is simply: promoting or selling a product. It doesn´t matter which is the shape or the function of the product. Many times the same product is something abstract, like a feeling, an emotion or simply a value. Even ourselves as individuals are considered a product where what really matter is the image. 

 When you think in the word "advertisement" the first thing that comes up with your mind is a product needs to be promoted in order to be sold later. This may be the original idea, but with the same necessity of reaching a huge amonut of people and of becoming more sofisticated to be competitive, in recent years the advertisement companies have evolved to the point of creating adverts that get into your mind and pushing you, unconsciously most of the times, to purchase the good.

Besides of selling a product or promoting events with a lucrative purpose, advertisement it´s also used both as to promote comunity or charity events for instance or to let your friends know that you are going to organize a party. The main goal of advertisement is to send you a message that makes some how an effect on you.

On the other hand, advertisement also has a crucial paper in our lives, not only for the fact that they want to send us a message to spend, but also to consider as a product ourselves. The fact of creating a good CV for example in order to show your best face to get a job it can also be a kind of advertisement. Let´s say that we are "selling" ourselves in order to get a job, or also through the Social Media. Something so simple as posting a photo, a song or a statement in your social network is another type of advertisement.

As you can see, the word "advertisement" has different meanings and uses in today´s society, and it depens how it is used can be very useful or very harmful, useful in order to spread a message with intentions or harmful in order to create you the necessity of buying a prodcut that you don´t need. This is only an opinion. 

 

10 illustrations that shows how is the depression

10 synthetic chemicals harmful to health and the environment

Every day we use soap, detergents, body lotion, shampoo, conditioner ... and for the women lipsticks, eye shadows, eye and lip pencils, kajal, enamels and mascara of each color. But have you ever wondered what's inside these products?

Many of these synthetic chemicals are skin irritants, skin penetrators, endocrine disrupters and are carcinogenic. As our body’s biggest organ, your skin is your most important immune defense barrier as well as your largest organ for eliminating waste.

This is a short list of the most dangerous ingredients used in cosmetics, let's take a look and try to memorize it:

• Formaldehyde: is found in many everyday products and unfortunately is also widely used in the preservation of cosmetics. Products such as foundation cream, shampoo and enamels contain formaldehyde, which besides being a preservative substance is a powerful bactericide. Although it is been ascertained its carcinogenicity, formaldehyde continues to be contained in a wide range of products, even if at very low concentrations.
  
  
• Parabens: the six main parabens that we can find in the market formulations are methylparaben, ethylparaben, propylparaben, Isobutylparaben, butylparaben and benzylparaben and are used as preservatives in moisturizers, sun, in toothpastes, shampoos; cleansers, deodorants, in shaving gel, in short, in many cosmetics for everyday use, even in so-called "natural products" and "organic." These substances penetrate through the skin and remain intact within the tissue, accumulating. Although they are legally authorized in the EU, even parabens are seriously suspected of being carcinogenic.
  
  
• Quaternium-15: is always part of preservatives. It is present in many cosmetics for make-up, in shampoos but also in moisturizing lotions and sunscreens. It is harmful because it releases formaldehyde it is toxic and leads to sensitization.
  
  
• KATHON CG: is another preservative, a broad spectrum antimicrobial action, colorless and odorless contained in skin cosmetics, in personal care products and household products. From a toxicological point of view, the Kathon CG, has been classified as primary irritant in spite of having a great use. We can find it on the labels of synonyms as grotan, EUXIL or ISOTIAZOLINA.

• MEA-DEA-TEA: they are the initials of monoethanolamine, diethanolamine, triethanolamine and are present in many cosmetic compounds. We find them mostly in products that make foam then shampoos, soaps and bubble bath and give rise to nitrates and nitrosamines, so they are carcinogens.
  
  
• PARAPHENYLENDIAMINE (PFD): this substance is the most important dye used for permanent hair colors. Very often it gives rise to sensitization so that this substance has been banned in many European countries.
  
