Year 10's Eventful Trip to Barcelona

On Friday 28th April 53 Year 10 students and 6 teachers set off for Barcelona. 

On the first day, we had to wake up at 4:00am. Then we took a private bus to Heathrow. When we arrived in Barcelona, we placed our suitcases in a random shop to hold for the day and then went to La Rambla. It was a nice, fancy street with a lot of souvenir shops.Then we went to Palau Guell: a mansion designed by the architect Antoni Gaudí for the industrial tycoon Eusebi Guell. It was built between 1886 and 1888. Finally, when we finished exploring for that day, we went to a designated spot for our hosts to come and then the hosts took the students to their homes.

On day 2 we visited la Sagrada Familia and took lots of pictures. We learnt a little about how each tower represented a different thing, and when they hoped to finish construction. We had some free time in a park next to it to eat lunch, then went to the Barcelona cathedral. The cathedral was really big and impressive, and at the cathedral, we had a lot of free time to visit the gothic quarter. The gothic quarter had lots of pretty alleyways with shops, and you could buy lots of clothes, earrings and souvenirs. All the buildings were very beautiful, and everyone enjoyed it.

On day 3, we went to the Olympic Stadium. We explored the top of the stadium, and saw the huge football pitch. After that, we stopped for some free time and played football in the sun. Then we visited a shopping centre (Las Arenas) which used to be a bull ring. From there we went to the Gothic quarter and explored the narrow streets. On our journey there, Dr Bown was pickpocketed - we heard him shouting THIEF in Spanish and we had to wait at a nearby station while the teachers figured out what to do. The thieves were sneaky and tricked him, but we still managed to have a really nice day. We went to Plaza del Pi and explored the scenery. It started raining midway through, but regardless, it was still a great day full of excitement. 

On day 4, we all took a double decker train to Sitges in the morning, excited to meet some people our age at the Instituto Vinyet. We did some activities, learnt about their traditions and were hoping to have more fun later on at the beach but our visit was cut short by the power cut throughout Spain. To our horror, we had to wait for a coach for two hours and only a third of us got to go on. The rest of the group had to wait two more hours, and walk even more to come back home at 10 that night. The highlight for me was the time when electricity came back and I can still remember me, my friend and my host families shouting "¡Está aqui!" (It's here!) when the electricity came back.

The last day was Tuesday, when we had a very early start. We loaded our suitcases onto the coach then travelled to Sant Sadurni where we visited Simón Coll chocolate factory and another school. At the factory we were taught about the history of chocolate making and at the end of the visit we had an opportunity to buy some chocolate. At the school we watched and gave some presentations and then played lots of games with the Spanish students in a nearby park. Afterwards, we got back on the coach to the airport. We had some free time at the airport to buy food, then we got on the plane home.

Year 10 students Ruby R, Madeika M, Lucky S, Taem A and Maya W-S