A group of 39 students and 3 teachers from Nazari Secondary School spent a week in Britain (Exmouth and London) from the 23rd to the 30th November 2014.
One of the students who went on this fantastic trip (Guadalupe Martín Pino, from ESO 3B), has written a beautiful diary about our wonderful experience there, and I want to share it with you. Thanks a lot, Guadalupe!
This is her diary:
Day 1 - Sunday, 23rd November
We met in front of our school at 7:00 am (that was a
bit early!) and got on the bus that would take us to Malaga airport. There, we had to queue (a very
British thing!) and wait a lot, but finally we got on the plane and it took off
at 11:15. The flight was quiet; it was the first one for a lot of people, and
also the first trip out of Spain, and they were very excited.
We got off the plane about 2 hours later, and went
through all the waiting and queuing thing again. Finally, we got on a bus and
started a 5 hour-trip to Exmouth, with a small stop to get something to eat.
When we got off the bus, our host families were
already waiting for us, and they took each of us to what would be our homes for
the next week.
Day 2 - Monday, 24th November
We met all again at 8:30 in a square near the school,
called the Strand, where they told us about the rules, our responsibilities,
etc. Then, for the next 3 hours, we had classes inside the school.
We were organized in three different groups depending
on our English level, but we all had the same class hours: we had two lessons
of one hour and a half each, separated by only fifteen minutes of free time.
When the lessons finished, at 12 o’clock, we had an
hour and a half of free time to eat the packed lunches our host families had
prepared us, and after that time we met up together again at the Strand.
We did a little tour through Exmouth: we went through Magnolia
Centre and Manor Gardens, and ended up in the beach. Exmouth has a beautiful
beach; it was calmed in our stay, but our guide told us that sometimes the
waves are so big that they reach the nearest houses!
Then, we went back to the Strand and they gave us a
quiz about Exmouth. In groups of 4, we had to do the tour again to answer the
questions. It was quite fun.
We finished at half past four, and some went to go for
a walk and the rest of us went to our homes.
Day 3 - Tuesday, 25th November
After the lessons, we went quickly to the train
station to get on the train to Exeter (a quite big city near Exmouth), and we
had our lunch on the train. When we arrived at Exeter we visited a very
interesting museum and Rougemont castle (built by William the Conqueror) along
with its beautiful gardens. Then we had a bit of free time for ourselves, which
we used for going shopping. We met at a beautiful Christmas marked in front of
Exeter’s cathedral and went back to Exmouth.
Day 4 - Wednesday, 26th November
Lessons were as interesting as usual, we always
learned a lot with them. This time, after lunch, we went to Mountlands School
again, to do something called “British living”.
We divided in three groups and rotated between three
different activities. One of them was about recognising all the music stars and
songs that appeared in a pop mash up. Another one was about the Simpsons; after
seeing an episode (in which the Simpsons went to England on vacation), you had
to answer a lot of questions. The last one was about asking questions to the
people on the street, and then trying to answer them ourselves. I really liked
the last one: I love going out to the street and asking random people questions
to see what they think about any subject.
Day 5 - Thursday, 27th November
That day I tried the Devon Cream tea, a speciality of
this area. It’s a cream tea served with scones, which you can fill of jam or
custard. Simply delicious.
In the afternoon, after lunch, we went to Exmouth
Leisure Centre, where we spent an hour swimming and then had a dancing lesson.
It was a lot of fun.
Day 6 - Friday, 28th November
That day, after lessons, we had: shopping time! We
went to Exeter again, and had a lot of free time to go shopping. There were a
lot of interesting shops, but, sadly, most of them were very expensive.
We arrived at Exmouth at 4:30, and we went to our
homes. But, at 7:30, we were outside again: it was disco night. We danced to
Spanish hits for two hours, until 9:30, when we had to go back to our homes. It
was too soon for a lot of people, who, I’m sure, would have loved to keep
dancing all night.
Day 7 - Saturday, 29th November
At only 7:30 am, we had already said goodbye to our
kind host families and we were all together waiting for the bus, which first
took us to breath-taking Stonehenge and, after 5 hours, left us at the doors of
our hotel in London. It was called Ibis, and we didn’t like it very much; the
bathroom was really tiny for three people, and even for one person, I would
dare to say. Anyway, that’s how cheap hotels are.
After leaving the suitcases at the hotel, and though
it was already a bit dark, we walked through the streets of magic London and
got on a boat that led us on a little tour through the Thames river. From
there, we saw the London Eye, the Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and a lot
more. It was all illuminated and really beautiful.
We got off the
boat and walked to a free buffet restaurant, where we ate pizza and pasta.
Finally, we went back to our hotel in the underground to sleep.
Day 8 - Sunday, 30th November
We woke up at 7
(some of us even earlier) to finish packing our suitcases and to eat breakfast.
An hour later, we were walking towards the underground, which, after a really
long one-hour trip, left us at Camden Market. We then had an hour and a half to
go shopping. Some shops were literally amazing. We loved this part of London;
it was a pity that they didn’t give us more free time to explore it all.
We had to buy our own lunch, which, after our free
time, we ate in the long trip to the airport. We got on the plane and, in no
time, we were landing in Malaga airport.
I started to miss England as soon as we did.
GUADALUPE MARTÍN PINO. 3º ESO B
