Goodbye

It's time to say goodbye. Our school year ends on 31. of May. We are going to change school to upper secondary school or to vocational school. But first we have our holidays, it lasts about 10 weeks.

We want to thank you for everything. You have been so friendly, and we enjoyed the time with you. The trips went so well, that we would not like to change anything. We hope that we will see again (probably some of the girls will visit Portugal in the summer :D)

We want to send greetings to everybody especially to Vicktoria and Paula from Spain, and to Nuno, Andreia, Joao, Jorge and Diogo from Portugal. We will all miss you so much, let's keep in touch!

Take care of your self, see you later!
Goodbye with love from Finnish group

Our trip to Portugal<333

We were in Portugal last week.
It was so great experience.
On Monday we arrived to Porto on the afternoon and went straight to the school.
We have a very funny and lovely week there.
All of us had really nice families, and the week went too fast!!On Tuesday we went to the shcool to their classes. On wednesday we showed our presentations in Auditorio. After thar we went to Porto by train and had a time for shopping. On thursday we went to see difrent cities by bus. On the first of them we went to see old castle. It was raining in the morning but in the afternoon the sun started to shine. On Friday morning we went to see some traditional portuguese things and we went to eat to Pizza hut. Just want to say thank you again about everything that we did and got from you!

We miss you so much already and hope to see you someday=))!!!

Thursday in Portuguese: CULTURE

History, beautiful castles and cathedrals, nice food, some rain and sun – we got it all during Thursday. The bus took us in the morning, both students and teachers, and we went for a whole day trip to the surroundings of Forave. At first, we visited Guimarãe, the city where Portugal was born. Then we travelled to Braga and had some walking and lunch. At the afternoon, the bus drove us up to the mountains next to Braga. Great views, sunshine and fresh air! Last stop before getting the stdents back to the school and the teachers to a well-deserved dinner was made in Ponte de Lima. There we enjoyed of the charming little town where the river Cheia passed the city and left the centrum on the other side and a beautiful garden on the other. Now we finally got a real sunshine! ☺ The evening was completed with a marvellous dinner at Josés home. What a variety of dishes… Just perfect!

Once again, the day was filled with laugh and smiles, everybody enjoyed the tour and the hospitality and kindness of our Portuguese friends. Well, some of them have quite a strange jokes but the more days we spend here, more we understand them! So beware, we might not be as blue-eyed as we appear, at least not anymore… Oh and can you believe, the Portuguese guys learned how to pronounce ”sähköpääkeskus”, ”hässäkkä” and other weird Finnish words! Congrats!

Wild wild Wednesday

What a show yesterday! The local students had prepared a evening show for us Comenius guests and the whole school. Singing, dancing, fashion shows, little something to eat and nice decorations made the evening unforgettable. Thank you for that!

Before the show we Comenius teachers went for a dinner in a beutiful restaurant called Ferrugem. The real fireplace spread warmness so the athmosphere was sophisticated, calm and peaceful. The whole restaurant was made one purpose in mind: to taste different foods and wines. A hint: if you take your dearest ones to Porto, you must go and visit this restaurant! It is definitely worth the drive at the countryside. It was a real nice way of relaxing and enjoying the good company after a rather long day full of meetings and discussions concerning this project and surveys.

Once again, the day had been successful and when we finally got to the hotel at 12pm, it was not hard to find the sleep. Although Finland had just started the exciting game against USA, we could not stay up and watch it. But the first thing in the morning was to open the computer and see the HAPPY result of the game.

First days in Porto

Porto
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…

Hellouuuuuu

We have only 3 weeks left of this school and then we're out!!!!! We are going to schools where we applied to, if we get in there. After these 3 weeks we have summer holiday<3 Our summer holiday lasts 2 and a half months. On summer holiday some of us are going abroad and some of us are working.

Some of us went to Portugal today.. And you should know who came there... We have nothing else to say so byebye!

Hulabaloo macarena!

Hello!

First we want to tell greetings to Pitti. It was so great to got a letter from you!!!
We think that we have wrong e-mail adress, because we can't send any letters to you.
So if you can send your adress again some how??

