Day 4; Family Life & Paintball

Day 4: Family Life and Paint Ball,

by Alex and Gonzalo

“Sunday with the Bilyou family started pretty well. I woke up thanks to the light of the sun, and I went downstairs to meet the whole family. They were having an early breakfast, French toasts. In Spain, they are called “torrijas”. I ate just one French toast with maple syrup, followed by orange juice. Gaizka, my Spanish partner, joined us a little bit later, and had a French toast without syrup and hot chocolate milk. 

When we finished our meal, Gaizka and I went upstairs and started preparing for our trip to the paintball place. Once we arrived there, we met all the other people, and practically all students came to play paintball.

They gave us guns, paint and masks. We were separated into two teams; USA vs Spain. The USA team won, they were like a hundred times better. Once we had finished, I counted how many times I got shot: two headshots (that’s accuracy!), one at the back and one at the fingers (I even bled!).

After that, every family went home. When we arrived home we had some snack, because they don’t really have a big lunch in the USA. We stayed home in the afternoon and played some videogames. After we had a shower, we went downstairs and had dinner all together. Each one had a big steak while we were watching a baseball match: Red Sox vs Athletics. Red Sox is the team from Boston, and ended up losing, so the Bilyou family was a little bit disappointed. 

After having dinner, we saw a movie called “London has fallen”. After that great movie, we went upstairs to go to sleep, because we were so tired of such an exciting day.”

(Alex)

Day 4 Family Life

“I woke up at 8 o'clock and I got ready for another exciting day to come. 

At 11 o'clock I went with my American brother, Thomas, and the rest of the group to play paintball, It was amazing but when someone shot me, it hurt. We stayed 3 hours and we played 3 different types of games; my favourite game was when we had to take a flag and bring it to our base.

After that, I went with Asier, Ibon and our American brothers to a restaurant called Buffalo Wild Wings, I ate 10 spicy chicken wings, they were delicious.

At 5o'clock I went with Thomas to Genna's house and we played a long volleyball match, freesbee and American football. 

Finally, some of us went to the beach and we looked at the stars, it was a wonderful night because there weren't any clouds and we could see a lot of stars. When we finished, we went back to our homes and we went to bed. It was an amazing day.”

(Gonzalo)

Day 3, Saturday: Family Day

Saturday: Family Day, by Ana and Ane

In the morning every Spanish student went with his/her partner to see where they work and then some of us went walking through the town.

Then at 14:00 we met at the train station to take a train to Boston. When we arrived, we made two groups to go shopping. After that, we decided to have a quick lunch and continued visiting the town. At 21:00 we took the train back to Scituate and at 23:00 we arrived home. We were very tired.  

The day has been  amazing. We have had fun and we are looking forward to tomorrow because we are going to play paint-ball all together.

Day 3 Saturday: Family Day from J. Carlos Martínez

Day 2: Beach Day and Welcome Party

Beach Day and Welcome Party, by Irati and Maialen

After the first day meeting, our families  and partners prepared  a very entertaining day. But before starting, I have to say that I had a terrible night because of the jet lag. What is more, at 4 a.m. I was awake!!

My second day starts having breakfast with my American sister Cecily, and then taking the car  to go to the beach. It has been amazing. We met all the students and we swam in the sea, though the water was almost frozen... We played volleyball, cards, with the rugby ball (football americano) etc.  We also had lunch on the beach as the weather was warm and sunny.

We enjoyed it a lot and you can see how we enjoyed it in the pictures below. Our teacher Juan Carlos takes amazing pictures!!!

In the afternoon, after relaxing on the beach we had lunch. I went with my partner to Alaina's house. Alaina is my partner's best friend and her exchange partner is Isabel, who is my friend. There, we were playing video games and we had a lot of fun. Then, we went to the store to buy some food for the week. I got surprised with the variety of products that they sell here in Scituate. 

At 6 o'clock we went to O'Brien's house for the Welcome Party. It was great! First, we played games with a frisbie and a ball and we learnt each others’ names. Then, we went indoors to have dinner. There were lots of burgers, hot dogs cooked by parents, pasta, fruit… and cakes.The food was delicious!

Also, some boys dived into the pool. I didn't do it because it was a little bit cold. Finally, we went outside to play another game. 

It was a fantastic day!

