We started our London
trip at 9 am at Innsbruck airport. Then we checked in and a few minutes later
we went to the gate and boarded the plane. The flight itself was quite uneventful
but the touchdown was very hard. At Gatwick Airport, we had to wait at the
passport control for a while and there were automated controls so you had to
put your passport on a scanner and the monitor checked your face.
When we had our luggage,
we took the Shuttle to South Terminal. There Mr. Meier printed out 66 train tickets
for the whole week.
It was not that easy
to find the correct train to London Victoria. But a few minutes later we were
sitting on the right train. At Victoria station, we deposited our luggage at
the Left Luggage Office.
Then we had a walk to Buckingham Palace. We took a lot of photos there.
After the “photo shooting” we visited Victoria Memorial, which is right in
front of Buckingham Palace. As we walked on we saw some Calvary ride by.
Also, a green important-looking Bentley or Rolls Royce was driving in to
Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, none of the royals was inside. Then we walked
up Constitution Hill and at the end we saw Wellington Arch. Afterwards we
walked back to Victoria Station.
There we found the right train to Lewisham
but had a short “detour” to Black Heath where four of us almost got lost.
We had to carry all the luggage to the other
side of station to get back to Lewisham, there we finally took the right train
to Mottingham and were welcomed be the host families. Most of them had small
cars and we had a lot of luggage so that led to some minor difficulties. A
funny feeling was that they were driving on the wrong side of the road. We were
positively surprised that we didn’t have any language problems and understood
everything.
The two teachers went to the Pub Rambler’s
Rest to watch a football game MANCHESTER UNITED vs CHELSEA. Everybody else had
individual evenings with the families and that’s how our first day in London came
to an end.
Written by Fiona Schafferer, Carina Hueber, Julia Sauerwein