  
• TOLUENE: it is the solvent that is used to spread the glaze easily. Unfortunately it has been linked to nervous system disorders and can also cause kidney damage.
  
  
• FRANGRANCE: all cosmetics generally have a pleasant smell. We tend to think that the fragrance within the products for personal hygiene is quite harmless, but it is not so. 95% of chemicals used in perfumes and cosmetics fragrances are synthetic compounds derived from petroleum and since the perfumes have a low molecular weight, can penetrate more easily into the skin and can cause allergies or breathing difficulties.
  
  
• HYDROQUINONE: reading the labels of products for lightening the skin is easy to find in this compound, a phenol which happens to be harmful, irritating and dangerous for the environment. Even if they have been forbidden to use it as lightening the skin, the drug continues to be used in hair dyes, although at low concentrations.
  
  
• ALLUMINIUM: we find inside many products, alimentary or not, and of course could not miss between components of many cosmetics, in particular deodorants and antiperspirants, which may contain up to 20% of aluminum salts in the form of hydrochlorides of aluminum and zirconium hydrates. Prolonged use of these substances is linked to the risk of breast cancer onset as the aluminum salts are capable of significantly damaging the DNA of cells, stimulating their degeneration into cancer cells.

It’s impossible to avoid every single synthetic chemical, but you can do your part in limiting the amount of toxins your body is exposed to. Be sure to check out the EWG’s Skin Deep Database to research toxic chemicals that could be in your cosmetic and personal care products.

This video shows all these information

Most people choose to make their own natural skincare products because they want to use chemical free products that are kinder and safer on their skin and to take advantage of the wonderful benefits natural ingedients can bring.

If you are interested, we will start a workshop about how to create hand-made natural products, enjoy us!

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Don't have time to train?

Time. Apparently, this is the fourth dimension. Time is an important part of our lives, especially because we don’t have it for a lot of things.

For example, to train. A lot of people do not train, because they do not have time to train. Those people will never have.

The sport does not work by setting aside time for it.

For basic needs we don’t „make time" We organize our lives around them.

You have to train to be healthy!

Health does not only mean that we are not sick, but that mentally and physically we are fine.

Our whole life's physical and mental development: continuous physical work and continuous learning.

For a true athlete there is no such a thing that no time for training, because the activities are part of life as breathing and eating.

For Smoking, boozing, partying, everyone has the time. To do sport less than 10%.

There are tricks how to force ourselves. For example, training with a partner, who is actually going to be there, not just walking around and do nothing. Or a personal trainer because for our money, we will certainly go down. For example you even can join to a training group, and do it together:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1771671576446242

If you do it alone, much worse, but simply you have to do it and not playing on the phone, then actually you really won’t have time cause of that. A good way to get a regular exercise plan.

The training doesn’t have to be strict like hell: it is good if we go with companies with whom we feel happy.

Those who do not have time to train, they shouldn’t change their schedule, they should change to way of their thinking.

Without putting the sport in an appropriate priority, it’s hopeless.

What does it mean to be a volunteer

Hello everyone one more week!

Taking advantage of the starting of the activities at YEU Cyprus, our organization, through Cultural Caravan, our project about non-formal education, I would like to make a little description of what does it mean for me, Juanjo, the concept of volunteer.

My first experience as a volunteer it was in a primary school in England two years ago. As a first contact with voluntary work I was a bit lost at the beginning. I was in a 3rd and 4th year classroom and my level of English was not good at all. Sometimes the teacher gave me some tasks in order to help the children, but some other times I felt a bit useless in the classroom. Because of my English, I never took the initative to be more useful during the class hours. Honestly, this part of the experience wasn´t good for me in these moments, but now I realize that it was a great experience in my life. Now that I feel more comfortable with the language and because of the EVS experience in Cyprus, I´m enjoying much more the feeling of being a volunteer.

