Day 3 - Day of the dog

Today was the day that we discovered that Ms. Naidoo has a malicious streak in her.  Yesterday, as Mr. Whitaker disembarked from the bus after our cruise, he left his hat on the seat next to her.  Any charitable person would have called it to his attention, but not Ms. Naidoo.  She waited until this morning when Mr. Suter was doing a hat check.  Not only did she stand next to him and watch him empty his day sack on the floor, she then watched as he opened his case and started to spread the contents across the lobby floor, a wry smile slowly turning the corners of her mouth.  Of course, Mr. Whitaker wasn’t helping himself – when we stopped outside the National Archaeological Museum, he’d lost it again.  He was accusing Mr. Suter this time of having hid it, but what he’d actually done was sit on his own hat when he got on the bus!

Mr. W searches for his hat

Ms. Naidoo enjoys Mr. W's discomfort

Andy lulled Mr. Suter into silly question of the day first thing this morning.  As we pulled away from the hotel, Andy had been told to put away his electronic game.  “Look out of the window Andy, and enjoy the scenery – when will you be back in Athens to see this again?”  “Tomorrow,” was Andy’s quick retort.

Ministry of funny walks - John Cleese would be proud

Anna captivates the group at the museum

We spent an hour and a half exploring the treasures of the National Archaeological Museum.  Our guide Anna was a mine of information, but the children kept peppering her with additional questions about things they could see or on which she had commented.  They had their work books to fill in as they went around, but were actually a credit to themselves with their desire to ask about additional items.  Towards the end of our time there, one or two of the children were starting to flag, and Anna tried to get us to leave, but on at least three occasions she was pulled back with extra questions.

Ipek and Sumbul at the canal

Alas, poor Yorick... Greek theatre masks

From the museum, we headed off to Corinth for lunch.  Cheese pies, meatballs, greek salads and honey cake was scoffed by all – Ahmed K was still looking for extra chips after his three course meal.  With a choice between going to look at the entrance to the canal or playing at an adjacent playground, there was no contest – off they all went to the playground, which meant that only Sumbul and Ipek, coming late out of the loos, got to see the bridge rising back up after a passing boat had caused it to be lowered.  It’s a bizarre situation – when the boats approach, the bridge, rather than rising, sinks to the bottom of the canal and the boats sail over it.  This end of the canal is not so impressive as we’re at sea level, but tomorrow the children will be a bit more awestruck when we get to the higher end of the canal, 80m above the water.

Somewhere... up there

On top of the world (well, Naphlio)

Queen of the castle

From Corinth, we headed to Naphlio, a town with three fortresses, the most impressive a Venetian fortress up on a hill overlooking the town, reached by 952 steps curving up the hillside.  As the Year 5 teachers and their groups went off to explore the town (read shops) Mr. Whitaker asked his group whether they wanted to go shopping or up to the fortress.  Martina’s double hands left the group in no doubt as to their destination , they all wanted to head for the heights and so up they went.  Only a gasping Mr. Whitaker and Effat (who graciously stayed back to keep him company) didn’t make it all the way up to the top.

From Naphlio, we were 20kms away from our final destination of Tolon.  Every day we’ve been asked if we were going to be swimming today; every day Ahmed H has asked if he should wear his swimming clothes underneath his normal clothes – we suspect by the time he got into the sea today they were ready for a wash in salty water!  The water itself was ‘bracing’ – what was surprising was just how long the children stayed in.  One or two didn’t go in: Kareem had been nursing a cold before travelling and so was under doctor’s orders not to go in the water.  He did have a paddle – but what he didn’t do was take off his shoes, socks or roll up his trousers before going in the water!  Tony said at the time he didn’t want to swim (he too ‘did a Kareem’ with his shoes) but it was only later under questioning from Mr. Suter that he admitted that he actually hadn’t been able to find his swimming shorts in his bag!  Sina changed but upon placing one foot in the water wimped out of going in.  Both Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Suter chased her to try and catch her to ‘encourage’ her to go in, but Mr. Ashford would have been proud of her ability to spring relentlessly up and down the beach without being caught and had there been a ‘beach sprinting’ event in the recent Junior School Sports Day she would have been champion by a mile!

Tara gets a dunking

As grubby as can be, yet still posing...

Get in Vian, it's lovely and warm

After yet another three course dinner which all the children tucked into with gusto, we rounded off the day with a walk through the town to a small café for hot chocolates.  The owner and his wife remembered us from last year – we’d done the same thing then – but they were off a little geographically with our original, thinking we were from South Africa instead of Saudi Arabia.  With Vian, Kirsty, Emma and Haruka starting to doze at the table, it was time to make a move home.  A local stray dog, much to Tara’s delight (!) adopted us as a group and followed us all the way back to the hotel.  Now we had told the children to keep their voices down as we went back to avoid disturbing the locals, but with a dog in tow every time we went past a house with their own dogs they started barking at it – so with quiet children we still were the noisiest group going!

Tony questions Mr. Suter's fashion sense

So there we have it – apologies for the late post.  The children have had a blast today: 3000 year old antiquities, modern engineering marvels, citadels and fortresses, modern culture, fine dining, fresh sea air and exercise…  When asked what was the best part of the day, Ahmed K replied, “The dog.”  Watch out for next year’s Year 6 trip to Crufts…