During the third week of June, 19 students from Ayalde and 8 students from Munabe, accompanied by three teachers Nicola Dignum, Covadonga Alonso-Allende and Pedro Valladares, travelled to Brussels to visit the European Parliament.

Our amazing trip to Brussels started on Monday the 17th in Bilbao’s airport. We met there at 12 o’clock. After two hours of a wonderful flight we arrived to Belgium. 

Once there, some taxis drove us to our hotel and on the way, we had a quick look of Brussels’ views. In the afternoon we went to Lidl where we bought our dinner, to prepare in the hotel’s kitchen. Finally, we decided to go to sleep early, so that we can be more active for the European Parliament visit.

Tuesday was our first full-day in Brussels. We had breakfast at 7am and an hour later we started heading to the EU Parliament by metro. Once we arrived to the Parliament and passed through security, a man called Antonio and the Spanish MEP who invited us, Izaskun Bilbao, gave us a little explanation about how the European Parliament works. They told us about really interesting facts currently happening in Spain and Europe in general. They also took us to the Parliament hall and told us about how the system worked there. 

Brussels and the European Parliament 1

On Wednesday we got up earlier than usual because we had planned to go by train to the city of Ghent. The outward journey was short, some spent it sleeping, and others listening to music or playing cards. Once we got there, we walked to the center of town and signed up for a tour to learn about its history. Afterwards we divided into groups to eat the typical food that the guide had recommended us: Belgian stew.  In the afternoon we bought souvenirs in the city and got to know its streets a little more. Around 7 p.m. we split into two groups, the first would return by train at 8 p.m. to Brussels and the second would stay a couple of hours more in Ghent. The city of Ghent impressed us all because it was very different from the capital and we also loved being able to learn more about Belgian culture.

Thursday we woke up more calmly and we decided to divide the group in two parts; some of us were going the visit the Atomium, and the others went again to Brussels city center. The first group had a very active morning, we took many photos in the Atomium, we saw the Royal Residence and we visited some Japanese gardens.

After, we returned to the centre where we met with the other part of the group and we visited the Royal Palace and some underground ruins. When we were already tired we decided to go back to the hotel slowly, stopping to buy some souvenirs and visiting the places we hadn’t seen yet.

When we arrived to the hotel we had dinner quickly and prepared to go to a karaoke. It was so much fun there, we sang and dance until quite late but we were so happy to have been there. It was an incredible day and very complete and even though it was the last day and we were already tired, we were as happy as the first day.

Friday saw us returning home. We were collected by our taxis at 9am and driven to the airport. Each day, we had done a mini quiz about things we had learnt that day and at the airport, Nicola told us which team had won and gave out the prize. Our flight was on time, so we landed back in Bilbao at 1.30pm. We have had a lovely week in Brussels and learnt lots about the Parliament. It was a perfect way to finish the school year.