Day 9

Thursday Blog


Ciao! After spending Wednesday evening with the Inter ‘ultras’ at the San Siro everyone woke up pretty tired ahead of another busy day. Thursday was back in to the coaching and the usual routine that we had gotten in to earlier in the week. Here’s a quick look at my day in Milan:

• 07:30 – Wake up and jump in the shower. Got everything ready for the day ahead like for our Italian lessons and anything needed for school.

• 07:45 – Head down for a typical Italian breakfast. Usually followed down by everyone else other than Mr Savage who’s in there at 7:30!

• 08:15 – Everyone meets in the common room of the Hostel to set off for the school (Anyone late loses shopping time!). We then set off for the Metro station, a short walk away from the Hostel. A quick journey of 5 stops and we’re off at Conciliazione which is around a 10 minute walk away from Collegio San Carlo.

• 09:00 – Go down to the PE office in the school to meet all of the teachers. We’re usually told what teacher’s we’re going to be with and in which location. Today we were observing each other’s sessions so Lauren and I went off to the infant room in the basement of the school to watch Paul, Jack, Tessa and Charlie’s session. We had to fill in a sheet on strengths and weaknesses of their session to feedback to them.

• 10:00 – It was now our turn to lead our session and we’d chosen football after planning it on Tuesday night. I was in a group with Lee, Lauren and Emma. We focused on passing and dribbling with 10 year olds. I felt that the session went extremely well and the kids enjoyed themselves throughout. We were observed by Matt, Sam and Antonia who made us want to do even better and to take on the feedback from the previous sessions.

• 11:00 – We started work on the plays we had to perform to the younger children. One was ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and the other was ‘Little Red Ridding Hood’. We were split in to two groups of six and started to prepare props and sort out the roles for each person. I took on the role of narrator (obviously the most important part!) along with Elle, so we started chopping the story down and deciding what we were going to read.

• 12:00 – Lunch time! Down to the school cafeteria for what is usually some typical Italian food we all love. Today was burgers, salad and risotto which went down well with most of the group. After lunch we’re given a bit of free time; most days are spent in the school bar. Paul has made friends with the guy who works there so today we talked about the match the night before and if City would win. For me it’s usually a quick read of the Gazzetta Dello Sport!

• 13:15 – After free time we meet at the Metro station again for our journey to our Italian lessons. We start with the Metro to San Babila, in the centre of Milan, and then a bus from there which stops at our Italian class on its journey.

• 14:00 – Italian lessons start and the first few minutes we have a chat with Louisa, our teacher, about what we’ve done in the morning. We also spoke about the game and she asked us if we’d sung the Pazza Inter song that she’d taught us the day before. (Unfortunately we didn’t as we got there as the team’s were coming out)

• 17:00 – Our Italian lesson finishes and it’s back to Milan’s public transport. We have the same journey back including a full 10 stop trip on the underground and stand up the whole way!

• 18:00 – Luca arrives with our dinner which we have in the breakfast room in the basement of the Hostel. Tonight was cheese burgers, yellow risotto and yoghurt which were very nice.

• 18:30 – This is usually when Matt and Greg give us feedback from the session that we’ve lead in the morning. We got good feedback and were given some good things to work on the next time we do a session.

• 19:00 onwards – This time is usually spent doing work downstairs. Tonight we had no sessions to plan as Friday involved swimming and performing our plays (which Elle will talk about tomorrow!). This meant we could work on our plays and do a few rehearsals.

• 21:00 – Work finishes (usually earlier, depending on what mood Matt and Greg are in!). It’s then chill out time for everyone which is spent either in the rooms, common room or in the work room on the Wifi. Today, Simmo and I tried watching the City match on a stream. We caught the first 2 goals before ditching it thanks to the dodgy connection!

• 23:00 – Everyone is in to their rooms and its lights out and to bed. Our room is usually laptop city at this point, watching movies and doing work for the course.

Hopefully that gives you a little insight in to our daily routine out here in Milan and what we’ve done today.

Ciao ciao!

Joe