Statues, souvlaki and swimming

This morning was a great achievement as we managed to get all the children out of the hotel and on to their bus by our scheduled departure time, and without actually leaving anything behind! We had a short bus ride to the National Archaeological Museum, where our guide Anna took us on a tour of the exhibits. Our conservative estimate of the number of pictures taken by our students is 1000, although judging by the length of time it took to compose most of them we suspect the quality of about 990 of them won’t be great! Sensibly judging the attention span of our children to be not particularly high, Anna raced us through in such a way as to keep attention while focusing on the main pieces in the museum.

Mr. Whitaker never looks his best in the morning

 From there we have an hour’s journey to Corinth, to an al fresco lunch beside the Corinth canal. At the entrance there is a bridge that sinks to allow ships to pass, and when it resurfaces it is usually covered with small wriggling fish. After lunch a run in the adjacent park, and then on to Naphlio.

Ms. Naidoo has trouble getting her new suitcase on the bus

 Our visit here has combined with some sort of holiday for Greek students, and there are plenty of them around, loud and noisy. Naphlio itself is a charming town, with three fortified citadels around the place, and narrow streets to allow a bit of browsing – because after all, these children like to shop! We split into our four groups and all went off in different directions to explore. The quite clearly communicated plan had been to meet back in the main square 15 minutes before our bus was due to leave, to allow us time to walk back to it, but Mr. Gikas decided he would head directly back to the bus and so left the other three groups waiting for him in the square. When we eventually decided that was what he had done, he met us on the way to the bus and had the cheek to accuse us of being late!

BISAK - bottom of the class

 At our parents’ evening prior to the trip we had mentioned about including a swim kit in the packing list, so one of the most regularly repeated questions this week has been “Can we go swimming today?” Well, within 20 minutes or so of arriving in Tolon 30 of our group of 34 were in the water. Ms. Naidoo pleaded the fifth and took Khaled for a long walk along the beach, and Mr. Gikas claimed ‘lifeguard duties’ – Ruben enjoyed his role as clean foot enforcer on our return to the hotel but didn’t fancy a swim himself. To say that the water was fresh would be a slight understatement – most emerged looking slightly pink! The children had great fun after swimming burying Mr. Whitaker in the sand, although Omar didn’t quite understand the concept of not burying Mr. Whitaker’s head at the same.

Naphlio

 Suitably invigorated, tonight’s dinner was quickly reduced to a series of empty plates and contented stomachs. Valerio surpassed himself by asking whether the bottles of water that had been placed on the table with glasses for our dinner were actually drinkable, much to the amusement of the waiter. With the children in good mood we headed off for a walk along the local prom. As a night cap we stopped for a hot chocolate, although there was universal dismay at the uninvited guest who joined us at our tables – a large locust. OK, cue screaming and mass panic as the children scrambled to get away from him. Mr. Whitaker stepped up to the plate and caught him in Mr. Suter’s hat.

Brrrrr...

 What a brilliant day! Sadly, we’ve only one more and then it’s back to Saudi and school on Monday. But we won’t talk of that, when we’re off to Epidaurus and Mycenae tomorrow. Let’s hope Mr. Suter has a better song to sing this year!

Not sure what to say here really!

Mr. Whitaker is buried

The view from the bedroom