France so far (2)


England

How was England?
Fantastic, best trip yet!!

I was lucky to come across the opportunity to visit England for 8 days with the students that took English as a subject at Font Romeau, my school in France. Why not? I said as the teacher asked me If I would like to come with the class, and what an amazing time it turned out to be.

Being situated at the bottom of France near the Spanish border, the expected mode of travel was a short sharp flight to London. I arrived at Font Romeau with my suitcase and pillow ready for a 24 hour bus trip right through France and across the ‘Channel Tunnel.’ Now that I look at it, it was a great opportunity to meet and talk to all the other people from my year level on the bus, and that’s what I did!! Ironically my French improved dramatically over the week in London, I became friends with everyone I didn’t know before and better friends with the ones I had already had. One can see that the benefits of my trip to London were far more that a few photos and being able to show off my English skills to the London Public!

After arriving In London after a 24 hour bum-numming trip, I was sent with Antoine, my French host brother to stay with a English family in Central London. Little did they know that I had been challenged by my French friends to act as if I couldn’t speak English for the night… ‘Fair enough’ I said and took on the challenge. It was an extremely funny night between myself and Antoine as my attempts to speak caveman English with a French accent somehow fooled the very nice English family. Other than that, very nice family, good food and the son supported Arsenal, what more could you want??

Day one consisted of a trip around London and the British National Museum.
Morning consisted of all the major sights of London, Trafalgar Square, the Tower Bridge, Whitehall, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral, 10 downing street and then a few hundred photos later we sat down for a picnic is St James park. It was great to see the history of many of these old and famous places and buildings. Most of the tourists I saw traveled in Large groups and there were quite a few other school groups like us. In the afternoon we all piled into the British National Museum and it was really interesting! They had studies on many different old civilizations from Egyptian to Greek, Mexican, Indian. My favorite was the ‘crystal skull’ display and also ‘CORNUCOPIA’ by Damien Hirst which was another very famous collection of skulls painted bright colors and assembles together. Also the Egyptian mummies were a guaranteed crowed pleaser, loved it!!
That night followed and awkward conversation where I explained that I spoke English perfectly and had been having them on. They took it very well thankfully, and I remember the mothers words ‘boys will be boys’.

Day two was one of the best.
Maddame Tussauds!! This is a museum of wax sculpting!! The moment we got inside we were surrounded by people with cameras trying to get photos with their favorite stars, the wax models were of so many people!! Sports stars, movie stars, world leaders, famous writers and painters, and even cartoons!! I remember getting photos with David Beckham, John Travolta, Will Smith, Jim Carey, The terminator, Churchill, Hitler, and my favorite- James Bond. It was really interesting to see what these people looked like close up and how tall they were etc… I’m taller than David Beckham, YUS!!
However that was not the best part of Maddame Tussauds!!
There was a horror section!! First of all we walked through a section where it showed all of the most evil people in history and all of the execution methods used in the past, however it wasn’t photos, it was wax models and it looked real!! Then as we continued we were pushed into a line and in groups of 3 we had to make our way through a passage which was set up to look like a dungeo

"im delivered but it doesnt seem right unless i keep my eyes focused on a saviour who gave his life.in the middle of a world that denies it believes,it is breaking apart at the very seams.there is one thing to be alive for,to take up my cross and follow you Lord."