Pictures

Some pictures from the tour have been uploaded to the "Venice Photos" page accessible by the navigation bar above.

Home...

All back safely home now. Sorry once again for the lack of updates and photos, but as I'm sure the students will tell you all it was a great tour with some amazing performances and in an amazing city. We hope everyone had a brilliant time, here's to the next one!

I'll leave you this year with a picture of the one and only Mr Glover...

Ben

Last leg

Driving all through the night since 11am we are to get the Le Shuttle at 5:30 continental time. I have been informed we should return at around 7:30/8:00 UK time.

Sorry

I would like to apologise for the lack of photos that you were promised, the wifi here has been very unstable and ever days it works for about 5 minutes at a time. I will endeavour to upload various photos to the photo page when we get back on thursday. But as I said on the information evening, "it has indeed been a joyful time for us all". Long day ahead of us tomorrow.

Day 4

The last full day...
This day has come too quickly, we played at an international school today for students up to 15 year olds. It was a very short concert due to time constraints but it was still so good.
Late afternoon we came back to the hotel to spend a good few hours by the beach, loads of us got together to play some beach rugby, luckily there were no injuries and we have now returned to the hotel for our evening meal followed by quiz and talent show. Tomorrow we shall be leaving at 11am for a 9am arrival on Thuesday morning.

Day 3 - VENICE!

The wifi has seemed to gave stabalised enough for a text update...
Another bright and early start this morning for an hour drive over to Venice, despite a few bumps along the way we manged to get there on time. We then went about unloading the equipment onto a boat... this was quite the surreal experience as we saw ten's of thousand's of pounds worth of our equipment go down a conveyer belt meters above the water.
We then went on a boat tour to Murano where we saw a glass blowing demonstration and many of us splashed out on some special Murano glass work.
Taking the boat back to the main island of Venice we were all let loose for some free time before returing to the church for our penultimate gig, the acoustics were simply astonishing for both the Choirs and Orchestra however the long reverb time did not suit the Jazz Bands, however depite this people still enjoyed themselves. Some of us even found time to go outside and dance by the cannal.
Tomorrow is our last full day as well as our final concert, happily we all get a lovely lie in of about 1.5 hours as well as some time to get some revision done!
Ciao

(P.s. Sorry for typo's, is currently midnight and I may have no concept of the english language at the moment...)

Day 2

Sorry for the late update, the wifi has been playing up all evening. (Actually published this at 11pm... it is now midnight... I love faulty wifi so much)
Today brought the first day of tour, everyone got up for breakfast at 7am for a 7:30 departure time to Lake Garda where we played our first concert right on the waters edge. The view was just spectacular and a whole range of tourists and locals stayed and listened to our various groups perform.
Afterwards we drove to Verona for a late lunch and some of us decided to go see Juliet's balcony which is set to be where Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet, is based. "... in fair Verona where we lay our scene".
To finish off the day we played an evening concert at an retirement home where the residents seemed more than happy with the Jazz Bands, Orchestra, Blue Mondays and Choir.

Hopefully tonight I'll upload some photos to the photos page which is accessible from the tab above. But knowing this wifi that could seem unlikely... we'll see.

Day 1

Day 1 is at an end. After 23 hours (not 32...) in a very large coach 70 odd students have arrived in the lovely country of Italy. Stories include Mr Clifford's toilet placed within his shower where multitasking can take place to great sucess, the students have been perfecting their performances for the two concerts tomorrow. Yr 11 and 6th form students have even found time to squeeze in some revision!
Tomorrow we leave at 7:30 in the morning, much to the joy of the students...

Arrivare!

We have arrived at our hotel, rehearsals are due to commense at 15:00 local time, everyone is settling into our rooms and some of us even have a lovely view of the sea...

Ferry Time

About to make the crossing over to France. 20 hours to go. Mr Clifford is very content with his beverage.

All packed

All the bags have been packed in, which was interesting. Leaving in half an hour.

