13/02/2009 - Last goodbye

The last day, all the host families went to Kemi’s airport to leave their student. Some of them went to school before to have a small lunch or some food. When all the students had arrived at the airport, some host families stayed there to say goodbye. The students also said goodbye to all Swedish people and they thanked them for all the experiences that they had made possible. At 1 o’clock, we took the small airplane from Kemi to Helsinki. When we arrived at the airport, we had free time and we took a photo of all the Spanish Comenius group. An hour later, we took a plane to Barcelona and we arrived at nine o’clock. This day closes the first year of the Comenius project, a project with a lot of new experiences, with a lot of new friends and, of course, with a lot of contrast between the northern culture and the southern culture of Europe.

12/02/2009 - An original castle

The day started with ordinary lessons with the host students, and at 9.15 we had Swedish lessons.
Later, the Swedish group played a special trivial pursuit game; they had to answer questions about Catalan customs, and all the things they had learnt while they were in Barcelona. After giving a prize to the winners, we all went to have lunch at school.
Later on, we took the bus to Kemi in order to see the Snow Castle, where we really had fun and saw many interesting items made of ice.
At five o’clock in the evening we had a Farewell dinner at Tornedalsskolan, a very special dinner for the last night in Haparanda.
We heard the speeches from the headmaster and the teachers (Swedish and Catalan), talking about the experience that we all had lived, ones in Barcelona and others in Haparanda, and thanking everybody for the hospitality and kindness that we had been given during the exchange. Two Swedish students (Emilia and Meiju) also made a very emotive speech about how very good friends both Swedish and Catalan had become during those days and about all the emotions and laughts we had shared.

On the one hand, it was a happy dinner full of laughter, but on the other hand, it was also sad, because it was the last night in there for the Catalan group and none of us wanted the project to end.

10/02/2009 - Cultural morning

On Tuesday 10th we met at school at 8:10 to get on the bus to Kukkolaforsen. Kukkolaforsen is a nice campsite where the water of the river was still running despite the low temperatures, a special characteristic that impressed us. First of all, we visited the typical Swedish saunas and the “Fisk Museum” (Fishing Museum), where we learn new things about fishing in Sweden. Then, we made use of our cameras to take photos of the beautiful landscape that surrounded us. We enjoyed the place because there was a lot of snow and it was sunny.

After that, we took the bus again and we went to visit a computerised farm. There the farmer explained to us how the farm works every day. We could also see how the cows are fed and the farm technology. Later we took the bus to Övertornea, where we had lunch in a school called “Centralskolan”. There we could taste good food including salmon, the typical Swedish fish. When we finished, we visited the Church of Övertornea. A guide showed us the churchyard and then we went into the church. While we were looking at the different pictures of the walls and the structure of the church, the guide explained to us its history.

After this last visit, the bus picked us up and we returned to our guest student’s home, to have dinner. Then we didn´t have programmed activities and we did different things with some friends.

09/02/2009 - Reindeers' island

On Monday we met at school at 8.10 in the morning. We took a bus which drove us to Seskarë, the island where we could see the reindeers.
There we met a reindeer keeper and his reindeer Jerry, which we could touch and feed. There was a fire in the snow, and we sat there and had coffee and a special coffee cheese. It’s a typical cheese that the hunters eat while hunting as it brings a lot of energy. We also tried lassoing, and some of us succeeded in it!
The place was very nice and we had good weather. Some of us had a snow war there!

Then we went back to the school and had lunch. In the afternoon we went to the sports center in Haparanda, where we played football, volleyball, badminton and also floorball, which was new for us. We also went to the arts room and printed our own t-shirt with a very nice picture made by Meju, which symbolized the project.

After dinner some of us met in the cinema to watch “Twilight” in the Haparanda cinema.
This was a very nice and long day!

08/02/2009 - Bad weather and lots of snow

This day we went to the river at 12 o'clock to do some activities in the snow. We did activities like sleigh races, went with snowmobiles, we went down on snow mountains, and in theory we went to the river to do fishing but because of the bad weather we were cold and all the Catalan students became frozen.
This situation made us go home very early. At half past one, everybody stayed with their families or with the friends for the rest of the day.

06/02/2009 - Haparanda’s history & Hockey

Friday 6th of February all of the Catalan students went to take Swedish classes in Tornedalsskolan for three hours, very early in the morning. The two first hours were classes of our exchange partners, and the last was the Swedish class for us, in order to learn something more of the language of that country. Then, around half past eleven, we went to take lunch at the hotel of the village where our teachers were hosted, “Haparanda Stadshotell”, and the food was delicious. After that, we went to a conference about Haparanda’s history. The place was really close to the hotel.
In the afternoon, all of the Swedish and Catalan students went to “kobenhavn”, the unique ice hockey stadium of the village, and there we had an incredibly nice time together.
Finally, at night, some of us went to the “Station”, the youth council, and we enjoyed all of the games like pool, trumps, computer games… A very wonderful day!!!

