MORE MEETINGS & ARCHEOLOGY

We took a 60 kilometer trip to the north to visit two Portuguese schools that will also join the project. The first meeting was held in the morning at an Archeological school the very unique little town of Tongobriga, where remains from a Roman village dating from the 1st to the 4th century were found in 1980. Ever since they have been excavating the place continuously. Incredibly interesting! We got a tour from one of the archeologists and the headmaster.
The site is huge. We saw the forum and the ancient bath houses (Thermes). The explanation was superb!

The meeting about the project was held in a modern building on the premises, where the central heating didn't work. Everyone was wearing their coats and jackets. My feet were freezing! Unfortunately the meeting was very slow. It seemed as if we never got to a final decision on the project's schedule. Eventually we decided there will be 4 meetings in the upcoming two schoolyears. The Comenius-project has a duration of two years.

The first meeting - after we have all sent in the applications to our national agents - will be in November 2008. The request is the meeting is to be held in Dordrecht. I will have to forward that idea to our headmaster and school management. It will be a meeting of teachers only.

Then the next mid-project meeting is to be held in April 2009 (which will include a small student delegation). This will most likely be in Finland. I suggested the third meeting to be a parrallel meeting in different countries, together with a number of students. So for instance three schools meeting in Italy, and three other schools meeting in Spain. With today's technique we could easily have a video conference.

The final presentation will then conclude the project in April/May 2010 here in Porto at the coordinating school.

Obviously I will have to check everything with my colleague Jurrie and the school's management, before we can actually give a green light. Personally I think this could be a very interesting project to work on!

The premises of the agricultural school reached as far as the eye could see

We visited anothother school as well this morning: The Escola Professional Agricola do Marco de Canavesesm,... An agricultural school - pretty much like ours - but with an unbelievably big area around the school that is school property. They have their own vinyards, greenhouses, stables, orchards (apples, plums, hazelnuts...), milkcows...
Very impressive! The school only counts about 90 students. A school of this size would have long been shut down in the Netherlands.
The school cafetaria served an excellent lunch. The dessert sits in my stomach like a piece of rock.

The meetings that we had today took a little while and were quite chaotic, but fortunately we decided quite a bit.

In the late afternoon we went back to Porto and were treated on a visit to the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition in the Palcacio de Cristal. A unique exhibition of models made after Da Vinci's drawings/designs.

After a short stop for some Porto at the Solar do Vinho do Porto we went across the river to Gaia for a light dinner at a huge shopping mall. Shops here are open till 11PM !!!!
I'm quite sure I will be back here later this week...

The hotel bar was closed so Juha (the Finnish headmaster) and I went to a bar down the street. ONE euro for a beer.... that was good news!

Enjoy,

HK