7 Wonders

Get ready to go on an amazing adventure to some of the most spectacular places on the planet! We’ll trek through historic terrain as we take in art, architecture and culture all in the same breath. Grab your canteens, comfortable shoes and a camera cos we’re going to wander around the wonders of the world. We’ll suss out the 7 wonders on this week’s episode of FYI! 

Transcript

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get ready to go on an amazing adventure to some of the most spectacular places on the planet we'll Trek through historic terrain as we take in art architecture and culture all in the same breath grab your canteens comfortable shoes and a camera cause we're going to wander around the wonders of the world we'll suss out the Seven Wonders on this week's episode of f why ah welcome to for your info English you got it you got it[Music][Applause][Music] hello hello hello and welcome to another exciting edition of f y i today we're going to get a little bit of art a little bit of culture a little architecture and everything else as well as an English class welcome folks remember if you have any ideas for upcoming episodes of FYI just let me know I'm open to doing whatever topic no matter how controversial in fact the more controversial the better now today's isn't too controversial but let's kick off by looking at our intro which is just sprinkled with words I think you should know I started out by saying get ready to go on an amazing adventure I think you know all that amazing we use that word a lot it's even a famous song Amazing Grace How Sweet the Sound it saved a Wretch like Me who said I wasn't paying attention in church and let's pronounce that word adventure adventure to some of the most spectacular places on the planet and let's pronounce the word spectacular because I know in Spanish it's espectacular but we say spectacular spectacular places on the planet we'll Trek through and to trackis andar caminar through historic terrain as we take in and to take in is I think you would say asumeed literalmente we can breathe it in we can take it in we can enjoy it and what am I talking about I'm talking about art architecture and culture oh there's more of that church culture culture all in the same breath in El mismo suspido and just be careful with that word because the word breathe is respirar but your breath is breathe is the verb breath is the noun and then I said grab your canteens and this is an interesting word because I think it's a false friend you say Cantina is the place where you eat in school we call that the cafeteria but the canteen is something you would drink water out of I think the word in Spanish is cantinpora and don't forget your comfortable shoes and if you can't pronounce the word comfortable you can just say comfy or cozy and a camera and I assume you're not going to forget your camera because it's built into your phone so are you guys ready to wander around and explore the Seven Wonders wander we've looked at this one before you should know this one like the back of your hand Como La Palma de La Mano I wonder if she likes to wander remember that sentence and memorize it as if it were a song and then we heard some flash bulbs going off and then I said we'll suss out which is I think we'll suss out the Seven Wonders on this week's episode of f y i now this is awesome guys because I remember studying these individually but I learned so much putting together this episode and as you can imagine lists have been compiled of beautiful places and other things since we started making lists I mean even in the present day I've got a list right here in front of me I'm a list maker and even more than making lists I like to check things off my my list we even have a bucket list a bucket list is things you want to do before you kick the bucket antes de pal Marla so we're going to take a look at the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World this is in the first part to remember there are two episodes there's a bonus episode that is available exclusively for patrons now if you want to be a part of our community and learn and laugh with us every week you can get more information over on patreon.com Alberto Alonso and take a look at it because you can get bonus episodes you can get PDFs with all the vocabulary you can join us in weekly and monthly classes win prizes and as I said I think the most important part is be a part of a community where your teacher me and your fellow students care about you so I want to send a shout out to all my patrons especially my super duper students Marta candy Javier Roberto David Jose Maria Mila Alex and Edgar and don't forget about my Interstellar students Lina Isa Paco Diego and Carmen keep up the great work it's lovely watching you guys make progress if you guys want to find out more go over to patreon.com Alberto Alonso so in the first episode we're gonna focus on the seven wonders of the ancient world and I want you to pronounce that with me ancient like the word Asia or agent it starts with this a that sounds like an A so Asia is an ancient area oh that's tough but if you can pronounce that you are a step ahead of many students so we're gonna focus on the ones from the ancient world in the first part in the First episode and in the second episode we're going to take a look at some of the new Seven Wonders we'll also take a look at the Seven Wonders of Nature as I said before there are many lists not only have we been making lists since the beginning of time but we've got a lot of them but hey the more the merrier you're free to make your own list the list we're going to look at today is from 100 BC before Christ and this was a list that documented the most remarkable man-made creations of classical Antiquity and it reminds me I mean these were think about this these were Hellenic sightseers a sightseers remember to go sightseeing so these were the original sightseers and they decided hey we've got to put together a guidebook