Englandfahrt 2017

School trip to England (18/09/2017 – 23/09/2017)

Day 1: Arrival in Eastbourne

After a ten-hour coach drive and a ferry crossing we finally arrived in Eastbourne, where a member of our host family picked us up. At home a delicious dish was waiting for us, before we had time to unpack our suitcases and to get ready for bed.

Day 2: Visit the city of Eastbourne

The next morning, there was a breakfast we were all happy with: Some marmalade, toast and cornflakes. Then our host mother took us to the bus stop and we left with all pupils to set off to the city. After arriving at the pier of Eastbourne, everyone wanted to take tons of photos of the landscape - with its blue ocean and the shingly shore - and of course of each other. The beautiful weather and the friendly guide allowed us to have a nice city tour. After the tour we had some free time to spend the rest of the afternoon in the city or at the beach. At 5pm we left the city and went back to our host families where we could eat a prepared meal.

Day 3: Visit to Hastings

On our second day in England we went to Hastings, an old city in East Sussex. After travelling to Hastings, we hiked to Smugglers Adventure. It’s a great museum about the history of smuggling on the British coast. It was interesting to learn something about the British history and we could see the old caves. After we had been in the darkest and deepest caves below Hastings, we walked to a wonderful viewpoint. The amazing view that we got from this place - all over the town, the sea and the coast with an amusement park and the green floors - was breathtaking.

The next good thing for us students after this walk was to spend some free time in the city center. Some pupils of our group tried “fish and chips“, an English delicacy, in one of the best “fish and chips“-stores on the British south coast. The malt vinegar makes this tasty food even better.

Not only this British food was tasty, the candies in the sweet shops were too. In England you can buy sweets like “Maltesers“, little, crunchy balls with chocolate (our teacher told us that Ed Sheeran can put 40 of them into his mouth at once).

Day 4: Visit to Brighton

As every morning we took the coach and moved off, this time to Brighton. There we visited the Royal Pavilion, a palace that looks a little bit like the Taj Mahal and is set up with unique Chinese furniture and carpets. Especially the walls and the decorations looked really impressive. After that we could explore Brighton. It is a really big city with many stores, so we had a lot to see. Urban Outfitters was a highlight of the city. A lot of us could have spent the whole day there, but we had to go on to see some other things as well. In the late afternoon we left Brighton with a smile and a lot of shopping bags.

Day 5: Visit to London

Our last trip took us to London, the capital of England. Out trip started earlier in the morning than the days before because of the 2-hour-drive. The arrival was very pompous for us at the Buckingham Palace where we wanted to meet our city guide. However, we couldn’t meet her instantly because exactly at this day there was the 700-years-old tradition “Changing of the Guard“, so we couldn’t cross the street to walk to our guide.

After a long walk around the blocked street, we started the tour with the guide. She told us some interesting facts about the palace and the royal family, for example that Queen Elizabeth is only inside the palace if there is a special flag for her on the mast. Otherwise there is the Union Flag. The next attraction wasn’t only the sight itself, no, also the walk there. The park with tame squirrels, the classic London double-decker buses and the National Gallery, where you can also find a monument, which was be built in remembrance of Major General Sir Henry Havelock.

Our last sight was the best – we got to see the traditional red telephone cabin and Elizabeth Tower (with Big Ben inside), one of the biggest sights in London. For the next and most exciting attraction of our whole tour we had to walk to the London Eye. We divided our group of 29 pupils and our 2 teachers into two groups and got in one of the passenger cars of the big wheel. The passenger car slowly went up and higher then some of us expected. The breathtaking and great view over London, the Elizabeth Tower and the Thames was the greatest attraction of this day. The feeling of being in the passenger car (with a teacher who is scared of heights) was pretty cool.

After our bus driver picked us up, we drove to Dover and we took the ferry at 00:45. We enjoyed the last few hours in our group, even if half of us were sleepy. At this point we just had to drive with the bus back to Detmold. We finally arrived there at 10:30am. Everybody was happy to see their family but our thoughts were still in London.

Report by Noura & Merle (9w)