So, here's the diary of our beautiful stay in Exmouth and London. I hope you enjoy it.
England
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 he 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.
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| Exmouth beach |
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
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.
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| Devon cream tea |
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.
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| Stonehenge |
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.
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| Camden Market |
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.