05/02/2009 - Santa's home

We arrived at Tornedalsskolan at the same hour as everyday. The sun was starting to rise and we took the school bus that would take us to the Finnish city of Rovaniemi. The trip was approximately three hours long but it wasn’t boring for anybody, we had a good time with our friends: playing cards, listening to music, sleeping or watching a movie. Like in every activity, some of the Swedish students came with us: Elin K., Linda and Linnéa.

Before going to the famous house of Santa Claus, we had a guided visit through Arktikum, the greatest museum about Lapland. The guide showed us lots of elements related to Sámi culture, like clothes, tools and some specific animals from the area.
After that we had lunch there and then we watched a video about northern lights and some spectacular Nordic views.

We took the bus again and went to Santa’s Village. It was really amazing but so was the cold. That same day we reached the shocking temperature of -30º C. We entered into the main house and we finally saw Santa Claus and took a picture with him. He was a big old funny man. He also knew something about Barcelona, its football team and Catalan language.

After the picture we went shopping around the thousand stores that were in the little village and we left completely frozen. It was a great unforgettable day.

04/02/2009 - Ski, football and sausages!

On Wednesday 4th of February we followed our Swedish students to their ordinary classes. Some had Religion and Maths, others History and Science…After two hours of hearing Swedish only and understanding nothing, we went to our special Swedish lessons. We learned how to introduce ourselves, the days of the week, the name of the months, the colours and how to tell the time. Even if it was too soon for us to have lunch (11:30), we went to the school cafeteria and we had pasta and a sausage (Swedish bread, butter and salad too). Afterwards, we walked to Polarica, where Disa’s mother works, she explained to us how this company works and what they do. They sell reindeer, kangaroo and elk meat among others. We were given lingonberry and blueberry juice, both of them very tasty. She also gave us a small orange bitter fruit that contained the same amount of vitamin C as 8 oranges!!.
Each one of us left to have dinner with their families and we met again at eight o’clock at the skiing facilities. There we borrowed skis and boots from our host families and had a go on long distance cross country skiing. Despite being harsh for the beginners, Spanish students caught up very quickly and finished the track with no problems. Meanwhile, some teachers prepared a barbecue, where we roasted sausages and drank pear juice. A football match on the snow and a snowball fight followed the supper. We had lots of fun!!.

03/02/2009 - Sunny day in Haparanda

Tuesday began with a sunny day, a strange thing there in winter. The Comenius group of Haparanda said that it was a warm day but the temperature was nine degrees below zero.
All students met in the morning in the auditorium, where the Tornedalsskolan’s headmaster, John Waltari, and Britt Inger Lindfors, who belongs to the Comenius teachers group, gave us their warmest welcome. They explained some things about the days we were going to stay there and they promised more snow (a curious thing because heaps of snow were shining outdoors).
After a perfect welcome, we went straight to do a guided tour of the school, which was explained by the teachers and the students; Tornedalsskolan was very equipped with new technology, a biology area, a bar and the whole of the school was prepared to study comfortably.
When the tour was finished, we stayed in a Swedish class to compare the level between Sweden and Spain.
Our hunger was increasing because of the lessons, so we had lunch, which was very different from our lunch because of the time we had it and the food.
Afterwards, we took a bus to go on a guided tour of the local area of Haparanda and Tornio, Finland. We also visited the Church of Haparanda, which is different from our church because of the religion, and the Aine Arts Museum in Tornio, the exhibitions of which weren’t finished.
The afternoon was relaxing. Most of us went to a bar and tasted some typical foods from there before the big dinner that we had in the evening in a Japanese restaurant, where most of us ate a pizza. This was the welcome dinner and all of us were there.
The day concluded in a youth local that is built in Haparanda, where young people stay and spend time playing games.

02/02/2009 - Day of trips

The first day of Comenius project was 2nd February. The meeting point was the airport. There the 21 students and 3 teachers started the trip. There we said goodbye to our parents. After that, for two hours, we waited inside the airport to go through the security controls.
Later, we took the plane to Helsinki, which lasted 4 hours. We stayed in Helsinki airport for 2 hours to take the last plane to Kemi. It was boring but we knew that the experience was gonna be amazing. The journey was complicated because the plane was old and little. It was amazing, three people were changed of place to balance the plane and not to crash.
In Kemi, at 6 o’clock, we met parents and our Swedish friends, and each one left with their host family.