of the coolest places and does that sound familiar here we still do that today I don't know if you guys remember those Lonely Planet guides or the falder's guides there are so many guides the Michelin guides which are restaurant guides so as I said this is something we still do today and on the internet with TripAdvisor and Google comments so if we think about it these people who made this list they were the original tourists the original Sunday drivers domingeros and they thought that these seven things were so spectacular that they had to put them on a list for everybody to see and I know what you're asking yourself why seven well the Greeks believe that it represented Perfection and it reflected the number of planets known in those times now in those times they only knew about five planets plus the Sun and the Moon there's seven we all know the Greeks were really into their numbers and their symbolism they loved using symbols oh and if you haven't heard the episode on mythology give it a listen it's with my friend Damian Moya and he absolutely blew my mind in the episode so let's get into the first one is the Great Pyramid of Giza and this is one of the earliest to be completed not one of the earliest one of means it's in a category no this is one that stands alone and I mean that in the literal sense it stands alone as Unico and it still stands because a lot of these things don't exist anymore and some of them are even debated whether they really existed or whether they were fictional Creations but we know the Pyramids of Giza existed because you can still go visit them today and these are on my bucket list I've never been to Egypt oh be careful I've heard a lot of students say Egypt Egypt I've been to Egypt no excuse me I've never been to Egypt but I was thinking of going with my mummy my Mommy okay Mommy yeah all right in the states we say mommy but the British say mummy so okay really bad joke but I've got to get there all joking aside I mean this is the last one on this list that still exists and it is the largest of the Egyptian pyramids we're talking about the Great Pyramid of Giza the the largest one and this was built in the early 26th Century BC it took around 27 years to make and supposedly they used 2.3 million large blocks and they weighed about 6 million tons in total so this is a construction Marvel even to this day people say how could that have been done there must have been divine intervention there must have been some kind of aliens that came hey check it out on YouTube it's not me who says this but people are still so in awe of how that was built so many moons ago and it still standing I think Modern Builders should study their construction techniques now it initially stood at 146.6 meters tall it was the tallest man-made structure in the world for are you ready for this I think we need a drum roll three thousand eight hundred years it held the title as the tallest man-made structure in the world and if you didn't know this this is an interesting fun fact most of it was covered in Limestone so as you can see right now there are like these steps well no back then those steps were covered in a nice beautiful shiny Limestone but that was eventually removed and the pyramid's height is at its present height which is 138.5 meters so it's lost some height as you guys know the top of it is missing I've never seen it in person as I said but I've seen so many documentaries and again I think it's one of the most famous because you can still go see it today the next one on the list is the Colossus of Rhodes and and this was in the harbor of the city of you guessed it Rhodes on the Greek island of the same name and this was a statue of the Greek sun god Helios it was erected in the city of Rhodes on the Greek Island in are you ready 280 BC 280 years before Christ and here's where it gets tricky because here now we're going on past accounts what people said about it but according to most contemporary descriptions it was about 33 meters tall just to give you an idea that's approximately the height of the modern Statue of Liberty and by the way we have the Statue of Liberty as an FYI episode if you haven't listened to it oh and let me clear this up when I say the Statue of Liberty I mean from her feet to the crown I'm not including the pedestal now this was the tallest statue in the ancient world and it collapsed during an earthquake in 226 BC they preserved some parts of it but in the end it was what destroyed it oh and we have an episode on natural disasters now that I think about it as well but some of these most of them were affected by Mother Nature yeah you can build things strong and sturdy sturdy means it's another way of saying strong but Mother Nature man her Wrath I think you say her wrath that's a word with a silent w at the beginning so imagine that beautiful statue people who went from all around to visit it and an earthquake brought it tumbling to the ground in 226 BC next up we've got the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and it just reminds me of that song by The Rivers of Babylon Awesome song the Hanging Gardens of Babylon now supposedly again these are all accounts here now these are we have to take people's word for it and these accounts said that it is near present day hila which is in the babil province in Iraq but there are people who dispute that in fact in this list the Hanging Gardens are one of the only seven wonders for which the location has not been definitive heavily established now people yeah they they can't come to some kind of agreement on it and they haven't found any archaeological evidence in Babylon there are no texts from that time either so a lot of people say did these really exist or were these some kind of gardens that were describing what heaven would be like well the way they were described I'll give you the description let's for the sake of this episode let's believe that all of these things were real places and that they didn't only exist in the