Travel memories of Estonian students

Our trip to France began in the early morning of November 17.

At first we flew from Tallinn to Frankfurt and then on to Lyon.

The history teacher of our friendship school was waiting for us at the airport and brought us to Morestel, to the local Francois Auguste Ravier College, where our dear host families had already come to meet us.

 We spent all of our free time together with our host family. We walked or drove around their home place and made ourselves acquainted with the nearest neighbourhoods. We admired the mountainous nature and historical architecture of this area.

Our host families cooked French traditional food which was very delicious. We even went to a badminton practice together with our host children. It was really fun.  At home we played different board games and table tennis or we just sat and chatted together. Many families communicated every day with one another and in the evenings we had a chance to meet the boys and girls from other countries.

Our school mornings started with the meeting of the students and their teachers from France, Italy, Poland, and Turkey. We went to school by car or by public bus.  During lunch we ate at the school canteen with local people and visitors.

We were rather busy the entire week we spent over there. Every day there was a certain programme.

The first day we started with visiting Morestel’s school. After that we went to the local city hall where we were received by the mayor himself. In the evening there was an orienteering race at the Morestel together with local students. The aim of this race was to find out more information about the city.  We also visited the house of the city’s most famous artist, Ravier, which today is a local art museum. The evening ended with a party, attended by host families, teachers, and other guests. All foreign visitors introduced their country and their school and talked about their education system.

On Tuesday we visited a small medieval town Cremieu. In the afternoon we went to Chambery, where we visited the sights which were mostly ancient walls and churches.

On Wednesday the weather was colder than usual and it started to snow. Because of that there were serious electric problems and in the sports hall it was really chilly. So, for us the winter started in France this year. Nevertheless we still sticked to the programme we had for that day. The morning started with the test of physical abilities, where we had to run, do squats, take our pulse… We learned how to bring a person back to life and we learned the international emergency numbers. We had to pass the track, wearing strange special glasses, and made accurate throws of a ball. In the evening all the youth, connected with this project, went bowling.

On Thursday we visited the third-largest city in France – Lyon, which is located in the eastern part of  France, at the crossroads of  the rivers Rhône and Saône. It’s an important junction, a city of industry, finance, and culture. Lyon is a university town, too. In Lyon we visited the ruins of an old Roman amphitheatre, many famous churches and the Town Hall.

On Friday morning the Polish and Italian students began their way back home.  So only we, Estonians, and the Turkish students visited the local primary school and high school on that day. In the high school we were arranged into groups which purpose was to give us a little tour in the house. We also had chance to attend the chemistry class for about half an hour.

On the early Saturday morning we started our trip back home. It was sad to leave such a beautiful country and all these nice people we met over there. However, we hope to meet some of our new friends in the future during other projects and programmes. Late in the evening we finally were in our home town Kuressaare. The journey was super!

We are very happy because we had a good opportunity to take part of this project. We met lots of great people and made many new friends.  Time passed quickly, each day was full of different interesting activities.

The whole week was very busy and unforgettable.

Thanks to everyone.

Delis, Ketlin, Laura