And, finally, on Monday 7th, we had the first contact with Gymnázium Jihlava, the secondary school which developed the Project with us. We were welcome by the teachers who coordinated the Project, the headmaster and his management team, and also some Czech students who played the role of translators between Czech and English and between Czech and Spanish.

At first, we had a meeting where we spoke about the activities to be carried on.

Then, we had our first rehearsal, to prepare all the musical, dancing and singing activities that we would perform the following days. We were in the music room, and we were given everything we needed.

Next, and at a very unusual time for us (12:00), we had lunch in the school lunch-room. It was a new experience for us, and we mixed with Czech teachers and students. By the way, on the walk to the lunch-room, it started to snow.

In the afternoon, we had some music and plastic arts workshops. The Czech students and teachers helped us use the “boomwhackers”, a percussion instrument, and we all together created a melody. In the plastic arts workshop we had a very interesting activity, which mixed painting and music: we represented different parts of the river Vltava as we heard the Bedrich Smetana’s masterpiece with the same name. It was something different.

Finally, although out of the programme of activities, we were lucky to attend to an ice-hockey match between the local team and its opponent, who fought to promote to the highest national league. It was a new and exciting experience.

In a nutshell, it was a varied, attractive and full of diverse emotions day.

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Written and translated by Isabel Arnáiz