Day 2 Beach Day and Welcome Party

Scituate - Getxo 2016 - DAY 1

Scituate-Getxo Student Exchange, Day 1 
by Ane and Laura.

Our 1st day!!!

After spending a great time on holiday, we have been waiting for this moment for so long... IT'S TIME TO START OUR AMERICAN  ADVENTURE! 

We were so excited that we didn't mind waking up early and meeting our friends at the airport. When we were all together, we started by checking in our lugagge and suddenly a big problem came out!!! Gaizka, who is coming with us, had a problem with his ESTA, the visa to enter the USA, and he had to do it again. When everything was solved we said goodbye to our families, we took a family picture, went through customs and took a plane to Madrid.

  

The flight was rather short and entertaining, as there was a profesional football team with us. They were very handsome and friendly. Once in Madrid, we took the subway of the airport and went to Terminal 4 RSU. There, our teachers gave us some advice about how to  live and behave in the USA.

At last we were going to take the plane to Boston!!!! We were completely  excited  because it was our first time flying with the classmates, It seemed that the minutes were hours. We all started watching films, sleeping, walking through the aisles and getting bored. When we arrived in Boston, we had to go through the police control. I was really nervous and my classmates too, because they took our fingerprints, some photos, and  asked some questions... We all went through, but Iker lost a paper and we had to wait for him to solve his problem. Finally, we went out and took the famous yellow school bus.

It took 1h to get to the high school. There they were, our partners waiting holding pretty posters with our names. We spoke to them and then each family took their students to their houses.

 I spoke to them on the way home and when I arrived at their house they showed me where the things and rooms were.Then, I gave them some presents that I had bought in Bilbao.  We spent time talking and then Ashley and I went to another student's house, with other girls to watch a film, have some food and speak about life. It was as if I were in an American film!!!

We had a great time there! 

Then they drove us to another student's house with a lot of other students participating in the exchange. We danced, played table-tennis, had more food, etc. It seemed as if  we had known each other for a long time. I really enjoyed my first day and I hope the following days will be like today or even better.

The experience is being better than I thought!

Scituate Getxo '16 Day 1 from J. Carlos Martínez

Last News about Erasmus+ Project

To finish this first year of the  Erasmus + project  "Youth Employment", on the last day at school our students received their europasses and a flyer  about our meeting in Garbsen last March.

In the following presentation you can have a look at the different activities we carried out from March up to now,  how our students reflected on the project and made their evaluations and how they designed beautiful posters for our Erasmus+ Corner.



To make it possible for a lot of students at school to know about the project in more detail, they also recorded a video that you can see here.




If you want to see a lot of the materials created by our students, you can follow this link to the eTwinning space for our project: Youth Employment.

Last Projects in COIN

In thses two pictures you can see our students in COIN this school year.

These last three months our students have been working on the project English Speaking Countries. They watched videos and learned about the culture and history of different countries, such as India, Canada, South Africa and Australia. Then, they worked in groups to create their beautiful presentations. They chose the country they wanted to work on and searched information about the geographical location, important cities, history, culture, religion, education, music, sports... They also created a history timeline using timetoast and finally, they planned a trip through the country, to present it, most of them used prezi. They gave oral presentations of their works, which you can see in the following links:





BAHAMAS                    NEW ZEALAND            AUSTRALIA

Our last topic was Food and most of our students prepared an extra project, at home, they cooked a dish that they like and took pictures. Then, they explained how they cooked the recipe to the rest of the students and some of them even brought their food to school and shared it with their partners. Delicious!!!!!

APPLE FLOWERS     CHOCOLATE CAKE     MEATLOAF

GRILLED MACARRONI           PIZZA AND BROWNIES

We hope you liked their projects!!! 

Day 7: Bye-Bye, Garbsen

Friday has been a tiring day. We left home at about 12:00 to take the flight to Amsterdam, where we had to wait for about four hours. By the time we get home, it will  already be 23:00. It has  also been a very sad day because it was our last day in Garbsen and some of us may not see our partners again. Anyway, we are coming back home after living a really positive experience and looking forward to meeting our families again!

We have learnt a lot about the types of Educational Systems in other countries, especially about Vocational Studies. After comparing the situation of Youth Employment in Germany, Norway and Hungary and that of our country, now we understand how big the problem of unemployment can be for our future.

Today, when we go to bed and fall asleep, we will know that we have two families; one here and another one in Germany.  Ane San José