Day 7

Today was Tuesday. After breakfast we made our way to Schola for our daily Spanish lessons which last an hour and a half. In todays lesson we learnt body parts and how to tell the time. After class we have an half hour break; during this break we are aloud onto the local park which is opposite the school which has slide and swings etc. and a basketball ball court which is very popular with the boys.

There is a local super market just over the road so we are also able to make a quick visit for snacks. When we get back we had our second and final lesson of the day with a man called Ariel where we went onto the basket ball court and did a practical session. Todays sessions was football and we learnt different terms such as interno and externo (inside foot and outside foot) which were useful for the people that were coaching and assisting football at night time.

After this we went for our dinner. We had canelloni and, although this was not my favorite meal, some people really enjoyed it. For pudding we were given melon however some people had a slice of the chocolate caramel cake instead which was yummy yummy yum yum.

After dinner we went back to Schola and had feedback from Greg and Matt about how our session went and the things that we need to improve on for tomorrows session. We had to find basic words in Spanish that would help us lead the session. After this we had about an hour free time where we chilled in our rooms before making our way to the metro to go coaching.

We got to Betera (which is the town were we go coaching) and went our seperate ways - some people went to the swimming pool and the rest went to the sports factility. At half eight we met back at the mertro station to make our way back home. When we got back to Moncada we went to the resturant for out tea. Today was Ryan's birthday and he was 17, he asked Diana (the lady in the resturant) especially for pizza as it was his favorite and it was very very nice.

We all eat way to much for tea but Diana gave us a massive cake which we put in a box so we could eat it when we got back to the accomadation. As it was Ryans birthday we had a little party where Greg and Matt provided sweets and fizzy drinks. We also played play your cards right and Ryan showed us his magic tricks which were great!

After this we all went to bed for another busy day tomorrow.

Gracias,

Abbie

Day 6

Today was Monday. We kicked off the week with a visit to Moncadas local market. Many people came away with purchases and no doubt had some bargains! The most popular bargain was a type of shoe called "Fossys" which were getting sold for 5 Euros each, however people managed to barter the price down to 4 Euros. Once everybody had bought their stuff we then went back to our accomodation to drop off the stuff.

After the market we went to our daily Spanish lesson. During the first session (lasting an hour and a half) we learnt body parts, then we had a man called Ariel in the second half whom tought us Spanish words relating to sport. Ariel uses mainly Spanish, however he was completely able to control our group and get us doing his drills.

For lunch we went to a Spanish resturant which we hadn´t been to before, the food in this resturant was muy bien (very good). We ate spaghetti bolgnese which isn´t my personal favourite but was by far my favourite meal of the trip. After the spaghetti bolgnese we all managed to fit in 3 scoops of ice cream (vanilla, chocolate and strawberry) so the lunch was a very nice change and a huge success.

After we had stuffed our we got stuck in to creating session plans for our first session as, during the week, we will all be coaching and delivering activities to Spanish children. This meant we had to learn Spanish words relating to our session as English is rarely spoken here. Once finished and confident about delivering our session, we headed back to our rooms to get ready.

At 5pm we headed down to the meeting room to head off to the metro, the metro is our main source of transport, so missing that would be a disaster. However we all got there on time and had a safe journey to our sporting arenas.

I was coaching tennis, however the other sports taking place were football, basketball, triathlon and swimming. In my session I took a 10 minute warm up which felt like a success as they were all enjoying themselves and laughing (hopefully not laughing at me), and from what I have heard everybody else felt the same, so this was a really nice experience for us all. When finished we went to the metro again to go back to our home town Moncada.

When we arrived in Moncada we were all tired and hungry as the day had been very draining due to coaching spanish children. We went back to our new Spanish resturant and we were hoping it would be just as nice as the lunch we had. As the dinner arrived everyone was confused as it was not known to us all (not even something Jamie Oliver would create), the only way to describe it was a deep fried folded pizza with cheese and ham in it; there was a mixed opinion of it as whilst some liked it, others didn´t. However the desert opened some eyes, as it was chocolate covered fruit (kiwi, banana and melon) whith ice cream at the bottom to mix it with, this was nice but easily got a little sickly.

Then we all went back to the rooms to get some well deserved sleep and charge ourselfs for the up and coming days with the Spanish.

Gracias,

Oli

Day 5

Today was Sunday, we started off the day with a ride on the metro to the Bioparc (a Spanish zoo ). There were many great animals there and we all had a great time and enjoyed ourselves very much. One of my favourite moments at the park was when the biggest gorilla I have ever seen jumped at the glass where we were standing and tried to attack us!

