VILLAROBLEDO – SPAIN, 21 – 27 September 2014

After a long journey to Spain we finally landed in Madrid. We all were looking forward to our visit of our partners who we met in the Czech Republic in April this year for the first time. It was our turn now to experience something extraordinary. Here we were!

Monday 22 September
We started our first Spain´s day in the school of Villarrobledo. Our programme began at 9´o clock with a warm welcome from the principal of this school. All Spanish people are really friendly, so they meet or welcome new people by kissing them, which is really different form us – we normally shake our hands. Then our partners and other Spanish students showed us around their school and some classes. After that we had "second breakfast" in the school canteen at about 10:30 where we could taste a lot of sweet cakes. And finally, a bit later we started our presentations. First we could hear a presentation by the Spanish students, then it was our turn, and eventually there was a presentation given by the students from Austria. Later that morning, we visited the town of Villarrobledo. We could see a church, a square, a lot of other interesting buildings, a park and so on.

Tuesday 23 September
On Tuesday we travelled to Toledo for 2 hours by bus, which was a bit boring. But a guided tour in this town was really marvellous. We had a guide lady who spoke in a very interesting way, she presented us a lot of information. In Toledo we could meet people or plenty of monuments of three faiths: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. There are loads of catedrals, churches, synagogues and mosques, and a big number of old squares and narrow streets. The old city is really beautiful – we did really nice and entertaining sightseeing. We could spot a very interesting thing here – there were
symbols of these 3 religions on floors and pavements everywhere.

Wednesday 24 September
On Wednesday we spent some time at school in the morning as we had a lesson of survival Spanish. We tried to say some Spanish tongue twistersn such as "Tres tristes tigres comían trigo en un trigal, un tigre, dos tigres tres tigres." It was good and we enjoyed it. Then we went by bus to a factory which produces cheese, wine and olive oil. We saw a lot of sheep around, obviously. The man who worked in the factory told us about their production. He also showed us wine cellars. At the end of our visit we tasted some wine and cheese which was delicious. I liked cheese more than wine. After that we visited another museum of manufacturing of ceramics. We finished today´s school programme in the Municipality Office with the mayor. He was speaking about Villarrobledo in Spanish, but one of the Spanish students translated his speech to us.

Thursday 25 September
This day started at 8:30 in the morning. We travelled by bus to three lakes nearby. There were beautiful waterfalls in every lake. Finally, we came to a place where we could swim but the water was quite cold. However, there were a few courageous students who decided to have a swim, e.g. Alice from our Czech group. After that, we went by bus to Almagro where we had lunch – 3 courses. The first meal was risotto with some seafood, the second was meat with French fries and the third was icecream. Yum! After lunch we went to the square of Almagro and then we visited a local theatre. There was a guide woman, who introduced us information about the history and function of the theatre. It was very interesting and educational. Eventually, we headed back to Villarrobledo by bus. The journey took us about 2 hours.

Friday 26 September
Last day at school. In the school library we were asked to fill in evaluation forms. Our Spanish partners made an interview for their school magazine with us and they also took some pictures of us. After some time and a little waiting we played karaoke. Almost everybody was ashamed of singing first, but after the Spanish students made a show, even a lot of other students wanted to show their talent. Then the principal asked us to make a short speech. On behalf of all of us Veronika said that we all were very happy to take part in this project as it gave us an excellent opportunity to meet new friends and learn new things. We were already looking forward to a farewell party.

In our free time, we all were participating in different activities like visiting various places (a village of Las Pedroneras, the sea in Alicante in Valencia), riding a horse, playing ball games with new friends, getting together with the partners in pubs, kebab restaurants, eating traditional Spanish meals such as tortillas, and dancing. Simply, we had fun and we enjoyed our stay very much.

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More pictures from the exchange visit in our photogallery.

You can also read students' diary.