Kristina from Croatia, Thursday

Thursday and Kristina's last day with me. A week has really gone very quickly. I think Kristina has learnt a great deal during her time here. I've certainly enjoyed visiting all the various schools and I'm really grateful to everyone who made it all possible.

We went to London today to do a bit of sight seeing before Mark and I had a meeting at the Barbican with Gareth Davies. We started our visit at Top Wind where Kristina was bowled over by the warm welcome. It was pouring with rain and Patrick very kindly recycled an umbrella by loaning it to Kristina's sister. We got absolutely soaked walking along the South Bank and past the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. After a coffee and a very welcome visit to a branch of Hotel Chocolat (my favourite shop in the world) we walked to Buckingham Palace. The Queen was in but didn't invite us in for tea. Oh well, you can't have everything!

Then we took the underground to the Barbican. We were a bit early so we went into the exhibition in The Curve. It's amazing! It's an exhibition by Céleste Boursier-Mouget and basically it is zebra finches playing guitars. You have to see it to believe it. The exhibition is on until 23 May 2010, so if you have a chance, go and see it. It's free entry but they only allow 25 people in at a time so there are often big queues. There is a Youtube clip, or this one is better, but you really need to see it live. The birds appear really happy and they are well looked after.

Mark and I had our meeting and we had some awesome news - but you'll have to wait a little while before I can tell you! You'll be as happy as we are I'm sure.

After dinner we went to the evening concert with the LSO. That was brilliant and ended a fantastic visit to the the UK for Kristina. I think she was thrilled to have a photograph taken with Gareth Davies - I'm sure you know he plays in the LSO.