The students went on a Comenius exchange trip to Romania. They visited several cities including Rome, Budapest, and Satu-Mare where they stayed with host families. In Satu-Mare, they attended classes at the local school and learned about differences from their own education system. They went on trips around Satu-Mare including visiting historic villages and monasteries to experience Romanian culture and countryside. At the end of the trip, they celebrated mass and launched paper lanterns with wishes before sadly saying goodbye to new friends, promising to meet again in the future.

1. COMENIUS ROMANIA
Lucía Gutiérrez Aja and Montse
Conesa Alvargonzález

2. In general, we think that this experience is one of the
most awesome of our lives. We had the chance to know
more things about different cultures, now we have
friends all around the world and we know that if we go
to Romania, Rome, Turkey, Lithuania, Poland or
Bulgary we will always have a house where to stay.

3. Our trip started the 6th of
October. We drove to Bilbao,
where we pick up a plane to
Rome. We stayed there for 8
hours, and we had the chance to
visit some of the most
importants sights of the city. We
could throw the money in the
Fontana di Trevi, we've been in
Piaza Espagna, and we walk
through the amazing streets of
Rome.

5. Then we went back to the airport where we had
to wait for two hours because there was a storm.
Finally we arrived to Budapest. The next
morning we coundn't visit anything because we
had arrived so late and we prefered sleep just a
little bit. In the afternoon we met the romanian
teacher who will take us to Satu-Mare. We
stoped in the airport and we picked up to the
italian boy and his teacher Mimo. In less than
five hours ( the driver looked like a Formula 1
driver) we arrived to Satu-Mare, and we met our
romanian friends.

6. Next day we went to the school and we visited
the classes where we realized that they are pretty
different from us. In music class they sing and
they practice to sing in the church because the
most of the boys will study teology and they'll
become priests. In fact, the first thing we did was
go to mass.
There, we met a very
important person in the
religious romanian world.
He was the ortodox bishop
Juistine of Maramuresh.

7. When at 6 in the afternoon they said to us -
"Come on. We're going to eat something." we
thought "well, maybe the have dinner soon", but
then we realized that this was only the afternoon
snack. The snack was a steak and French fries.
Two hours later we were eating again. We went
out for dinner, where we met all our Comenius
friends and we start to talk with everyone.

8. The next morning we woke up with 0ºC. We
went to the school again and we had the
presentations about the typical weddings in our
country. We talk about the religious, the civil and
the vaqueiras weddings. We spent a lot of time
with the Italian boy and with the Romanian guys.

9. The 4th day we had an all day tour around the
city and to some villages near Satu-Mare. We
visited a village where the neighbours competed
between them to build the biggest house. There
we had an snack with bread and fruit. It was 11
in the morning when we tasted that. We visited a
cemetery called “The happy cemetery” where all
the graves tells the history of the dead’s life and
how he or she had died. It was so so so beautiful.

11. We also visited a monastery where all the
buildings were built with wood. The gardens
were amazing. Everything was full of flowers,
grass, there was a little river... It was incredible.
The countryside was very similar to Asturias.
Mountains, green, lots of trees...

13. In our last day in Romania we went to a
Orthodox cathedral and we celebrate a mass
officiated by the orthodox bishop. We spent the
rest of the time with our families, we did some
shoppings, and in the evening we went to a
central park, where each one with his host, throw
to the sky a kind of paper ballons with a candle.
They floated and they raised to the sky. In those
little lanterns, we had written our names, our
country and the wish to be all together again
some day.

14. It was so sad to say goodbye to all our new
friends. We promised someday we will meet all
together. It doesn't matter where. We drove from
Satu-Mare to Budapest with Valerio and Mimo
and we spent our last day of trip in Budapest. We
visited the central market of Budapest, called
"living marketplace" and all the incredible
monuments of this wonderful city, like the
synagogue, which is the second biggest in the
world.