For me being volunteer as part of the EVS program means to live in another country, means to share your life and experiences with the people that surround you, means to get into a new culture with new people, means to be an open minded person in order to be able to appreciate and understand things that happen in these specific environment. But above all, for me being volunteer is to do your best to help other people and to grow up yourself as a person in a professional and personal way.

So far I´ve lived a big amount of great experiences in my time in Cyprus, and I´m sure that also my mates of journey in the EVS experience. And this is what really enriches me, this amount of good moments, situations lived with other people and the thought that probably all this won´t happen again in the same way.

To conclude, just to say that we still have lots of things to discover and enjoy about the volunteer service and although sometimes not everything works as one would wish, in the end we have to keep and save the good moments of this experience!

Studying "Elliniká"

Learning a new language is always a challenge that can be worst or better according to the resemblance that the language have with your native speak.

Through a foreigner eyes looking at the Greek language, it looks pretty difficult.

The first obstacle is the alphabet. A bunch of letters that means nothing to you and that look like much more with Chinese characters then with words. It’s like having six years old again and starting from the first grade. Try to read something is so hard and is always very slowly. Every small step that you give is always combined with a choke of strange sounds that inside you are praying for being just a little bit similar to the original ones.

The writing is the same thing and at least you can enjoy the pleasure of write every letter carefully and with a lot of patient and time, like you were drawing something very special even if you don’t understand the meaning of what you are writing about.

You feel shy when you try to speak and one of the things that you have to accept is that mistakes are very normal in the beginning and you have to do them a lot until you say it in the right way.

Another complicated thing is when this new language have sounds that don’t exist in your mother tongue. It is something new that you never listen before and that look like impossible to reproduce. When the human being is growing up it starts to lose his capacity to learn different sounds.

Then you really have to improve your memory. Vocabulary is very needed to be able to speak, so as fast as you memorize each word, you’ll be better and you’ll learn faster because you’ll understand everything much easier.  

Although all the obstacles that you have to face, in the end is very gratifying when you start to get the conversations; the meanings; and especially to because closer of the native speakers of the language that you are learning.

In the end that is a language do, it put people closer. 

How to choose your perfect vacation according to your mental state

Unfortunately we had known the Cipriot Summer in Nicosia: 43 degree, the wind is like the air that come out of your oven when you open it, the "cold" water of the shower is like lava. The only way to survive is think about our weekend and our holiday. 

Travel can give us strong psychological benefits and it helps us to be better people but there isn't a „no one-size-fits-all dream holiday”. The type of break everyone should take is strickly linked to our mindset. 

The philosopher Alain de Botton explains this idea in his book, The Art of Travel. De Botton argues that we should ideally have “psychotherapeutic travel agencies” to help us figure out what we want from a holiday. This would help avoid those holidays that fail “in a quiet and essential psychological way”. Lastly, the philosopher offers a list of destinations depending on psychological needs. If you want discover his recommendations, watch this video.

The clinical psychologist Linda Blair, author of “The Key to Calm” says there cannot be a prescribed holiday for everyone. She suggests that those who are stressed should take shorter breaks more frequently, as opposed to one long holiday. “You’ve got to bring down those chronically high cortisol levels as often as possible,” she says. And those with such anxiety should aim to return to familiar destinations, as “all change is stressful, even good change.” Meanwhile, someone who’s just retired might go on a vacation for several weeks. Blair says it takes three weeks to break a habit, and so a long holiday would get the retiree out of the mindset of waking for work at a set time. “You’d come back much better equipped to start fresh,” she adds. 

The travel writer Judie Fein, says that a vacation is not a luxury but a necessity: “Our lives are completely out of balance, and a vacation is an enforced way to change the rhythm of your life, to expose your mind and heart to new things. It gives you some perspective.”

