Londonfahrt der 9. Klassen

Stunning study trip to London & Oxford

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Our big trip to London, we all waited so eagerly for, started with the 19-hour bus drive on Sunday, the 7th April. We met at 5 o’clock in the morning, found our seats, said our goodbyes, and then the bus finally started driving: Every single one of us was really tired, but nonetheless our heads were full of excitement and great expectations.

After hours and hours of driving, we fortunately arrived at our hostel without any special circumstances happening in between, so that we could eventually lay down in our beds and fall asleep with just the urge to actually see the city we all came for. After we had enjoyed our breakfast the next morning, our program started. Our first activity this day was the sightseeing tour through London, where we saw lots of the sights like St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abby, the London Eye and countless more. It was of course way more interesting and special to see all of them in real life, instead of just looking at them in our text books at school like we once did! Speaking of the London Eye, that’s what we did next. I’m sure to say it was everyone’s highlight of the day. You could literally see almost (due to the usual foggy weather) everything of this huge city from above, which we took a lot of photos of, and were all amazed by. Our first day ended with the British Museum, where we walked around in little groups, and a big amount of free time followed.

The Natural History Museum was our first place to be on Tuesday. Everywhere in this huge building there were little experiments to understand how nature really works for every phenomenon it has to offer, which seemed to be endless in a really good way, but also find everybody’s interest. The day went on with the Tower of London, which made you feel like you’re in a sacred place, to be honest we felt a bit that way, with all of the crowns and royal jewelry shown. Hearing about the history and what happened in this exact castle made it an even more extraordinary experience! Having some free time again, this day really helped us to get to know the city even better by just walking around and exploring more things, so that’s what we did at the end of the day.

Taking the tube for the first time on our own on this trip seemed to be so confusing with all the different lines and masses of people wanting to get on or off the tube at first, but in fact it really wasn’t, big thanks to the map we got beforehand, otherwise being lost could have been a guaranteed situation.

Wednesday was all about Oxford, so every Harry Potter fan was especially looking forward to this day. Our tour guide showed us everything, belonging to the Oxford University, which was a lot! Starting with the actual dining hall, we immediately recognized it just from knowing the films, which was a really special feeling, because we felt like we were e a part of them ourselves. After that, we went to the mall in order to have lunch and take a break, but students, needing some things or just wanting to shop, obviously, also had the opportunity to do that, which most of us of course took. Harry Potter fan or not, everyone was very glad to have seen Oxford and really liked the day, but also looked forward again to the following days in London with many more fun activities ahead of us.

Our last “fully planned“ day was Thursday, with (as I said) a lot of fun things waiting for us. The first place we went to was St. Paul’s Cathedral, which looked so impressive even from just from the outside. We were able to take lots of photos, but then we visited the Tate Modern. It’s a museum, offering pretty much about art and its belongings. This building really is made for people, who love artistic things or just want to get inspired by the work portrayed there. After we had had a break, we immediately walked to the Globe Theatre. We had a tour through it, but most fun in this location was for sure the little fashion show, that our classmates held for us to watch and see how women dressed in Shakespeare’s time. The last thing planned for us that day was the musical “Wicked“, but unfortunately, only most of us were able to watch it, because one student actually got lost at the tube station, so he didn’t know what to do and just went back home! It took a lot of nerves to stay calm, but at the end after many phone calls, everything was luckily okay again.

Camden Market was the only place left for us to be on Friday, so all of us really enjoyed the last few hours in London. The few of us who still needed things or souvenirs had a really big chance to get those, considering all of the shops there. After all, everything had to come to an end, and so did this trip with nothing more than a thankful feeling to have experienced all of that, and of course unforgettable and great moments.

Julia Jentsch, 9c