It is summer so soon.
We have planned what we gonna do then.
Our summer holiday is too short it's about 2 and half months long.
How is yours?

....

monday

Hello! we are very tired after weekend. Eeva was in music-camp, and Johanna hang out with friends. We are happy, because summer is coming, and the school ends. Next week we have labor day. That means that everybody are drunk and have fun.

In the picture is Johanna, Heini and Eeva. We sit in the pink coffin, and there is text: "only every second person dies for smoking." We try to stop smoking.

We saw the picture of students from forave. We are wondering who's houses are we going to??

Emmi is worried that she must sleep outside, because she couldn't came to the picture of us.:D

Greetings to Spain, hope you have fun there! The weather is sunny quite warm and we can't wait until summerholiday starts!! It starts 31.5 and then we are free from school...!

Hi!
Last week we had the finnish national english exam. It was very difficult. There were three parts: listening, writing and reading understanding.
Last week it rained a lot, and it was cold. You, who visited here, had luck with the weather... At weekend we were shopping in Helsinki, and hanging out with friends.

We had a very nice time in here, with you. We hope you had a nice time too. We hope we will see again sometime.

Love from Kiira, Heini, Hanna and Eeva <3

missing you<3

Hello everybody!!

Last week we had quests here from Portugal and Spain. They came on monday night and left on Sunday afternoon. On Tuesday we were at school and had welcome ceremony. Then we watched some lessons and went around the school. On Wednesday we went to Helsinki in the morning and we visited some churches and modern art museum Kiasma. In the afternoon we went shopping and some of us went to Suomenlinna which is a finnish castle. On Thursday we went to Nuuksio and first we walked there in the forest and then we went to the lake and made a bonfire. Then we played flagstoling game and ate after that. It seemed that everybody liked the forest and the weather was really good! We went to bowling by bus and after that to the centre of the Helsinki by spåra. Our visitors bought some souveniers. In the night we went to Hillas's house and ate and laughed:DD Friday visitors wanted to jump in the tramboline and we played basketball too and had good time! After school we went to the stable to ride with Muumi(a pony) Everybody liked riding and Pitti was really good cowboy(but the others were good too, don't worry:D!) In the evening we went to Emmis house and had fun. Then on Saturday evening we went to Annus house and had farewell party. We sang singstar and cried a bit too.. On Sunday morning we went to the airport to say goodbye. The flight was cancelled so they got tickets to the next plane.

The week was really nice and all had great time. And we were singning macarena all the time!! We learnt spanish and portuguese words. And now we are all sitting here on the classroom with comenius group and planning our trip to your countries. It was horrible to say goodbye and left you to the airport. We all miss you so much, thanks for everything!!

nina&ida and the whole Comenius group


<33

Moi!

Hello!

Some of you are already coming to here and it´s great!
We are a little bit nervous, but we are still happy!
One of us is singing Enrique Iglesias, you know?
Greetings from our english teacher Maikki.
they are planning our trip to Helsinki with Harri.
We are just planning some things ,what we could do with you.
Here is pretty warm now and sun is shining.
We hope that there is good weather too. :D

Love from finnish girls<3

Hi!
Again it is a monday morning. Yesterday we had palm sunday. At palm sunday kids dress witches, decorate sticks and goes from house to house and waves them, and then they get candys.
Yesterday it snowed. Now we can go skiing and skating.
We have easter holiday from next friday to next monday. Our term changes next week, so we have a lot of exams at this week. We have four terms in a year. One term lasts about 11 weeks. In the end of a term is a lot of exams.

Greetings from the finnish group

Hello!



Weekend is over and it's actually nice to come back to school, because first two lessons on monday we have this comenius project.Now we are in our awesome computer class and some of us are listening music.Our computer class is not very big...Here is about 30 computers. Nina is playing packman or something like that behind of us. Now she got to the next level...very interestig xD isn't it?? We are listening one fun song now....You can found it from youtube...http://youtube.com/watch?v=zDKcevMFUCo hahahahahaXD

On last week we were shopping in Helsinki. There was many sales.

Now we have to stop writing and continue our other things...

Bye!

Love from: Emmi, Annu and the others(finnish group)

Configuration

Hi

It seems, that we had a small problem with comments. It's solved now... free feel to write comments and greetings.

