Introducing...

Day Trece (13): West End Performance and Hockey

Waking up

We woke up to another sunny day in the wonderful town of Moncada, as I (Steve) went out for my run, the sun gleaming down at my face, I knew today was going to be as amazing as the other previous days that we had experienced in this wonderful place. Me and Daniel randomly were in the breakfast room eating our corn flakes as good friends should and everyone was nervous about the play that we would be performing in no less then the next 2 hours.

The West End Production

We travled via tram to the Catholic school on the other side of valencia and it took us about an hour. The props that we had made previously the other week were already waiting for us there along with the amazing costumes. When we arrived, we had a look around and there was a stage with hundreds of seats and our jaws all dropped as if everyone was going to perform infront of all these children! Luckily we didn't care, so we got on with the rehesal and suited up. We were performing the

Three Little Pigs but of course with a hint of spanish, I (steven) dressed up as the lobo which was the wolf and daniel was the narrator and helped out behind the scenes as there were a lot of change overs. As everyone was ready to go the kids came strolling into the hall and got seated ready to see the worlds best play. Dan introduced all the characters including myself and everytime I was called out in the play I would make sure I played my part as though I was in a pantomime scaring the kids and obviously getting booed as I was the bad caharacter, although I played the part rather well If I do say so myself. Highlight of the play was Rachel Williams who was supposed to be playing a scared piggy, and during a scene where she was supposed to run away from me the wolf, she ran the wrong way and some how eneded up chasing me! its on video....it was hilarious!

Dinner time
For dinner yesterday we had amazingly had something that did NOT contain cream, I was amazed to see that we had a stew made for us by the chefs with pork and rabbit with a cheeky piece of french bread my goodness it tasted amazing! we were so excited by the dinner that we couldnt imagine what desert was going to be, to our surprise it was... apples and bananas, hoo ray!

Chilling out
As we finished the play early we went to the local market which was only across the road from our hotel, everyone was obsessed with getting flosseys including myself! although Dan wasnt to bothered due to the fact his feet are bigger then an elephants! Luckily everyone purchased a pair of flosseys and we all went back to the hotel with big fat smiles on our faces, as thats the main thing everyone wanted before they came out here....5 euros for a pair of £20 pumps, cheap as chips old boy!

Coaching pre sport/pilota

I(Steven) whimsically coached the children pre sport accompanied by Sophie and Becca, the children are only young and its great fun joining in with the games, mainly because there easy. We played various ball games with them because its an introduction for them to play there home towns sport of pilota which is a very unique handball game which involves hitting a ball similar to a cricket ball with your bare hand, Ouch! We had a good time and the kids really enjoyed the game we coached them which was a good old play ground game of stuck in the mud, you cant go wrong even in Spanish! Mustavo, the coach that we help, got us all really involved with the children and even tried to teach us a few spanish nursery rhymes, even though we had no idea what they meant, but all in all a successfull session.

When ste was doing his pre sports then i was joining in with the pilota becuase there wasnt any swimming on for the four of us. It was my first go at playing the sport because when we did it for the touruments i was to busy in playing paddle. When the group there was only three spainsh kids and there was six of us leads.We statred off with spot paddle that was are warm up game we had three games and i won one of them yes!!. Then we used the full length of the court we were in group of three my group was me ,amy and pau we did really well then best team in fact hahahaha.Then after that game we then said are goodbyes and then left the sports center.

After are one hour of coaching, we then went to play three games of hockey because Hannah was moaning for the 2 weeks saying why can't we play hockey and really she wasnt that good... jokes, she was really. Hannah was on my team and we were out numbered becuase we only had four players. After a while things started to get out of hand but we all had a laugh. After that we all headed back to the convent to get ready for tea.

Evening Meal

For tonights meal, it was a choice between Carbonara or Spaghetti Bolognese. I chose the Carbonara and Ste chose Spaghetti Bolognese becuase he hates Carbonara. There was then horrific cheese which smelt like sweaty feet. After we had are meal which was very nice (as has in been for the past 2 weeks), we all headed off home for a nice early sleep becuase we had enough early start tomorrow.   

