Hi! Today was a very long day. We all woke up (very) bright and early complaining about the woman who was talking loudly in a foreign language in the middle of night, luckily we fell back to sleep pretty quickly.
After getting dressed and having breakfast in our hotel, we met the Greek, French, Spanish and Belgian teachers in the lobby, before catching our bus up to the Greek school at the end of the street. We had a special coach hired just for us. How fantastic! We were greeted by friendly, excited faces and wonderful performances in the hall as part of a welcome assembly. The children sang 'if you're happy and you know it' especially for us. We also got given snacks - traditional Greek pastries, something we are becoming VERY used to! We are offered them at least 5 times a day, good job they are delicious. Next was a trip to the Town Hall where we met the Mayor of Kalamaria, we spoke about what the Comenius Project has done, talked about his job as mayor and got the chance to look around his impressive office. Whilst there, we were offered a huge sandwich (and more pastries) and were given a golden model ship to take back to school!
Next,we walked back to the school, in the scorching heat but we were well prepared with our sun cream on and Miss Sinnott and Mrs Clark's constant reminders to 'put more cream on girls!!' Once back, we got a chance to take a tour of the school; we met some 3rd,4th,5th and 6th graders during their lessons- they had all prepared a game/songs to show us. We played 'pin the tail on the donkey' and 'don't let the person next to you slap your hand whilst singing.' ( we don't really know what it was actually called!) Anybody have any ideas? We noticed that the school was quite different to ours as they didn't have a lunch time, just snacks on the school yard. They also had lots and lots of breaks. Their displays were very different to ours too. There were similarities too; they have the same subjects as us and take part in assemblies. Primary school starts at 6 years old.
Outside, we played ' put the stick through two cones and run back to base ' and ' netball penalty shootout' ( the Greeks have some pretty weird games.) Many of the pupils talked to us and showed us around especially Costina and her friends who we have became good friends with. They said that they liked our names because Anna was a name from Frozen. However, 'Keira Kinght', as she is now called, was annoyed that her name was spelt incorrectly on her name card. After all of that fun, we went for a late lunch at a traditional Greek restaurant; it was really delicious. We sat on a table with the children from the other countries and enjoyed salad, garlic bread, chicken, chips, traditional Greek sausage and then some yummy desserts.
Tired and full, we all strolled back to the school for a meeting, the children didn't need to be part of it so we stayed in the hall, playing games and typing/editing today's blog.
Anna and Keira xxx
