Trip to London on Friday

After saying goodbye to our host family, we had to go to school for another three hours until we could finally go to London. After school we had our lunch outside, meanwhile some people of our groups put the suitcases in the bus, which was very kind by the way. Now we were free to go, so everybody went into the bus, the bus driver started the engine and we were on our way to London. I think it took us around two and a half ours to get to our hotel in London. All of us read about the hotel so we were quite excited what it looks like. Our room was okay but some of our friends weren’t as happy as we were, because they thought that there is not enough space for them.

We could go out and have our dinner but we had to get back at half past six, because we still had something to do, the Jack the Ripper tour. Our class had to split up and join one of the other classes. The narrator we got was an old man with dark gelled hair. He looked quite mysterious. He talked about all the victims and theories about Jack the Ripper during a nice evening walk through London, so we got an impression of what London looked like in 1888. After our tour we took the underground back to our hotel and could have a rest.

My Personal Highlight

Dear fellow students, teachers and who ever should happen to stumble upon this blog,

I have to honestly say I didn’t expect our trip to England to be as good as it turned out to be. I was expecting rain -lots of it- and the town, or as it ended being a city, we were staying in, to be small and dull. However, my expectations were exceeded and there were many things I enjoyed, ranging from eating Chinese to the rays of sunshine that greated me most mornings when I woke up, in my pink and flowery room in Southbourne. Yes pink. Stop laughing. I know you are. Seriously. Alright, anyway, frankly the thing that amazed me the most was the British Museum.

Ah yes, the British Museum, a marvelous piece of architecture and the secrets, mysteries and knowledge that lie within its walls are awe striking and nearly incomprehensible. Of course you must be someone who likes history, ancient cultures, and on and on and on, yet I believe there wasn’t one person who came out and thought that that excursion had been a waste of time. 

Despite this, why was the museum my personal A-rank? I guess you could say I’ve still got that portion of the 9-year old in me because what still fascinates me with still augmenting curiosity are mummies. Not mummys, which ask us “How was your day?” at the dinner table, but those 3000-year old wrapped in cloth skeletons that had their brain pulled out through the nose. Yes, those mysterious bags of cloth and bones of kings and queens, sealed in stone tombs in the sand, under pyramids, in eternal sleep as 50-foot colossal obelisks carved out of limestone stand watch over their final resting place.

Leading on, as you would expect of such a prestigious world museum, the Egyptian display was enormous! Perfect, for a “nerd” like myself when it comes to that topic. Johannes shared the same enthusiasm and we spent a solid 2 hours in the exhibit, looking at every item on display, reading every info-sign and taking picture after picture, room for room. 

Well, before you all get dusty and old reading this, I hope you all found the trip as brilliant as I did, maybe not in the same aspects but share the same overall opinion. 

Hengistbury Head

On our first schoolday in Southbourne we did a guided tour to a place called Hengistbury Head. It was an extremely nice afternoon. We walked up to a cliff and enjoyed the incredible view which showed Southbourne, the beach and the ocean. Then we followed a small path through grasses and bushes. It led us to a place that showed different rock layers. They had a yellow color and turned the water of the puddles around in the same color. It looked pretty amazing.

After our little stop we walked down the hill to the beach. Down there we spent about half an hour only watching the waves. I think loads of us are missing the sea in Austria.

Afterwards we passed some adorably cute houses. The little huts were definitely one of my favourite parts of our whole journey.  The most pupils enjoyed an ice-cream or a coffee next to them until it was time to start back to the bus. We walked through something that looked a lot like a heath. It was a really nice trip.  

 

Our time at Southboure Englishschool

On our first day, school started at quarter past nine in the morning. We met our Teacher Rebecca in the classroom and she was quite nice. On this day, our topic was food and health. We learned a lot new vocabulary and did a lot of reading for instance about Jamie Oliver. On the next day, we did something about sport and leisure. We watched a few video clips about this topic and did some vocabulary. We read some texts for example about tombstoning and the boat race between Oxford University and Cambridge University. On the third day, our topic was travel and tourism. Like every day, we learned many new words, watched a few video clips and did some reading about special and beautiful places. On our last day, we learned about jobs. As every day, we did some readings, learned new vocabulary and watched some video clips. In the last lesson, we played “Hangman”. In my opinion in was great and I had much fun.

Last Day in London

After breakfast we had to pack our suitcases because we had planned to travel home to Austria that afternoon. We left our luggage in the hotel and went to South Kensington by tube. There we could decide whether we want to visit the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum or the Victoria and Albert Museum of Art and Design. I chose the Victoria and Albert Museum. We had about an hour to walk around in the museum and to look at all the paintings and sculptures. I thought an hour was not enough time to see everything of the museum, because it was very big and there were so many impressive things to see.
After we had met again, we drove to Oxford Street, which is a big shopping street. Again we had time to walk around, go shopping or whatever we wanted to do. In this street you could find many great stores, but it is nearly impossible to go into each of them. Moreover the street was so crowded so it was difficult to walk straight forward.
We drove back to our hotel, got our luggage and waited for our bus, which took us to the airport. After check-in we had to wait for about two hours until we could get into the plane. When we finally took off we were able to enjoy a great view over London by night.
We arrived at our school at two o’clock in the morning.

