Anni and Emma’s blog

7th of December: Three days

I and Emma are going to Croatia for a week. There are also four other students and two teachers from our school coming with us. I can’t wait! I haven’t packed anything yet. I have never been to Croatia, or in a plane! I’m really looking forward to the trip. We are going to stay in a family of five: mum, dad, Lana (12 years), Toni (8 years) and Matija (8 months). They also have two dogs, rabbits and sheep. The dad works in a meat shop and mum is a chef.

Waiting eagerly, Anni :)

10th of December: The first day

Hi, it’s Emma! We left Alavus at midnight. A minibus came to pick us up at school, and it took us to Helsinki. I’m already homesick but I’d have to manage for a week. Everyone was really excited in the morning, but as the plane took off, we calmed down.

At 8.32 in Munich: We are in Munich Germany. We were really nervous when the plane took off. I visited London in the fall, so I have been in a plane before. The atmosphere is relaxed and the lunch is tasty. If someone from my class is reading this, don’t worry: you’ll get some souvenirs!

10th of December: Hello again!

At 19.34 we are waiting for a bus at the Zagreb airport. The bus is coming at eight, but we will not get on the road before nine.

There are seven countries in this Erasmus+ project: Finland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Romania, Greece and Croatia. Turkey arrives at nine o’clock, so we’ll wait for them. The Croatians have planned the day, so we don’t know what’s coming. Today we had a day off. We just walked around Zagreb. We ate in a really good restaurant and had a smoothie too in the evening. Now we are just sitting at the Zagreb airport and waiting to go.

10th of December: Zagreb

So we had a lot of time because our flight was earlier than planned. We have spent the whole day in Zagreb. We had a personal guide Lauri Setälä. He lives in Zagreb where he studies international trade. We went to eat in Lauri’s favourite restaurant and sightseeing. We saw St Mark’s Church and an underground tunnel. We also had some coffee and smoothies.

Advent is celebrated for the entire December. The streets were full of people and merchants. People had colourful lights and glow sticks, and the trees were decorated with led lights. It felt like being in China. There was an ice skating rink in the middle of the market square.

11th of December: To school

Hi, it’s Emma and Anni! We had a busy day today. We went to school called Districtin-school. It is divided into two separate learning modules. Lana goes to the one in the centre and some of her friends go to the one we visited today. It was the first school on our journey. Tomorrow we’ll visit the other one. Today at school we made decorations for Christmas trees and also decorated the tree. It was fun. We also made ancient Greek-styled boxes. But the highlight of the day was when we showed the video about Finland and everyone got to ask questions. The most commonly used answer was sauna. In the evening we went for a swim and are spaghetti. Good night!

12th of December : Tuesday

Today we had a tour around Slavonski Brod. We had a quick visit at Lana’s school, a different school than yesterday. We had a small problem in the morning: we had a meeting point where everyone was supposed to meet. I and Emma thought that Lana would know where to go, so we followed her. Soon we realized that she didn’t know the place, only the address. Luckily people here in Croatia are really friendly, so a nice lady showed us the right place.

We had a tour in a fortress and in two different museums. After the tour we took a walk by the river and went to a restaurant. We had noodle soup for a starter, it was good. As the main dish we had some kind of local bread with meat inside. That was also good. We also got some French fries, ketchup and mustard. After lunch we went to Lana’s school where we saw a play about the history of Europe. After that we went to the church. There we listened to Christmas songs and saw plays. Then we went to the families, ate dinner and now we are writing these.

13th of December: Going to Zagreb

Today we started the day really early as we left Slavonski Brod at seven o’clock. The bus ride took two hours, and when we arrived at Zagreb we had a sightseeing tour. We saw many nice places.

We had some soup for lunch and then had some free time with our own countries. The Finnish team went shopping to the city market square. After shopping we walked to the meeting point and said goodbye to Zagreb. We left to Slavonski Brod and in the evening we just hang out and watched our phones.

14th of December

Hello! Today we were at school and we had mostly workshops. We made angels out of corn peels. It was very challenging. We also had a dance workshop, where we learned Croatian folk dances. It was super fun. For lunch we had pizza. The highlight of the day was when all the countries had a presentation of their daily life. It was fun to see wht kids around Europe do every day. School finished at three, so after school we just hang out and waited Alana from her dance class. Then we went to candy shop to buy souvenirs. Now we are ready to go to bed.