Borta bra men hemma bäst!

Well, we made it!

I really want to see Filippa's film from the trip.

Thanks for being so fantastic. You guys are amazing!

So, where do we go from here?

If would be really nice if we could complete the blog.

I have left the days free so that you can write a simple text and we can add some photos and videos.

Follow-up work
Don't forget to write up a journal for the trip.
What did we do? Where did we go? What did you think about it?
For example, do you remember where and when this picture was taken?

and this one?

Then we have the compendium.

Let's have a look at it together!

Finally, how are we going to share the knowledge and experience you have gained from the trip to Ireland with other people?

Day 7- Home sweet home

Day 6- From Wexford to Dublin

Day 5- Excursion in Wexford

day 4- at the school

DAG 3 - IRELAND - 2018-10-15

Today was our last day at Abigail's hostel. It was Alma's birthday, so after we had packed our stuff, we sang for Alma at the breakfast. From everybody, she got a card and two Triss. The class had prepared a gift, a book which she had wanted for a very long time, called Milk and Honey. 

 

We went to Trinity College but we got kicked out pretty fast. They didn't allow bigger groups to visit the college. But we had time to take some pictures anyways!

So we went to see the Molly Malone statue instead.

We took a small look in St. Stephen's Green Shopping Centre.

We only had time to go to one shop, Flying Tiger😂

After that, we took a walk in St. Stephen's Green Park.

We had some spare time where we in small groups went on our own adventures 😂

At half past eleven, we gathered at the entrance to St. Stephens Green Shopping Centre, before we went back to Abigail's Hostel to get our bags, and took a short stop at Tesco's to buy some lunch (meal deals).

It took about 2-3 hours to get to Wexford from Dublin by bus. In the bus, we got to see beautiful landscapes with mountains, grass fields and animals. We ate our lunch, talked and slept in the bus.

We arrived to beautiful Kilmore Quay at 3 or 4 pm. The weather was amazing and the houses were white and beautiful, so it felt like we were in another country, like Greece, instead of Ireland!

After we had gotten our rooms at Coast Kilmore Quay, we went down to the sea, where the bravest of us took a bath. Some of us collected sea shells at the beach.

We also visited the port to watch the fishing boats and the view.

When we had gotten back, we ate at the hostels restaurant, and were happily surprised by the food, which was amazing! Alma also got surprised with a birthday cake🎂

Happy Birthday!

Tomorrow, we'll be visiting the school, so now we have to go to bed. Goodnight!

/Filippa

Day 2

14 October 2018
Today we on excel had some free time in the centre of Dublin and we went to Aqua zone.     

This is the outside of Aqua zone in Dublin,

there was 3 slides, a lazy river and a flow ride

a kind of surfing simulator.  We had a great

time.

  This is the Ha´penny bridge and it is one of the
  most well known bridges in Dublin it is located in
  the centre of Dublin.       

Klockar Eskil Nääs

The same day Fanny, Linnéa & Veronica went on their own little trip. First, they went on a "Hop on Hop of" tour in Dublin, the following pictures shows Christchurch Cathedral, Guiness brewery, Proclamation Sculpture and Ha'penny Bridge.

After the tour they passed Phoenix Park on their way to Dublin Zoo...

Then they finally got to the zoo and they spent the following 3 hours watching monkeys, elephants, tigers, lions, rhinos, red pandas, zebras, birds and other animals.

 The last stop was at St. Patricks Cathedral, it was very interesting. After that we did some shopping and we also had dinner.

Trip to Ireland Day 1

It started at 4 a.m. outside Excel School in Leksand. Everyone arrived on time.  Our intrepid drivers -Gordon and Stefan- took us very safely to Arlanda. We checked in at an unusually quiet airport and made our way through passport control. (This was the second passport control of the day-the first one took place at the school :-)

You can imagine how we should have felt when we realised that a group of 13 people was travelling on the 13th October from Gate 13!! 

Needless to say the trip went really well. Of course, we had to take a bank loan to buy a cup of coffee at Oslo Airport but we got away on time and arrived at a rainy DUBLIN on time too.