Southbourne

We arrived in Southbourne on April 30^th. Southbourne is a small suburb of Bournemouth and is the most easterly part of the Borough of Bournemouth. We went from London Heathrow to Southbourne by bus. We got our first impression of the area during this ride.

There were not many people on the streets and it seemed really quiet but we could see some nice typical English houses. In general there are many detached houses in Southbourne but there are also semi-detached and terraced houses but I did not see any block of flats. All of the houses have small gardens and some of them look really neat.

Although only few people live in Southbourne there were different possibilities to buy food or other stuff and to go to a restaurant or a pub. Most of the shops were located in Southbourne Grove. We crossed this road to get to the beach where we often spent our free time. It is a real nice place to walk along the beach and enjoy the scenery.

England - a wonderful and an exciting trip

I was really happy to visit England for the first time and I also had a lot of expectations about London: A big city with many shops, restaurants and cafés, beautiful parks, impressive sights and so on. I’m bound to say that all my expectations came true.

On our first day in Southbourne we walked to Hengstbury Head with a guide, where we enjoyed a beautiful view. On another day we drove to Portsmouth and visited the ship wreck, which was really interesting. I also liked walking along the beach in Bournemouth, where we took a lot of photos. We visited many museums in London, for example the British Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural Museum.

However, I really enjoyed visiting Hyde Park and I was really impressed by the sights we had seen in London, for example Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and the London Eye.

I would recommend London for everyone who enjoys meeting different people and who is also interested to see many wonderful sights and museums.

Bournemouth

Southbourne: a small and nice suburb in Southern- England, but a little bit isolated. So, as we spent 5 days there, we made a lot of trips to nearby sights and cities. To see more of the beautiful landscape in that area, we decided to walk along the beach to Bournemouth, the nearby city. That wasn’t the first time that we went there. Some of us had gone there before on the project day we had had.

Well, as we started walking the weather seemed quite OK. It was a little bit cloudy, but the sun also shone. Through fisherman’s walk, a beautiful, small park in Southbourne, we walked to the beach.
All along the cost there were these beautiful, small and wooden beach houses, which were rainbow- colored and gave this area a kind of Norwegian flair.

Poorly we walked so fast, it felt like we were running, because of the changing weather. We all wanted to take photos of the beach, the houses and things like that, but it didn’t seem to be the perfect moment for these things.

Surprisingly, it didn’t start to rain until we got there, but so it wasn’t the perfect weather to spend it in that big park, where we had spent our project day. Therefore we decided to do some shopping. As it is a quite big city, we had a lot of possibilities in the city center to do this.

All in all, most of us were positively surprised about Bournemouth. It is a quite beautiful city, with a lot of different types of people. From young to old, everyone is open- minded and friendly. It is worth a visit.

Southbourne School of English - Group 3

Our first school day was very great. We got our teacher Pauline. She had a skinhead but she always wore hairy sweaters.  She is an outgoing, friendly and very motivated person.  Our classroom was small but it had a modern whiteboard instead of a normal blackboard.

On the first day she introduced herself, she showed us the stickers the winner of a game will get and explained us that we are going to learn with games. Then we got our blue folders and started our first topic: Food. We played memory games to learn vocabulary about cooking, baking and food.

On Tuesday we learned some vocabulary about body parts through songs or games. We also talked about travelling around the world, the hotels and the airport.

On Wednesday we learned some new words about politics in Britain. At first it seemed a bit difficult and boring but when we started to do some exercise and games, it became easier and more fun.

Our topic on Thursday was illnesses and drugs.  Due to this everybody had a role like a policeman or a doctor and we had to interview each other. Another subject we already knew and did this day was houses and homes.

On our last day we learned much vocabulary about jobs. We got a long list of jobs and a picture to describe. We also got our certificates and our photos of us this day.

In conclusion, I enjoyed the time in this school and I think I have learned much vocabulary.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

I thought that London couldn’t give me anything. Nothing new, nothing special, no experience at all. I’ve been there before and I like the city but I thought that there’s nothing more to see for me. But I was wrong. In the end I saw something really new, really special. I saw that on a journey the point is not seeing sights, seeing buildings that are different from the ones at home. The point is spending time with people. When I realized this, I saw what our trip to London really was: New, special and an interesting experience. Spending time with people is always a new experience. Drinking tea with your classmates in a Chinese restaurant can become a wonderful experience. Eating in an Indian restaurant for the first time can become a wonderful experience. Walking through Camden market with a boy you’ve known nearly all your life but you’ve never really KNOWN. That can also be a wonderful experience. Even chasing squirrels to get a good picture can become a wonderful experience. And running away from those squirrels can become one. It’s strange. I didn’t meet new people in London. But I saw the ones I thought I’d know in another way. Travelling is an excellent chance to get a new way of seeing things. Or in my case: seeing people.

