Communitek Mobilities

Lapua team's Communitek Mobility 5, Chester

Dear partners, friends, in Chester, Cornellà, Amay and Tripoli,

Another fantastic mobility in Chester is done, thank you Marta and the whole team! In addition to our productive meeting and the students' fantastic activities we had a great time and saw a great number of interesting and beautiful things.

 I am lucky to have such good-humored students and colleagues, we did not let our spirits go down even though we had to spend our first travel night at the Holiday Inn in Vantaa. Finnair offered us each a hotel room and a chicken and salad dinner. We would rather have spent that evening in a pub in Chester!







The strong winds in Finland blew us to Dublin the day after, instead of Manchester. We had time to jump in the bus, admire the city through the windows and get some lunch in Temple Bar.

We finally arrived in Manchester at 3 pm and met our driver from BusyBus, Frank, who took us to Liverpool to meet the rest of the Communitek crowd. Grant came to meet us at the bus stop and guided our thirsty souls into the famous Cavern, what a lovely, noisy start to our adventures in the UK! We thoroughly enjoyed having some beer and singing along with the band playing Beatles. Cheers!

The evening meal in Liverpool at the Camp & Furnace was also an experience. It is always a treat to go out somewhere a bit livelier and bigger than our dear Lapua :)

Patrick and his charming wife Angela kindly walked us to the railway station when our exhausted group felt like we really wanted to see what our beds looked like. Anes, a student, great guy, guided us to the hotel and we all probably fell asleep as soon as we closed our eyes. What a day!

In the morning, and after a full English breakfast, Anes was there again to show us the way to the university. We got a chance to admire the beautiful, historical city of Chester - so many beautiful old buildings, and lots of flowers everywhere. 

View from our hotel window. Pub, pub and pub :)

It was a thrill to enter the nice auditorium and see the whole big crowd there. Marta treated us to a nice welcome speech and a video about Chester, and soon the students were put to work in their own groups, together with the wonderful hosts who acted as group leaders, animators, trainers, language teachers, tourist guides and everything else throughout the visit. They are such lovely and talented people, and committed to this project although they study Spanish. In Spain it will be their turn to be the students then, now they have been more like teachers, in Finland and in Chester. And awesome teachers, too!

Teachers of course had their meeting, too. This mobility is the one before the last in the project, but the good news is that many of us would like to find a way to continue. 

We walked to town for a delicious sandwich lunch in a historical building, and the afternoon was then spent looking around Chester, students in their own groups with their guides - I think they even managed to find time for some shopping somewhere in between the historical tour and completing their mission: they were supposed to tell the whole group about their visit afterwards.

All the students, from Spain, Greece and Finland, got to tell what they had learned about Chester. The group leaders had helped them prepare their little speeches and it was easy to see that everyone was really enjoying working together like this, although some may have been a bit nervous about speaking in front of such a large group of people. Our students loved the activities of the day and the exchange with the other participants. Great day!

Greeks and Finns enjoying each others' company: Siukku, Nicky, Minna and Sandy

The evening meal at an Indian restaurant was really tasty and the atmosphere in the restaurant was warm and friendly, all participants took the opportunity to speak English with each other and thoroughly enjoyed it all. One of us commented that he had rarely been in a place where everyone seemed to be in such a good mood all the time. Chester really gave us the best experience we could wish for, a warm, friendly, relaxed, enjoyable time. Thank you again, Chester team!

Many went on to continue the night at another club or pub, but some of us were too plain exhausted after all the traveling and sightseeing so we wanted to call it a night. We asked the barman to call a taxi and waited, and waited, and waited... we were just sitting there and joking about it, too tired to think perhaps, and the taxis never showed up. Small-town girls as we are, we are used to waiting five minutes, not more... In the end our Spanish friends showed up again and told us that the railway station was just two steps away, with taxis waiting in front of it, and so it was. Phew, time for bed.

Some participants went to Liverpool, others to London, we Finns headed on a bus tour of North Wales. Through some magic the weather forecast was wrong and the day was gorgeously sunny, lucky us! (Or did the bus driver really do his magic and change the weather like he claimed...) I had found these BusyBus tours on the Internet, it turned out to be really fun (at least once, haha). The driver Peter kept us well entertained telling jokes, giving us tasks and asking questions later about everything - really great practice for English students again. 

And the views! We were speechless. Our stops included Llandudno, a gorgeous Victorian sea resort, then Conwy with its castle, Britain's smallest house and mmmm... at last we got our fish&chips, too! Bought them at a small shop and ate down by the seaside, real treat. The bus continued then to the mountains where we took a short walk - in such a peaceful and beautiful setting that Mika started planning to get a summerhouse there. I am sharing more photos on Google+, here's just a few. 

Marta gave some suggestions on whatsapp about where to eat the last night, and we wanted to try the Architect. Well, we did not find it but found and Italian restaurant called Convivio, it was very pretty inside and the food was very good, too. After dinner we did some last minute shopping at a Tesco Express around the corner, whisky, biscuits and chocolate... End of mobility, our return trip on Monday was quite uneventful, but our group was constantly talking about the trip and what a great mobility it was, and how great it was to meet all you nice people. It is very likely that some of us will return to the area someday, to enjoy a longer stay. See you soon! 

Thank you Chester team and Communitek for this unforgettable trip! From the left: Mika, Henna, Tiina, Minna, Ritva, Seija and Siukku

Tiina and the Lapua team