Erasmus+ in Spain, 6 - 13 March 2023

Monday 6th

Luckily the flight times were anything but morning oriented for our trip to Burjassot Spain. We were able to spend the morning at school and departed Vammalan train station at around 1 PM for Helsinki-Vantaa. And about the flights, I’ve got to hand it to KLM: not only did they provide coffee, soft drinks and a free sandwich on the two flights (HKI-AMS and AMS-VAL), but they got our luggage on time and intact to Valencia despite a very short (30 mins) change at Schiphol airport. Eat your heart out, Lufthansa!

This was our first trip to lES Comarcal, the one intended for Dec 2021 having been cancelled, and it certainly started out well indeed. You see, the difference between March in Finland and March in Valencia regions is … Well, 30 degrees! The temperatures in Pirkanmaa had been around 10 below and they were around 20 degrees Celsius by the time we got to Valencia! Of course, it was chillier as we were there around 11 PM at night, but the day had been warm indeed (with more to come…). 

The Spanish team me us at the airport and after we got rid of … I mean, after we saw to it that the students were safely off with their hosts, the Spanish welcome committee (Nuria and Eugenio) drove I and Saara to Valencia where our hotel, Conqueridor, was located. The hotel was a nice boutique hotel just around the corner from the San Agustin church, along a nice and quite side street.

Tuesday 7th

We got together at IES Comarcal at 9 am. Yours truly and Saara had some issues, though, when arriving: we mistook the closeby facility for the school and while looking for a gate/entrance, ended up going around the entire block. All it apparently takes is a wrong turn at the crossroads - and not checking Google Maps for the facility was, as we later discovered, not IES Comarcal at all. Nope, it was a detention centre for juvenile delinquents …

Anyway, once we had reached the school, we greeted the other Erasmus teachers and students and joined everybody at the school yard where the Spanish students, led by their music teacher & a jolly nice guy, Eugenio, has prepared a musical welcome for us.

The actual work commenced at nearby Diaz Pintado, where - after some icebreaker activities - the students were introduced to the project task and started brainstorming. Our first lunch together took place at the restaurant at the Unicersity of Valencia (one of its many campus areas) after which we returned to Diaz Pintado and continued the work. 

Before getting together with visiting Erasmus+ teachers, I had enough time to walk across the centre to Russafa, the part of Valencia where my aunt lives. Having been married to a Spaniard, she had resided in Valencia for 50 years. We  - that is, I and my aunt and her Finnish friend and her Spanish husband - had a nice chat, which was great as I hadn’t seen my aunt in 7 years. Luckily there was enough free time in the schedule to allow a couple of more occasions to visit her (we agreed on dinner on Saturday wen my cousing would be able to come over too).

For our evening meal out we Finns, the German teachers & teacher Mario in the city, Barrio de Carmen, where we indulged in some tapas. And, of course, when in Rome, we did as Romans do - which, in this case, was sampling some local beverages and refreshments. Aqua de Valencia was tasty, indeed!

Wednesday 8th

After working on the projects for the morning, we had a walk to the fields closeby to visit Paco, a founding member of “Sembra en saö”, association decidated to promoting organic farming and its role in including different people within the community together. 

Then we took a coach to the city and toured the centre of Valencia. There were quite a few people around, the day being the International Women’s Day, and - of course - even more waiting for mascletá. You see, the Fallas Festival begins on March 1 and goes on all the way til the 19th - and gets more crowded and louder and more spectacular with the fireworks etc. every consecutive day. The day was also nice and very warm, with sun shining down upon us from a cloudless sky & temperature hitting 28 degrees in shade. 

We passed Plaza del Ayantamiento, Llotja de la Seda, Mercat Central etc. etc. many of the go-to places for a sightseeing tour in Valencia before crossing the dry river bed of Turia and taking a coach. The coach then took us to El Palmar for some paella Valenciana - the best paella in Spain! Then we took a ride on the artificial lake of Albufera, home of many bird species and rice varieties grown for paella etc.

