Year 10 trip to Valencia

Day 1 - On Friday 24th April, 26 Cheney students (mostly year 10), woke up early in the morning and got to Cheney School around 3:30am. At 4am we took a private coach and arrived at London Gatwick airport at 6am. At 9am, we departed from London Gatwick Airport and arrived in Valencia at 12:00pm, where we immediately took the metro to the centre and dropped off our luggage. We then had free time to get some lunch. At 14:00pm we had a walking tour of Valencia and  finally, at 18:30, we ended the day by meeting our host families at Avenida Del Cid metro station.

Day 2 - On Saturday we left our houses at 8:00am in the morning to arrive at the meeting place at 8:30am. After we had all arrived at the meeting point we started walking towards the central ‘Mercat’ (Valencian for ‘mercado’) where we were given 2 hours of free time to walk around the market. After having lunch in a nearby park we headed off to the City of Arts and Sciences where the Oceanographic center was located. When we arrived we were given 1:30 hours of free time to look around the aquarium. There were all kinds of ocean animals ranging from the Tropics all the way to the Arctic. After we had all met back up we headed towards the ‘hemispheric’ where we all watched a documentary about sea life. The last thing we did that day was walk back to the place where we had met up in the morning and go home.

Day 3 - On Sunday, after everyone met up at the meeting point at 8:30, we walked to meet up with a lady who gave us a guided tour of the air raid shelters used to shelter from fascist air raids in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Our guide also brought us to a Military History Museum where we learnt more about Valencia during the War. Afterwards, we decided to go to a nearby park to have lunch. Most students played a football game under the hot sun. Around 15:00, we walked to the beach where students either relaxed or joined a big game of volleyball. On the way back to the meeting point to see our host families, we took the metro due to everyone's exhaustion.

Day 4 - On Monday once we had all met up in the meeting place we walked to a nearby park to practice the presentations we had all been working on before the trip. Each group had to practice what they were going to say and write it on a piece of paper. Once we had all practiced our presentations we went to the first school of the trip, IES Juan de Garay, when we arrived we were welcomed by the teachers who worked there. We were all put in a class where we waited for a group of students to give us a tour of the school. After the tour the  Spanish students gave their presentations of Valencia , once they had all finished it was our school's turn to present. 3 of our 6 groups did their presentations about Oxford - all in Spanish! After everyone finished their presentations we headed outside to the playground and did a variety of activities like football and basketball. After that,  we left the school and walked towards a restaurant that served us Tapas. A lot of us were playing uno and enjoying the time while eating traditional Spanish food. The last thing we did was go to a massive shopping centre called  El Corte Ingles. We were given 3 hours of free time to look around the 6 floors of shopping. A group of us played hide and seek in one of the bigger buildings. We were also allowed to go to a park which we went to after we had bought a football. Yet again the last thing we did was walk to the meeting point and go home. 

Last day - On Tuesday, we said our goodbyes to our host families and put our bags in storage then we started heading to another school, IES Luis Vives, to do our presentations. After the three hours of spending time in that school, we headed to the centre and we had around 2 hours of free time. Most students went shopping, some played games. Most year 10 girls got matching ‘I love Valencia’ shirts and wore them straight away. Once our free time ended we went to get our luggage and at 17:45 we took the metro to Valencia Airport. At 18:30 we arrived at Valencia Airport and went straight to security. We only had around an hour to find dinner at the airport. The girls who got matching shirts asked people to sign the back of them. At 21:35 we departed from Valencia Airport on an EasyJet flight. At 23:05, we arrived at London Gatwick Airport and immediately headed out to find our private coach. At 1:30 in the morning, we arrived at Cheney School, where our parents picked us up to go home.

Richelle and Nicolas (year 10)