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

Pictures

Saturday evening

Yesterday, we all went to the Nou Camp stadium to attend a football match, Barcelona against Almeria. It was an amazing experience which I am sure none of us will forget. We entered the enormous stadium to find a one of a kind scene, with 100,00 seats all surrounding the beautiful green pitch. We arrived just in time for warm up. We were a bit surprised to see so little people in the stands only half an hour before kick off but by the time the game started the stands were almost full. The enormity of the stadium alone and seeing the stadium itself was enough to make us all happy, but to see a live match as well was the cherry on top of a perfect day. The first half of the match saw Barcelona score 5 goals against the opposition who couldn't keep up with Barcelona's fast tactical and agile players. The second half was a bit less dramatic where no goals were scored, but it brought the match to an end and leaving Barcelona a well deserved victory. Afterwards we headed for the metro which was absolutely packed with fans of the game trying to get home. We eventually made it to the train and after a very uncomfortable ride due to the overcrowded train, we made it to the hostel. By then it was 12.15am and we were told to go to our beds where we very glad to get some sleep. The experience was phenomena; and I'm sure no one will forget the incredible night.
Joel

It was a wonderful atmosphere and we really felt united with the rest of the crowd!
Freya

It was amazing and the players were great!
Sahar

It was electric!
Daniel

It was lots of fun! A special moment!
Rebecca

Something to gloat about!
Nadine

We saw Henri and Messi - famous players!
It was fun and there were sooooooo many people!
Amamina

26th October

This morning at 9 0'clock, we took the bus for about 2 hours to Cava Freixenet winery. Before going into the winery, we watched a 10 minute video about the history and development of Freixenet. Then we took a tour aroud the winery and learnt how the wine was made. It was a really informative trip and everyone enjoyed it. At the end they gave us a lovely gift of a notebook.
Tiffany nad Amanina.

This afternoon, after the Freixenet wine factory, we travelled in the bus for a few hours to reach the Salvador Dali art gallery. Dali is one of Spain's most famous surrealist painters. We walked around and looked at all the strange but good paintings by Dali. His work is very unique as he uses ideas from fantasy, dreams and nightmares as well as reality and there were some really interesting pieces.
Freya and Kirra.

Saturday - Becky & Freya

Last night we were told to dress smartly for our surprise, we were all really curious as to what it was. We arrived at the most famous music hall in Barcelona to see a Spanish guitarist, whose playing was spectacular. The music hall was amazing inside with it's beautiful decor and statues but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures. The music was really nice and the atmosphere was really relaxing. It was really fun to be able to dress up and take pictures outside.

This morning we stayed in our hostel to take a Spanish culture class. Mr Snieder taught us how to say some key Spanish phrases and we played a few games about Spanish culture and it was a lot of fun. The weather was really sunny today compared to the past few raining days and it made a nice change to be able to sit outside. We also found out our surprise for tonight - watching Barcelona play in the Nou Camp Stadium.

After eating lunch we went to a Spanish Flamenco dancing class. All the girls got to dress up and the boys wore hats. It was really fun and hilarious to see everyone attempting to Flamenco and copy the two professionals, Vanessa & Antonio. Both were amazing dancers and it was really great to watch and be able to join in.

On the way back to the hostel we stopped in the FC Barcelona store to get souvenirs ready for the match. We returned to the hostel to eat and get ready for tonight.

Adios!

some photos

Friday

After an exciting night at the cinema, watching Mama Mia, we were ready for our beds.

If we hadn't had enough sleep, we had a chance to sleep on our way to Andorra. That wasn't the case for most of us, in stead we sang along to DJ Joel's music. After a very interesting scenic bus ride we finally reached our destination where we spent two hours walking around the shops. There we managed to stock up on our groceries (sweets!). After a very enjoyable ride there we then got the pleasure of listening to Spanish music of the driver's choice.

We have been told to expect a surprise tonight so we are all very anxious.

As we travel back to Barcelona, most people are sleeping including all 3 teachers.

As we are close to approaching our hostel we would like to wrap it up by saying adios! from Aimee + Hannah G.

Thursday

After arriving from the metro, we headed towards the Science Museum at 11 o´clock. On our way we enjoyed a little rain. We put all our bags in a locker and then entered the Science Musuem. When we entered, one of the first things we saw was a gigantic tree that was held together with huge nails! We also saw many other interesting things like: how a tornando is made and lion, baboon and human brains! After we finished looking around we went to buy some souveniers!

from Mayada

After lunch we had finished in the Science Museum and off we headed to the Aquarium. It was 3.00pm and it was raining. Everyone split up and took a tour around the place. The fish there were really beautiful. There was a huge variety of different fish. There were penquins and sharks too! Everyone took pictures and had a great time. We even had time to get some souveniers!

From Sahar.

Day Three (Lauren & Dan)

The Morning...
After waking up at 9:00 am we went downstairs to have breakfast. We then went back upstairs to get ready to go out for a full days excitement. We started off by walking to the metro and catching the train that would take us to the port of Barcelona. We then had a guided tour, on boat, around the commercial side of the port and other tourist attractions and this was really fun and interesting. We had lunch on the boat as well. The weather was also quite cold today and brought rain with it but everyone was prepared with umbrellas and waterproof jackets.
-Dan Brennan

The Afternoon...
Yet again, we got on the metro and headed towards Las Ramblas (One of the main tourism streets in Barcelona). Many people bought gifts for themselves or family. We continued walking until we reached a large square (where many pigions were) and everyone took a millon photo graphs. We did some more walking and went back on the metro to go to Parc Guell (a park designed by the same man who designed Sergada Familia). We went up a very large hill (and I mean huge & steep) which seemed to take ages and we were all very tired by the time we got to the top). Again we took photos (like the one above). We could see the whole of Barcelona from that point. We got the metro once again and arrived back at the hostel around 4:30 pm, pretty much everyone was tired from all the walking (and slightly wet from the rain).

We now have till 7 pm to relax and chat before heading out again to a Flamenco show and dinner!
- Lauren Polson

Arrival in Barcelona

At last we have arrived in Barcelona! The weather is beautiful and it doesn´t look like we will be needing all those heavy jumpers afterall. Most of us got at least some sleep on the flight and enjoyed the shopping in Bahrain and Istanbul. After we checked into our hotel and unpacked, we walked to the Sagrada Familia which is a huge ediface began by the architect Gaudi and is actually still under construction today! It was extremely impressive with many fantastical images both traditional and modern and everyone enjoyed the fast lift to the top of one of the towers to enjoy a view over Barcelona - we could even pick out our hotel! We walked back to the bottom down narrow medieval steps.

After such an exhausting journey and all the excitement of getting ready we are glad to have an early night in preparation for another great day tomorrow.

Week before

One more week to go and we're off to Barcelona! Students, parents and teachers are all excited in a very positive way as we found out for instance at yesterday's well attended presentation. The whole atmosphere around the trip is fantastic and we can't wait until it's next Monday. In the meantime the students will get their passports and visas (whenever required), but also some brochures from the Spanish embassy, some final documentation and of course the t-shirts designed by themselves. I hope this weblog will be visited many times and will be full of good news the coming weeks. Hasta luego!