RAIN

Unfortunately, it's raining today. The students are visiting the Sagrada familia today and some of Gaudí's buildings in Passeig de Gràcia. We've had a joint activity this morning with the rest of students in one of the 6th form classes. Here you have a photo of some of the Belgian students updating the blog this morning.

Second and thirth day.

Hello everybody! Yesterday we tried to post an update but we had some troubles with the computer. The day begun by following a course with an english teacher called Liam. After that the Catalan students came with us to visit Park Guël and the Museum of Delacroix and Goya. In the evening we went to a cafe and went shopping until 7.30, then everybody went home. The day before we visited the school and saw some strange things like a sport hall under the ground. We took the train to Barcelona and saw the Boqueria, The Cathedral and 'la placa Catalunia'. Today we'll visit the 'Paseig de Gracia' and the houses created by Gaudi and other great artist of the modernisme. We'll tell you more about this tomorrow because we have to go! Hasta la vista!

BELGIAN STUDENTS ARE HERE!!

At last, Belgian students arrived yesterday evening at the airport of Barcelona and were received by their Catalan mates and host families. Today we have taken them to Barcelona. We have visited the Cathedral, Plaça Sant Jaume, Les Rambles, Mercat de la Boqueria, Plaça Reial and Maremagnum. We've had a very nice sunny day. Here you have some photos.

Hello everybody in Belgium! The first impression of Catalunya is very good, the students received us with a lot of enthousiasm! Afterwards everybody went to their own hostfamily and had the chance to meet the whole family. In Catalunya the weather is very good, not very hot but atleast it isn't raining! We will start the day by visting the school and after that we'll visit a part of Barcelona, like the neighbourhood near to 'la placa de Catalunya'. Everything is going great so far. Hasta Mañana! The Belgian students.

Hey guys, we were asked to sum up a few ideas of the situation in Belguim and then compare them with Catalonia. So here is the result. Enjoy the read :)

The federal state of Belgium is located in the geographical center of Europe and hosts the European Union headquarters so becoming also a political center.  With this centralistic characteristics it’s paradoxical that the country has been about to split into three regions (Brussels, Flanders, Wallonia) in recent times.

To get a quick overview of the situation here are some data.

Flanders, situated in the North of Belgium, is the Dutch speaking part of the county. Its capital, Anvers, has one of the biggest ports in Europe and a strong economy. That provides prosperity and high growing rates to the region. The possibility of being economically self-sufficient and the defense of their language have ended up in an independence claim.

Further south we find Wallonia, which is a French speaking region that also integrates a small German speaking community. Their economic situation isn’t as good as the one from their Dutch neighbours and therefore the government has made huge investments to promote it. The German community has high prosperity rates and deserves also more independence.

In the middle of the two big regions we find Brussels, the encounter area between the two cultures. Traditionally dominated by the Dutch speaking population, Brussels has been conquered little by little by the Walloons and is nowadays the hotspot of the national debate.

As we can see, Belgium is a country with internal fights. Therefore some sociologists have set a comparison between Belgium and Catalonia and Spain. The truth is that in some aspects there are the same problems in both cases, the economic issue for example. But analyzing the matter in a cultural way, we can see that Catalonia and Spain aren’t by far as separate as Flanders and Wallonia are.  

WAITING FOR OUR BELGIAN FRIENDS

We're all excited waiting for our Belgian mates to come. We have prepared a lot of activities to do with them and we hope we will all have a good time together. Have a nice flight. See you all at the airport on Sunday! Anna

TV PROGRAM ABOUT BELGIUM!

Last week our Autonomous Catalan TV broadcast a very interesting documentary about Belgium. All the students who are taking part in the exchange saw it and wrote a summary of the main ideas developed. We will soon upload the best one so that everybody can read it.