On the first day, we started our journey to London. We all met at the Gleisschleife Prohlis in the evening. The sky got darker as more cars started arriving at the meeting location. As the loading of the luggage started, everyone was saying their last goodbyes to their parents and siblings and then boarded the bus. Everyone was excited about our trip, even those who were in London multiple times before.

The entire night was long and tiring, because almost no one could sleep. Fast forward to the morning, as we arrived at the dock, everyone started to wake up. After passing the border control, we had to wait for an entire hour to board our ferry, which fortunately passed very quickly. On the ferry, we all got into a queue to get our food, and after waiting for another half an hour, we finally sat down and enjoyed our English breakfast, even though many people didn’t like the beans. After 2 hours of sailing, we finally saw the British coast. Our next destination was Canterbury, which was 30 minutes away from Dover.

In Canterbury, we first walked towards the cathedral, which was the first cathedral ever built in the UK. Before we were allowed to go in, we had to wait for half an hour, which we used to look around Canterbury and visit some souvenir shops. The cathedral was quite big, but not huge. The entire tour of the cathedral took less than an hour, and after that, we could go around Canterbury. We used our time to try fish and chips and look at the beautiful architecture. After the three hours, we finally continued our trip to London, which took two more hours.

The first meeting with our host family was a little bit awkward, but we had a wonderful conversation. And upon arriving at their house, our host mom already waited for us with homemade Bolognese pasta. After the dinner, we all went to bed.

In the morning, we had some cereal and made our way to the meeting point. The plan for today was a tour around London and then visiting Madame Tussauds. After picking up our guide Steven, we drove to our first stop, which was St. Paul’s Cathedral. We took a short walk around the cathedral, and made our way to the Millennium Bridge, where we all took photos of the Thames and the beautiful art on the floor. The next sight our guide took us to was Elizabeth Tower, which many people call Big Ben, even though it’s the name of the bell inside of it. We took a group photo all together and continued our journey towards Buckingham Palace through St. James’s Park, where we saw many squirrels and swans. Upon arriving at Buckingham Palace, we saw that the king was not at home, having seeing the Union Jack above the palace. We took some photos of the guards and made our way back to the bus. After another 20-minute ride, we arrived at Madame Tussauds. The museum had a lot of exhibits, including the history of London, celebrities, politicians, and a horror part, which you could skip. The entire visit took a more than an hour. After everyone was back at the entrance, we went to Greenwich, where we had stunning views of the entire London, and even saw the 7th largest telescope in the UK, which was almost destroyed in the Second World War. On our way home, we had a short conversation about cultural differences with our host father, and when we arrived home, our host mom welcomed us with some delicious cheese and beans jacket potatoes.

The next day, we went hiking at Beachy Head. The morning was very foggy and cold when we arrived at the bus, but when reaching Beachy Head, it became sunny and warm. Before starting our hike, we took some more on the coast and took some photos of the white chalk cliffs. After walking for more than an hour, we went 100 meters higher than we were at the start. The views from the top were wonderful and breathtaking. Before making our way to Brighton, we bought ice cream and had our lunch which had been packed by our host mom. When we finally reached Brighton, we all couldn’t decide where to go, so we spent most of the time on the beach, even though we did walk around the city. At the end of the day, we got some fish and chips, and finally headed home, where we got our last dinner at the host family.

The next day was promised to be unique, having almost the entire day to view whatever sights we wanted. We had to wake up earlier, so we had more time. We had breakfast, and said our goodbyes to the host parents, and thanked them for everything. Everyone could choose whether they wanted to visit the Science or the Natural History Museum, but almost everyone chose the latter one, besides one person. When we first entered the museum, a huge blue whale skeleton was in the middle of the hall, and you could see fossils of extinct animals left and right. We chose to first go to the birds exhibit, where we saw almost every species of birds in the world, including the dodo bird and other extinct ones. Later, we went to the insect exhibit, where we learned about every type of insects that exist. We continued walking around the museum, but it was not that exciting, besides the dinosaur exhibit. When we were done with the museum, we decided to go to the Science Museum, so we could get some more information for our English video. There, we got to see everything engineering- and mechanical-related, including oil pumps, oil refineries, parts of rockets, bio-engineering stuff, and an aviation evolution exhibit, where we could find some really interesting airplanes, for example, a plane that can take off vertically, and a German rocket-powered aircraft from the Second World War. Later on, when walking near Tower Bridge, we realized that we were quite hungry from all the walking, and we stopped for pizza. After we were done with our food, we headed to HMS Belfast, which is a retired warship near Tower Bridge. While walking, we realized that we should already start moving toward the meeting location, and we took the underground towards the O2 Arena. We arrived a little earlier, and we had time to talk about what we had seen with our friends. On the way to the ferry, we all shared our feelings after the entire trip.

Overall, our trip to London was an amazing experience. We saw many famous sights, learned a lot about English culture and spent wonderful time with our host families. Even though some days were long and tiring, every moment was full of new impressions and fun. Everyone enjoyed the trip and we all shared many great memories that we will never forget.

Iulian Serbusca, 9e