Wednesday, 14th of May 2008
Southern athmosphere rules!
We have now been in Porto for two days. The weather is not exactly what we expected but hey, we are not here for the weather. Our hosts have already made us feel more than welcome. Nice sightseeing tours, good food, excellent company and interesting discussions are filling our days. So quite frankly, even though we love our work and students back home in Finland, this beats normal routines 5-1. Kind of like what Canada did to Finland in the hockey game two days ago…
At this very moment, Harri and I are sitting in a train on our way to Lousado, where the school of Forave is located. Today we are going to stay at the school watching the local teachers at work and if we get lucky, there will also be some meetings for all the Comenius teachers that have come here. And we are quite a many! Italy (Sardinia) came with six representants, Spain (Tenerife) with three and Finland with us two. The local, Portuguese teachers are naturally with us so all together, we are almost twenty.
During the day, we will also be enjoying the company of our students. They all have prepared some presentations of their own countries, cultures, hobbies and other interesting themes. It’s a nice way for us all to get to know more of the others.
What about the days that passed already? Ok, some words of them also… Monday was a free day so we were just taken to the hotel by the hosts. Then we had a little walk in the beautiful city of Porto and stayed at the hotel giving grades to the students in Finland. Great thing we have the computers and the internet!
On Tuesday morning we took the train to Lousado and stayed at the school until lunch that was taken in a factory of Continental tires near the school. The afternoon was spent in Serralves museum of modern art and in the pretty park next to it. We got there from the school by bus. It was a nice sightseeing tour with the city of Trofa on our way. All the balconys were filled with flags of the local fotballteam that just made its way to the 1 division for the first time. The whole town was clearly really proud of the players and the team! After Trofa and Serralves the bus took us to the centrum of Porto by driving by the sea. We saw how the river Douro has Porto town on the other side and Gaía town on the other. All the coastline of the sea is filled with pretty houses, fishermen, boats and golden sand. The coastline of the river, however, is deep in the valley and the river is here and there crossed by huge bridges. Quite amazing views! The evening consisted of a long walk in the city (with our local hosts explaining different historical events and places) and a perfect dinner in a nice restaurant called Tromba Rijo.
Right now, the train is arriving at Lousado railway station. It’s quite cloudy but it’s not raining. So it’s time to work now, just hoping that we find the way to the school. Well, you can see the building but with the narrow streets, you never know…
No comments:
Post a Comment