We are Suze Peelen and Floor van Maanen and we are going to tell you about our trip to Portugal

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 The week before you go on exchange you are super nervous, you don’t know anything! You don’t know what your host family is like, you don’t know what the people are like there, the school is different, the times are different. It was the same with us!

We went to Portugal by plane. We waited for everyone in the departure hall and there we said goodbye to our family. There were six of us and we had to show the way together and look at signs where to go. Which direction, which gate through customs and much more! When we were through everything and went on the plane we could really relax and have fun in the plane! The view was so beautiful!

When we arrived we first took all our suitcases from the racks above us, because we were only allowed a hand luggage and a backpack. We took the bus to Braga and our host families were waiting for us there. Then the adventure really began!

Hostfamily

When we arrived at the host family, Suze and Floor were very nervous at first. Then we drove by car to the host family’s house. We introduced ourselves a bit along the way. When we arrived at the house we were given a tour and they showed us our room. Suze and Floor had their own room where they slept together. If we had unpacked our suitcase, we could go to the beach with them!

that we kept, and we also got ready for bed. We slept between half past eleven and half past oneThe following days we always ate around half past eight and sometimes we went out for dinner. Between ten and eleven we usually went to our room, we wrote in our diary .

School

The school was fifteen minutes away by car. We watched the school and did activities there. The children who attended school there were ten to sixteen years old. If you would see that school in the Netherlands, it is just like a secondary school for us activities

Every day we did activities with all the children. So were the Germans and our host family children. We usually went to the activities by bus from school.

Here’s a list of some of the activities we’ve done:

Sunday: We went to the beach with our host family monday: bomb jesus

Tuesday: went to all the beaches and cleaned up rubbish, and we looked at a fish stall and we had a birthday in the evening for friends of theirs.

Wednesday: work in the school garden and then to the mayor. Thursday: planetarium and we had dinner at school with everyone Friday: shopping

Saturday: back home

Sustainability

This is what we have all seen related to sustainability:

We were at Bom Jesus and there were 2 trains that ensured sustainability. One train was at the top of the mountain and the other train was at the bottom of the mountain. The upper train was filled with water, when the train was full it was heavy enough to go down and pull the other train up. This way people could go up and down sustainably, but a ticket does cost money.

We also went to the seven sources in Portugal, where they showed how they purified water in Roman times, and we were also allowed to look under the ground to see what it looked like there, it was super cool to see. Furthermore, the whole journey was about sustainability so we learned a lot more.

If you get the chance to go on an exchange do something like this you will never experience again!