Erasmus+ Report
on the
1st Student’s Exchange
in
Gandìa/Spain
from the
7th – 14th
March 2016
1st day in
Spain:
Tired but thrilled we
started our journey to Gandìa in Spain on Monday the 7th of March. Because the
train to the airport in Graz left at 6:43 a.m., we had to get up really early
in the morning and spent the bus trip trying not to fall asleep. After a short
toilet break at the airport, our plane took off to Zürich. For many of us it
was the first flight and so we were all very excited and couldn’t wait to get
on the plane. Although it first was a strange feeling to fly, we all really
enjoyed it. After one hour of waiting on the airport of Zürich, which we spent
starring at people and doing nothing, our plane to Valencia finally took off.
After a flight which lasted at least two hours, we were all glad to touch town
safely in Valencia. Now we had arrived in Spain. Although the weather wasn’t
that nice and it was raining, it was such a great feeling being there. Then we
took the train from Valencia to Gandìa. The train journey was relaxing compared
to the exciting flights. Finally we arrived in Gandìa at five o’clock. At the
train station the host families were already waiting for us. We were all very
thrilled when we first saw each other and could get to know each other better.
As I arrived at my host family’s house I was really surprised that they didn’t
put off their shoes when entering. But I soon got used to it and was looking
forward to learning more about their culture. After the short stay at “home”
and although we were very tired, we all met again in town to have some fun. Our
new Spanish friends invited us for a milkshake in a little café in Gandìa.
After we had seen a small part of Gandìa we got back to our friend’s house and
had the first dinner with our host families. So a wonderful day in Spain ended,
but in the end we were all very pleased that we finally were able to get some sleep.
Katharina Hammer, Viktoria Petritsch, Verena
Fössl
2nd day in
Spain:
The day started at 9 o'clock with
a tour through the city of Gandìa which was done by the headmaster of our
partner school. The tour began with taking a look at some special places of Gandìa.
After a few beautiful places we visited the "El Palacio Ducal" which
is famous because of its special religious meaning "Jesuits". Some of
the floors and mosaics are from the 15th century which is very impressive to
see. After this tour we had a short lunch break. At 12 o'clock we visited the town
hall of Gandìa where we met the major of the city. After this we went home to
get our clothes for the beach, but before we went to the beach we played
football with all the other children. When we arrived at the beach some of us
changed the clothes and went into the sea. After this great but also very cold
experience we went back to the downtown of Gandìa where we went through the
streets.
Martin Steinwender
3rd day in Spain
After a short night and a good
breakfast we set off to school. On the way we bought a sandwich for break and
met in front of the school gate at half pas eight. The weather was very sunny
and it was one of the best days in the whole week. At first we had to wait,
till the teachers arrived and we passed the time with playing lots of games in
English, Spanish and German. When our teachers arrived we went together to the
“Espurna”. This is a house where people with disabilities work and live. They
welcomed us in a friendly way and after a short introduction we were allowed to
work. With support from the handicapped people we were diligently working. We
created a mosaic with lots of tiny colourful pieces. We assembled many small pieces
together using glue. This was great fun, because after that the glue was spread
all over the workshop – also on our hands and fingers. While our pieces of arts
had to dry we visited a close building where accommodation for people with
special needs is offered. After the visit of the 15 flats in the accommodation
exchange students prepared a Spanish tradition. They blew up lots of colourful
balloons. Then we returned to the workshop “Espurna” and all balloons were
burst in order to copy the noise of a real “Valencian maskleta”. After that we
went back to school and ate there. We had “Paella” for lunch. This is the
traditional meal of Spain and it is made with rice, vegetables and meat
(chicken and / or rabbits). For dessert we had yoghurt with fruits.
After lunch we went back to
“Espurna” and finished our work, we grouted the mosaic with a sort of joint
compound. Finally all works were very beautiful and gorgeous.
In the evening, we met together
with all the Spanish and Austrian students to a shopping centre. After a great
shopping tour, we went to a restaurant and had our dinner there. Finally, we
got home at ten o’clock and were happy to be in bed.
Weiss Victoria
4th day in
Spain
The 10th was most the beautiful
day of our journey. Our day started at 9 o’clock at the train station. There we
first met our friends and their exchange students. Before we got into the bus
we had told our friends the breaking news about the night and the family. The
bus trip to Valencia took an hour. During our bus trip, we played some games.
