thank you

Dear parents and students,
Mrs Prudden, Mr Stott and I came back from Barcelona Friday morning, safe and sound, together with all the trip students, welcomed by the parents at the ISG parking lot. Unfortunately not all suitcases had arrived in Bahrain and crossing the Saudi border had costed us about 2 hours, but for the rest the trip back home had been comfortable. Thanks to the very positive attitude and responsible behavior of a brilliant group of enjoying and enjoyable students, and an interesting programme, I think we can call the trip a big success. My personal favorites were the football match in the atmospheric Nou Camp stadium, the classical guitar concert in the beautiful concert hall Palau de la Musica Catalana and the Abba musical in Spanish. But even more I enjoyed the students having a great time, pushing their limits, asking spontaneous questions at tours, enthusiastically participating in every event, helping each other, becoming friends or dancing/listening to music performed live. They’ve had a wide range of experiences which will be part of their cultural baggage the rest of their lives.
I’d like to thank especially Mrs Bland, Mrs Prudden, Mr Stott, Mr Hardcastle, Mrs Weaver and Mr Johnson. And of course all the colleagues for the extra work such a trip brings with it. Also I thank the parents for letting their children go on this trip and last but not least the fantastic students themselves! If I forgot to mention somebody, I hereby apologize, but bear in mind that I am thankful to you too.
Muchas gracias!
Willem Snieder.

Istanbul 30/10 6.48 pm local time

Flight to Istanbul went smoothly, now waiting for flight to Bahrain, undelayed (yet?), so we expect to be on time, tonight around 4 am Dhahran, ISG parking lot. Mood is excellent. See you later.

students' comments

We went cable car riding this morning, it was something new to do. We had to go 8 in each carriage, and then we went higher into the air. You could see a very fantastic view of Barcelona and it was a very beautiful experience. It was pretty cold and it was also raining quite a lot then. It was a lot of fun.
By Hanna M

After the cable car ride we went to the Olympic stadium for a tour of the museum. We saw a lot of interesting objects and different types of sports for different types of people.
By Ralph

We went to a really nice restaurant for lunch, it had great food. There were a lot of Tapas to choose from and we had some delicious cheesecake for desert! It was small but it played great music and we all had fun chatting together.
By Danny

After our tour around the Olympic Stadium we went shopping for 3 hours in Catalunya.
Catalunya has such a large variety of shops from small souvenir shops to huge designer malls. It was really nice shopping freely without our abayas and walking around with friends but the weather was extremely cold and wet. Overall we had a lot of fun and bought lots clothes and souvenirs.
By Zara


After shopping we went to this little café to learn how to make traditional Spanish food. The food we were taught how to make was paella and tapas. We first made tapas, which was very simple, but then we were shown how to make paella which was quite difficult! But over all it was great fun!
By Kirsty

Then later that night we went to the theater show Mamma Mia! We were in the freezing rain earlier in the day but when we went to go see Mamma Mia it was really nice. The only bad part was the show was all in Spanish! The show was in Palau Dels Esports,the Barcelona theatre of music. It was a great day!
By Holly

Overall, the whole trip was exciting and I enjoyed every minute of it. My favourite part of the Barcelona trip would be the Portadventura Theme Park. I loved the really fast rollercosters and I screamed my head off!
All of us would like to thank our parents for letting us go on such a wonderful trip! See you soon in Dharhan.
Oliver J.

I enjoyed every single bit of the trip – I just can’t chose a favourite activity. Thank you to the teachers for giving us a good time!
Oliver P.

busy autumn wednesday

What a day, this last "real" day of our trip! Now it is already Thursday, so I´ll keep it short and in a few hours the students will come up with a proper blog. This morning it was raining again and not much warmer than 10 degrees. We left early for a cable ride plus fantastic view to the Montjuic and a visit to the Olympic stadium plus museum. Interesting but cold. Than we had a typical Catalan lunch in a restaurant downtown. Most of the students liked this. After lunch it was shopping time. All of us went joined by at least one other and all met at the meeting point on time, bags full of souvenirs. Time for a cooking course plus eating tapas and paella, quickly because we had to be on time for our last surprise, the musical Mama Mia, sitting in the first rows. We had a great time and quite a few of us had to realize that English is not the only language around: the whole show was in Spanish, but we knew the story and the dancing and singing was spectacular! In an excellent mood we returned to our hostel.

Tuesday

Our surprise last night was a flamenco show!
We arrived at the show after a long walk from the metro station. It was a converted theatre and the show was about an hour long. The performance itself was loud, interesting and very entertaining. We were truly amazed by the speed the dancers moved their feet. The songs, which accompanied the dancing, were powerful and emotional and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
Sabah and Sophie.

Early this morning we visited Monserat Monastery. It was very interesting because it was historic and the buildings were beautiful. The singing of the choir sounded harmonic and was very peaceful. We had to take a coach to get to the monastery in the mountains. It rained a lot which was a shame because Monserat has beautiful scenery (this was our first rainy day in ages!!) We had a great time there so after finishing our lunch we headed to the coach to go to the Picasso Museum.
Sarah and Catherine.

After lunch we went to the Picasso Museum to see his early and late works. It was excellently laid out to show his paintings from the start of his career to his late paintings and sculptures. It was amazing to know that he started painting portraits and only later painted abstract. The abstract paintings were very interesting and hard to get but it was amazing to see how every year he seemed to change his painting style more towards abstract.
Jamie P

Later this afternoon we went to Nou Camp Stadium, the home place of the Barcelona Football Club. We had a tour of the entire stadium.
First of all we went into the changing room of the away team. Then we came up the tunnel and onto the pitch - although we couldn´t actually step on the grass. We then went to the VIP seating and the commentating area. After that, we went to then museum where it showed all the trophies that BFC have won and the history of the team.
GO BARCELONA!!!!!
Ayaaz and James L.

Pictures October 27th

Monday

Today we went to Post Aventura Theme Park. We spent about 6 hours there - we found the rides amazing. Although I wasn´t able to try it, Dragon Khan was said to be one of the best.......100% adrenalin rush!! The park itself is massive and is split into several different themes, for example Far West, China, etc. each with themed rides, shops and restaurants. This has probably been one of the best days so far.
There´s a surprise later!
Sara

I really enjoyed today because of Dragon Kahn. It went soooo fast!
Oliver P

It was so much fun - I went on my first rollercoster - then I went on it again!
Adri

He (?!) was screaming like a girl!
Catherine

I was so scared, but I thought - OK - musn´t look scared - for the photo!
Aimee

We all heard Willem scream on Dragon Khan - we knew it was him because it was in Dutch!
Beverly

It was a new experience - really scary!
Sahar

Hi everybody, my favourite ride was the Skydrop. The park was amazing!
Danny

I got chased by a zombie! I wanted to stay longer.
Amanina

You could see all of Barcelona from the top of the Hurrakan Condor before we plummeted to the ground.
Tiffany

We survived Dragon Kahn!!
Rebecca