By Dan and Ste

Day Doce (12) Aquarium and Science museum

Hola! Becs and Coz (Cory) here



The Aquarium



After having our fabulous 25 minute extra lie in we set off for the Oceanographic (the aquarium) after the two trains and bus journey we finally arrived at the extravagant and outragously designed aquarium.  We went though the front gates having our bags x-rayed to check for 'lethal weapons before we finally started our tour of the animals.  First we saw the starfish and other cold water specimins. After this we headed off to gthe dolphin show which was TOTES (totally) fantastic. After the show and multiple trips to the restaurant for hot dogs, we moved onto the antarctic zone of penguins, walrus' and beluga whales which was great. This was the followed by many pictures of a surfboard on a wave of rubbish recoverd from a beach. We then went to the sharks which was my (becca) favourite bit and the very popular shovel headed shark caught the attention of all passer bys.  We the headed out to recieve lunch which was delivered outside the park for us, and walked to a nearby park where we settled down for a spot to eat.





bird from the bird cage



dolphin show



The Infamous
Shovel Headed shark



After about an hour and a half we headed into the museum of sciences and arts where our bags were again x-rayed.  We were then released to explore the many wonders of the museum, after exploring the multiple floors of the museum it was decided (by Bec) that the best bit was definately the marvel comics section. After we were all 'funned' out as Huw called it, we set off back the the Nunnery (becs words).  We all freshend up and headed out to Picolinas for a delightful sausage and pork fillet baguette (or just a baguette for bec), once filled up we headed back all droopy eyed and headed for bed after being told the instruction for tomorrow 





Overall another great day out in Valencia,



Lots of love Becs and Coz

Day Once (11): Valencia City, The tower and shopping

The day started off waking up later than usual because we got a sleep in yay! we walked to the metro train and got off at valencia city where we met Ramon, which is one of the schola staff, who was going to show us around.  The first sight we went to view was the bull ring and the train station which were very impressive.  The train station had amazing marbled ceilings which made it unique to any train station we had seen.  The bull ring was extreamly impressive, although we wished we went inside to exprerience it more. 

We then walked down to the market which Huw and Keith told us it was a clothes market so we was all excited...turned out it was a FOOD market which mainly sold meats and fish.  The whole group wasnt impresed untill........ WE SEEN A RABBIT SKINNED WITH HIS EYEBALLS STILL INTACK, which made the group feel sick but also made our day.  We then walked past another meat stall and sawa chicken hanging upside down by its feet with an orange in its mouth.

After The show we took a 20 minute walk to the basilica de la virgen da los desamparados (a big tall tower).  This church has the 2 of the most important religous structures after the cathedreal which is next to it. We climbed the tower, plodding up 201 stairs!! About ten minuets of pain later, we arrived at the top which was beautiful, you could see the whole of Valencia and could see some amazing sites.  For example the football stadium which we visited in the week and the the Oceanographic which were going to see tomorrow!

After walking down the 201 steps AGAIN, we had lunch and smoothies outside the cathederal where we haggled with the lucky lucky ten dollar fellas. After spending half an hour haggleing, we made our way to the main shopping strip of valencia.  It was very busy and impressive, although none of us knew where any good shops were.  We spent an hour and a half trapsing up and down and in and out looking for good shops we knew of, but no luck as we only found one. We then met back at the bull ring where we voted whether we wanted to stay or go the decision was to go.  On the way back to the convent, some of the group went to try the famous spanish drink 'orxata', which is made out of tiger nuts with added suger and milk.  It was tasty but sickly at the same time. We then all went back to the hotel where we had a few hours sleep and went to tea around 8:45pm...now were sitting here doing the blog!

adios goodnight Gemma and Jake Foley xx

Day Diez (10): Fun Games and alot of moaning

Sappen'in from Luke and Carl :)

 Today was a rediclously long day, after an early wake up at the time of 8:00am, everyone was finaly ready we strolled down to Scholoa with excitment knowing we had a full day of sports ahead of us, beknown we had to rehurse our plays 'little red riding hood' and 'the three little pigs' live for the first time infront of primary school children. Firstly however we spent the first part of the morning improving and completing our play productions inclueding the props, costumes and lines. From there we made our way down to the 'Vinalesa' or the sports stadium as we know it as. Here we were sperated into two teams the first for a paddle tournement (a valencian abrieviation of a cross between squash and tennis to us english) and the second game pelota (an original valencian game which consited of hitting a small solid ball over a net in a court designed to look like a large/ long valencian street).

