Presentation ESGN MANRESA
Art Nouveau - Portugal
Text written by students
"Nossa, nossa" what an amazing week we had! All started on Saturday, the 26th when we arrived in Barcelona, and went to Artés to meet our hosts (Queralt, Anna Carol, Eva, Maria, and Jan). All the students received us with love and care. On the first day, Sunday, we went to the school, where we saw some of the Catalan students performing typical dances and music. After that, all the countries presented their works about the visit to Portugal and Art Noveaux. This took longer than it was supposed to, and we could only think about lunch! Then we went to visit Artés.
On the next day, we went to Barcelona, where we had the chance to visit the Sagrada
Familia, which was amazing: all the detail work of Gaudi was expressed on that cathedral, even though, it's not finished yet! After lunch we visited "La Pedrera", one of Gaudi’s best know buildings and walked along "Passeig de Gracia", and "Plaça Catalunya".
On Tuesday we went to the school, where we attended some classes , a very interesting experience, because we could see how different they were. As we were with different students, from different classes, we attended Biology, Technology, Math, Catalan and Latin. After classes, everybody went to Sant Benet Monastery where we did workshops on the origin of some kinds of food, and prepared hot chocolate, lemon juice, and a typical drink from Catalonia. To end the day, we walked through Manresa, while the Spanish students explained us the most beautiful modernism buildings.
On the fourth day of our visit, we worked in multinational teams on pre-defined outcomes (for a newspaper), and presented the results to everybody. After having lunch in the school canteen, we went together to "Forn de la Calç", where we attended workshops on traditional dances, and painted tiles on the style of the artist Gaudi.
On Thursday, all the students and teachers went to Montserrat to visit the Choir of Escolania de Montserrat, a school where young boys go to study music, and to be part of the choir. Also, some people went for a long walk in the beautiful mountains of Montserrat; despite being very tiring, because it was really hot, the walk was absolutely worth the effort.
On that same day, at 8:30 pm we had to go to a final dinner, which was a great party organized by our hosts and their families. There was a lot of music, and we all sang for the entire time, very happily, because on the next day we would have to say goodbye to our friends.
Sadly, the last day arrived. We went to Barcelona again, but this time we visited the Parc Güel (from Antoni Gaudi), and in the afternoon, we walked through the Rambles and went to see Barcelona sea port.
Finally we took the bus to the airport where, unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to our new friends. We arrived to Portugal more or less at midnight. We were tired but happy, with smiles in our faces and with the certainty that we had had a lot of fun and that we had made some great friends and been through awesome experiences together.
The only thing left to say is that it was a truly amazing week and that the will of going back to Artés to visit our friends is huge! A big thank you to the Comenius Project, for giving us the opportunity to meet amazing places and people!
