Comenius-Meeting Latvia

Eight students and two teachers went on the third Comenius mobility of “E-motion – the way to work together in
Europe” to Latvia. Here are some reports written by participating students from 5BK.

Felix Golser, 5 BK:
For our third Comenius mobility we went to Latvia. We spent most of the time in the coastal town of Liepaja where our
partner school , the LVT, was located.
We were accommodated in a nice hotel in the centre of the city togehter with the Norwegian and Belgian participants.
Latvia is, at least for European standards, still a quite poor country nad the Soviet heritage is still present in many
buildings of the city. But there are also various sights to discover, as we could see on our sightseeing tours guided by
Latvian students. Among other activities we went to a cultural centre where we learned about traditional dances and songs and visited a
former military prison. We spent three days working on first coming up with a business idea, then forming a business plan and in the end
presenting it to the audience. We also listened to three Latvian entrepreneurs and a representative of the city council who told us about the
development plans for the city. We also visited a construction material factory and a large-scale bakery, activities which helped us to get to know better the country and its inhabitants. We spent the last day in Riga where we stayed in a youth hostel and mostly went sightseeing.

Melina Kahaun, 5 BK:
“E-motion – the way to work together in Europe” – that ist he name of the project we took part at the end of September. Before people from our class had gone to Norway or Belgium but we went to Latvia. I had imagined Latvia so very differently from what it really was. Buildings just made from prefabricated slabs – the city of Liepaja looked really poor and some people too. The school wasn´t heated – it was so cold! We went on a city tour with the Latvian students and we did lots of group work with the students from the other countries. There we communicated in English and that worked better than I had thought it would. In our groups weh ad to think of a business idea and develop a business plan. Afterwards weh ad to present it to the other groups. On Thursday there was a small goodbye party – it was really fun! On Friday we took the bus to Riga. There we had another city tour and dinner.
I am glad that I went to Latvia because it was a good experience!

Magdalena Meisl, 5 BK:
On Sunday, the 30th of September 2013 at 5 a.m. we started our trip to Latvia in the northern part of Europe. During the following 5 days we had many exciting activities like a warm-up game named “Mr. Joe”, Latvian language lessons, creating a business idea and different kinds of group work. I also enjoyed the Liepaja city tour which took place on Tuesday afternoon. For this we separated into different groups of about five to ten people. At first we went to a house named “Amatnieku mıja”. This is a house where people from Latvia produce different kinds of crafts such as amber jewellery, baskets, paintings and carpets. We also saw part of a special path for tourists. You can follow it if you look for little notes which are integrated in the tar. On Friday, one day before our homeward journey, we went to Riga, where we saw many interesting sights. We noticed that the city of Riga is more beautiful than Liepaja. This is because Riga will bet he cultural capital of Europe in 2014.
So nearly all buildings have been renovated. All in all I have to say that Latvia is not as I imagined. It is a really interesting country with nice people and it was a great experience for me!
I would like to thank all people who made this possible!