Luke

Carl

After completing the two tournements with a bit of sunbathing inbetween, we sat down for a bit of lunch which was 'amazing' we had an unbuttered roll with a slice of cheese each and a rashion of uncooked bacon 'top draw'.

After lunch we made our way down to the local primary school on route we were given the news that we would be performing infront of 100 children which NO ONE was happy with!! thankfully it only turned out to be a joke and we only performed infront of around 40 children which to be fair wasnt as bad as everyone thought it would of been.



Little Red Riding Hood

 

After the play we then walked back to the sports stadium where we were seperated into our groups of two or three's and performed our individual games which we had prepared early in the week for 100 local children that were heading down to participate. This went supprisingly well and seemed to really enjoy everyones game/activities. once this was over we could wind down 'NOT!!' Tony our head instructor had orginised a further basketball and football tournement in the main court and feild. By this time people had passed tired and were deffinatly craving a nice dinner to be preoared by the restaurant we eat at everynight. Thankfully dinner was 'S'laughin... (nice) we all enjoyed it. Finally after ruturning back at the hotel around half 11 at night, we were able to relax and chill out ready for the weekend ahead. All in all a good day!! :) xx

Day Nueve (9): Toni's Hometown!

Hola amigos :)
Rachel and Niall here!

Today got off to a great start simply because we were allowed an extra 15 minutes in bed which we all needed and deserved! However, as usual the spice boys were still late (Luke, Jake and Carl). We the went to meet Toni at Schola and he took us to his own town where he insisted on us all having suitable foot wear and camera which didn't sound too good. Here he set out a challenge for us all to go around his home town and find monuments and other various things, which included statues, goal posts, old houses, gates and park benches. I (Niall) was in a group of 5 with Jake, Becca, Rachel and Steven. After getting lost.. on more that one occasion, we managed to find all of the monuments but we unfortunately did not find them all first :(

Once we finished in Toni's hometown he took us back to Schola where we started making the background for our plays which we found out we are performing tomorrow AND on Monday :( I (Niall) is performing 'Little Red Riding Hood' with Becca, Jake, Luke, Gemma, Amy and Carl. Rachel is doing '3 Little Pigs' with Charlotte, Cory, Zoe, Steve, Sophie, Shannon and Daniel. For our play we needed to make props so we were paining, cutting, gluing and sticking pretty much anything we could find together in order to make our plays look wonderful! I (Rachel) made a 'straw' house, in which I painted brown and glued one a variety of sticks in order to make it realistic. Meanwhile, I (Niall) was folding and cutting various pieces of materials in order to reinforce a village setting.


3 Little Pigs Houses....brick, sticks and straw



Little Red Riding Hood's back drop



After lunch, I (Rachel) went coaching at the swimming pool with Ariel which I was really looking forward too. But this wasn't an ordinary session as we were able to participate in Aqua Aerobics! This included busting various shapes to music using floats and weights. Following this, we (Rachel, Cory, Shannon and Dan) conducted a 5 minute session where we were observed and helped by Ariel. The coaches were very pleased.. MUY BIEN! :) 

After this, I (Rachel) went to coach my first football session alongside Luke, Niall and Carl. For this, we were split into two groups, where Luke and Carl conducted a shooting game and me and Niall coached a dribbling game. This included us shouting out a colour and the children had to dribble the ball to the coloured cone. After this, the children played a football match which was fun because we were all able to get involved! We both thought the session was successful as the children were enjoying themselves and we were able to practice our Spanish as well!

We all had a fun day and are looking forward to what tomorrow brings!

Adios Amigos :)

Rachel and Niall 

Day Ocho (8): 3 little pigs, coaching & Spaghetti Bolognese

Holaaa chica a chicos (:
Sophie a Charlotte aqui (:

Morning Start and 3 Little PigsWe started off with an early start leaving the hotel at 9:15..well supposed to be that time except we had to wait 10 minutes for the spice boys to finish getting ready...Luke, Niall and Jake! I have to say they're worse than us getting ready!

Once all set to go we took a daily trek to the cold sports centre where we practiced in our groups our little childhood stories...ours being the 3 little pigs.  This took ages to go through as we kept changing the way we were going to act it through while also trying to rehearse it to Toni.  It was our first proper rehearsal so it was bound to be 'mal' (bad) especially with us talking throughout it about how we were going change bits.  Talking about how our little show was going to go down got us into arguments as some people didn't listen and talked over others....got life a little stressful!