At 10 o’clock we luckily arrived
in Valencia. The weather in Valencia was nice. It had 23 degrees. Our first
sight in Valencia that we visited the Torres de Serranos. The Torres de
Serranos are two old towers, which stand in the middle of Valencia. These two
towers are from the year 1865.
Afterwards we were able to see
one of the smallest houses in Valencia. It is only 1,50m wide and has 5 floors.
After the small house we visited
a cathedral. This cathedral is called Lonja de la Seda. It is from the year
1469. We visited it also on the inside. Besides, this building is so big and
high and has got a very nice inner courtyard with lots of trees. All these
trees are orange trees and carried lots of fruits. After our guided tour
through Lonja de la Seda we went step by step to the next attraction.
The next attraction that we saw,
was the biggest market in Valencia. This market is very special because you can
only buy fresh fruits, fish, cheese and meat. This market hall is one of the
biggest in Valencia and has got many
kinds of fruit, cheese, meat and fish. On top of this at the fish shops you
have got some fish which are alive. That was fascinating. One shop had 30 eels
in one little pool. At this market you also have to be very careful because of
the robbers. We had to take our bags in front of our chest. In the whole city
you have to be very careful because there are so many people and it is easy to
take your bag and disappear within the crowd of people.
After the fresh fruits, which we had bought,
we were full of energy to go ahead to the next attraction but before that we
had time to buy some souvenirs and presents. In this free time we gave the poor
birds of Valencia some bread.
Our next stop after the break was
the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. This is one of the biggest places in Valencia and
has a very big fountain. At this place every year the famous Mascletà takes
place. The Mascletà is a very big firework dating from the 1st March until the
19th March. It happens every day stating from 2 p.m. This firework only took
only 10 minutes when we were there. At this Mascletà the whole Plaza del
Ayuntamiento is visited by people. There were young kids, teenagers, men and
women.
After Mascletà we went back to the bus
station, where we had arrived. At the bus station the bus driver was already
waiting. We got in and went by bus to the Museu de les Ciencies. This museum is
very famous and so beautiful. It isn’t like a normal museum, it is very modern
from the inside and the outside. After the arrival we had some free time to
take photos from us and the buildings. We stayed at this museum until 4p.m. and
then we went back to Gandìa. The bus trip took also only an hour.
When we arrived at the train
station in Gandìa it was half past 5 p.m. . We said goodbye to our teachers and
our friends and went home.
After our arrival at home we drank and ate
something. Afterwards we went in the city of Gandia with all students of
Austria and their exchange students. In the city we went shopping, played some
games and had dinner.
Julian Rieger & Ulrich Spitzer
On Friday the 11th of March we visited Xàbia and Altea. After a
short night and a delicious breakfast we met at the train station and went by
bus to the harbour. We didn’t know where we were going. Later we realized that
we will would take a boat to Xàbia. The cruise with the boat was very funny and
of course everyone liked it. This was the highlight of the day especially when
we were allowed to sit on the nets of the catamaran which are fixed so that we
could feel the water splashing through. It was a beautiful trip.
When we arrived in Xàbia we went
by bus in the centre of the city where we had some free-time. During this time
we had lunch, took photos of the sea or walked around. Xàbia is a beautiful city with a beautiful
beach. The Sea is very clear and the beach is really clean. It is a real secret
insider tip spending holiday.
After this beautiful stay we went
by bus further to Altea. We (the Austrian delegation) were looking for an ice-cream
while we had free-time again. We went to the port wall where we climbed some
rocks. Of course, we also took a lot of photos and relaxed. After 2 hours of
free time we went by bus back to Gandìa. This was one of the best days of the
week. Back in Gandìa each of us went
home to our host family. At 7 o’clock,
we had to meet at school for a party for the students in which the Spanish-people
made a presentation about the last 5 days while we prepared the room for the party.
At the party there were all the host-parents, siblings and the teachers. We had
a review of the week and the project. Later we had dinner at school.
After 2 hours we went to the town
for a “last milkshake”. After that we enjoyed the last evening together. Later we
celebrated with our host-family.
Everyone had a great time in
Gandìa. We all are very thankful being part in this project, meeting new
people, learning about other cultures and having new experiences with disabled
people. We are looking forward to February to meeting these amazing people
again in Austria in February.
