Reportage rédigé par Calista B TG3
We left in the night from Sunday 6th to Monday 7th of November. The journey was long and tiring because in total, we traveled an average of 15 hours in a bus.
On the first day (Monday), we arrived in London at about midday, and we went to see the London bridge. It was quite impressive because since it was my first time in London, it was great to see it with my own eyes. Then, we returned to the bus to go to Chester where our host families were waiting for us.
It was our host father who picked us up and immediately, we started talking confidently with him. After that, we arrived at their house and we met Gill, our host mother who was also nice to us. Both Kevin and Gill made us feel welcome and they tried as best as they could to learn to know us. Gill had made us a good meal and on the first night, we went straight up to bed because of the long journey we have had to go through.
For our first morning in Chester, Gill had made us breakfast and when we talked to her, we discovered that Kevin had lost a friend of his during the night so both didn’t sleep well. Nevertheless, Gill (in the morning) and Kevin (in the evening) were still upbeat, and they didn’t want their loss to affect our staying with them.
On Tuesday, we visited Liverpool and two museums. One of them (which was probably my favorite) was the Beatles Museum and even though I am not their biggest fan, I still found it quite interesting to learn about their career and what they accomplished. At the end of this visit, one of the teachers that was on the trip was playing the piano next to the gift shop so me and other friends went to see him play. Then, one of our friends made a cover of Billie Jean on the piano and we were all speechless. When we went out of the museum, it was already dark outside, and we went to do the observation wheel of Liverpool which we enjoyed with my friends. On the way back to Chester, we did a karaoke on the bus, and it was funny since everyone was singing and even the teachers were singing and dancing. When we arrived at Gill and Kevin’s, they had made us chicken burgers and when we finished our dinner, we went into the living room, and we sat down with our host family, and we spent more than an hour talking to them. It was a nice evening, we learnt more about them, and they asked a lot of questions about us, they were quite funny.
To continue, on Wednesday, we went to Manchester, and we first went to see the Manchester United stadium which was quite huge. After that we visited a museum and one of the oldest libraries in England, it was beautiful, I enjoyed it quite a lot. In the early evening, we went to the pub with our teachers and some friends of mine, and it had a Christmas ambiance which we all appreciated a lot. Then we waited half an hour for the bus to arrive and we got back to Chester.
On Thursday, we spent the day in Chester, and this might have been my favorite day of the whole trip. Indeed, we had some free time at the beginning of the day which enabled us to pay a visit to Kevin in his cheese factory, he was happy to see us. Then we visited the Chester Cathedral. After that, we did a murder mystery around the city of Chester, and it lasted approximatively 2.5 hours (we didn’t think it was going to take us that amount of time at first). This was an amazing experience, we discovered the city, we asked directions to strangers, we walked a lot (a total of 15km just on Thursday) and we were happy to finish the game without giving up. With my group we ended up 3rd on the podium. Like they say, after the effort the comfort, so we had a teatime with everyone and with my friends we talked with two of the teachers that accompanied the trip for a couple of hours. When we got back home, Gill had prepared us a nice dinner for our last night with them. After we finished our meals, we went in the garden where Kevin has his own pub, we all talked a lot, we listened to music, and we even played darts! It was my favorite evening because we got quite close to Gill and Kevin and we could talk about everything without checking what time it was.
On the next morning, our last day, we hugged Gill goodbye, and we got on the bus to go to London. When we arrived, we went to see Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and we ate in a park filled with squirrels. Then, we went to Oxford Circus where we had free time. At the end of the day, we went to Covent Garden and with the teachers and a few friends we went to get a cup of hot chocolate. For dinner, we went to a restaurant to have a fish and chips and we finally got on the bus after this long day to listen to Christmas music while driving through London by night.
This trip was a positive experience for different reasons. Indeed, I learnt to know Shanna (who was in my host family) who I had never talked to before the trip, I talked quite confidently in English throughout the week without being scared of making mistakes, I went to talk to people by myself which I didn’t think I was capable of until I did it. Overall, we walked more than 43km in 5 days (I walked a marathon knowing that I got injured not long before the trip).
I am grateful to have been able to be a part of this trip, I had a really good time there, I met new people, I laughed a lot, and I left England with a lot of good memories.