Do you want to know people like you, who love to travel? Do you want to listen and take suggestion from them or share your travel wishes? Passionate travelers is the group for you! Passionate Travelers aim is to gather all the people who have travelling as their passion and who are willing to share their stories with others. On 4th August there was the first meeting, a lot of people from different country (Cyprus, Romania, Italy, Brazil, Colombia, Syria, Poland and Hungary) joined the event.

Each meeting has a specific topic such as North Africa, South Asia, Latin America, etc.. So, if you are interested in discovering a new culture, if you visited these countries, if you lived there or maybe one of them it's your native country, then come! 

This is the web syte fhttp://passionatetravelers.wordpress.com follow the news on facebook https://www.facebook.com/passionate.travelers/home.

Ελληνικά μαθήματα

We started our daily greek lessons the last week, so we already had 7 lessons, which means 35 hours of learning greek. I have to say, it is not the easiest language, but the lessons are good, the teacher is nice and the group is perfect, so nothing can stop us, we will master greek... or at least reach level A at the end of the course. 

I would like to show you how much did we learn, or at least how much did i learn. ( I hope it is okey and there are not a lot of mistakes...but hey, i am still just learning it)

I tried to put a lot of things in this conversation what we already know, but of course there are more than this. Please feel free to write the corrections of the mistakes if you find one. 

- Γεια σος.

- Γεια σου. Πος σε λενε;

- Ειμαι ο Μπενιαμιν Τομπαι. Εσας;

- Με λενε Ελενη Παππα.

- Χαιρο πολυ κυρια Παππα.

- Απο 'δω η Βερα.

- Γεια σου.

- Καλημερα . Τι κανετε;

- Καλα, ευχαριστω. Εσυ;

- Μια χαρα.

- Ειμαι για το μαθηνα, Τωρα μαθαινω ελληνικα στο Πανεπιοστημιο Κυπρου και σπουδαζω μηκανικος.

- Απο που εισαι;

- Απο την Ουγγαρια.

- Που μενεις;

- Μενω στην Κυπρο.

- Που ακριβως;

- Μενα στην Λευκωσια.

- Αυτο ειναι το σταθερο;

- Οχι.

- Εχεις κινητο;

- Ναι, το κινητο μου ειναι χχχχχχ.

- Ευχαριστω.

. 

- Εντάξει.

- Εδω ειναι η ταζη σας.

- Ευχαριστω. Γεια σας.

- Γεια σας.

- Γει σας.

An experience in the village

After two weeks, we are back. The reason why we didn´t write the latest two weeks is because we have been out the office all these time. Last week most of the group took some holiday days and the previous week all of us were at Lofou, a village in the mountain. In this post I´m going to talk about our experience at the village. Concretely, we went to Lofou to help as volunteers in the festival it was celebrated there, "The Xarkis Festival".

Some weeks ago, the organizers of the festival talked with YEU in order us to help them during the festival week. Given that this was a low-cost festival, they were looking for staff to support them in the different activities that would be developed along the week. Our organization agreed with them to help, and a month after we were at the village being part of the festival.

The week days were quite quiet regarding to the people that there was there. However, we didn´t stop doing things in any moment. Always there was something to do. But it´s also true that there were a bunch of volunteers so that we could enjoy some break times. Some of the works we did there were preparing and mounting the decoration of the festival, some technical works like moving some fornitures, dealing with the correct functioning of the different workshops that were taken or being in charge of them.

At the weekend came the best moments and also the busiest ones. Everyone from the festival staff were moving from one side to another, making sure that everything worked well. We were there to support them in whatever they needed. In the both evenings of Friday and Saturday and after finishing our tasks, we had time to enjoy the concerts that there were taking part.

On Sunday we closed the festival with some traditional dances at the main square of the village. The best way to finish a full week in Lofou, where we met and shared such a nice time with a lot of people. A great experience that we will repeat next 12th and 13th of August at Windcraft Festival at Katydata. Join us and don´t miss it!!