Anna-Theresa Bischof
6th day in
Spain
Today it was time to leave the
city Gandia. We had to say goodbye to all of the families and friends we met
there. We had a great experience and funny times with these people and before we
left, we took some pictures with all our Spanish friends and the families. They
were all really friendly people and we enjoyed the time with them a lot.
After we took the pictures, we
said goodbye to all of them and left Gandia by train. On the way to Valencia,
we were all talking, about the funny and the boring times with our families. We
were all sad about leaving the families and our new friends we met in Gandia.
It took us about an hour to get to the city Valencia.
As we arrived in the beautiful city of Valencia, we had to find our hotel. As
we were searching for the Petit Palace Hotel, we had the chance to look at the
surroundings of our stay. As we saw a part of the city, we were very excited to
walk through the streets of Valencia. The buildings have an old building-style,
but at the inside, it is modern built.
Because we knew about where the
hotel was it did not take us long to find it. After we found the hotel, we
checked in and went into our rooms. The hotel was very nice, because it was
very modern and the reception was friendly too.
Later on, we went to the
shopping-street. There they had two shopping centres and many other shops. It
only took us about 15 minutes to get there and then we had one-hour shopping
time. We could only go to a few shops, because we did not have the amount of
time we needed for all of the shops. However, the teachers promised us, that we
would go to this street again, before we fly back to Austria.
Then we met
again to go to a place where we could eat a snack together, but we could
not find a place to sit, because it was so busy, that is why we went to a
fast-food-restaurant called “Tele-Pizza”. After we ate our food, which tasted
very good, we went back to the hotel. As we got there the teachers told us,
when we had to meet up again and then we went into our room.
Thomas Reiter
7th day in
Spain
We started our day at 8 o’clock
in a beautiful city which is called Valencia. We got ready for breakfast and
met at half past nine in the lobby of the hotel. Then we went to Starbucks. We
ate cookies, pieces of cake and we drank coffee and fresh fruit juice. After
this we were in a park where we chilled until the bus arrived. On the trip to
one of the biggest aquariums of Europe which is called “l’oceanogràfic”, we saw
many different buildings and a bullfighting arena where a bullfight took place
and many people queuef up for it. In the aquarium we watched a dolphin show and
saw many animals living in the water. We saw seals, ducks, fish, flamingos and
also many fascinating sharks, which were the best. At the shark tank, we could
walk through a tunnel and watched these great animals around us. After this we
went by a double-decker bus to the beach of Valencia. We ate at a burger
restaurant, took beautiful photos and collected shells at the wonderful sandy
beach. Later we went back to the city by bus. After an amazing and exhausting
day we had dinner and we took an amusing shopping tour through a mall. Back at
the hotel we talked about the last week, ate the sweets that were left and
packed the suitcase for the trip back to Austria on the next day.
Alexandra Papst
8th day in Spain
It was a cold and cloudy day in
Valencia when our journey started back home to Judenburg. We got up at 8
o’clock and went to Starbucks’ coffee for a little breakfast. After breakfast we hurried back to the hotel to get
ready for the drive to the airport. At around 10 am. we went to the local Metro
station and drove to the airport. We were very excited and wanted to see our
families at home.
After a fast check-in we went through the
security control to our gate. There we had to wait for around 50 minutes so we
used the time to shop around in the duty free zone. At 12 o’clock we entered
the Lufthansa A321 to head to Frankfurt Airport. Some of us were very nervous. After
the take-off we got a fantastic view around the city of Valencia. We headed
north and had a nice climb through the clouds. After reaching the top of the
flight attitude the cabin crew began to serve some drinks and food. Some played
games on their mobile phones to pass the time of the flight. Unfortunately
there was no on board TV so we didn’t know where we were. Prof. Fiechtl was
sleeping nearly the whole flight also the others were listening to music or
looking out of the window. Above Germany we started our decent towards
Frankfurt and we also had a smooth landing. During our waiting time in
Frankfurt we logged in the free WIFI Zone as quickly as possible to check messages
or news of our friends and families. After a boring waiting time we entered our
E190 to Graz. We saw an impressive sunset above the clouds, most of us took
lots of photos out of the aircraft. We were quite surprised when we flew above
the Murtal, our home. After the landing in Graz we phoned our parents to tell
them that we had landed safely, we also waited for our bus back home. During
the “journey” back home we had a lot of fun with our teachers. At our homes we
unpacked our things and went to bed very late.
So all in all it was a very funny
but also a hard day for us. We were also glad to be back home.
Mathias Moitzi, Mathias Reiter
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