Quote (Title): Henry Miller

“Southbourne School of English”

“Southbourne School of English”

Group Nr. 2

 

When we travelled to England it was naturally that we had to go to school. In the beginning we all were not that amused about it, but it turned out to be quite funny in the end.

We went to the “Southbourne School of English”, which was very nice. The school itself was big, clean, and beautiful. All the rooms were spacious, but not the one my group (group number 2) used to stay in. All the time someone wanted to leave the room you firstly had to conquer the challenge to stand up of your chair. It was so tight that you could not move back with your chair far enough to stand up normally, so you had to climb over it. When you managed to stand up, everybody in your row had to stand up as well to let you pass behind them.

Although the room was not very comfortable to stay in, the teacher, whose name was Lindsey, made up the situation. Lindsey was really nice and friendly and always complaint if someone was speaking German, which was great, because than we really had to speak English all along. She even asked us what we wanted to learn about during our stay, although our teachers had already made a list of topics, which we usually had to go through.

The lessons themselves were interesting. We talked a lot about different topics like sports, music, types of houses etc. However, the funniest part was definitely the one when we were just singing songs for two hours.

To sum up it is to that the days at the “Southbourne School of English” were really ok for school days. Sometimes it was a bit boring but it was good that we had to talk English all the time and that we had such a cool teacher.

School of English

In the course of our trip to England we attended a language-school, which has a really good reputation. Our form was divided in 4 groups, each with 14 pupils. Our teachers were, of course, native speakers. The teacher in my group was called Shwanee, a 38 year-old women from Bermuda.

The atmosphere in the classroom was really friendly and open because we all knew each other from school. Shwanee’s main aim was to make us speak constantly. I had a lot of conversations with pupils I’ve never really talked to before, even if we were in the same school for ages.

Each day we started to cover a new vocabulary topic. Shwanee wrote some statements down on the blackboard and then handed out loads of sheets with different tasks on them. Usually, we started with a discussion with our partner, who was the person sitting next to us. Sometimes both of us had so much to say, that not even one could finish talking about the first statement when Shawnee asked us to stop and concentrate on the work sheets. Those I think were really difficult. There was a box with some new words to which we had to find the definition or synonyms. Then we had to fill in clozes. Most of the time I could not finish the exercises due to the speed of my colleagues who were, in my point of view, extremely fast.

All in all I think these lessons absolutely enlarged and improved my range of vocabulary. What is more is I now have much better relations to those students, which I am really happy about.

What Really Took My Breath Away

 “In the end, it's not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away.”  -Shing Xiong

England is one of the most beautiful countries, I have ever been to. There I got to known new people, new experiences and new impressions. These are experiences, which will stay for me for the rest of my life and nobody can take them away from me. This trip was completely new for me: far away from my family, far away from my friends and far away from my home.
In retrospect the most amazing thing about the trip for me were the two different parts: five days in Bournemouth and three days in London. They both opened my eyes to new aspects of life, culture and myself. Apart from the many interesting excursions and organised activities like the day-trip to Portsmouth, the film night and the lessons at the language school, what impressed me most was the friendliness and openness of the people and the fact that all the red bricked houses looked the same!
There was not a lot to do in Bournemouth, where our host family live, which was an amazing contrast to what we experienced in London. Of course, I was fascinated by the sights that we visited: Big Ben, the London Eye, Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace. However, what really took my breath away was the unique flair and feeling of freedom. London is famous for its multicultural lifestyle and individualism. Now I can understand why so many people want to move away from the red bricked houses in the suburbs to this vibrant city.

Portsmouth

We entered a bus that brought us to Portsmouth and walked to the Mary Rose Museum. The Mary Rose was (I use past tense because nowadays it’s not a ship anymore but a nicely arranged pile of wood) a ship that sank about 500 years ago in a battle against France.

Today you can see it in the middle of the museum where it left to dry.The Museum itself was very interesting. It’s amazing to see how long things can survive in such a hostile environment such as salt water. What I found most interesting was how wounds were treated in those times. I think everybody remembered how lucky we are to live in times of modern medicine. The Museum was huge, much bigger than anybody had expected, so there was not enough time to see everything.

We had to hurry to catch the boat for our harbour tour. The tour gave us the chance to look at many modern battle ships. It was amazing to see how naval warfare has changed during the centuries: while the old ships looked liked right out of a postcard, the modern ones were painted in light grey and didn’t look appealing at all. Also, Mary Rose sounds much nicer than Destroyer 72.

Who listened carefully could also hear the tour guide tell amazing stories about the harbour, the navy and battles . What I liked best was the story about how Lord Nelson died and was buried. When we returned from the harbour tour, there was still some time left, so we were allowed to stroll around in groups. Soon after that, we again entered the bus and drove back to Bournemouth.