The group practicing 'The Three Little Pigs'

Morning Coaching Games

Our little group consisted of us two Zoe and Rachel, where we played a game where the children had to race to the cones by stepping through hoops, we called it ARO DOS ARO (hoop 2 hoop).  It was rather fun game as we got involved cheering them on by shouting rapido (quick) and vamos (go).  I (Sophie) went a little over the top running with them and cheering them on to get them motivated and ended up getting a headache..but it was all good fun!  We had four groups in which we had to do the same game to.

Dinner

Dinner consisted of having meatballs, some type of cheesy bites, baguette slices and some other weird pastry thing (I don't have a clue what it was).  Todays meal was actually nice, and I loved the way that at our end of the table, the food always goes before everyone elses...totes (totally) not good enough!

We actually had some hot weather today..so a few of us sunbathed in our shorts and strappy t-shirts, and some boys no tops ....erghhh!
although I (Sophie) still felt a little bit nippy, as I always do all year round! Not Fun!

Coaching

Sophie - Pre-Sport and Paddel

I didn't really like Pre-Sport today because we didn't really do anything except for pad up the childrens hand to protect them ready for Pelota Valencianna (Valencian Ball) and this pretty much took the whole session with only 10 minutes to play.  I ended up doing one girls hand wrong, because she was supposed to be wearing a glove, but because she didn't have one, i just put the padding on anyway....oops my bad! but I sorted it out afterwards. I just couldnt quite exactly figure out what Toni was trying to tell me because he told me one thing then we told me another thing.
In the next hour I got to play paddel which is like tennis and squash mixed together I was mal (bad) but bien intendo (nice try) but it was really fun and for my first time playing it I was actually alright! :D.... I was practicing ready for our mixed doubles tournament on friday!

Charlotte - Skating

Skating today was absolutely immense! The chicas (girls) brought their spare skates with them so me and Steve could show them what we were made of!...nothing if i'm honest.

We got involved with the session both coaching and taking part. At the beginning of the session we shown the group are figure skating and then went onto racing each other around the course and playing british bull dogs. Felt quite sorry for the girls in my group as i couldn't skate around corners or stop which defeated the object. My spirits were lifted when some girl came up to me and said "you beautiful!" SO CUTE! :)

As you can see from the picture below me and Steve are Professional skaters and are representing the UK in the London 2012 Olympics. (JOKES!)

Tea

Tea was spagetti bolognese which was really nice, however, even though it is an italian chef who works in the restaurant, I'd still prefer my mums (Sophie's) spag bol as it has much better taste .... nothing better than your mothers homemade cooking! (:

ADIOS AMIGOS

Sophie and Charlotte x

Happy Birthday from the children :)

Day Siete (7): Coaching, Birthday & Pizza

Holaa!! Zoe And Amy Achi. :)

Morning

I (Zoe) got woken up by a big bang on my door with Jake,Carl,Luke and Niall running in bombarding me with balloons which they had bought for my birthday. Wasn't too impressed that they had woken me up so early but it was nice of them to do it. :) They all made both me and Amy a birthday card which they had all signed. I (Zoe) had no idea that they had planned it. I couldn't beleive i fell for it when they told me they were getting shouted at last night when they were actually signing our cards, and i was sitting in the room where all the balloons were hid in the wardrobe and under the bed and i didn't see any.

Morning Coaching

It was a typical day today for our coaching this morning, we went to the sports centre to meet Toni. We learnt some more Spanish to help us do our coaching session, we planned part of the coaching session for tomorrow night. We were split of into groups of four and five and had to make up a small 10 minute game for the children who came from the school each day at 12pm, Both me and Amy were in the same group and we made up The Cone Game where we would shout out a colour in Spanish and a number and they had to collect the amount of cones in that colour, it seemed to go well and all the children enjoyed themselves. These sessions in the morning help us improve our Spanish for the sessions at night.

Dinner

For dinner today we had lasagna, which was tasty. And for desert we had strawberries, cream and chocolate sauce over the top which went down well for everyone.

Free Time

Usually we go for a sun bathe this time but the sun wasn't out today. :( So we met up in groups that we had put in to rehearse our stories. Zoe's group  are doing the 3 little pigs and Amy's group are doing little red riding hood. My (Amy) group ended up getting sent to bed as we were getting narky with each other over the story. I (Amy) went to bed and locked the door, 10 minutes before we were ment to leave kieth tried waking me up by banging on the door, it took him at least 15 minutes to wake me up which made us late to get to schola for coaching.

