By F. Russell and F. CollettiWe started the trip off with a very early trip to Gatwick, meeting at Imberhorne upper school at 5.45am. Everyone was very bleary eyed, but full of energy and raring to go. Once we had checked in at Gatwick we looked around the shops followed by the two-hour plane journey. We had our own section in the plane, which was fun. Once we arrived in Madrid we travelled by coach to meet our hosts. Everybody was really excited, but nervous at the same time. We were all discussing who we wanted and who we didn’t want. Then group by group Mrs Hutcheson called us off the coach to meet our hosts. Then we travelled to our host’s flat, it was a very scary car ride, it was like jumping straight into the deep end with speaking Spanish. We got showed round our flats, and we all freshened up. Next we all met up again, bursting to tell each other about our hosts. We stayed in a little town for a while and got to do some shopping. On Sunday it was theme park day. After breakfast with our hosts we met up as a group and travelled to the Warner Brother’s theme park. It was very exciting. We had to wait for a long time when we got there because there was a problem with our tickets. Eventually we got inside with everyone going on different things. The rapids were lots of fun, a group of us went on them with Mrs Hutcheson, Miss Sharrett, Mr Kay and Miss McGeer. Which was very funny, because Miss Sharrett was extremely scared and clutched on to everyone, and screamed as soon as a tiny bit of water splashed her! We had lunch at the theme park and then headed home at about 8pm. We then went back to our hosts for dinner, though not sure many of us ate very much, because we had eaten a lot of sweets during the day. On Monday we had to be ready early because we were going on a tour of beautiful Toldeo. We got on the coach and had an English speaking tour guide who gave us a tour whilst we were driving around the town. We stopped sometimes for picture opportunities. Whilst on the tour we passed beautiful scenery and saw some amazing sights. Once we had finished we stopped and got off the coach and had a tour of an old castle and got some facts on the history of the place. When we got into the town centre we stopped for lunch which our hosts had provided for us. After a rest we had some time to go shopping around the town by ourselves and bought some souvenirs for friends and family. We met in the centre of the town and played around for a while. We did the hokey cokey in the middle of the square, and got quite an audience. We got back on the coach and drove around until we got to the shopping centre – more free time to go shopping - then we went to meet the rest of the group to go bowling. Finally after a few rounds we went back to the meeting point were our host families took us home for tea.On Tuesday we went for a full day’s trip to Madrid. We went to the Las Ventas bull ring and the Bernabeu football stadium and of course we did more shopping! The bull ring was very interesting and we learnt a lot about the culture of bull fighting and its history. We got a guided tour around the ring and even got to go onto the gravel where the bull fighters actually fight the bulls! There was some blood on the ground, which wasn’t very pleasant. We also went to the Real Madrid football stadium, which was good too. Here we got to visit the stadium’s museum, see the visitor changing rooms and sit in the stadium. The boys really enjoyed the football stadium. On Wednesday we went back into Madrid and saw a famous painting by Picasso, which he painted at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Other works were mainly by Miro and Dali. We stopped for breakfast in a little cafe - chocolate and churros, which we were given a lot of. It was very filling, but it was yummy! We did some more shopping for souvenirs. We also went to a big park for lunch, where we were allowed to go off by ourselves for a couple of hours. We were dancing in the street to Michael Jackson! Later in the evening we went for a tapas meal at a restaurant with music provided by a band called ‘Tuna’. They played many of their songs and a few girls got serenaded, to show how they woo their own ‘true loves’. On Thursday we had to leave Spain, which was very upsetting. It was one of the best trips that Imberhorne provide; we all had such a great time.