That was when the introduction to Irish logistics got off to an unusual start. We had booked bus tickets with a company called AIRlink. We discovered very fast that AIR stands for All Information Rubbish.
Looking like the Crazy Gang from a silent movie we raced from one terminal to the another (in fact Two Terminal to One) and after some major negotiations we headed off into the City.
As it turned out our Hostel (Abigails) was only a couple of hundred meters from the Bus stop.

The rooms were quite small but fully functioning.
Mike was with four boys in one room and Veronica with 7 girls in another!!

We thought about the song "Hallo father, hallo mother" ( Hejsan farsan hejsan stabben) when it says:

Vi har kul på kolonien,
Vi bor 28 gangstergrabbar I en...

So, it was time to hit the City! First foood!

(A meal for one or two persons!!!)

KFC, Chinese and Starbucks and then O' Connell Street and a new word in the Swedish language-
"Meal deal!" when we shopped at Tesco.
After a rainy walk we finally made it to Abigails where a tired bunch of weary travellers played some cards and read some books before making the bed and getting off to a well-earned good night's sleep. Goodnight dear blog and don't let any alarms in the middle of the night wake you up!!

Tomorrow we're leaving

Final countdown:-

1.Weather- It's going to be rainy and stormy when we arrive. Make sure you have a good rain jacket and/or umbrella

2. Euro- You don't need to go to Forex. You can get euros in Leksand at the ATM machine (in case you need them when we arrive)

3. Documenting the trip. 
We will use the class blog in the first instance and then we can publish on the school's homepage later.

4. Passport
If you forget your passport you can't travel.

5. Places in the cars
Veronica has planned as follows
School bus: 
Gordon (driver), Mike, Alma, Eskil, Oskar, Liam, Fanny, Victor
Stefan's car:
Stefan (driver), Amanda, Veronica, Elsa, Linnea, Ida, Filippa
If necessary one person more can travel in the bus.

6. Compendium
We will give you this when we get to Dublin

7. Learning some basic Irish greetings
Here is a pupil of your age giving you some info..




8. Halfpenny Bridge
This is one of the famous spots in Dublin which is very near our hostel. Read the text. 

9. Notebook/pen
Remember to have these with you in you backpack. It is a school trip!!!

10. Food in Coast
These are only sample menus
Early bird (3 course meal around 20€)

Any questions?

Three days left!

We now have three days and two English lessons left before we travel to Ireland.

The school trip has taken a lot of focus so we haven't been able to assess your performance in English.

Writing
Journal/Diary
One way of checking your writing skills to to write a journal/diary for your trip to Ireland. the easiest thing is to write a few lines every day while you are in Ireland.
When we get back I want you to hand in your journal/diary before you go on your mid-term break.
The journal should be at least 300 words for the entire trip

Speaking
I will be making assessment of your speaking skills and initiative. There will be smaller speaking tasks to carry out in the form of interviews. More info. on Friday.

Listening
You will be listening to a lot of English during the trip. Write down any interesting conversations you had in your journal/diary

Reading
We will have a small compendium with us of songs, poems and texts from books and or facts about the places we will visit. This information will be in English.

Today's lesson

In an earlier email you mentioned the idea of the visit being based on:-

 internationality, 

 English,

 physical activity 

and order and structure,

 democracy, 

global goals,

 sustainable development 

etc and so we have designed the days schedule around this as much as possible.  

Work on these points today:-

A short description of what we do in Excel

A couple of questions about their school

Good luck!

Bridgetown here we come!

Today we are going to prepare for the day at Bridgetown College

1. The planner

2. E-pals

3. Write a short email to the person you have got

We are going to start to prepare for the WALKING DEBATE

1. The two schools identify an area / areas of study  within the school curriculum  which could be beneficial to study from a comparative view. Here are some examples from previous visits:

• Learning modern languages ( what, why and attitudes)
• P.E and sports (What do the pupils do to "keep fit"?)
• School food and nutrition
• Social challenges (bullying, truancy, motivation)
• Dreams and goals with my education
• sustainable development
• Global goals( gender equality; responsible consumption; energy etc)

 

2. The pupils prepare questions and questionnaires on one or more subjects.

We can START to do some mini questionnaires today and finish them on Monday/ Wednesday

Start with Excel and then prepare your questions to ask them

Good luck!