This morning we managed to get a bit of a lie in. We decided on our usual breakfast of sandwiches and pastries from the local patisserie across the road. It has become quite amusing now as we enter the shop to see the faces of the ladies behind the counter, turn from beaming smiles into a look of dread. Unfortunately, they hardly speak English and although we’ve been in the country all week we can only manage ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ in Portuguese! So it’s safe to say ordering a breakfast for 7 people wanting various different things has been quite a challenge.

After breakfast we headed up to school for a stop motion work shop. Stop motion is an App to make a movie from still pictures. All the schools were split into groups consisting of one student from each country. (And there was a European staff group too). Each group then had to plan, design and produce a movie based on the Erasmus + project. Seeing students of different ages, backgrounds, and languages come together to share their ideas and thoughts was inspiring to say the least.   Joshua’s group used his idea of using a European ‘plate’ to show all the different types of food from each country.  Rhys had planned ahead, and brought his Lego action figures to be used in his groups theme. Each figure represented each country. And both girls played a big part in the themes for their groups. This was all happening while the staff table were panicking as to what they we all going to draw for our theme! Eventually all the groups produced their movies and loaded them into a website where we could all watch them. 

After such a busy morning we headed to the canteen for dinner.  Jasmine wolfed hers down and also anybody’s leftovers. If we’d been handing out ‘I’ve eaten all my dinner’ stickers, she definitely would have got one today.

We headed back to our accommodation to start packing and prepare for the farewell party.  This would’ve been easier if Mrs Parkin hadn’t have locked our door key in our room! Quite ironic really, as we had been badgering the children all week to keep things safe and we’d kept hold of their keys in case they did the very same thing. Slight embarrassing moment! 

We were collected by Renado who had become our chauffeur for the week. He is a history teacher and deputy head of the school. We all sat and enjoyed watching all the different countries’ traditional dances. Our children did fantastic. We were so proud of them.  We then enjoyed pizza and snacks and some delicious puddings. What was nice about the evening was that the children then chose there own music from their own countries to dance to, and all the other children joined in. Our children even taking a turn. Although their choice of cha cha slide and baby shark was somewhat questionable. Nevertheless the dance floor was full and being led on stage by four of the youngest students in the room. Wow! It just shows that dance is a universal language, and something that is enjoyed by all.

The night drew to an end with lots of goodbyes to new friends made.