{"id":830,"date":"2014-04-06T17:55:44","date_gmt":"2014-04-06T15:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/?p=830"},"modified":"2014-04-06T17:55:44","modified_gmt":"2014-04-06T15:55:44","slug":"amazing-experience-wonderful-town-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/amazing-experience-wonderful-town-2\/","title":{"rendered":"An Amazing Experience In a Wonderful Town"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I hadn\u2019t liked English since my first year at elementary school. I thought  it was a boring subject and I wasn\u2019t interested in it.The situation didn\u2019t change until I was 10,when I went to London for the first time. I don\u2019t know what exactly happened, probably that beautiful city, these wonderful people and that amazing culture, but I started to like English! When I came back I started to study English in a serious way, and I was so excited  to get in touch with that new world! I absolutely wanted to go back to London.<br \/>\nNow I\u2019m 16, and my love for English the world  grows  more and more. That\u2019s why, when my English teacher suggested I should try the Comenius selection, last year, I was so happy. So I had the possibility to travel and go to a foreign country to improve my English.<br \/>\nSoon came the 12th September 2012: it was time to leave, and I was really looking forward to it!<br \/>\nIt was a long travel to go to Stratford, but it was really worth it. Finally, in the evening on the 12th September, I was in Stratford, a lovely and typical English town: small and nice houses with green gardens around and lots of parks.<br \/>\nThe taxi took us from Birmingham Airport to Stratford high school. I literally got crazy when I heard the little old English driver speaking a typical British English, since it is quite difficult nowadays because of  \u2018American contamination\u2019.<br \/>\nWe arrived at school and it looked like it was a different world: it was a giant building well equipped , with a wonderful gym, open playgrounds and a canteen. But, most of all, I was impressed by the  English school system: every student can choose which classes to attend and which not. They have different subjects, also including vocational study classes.<br \/>\nSo, we arrived at school and there was my hosting family waiting for me. They were so nice! My new family was made up of Rebecca, the mom, Chaise, my twin, and Natty, a sweet she-dog.<br \/>\nThey took me in and tried to make me feel as comfortable as if I were at home. Rebecca tried to cook Italian food for me, Chaise gave me her room, but at the same time they tried to make me get in touch with English everyday life , and they were brilliant on that. I spent three days in Stratford, not so many, but I visited  the main tourist sites, like Shakespeare\u2019s house, Anne Hathaway\u2019s cottage, the Shakespeare centre, the Swan theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and the clock tower , situated in the middle of the main square.<br \/>\nI really loved staying in Stratford, it is a little and quite town that offers so many facilities easily reachable, even better than a big  and chaotic city.<br \/>\nDuring the mornings I spent in Stratford,  I went to school with Chaise and we worked with all the other guys who were taking part in the Comenius project: there were two English guys from Truro, two Spanish, two  German, two Finnish, two Polish, and, of course,  many English guys from Stratford. They all were lovely! We didn\u2019t have the possibility to  know each other very well  or to spend lot of time together, but something  began in these three days. We had the possibility to get in touch with different cultures and different ways of thinking, and, according to me, it was an important enrichment for everyone. We worked together to organize the Comenius activities to do in the other cities part of the project.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2012-09-14-14.54.42.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"828\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/amazing-experience-wonderful-town-2\/2012-09-14-14-54-42-2\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2012-09-14-14.54.42.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"2048,1536\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;2.6&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;GT-S5570&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1347634481&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;2.78&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;50&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.02&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"2012-09-14 14.54.42\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2012-09-14-14.54.42-300x225.jpg\" data-large-file=\"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2012-09-14-14.54.42-1024x768.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2012-09-14-14.54.42-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"2012-09-14 14.54.42\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-828\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2012-09-14-14.54.42-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2012-09-14-14.54.42-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2012-09-14-14.54.42.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nThis meeting lasted just three days, but on that 15th September we left Stratford knowing  that we all were part of a big new European family. It was a sad and painful moment when I had to say goodbye, but I\u2019m still keeping in touch with everyone I met in Stratford. That\u2019s why I\u2019m pretty sure I can say it was one of the best experiences in my whole life!<br \/>\nI\u2019ve lived it as the best opportunity  ever to speak  English with native people and to improve it: at the beginning I made some mistakes, but the frequent input of native speakers helped me to become more fluent in few days.<br \/>\nThanks to the Comenius project I lived a fantastic and useful experience, which combined together language, culture and free time.<br \/>\nOf course three days were not enough, but they were really meaningful to shape my cultural enrichment.<br \/>\nThat is why I suggest a similar experience to everyone, to grow up both culturally and psychologically.<br \/>\nAs for me, I hope I\u2019ll go to England again in order to discover other wonderful places like Stratford and go on learning English.<br \/>\nI wish everyone could find a European family to love and to grow up with.<br \/>\nGiuliana Spinella<br \/>\nLiceo Vittorio Emanuele II<br \/>\nPalermo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I hadn\u2019t liked English since my first year at elementary school. I thought it was a boring subject and I wasn\u2019t interested in it.The situation didn\u2019t change until I was 10,when I went to London for the first time. I don\u2019t know what exactly happened, probably that beautiful city, these wonderful people and that amazing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,14,12,20,55,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1-stratford","category-contributions","category-other-activities","category-palermo-italy","category-personal-experiences","category-tell-your-travel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3cLHq-do","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":831,"href":"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions\/831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ieshuelin.com\/comenius\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}