Comeniusweek Belgian students 1 – 5 september 2015

 Hello, we are the Belgian students who had the opportunity to make a trip to the beautiful country Latvia. In this text, we want to tell you something more about the friendly people there and all our experiences.

 From the moment we arrived in Latvia, we were welcomed by the friendly teachers of the school. We directly felt the nice sphere of Riga. While we were riding to the hotel of our teachers, we saw for the first time the buildings and the beautiful river of Riga. When we arrived at the hotel, it was time to go with our host family to their home. Thanks for the warm welcome and the hospitality. It was nice to be very welcome there. After a delicious dinner and a calm night, we were ready to go to the summer camp, to visit new places and to meet new friends, friends we will never forget.
(Tine Cooreman)

 On the second day of our project we went to the Klasika summer camp in the village of Saulkrasti. Before going to the camp we went to the tarzans park. It was very nice there we all had an amazing time while we were there. We all went down the rodelbahn and after that we went for a hot chocolate at that Swiss log cabin. After that we went to see the widest cave in the Baltic area, wasn’t really that impressive. First day of the summer camp was nice.

Second day of the camp was the best day of the entire camp. We did the first 3 workshops; some of them were more interesting than other. But they were all fun to do, especially the games in the forest that workshop is a good memory. The best part of day 2 was the evening with the campfire and the party. At the campfire we met some wonderful Russian students and we stayed with them the entire evening and the remaining day of the summer camp.

We did 5 different workshops: writing, laboratory, handcraft flower painting, games and handcraft cardboard furniture. The cardboard handcraft workshop was the best because we had to analyze a blueprint first and later fabricate and decorate ourselves. I was advertiser and I had a lot of fun in making the advertisement, slogan and product name.

The hardest part was at the Riga train station when we had to say goodbye to all our new friends we made during those 3 days in Saulkrasti. It was an amazing time there, wish I could come back every year to the camp with those people. ( Nick Pauwels)

 We visited the KLASIKA School, it’s a private school in Riga.

They showed us a lot of classrooms. For the little children was the classroom very nice decorated and there also were beds, toys, … . I wish I still was a little kid so I could spend my days there ;)

 I found it good that, especially for adolescents, there aren’t a lot of students in one class because every student has enough attention from the teacher.

 We also saw the refectory where the children can get hot food as dinner and the room where the boys can show there technical skills.

 It’s a very big school and I think that children like the school very much. Everything is there what a student need, so they’re having a nice school ( Lieselot Wouters)

 After three days of educational and fun workshops at the Baltic coast, we visited Riga in the weekend. We started our tour through the capital of Latvia with a visit at the Classica Private School. The teachers showed us their wonderful school with great enthusiasm. Communicating with the children was difficult though, considering we spoke different languages.

 After the visit of the school we played a well-taught game to discover the city. This game was a fun combination of maths and fun facts about Riga. They gave you a paper where you had to solve mathematical problems in exchange for information about the city. It was a pretty big city, with half of the people of Latvia living there. Discovering it was eye opening and we spent an enjoyable morning.

 At midday the teachers recommended us a restaurant, where we had a decent lunch consisting of chicken and vegetables.

 Afterwards, we continued our tour with a boat trip on the rivers of Riga. This was without a doubt the moment I most enjoyed. Travelling by boat allowed us to see amazing views without the trouble of sitting in traffic. It was very relaxing after a morning of running around in the streets of Riga.

 Overall I thought of Riga as a modern and cultural city. The architecture is amazing: the churches were beautiful and the giant telephone tower was impressive. It was bigger and more stunning then I would’ve imagined.

 I also really enjoyed the opera, even if we couldn’t understand what the lady sung to her lovers from a balcony. Her voice was very strong in such a big room; it resonated all over the place. Seeing all the guests in suits or in ball gowns was a plus punt.

 A last aspect of Riga that I would like to mention, are the parks that were widely spread all over the city. They brought a touch of green nature that made the city seem even livelier. A lot of people spent their lunch there it seemed, and it all looked very peaceful and nice. ( Lukas Poppe)