After visiting the zoo we walked to a little mall, however on the way we stopped to watch a game of football being played - many great goals were scored!

When walking through the park on our way to lunch there were many cyclists, runners and dog walkers around. We stopped for lunch where by a little pond and, having eaten, some of us had a paddle whilst others sunbathed!

Before getting the metro home we had a look around the mall, however at this time shops were mainly closed so we all raided McDonalds.

It was then time to perform Little Red Riding Hood and once again the Ghostbusters theme tune in front of many people!

We then had our own free time to have a look around the festival, go back to the hotel, or just have a little free time to ourselves.

That night when we went for our evening meal, pizza was on the menu, so we all got to choose our own topping and got a full massive pizza each!!! (after this we had cake and I 'Ryan' ate 3 yummy yummy yum yum).

That was our first Sunday here in Moncada and i'm sure the next one will be just as good

Hasta luego (see you later),

Ryan Stant! :)

Day 4

Today we got to have a lie in as it was Saturday. After breakfast we got the metro to Valencia where we visited a historical museum about the old Roman settlement that exists under the ´new´ Valencia town of the present day.

After that we went to the Miguelette tower where we could see the whole of Valencia, the temerature at this time was around 27 degrees! We then had some free time to shop around the square where we were.

We then went to see the post office, council offices, Bull Ring and train station which were all outstanding. Then we had two hours to walk around Valencia and shop on the main shopping street where there were hundreds of shops.

Following this long day in Valencia we returned to Moncada via the metro to perform the Ghostbusters theme song with Spanish children at the commercial business fair. Half of our group also performed a mini version of Goldilocks and the three Bears where I (Kerri) played Goldilocks - there were about 40 people watching in total! We then had free time to visit the other stalls and mix with local Spanish people until our evening meal. At the fair we got tickets for free orange juice which was squeezed from fresh oranges and we saw belly dancers and a live band.

Still having a great time,

Love Joel and Kerri.

Day 3

After breakfast we went to are second class of Spanish where we learnt 'me traes una pizza...' which means 'can I have a pizza'. We also learnt different toppings that we can put on a pizza in Spanish such as queso (cheese), yamon (ham), pollyo (chicken) and many more varietes.

After break we practised and rehearsed the Ghostbusters theme song for the Schola festival, which took a while to get to grips with as the singing was dreadful! We then started making our costumes out of different materials (card, paper, cottonwool etc...). Then we went for our dinner which consisted of a delicious paella in the local restaurant followed by some free time for the girls to catch some rays and the boys to have a game of football/basketball.

After dinner we finished off our costumes and rehearsals for the festival making them perfect, after that we then went on the metro to Bettera where we obsereved some sport sessions at the sport complex and for half the group they observed the swimming session. For tea we had a variety of options steak, chips, salad, deep fried squid and Callemari rings.

On a sad note...

All of our thoughts go out to the friends and family of Jordan Rose who passed away today.

Thanks James Davies

Day 2

After breakfast, we went to our first Spanish lesson. We learnt some basic but useful phrases to use when out and about - como esta usted? ahh si!

After that, we went for a little tour around Moncada and we got shown where the train station, bakery, restaurant etc was.

We then had lunch at the local italian restaurant - Piccolina, luke warm lasagne was on the menu!

Free time consisted of a bit of sunbathing, going to the supermarket and more sunbathing because the weather was around 25 degrees and most of the Spanish were wearing coats!!

In the afternoon, we got the tram to Betera to visit the Sports complex where we will be doing the coaching. The sports facilities are fantastic!

Finally, we started to go through the performances we will have to do at the festival at the weekend. One group are performing Goldilocks and the other are performing Little Red Riding Hood!

- Lauren Caldwell :)

Day 1

We  started travelling at 10:30 and arrived at the airport on time. Some of us were feeling a little nervous - not mentioning any names (Lee) lol - the flight was great and an easy one. When we arrived we were greeted with nice warm weather. The coach ride from the airport was a long one and very stressful because we had been sat down for hours on end. When we arrived at the hotel I thought it was a very well presented place and the staff were very pleasant in greeting a bunch of over tired and stressed hungry teenagers. They were very helpful with the hunger situation by ordering 20 pizzas of every kind.

The trip's still going great looking forward to the rest :D

Over and out,

Lee and group

Introduction - 2010

This BLOG is being created by the students on the LEARN 2 LEAD project 2010, here they will enter their experiences, photos and memories from thier two week stay here in Moncada.

We hope you enjoy it......Matt and Greg STARS Group