Night Coaching

I (Zoe) did pre sport and basketball sessions today in pre sport me (Zoe) and Gemma made up two little warm up sessions which the children seemed to enjoy and then we played palota (valencian ball game) with the children. Just before we finished the children sang happy birthday to me in Spanish and Also in English. For Basketball i took part in the session, they were about the same age as us so we did the skills with them and then had a little game which was fun. I (Amy) started off with EFB which is little games with 3-4 year olds which i got involved with, at the end of the session they sang happy birthday in Spanish which made me nearly cry and what i thought was really cute, they then attempted it in English but couldnt get all the way which made me laugh, they then all gave me a birthday kiss. Later on i did football which i didn't really coach but i joined in with the warm up and the activities.

Tea

For tea we had pizza, we both got to choose what we wanted as it was our birthday. We chose pizza as everyone enjoyed it the last time we had it. For pudding we had a birthday cake which was brought out for us.  Neither of us had any idea we had a cake so it was a nice suprise for us, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. We saved a piece for Toni to say thank you.

Last but not least

Both me and Amy want to thank everyone in Spain including Hannah, Huw, and Kieth for giving us a such 'whimsicle' day on our birthday.

THANK YOU GUYS :D

Adios, Zoe & Amy <3

Day Seis (6); Coaching, 'Las Fallas' & amazing food

Early start

It was an early morning sunrise the sky was orange like my hair and I (Steve) was feeling great, I didnt even struggle to get up because ive been enjoying myself that much! I went on my early morning run and the sun was gleaming in my eyes I could tell it was going to be yet another brilliant day. I had a shower, had my daily helping of corn flakes and of course a very juciy and dilectable valencian orange and was ready to go the high school in moncada to learn what our fate was for the afternoon.




Coaching in the morning
We first of all had a lesson in the sports hall with our main Spanish amigo TONI! we learnt how to tell the time and temperature in spainish which was totes (totally) awesome, and then moved on to learn some useful coaching tips in spanish, my favourite was "excellente!" as you can tell it was a fun activity. We then learnt a new game which we would use for the children for the following day, me and SHANN learnt a game which involved two groups being given a specific number each such as 1,2,3,4,5 and when the number is called out in spanish they had to react quickyly and try and score a goal before the opposite person, it was slightly dangerous but mad fun. The kids then came into the hall and we did the games that we previously learnt to deliver to other kids on friday.  Mine (steve) was a very random game called the onion game yes thats right a game about onions which didnt make you cry! one person was the kinfe the rest woud link in a circle like an onion, the purpose of the game was for the person who was the knife to pull the onions apart and I can tell you now if we had fun learning it you can imagine the amount of fun they would of had! It was a success and put it this way I was encouraging them that much I lost my voice, not cool!

Dinner
For dinner we had carbonara which me and steve thought was totes (totally) REVOLTING so steve was very healthy and ate 3 apples and 2 bananas and ate one of them whole.

Chilled
Not going to lie here, I (steven) had to go to the supermarket in the afternoon to get some 'chub rub' creme because I was chafing so much! Ill tell you what it worked like a charm!




Steve Running around with the children

 Sport/Swimming
For our evening activity Shannon did swimming and Steve did pre-sport. Us swimmers were took to schola and spoke to the main swimming coach Ariel and he told us some words in spanish that would be useful for us (even though he doesn't speak a word of english).  We watched videos about how babies are tought to float as it is the most common death for children under the age of 5. We then discussed a session plan to teach spanish people our age some swimming sessions for next monday. Pre-sport involved the kids playing a huge variety of games based on the valencian ball game with mad fun activities such as cops and robbers, pushing the ball across the floor race and many many other strange and unusual activites which involved balls. I made some good friends with the kids, especially this guy called victor who was a ledgend! mainly because he was better at everything then me...tehe.


