Can you leave me behind please?

 Apologies for the news blackout last night – in the excitement of our arrival back in Saudi came the reality of a downed internet server.  By now we’re sure parents have all the details of the children’s trip – most probably your ears were burning all the way back to Khobar!

 We had a slow start to the day – with an 11.00am pickup, there was no need to wake up until 8.30am.  There was not a single child awake before this time, they all slept on.  Ms. Naidoo too – she slept through her alarm but was fortunately woken by a friend calling from Saudi who thought she would need the extra time to pack her suitcase!


We had a smooth transfer to the airport.  On the way we discovered that Mohammed had left all the presents he’d bought in Greece in Tolon, and so one phone call later it was duly arranged that Mr. Gikas would visit in the summer to collect them (that’ll be a hard task for him, considering his favourite restaurant in Greece is a kilometer along the coast!).  Fortunately, the camera that Mohammed had left on the bus the day before was duly returned by the driver.

The sight of 30 children travelling around Greece was generally received with comments along the lines of “They’re so cute!”  If only they knew!  We were by far the youngest group of overseas tourists that we saw.  We were fussed over by Qatar Airways staff in the airport who quickly checked us in – although there were one or two passport discrepancies and they had to call back “the little girl Naidoo.”  (Actually, that was a recurring theme as the immigration officer in Dammam couldn’t understand why Ms. Naidoo remained at the desk seeing her group through – he thought she was one of the students). 

 Arrival in Doha was fairly prompt and gave the children their last opportunity to spend any remaining money they may have had – which, let’s face it, wasn’t much!  We should really have received a special commendation from the Greek government for the amount of cash we pumped into their economy!  We had a final bumpy flight from Doha to Dammam during which Mr. Suter was aggrieved to be beaten at the adult quiz game by Maya and Salman – they were guessing the answers, for goodness sake! – although Mr. Whitaker was delighted to beat Valerio at chess! 

 Upon landing, we managed to beat the main rush in the immigration hall, although Elizabeth did her best to delay us as her visa had to be scutinised by three different officers.  Eventually she was ‘released’, we gathered our bags, and emerged to the cheers and greetings of the assembled throng of mums and dads waiting for us.  

 What a fabulous week.  The children have been a credit to themselves and the school.  They’ve learned a lot, enjoyed new experiences and we hope had a lot of fun in the process, 



Laila enjoyed herself so much, on the bus to the airport in Athens she asked, “Can you leave me behind please?”

The strain shows!

Worn out

We thought we’d end this blog with the thoughts of the children themselves, taken from their journals:

Carina: “My favourite part was the Acropolis.  When you see it in the books it’s good, but when you’re there, it’s, like, wow!” 

Noura: “We went to the Parthenon after that.  It was very long and felt like it was called the Parthenon and on and on…”

Elizabeth: “Elvis Presslyiano did weird acts for us like a multicultural cat…” 

Maya: “In the museum we saw Greek vases and the most disgusting thing in the museum is the naked people.”

Matthew: “Today we got up to find a magnificent view of the sunrise from our balcony.”

Ami: “We climbed the Acropolis and it was amazing.”

Laila: “This is a week I will never forget.”

Khaled: “We had lunch – I had chicken and bread.  They were yummy.”

Valerio: “Luckily today I woke up before Mr. Suter and Mr. Whitaker could sing.”

Dylan: “I ate chicken that didn’t taste so good – I miss what my mum cooks.”

Salik: “The three islands were beautiful and huge.”

Lojain: “Breakfast was not the same because we were in Tolon.  It was unexpectantly better.”

Faisal: “We went for dinner and had beef, rice and a Greek food.  I don’t know what it was called.”

Noura: “We then went to see some statues that are disgusting because most of them are naked.  As Anna, our tour guide had said, all men statues are naked.”

Jacob: “On the second island we went to the clock tower.  It was hard work.”

Lynn: “When we got to the museum and had a look around it we got to understand the old culture of Greece.”

Mohammed: “Today was such fun because I took a lemon from a lemon tree.”

Ridah: “I didn’t like walking, and my legs were hurting so much, even though I was wearing trainers.”

Noura: “We went to the beach and the water was freezing.  We were bullied by Mr. Suter and Mr. Whitaker.  We got our revenge later on.  We buried Mr. Whitaker and put boobs on him and made him a mermaid.”

Ahmed: “Today we woke up at 7.00am.  Mr. Suter had to come in and wake us up.  How does he open our door without the key?”

Kush: “We saw a cat on Ayra’s lap and we scared it away – it just vanished into thin air.”

Ayra: “I was sitting down and a cat came and sat next to me and then she climbed into my lap and Ms. Naidoo said that I put her in my lap.  I said I didn’t, because I didn’t.  And I did sanitise my hands after so bye!”

Daniel: “At the museum we were excited and it felt amazing.  There was glass and under it there was old things…”

Simon: “We went to the museum and then the Acropolis.  It was a long way up.”

Aboudi: “My favourite part was the cruise.  I liked the islands but I liked being outside in the wind best.”

Omar: “Then we arrived at the first island to make shopping.  For every island, we shopped!”

Salman: “The best bit (at the beach) was when we covered Mr. Whitaker with sand and he couldn’t move a muscle.  But finally he roared and got up.”

Bagus: “Since I can’t play on my PSP because there’s no battery I have to watch the view.”

Tamara: “We visited three islands – very nice – but the first one used their legs as a living.  But I also don’t think they know what cars are.”

Mariana: “I got ready to go on the cruise to three islands but I got sea sick on the cruise!”

Zaid: “We saw loads of statues from the past.”

Ruben: “We made a friend called Anna, which I like because she gave us very good information.”

Noura: “I left my clothes on the bed before and now they’re under the pillow.  The room cleaners are like tooth fairies.  I leave nothing under my pillow and they give me my clothes.”