Harri

Ps. Here's greetings from Sardinia.

"Everybody likes your lively pages here..: they give us a sense of your ..atmosphere..cool, yes, in its best meaning..:-)

Love, with the simpathy of all our viewers from this distant south!

Ciao, Laura & CO"

diu diu diudiudiudiudiudidudiu

Today is monday. Early monday morning... we are really tired thanks for the last weekend,but new week has started and it's time to study. This week we have exams and that sucks. You guys are coming here quite soon and that's great!! Now here is real winter ,coz it snowed last week. Last week we had to choose which high school or vocational school we try to apply. That was quite important decision. Most of us are going to high school in the autumn. At saturday we voted our new eurovision candidate and we think that it's not very good. When you come here you should take some warm clothes coz it might be cold (if you even own them:DD) If here is snow when you come we teach you how to ski. we're sure you gonna like it. Then we take you to sauna. Do you even know what it is?? Well it's quite hot place just about 80 celcius, but we can make it heater too if you want ;D


We hope that we see you really soon!<3

Hello Sardinia!

Our small idea about blogs seems to be accepted 100%, which is nice. I hope you have as fun to writing them in your school as much we have to reading them. 

February is over. This has been the warmest winter in Finland in 100 years! You maybe have noticed, that we have written a lot about the weather. Mainly because we miss the snow and the  real winter.

Tomorrow the girls will write something about our life here.

See you

Harri

Hello!

SOUTHERN FINLAND

LAPLAND

Last week we have winterholiday. Usually here is snow and ice on this time of year, but here in souhern Finland is only wet. Some people went to Lapland, because there is snow and cold.One day there was -33 celsius. There you can ski and snowboarding. Now it's hard to go back to school, because now we have to wake up so early.

We have looked Tenerifes blog and it was very nice!!!:)

We think that yours school is as big as our. It must be hard work to do your blog.

It would be nice to see more pictures from your group.

love from finish students<3

Valentine's day

We have this week Valentine's day on thursday 14.2. The theme of the day is friends: everyone gives hugs to eachother and write their names on heart shaped paper. We have program with the whole school. On Valentine's day we can wear a costume and the best costume will be given reward.

Next week we are not coming to school because we have winter holiday. Usually on winter holiday we can skate and snowboard but now we don't have snow so we can't do those things. Our holiday lasts a week.

We don't have anything else to tell you about these 2 things so we will tell you about our hobbies. We have many hobbies: dance, badminton, horse riding, football, piano, trampoline gymnastic, jogging, acting, music and agility. We go to our hobbys about 2-5 times in a week. At free time, we go to our hobbys or hang out with our friends.

Happy Valentine's day !

Greetings from the finnish group

Free time

Today we like to tell for you about our free time. We like to be with friends and all most every body have some hobby on free time. Some people of us like to hang around on Veikkola`s Neste and sometimes in youth house. In weekend we have a partytime!! We be awake late,and sleep very late. Some of us spend their freetime in horsestable and ride on horse and pony,and other ride on the man. Sunday is our sleepday, and we think that school is (¤/&%¤!, and we hate a monday,because we have to go back to the school.

Last week we have work practise, we all have been some work place one week. Everybody have such a good time. Some people take care of antique and some one take care of animals and some other place. We have to learn how to live like adults on the work life. We don`t get money about work what we do, but we get good experience.

Love from finnish students<3

TET = Learning at work

This week is extraordinary. Our 9th graders are working and away from school. Including the comeniusteam. Every year our older students spend one week in different companies working there and trying to understand "adult life". I believe they will have a lot of stories to you next week.

Meanwhile I took some pictures to you. (Btw: we loved the pictures from Forave...) The weather is now good : -5C, sun, some snow. (Too less...) Our village is a small place about 35 km away from Helsinki and as you can see, we don't have any particular center here in the village. Families live around the countryside usually in detached houses or rowhouses. That's why it maybe seems to you, that our school is in the middle of forest. (Hmmm... after second thought. We actually have nothing that forest around us.)


Näytä suurempi kartta

Next week the students will be here at school and we can update our blog.

See you/Harri