Wednesday 17th October
We arrived in Birmingham at around six o’clock p.m. At the airport two girls welcomed us and took us to the hostel. Late in the evening we met our european partners and had dinner together at an Italian Restaurant by a quaint canal.
Thursday 18th October
In the morning we met Nick, a teacher from Birmingham Metropolitan College, who took us on a city tour. Birmingham is a beautiful city, with several skyscrapers, some of which are really modern. We visited one of the tallest skyscrapers of the city, and we took same panoramic pictures from its top.We had lunch at a Chinese Restaurant and then we went to Birmigham College the college . There we had the opportunity to print some of the pictures we had taken in the morning and also to manipulate them.
Friday 19th October
We visited the college. During the day we met another teacher, David. He taught us how to draw on the wall with black crayons. We had to draw a landscape which we had seen the day before. Then with some cotton yarns of different colors we linked our works together. In the afternoon we met our teachers in an old pub near the college. That was an old, timber framed building in a huge, wild park, full of squirrels and birds, we had a walk there, even though we didn't go too far because we had been warned that we might get lost.
Saturday 20th October
We decided to spend our last day in Britain to go and visit Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford Upon Avon, a small village not too far from Birmigham which, in spite of its tourist reputation, still detains a distinctively British atmosphere.
Luckily it was market day, so we spent some time wandering around the stalls and trying a number of local delicatessens, ranging from local cheese to traditional cakes.
In the afternoon we visited Shakespeare’s house. It was very nice and we were told lots of interesting details about life in the Elizabethan time.
Later on, that evening, we had a gorgeous meal at a Greek Restaurant. Not only did we want to end our pleasant, interesting stay in Birmigham with something special, but we also wanted to celebrate Federico's coming of age !!! Can you think of a better sirtaki dancer??
Our meeting in Riga
Wednesday 8th May
We arrived in Riga in the afternoon. After
spending few hours relaxing in our luxurious hotel, we met some of our european
partners and some two hours later we were all together at the dinner table of a
characteristic medieval restaurant. The atmosphere was absolutely unusual and
we had the chance to experience the ancient medieval food and it was so
pleasant that we found it difficult to leave that place.
Thursday
9th May
On Thursday morning, three latvian students
came to our hotel and took us to their school.
In the meeting room, the headmaster and Karina, the english teacher, gave us some information about the school and every European group
gave them some presents.We brought mortadella and tarallucci.
During the morning we visited the school
and we also took part in a Math contest and tasted a Latvian traditional
dessert cooked by the students!.
We had lunch there and in the afternoon we
visited the factory called “Laci” which produces traditional bread. Later, we
came back to school where we had dinner with students and teachers eating
traditional latvian food.
After dinner, we
attended a wonderful concert where many students of the school danced and sang.
It was spectacular and a young boy sang an italian song!
Friday 10th May
On Friday, after breakfast in our hotel, we
had free time, so we went to the market of Riga where we could see and buy
traditional food. Before lunch we met the European partners and together we
visited the city: our tour guide was the History teacher of our latvian friends.
After lunch, we visited the Parliament of
Riga, then we had dinner in a national restaurant called “Lido” , far from the
city. There we received a certificate of our trip in Riga and we ate tasty meat
and delicious fish.
On Friday night
we went to a pub near the city centre with some latvian friends.
Saturday 11th
May
Saturday was our last day in Latvia and we
were free to visit the city or whatever we liked.
We decided to spend our morning doing some
shopping in a big shopping centre where we could find a store of typical soap
from Latvia.
After lunch, we went by bus to the
ethnographic museum of Riga: it was located in a forest far from the city. Huge
meadows were covered by flowers and very high trees. In this museum there were
many houses built in the 17th and 18th
century. The landscape was breath-taking and we spent almost three hours
shrouded in the nature of this earthly paradise.
After this exciting visit, we had dinner in
Riga and we came back to our hotel.
On Sunday we left Riga at 6 a.m. very satisfied with our
amazing experience and also sad because it had just finished.