Las Fallas
(Me and Shan) Later on in the evening the day took us by suprise as we were whicked away by Toni to a random warehouse, we were puzzled as to why we were here but it was excited I could barely contain my excitment! We entered the factory to find these amazing pieces of art that had been sculpted by one of the best artists in valencia, they were amazing! We watched them work and had a look at everything that they had made.  It was truley more breath taking then marilyn monroe in her prime, the detail of these polystyrene masterpieces was unbelievable. As you can see we took some pictures of the ones that really caught our eye, but let me warn you some are x-rated! the saddest piece of information we learnt about las falas, which is what the sculptures were made for, is the fact that they are all burned for the festival in march, infact they spend months and months, endless hours creating these sculptures to see them go up in flames, Id be pretty gutted if I was the artist!

 



Keith eating tea

 Dinner
Last night was Steve's favourite dinner as we were so hungry due to the fact we didnt eat till half past nine! it was going to be a treat no matter what the food they brought us was. We sat down to see these lovely homemade baquettes sitting in front of us, along with some salad and various sauces. The next thing we know the food is coming at us like an ambush, sausages, chicken breasts, chorizo; you name it we ate it and my goodness it was a tasty treat. For desert we had an amazing milk jelly with whipped cream and jam, random but pretty darn yummy! I(steve) literally am the human dustbin mainly because I finish everyones leftovers!


Being mad cute
As it was two of our dear friends birthdays we had to obviously plan the suprise gifts and prezzies without them knowing due to the fact it was a SURPRISE, so we somehow managed to distract Amy and Zoe while making them cards and blowing up hundreds of balloons which Nial, Carl, Luke and of course cheeky Jake generously purchased for her. We actually had to pretend we were all in trouble in order to be able to write the cards out and prepare tommorows antics! put it this way, zoe was that clueless she was sitting in the room full of blown up balloons which were even under the bed and didnt have a clue in the slightest, haha. In all fairness me (Steven) and Shan are loving this experience and never want it to end because its amazing! peace out.

Steve and Shannon

Day Cinco (5): Making paella and watching the football

It was the start of our second excursion day and we were looking foward to it, having had a few hard days coaching, we needed relaxing time.

We left the hotel for around half 10, it was our first lie-in for days. We took the tram to the angel station and then we had to get on another tram to get us to the cooking school. We arrived at the school for around half 12, looking forward to making some food.  



Gemma paella



We had an introduction on what we were making and telling us who was our head chef; his name was Pepe. We were making two paellas and the head chefs were Ste and Gemma.  We all had a really good time making the paella, it turned into a competition, with Pepe being our jugde at the end of it all!! While making the paella there was another thing we had to making for example: homemade lemon jucie and a dessert which was like a cremebrulee that was really nice aswell. At around half one/2 o'clock everything was ready and we all tidied up and took our seats for our meal.  We were all nervous to hear what Pepe's verdict was on which team had made the best paella..... Gemma's team won as they made the tastiest paella but Ste's was good aswell. We left the school at three o'clock and we headed to the Estadio Mestalla, which is Valencia CF's football stadium. We arrived at the ground and we all wanted to buy socks and hats becuase it was going be cold inside the ground.

dessert



dessert cooking





group photo





When it finally came time to enter the stadium for the match, we went  through the barriers and had any drink bottles bigger than 1 litre taken off us! We then climbed the monstourous seemingly, never ending stair case. When we eventually reached the top we took to our seats on the second or third tier of the stadium, which was a good view of the pitch.  We were sat in the wonderfully warm sun for the first five minutes of being there, however, we soon came to the conclusion that it was time to wrap up warm to watch the almighty valencians. 89 minutes into the match, Valencia were steaming ahead looking at a 2-0 victory.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a third goal was scored and less than 1 minute more into extra time, a fourth goal was scored.  The atmosphere in the mestalla was intense; horns were blasting and people were going mental for the 4-0 victory that had just been witnessed. The final whistle blew and the people began streaming out of the exits heading out back to there lives.  However, we were having to wait for the girls to go to the toilet, when we recieved a phone call telling us that doors were about to be locked.  We quickly walked down the endless staircase to walk out into complete darkness.



1st goal celebrations



final score



After the match, we wandered down to the tube where we missed the previous train by a mere matter of minutes.  We then waited for the next train where we crowded on having nearly everyone stood up because the train was packed. We also had to change over because there was no train straight to the destination.  We got off the train and went straight to dinner where we were greeted by some greasy chicken and some super thick rice.  In my opinion (Cory) it TASTED GREAT!! NOT! However, other members of the group thoroughly enjoyed it. We all then slowly dordled down the road to return to our converted convent where we all sat in the meeting room ready to sleep.