mind of man or humankind as we would say these days but this was so much more than just a garden they said this was a feat of engineering it was these ascending tears and tears they're ascending tears and they had all kinds of trees shrubs and Vines and I mean if you see pictures there are pictures and I shared them on patreon it looks amazing if it really existed we don't know and by the way there's an FYI episode on gardening as well if you want to brush up on your gardening vocabulary the good thing about the next one is we know it existed because they found ruins of it and there are accounts but it is the Lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt and this was a lighthouse that was built between 280 BC and 247 BC and it has been estimated to be at least a hundred meters tall that is impressive even for today's standards the Lighthouse of Alexandria and that's a very logical word in English isn't it Lighthouse Faro and let me test your history now knowledge here how do you think this Lighthouse finally was demolished or damaged did you say earthquakes that's right I can't believe it another Wonder claimed by mother nature but it was the third longest surviving ancient wonder after the mausoleum at halicarnassus and the Great Pyramid of Giza and speaking of the mausoleum at Halal carnassus that is our next one our fifth one just be careful you don't say five it's Fifth and the word Mausoleum which is a word I didn't know came from mosulus the person it was built for so we're even learning a little etymology today in our lesson and I think you say the same thing in Spanish a mausoleum is an above ground tomb just be careful with that word I know because of Lara Croft you say Tom either but it's Tomb Raider Tomb Raider which is interesting because when I thought of how these different Ancient Wonders met their demise I thought to myself I said well it had to be you know grave robbers or tomb Raiders but no mother nature that doesn't mean that once they were lying there and there was Rubble escombres that they didn't take it in fact you can find a lot of pieces of these things throughout museums all over the world and the British museum has received a lot of controversy because of this because they say wait those are our ruins we want them so they've gotten into a lot of problems with that stuff and I'm gonna have you guys guess again what do you think brought down the mausoleum at Hala carnassus did you say earthquake ding ding ding right on the nose on the noses our sixth Wonder of the ancient world is the statutes located in Olympia Greece and this was a giant seated figure about 12.4 meters tall oh my God and it was made around 435 BC at the sanctuary of Olympia Greece and it was erected in the Temple of Zeus and if you notice we don't say Theos we say Zeus we know Zeus he's the god of sky the Thunder God and in Greek mythology the god of gods he rules from Mount Olympus and this wasn't your typical marble statue this one had Ivory plates Ivory s marfil they had golden panels which were wooden it used ebony as well Ebony and Ivory so Ivory is white and Ebony is the dark one if I'm not mistaken you say ebano in Spanish there's a song Ebony and Ivory and it had precious stones in it and you know what I'm thinking of the moment it said that there was a seated Zeus I said wait a second I know a seated figure that we looked at in our Washington DC episode I'm talking about Honest Abe Abraham Lincoln and we all know the Greek influence and Roman influence on Washington DC and many other cities and do you know how they discovered the existence of this statue it was represented on coins so that's why it's so important to Chronicle our history I think about it with my daughter I'm always taking pictures taking videos and I know maybe I'm that annoying dad but I would rather have a record of my daughter's childhood I mean I know it's not as important as the Pyramids of Giza well not to you guys but to me it's more important what I'm getting at is it's so important because if not we lose our history if we don't know it and we're destined to repeat it when it's bad the Seventh Wonder on our list is the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus yeah I had to take a pronunciation course just to be able to pronounce all these Greek words oh and it reminds me of the idiomatic expression It's All Greek To Me Miss winner achino and this was located near present it's also known as the Temple of Diana that's right the Temple of my wife no you guys know Diana Artemis Diana was the Roman name but Artemis was the Greek name and by the year 401 401 A.D anno domini this is after Christ's birth it was ruined and destroyed the only thing left was foundations Los Di mientos and fragments of the last Temple that remained at that site and why do I say that well because in the 7th Century BC it was destroyed by a flood then they rebuilt it in a more grandiose fashion and that began around 550 BC and that took about 10 years to rebuild and that version of the temple was destroyed in 356 BC by a guy named hero Stratus and this was an act of arson arson means an intentional fire the bad news the only one of these Seven Ancient Wonders we can still see is the Great Pyramid of Giza but what if I told you there's good news we have wonders all over Spain all over the world but I'm saying Spain because I live in Spain it's just full of amazing historical places just waiting to be discovered or I should say rediscovered what you don't believe me I'll say a few words in general the Alhambra I mean this is such a historic and culturally relevant place so what is my message to all of you guys get out there and ReDiscover it we have so many amazing things in Spain and really at our fingertips just waiting to be he discovered and as we've noticed you gotta do it before it's too late guys this is the end of the first part of today's FYI I hope you'll join us in the bonus episode of today's f why[Applause][Music][Applause][Music] thank you