End of Term, Spanish style.

It's the end of term here in Spain. Schools break up in June and have a long, 10 week or so summer break. (They have roughly the same amount of holidays as British schools, it's just they take it all in the summer with only a week off at Christmas and Easter and a few long weekends scattered throughout the year.)

On Friday the school performed it's annual end of year dance (equivalent to a school concert I guess.) Each class dresses up and performs a dance. It's really cute to watch. This year Galen's class dressed up as 'cool dudes' with sunglasses, school bags and summer hats. It seems so different from my memories of primary school. Fifty 6 year olds dressed in black, playing air guitar to 'I love Rock and Roll' whilst the music teacher has shaved hair, several piercings and is wearing a 'Kiss' t-shirt.

And to replace the English school fete they have an end of year party with huge inflatables. This year we came prepared with swimmers and towels as half of them are water slides. (Although not so prepared that I had my swimmers and somehow managed to get roped into 'parents doing the water slides', which was admittedly quite good fun.)

So now we have 11 and a half weeks without school. Everyone is busy celebrating the start of summer or the festival of St Juan with fire crackers (or bomb crackers as my children call them.) They've been going off all day and night and will do so for another few days. The Spanish love fiestas and parties and loud noises.