Thursday 9th 

The morning continued again at Diaz Pintado and project work until the noon. The mayor of Burjassot had invited us over for the visit to the town hall, but as he was unfortunately called away on some pressing errand, his assistant welcomed us there. We had a look around the place, quite modern indeed on the inside (in some sense, especially the large hall with the different counters inside reminded me more of a post office than a traditional town hall). Afterwards there was time to have a nice lunch at a restaurant at the coutryard of Casa de Cultura in Burjassot.

The afternoon/evening program introduced yet another aspect of inclusion: the role of sports and team building. We started by watching the film Campeones at Diaz Pintado and then walked to town to visit the association and people behind its story - and then on to the local sports hall to meet the actual people who had inspired some of the characters in the film. Some of our students got the once-in-a-lifetime chance of playing a friendly game of basketball with them - good fun and a display of what kind of things Erasmus+ can indeed offer! 

Friday 10th

The morning commenced as yesterday with the students working on their project as Diaz Pintado. After the mid-morning break, we received quests: the local association (Association Maternando) supporting young mothers came by. Two councellors and three young mothers (with their babies, awwwww cute!!) came over to share their experiences and information about the help, activities and guidance the association provides. It certainly is no walk in the park being an 18-year-old mother - let alone being one with an underprivileged socioeconomic background in Spain. All the power to the mothers and the association. 

Come lunch break, we visiting teachers decided to alter our schedule a bit: instead of burdening the Spanish teachers Margot and Maria José by having to accompany us to lunch, we went to the Burjassot town square and had some tapas instead. After that Saara, Katharina and I hit the town to visit the magnificent Sant Nicolau de Bari i Sant Pere Màrtir - a church the entrance to visit was both easy to miss and not much to look at, but the church itself …. Damn, it was indeed a classic Baroque church in every sense of the word “Baroque”: it was (to put it mildly) overly decorative, colourful and just chock-full  of everything!

In the evening we had farewell in dinner at Restaurante La Alma in Godella. The tapas sampling menu was great indeed! All the Spanish team was there and we had a jolly good time, sampling the local delicacies in the form of both food and drink!

Saturday 11th

The final day commenced at 9:30 at IES Comarcal where the groups finished their project work and then proceeded to present them. Afterwards, the parents of the students hosting our & German students brought the food for the picnic lunch we set on long tables our in the school yard. Empanadas, tortilla patatas, ensaladas, paella etc. etc. - you name it, we had it!

Some of the other teachers went to the beach, but I headed out to my aunt’s (checking out Museu de Bellas Artes along the way) for a family dinner with her and my cousin. We had a “light” dinner with more or less the same dishes as the lunch and, as dessert, coffee with Mistela, fruit salad & a local pastry the name of which I forgot but what was a bit like our “pullapitko” (and absolutely delicious). Let me tell you, I was one happy camper as I rolled towards the hotel late at night… 

Sunday 12th - Monday 13th

Day of departure, sadly so. We had a late flight from Valencia to Amsterdam so the students (and we teachers) had the luxury of sleeping late and enjoying our breakfast - even lunch - in peace and quiet. Or well, in our case (I and Saara) the lunch and coffee time wasn’t that quiet since we left the hotel to meet my aunt and go to the Xativa subway station in good time to get to the airport by 2:30 PM. That meant that we were in town just before and during mascleta - so a lot of people, traffic and firecrackers, once again. It was a good thing we didn’t have to take the subway 15 - 30 mins later as the crowds flowing back away from the centre would’ve simply flooded the station…

The flight to Amsterdam was about 20 mins late but luckily so was our connecting flight to Finland! As we arrived in Helsinki at around midnight, we had in advance decided to spend the night at a hotel at the airport, travelling to Sastamala the next day. The trip itself was quite uneventful and - luckily so - but the truly eventful and memorable part had of course been the visit, the last one in this project. 

Pictures by Team Erasmus+ Spain 2023 (Katharina Einhoff, Saara Haapalainen, Florian Huber, Antti Väisänen)