Visits this week

Today is the last day of lessons for the group and no-one can believe how fast the time has flown! This week's trips have been to Lynton and Lynmouth, which are small villages on the north coast of Devon, as well as to Bath where there is an interesting museum about the ancient Roman baths. On Monday Amaia learnt about the history of Powderham castle and yesterday investigated an amazing guitar shop in Exeter. Alvaro had fun playing football at the beach. Nicolas and Arturo had an interesting experience with a seagull in Lynmouth and Juan has been discovering himself through a psychological test he did in class. Tuesday's disco was the best yet, although it was extremely hot and sweaty! Sarah was even dancing on the chairs! This afternoon Alvaro and Sarah are going to Crealy Adventure Park, while Amaia is playing badminton. Everyone else is going to the beach to enjoy the sunshine.

London

Here's the group outside Buckingham Palace! The changing of the guard started just as we arrived which was really interesting to see (although the guards must have been boiling in their hats!) After seeing Buckingham Palace the group had some time in Covent Garden to go shopping and watch the street performers. Arturo, Alvaro and Sarah bought Hard Rock Cafe T-shirts (as seen in the photo!) Then we walked down to Trafalgar Square where we intended to look at Nelson's column. However a gay parade was getting into full swing just as we arrived and there were so many people that it was impossible to move! So we took a small detour along the river Thames and saw Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. After that we went on a boat tour along the river and under all the bridges, finally ending up at Tower Bridge. Everybody was really happy to have finally visited London and would have loved to have spent longer there. On Sunday everyone went shopping in Exeter, played munchkin in a cafe and tried some Spanish food in La Tasca! Arturo also managed to find the most expensive bottle of water in the UK at £3.60! Alvaro and Sarah had a great time exploring the forest at Escot on Friday where they saw white owls and red squirrels. And finally, lessons are going really well!

Hello from London!

A quick video to say hi from London!

Karaoke!

I wish I'd had my camera last night at the Karaoke to show you a video of Juan, Amaia and Nicolas singing Viva España (English version)! The Spaniards were definitely the best (and most enthusiastic) singers of We Will Rock You, Born to be Wild and the YMCA! This afternoon Sarah and Alvaro were playing football and badminton, Amaia was on a boat trip and Arturo, Nicolas and Juan were entertained by a storyteller. There's no disco or karaoke tonight because tomorrow everyone has to get up very early to go to London. It's going to be a long day but everyone's really excited! Below is a another very nice picture by Alvaro of the barbeque, complete with super chefs, swans and a rower who tried to help us fight for our right to barbeque...

Tintagel, Boscastle and Weymouth

Yesterday Amaia, Juan, Nicolás and Arturo visited King Arthur's castle in Tintagel and the little village of Boscastle. The scenery was beautiful and the students enjoyed relaxing by the sea. As Juan said, it would be a really nice place to live (if not Spain)! Sarah and Alvaro went to Weymouth where they had an exciting time on the fairground rides. There was another disco on Tuesday evening, which was a good opportunity to meet the new students this week who have come from Montenegro, Italy and Barcelona. And tonight there is a karaoke evening! I'm impressed by how much everyone's writing has improved in so short a time. Sarah's diary writing in particular has come a long way. Today I went to see Nicolás, Amaia and Arturo acting which was very funny (and educational!) And Nicolás has a good question: why do people go on holiday to the Canary Islands when they could come to Exeter?!

The Aquarium and the Aquapark

We've had more beautiful weather over the weekend. I think the students are getting bored of the sunshine and want to see some typical british weather! It's been so hot that the group decided to go to an aquapark on Sunday to keep cool on the waterslides. Nicolás later informed me that he didn't have a very good track record with aquaparks so it was good to see him alive and well today! On Friday we went to Plymouth aquarium which was good although Alvaro and Amaia thought it lacked penguins, seals and caribbean fish. This afternoon we had a barbeque by the river. Nicolás and Sarah proved very capable chefs and we managed to dodge seagulls and locals to finally enjoy some burgers. Although by the sound of this message burgers aren't really what everyone needs at the moment...

Hola! Estamos teniendo un buen tiempo y lo estamos pasando bien. El día 11 de julio queremos comida espanola en abundancia (no aceptamos sandwiches o chocolatinas. Tampoco hamburguesas ni ningún tipo de comida rápida). Os queremos, Nicolás, Alvaro, Juan, Amaia, Sarah y Arturo

As you can see Britsh food is again living up to its fine reputation. And finally - Juan is still eating far too much ice cream!

A sports afternoon

Today after lessons there was a sports afternoon. Sarah and Alvaro went biking and canoeing while the others went to play cricket. Juan Ignacio impressed everyone with his batting skills, scoring 60 runs before being bowled out. Also the students have found some English food which they have to admit to liking - the pasty! It's kind of like an empanada. Bowling went well, and according to Alvaro's picture - he won!

A visit to Lanhydrock and Padstow

Yesterday there were no lessons as it was the first all-day outing. We visited the huge and fascinating Lanhydrock house, which had some lovely, relaxing gardens where the students ate lunch and sunbathed. Then we went to the fishing village of Padstow where Juan Ignacio ate far too much ice cream and Arturo managed to do a little bit of swimming (up to his knees!) Thankfully Nicolás managed to pull himself away from the longest tennis match ever played to come to school today! This evening we are going ten pin bowling. Here's a picture of the disco!

Lessons start

Here is a picture of everyone outside the Globe school enjoying the hot weather (Sarah was on the phone to her mum at the time!) Lessons started today and everyone is now in separate classes with other students from Latvia, Siberia and Thailand. Amaia has been having fun discovering the interesting food that British people eat, although I've never heard of cheese toothpaste! Juan Ignacio is entertaining his family with his moving ears. Also everyone was happy to hear that Spain won the match last night! This evening it's the Globe disco!

Arrival

We're here in Exeter at last! The journey went smoothly. We arrived at London Stansted then drove down to Exeter arriving at 10pm. The host families were waiting at the school and everyone went to see their new homes and to get some rest. Today we met up to go for a walk around Exeter. We saw some of the main sites such as the cathedral, the city wall and the quay. And the weather is fantastic! Everybody had a bit of time to look around Exeter before returning to spend the afternoon with their families. Everybody seems to be happy in their homes and are managing really well to communicate in English. Tomorrow it's an early start at the Globe school. We'll let you know how it goes!

The journey

We're off on Saturday!