1 Day to Go

Tomorrow we enbark on a mission to the shores of Italy. Bring cases down to the music rooms in the morning and then all studnets have periods 1-3 as normal.

Final day in Barcelona

The students have all had fantastic weekends of family time and meals, watching films, shopping trips, days at the beach, football games and even trips to the snowy mountains. 

Today in school has consisted of observing a variety of classes, a Shakespeare workshop and performance, as well as a fantastic Spanish dance lesson! 

We leave soon to go to Barcelona airport, fingers crossed for a prompt 8pm take-off. Flight number on itinerary. ETA at school is 11pm but we will get students to call once on the coach to give a more specific pick-up time. 

Student blog Friday

We woke up this morning feeling quite tired from all of the walking and sight-seeing that we did around Barcelona yesterday. When we arrived at school we had to meet at the library, like usual, and we all talked about what we did last night. 
At around 9:30, we left the library to get the coach to Figueras which took roughly 2 hours (after going in circles a couple of times.) 
At 12:00 we had 'brunch' with our exchange partners whilst having a look around the town. Luckily, it was quite warm, so a picnic in the sun was enjoyable!
We took a tour around the Salvador Dalí museum and everyone agrees - he was a very crazy man! The paintings were very strange but interesting and a lot of thought and detail was put into each one. 
Then it was time to get back on the coach for the trip back to school. 
The day ended with us all walking into Sant Cugat and going out for dinner!
A big thank you to Mrs Martin, Mr Soyer and Maria for organising the activities this week, we have all thoroughly enjoyed it!

Imogen Bishop

Thursday's student blog

First we woke up to a chilly morning In sant cugat.  Then we caught the train to park guell as we found ourself struggling to climb the very steep hill, and when we finally reached the top we were amazed by the views. Then we sat down in the beautiful scenery and ate our lunch! Then we caught the metro to las ramblas to begin our treasure hunt around the market. We seemed to be slightly unsuccessful with the treasure hunt as we could not find the places! However to cheer us up we sat in the main square and had some ice cream and churros with chocolate.

Written by Lauren and Zak

Thursday

We are so proud of so many of our students who are really embracing the spirit of an exchange. We know many felt nervous and pretty scared but they are overcoming awkwardness, trying to speak more and more Spanish, are having a really great go at settling in to their host families. Everyone is being offered lots of lovely food, many have explored the town, some have dodged a triathlon their partners were doing?! 

Proud of you Hinchley Wood :)

Mrs M and Mr S 

A belated post from Wednesday

Due to some technical issues (students not being able to spell Mrs Martin's name in her email address...) here is the delayed guest student blog from Wednesday's HWS day in Barcelona. 

Today we got the metro in to Barcelona. It was a fun day which consisted of us visiting some major tourist attractions. We saw sagrada familia, which is famous because it was designed by the architect Gaudí. The squad (the four of us) made friends with turtles (see picture), spoke some professional Spanish and brightened up everyone's day. We managed to find a gorgeous toilet after asking many people (in Spanish) but Martha decided she could not wait in the queue and went to the men's instead lol. Ella seemed to be constantly eating random foods and took some pro pics. 

Tomorow we are going on a long walk and it will be so much effort but very special and memorable

We would like to do a quick shout out to Miss Martin and Mr soyer for being amazing tour guides and Maria is a lovely host lady person.

Written by Grace Weston-Jones, Martha Power, Seb Collins and Emily Godfrey (the squad)

First day in Barcelona

After breakfast with families and picnics ready, time to go exploring Barcelona starting with the Gaudi and the Sagrada Familia!

First group shot of HWS in Barcelona

We are here!

Team MFL have landed. Arrived safely, all the students are having lunch with their partners in the very, very loud canteen. A walk around Sant Cugat next before going off to host families at 5pm Barcelona time. 

Off we go!

On the plane about to take off. ¡Adiós Inglaterra!

Countdown to the Spanish Exchange

4 more sleeps until Barcelona! See you all bright and early on Tuesday morning at school.