Letizia's Diary

My class “4AL” and I left on a long trip abroad, two weeks in Sweden.
It was a long and tiring journey by coach and by plane.
We spent the first two days in Stockholm and in the following days we stayed in Tibro, near Skovde.
We were in a hostel with rooms for many people; throughout our stay we divided up the duties for the hostel and the school.
We attended a Swedish school and they divided us in two groups to follow some different lessons.
The Swedish students gave us a warm welcome; they offered us hospitality and good food, maybe a little heavy for our taste!
They organised a programme of great cultural interest for us and we presented them our business, Style4Fun, and our product, BeeBox.
After two weeks we got back home with the same long time of travel.
This experience has been very interesting and a great life lesson for me and my culture.

Chiara'a Diary

On 13th April my class and I left from the stadium in Pontedera to go to the Malpensa airport in Milan by coach because we were going to a new country, Sweden! It was a very sad departure, because I was afraid I would miss my family, my friends, my boyfriend and my habits for two weeks, but thanks to the presence of my classmates I didn’t think about it!
We arrived at the airport in Stockholm in the afternoon and we took a train to the central station in Stockholm, that was a few steps from our hostel. In the two days that we spent in Stockholm, the spirit of adaptation was very high, since we were eighteen guys and girls in the same room with only one bathroom, but at the end it was great fun!
In Stockholm we visited the city and we went to visit the Skansen open air museum and its zoo.
On the third day we took the train and we went to a village near Skodve, called Tibro.
We spent the rest of the time in a very nice and welcoming hostel.
In the following days, we got to know the Swedish boys and girls, and we visited their school. We have not established a close relationship with them, but we have known their habits and they are very different from the Italians’! I enjoyed when I spent the afternoon with the Swedish guys at the laser game, it was great fun!
On Sunday we went to visit the city of Goteborg.
Some days were hard and tiring, but we were strong.
26th April was the day of departure! We went back to Italy! We were happy because we needed our family and everything!
But maybe in the end this experience has improved our relationship and our friendship, and we tried to live with different habits.
It was a beautiful experience that I will certainly remember all my life.

Cristina's Diary

This year, the class 4ALA of ITCG Fermi in Pontedera has taken part in a cultural exchange with a Swedish school.
We left from Pontedera on 13th April and we came back on 27th April.
We visited the school and we took part in the lessons to improve our English and established a relationship with the Swedish students that allowed us to show them our Junior achievement project.
Our company is called Style4Fun and our product is called Beebox.
The students and the teachers of IT Gymnasiet in Skovde liked our product, so we have begun to collaborate with them to promote BeeBox in Sweden.
During this period we have collaborated with them to get to know the Swedish market, so we have carried out some market research and together we have translated all the necessary literature to sell our product in that country.
We have also visited some companies of the area which could be linked to our project, in fact they were furnishing companies.
We have proposed our questionnaire in these company as well, and we got a lot of feedback about how to improve our product and how to launch it on the Swedish market.
Finally, after all the work of two weeks, on the last day we sold our product in a local fair, where a good number of people bought BeeBox.
At the moment we are collaborating with the Swedish students to continue to sell in their country, so we can say that in these two weeks we have formed a Join Venture between Italy and Sweden, even if the Swedish students aren’t taking part in the Junior Achievement project this year.

Rossella's Diary

Our adventure began on April 13th, we all met at the stadium in Pontedera and we left for Milan.
The plane to Stockholm left at 12:10 p.m. from Malpensa Airport, and we were on board!
After some vicissitudes we arrived in Stockholm and my first impression was "wow!" It was a beautiful, clean and very liveable city.
Our moral was a little down when we saw our hostel, a large room with 24 beds, 2 baths and a small sitting room: we had to sleep together!
But during those 2 short days the hostel was much appreciated and the time passed quickly between jokes, laughter and so much cold.
On April 15th we took the train and we arrived in our "beloved" Skovde.
To wait for us there were some Swedish boys who helped us with our luggage, even the closets we had brought!
At 11 p.m after the dinner at school, we came to the hostel in Tibro, a small village.
In my opinion the hostel was very nice, well kept and welcoming.
The day after April 16th, the true adventure of endless walks, lunches, company visits, which will remain in history, began: the first week passed with some doubts and difficulties, after clarification with our teachers.
During the second week, we did many activities with the Swedes, including the laser game which I enjoyed very much.
On 26th April after taking buses, trains, planes and buses again, we finally got home.
My state of mind was one of relief and regret.
There were problems but I knew that some landscapes, some moments, some things I would never forget, and in some ways I would miss Sweden.
I can say that I feel sorry for not having fully lived those days and not having been able to make friends with the Swedish guys, and I’m waiting for September, when they will visit us in Italy to have another opportunity!

Greta's Diary of her stay in Sweden

On April 13th my class and I accompanied by three of our teachers went to Sweden for two weeks on an exchange trip financed by the Tuscan region. In fact we had asked for this financing during the school year. On the departure day we were all a little frightened because of these two weeks for from home but, at the same time, we were also very excited and happy to live a new experience. We spent the first two days in Stockholm where we visited the most important places and we slept in one room with 18 beds! During these two days we had a very good time even if there were some troubles.
After these two days we left to spend the rest of the 2 weeks in Tibro, in a very nice hostel. During that period we went to school where we could attend some lessons and talk to the Swedish students. We were immediately impressed by their school. Completely different from ours: there were lots of games, computers with Internet in every room, sofas, a large television and a canteen. Every day we visited towns and villages nearby together with the Swedish friends, who organized games, lunches, walks so that we were always busy. This way we could also get to know their country a lot. During that period we visited factories specialized in furnishing, we wrote questionnaires about the product we had designed at school within the project “Young Enterprise” and we interviewed some factory managers. One day at last we went to a market in a town nearby and we sold our product .
This experience has been really interesting: to be in touch with people, with habits and ideas different from ours has helped us to improve our characters; it has also improved our knowledge and use of the English language.
During the 2 weeks we have spent beautiful moments and bad moments, arguments and explanations but it has been a very beautiful experience and I would recommend it to every boy and girl as it is really useful in our growing process.
I hope that when the Swedish students come to see us they will have a good time and they will like the experience as I have liked it.

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