It all began on the warm Sunday evening of the sixth May. We set off to London at 8 o'clock with a tour bus belonging to the Reichardt traveling company. I can tell it was very exhausting to be driving the whole night over bright Belgian highways and only stopping occasionally at gas stations. This was interrupted when we arrived at the port of the French town Calais around four in the morning and had to get out into the chilly night to get our passports checked and going on board of the ferry which would take us to Dover in about another hour. After that we only drove a short way till we reached the city of Canterbury at half past six. While we passed the forenoon in Canterbury, we also visited the famous cathedral. Afterwards we drove on to Leeds Castle and enjoyed ourselves in the great park with its exotic birds throughout the afternoon. When we were finally brought to our host families after vainly trying to sleep the whole night and running around all day, most of us just fell into our beds - I'm still grateful they were already made. Generally, we could go to a host family alone or with one or two friends. Our temporary homes were all situated in Barnet, a suburb of London, which is rather calm and green for a city of 300.000 inhabitants. The tube would reach the center of London in about half an hour, but usually we were picked up by our bus between 9 o'clock and 9:20. On Tuesday the seventh we drove around the center of London to see some of the most famous sights like e.g. the Tower Bridge, the London Eye or Big Ben. Of course we would have liked not to have them glazed by the bus windows, but at least the tour was commented by our guide and it wouldn't have been possible to get to see them all on foot. After taking a break at Covent Garden, we divided into two groups: The first one took a walk along the Thames while the second one visited the Tate Gallery of Modern Art. I still don't know why we didn't go to the British Museum, as it was originally planned. At six o'clock in the evening we all returned to our host families, where we got a warm meal. We were allowed to go out as long as we stayed near to the house and returned before half past nine. But most of us used at least part of our free time to get to know our host families better. On Wednesday forenoon, we completed the commented bus tour. We had planned to take a boat, which would drive along the Thames, to Greenwich, but the weather was, well, „typically British“ these hours, so no one was too keen on a boat tour. Alternatively, we spent the whole day walking: We walked around Chinatown, passed Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and other interesting places like Trafalgar Square, Oxford Street or the noble shopping mall Harrods. We also had an hour of spare time before we went on to the Green Park. These London parks are so big, no one would have assumed he was actually in England's biggest city, if he hadn't already known. After having fed the squirrels in the park, we reached Buckingham Palace. It was raining heavily at that time, but everything Gymnasium 26 The BritishWay to say goodbye InMay 2012 the two ninth classes and their class teachers passed a week in London to improve their language skills
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