The end

DAN and CORY

Day Cuatro (4): Meercat, shopping and squid!!

hola, bec&gem here,

Today we went to the bioparc (the zoo- apparently the best in europe but to my dissapointment there was no tigers! becca). First we got the tram to angel and then swapped to another tram and then ended up walking all the way to the Bioparc- such a long walk! When we eventually got there, before we even got through the gates our little cute cheeks were absolutly killing cause of the endless group photographs.

We had an amazing time looking at all the different types of animals even the ones us two didnt even know existed. We aso enjoyed our own little tribute of the lion king songs whilst walking around the zoo, gemma's favourite animal was the baby monkey and becca's was the lepoard and black panther.

We then went on to enjoy an hour of ham&cheese butties instead of stinking tuna in the lovely park where on the way us two met a funky looking clown, we also had a little bit of a sunbathe and was truly entertained by Ste's tap-dancing horse impression.

We then went on to enjoy abit of retail therapy which us two enjoyed more than others!! We then travelled back by tram chilled out for a while and went to tea, tonights tea was tapas, some things were lovely others werent so nice a didnt go down well(squid rings ewww!) well its been an amazing day and we have all in enjoyed it. Hope you dont miss us too much lots of love us two xxx

Day Tres (3): the onion game, burgers and a dragons tail

On friday morning we all woke up nice and early so we were able to have breakfast and be ready by 9:30am. We then left the hotel and took a long morning stroll to the indoor sports centre which was about a 20 minute walk from where we are staying.

In the sports centre we were told by Toni (head coach) that we had to split up into 3 groups of 4 and 1 group of 3. In the groups Toni gave us a sheet with a game which we had to present to a group of 12 children aged 5-7. The 4 games that had to be presented were called Hang Man which was presented by Jacob, Luke, Zoey and Cory, it was a successful game and the children enjoyed it.

The second game was presented by Charlotte, Steven, Niall and Sophie. their game was called the oinion game which is a very enjoyable game and when presented was very successful as all the children were smiling and laughing during playing.

The third game me (Carl), Rachel and Gemma. Our game was called dragons tail which is also a very fun game to play. When the children played our game they all loved it.

The fourth game was presented by Becca, Shannan Danny and Amy. Their game was called Hoop game, the children understood the game in the end when all coaches also participated.

After coaching them 4 games we then walked for another 20 minutes down the road to our local restaurant Piccolina. There we were all served a delightful pasta bake with chunks of meat inside with huge sized pasta pieces. On the side we had 4 large portions of fresh Russian salad which looked disgusting however tasted weirdly like tuna.

In the afternoon we all went to the outdoor sports centre and was all split up into 3 groups which had 2-3 people in each group. I (Jacob) was with Sophie. We were coaching and participating in Valencian hand ball which i found fun but also hard at the same time.

We got into the space where they play this game and it looked like 2 massive white walls with washing lines in the middle where one was higher than the other. The coach saw us and called me (Jacob) and Sophie over and told us about the game. The coach pulled a plastic box towards him which had plasters and some type of cushion material, with the cushion material he cut middle sized pieces which were sticky and placed it on my hand leaving a shape of a square in the centre of my hand. The material was about 2-3cm thick which was covered in a brown plaster seal. The coach told us "if you don't hit in centre of hand this could hurt you" OUCH! After him saying this i was giggling and thinking it wasn't going to hurt until we started playing.

The coach told us to start hitting the pelota against the wall which was the size of a golf ball with a leather casing around the pelota. Me (Jacob) and Sophie started with a yellow pelota which is the softest however, it was still hard.

Then after doing that for a warm up we went into a game situation which i thought it was good but extremely painful. We had to get it over the washing line hanging from wall to wall and being at the height of 5 meters which me (Jacob) and Sophie thought it was difficult.

After the long painful hour i was wishing for something nice and filling like everybody else was. We left the hotel at 8:45pm and had to be sitting down in Piccolina where we will be sitting for the 2 weeks. We were all walking at a high pace to get there because we were so hungry and wanted food, as we got to the door we got a wiff of burgers, chips, bacon and egg which made our mouths water.

We sat down and after 5 minutes we had burgers coming from left, right and centre. Everyone was grabbing what they could. The greedy buggers!

Jacob & Carl