Today has been another busy day in Cartagena, with two main themes - food and history.
Food first of all. At breaktime this morning Señora Stevens and Mrs Harding were treated to La Castañera, the festival of the chestnut which similar to harvest festival for us but involve eating roasted chestnuts (as in the Christmas song!) The Parent's Association had set up in the school playground with special pans and lots of chestnuts, and the younger children had dressed up too in special aprons, headscarfs and berets. They looked great, and everyone got to eat the castañas. Both Señora Stevens and Mrs Harding were rather fond of them and managed to get a second helping too!
Lunch and dinner both featured traditional dishes like caldero, a rice dish made with fish and tortilla con trufa, a Spanish omelette made with truffles. Both delicious dishes and both served by lovely attentive staff who were interested in finding out about our project.
On to history. The older children started the day by working with the visitors, explaining the festival of the Romans and Carthaginians. Some of them had dressed up and paraded through the school patio. Some very impressive costumes and marching! CEP Antonio de Ulloa are fortunate enough to be a five minute walk from the Museo Arqueológico where there are artefacts from all through history discovered in and around Cartagena including fossilised bones, Greek, Roman and Carthaginian urns and vases, and mosaics, ceramics, metal work and implements used in day to day life. Later in the day the group visited another two museums where they learned about the Roman buildings found in Cartagena including the Roman baths, the forum, houses, a temple and lots of mosaics. Finally there was the visit to the Roman ampitheatre which was very impressive.
Apart from this, there has been a project meeting at which everyone voted for a logo from the winning entries. This will be revealed when Señora Stevens and Mrs Harding return from Spain. And there was also a SKype call with a class at VS Wildbach who sang songs and played the accordion.
Here are some photos of the day. There are more on Twitter too.
¡Hasta el miércoles!
